A flawed encounter

Fortunately the periodic rainfall left some window of opportunity this afternoon for a beautiful riverside walk. We had to wait for the sky to clear up. But then without hesitation we followed the Eastbound riverside. The greens in the valley are overwhelming. The broad streaming Weser flowing dark and swift. Most time we walked silently, looking for an interesting perspective, or -as for Willemien - an insect, a wild flower, a heron - ah, too late, missed her. We were happy to breathe in the freshly mowed grasses. The large skies above the valley.

While Admirer was already feeding horses with a leftover carrot, I remained a bit behind to take photos of an approaching barge. A big ship that comes steaming down on that upstream part of the river is a rarity. Only during ice free winters and rainy months as this May, the river is deep enough for big cargo-barges. As it passed I noticed vaguely the name: Strato. “Strato?”, sounds familiar, but walking again I forgot to question further my memory. As the rain started coming down again we could just seek shelter at the Eastern Fishers Cabin.

When we were sitting on the fishermans bench - high and dry - I tried to start a discussion on why it is better to develop and mature while going a difficult way than make it sky high by adapting and avoiding conflict in a structure that tends to belittle and instrumentalize its participants. As for Willemien there was nothing really new or revealing in this subject, little discussion followed and after a while we decided to walk the same way home, as soon as it would be dry again.

Then, as I started writing this Journal, suddenly, it came back into my memory: “Strato”, the philosopher of the “peripathetic” school! Peripatheia meaning nothing “pathetic”, but walking around or to and frough. That thinking-by-walking-school was developed between the collonades of Aristoteles’ Lykeion, an old school where you could train in martial arts, wrestling and recreational gym. It existed long before Aristotle started to hold his philosophical lectures there in 335 BC.

That was quite a coincidence, I thought, and a fitting subject for my Journal: an unexpected meeting with Strato while walking alongside the Weser! Now I could pick up my thread on that question about courage as virtue in an authentic way of life. While the footpath along the riverside was reborn into a living philosophers way. Small, but nethertheless. I felt enthousiasm flowing through my writing. Until I had a closer look into the photo of that big ship: what do we read there? S t r a t o? No?..What? O...t r a t o?!!. Ohstupido. NoStrato but Otrato...Why choose that name for a ship?