Fiction as a “virtual reality”

We're in trouble now!

This is a little off topic for the blog, but what the heck: it’s only a blog after all. In addition to this blog, I’m a fiction writer as well. Being both neurotic and an introvert, I spend way too much time interrogating myself about whether it’s good or realistic or productive or whatever to write stories.

This is how I justify it to myself. I hope that my justification has some basis in reality.

The reason I am so obsessed with stories – both reading or watching them and writing them myself – is that my whole perspective on the world is profoundly shaped by the stories I believe in. So, for most of my youth, my paradigm for reality was Star Wars. I saw everything through the lens of The Force. Later, I discovered Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, which I have found to be a far superior guide to reality than Lucas’ mess. Still later, a friend introduced me to the romances of Jane Austen, which provide a profound counterpoint to Tolkien’s vision.

Light fare, perhaps? Yes, perhaps. But, for good or ill, these are the stories that have largely shaped my understanding of the world.

And I’m convinced that it cannot be any other way. It seems to me that stories are a necessary part of human life, and of learning how to be human.

The plotline of life

The primary way we learn anything, of course, is through direct experience. Ouch! That burner is hot! But what happens in that moment of experience?

I’ve had many friends tell me how their awareness of a particular cause or passion woke up through an experience. They suddenly realized that there are millions of poor and suffering people in the world, or that problems can be solved by engineering solutions, or that someone really does love them after all. As soon as they describe the event, they spin it into a story: this understanding of the world shapes their own character. It becomes a plot twist in their own life.

And what changes in that moment? What is realized, or learned, or discovered? It is a new way of viewing the world as a whole. It is like putting on glasses and realizing for the first time just how blurred your vision had been. Objects come into focus, and distinctions become clear.

And, seeing clearly, you are now free to act.

Virtual reality and vicarious experience

Now obviously there are limits to any one person’s experience. For example, I don’t remember ever burning my finger on the stove top. But I watched my older brother do so, and I learned from watching him. In a way, I made his experience my own.

Learning from someone’s example is a kind of second-hand experience. It may not be my exact prescription, but it helps me see much better than I could before. And it saves me from some of the worse consequences of my blindness.

Now, what’s interesting is that it doesn’t seem to matter a great deal whether that second-hand experience is factual or fictional. Many a child has been inspired to honesty by the story of George Washington’s refusal to lie about cutting down a cherry tree, despite the (at best) questionable historicity of the tale.

What matters is that I am able to make the story my own somehow, that my experience of the story becomes a genuine part of my experience of life. So, as I said, Star Wars gave me a heroic lens to view my own life that appeared to be so far from the “bright center” of the universe. It opened my eyes to powers beyond my ability to understand, and to the requirement for those powers to be used for good.

Problems arose, of course, when I discovered that The Force was not in any significant sense real. I don’t mean the fantasy elements of it; a mere child can see through that. I mean that The Force ultimately contradicts itself: it seems impersonal, yet it has a guiding quality; the difference between the “good side” and the “dark side” seems to “depend greatly upon one’s point of view,” yet it is imperative to resist the draw of darkness.

In other words, Star Wars gave me a better lens than I had, but it still left me blind in some very important parts of life.

The importance of good stories

Reality is the ultimate test of all worldviews, whether gained from personal experience or through the virtual reality of a story. I cling to the lens I found in Jane Austen’s work because she sees aspects of the world that, as a twenty-first century American male, I literally cannot see. She reveals a spot as invisible to me as the back of my head, and enables me to see that aspect of the world in my own family and friends. On the other hand, I find most romances (of page or screen) actually raise obstacles to understanding the people in my life.

I try to be discerning in what I read and watch. I try even harder to be discerning in what I write. My goal is to write stories that draw people more deeply into reality rather than distracting from its difficulty.

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, not only do I learn new songs quickly and enjoy the music more, I also find it just plain physically easier to play. My fingers don’t hurt at all – not till I’ve been playing solidly for a couple hours or more. My fingers have calluses to protect them, and they’ve grown stronger through exercise.

Building up habits of virtue

Now, for the past couple weeks I’ve been distracted, pulled in several different directions. I haven’t always been able to get to bed on time, or to eat at normal meal times, and so on. Sometimes I’ve used the difficulty of the day as an excuse to break my habits, to stay up late or to sleep in, to drop my daily prayer and meditation, to skip walking or exercising, to let the dishes pile up, and so on.

So right now, I feel like my soul has lost its calluses, and lost its strength. It’s hard, even a little painful, to do simple things like add appointments to my calendar or fold my clothes as soon as I take them out of the dryer. I know I should, and I know how much easier it makes life; but I’ve let myself go soft, and that means I have to deal with some extra difficulty here and now.

