Virtue Quest

One of the marks of virtue is the ability to do well consistently. So clearly I remain far from virtue – at least, the virtue of blogging – myself.

Still, it is my goal. I aim to post two or three times a week, not counting the Daily Inventories which I have neglected lately. And it’s not that I have nothing to say. On the contrary! I have too much to say, and I’m afraid that if I sit down to blog I’ll end up neglecting my other obligations. I’ve done that too often in the past.

But writing is in fact one of my priorities. I’ve mentioned that one of my great desires is to be able to support myself financially by writing. That’s hard to do if I don’t write anything.

So I’m re-examining some of my priorities, and the practical means of pursuing them.

Today, I have to go into the office. But I should have tomorrow and Friday off, so I’m planning to air my thoughts – on my own questions and on goings-on in the world – over the next couple days. In the meantime, I am grateful for your readership and your input. You have been very helpful to me! I only pray that, by writing about my own process, I can be helpful to you as well.

Eons ago, during the SuperBowl, Old Spice premiered a commercial which became an instant hit. Among the reasons, I think, is because it’s a great example of virtue. Here’s the commercial:

Virtue?

Yes, virtue. First off, it’s encouraging both men and women to strive for excellence. Men, smell like an excellent man. Here’s what the ideal is. (“Sadly, your man isn’t me. But he could smell like me…”) Strive for this. And women, hold your men accountable, accept nothing less than an excellent man.

On top of that, the humor is a humor of excellence: it’s highlighting the absurdity of its claims in the midst of claiming them: “Anything is possible when your man smells like Old Spice and not like a lady.” Obviously not – but great things are possible when you strive for excellence, for virtue. Meanwhile, there’s a joyful exuberance in the exaggeration that I can’t help but laugh at – even after watching it a dozen times or more.

Finally, there’s the artistry of the filmmaking. The commercial is all one shot, with almost no animated effects. (The diamonds were the only part edited in.) Here’s a rather long-winded interview with some of the filmmakers. It’s almost twenty minutes, but it shows the lengths they were willing to go in order to produce a truly excellent commercial. The writers had great faith in the crew, the actor showed exceptional temperance (“He was spot on for every take”) and the director had the courage to attempt such a complex piece of work.

Beautiful. Downright inspiring. Can’t help but love it.

So: go and do likewise.

My primary vice has got to be sloth. It’s not that I don’t struggle with lust or avarice or pride or any of the others; I do. But sloth is the one that gets me the most, and it’s the one that leads to the others.

For example, I lust because I’m too lazy and uncaring to actually do the work of loving someone. I give in to wrath because I want everything to be given me without my having to work for it, so I make unreasonable demands of the world. And so on.

As vices go, it’s not very exciting. It’s maybe the only vice not glorified in movies or on cable TV. And this makes sense: the root of the vice is a kind of despair. James Chastek explains Thomas Aquinas’ description of the tristitia at the root of sloth. Tristitia usually is translated “sadness” but James suggests “depression” and I think that’s pretty close. It is the sadness of finding nothing good in the world.

Even wrath and envy find violence or revenge worthwhile, but sloth finds nothing worthwhile – not even pleasure.

The cure for sloth

What a slothful person needs is a wake-up call, a swift kick in the heiney, a slap to the face. Once, when I was making confession, the priest advised me to go to a bar and start a fight if I found myself tempted by sloth. In other words, anything to snap out of the fog and come face to face with reality.

Because the fact of the matter is, the world is full of goodness. Pleasure really is good. Friendship really is good. The beauty of a forest or a garden or a painting really is good. Sloth has to put on a pretty thick blindfold to ignore all the good things out there in the world.

I’m not sure why or how I developed the vice myself, but I know the signs of it: that sigh, that question in the corner of my mind that wonders if whatever I’m doing at the moment is worth it, that desire to take a nap when I’m not remotely tired.

In those moments, the first thing I have to do is bring my attention to focus on something – anything at all. I have to see something that is undeniably good. Or even something that is undeniably bad, because that will stir up my anger that it could be good, that there is a good to be done there. In short, I need to return to reality.

Sloth and clinical depression

I said above that “depression” is pretty close to a good translation of tristitia. But it’s not perfect, largely because of the psychiatric condition called depression. Now, I’m not a psychiatrist or a psychologist. I have been treated for clinical depression, and I have found that medication helps. But it does not remove the tristitia at the root of sloth. All medication can do is relieve the emotions that threaten to overwhelm my ability to think clearly.

