Virtue Quest

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.

I’m a big-picture kind of guy. I like to know where things are headed, and why. Only then can I really focus on the particular parts or steps.

So, in looking at living a virtuous life, a fully human and humane life, my first question is, “What makes an action or a habit to be virtuous?”

As far as I can see, there are three contenders for the title of “form of the virtues,” or, to put it another way, “foundation of morality.” They are:

1. Duty
2. Interest
3. Love

Now, before I go any further, I think it’s clear that any coherent approach to human action has to take account of all three of these aspects of morality. But the question of priority, of which one governs the others, is critical. I’m convinced that most ethical problems – both personally and in the public square – would become much more manageable if we had the big picture straight.

Duty and interest: how we think and how we act

When I ask a moral question, I tend to phrase it something like this: “What should I do?” or “What’s the right thing to do?” And the thing that makes me worry or question my decisions is usually a conflict between what I think I ought to do and what I want to do. I want another beer, but I promised to be the designated driver; I ought to treat my boss with respect, but I want to tell everybody what a jerk he/she is; I want that new smart phone, but I know I can’t afford the monthly payments; that sort of conflict.

That sense of duty is strongest (for me, at least,) in the little everyday decisions. I’ll ignore the duty to eat healthy food and get exercise, but I’ll feel guilty about it. When I’m in the checkout line, I don’t even think about not paying for the food or clothes or whatever I’ve bought. It’s a duty, after all.

But whenever I’m not strictly bound by duty, the sense of my own interest becomes more important. I ask, things like: “Do I want to marry this person?” or, “Do I want to take this job?” rather than, “Should I marry so-and-so?” or “Should I work for Mom & Pop Inc.?” The question of desire, of what is in my “best interest” seems to dominate in those kinds of decisions.

Duty is a category of justice: it tells us what we owe (what is due) to each other or, in a reflexive way, even to ourselves. It looks at the world in terms of what is required or necessary in any given situation.

Interest is more personal: it is focused on how to get what is best for me. My will, my desire, is the only standard it recognizes. It looks at the world in terms of what is desirable and possible.

In other words, duty doesn’t know how to deal with optional or free choices; and interest doesn’t know how to deal with obligations, seeing laws or rules merely as obstacles to be overcome. Stated this baldly, it’s pretty clear that neither duty nor interest works as a basis for moral life. But that doesn’t stop me from thinking in terms of duty and from acting in terms of my interests.

Love: forming and shaping desire

This is where the virtue of love shows its ability to support every aspect of human life. I’m not talking about the emotion of love, or affection, or being in love. Love as a virtue shows us the big picture of what is good in life.

Thomas Aquinas notes that “good” has two aspects: “One, the ultimate and universal good, the other proximate and particular.” Love is what shows us the ultimate good, and puts everything else in context. It’s like looking at the picture of a puzzle: it shows where each piece belongs.

If I love the environment, that shapes the kind of transportation I use and how I dispose of my trash and the kinds of things I eat and so on. If I love my spouse, then I look for things we can enjoy together and for ways I can contribute to his/her comfort and happiness.

Duty and interest are both important to help us make choices about particular goods. But Love knows when to call on them, how to balance them, how to choose in optional matters and how to accept obligations and requirements. Love shows us how to be fully ourselves, and fully human. That is why love is the form of all the other virtues.

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.

A friend pointed me to a post on one of her favorite blogs, The Gnosis of Now. The author makes an excellent point about a primary aspect of the “American experiment”: that our society is, in a sense, founded on pluralism. The U.S.A. is not a single people, but a collection of peoples. Our social and governmental structures are meant to allow persons from any and every cultural background to live together in peace.

The fact that this ideal has never, even from the very beginning, found full realization raises the question of whether it is at all possible. One could ask whether this is an impossible goal that should be abandoned, or rather an ideal to strive for despite the fact that it is always beyond perfect attainment. One could also argue that, over the past two centuries, a distinctive “American people” and “American culture” has in fact grown and taken root, and that the opportunity for this pluralistic ideal has passed (though the constant influx of immigrants – both legal and illegal – provides new opportunities every day).