Virtue makes life easier exactly by embracing the difficulty of life. That is to say, developing good habits allows me to do only the actual toil, and suffer only the necessary pain, of the work itself – instead of having to toil at learning how to do the work, and enduring the pain of building strength and resistance, every single time I try to do something.

There’s no avoiding the difficulty and suffering of life; but the habits of virtue build up the ability to keep going, even to do better and better things, with as little difficulty and pain as possible.

The primary virtue of prudence

I find in my own life I keep returning to two virtues: charity and prudence. Charity is called the “form” of the virtues, because it directs us toward what is good; that is, it is the habit of focusing on the goal of virtue. Prudence is called the “first” of the virtues, or the primary virtue, because it shows the means to achieve the good; that is, it is the habit of making responsible decisions.

These two virtues, especially prudence, are the hardest for me to develop. They’re also the most rewarding. They provide the strength and the toughness needed for the other virtues to form and to flourish.

My temptation to neglect prudence usually takes the form: “I’ve done so much already, I deserve a break.” It’s the illusion that there are times or situations in which I don’t have to make a good decision. It’s an attempt to avoid taking responsibility for my own actions.

So, when I find I’ve let myself go soft, as I have over the past couple weeks, I realize the only solution is to start practicing again. Scheduled routine, to-do lists, and journaling are some of the tools I use for practicing prudence. At first, it’s hard, and I keep wondering why I have to do this dull and artificial-feeling work. Don’t I already know what I think, and what I have to do?

But it’s the difference between knowing where to put my fingers and actually playing music.

I've been expecting your call!

The other day, I was talking with a friend from a writer’s group I work with. She was describing how inspiration strikes her, and it resonated with my own experience: it genuinely feels as if someone else is telling or directing the story.

It’s not split-personality – at least, not for myself or any of the other writers I know. But it’s a strong sense that A) I’m not sufficient in myself to write this piece, and B) I’m not alone in writing it. This experience is common enough that the ancient Greeks named goddesses who inspire the various arts and occupations: the Muses. Even the word “inspire” means “breathe into;” that is, the ideas are breathed into the artist or the worker, the words whispered into the ear of the poet.

The collaborative feeling of following a muse can be exhilarating. (The Greeks called it “ecstasy,” literally, standing outside yourself.) I’ve talked to people from all walks of life, ranging from manufacturing to scholarship to service, and many talk about this kind of feeling: a kind of connection, through the work, with something or someone greater than themselves. Some call it “being in the zone” or “going on autopilot” or some other phrase that conveys how the work becomes energizing and exciting and easy.

But that feeling is, like all feelings, a passing thing. Nobody feels it all the time, and some people feel it rarely, if ever. It’s tempting to chase after the feeling or to grow despondent when it’s absent; and it’s also tempting, for cynics like me, to dismiss the feeling altogether.

The truth is, the feeling is one sign among many of something that goes beyond mere feeling. These experiences are signs of vocation.

What’s a vocation?

“Vocation” is a word that has gone through a number of changes over the years. Originally, it literally meant “a calling” – based on the Latin vocare which means “to call”. It came to mean, the work that someone is called to, then it meant a career distinct from the “professions,” and now it seems to mean a technical job or skilled labor of some kind.

The big question this raises, of course, is: who’s doing the calling?

In a family business, it might be Mom or Dad who’s calling. In the military, it’s Uncle Sam. In the Church (where most people equate “vocation” with priests and nuns), it’s God who calls.

The feelings of inspiration or autopilot are important especially because they point toward the source of the call. It’s critical that these experiences are not just emotions that rise up within me, but are genuinely moved by another. That is to say, there really is someone outside my skull who is calling for my work.

And this is not an impersonal call; it depends intimately on who I am and the uniqueness of the gifts and strengths I have. The call is for me to do what only I can do – and therefore what will bring a unique fulfillment to my life.

It is not a call to be a cog in a machine; it is a call to be fully myself, and to take my place in the world I live in.

How do I know?

Now, some people seem born knowing what they are called to do: it’s a profound orientation of their lives, and they have a hard time thinking of what else they might do.

Others just schlep along through life, trying to make ends meet, and having fun whenever and wherever they can. They’re not looking for much else.

And lots of people, including many of my friends, have a notion that something bigger and better is waiting for them, somewhere out there. They just don’t quite know what it is or how to get there from here.

Here’s where that feeling comes in as a pointer. The kind of experience I’m talking about has several traits:

• It energizes without causing agitation or anxiety
• It motivates, showing the meaning or purpose of both life and work
• It generates more ideas, more possibilities, more work
• It radiates beyond myself: other people notice something going on

This experience is far from the last word in discernment; but it’s usually the best starting point. What am I doing when this kind of thing happens to me? What do I do about it?

Knowing what calls my name helps me to ask other questions: how can I put more time and energy into that activity? is it something I can structure my life around? are there signs of who is the origin of that call, who my work is meant to reach?

