Virtue Quest

This is not how I want to face every day.

I know some people who don’t get started on a task or deal with a problem until it becomes a crisis. They wait and procrastinate and put off until further inaction will result in disaster. Then, most of the time, they scramble everything together and get done what needs doing.

They say, “I thrive under pressure.”

Maybe this is true for them. For me, the pressure, the anxiety and the fear, can become overwhelming. I get paralyzed. I drop the ball.

That doesn’t stop me from procrastinating. It just means my threshold for crisis is much lower. A deadline a week or a month away produces as much urgency in me as a tomorrow morning deadline provides for them. I know (from sad experience) that if I put it off any longer, I’ll freeze up and utterly fail.

This gives me the reputation as someone who is responsible, who plans ahead, who is organized. If only.

I’m just as crisis-driven as anybody else. The only difference is my tolerance for anxiety. I hate the stuff. And it’s taken a while for me to learn how to get moving before the pressure crushes me.

Currently, my goal is to head off anxiety at the pass. (more…)

A few days ago, I told some of my friends that I was declaring war on Sloth. For me, it’s the key vice that’s holding me back from every kind of growth. It is directly opposed to loving my family and friends, to diligent attention to work, to delight in the good things of the world.

So here is where I’ve drawn the line in the proverbial sand:

• No computer games whatsoever
• No TV except on weekends
• No internet before noon

I’m giving these things up, not because they’re bad in themselves, but because in me they are areas of life entirely controlled by the enemy. I’m not capable of playing computer games in moderation, or turning away from TV when I have work to do. And if I start surfing or answering emails before I do more localized work, well, I never get around to the work that needs doing here and now. So I have to fortify my headquarters; I have to build a barricade to insure that my life is not further invaded. Perhaps one day I’ll regain freedom from Sloth in those areas of my life; but that day is not today.

Meanwhile, I’m trying to go on the offensive. The best way to defeat vice is by developing virtue, and the virtue that Sloth opposes is Charity. So I’m trying to fill my time with activities done to benefit others. Yes, there’s a certain amount of self-care that’s important, especially getting enough sleep. But most of my time is spent focusing on my own needs and desires. That’s what leads to Sloth in the first place. The cure, the solution, the victory, is only found in recognizing that all I have is given me so that I can serve others with it. And then actually using my gifts to serve.

This is not the only bar that matters

I am, tragically, that all-too-common combination of lazy procrastinator and idealistic perfectionist. This means that whenever I want to do something, I am both overwhelmed at the size and/or difficulty of the undertaking, and despairing of ever being satisfied with what I have done.

This applies, depending on my mood, from tasks as great as writing a twelve-volume epic novel (which really is a gargantuan task) to duties as tiny as brushing my teeth. Most of the time, thankfully, my ambitions range through more middling territory: cleaning my apartment, writing a decent blog post, finishing a chapter or a short story. That sort of thing.

Even so, I have this irrational expectation that I should somehow achieve some ultimate and final perfection. There’s a part of my that truly believes, if I have brushed my teeth well, I should never have to brush my teeth again, because I shall have achieved dental perfection.

Did I mention that this expectation is entirely irrational? (more…)

The covers won't protect me from reality

Some days I just have trouble rolling out of bed in the morning. It’s not just laziness – though that’s one chunk of the problem; it’s wondering what in the world is worth getting out of bed for. It’s a deep-seated pessimism about life, the universe, and even God that has earned me the nickname “Mr. Cranky.”

In more classical terms, it’s the deadly sin of sloth, or tristitia.

What it really is, the foundation, the root of it all, is a lie: the lie that bad things are real and good things are not.

Shutting my eyes to reality

The fact is, the only real things in the world are good. Food is good; friends are good; work is good. It’s only when something is missing, or damaged, or twisted that we call anything bad. Bad, or evil, is just the fact that something good isn’t where it ought to be.

It takes a certain blindness, or at least a distorting squint, to see only the bad – the thing that isn’t really there at all – and to overlook the good thing that is there.

For example, I’m currently writing a book about my grandmother. Every time I sit down to work on it, I keep thinking about how stupid my words are, how clumsy the phrasing, how inadequate they are to capture her personality and story.

What I’m missing are (at least) three fundamental goods:

1. I have a fascinating grandmother to write a book about
2. I put words on the page, that really convey some meaning
3. I have an idea of what this book could be, of the good story that it could convey

And maybe there are more goods than these that I’m overlooking.

The point is, I’m in the rotten habit of ignoring what’s good and focusing on what’s missing; then I take what’s missing and call that reality. That’s a lie, and a sin, and a vice.