Tristitia is not an emotional state, or a mood disorder. It is an attitude. When faced with a cloudy day, one can say “Why bother?” or one can say “Perfect day for a walk!” The latter takes more effort than the former, but it also brings joy that the former never will find. Joy is the result of taking the time and effort to find something good, and it leads to love, to communion with the good that one finds.

Certainly worth one’s while.

Many mistakenly think that the caduseus (or Staff of Hermes) is the symbol of medicine, but in fact the Staff of Asclepius is the correct medical symbol

As far as I can tell, there were two major objections to the health care bill that just passed the House. The first, coming from political conservatives and libertarians, objected to any government involvement at all. The second, coming from pro-life people of conscience, objected to the expansion of funding for abortion.

Obviously, the first group are most vocally dissatisfied. They’ve just plain lost.

As to the desires of the second group, it’s hard to say whether President Obama’s promised executive order will truly satisfy them. I suppose history will tell.

As for those who supported the bill, well, they speak as if this is a victory on the level of ending slavery or segregation. This bill has put an end to a great evil and has opened the door for a great good.

What fascinates me is how almost all the conversation about health care I’ve heard (and been involved with) in the past year is based in ideas of morality, of ethics. Almost none of it focused on the practical, concrete aspects of the bill. If someone disagreed with someone else about health care, that person wasn’t just wrong; he or she was bad, evil, a hater of the human race and all things American.

It’s about right and wrong – in a way

Now, I’m sure at least half of you will find something to disagree with on this blog. In fact, if you read long enough, it’s probably inevitable that I’ll say something that rubs you wrong or insults a principle that you hold dear. I know that’s the case with me: even the writers and friends I’m most like-minded with sometimes say or do things I consider downright stupid. And let’s face it, I’m no better than any of them.

But when these disagreements happen, even when we disagree about really serious moral issues like abortion or warfare or whose turn it is to empty the dishwasher, it’s critical to remember that it’s a person that I’m arguing with.

It’s a person who has reasons for his or her opinion. It’s a person who is trying to do and say what seems best to him or her. It’s a person, not an animal or a monster.

A person’s arguments can be wrong, or can lead to evil conclusions. But a person, in and of him- or herself, is never evil. So the goal of every argument is not to figure out who is right or wrong; an argument is not about judging a person. Instead, an argument helps us figure out what is right or wrong, what is good or bad, so that we can together follow what is good and avoid what is evil.

How to fight fairly

So, I find the quickest way to quiet my own anger when someone disagrees with me is to put myself in their shoes. Why, I ask myself – and sometimes the other person directly, does this person think that way?

This has a double benefit: first, it reminds me that this is another person and the goal is to find the truth together; second, it helps me see the strengths and weaknesses of their argument, so that I can see what’s right and wrong more clearly.

If I’m able to explore the question with them, it also lowers the level of anger and frustration. Even if nobody “wins” the argument, if we don’t walk away in perfect agreement, we at least have agreed to understand one another.

For the record

So, on health care: I’m for universal availability of health care; I’m against abortion (as well as other elective procedures) being included in basic health care; I don’t have a principled objection to government involvement, but I’m highly suspicious of our current governmental structures. I think the “health care exchange” is maybe the best part of the bill. I’m sure history will tell us what the worst part of the bill is.

There, I’ve said what I think. Feel free to disagree with my argument; just don’t dis my person – or anyone else’s, if you please.

Not having done my daily inventory for about a week, I feel inexplicably obligated to report some news items that I would normally have published in that column.

First, I finished reading The Sources of Christian Ethics. To those who are sick of me drooling all over its magnificent wisdom, you may sigh in relief. I won’t comment on it again for some time. Except to say that it’s got me re-starting my ebook from scratch.

On the other hand, I haven’t quite decided what virtue book I’ll read next. I have unintentionally fallen into the habit of reading only one book at a time, and I’m rather enjoying the increased retention and the speed of getting through a given text that come from such a focus. I think probably Plato’s Republic will be next. But before I dive headlong into that, I’m skimming over Jared Diamond’s Collapse.

Diamond is better known for Guns, Germs, and Steel. He’s a geographer by profession, but he writes in the personal confessional style that has become so popular these days. Anyway, Collapse focuses on the environmental causes of societal failure. I’m rather pessimistic about the institutional future of the U.S. and of so-called Western Culture and the Global Economy, so I’m curious to see what he has to say about it all.

