I just ate the Odyssey

It's used as a metaphor, but it's real: the Bible is food for our soul. For our being. Our mind, our heart, our will. It actually feeds us in that sense as actual food feeds our body. Man doesn't live by bread and water alone but by every word that comes out of the mouth of God (paraphrased from memory).

And many of us are so careful what we take into our body regarding nutrition. We're very observant of that.

Yet we don't give a thought to what we take in via language and impressions and sound and so forth.

Epictetus (in his Enchiridion) pointed out we are very attentive to not allowing our body to be tussled about in a crowd ("I beg your pardon! Excuse me? You can't touch me! I'll call the police!") Yet when the same people 'tussle' with our mind and emotions we react differently. ("No, fuck you! How about that? Fuck you! Here, you want a piece of my mind? Come here, bitch, I'll give you a piece of my mind!") as opposed to, "Please stop forcing your words and attitude onto me. I don't have anything to do with them. They're garbage negativity and belligerent. If you want to have a constructive conversation, then I'll find some time for you. Otherwise stop assaulting me."

See the difference? The first is 'mixing it up' - promiscuously. The second is 'what does this have to do with me?'

So words. Language. The Bible. What ultimate food for our soul. Other books as well though. I live amidst television watchers. No book readers (story of my life, surrounded by people who have little in common with me). One of them just left the building. I was thinking: how would her life be changed for the better if she dedicated some time each day to reading a short story (or anything of literary value)? It would be like good nutritious food being taken in to her system.

Today I ate an orange, some chicken, some vegetables, some cookies, drank some milk, drank some water, and ate the 7th book of the Odyssey. I also ate two Grimm's tales.

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Often I eat Beethoven's 3rd Symphony.

Just recently I ate the complete Iliad.

Sorry about the f-bombs in the post. I wanted some realism.

When you eat Plutarch's Lives or The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire it changes your soul's DNA, so to speak. You become different.

I don't think I described what Epictetus was saying very well with that point in the post. He was saying if somebody shoves you you react like you are very conscious of having a boundary that has been crossed, and you protect that boundary. Yet if somebody insults you you let it cross right through your boundary and you let it bother you to no end. You have to be the same with the insult as you are with the shove.