In any case, it’s a good reminder to someone like myself who is delving into my medieval and Catholic roots that the Founding Fathers had an entirely different set of problems they were addressing. I’m trying to grow toward personal virtue and social unity; they were trying to find peace and safety for their plurality of faith and cultural traditions.

I suppose I should pray that these are not incompatible goals.

Amy noted that some of the posts and comments were becoming “a bit too philosophical for [her] bent.” By that, I think she meant that the conversation had grown so abstract that it was no longer connected to real life.

There’s probably some truth in her observation. I tend toward abstraction – or, as my grade school teachers put it, I’m a space cadet. At the same time, I insist that abstract philosophy is not, or at least should not be, opposed to practical action in everyday life. My goal for myself is to think clearly and live according to what I think.

One of the areas my own thought gets awfully muddy is around the question of what it is to be human. That’s why it’s important to me to make sure my thinking is clear. Otherwise I start acting, well, inhumanely.

The human creature in its native environment

The first thing that I forget about human nature is that I am finite: I am limited, mortal, not self sufficient. Now, all this is normal and natural; it’s actually good, because connection with other people is included in the very definition of humanity. But I find myself awfully attracted to those fantasies of unlimited, immortal, sufficient people like James Bond or Odysseus or Fitzwilliam Darcy. (Granted that none of them are fully self-sufficient or properly immortal, but their stories do not die, and give them the illusion of perfection.)

So when I start acting as if I know everything, or like I am the hero of some grand epic, I wind up looking foolish. I say something stupid, showing the limits of my knowledge; or I do something that hurts either myself or someone else, betraying my lack of heroism.

And the reason this happens is because my actions run contrary to my nature; they defy reality. Reality sets limits to what I can do. Reality demands that I ask others for help, that I admit when I am wrong, that I defer to those more skilled or more experienced than myself. When I refuse to act in accordance with reality, when I contradict my nature, then the inevitable result is failure and harm.

How to know nature

Now, bob (and others) raised a very good point: sure it’s easy to claim something like mortality as a universal aspect of human nature; but seeing how widely human culture varies around the globe, how can we know what really is “human nature” (and therefore what are rights, duties, just laws, etc.) and what is just local custom?

My answer is, basically, not to use the variations as a distraction from what we have in common. All of us are mortal. All of us are dependent on one another. This alone is sufficient, it seems to me, to justify a promotion of community and a prohibition against murder. All of us are dependent on using things: tools, clothing, and other objects; this means that morality has to deal with the notion of property and prohibit theft.

It goes further, though: it is part of human nature to think, to communicate, to engage in relationships that go beyond mere practicality or survival. We have more ways to engage in these human acts than there are grains of sand on the beach, but we all do them. A person who has lost the ability to communicate has lost one of the essential activities that we call “human.” Such a person is tragic, and the magnitude of his or her loss is itself an indication of the centrality of thought, communication, relationship to living a fully human life.

Let me be clear: such a person is still fully human; but handicapped, in the way that an amputee is fully human, but lacking a limb. Morality still applies in a complete way to this person. There is no excuse for considering someone “less than human” or “no longer human” just because he or she is injured or disabled.

But an injury or a disability – by the very fact that we recognize it as “bad” and as a loss – is itself an indicator of where the full nature lies. And this is not something contingent on culture or opinion: there is no culture that recognizes someone with only one arm as “normal,” to say nothing of “privileged.” Whether they treat the disabled with special respect or with derision, the recognition of disability is one of the constants across cultural lines. It is therefore one indicator of the reality and objectivity of human nature.

First off, I just want to say, “Thank you!” to readers Jeana and bob, who in the past week or so have helped me fulfill one of my goals for this blog: to generate provocative and intriguing conversation. Thanks!

So, in continuing the question of whether there’s any such thing as “natural rights” – or, more generally, what Thomists call “natural law” – the next step is to consider … the Order of the Universe!

Actually, I’m serious. By “order,” I mean specifically teleological order. In non-techno-babble, that means, whether things are in and of themselves directed to an end beyond themselves. The classic example is the eye: the eye is ordered toward the sense of sight, and so an eye that does not see is a “bad” eye.

