Virtue Quest

Mike Flynn, author of a few speculative fiction novels, including the fascinating Eifelheim, asks the question in the style of a medieval academic debate.

A quick summary, as I understand his argument: classical virtue theory provides a basis for morality among atheists; but most atheists these days reject, not only God, but also any notion of natural good. Therefore, atheists can act morally, but have largely destroyed their own philosophical basis for doing so.

My take: most of us, with or without God, are hypocrites. I do all sorts of stuff I know is wrong; and when I do good things, I don’t always have good reasons for it. So I would separate out the question into two parts:

1. Can atheists act morally? Yes. Experience shows that most atheists do good stuff most of the time.
2. Do atheists have a philosophical basis for moral behavior? That’s a question we can leave to the academics to debate.

For myself, I find my own motivation for acting morally is usually based on what other people will think of me, rather than religious motives. Not that that’s the best reason for doing anything; but at least it’s good to know how weak my moral reasoning can be.

Hi ho! Hi ho! It's off to work I go!

As you know, time management has been a constant problem for me. I’ve tried all sorts of things, and nothing has really worked very well.

Till now!

Yes, I think I’ve found a tool that keeps me focused on my work, so that every day is fairly productive. That tool is … (drum roll please!) … a log book!

Once again, paper and pen triumphs over the advances of technology.

Getting ready to log my hours

Now, remember when I was commuting an hour each way to work. Thank God, that job was only seasonal. Now I’m at home, and making a go as a freelance writer. So my schedule is entirely my own.

In the past, I’ve tried scheduling some activity or other for a three hour stretch, or even an eight hour stretch at a time. I figured it would be more “professional” to look like I’m working a full day. But it’s not more efficient. It gives me way too much latitude to A) get overwhelmed, and slack off; or B) pretend I still have plenty of time to get stuff done, and slack off; or C) spin my wheels wondering where to start on some project or other, and give up, then slack off.

You see the pattern.

So, now, I’ve scheduled my day in one-hour blocks. And I’m keeping a daily log of how I spend my day, hour by hour.

This is satisfying in a way that a mere to-do list never has been for me. A to-do list just wasn’t concrete enough, I guess. Here, I write down: “4:45 – Write a post on Virtue Quest.” Then I sit down at the computer and start typing. And when I’m done, I’ll write down how many words went into this post, and move on to the next item on my schedule.

Why it works – I think

There’s something about writing down what I’m doing right as I start and right when I finish that gives me a feeling of accomplishment.

And even better is the feeling at the end of the day, when I realize that I’ve actually made real progress on all my projects that day.

I don’t know if it would work for everybody, but for the past week or so it’s been working for me. It’s just a great relief to know that I’m not incurably lazy or incompetent. Heck, if I can get stuff done every day, then anybody can!

Keep your eyes on the target

Jonathan Swift said, I think sardonically, “Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.”

At the same time, there’s a kernel of truth to the saying. My greatest unhappiness has always come from hanging on to unreasonable and unrealistic expectations. I expected that my test scores would be perfect, that my ideas would be hailed as genius, that the girl I liked would instantly fall in love with me and that we’d then live happily ever after.

Taking a reality check

I tend to base my expectations on how I feel at any given moment. If I’m in a good mood, well, I figure everything’s going to go my way. And I get angry if they don’t.

If I’m stuck in a pessimistic rut, I can’t imagine life ever improving. And if it does improve, I’m dead-set on finding something wrong with it anyway. It’s a lose-lose situation.

So I’m trying to develop the habit of checking my mood against reality. If I’m super-excited about something, I take a step back and ask, “What’s realistic to expect in this situation?” And likewise, if I’m gloomy as Eeyore, I stop and remind myself that I really can aim toward something genuinely good.

The trick, for me at least, is to snap out of my current point-of-view just for a moment. I need to remember that I’m not the center of the universe, and that I can’t see absolutely everything that’s going on around me.

What works best for me, usually, is to connect with another human being. Face-to-face is best, but a phone call or even an email or text message will often do the trick. Just saying out loud what I’m seeing, what I want and what the possibilities that I can expect are, helps get my feet back on the ground. And hearing someone else’s take on my situation often gives me new ideas of what actions I can take.

Realistic expectations

There are a couple side benefits of keeping my expectations realistic. First, I’m successful more often when I attempt something. If my view of the situation is in line with what’s really going on, then I can take better actions. It’s like aiming at a target: you’re more likely to hit the bull’s eye if you can see it clearly.

Second, my moods don’t swing so wildly. Success doesn’t send me into a flight of euphoria, and failure doesn’t depress me. In fact, if I expect that I’ll make mistakes from time to time, then I’m actually prepared to fix them and turn a “failure” into a building-block of “success.”

Now, I’m a romantic and a dreamer by nature, so the reality check is not something that comes easily to me. But the more I do it, the more worthwhile I find it to be.

Now, we all know that Germany has a great reputation for precision engineering. It’s long-established and well-deserved. Germany has built a culture around principles of hard work and attention to detail. So it’s no surprise that they are capable of magnificent mechanical feats.

But who knew they had so darned much fun doing it?

I'll just play one more level....

[A historical note: I started writing this post over a week ago... and have only now got round to finishing it. Urp!]

I think I mentioned that I’d given up computer games for Lent. I’m not much of a gamer, as gamers go. Spider solitaire and a third-party version of Risk are my favorites. Never got into the MMOGs. But I’ll be honest, those games can waste hours at a time. That’s plural hours. As in, way too many.

So, that’s a big reason I’ve been slowly growing sleep deprived since Easter Sunday. End of day comes, and I think, hey, I’m allowed my games. And next thing I know it’s 1am (or later), and I have to be up for work the next morning.

Run away! Run away!

Sure, I play games to relax. But it often becomes something more than that. It turns into an attempt to escape from my life.

Not that my life is all that rough. But I am, as I’ve said, a lazy man and I resist any intrusion on my comforts. It quickly becomes a matter of principle: if work takes time away from leisure, then play takes time away from sleep.

Sleep, of course, ultimately takes its time back … usually at the least convenient moment.

All of this could have been avoided if only I’d been a little more disciplined, a little more realistic. I just don’t have all the time I’d like to play and relax and make a fool of myself. None of us do. There’s lots of good in life, but some parts of life are just plain tough, and that’s normal.

Penance and parties

I think that’s one of the lessons of Lent: that part of life is hard work, is difficult, even painful. But the penance leads to a celebration: our work bears fruit, and there’s a greater joy than the mere escape of vegging out with a computer game.

So I’m trying to remind myself of the good things that arise from giving up computer games and other distractions – good things like a full night’s sleep and the ability to enjoy life the next day.

And when I restrict my game playing to times when I really have nothing better to do, I find I actually enjoy the game more. Who’d have thought it?

Ducks have been aligning, and I’ve managed to secure a steady source of income. But it’s kept me too busy to post for a few days. And then, just as I was coming out of the busy-ness, my computer decides to crash on me.

But things should be much better now, I hope.

I’m almost home, thank God. The past three days without internet were peaceful, but I’m glad to be back on the grid.

Which brings me to this quick note: Salt Lake International Airport has free Wi-Fi. I repeat: FREE!

So if you have to make a connection, SLC is one of the better places to do so.

Gotta run. My flight is about to board.

I have a meeting in St. Louis this weekend, so this morning I had to pack my bags before heading out to work. And I’ve been a bit sleep deprived this past week (more on that to come in a future post), so I’m just hoping that I didn’t forget anything major.

Now, I always forget something. My hope is that it’s nothing important.

I was talking with a friend last night about packing strategies. Mine is, about five minutes before I run out the door, I open the suitcase and throw in anything I can think I might want. Her strategy is to start planning months in advance, maximizing efficiency and comfort, and making sure nothing is forgotten.

I’m just about to grab dinner and head to the airport. But I thought I’d make a note that planning in advance, especially for travel, is a virtue I should think about developing one of these days. Or years. Or whatever. I think it would fall under Prudence.

Eat, drink, and be merry!

Among the pungent foods, garlic stands out as my favorite. But onions hold a close second – especially sauteed or, still better, caramelized onions. This simple bulb hides an almost overwhelming variety of flavors that march forth in orderly fashion as it basks in low, slow heat: from bright and acrid to mild and savory to utterly buttery and ultimately to sweet in a way so different than every other sweet I’ve tasted that it’s almost a misnomer to call it sweet.

So when I was looking for a good burger the other night, I found the local restaurant Blazing Onion irresistible.

Let’s start with the virtues on display, right from walking in the door. They tell you where the beef comes from: Northwest raised, no hormones, just good local cows. They tell you what their proprietary “BOB” sauce contains: mayo, pepper sauce, spices. They even tell you that their “Butter Burger” is uber-high in cholesterol. So, they’ve got honesty down. I like that.

The staff joked around with each other and with me. They clearly know each other, like each other, and like working together. I like signs of humanity in a business.

And then there’s the creativity of the menu. Sure, they have the standard bacon cheeseburger, the requisite BBQ and bleu cheese burger. But they also have a Thai Peanut Burger with shredded cabbage and daikon radish; a Greek Burger with olive tapanade, pepperincini, and sun dried tomato; and burgers of buffalo and wild boar meat. In addition to the burgers, they have proper entrees such as salmon, sirloin steak, and fettuccine. Appetizers include a shrimp basket.

But all of this is before you even order. It was the quality of the food that convinced me to write a blog entry about this place.

I ordered their signature “BOB,” or Blazing Onion Burger. First thing I noticed was that they don’t skimp on the onions. Probably a 1:1 ration of onion to beef on that sandwich. And the onions had been sauteed to perfect butteriness. Most places that offer “grilled onions” seem to think it means heating the onions till they’re soft, and that’s good enough. Here, they clearly know what flavor they want from their onions, and they’re willing to take the time to prepare them correctly. Thank you!

Then the beef itself. One bite and I knew that they had chosen their meat with the same care with which they’d prepared their onions. There was no pink in the burger, yet the rich beef flavor emerged unscathed, which speaks of a good cow to start with and of cooks who know how not to burn it on the grill.

I don’t want to run on too long, so suffice it to say that the fries, the sauces, the French onion soup, and the couple other burger options I sampled from my friends plates (the Thai and the Greek) confirmed that Blazing Onion is more than a single trick pony.

I have only one critique: with burgers so bodacious, a toothpick or a paper wrap to hold it all together would have been helpful. But then again, I did enjoy licking my fingers when I was done, so maybe they planned that as well.

For those of you not blessed with a residence in the Puget Sound area, fear not: they’re planning to expand nationwide over the coming decade. When it does come to your area, do check it out, and see just how good virtue can be!

Spinning wheels, going nowhere ... yet

So here’s what I’ve been doing. It’s kind of working for me, so it might work for others out there too.

As I’ve mentioned before, my big vice is sloth: not just laziness, but a kind of spinning my wheels. Even when I want to do something, I have massive trouble getting started.

For me, I’ve found that it’s easier if I have someone else I’ve made a commitment to. So, for my writing, I have a couple people I’m sending chapters as I finish writing them. They expect them every week. That helps to focus me.

In the rest of my life, I’ve been using schedules and to-do lists. These are great tools, but (like all tools) they only work if you use them correctly. So I’ve tapped the people I live with to help me use them better. Every morning, over breakfast, we go over the day’s schedule. I arrange for a couple “check-in” phone calls at certain key points during the day.

Some days, like today, the schedule doesn’t fit so well. Ironically, it’s because the order of tasks matters more; I have to do X before I can start on Y. That means I can’t just drop X if I’m not done within the hour I’ve put on the schedule. So, the to-do list becomes the more helpful tool.

As you may have noticed, the blog has not been in my schedule for the past few days. I’m working on rectifying that. The blog is important because:

1. It holds me accountable (which is why I encourage comments!)
2. It helps me articulate thoughts I’m hoping to write and publish soon
3. It’s a way of making connections with people I wouldn’t otherwise meet

Therefore, a short post today, and more to come, I hope.

And by the way, thanks to all of you who have written me through the contact page! I appreciate your support!