On taking a chance, or why we moderns cannot be mystics

Contrary to every kind of mystical spirituality, in all cases of conflict, disagreement, or misunderstanding, it is always: possible and not certain that either of you is in the wrong, and possible that you are and they are not, or that they are and you are not, or that you both are, or that neither of you is. On logic is all justice and politics based; on refusing it for spiritual holism is based much injustice and refusal of the political. The latter results from the failure to recognize that far from all events being ruled for the greater happiness by a benevolent deity, or, equivalently, a cosmic law of perfect justice as in 'karma', what happens to you is, as Machiavelli recognized, partly a result of what you do, and partly a consequence of what we can only recognize as chance.

Action is what masters chance, and thoughtful action, reasoned, cautious, with the humility of uncertainty, and with the confidence at least needed to act, masters it best. Contemplation, by contrast, does not master what can happen but only what already has, which is why it makes sense that Plato thought knowledge recognition of something remembered. Contemplation can master what is provided that one is careless of the future and does not need to act. Those who do not recognize this are not modern, for the moderns always place practice above theory, and, as we are in time differently in our time, it is a virtue in the world as we know it today to be modern. If this does not negate God or world, it has come to mean that we think of them very differently, sans foundations and architectures of order and line, totality or wholeness, principles of authority and origin, or need for secured mastery and faith in governance.