Order and morality

Now, someone might object that you can’t blame the eye for being blind. And that’s true. So it’s important to distinguish between what’s called “ontological evil” and “moral evil.” “Ontological evil,” or evil in “being,” is simply the lack of full existence or perfection in a thing. A diseased tree, or a collapsed bridge, or a blind eye is “bad” because it lacks the fullness of what it is to BE a tree, or a bridge, or an eye.

“Moral evil,” on the other hand, involves the freedom of the will. Without personal freedom, there can be no “bad” or “evil” except in the ontological sense. For something to be evil in a moral sense, it must be a bad choice

Now, according to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas and those who follow their tradition, the mind has several major parts, two of which are the intellect and the will. The purpose of the intellect is to understand things abstractly. The purpose of the will is to choose freely. If the intellect has a problem – for example, my intellect has great difficulty grasping poetry and metaphor, but thrives on mathematics – then we recognize that as a problem in the mind. I tell people that I’m “bad” with poetry, and they know what I mean.

If the will has a problem, it affects a person’s ability to choose freely. Sometimes this is a mental illness; for example, a psychopath is not free to act empathetically, or even responsibly. But often, we limit our own freedom by our very choices themselves. If I choose to insult you, I am no longer free to be your friend.

The slavery of vice

Now, part of the nature of the will is to develop habits. Habits are to the will what memory is to the intellect: they keep us from having to re-invent the wheel every time we hit the road. So, a virtuous habit is one that protects, or even extends the freedom of the will. Vice, on the other hand, increasingly limits the will’s freedom.

But this freedom is not freedom to do anything at any time; it is freedom to fulfill the nature of the person. It is freedom to pursue the good.

The best image I’ve found is that of a piano keyboard. Anyone at any time is free to hit any key or combination of keys on the keyboard. (This is what Pinckaers calls “freedom of indifference.”) But only someone who has practiced a great deal is free to play Debussy, or to compose an original work of music.

Now, every moment of every day, our will faces at least 88 possible choices of what to do next. If we practice making those choices well, with an idea of harmony or rhythm or beauty in mind, then we will develop habits that allow us to make more interesting and more complex and more, well, good choices. The will really does become more free, more fulfilled in achieving its purpose.

But if we simply hammer away at life according to mood or blind emotion, like a piano student who refuses to adopt proper posture or fingering, then we limit our freedom and risk hurting both ourselves and the instrument – that is, everybody around us.

Natural morality

This view of the human person, one who has a purpose or an end in both being and acting, and whose purpose is to pursue greater and greater goods, is the foundation of any theory of natural rights, or natural law, or natural morality of any kind.

Some thinkers have tried to do away with “human nature” without losing universal morality, but I haven’t found any of them (that I’ve read) to be convincing.

Others have noted that it’s incredibly difficult to pin down exactly what’s involved in “human nature” and have accepted that rejecting nature also means rejecting any universal morality. But then why do even they act as if moral questions remained vital? Dostoyevski’s Crime and Punishment is a brilliant exploration of the problems with this way of thinking.

So that’s largely why I’m convinced that there really is such a thing as human nature, and that the nature of the will is to choose freely, and that virtue is the true path to freedom and fulfillment and happiness.

But I’ve been talking too much. Looking forward to continuing the conversation.

Jeana left a wonderfully provocative comment on an earlier post. I began to reply in the comments, but I realized that this merited its own post, so here’s a bit of Jeana’s comment, followed by my response:

Perhaps a start would be the argument that there is a natural order to the world, and things work better when we cooperate with it. Plants die without life. Cows were made to eat grass. We live longer if we exercise and eat our veggies than if we sit in front of the TV and eat cookies all day every day. Men’s and women’s bodies each operate in ways that the other cannot.

If you were able to argue that following the natural order is a moral obligation, you could argue that….

This touches on, I think, the different moral roles of virtue and law.

Virtue enables us to realize the full potential of our nature and, according to Catholic teaching, of our supernatural gifts. Law, on the other hand, prevents us from (or at least warns us against) acting contrary to our nature. Virtue motivates us to reach for excellence, but places no obligations, strictly speaking, on us. Law places obligations on us, both positive and negative ones, but only obliges us to a bare minimum.