Prying my eyes open

I find, for myself, the best antidote is a good slap in the face, or a kick in the butt. (As a friend pointed out, God gave us butts so he’d have somewhere to kick us.) I need a sharp encounter with reality.

Even a real evil will do: hunger is a great motivator to get out of bed. It’s a great motivator to put inadequate words on a page, or to hand in that imperfect resume, or to produce that good-enough widget. And it’s the least of all the possible motivators in the world.

A real good is an even better reason to live and to act. My book may not be a Pulitzer winner, but it will tell something of Grandma’s story, it will convey something of her goodness to people who wouldn’t otherwise know anything about her. And that’s better than nothing. Something is always better than nothing.

The mistake of sloth

Sloth, on the other hand, thinks that nothing is better than something. It’s the illusion that nothing is something easy and comfortable, like sleep. But sleep is a positive good; it’s a real act that restores and refreshes.

Nothing is like hunger: it’s a great void, a need without fulfillment. Nothing is a hellish wretchedness; but sloth denies this truth until it’s too late – until I’ve missed that appointment or bungled that opportunity; until the good that was there is damaged or lost.

The English journalist G.K. Chesterton quipped, “If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.” In other words, something is always – always! – better than nothing. That’s partly why I write this blog; because even if it’s bad, it’s at least words written. And I’m no kind of writer if I’m not writing words, even bad words. Even bad words are better than no words at all.

Merlin Advises Arthur - by Gustave Dore

The 1967 film version of “Camelot” formed a great deal of my childhood, and still stands close by me today. Indeed, I remember in the 1980′s seeing Vanessa Redgrave in a contemporary film and being shocked because I knew her as the lithe young Guenevere. And I dearly loved the hyper-emotional Richard Harris in every role he played (he was magnificent in “Gladiator” in part because of the resonance between young Arthur and ancient Marcus Aurelius).

But perhaps the most powerful scene, for me, is the one where Arthur goes hunting in the woods, and reminisces of his youthful training under Merlyn (played by Laurence Naismith). Arthur asks Merlyn, “What’s the best thing for being sad?” and Merlyn replies, “The best thing for being sad is to learn something!”

Now, I’ve discovered a number of other things that are good for being sad, and, although things like sitting and talking with a close friend and doing something productive are also very good when I’m sad, I’ve never found anything that would definitively displace Merlyn’s advice about the very best thing for sadness.

Sadness and learning

I’ve had to rely on all these methods over the past week or so. The cause of my sadness has been a number of small, personal events that don’t really need talking about (though it began with that car accident I wrote about last week). But when friends were not available and work was just too difficult, I could always learn something.

I’ve been reading voraciously in Thomas Aquinas’ First Part of the Summa Theologica, specifically what is known as his “Treatise on Man” in which he describes human nature.

What is wonderful about this is, not only was it good learning, but it helped me understand why learning is a solution to sadness.

According to Thomas, humanity stands at a crossroads of creation: we are both material and spiritual beings. That is, we are physical (like stones and shrubs and squirrels) and also intellectual (like angels and God). This puts us at a unique place in the universe, and this uniqueness extends to how we understand (intellegere, in Latin) and how we act.

We do not act in the same way that other animals do, because they are guided by sense and instinct, while we are guided by reason. And we do not understand in the way that pure spirits do, because they apprehend truths directly, while we move from known to unknown by reason. Reason is the unique feature of human nature that sets us apart from everything else in creation.

Sadness (as an emotion, not as the vice of sloth) is an indicator that something is missing from our nature. So when an animal is sad, it seeks something to heal or restore its body (including its emotions). I’m not sure if an angel can be sad, but if it were it would seek something to return it to its direct apprehension of truth and goodness and beauty.

If a human being is sad, the answer lies (at least in part) in reason. The core, the “heart” as it were, of being human is to understand things by coming to know what is unknown. So in sadness, we seek to understand why we are sad, and then to know what we can do about it.

In other words, we learn something.

Even when knowing the source of some particular sadness eludes us, even then learning something brings a kind of healing and restoration and even growth. This is because our nature is (in part) to learn, and any time we learn anything we are fulfilling our nature. We become more happy when we learn because we become more ourselves.

Beyond learning

I said that our nature is in part to learn; that’s because our nature is also to act on what we have learned, to put our knowledge into deeds.

That’s partly what I’m doing here: I’m attempting to share something that I’ve learned with others. But it also means taking action to work better, to play better, to love our friends and family and neighbors better. The more we learn, the better we can act toward others. And, as if in reward, the more we can learn from those we love.