This one really hit home with me when I was studying philosophy, and truth seemed up for grabs.
Reminds me of Nietzsche, when Zarathustra meets a disillusioned scholar worn out with the questions of life and the apparent futility of seeking truth: "I trust myself no longer since I strove upwards. What seek I in the heights? My contempt and my longing wax together; the higher I climb the more I scorn him that climbeth."
"Fools who watch and stand in line, away from harm" could certainly be academics - people who speculate all day but seem removed from the real world. The moth analogy is apt - philosophy as a temptress, dangerous but impossible to turn away from.
Stanza 2, to me, is about the temptation to abandon the pursuit and resort to mere cynicism towards everything. Or like that ancient Greek chap (real or fictional? can't remember) who was so terrified by the fact that nothing is certain, that he lived inside a barrel or something for years, afraid to venture out into a world he couldn't pin down.
This one really hit home with me when I was studying philosophy, and truth seemed up for grabs.
Reminds me of Nietzsche, when Zarathustra meets a disillusioned scholar worn out with the questions of life and the apparent futility of seeking truth: "I trust myself no longer since I strove upwards. What seek I in the heights? My contempt and my longing wax together; the higher I climb the more I scorn him that climbeth."
"Fools who watch and stand in line, away from harm" could certainly be academics - people who speculate all day but seem removed from the real world. The moth analogy is apt - philosophy as a temptress, dangerous but impossible to turn away from.
Stanza 2, to me, is about the temptation to abandon the pursuit and resort to mere cynicism towards everything. Or like that ancient Greek chap (real or fictional? can't remember) who was so terrified by the fact that nothing is certain, that he lived inside a barrel or something for years, afraid to venture out into a world he couldn't pin down.