Law does not ask us to fulfill our nature; it only demands that we not act contrary to it. It does not strive for excellence. It is a stop-gap against excessive vice.

Now, ever since the so-called “Enlightenment” (if I understand my history correctly) western culture has been obsessed with the notion of law, and has largely forgotten the idea of virtue. This is why “morality” immediately brings to mind the idea of obligation.

But virtue sets a higher standard. Or, to put it another way, it opens up a broader field of possibility. Morality is not just about jumping through hoop X and avoiding pitfall Q. Morality is about living my life in a way that fulfills its potential, that brings to reality the potential good that is within me.

And that good is both for me and from me. It is good for me to be healthy. It is also good for me to serve my neighbor with whatever gifts I have. Indeed, serving my neighbor with my gifts is good for me as well, because it exercises and brings to greater perfection those gifts themselves. And it feels good to do so, which is a sign of health in using those gifts.

When we’re focused on obligation, feeling good is taken as a sign of not meeting an obligation. But when we’re focused on excellence, feeling good is a sign of health, of growth.

So much more to say, but I also want to prepare a reply to bob. So, till soon…!

Here’s a punchy quote from After Virtue that, I think, summarizes the heart of his argument:

I remarked in Chapter 13 that when teleology [I'll explain this below the quote - RK], whether Aristotelian or Christian, is abandoned, there is always a tendency to substitute for it some version of Stoicism. The virtues are now not to be practiced for the sake of some good other, or more, than the practice of the virtues itself. Virtue is, indeed has to be, its own end, its own reward and its own motive. It is central to this Stoic tendency to believe that there is a single standard of virtue and that moral achievement lies simply in total compliance with it.

Okay, first off, let me translate teleology. That’s philosophical techno-babble for an inherent purpose or direction in things themselves. So, a common example is an eye: the eye is for seeing, so sight is the purpose or end of the eye. An eye is directed toward sight, so sight becomes a standard of goodness internal to the eye itself. The major debate is whether the human person has such an end, and what that implies. Aristotle’s idea was that the purpose of human life is to contemplate abstract truth. Christianity’s idea is usually called “heaven” but is often put in similar terms as Aristotle: to gaze on the face of God.

The Stoics, and their Enlightenment inheritors, disconnected the idea of moral action from any goodness for the moral person. It’s not seen as virtuous to do the right thing if you’re getting anything out of it for yourself.

Major guilt trip

This, more than anything the nuns did to me as a kid, is the source of my own guilt today. I almost feel in my gut that I have to act against my own nature and gifts and joys, that I have to be unhappy, in order to really be good. Sort of like saying that the eye has to avoid seeing and work real hard at hearing in order to be good. Pretty dumb, huh?

But that’s what happens when morality gets divorced from the actual person who is acting morally, and from the situation in which he or she is acting. Morality is reduced to a set of rules, which more and more become arbitrary and unrealistic. No wonder our culture has such an abhorrence of rules and restrictions: we know deep down that there’s something wrong with a demand for obedience for obedience’s sake.

On the other hand, if we recognize that we don’t have to reinvent morality from scratch every second of every day, and that rules are meant to remind us of our nature rather than force us to work against it, then morality becomes much less of a burden. I can relax a little, because I only have to ask, “Does this action fit with my own nature and abilities in this situation?” I don’t have to agonize over whether it’s “right” or not, whether it’s the “best possible action” or anything like that. I’m here. Something needs doing. If I can do it, great! If not, well, not much I can do about it and feeling guilty isn’t going to help matters any.

One great thing about After Virtue is the way MacIntyre lays out the differences between various historical theories of virtue. And this has made me aware that I’ve been assuming something I really shouldn’t assume.

That is, I’ve assumed that the highest and primary virtue is Love, or Charity. All the other virtues are only virtues insofar as they develop a person’s ability to love.

I base this, of course, on my Christian beliefs. Jesus commanded his disciples to love: love their neighbors as themselves; love their enemies and persecutors; love one another as he loves them.

