"In the morning, when you rise unwillingly. . ."

"In the morning when you rise unwillingly, let this thought be present--I am rising to the work of a human being. Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist and for which I was brought into the world?

"Or have I been made for this, to lie in the bedclothes and keep myself warm?

" 'But this is more pleasant.'

"Do you exist then to take your pleasure, and not at all for action or exertion? Do you not see the little plants, the little birds, the ants, the spiders, the bees working together to put in order their several parts of the universe? And are you unwilling to do the work of a human being, and do you not make haste to do that which is according to thy nature?

" 'But it is necessary to take rest also.'

"It is necessary: however nature has fixed bounds to this too: she has fixed bounds both to eating and drinking, and yet you go  beyond these bounds, beyond what is sufficient; yet in your acts it is not so, but you stop short of what you can do."

---Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5 (tr Long)

 It seemed to me both a blessing and a curse that I was born a child of two very different eras. I was born into a family that still valued character above all else, but I was also raised and schooled in a world where the need for pleasure. power, or success was the norm.

I thought my background a curse, of course, when I was younger, when I often sought selfishness above all else. I now see that background as a moral anchor.

Later, I considered living in a secular, consumer world, ordered towards entitlement and instant gratification, as a curse. I now see that as a blessing as well, because it reminds me daily of what I must not be.

Our circumstances are only blessings or curses as much as we choose them to be.

I try to think of this not as a struggle between ages or epochs, or between clashing cultural norms, but as a question about my own nature.

With apologies to that brilliant TV show, Babylon 5: Who am I? What do I want? Why am I here? Where am I going?

If I can't answer these questions, nothing will matter for anything. Philosophy isn't the obscure search for abstract concepts. It is the need for real goals and values.

Here is, I believe, the deeper question: am I made to receive, or to give? Have I been created to be just a beast or also a man? Do I define myself by my instincts or by my knowledge and love? Am I here to serve or to be served?

In the simplest sense, am I a creature of passion or of action? Do I identify myself by what comes to me, or by what I I do?

As soon as I say, "I love it because it feels right," I've crossed that line into intemperance.  I need to learn that nothing should be defined only by how it feels to me; things should be defined by what they are, in their own nature, known by the intellect and loved by the will, for their own sake.

Written on 9/9/2009

Image: Hieronymus Bosch, Allegory of Intemperance, c. 1490