Anyway, I’m open to suggestions for my next reading. Any topics of burning interest you want me to write about?

Second, I’ve resolved my casino concerns. I won’t be going to dealer school and I won’t be putting myself through unnecessary moral ambiguity.

The comments on the blog came out in favor of dealing, but the fact is every argument in favor finally showed itself as an excuse hiding behind the mask of practicality. My main motivations were fear and impatience, not really a desire to deal or a sense of calling.

The two moments which sealed my decision were:

1. When I spoke to the instructors at the dealer school, and they told me that there was no option to “cut someone off” from further gambling, as a bartender might cut someone off from further drinking if that person was intoxicated
2. When I floated the idea for my mother and she gasped, then managed to ask, “Why would you want to do something like that?” I’m firmly of the school that one of a son’s main duties is to avoid making his mother cry

But the fact is that I’m financially able to keep plugging away at the job search for at least another three or four months, and there are plenty of good prospects out there.

Even so, my dream is to make a living as a writer. And I’m frustrated at how much time and energy that I could spend on writing is going into job hunting. So, I’m resisting also the temptation to snuggle into a corner of comfortable dependence on family and be an artiste. I only need to sell that first bestseller, and I’ll have it made, right?

Or, I could actually do the work of being productive in ways other than those dictated by daydreams. While working to make my dreams – day and otherwise – come true. So I’m a wee tad bit torn.

Third, as if I didn’t have enough plates spinning, I’m thinking of adding a kind of series to the blog. Tentative title: “Letters to our Leaders.” Here’s my reasoning: the most direct political influence I can have, apart from actually running for office, is to engage my elected officials in conversation. I can inform them of my concerns, of my hopes for government, and I can describe my reasons for thinking as I do. Maybe, if they write back, I can gain insight into their reasons and concerns.

Meanwhile, if I publish my letters on this blog, other people can use my letters as models for their own, or can tell me why they disagree, or even write other letters that argue against my letters.

I’m motivated pretty strongly by the current health care legislative tornado, but I’m thinking that it’s important to build up a consistent repartee with elected officials, and to address local problems as well as national and/or international issues.

What think you? Would you be interested in reading and/or discussing this sort of thing? Would you find it useful? Do you think I’m just hopelessly naive?

These past few days have been, well, difficult for me. It’s mostly stuff involving family and friends and colleagues that really doesn’t belong on the internet, so I won’t give details. The result is, basically, I’m stressed and emotionally wiped out.

Taking my emotional state as an excuse, I’ve let go of any number of virtuous habits I’ve been trying to build up. Some examples: keeping my room clean – out; putting work before pleasure – out; writing (both for this blog and for my novel) on a consistent and disciplined schedule – out; getting to bed at a reasonable hour – out.

I’m reminded once again of a phrase from a grade-school play based on “Alice in Wonderland”: I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it.

As I look at the wreckage of the past couple days, I’m tempted to think that I’m an absolute idiot and that I know nothing about living well or virtuously. I have no business writing about it here, putting on airs as if I were some sort of authority.

That sort of thinking leads me to: I have no business even attempting a virtuous life, since I’m doomed to failure.

At this point, I hope the lie is clear. The fact is, the only authority I’m claiming is my own experience and the fact that I’ve read some interesting books that some of you may not have read. The fact is, the theory of virtue itself acknowledges that perfection is not a reasonable goal in this life; rather, growth, and progress, and improvement are the goals.

The fact is, failure is no reason to give up. Rather, it’s a call to re-focus. So: my first priority is to get my sleep schedule back on track. When I’m tired, I’m incapable of thinking clearly. Second, start picking up my bedroom, so that my physical environment is less of an obstacle.

And third, (which, oddly, appears first,) I’m putting words on the screen. Maybe they’re stupid words, or simple words; but a writer is one who writes, so the words must come out. As Chesterton says, a thing worth doing is worth doing poorly.

Tom over at Disputations has been doing my work for me. He’s taking a leisurely stroll through St. Thomas’ treatises on human activity. And he even includes nummy links to the original text! Go Tom!

Hopefully back in force tomorrow. Lots to say, no time to say it! I’d grumble, and hiss, and snarl; but I’m trying to remember that the world does not revolve around me.

My visiting family has been keeping me away from the computer for the past few days. This is the first time in about 48 hours I’ve even turned on the machine.

That’s actually a good thing … for me, at least.