But other cultures have placed different virtues at the top of the pile. For most of the ancient Greeks, it seems Justice was the primary virtue, and they would have had no idea of this Christian kind of Love. For others, such as many Romans, Law or Obedience might have claimed primacy. For still others, such as Nietzsche and his followers in Existentialism, pure Will would have guided their moral thinking.

Now, I’m in no way shaken in my belief that Love is the form of all the other virtues. But I’m reminded that it’s not something I can take for granted that others believe. It’s something I need to support and develop, rather than just assume.

‘Cause we all know what happens when we assume things.

Pardon me while I get all philosophical for a bit.

Those who have known me a while know that I suffer from clinical depression. The meds and some good therapy have that pretty well under control; but it’s linked to something that is beyond the scope of medical science. I have a bad habit of asking, “What’s the meaning of life?” or, “What’s the point of it all?” or, closer to home, “What’s the point of my life?”

Yes, I’m a Catholic; and I do buy the whole “know, love, and serve God in this life so that I may be happy with him forever in the next” idea. But it’s an idea: it’s words that I assent to in my mind, but that don’t always reach to my heart, or my gut – which is where those questions of meaning come from. In other words, I still ask, “What’s it mean to be happy with God?” or even, “Why did God make me in the first place?”

The questions “Why?” and “What does it mean?”

A good friend once suggested to me that most people – me included – put much more stock in what something means than what something is, and that this is a backwards way of living life. A person, or an experience, or even an object is only “significant” because it first exists in reality. A relationship has to be lived before it can “mean” anything.

He has an excellent point. I tend to over-think just about everything in my life, and on a cultural level it’s much easier to find “analysis” than it is to find “news.” There’s a certain cart-preceding-horse-ness about this whole approach.

At the same time, the question of meaning is one that just doesn’t go away. And, in terms of “what my life means,” anyway, I’m looking for something deeper than explanation or analysis. But it’s hard to say exactly what it is I am looking for. What am I asking when I ask “why?” or “what’s the point?”

What’s behind these questions, at least for me, is a sort of “what’s worthwhile about it?” or “is it any good?” And I think that’s what “a meaningful life” or an answer to “why?” would entail: I want to see and recognize what’s good about the world, and about my being in the world. I want to know that my life is good.

Not just a moral good

Now, this isn’t quite the same thing as, “I want to make the world a better place.” Of course, I want to be a morally good person: I want to be the kind of person who does kind and loving things, who makes living better for those around me, and so on.

But there’s something that comes first: there’s the very fact that I’m alive, that I exist in the world at all.

Or, in more philosophical terms, is goodness convertible with being? Is existence itself good?

Now, for some people, that’s an absurd question. It’s obvious to them that it’s good to exist. But that’s not universally true. Besides quirky people like me, there’s the whole tradition of Buddhism. If I understand it correctly, Buddhism teaches that existence is an illusion, and that we can escape from the illusion – not into a greater reality, but into nothingness, into not-being. The way to save oneself from suffering is to escape from existing.

And yet, I have real experiences of the goodness of being. For me, being something of a nerd, the paradigmatic moment was sitting in high school chemistry when I suddenly understood the structure of the periodic table. It was beautiful. It was profound. It opened up the world to me. I just wanted to stare at the chart on the wall for hours on end.

I’ve heard normal people describe similar experiences in watching a sunrise, or hearing music. Sometimes, it takes the form of awe at another person. Sometimes it’s falling in love.

The point is, it almost doesn’t matter that I’m there to see it; what matters is that this beautiful, wonderful thing exists. And if the periodic table is good – indeed, if anything at all is good – then that goodness is a part of the real world. In other words, the world has a “meaning,” a “point,” it’s “worthwhile,” at least as far as the periodic table goes.

And if I can recognize it, that recognition is also good. That means that, as far as my ability to recognize something good goes, I am good, worthwhile, and my life has some kind of meaning.

Ditto for everybody else in the world.

Now, this isn’t an air-tight proof that any- and everything that exists is good by its very existence (though I think it’s a step toward that), but it does remind me that the burden of proof lies with pessimism. I have the ability to recognize good in all sorts of things, including myself.

And that’s not bad.