After all, when one receives a call, the thing to do is to connect with the caller. That’s what it means to answer.

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? Because there’s another part of me, call it the grandiose egotist side, that doesn’t want to do anything that isn’t instantly apparent as brilliant and perfect. Plugging along at little tasks just doesn’t have the same feel as finishing a book, or even a chapter.

Reality check

It’s at this point that I need to pull myself back down to earth. Both my despair of finishing a job and my desire for the feeling of accomplishment are unwarranted. What is true is that every task has some pleasant and some unpleasant aspects to it. That’s just the nature of reality, and it does no good to focus only on the difficult aspects while ignoring the easy or exciting aspects – or vice versa.

Rather, I need to focus on what is directly in front of me: what is here and now. So, for my grandma’s book, I have some research to do and some notes to take today. If I spend my time worrying about how many interviews I still need to conduct, or on the other hand daydreaming about how high it will reach on the New York Times bestseller list, then I will create my own failure.

If instead I do a couple hours of work, and spend five minutes at the end reviewing what I’ve done, then I will see the progress I have made. It may be small progress, but it shows me where I am in the big picture of the job. Moreover, it allows me to know exactly where to pick up again tomorrow.

Life application

Now, the example of working on my grandmother’s book is an application of the virtue of prudence, with a little temperance thrown in for good measure. And even though it’s a book – a book! – it’s still a fairly small and focused task.

The life of virtue is a call to apply virtue to every aspect of my life. I need to be prudent, not just about writing a memoir, but also about cleaning my kitchen and relating to my friends and voting in the election and my attitude toward strangers and…. I need to do this for the next 50 years or however long I happen to hang out on this earth. Zoiks! I really can’t deal with a task that big!

And yet, a life is composed of days, and a day is composed of hours. Every moment is an opportunity to practice some small virtue. Every day is a chance to live life fully – meaning to fully live, though not to live an entire life.

I used to write up a daily inventory on this blog. I stopped that because I was self-censoring, leaving out the parts of my life I didn’t particularly want to publicize. So now I’m keeping the inventory in a journal. This is an old practice. The Jesuits have a form of it called the Examen. Twelve-step programs call it the Tenth Step. The reason behind keeping an inventory is to learn to recognize what is really going on in any given day. It is like reviewing my work at the end of a task: it gives a reality check and shows me where I am in the bigger picture.

Slowly but surely, I’m beginning to see my life – my desires, my relationships, my work – more clearly. Slowly but surely, I’m making progress in virtue, and part of that progress is recognizing my small steps forward as genuine progress.

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:

• Cardinal virtues
  • Prudence, AKA Wisdom
  • Justice
  • Fortitude, AKA Courage
  • Temperance, AKA Self-control
• Theological virtues
  • Faith
  • Hope
  • Charity, AKA Love

Each of these virtues describes a different way to achieve a certain excellence or fulfillment of human life. They are ways to become more human, and more humane.

Habits of life

A virtue is a habit of life, that is, it is an inclination to live and act easily and effectively. It’s not a “natural” inclination, in that no one is born with it. We acquire the virtues, mainly by practicing the kinds of actions associated with them. For example, I develop an inclination to courage by taking standing fast in the face of danger and difficulty, even when I am terrified; as I grow in courage, I find that facing danger is easier and less intimidating – if not actually less frightening. I grow in both confidence and ability.

On the other hand, a virtue is exactly a “natural” habit because it is fulfills my nature as a human person. It is part of human nature to grow, to develop, to learn, to interact with other people, and so on. Virtues are the habits of living a fully human life: wisely, justly, lovingly. Practicing virtue helps me to become more myself.

It is something like the habit of playing a musical instrument: at first, the actions don’t feel natural; but with practice, they become a kind of “second-nature”. Playing music becomes easy and enjoyable. Virtues are habits that apply, not just to a single activity like music, but to every aspect of life.

Vice

A vice is essentially a bad habit: it is an inclination to act less than human, or even contrary to human nature. We all have them. My own main vice (as far as I can tell) is sloth: I’m lazy, and I also tend to be skeptical about whether something is worth doing. It takes a lot to get me moving. This means that I spend a lot of time and energy complaining or looking for escapist entertainment rather than actually facing reality or doing something positive.

Generally speaking, every virtue has at least two vices: too much and too little. Taking courage as an example again, it’s possible to be too timid, or to be to rash. Courage is bold, but not brash; it’s cautious, but doesn’t hesitate.

Overcoming vice and growing in virtue go hand in hand.

That whole “theological” thing

The “cardinal” virtues were taken for granted by the ancient Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle, and it’s possible to find similar ideas in most ancient cultures. In the middle ages, Christian philosophers like Thomas Aquinas added three “theological” virtues mentioned in the Bible. These virtues are acquired, not only by practice, but by a gift from God.

