Virtue Quest

First off: I’ll be speaking this Sunday morning at Blessed Sacrament Parish in Seattle. The topic: Virtue in Everyday Life.

When: 10:30am, Sunday 20 March 2011
Where: 5062 9th Avenue NE, Seattle – the downstairs room in the school across from the church

Here’s a chart I’m putting on the handout:

I expect that’s perfectly clear to anyone who thinks exactly as I do. The above organization is (as far as I know) my own invention. If anyone out there actually knows stuff about virtue ethics and thinks I’m barking up the wrong tree, or am just barking mad, please drop me a line and correct me. I’m working stuff out as I go.

Anyway, if you want to know what I’m talking about, come hear me talk!

Second, and far less importantly: I’ve had tech troubles with my old computer for the past few months. Random crashes and so on. It finally became intolerable, so I have a shiny new laptop. (Okay, it’s actually a matte finish.) Now I have to constantly remind myself that cool new toys do not equal happiness.

“Yes, I love technology / though not as much as you, you see / but still, I love technology / always and forever…”

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…)

• Clean some part of my apartment – there’s always something that needs cleaning
• Pray
• Read a book on my nearly endless list of books to read
• Call or write a friend, especially one I haven’t talked to for ages
• Prepare a tasty meal
• Review teaching plans and notes
• Practice the bass

The easiest way to avoid bad stuff is to do good stuff. One of my many problems is that I tell myself, “I don’t know what to do!” and the only desires that come to mind are, well, slothful at best. When the best idea I have is to play a mind-numbing game on the computer, then I’m clearly not thinking straight.

Hence this list. It’s not in any particular order, because they’re all good activities. One might be better than another at any given time, but even if I choose one at random it will be better than sitting around trying to come up with a reason not to waste three and a half hours setting up a tower defense against “creeps”. My mind’s in the wrong place if I’m even asking the question, so I need to take some action to get my mind into a better place. This list does the work my mind isn’t capable of doing in those bad moments.

I’m sure I’ll be able to add to it as time goes on.

Where to begin...?

As a sophomore in college, I had a single dorm room. No roommate. A space entirely my own. And I remember that, after the first ten minutes, it terrified me. I don’t think I ever finished entirely unpacking.

I had no one to tell me where my things were supposed to go.

I know that most normal people – you do realize I’m rather abnormal, I hope – would feel the thrill of freedom and the drive to creativity in deciding for themselves where their own things should go. But I was very caught up in a way of thinking limited to “right” and “wrong,” that had no room for “good” and its chums “better” and “best”.

It was actually the required class on Western Civilization that woke me up, or started to. (more…)

It takes practice to look this cool

Anyone who plays guitar (or, as I do, bass guitar,) develops calluses on their fingers where they hold down the strings. It doesn’t take long, maybe a week of playing a little every day; but that can be a painful week, and the strings feel like they’re cutting into the soft flesh at the tips of your fingers. It’s especially bad if you only play occasionally, because any calluses you develop fade away when you’re not playing, so they have to develop all over again.

Whenever I pick up the bass again after neglecting it for a month or so, it’s not just the physical pain I feel. I feel a kind of moral pain, that “I should’ve been practicing all this time.”

But when I do practice regularly, (more…)

Just keep walking, just keep walking...

I get overwhelmed pretty easily. Sometimes, just looking at the pile of dishes in my sink exhausts me. Other times I’m more ambitious: I figure I can conquer the world but I worry if I’ll make it outside the little pond of our solar system. But the fact is, whenever I face a new task – or a new start on an ongoing task – there’s a part of me that asks, “Can I really do that?”

For example, I’ve mentioned that I’m working on a book about my grandmother’s life. Until the last couple weeks, I’ve been stuck on the magnitude of the project. I talked to one of my uncles about my problems, and he suggested a couple ways to break the project down into smaller pieces, each of which is do-able in an hour or two.

Well, duh! says I. I know how to do that. I just don’t want to.

Why not? (more…)

Classical virtue - very classy

I was talking with a friend this weekend, and she said that she was a little confused when she first visited my blog because it wasn’t clear what kind of virtue I was talking about. So I took another look at the page, and I realize that the words “classical” and “cardinal” are entirely missing from the page.

I’ll rectify that soon, but in the meantime I realized that it never hurts to take another look at the big picture.

The classical virtues

The main reason I’m writing this blog is as a kind of public self-improvement exercise. I’ve found that the classical philosophy of virtue describes my strengths, my faults, and my potential. It also gives a very practical structure to work on overcoming my weaknesses and to work toward my potential.

These virtues are traditionally grouped under the four “cardinal” virtues and the three “theological” virtues: (more…)

Not actually all that logical

My good friend Amy said:

The problem here is that you can’t teach people how to think. Not, at least, without heading straight long into [indoctrination] schools (Communist, Nazi, etc). Not a soul on the planet will tell you they don’t know how to think, even if their life is a long string of screw ups. And who gets to judge whose thinking is “right”? (After all everyone must think to act, even if poorly.) Other than practical matters of social order and universal natural law, I think humans might be best to leave that judgment to God.

There’s a lot going on it that. (more…)

To everything... (turn, turn, turn)

I have two main goals for this blog: First, to share practical, down-to-earth tips on growing in virtue that I glean from my own experience and what I’m learning from others; Second, to transform the world into a perfectly virtuous society.

Okay, so maybe the second goal is a little ambitious. I guess I’ll focus on the first.

I find I often get stuck, whether in a project or in a relationship or just in life, because I don’t feel like I’ve made enough progress. I feel like I’m spinning my wheels, like I’m never going to get to the destination. I wonder whether it’s worth all the effort I’ve put into it – or worth any effort at all.

It helps me to see where I actually stand in the big picture. For example, I’m working on a book, and I’m still mainly in the research phase. It’s frustrating that I don’t have many pages written, but I have to remind myself that I really shouldn’t have many pages written at this point in the project. What I should have – and do have – are lots of notes and a to-read list that I’m slowly working through.

The big picture of a virtuous life

Living a life of virtue is a much bigger project than writing a book, and the process can seem vague or unclear. The goals are abstract: happiness, ease, skill. The advice is general: practice, discern, persist. This is because virtue is a habit that applies to every action and decision a person takes, pretty much from birth to death; so it’s hard to get too specific.

That said, I do think there are three broad stages of growth in virtue, and seeing where I am in those stages helps me keep working.

The stages are:

1. Discipline
2. Experimentation
3. Mastery

(more…)

This is just too awesome: