Nice set-up by John Kaag of "What Pragmatism Means"… but some pragmatists (especially the stoic and peripatetic kind) prefer to "move forward through the world" at a less frenetic pace. Avoid running at all times, as Satchel Paige advised. Slow down, look around. Don't just focus on the horizon, you'll miss too much of the nectar in the journey.
"James can't give you the God's-eye view of things; he'll suggest many truths, but fix on none. He was a kaleidoscopic example of Emerson's "man of genius," who "inspires us with a boundless confidence in our own powers." A confidence without bounds is appropriate if capital-T Truth is understood as a vanishing point, an ever-advancing faraway point where everything, every little truth, seems to converge. Yet one can run toward or away from vanishing points; in running toward, more is revealed out of that point; in running away, more is concealed, sucked back into that point. So run forward, urges James. Damn the thought that you will ever catch the "final" convergence of all truths! The incoming views of running forward are worth the exertion. They show you mountains where you expected valleys, or deserts where you expected forests. The runner's predictive powers strengthen as they track, cognitively and kinesthetically, whatever flows outward, concentrically, from that vast and free horizon. The runner, by running, becomes the living embodiment of the horizon's changes. Those changes transform into the runner's habits of breath, speed, and step. With every step, the runner is tested. Our truth-talk, too, is endlessly tested by our moving forward through the world."
— Be Not Afraid of Life: In the Words of William James by William James
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