Stoic

In Athens there was a group of philosophers who used to gather on the porch of the Parthenon.  From way up there, they could look down and take in the areopagus as a whole.  The great marketplace teemed with people.  Coming and going, buying and selling, arguing philosophy or politics or trade.  That is where it all happened.  Down there on the great field.  Up on the acropolis, nothing happened.  Sure, it was the place everyone revered, but no one really hung out up there.  Except the guys on the porch.

From their perspective, the politicians were hard to distinguish from the sophists.  The sheep trader and the horse trader were indistinguishable.  Rank and class were only barely evident.  The boys on the porch were not interested in the topic of the day, and as far as they could tell the din of the conversation was the same regardless of what was being discussed.  Their perspective was remote.  They watched the tides come and go, the seasons change, and learned the basic immutability of time and nature.  In the noise of the world, they grew quiet.  Not being interested in giving themselves a name, they became known for the place where they hung out: the stoa.

People who live with antiquities everyday tend to take them for granted.  The Ottoman Turks used the Parthenon for an ammunition dump.  As it was loaded, it exploded, and much of the building — including much of the porch — was lost.  Porches are important.  Not everyone wants to hang out there, and nobody can live there all the time.  But the perspective is essential: not public and not private.  Space that is removed, reflective, and receiving.  Don’t store your gunpowder there.