I know, you’re all desperate for the latest wisdom to drop like honey from my lips – don’t try to visualize that, okay? – but it’ll be another couple days. Today’s crazy, tomorrow I’m at work, and Tuesday my brother goes home and my dad comes home. So I’m hoping to start posting regularly again around Wednesday.

In the meantime, I hope you will find some motivation for clarity of thought in the following excellent example of virtuous discernment:

For the Latin-challenged amongst you, the chant at the beginning is: “Pie Iesu Domine, dona eis requiem” which translates to “Sweet Lord Jesus, grant them rest.” It’s a prayer for the souls in Purgatory. Just so’s you know.

The view from the top makes it look so easy!

More goodness from Pinckaers’ The Sources of Christian Ethics!

Following St. Thomas Aquinas, Pinckaers gives three basic stages of growth in virtue:

1. Beginner / childhood
2. Proficient / adolescent
3. Perfect / mature adult

Each of these stages essentially follows the growth in freedom of a person, and challenges the person to become more free in his or her life. Here’s how each stage works:

Beginning in virtue

The beginner needs to learn how the world works. This is the stage of getting to know – to know oneself, to know one’s abilities, and to know the world and the moral basis of one’s life in the world. The primary work of this stage is learning or, to use a more traditional word, discipline.

Now, it strikes us that discipline is something opposed to freedom, but when the freedom we seek is to live a fully human life, we start out in need of knowledge and in need of practice. Human beings need to be raised and trained and taught.

The goal of education is to lead the child to understand (and the educator must first understand this himself) that discipline, law, and rules are not meant to destroy his freedom, still less to crush or enslave him. Their purpose is rather to develop his ability to perform actions of real excellence by removing dangerous excesses, which can proliferate in the human person like weeds stifling good grain, and by guarding him against unhealthy errors that could turn him aside and jeopardize his interior freedom.

Moreover, this is only the initial stage of growth, just as practicing scales is the beginning and not the end of playing the piano.

Progress in virtue

The second stage involves internalizing the rules by seeing and acting on the reason the rules exist in the first place. It involves a certain testing of the rules – not to destroy them, but to understand them, just as a pianist might try out different formations of a chord or ask what happens when you add this note to it. This is the stage where virtues become, not actions that one follows because they’re imposed, but a kind of “second nature,” an ability that really is one’s own.

Virtue is not a habitual way of acting, formed by the repetition of material acts and engendering in us a psychological mechanism. It is a personal capacity for action, the fruit of a series of fine cations, a power for progress and perfection.

In other words, freedom and goodness cease to be mechanical exercises and become organic parts of us.

Perfect virtue

First off, Pinckaers warns (and I warn with him) that “perfect” here doesn’t mean the end of the road; rather, it means the fulfillment, and the completion of development. Probably a better word for today would be “mature” but St. Thomas used “perfect” so Pinckaers explains what he meant by it.

We can characterize this stage by two features: mastery of excellent actions and creative fruitfulness.

This is the ultimate goal: to be able to do whatever we do well, and to do it creatively. This is what Thomas Edison meant by saying that “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” The virtuous person has gained the freedom and the ability to bring inspiration to reality in spite of the difficulty or obstacles in the way.

This does not mean the end of learning or of growth; rather it means that learning and growth continue almost naturally, without great effort – because the virtuous person has learned how to learn, and has rooted him- or herself in good soil for growth. Virtue has become a stable foundation for the freedom to do what really leads to happiness.

And that’s a goal worth striving for!

Yesterday was not so much overly busy as just plain draining. So I didn’t get to the computer much at all. It’s actually kind of a relief not to be on line. The feel of a book is just plain more satisfying than the feel of a keyboard; and there’s something sort of compulsive, for me, anyway, about staring at a screen. I have similar problems with the telly.

Anyway, here’s a rough, not very complete list:

• 8 March:
• Don’t remember exactly when I woke, but it must’ve been around 8
• Morning prayer
• Worked an 8-hr shift
• Made some major revisions to the outline of my novel
• Renewed some library books
• I’m sure I did other things on Monday, but my memory’s a bit blurry at present; don’t even remember just what time I got to bed!
• 9 March
• Woke around 8, with my alarm
• Had a doctor’s appointment in the morning
• Mom and I picked up my brother at the airport; had lunch together, then Mom went back to work and I took my brother home
• Went to the library to pick up some new books
• Pretty much just hung out with my brother most of the evening: some shopping, played some cribbage, chatted, and so on
• Actually watched “Lost” more or less at its scheduled time, for once
• Bed around 11