I include them in this blog, not because I want to push a Christian agenda, but because I think there is a natural aspect to these virtues that fills out the cardinal virtues. Love resolves the conflict between justice and mercy, hope gives purpose to courage and temperane, faith extends rational prudence into deep relationships.

That said, I’m a practicing Catholic myself, and many of the people I read approach these virtues from a Christian point of view. It would be silly to try to hide that. My goal, though, is to propose rather than to impose, to share the wisdom I’m learning without expecting it to be the final word.

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

Discipline

This is the beginning stage of virtue. In languages, it usually looks like memorization. In basketball, it looks like drills and free throws. In carpentry, it looks like apprenticeship.

Essentially, it is the recognition that I haven’t got what I need to do what I want to do. So I build up the skills by repetition and exercise. I “practice” the virtue. I do the sorts of things that a skilled or virtuous person does; but I recognize that it will be difficult and take concentration for me, while it is easy and second-nature for them.

I also recognize that I’ll make lots of mistakes. Mistakes are normal at this stage. Mistakes are not failures; rather, they are lessons.

Experimentation

As I gain the strength or skill in the foundational actions, I begin to make them my own. I try them out in different areas of my life. I try constructing my own sentences in the new language, or a complex shot in basketball, or building a custom cabinet.

This is where the growth is most obvious, and it can be very exciting. It’s also where failure hurts the most, because I invest each experiment with personal energy, and the stakes feel quite high.

The real lesson of this stage is evaluation, or discernment. The success or failure of a given attempt doesn’t matter nearly so much as the learning I can gain from it. Why did I succeed at this? What caused that to fail?

Mastery

In a way, this is the goal: making decisions and taking actions has become easy and I can do it without some arduous process. But growth hasn’t stopped. It hasn’t even plateaued. Rather, it has deepened.

A master is still experimenting; but at a deeper level than a less experienced person. Now, the only language I am a master of is English: but that doesn’t mean I never make mistakes, nor have I stopped trying out new turns of phrase and discerning whether they work or not. At the same time, I correct my mistakes before most other people notice them, and even my failed experiments usually succeed at some level or other.

More than this, though, a master is able to teach others. I’m able to spot, not only my own mistakes, but other people’s misspellings and grammar errors and weak expressions. I’m able to show them how to improve, to grow in their ability to speak and write English.

The temptation

The truth is, the English language is probably the only area of my life I can claim mastery of; and even then, I’m far from the greatest poet or speaker in the world. I’m always learning something new myself.

And my mastery of English doesn’t automatically make me a good writer – poetry and fiction and essay all require more than mere language. And none of that spills over into my ability to manage my time well, or be a good friend, or decide how to deal with an unjust situation.

My temptation is to rush ahead, to expect the results of a master, or even of an experimenter, when I really need to keep working on the basic discipline. I see my mistakes as failures, and I want to just abandon the whole project.

I need to remind myself that I’m right where I belong in the process as long as I don’t give up, as long as I keep moving forward.

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.

Deep thoughts....

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.

Which is to say I’ve been in a real slump the past few weeks.

I planned to write a post for this site one day, and didn’t. I don’t even remember if I had a legit reason or not. I wanted to again the next day, and didn’t again. At that point, I began thinking that anyone who actually reads the blog would be disappointed in me. And I didn’t want to issue yet another apology for my irregular posting. I really didn’t want to check the site stats and see the drop in readership that happens when I don’t post anything new.

And the days began to pile up. Each day was yet another confirmation of my inability to write, my incapacity for discipline, my utter lack of virtue and therefore my disqualification from writing on this blog at all.

My shrink calls this “all-or-nothing thinking.” My friends call it “perfectionism.” I’m learning to call it a lie.

After all, this blog is a quest for virtue. I wouldn’t be questing for it if I already had it.

The blog isn’t the only thing that’s fallen behind. I’ve blown off phone calls and emails. My bedroom is a pigsty. The laundry needs doing in a bad way. I don’t have any bills late yet, but I will if I wait much longer.

But the obstacles are entirely in my own mind. I simply need to start doing something – pretty much anything even vaguely productive – and 90% of the difficulty vanishes in less than a minute. I just need to face my fear/anxiety/depression/whatever about being normal, being limited, and having a life that doesn’t conform to my fantasies or desires.

I write a lot about knowing reality. Well, more than knowing it, I think I need to accept it. Accept that reality is there, it’s not going away, and it’s not a bad thing. Sure, it’s difficult at times. But it’s also the source of every true love I’ve ever encountered. It’s the only place genuine happiness can exist.

Wallowing in fantasy and wishing and spinning out impossible possibilities leads only to disappointment. I’ve got plenty of experience with that.