Boethius, The Consolation 3.39

“If any man makes search for truth with all his penetration,

and would be led astray by no deceiving paths,

let him turn upon himself the light of an inward gaze,

let him bend by force the long-drawn wanderings

of his thoughts into one circle;

let him tell surely to his soul,

that he has, thrust away within the treasures of his mind,

all that he labors to acquire without.

Then shall that truth,

which now was hid in error's darkening cloud,

shine forth more clear than Phoebus' self.

For the body, though it brings material mass which breeds forgetfulness,

has never driven forth all light from the mind.

The seed of truth does surely cling within,

and can be roused as a spark by the fanning of philosophy.

For if it is not so, how do you men make answers

true of your own instinct when teachers question you?

Is it not that the quick spark of truth

lies buried in the heart's low depths?

And if the Muse of Plato sends through those depths the voice of truth,

each man has not forgotten

and is but reminding himself of what he learns.”

—from Book 3, Poem 11

I was always a bit confused, from the earliest age, when people told me that the value of my life was about “finding myself”, yet at the very same time they told me that my identity was measured by a long list of external conditions that had to be met. I couldn’t quite make the two work together. Which was it, or, at the very least, which came first?

I was usually met with an empty gaze when I asked these sorts of questions. I suspect many kind people, intending only the best, wanted me to find myself through making something better of my circumstances. But which one was the end, and which one was the means? Is this a chicken-or-the-egg sort of problem?

I had the benefit of attending a fancy liberal arts high school, one that taught me to love learning for its own sake, to think for myself, to become a fellow who didn’t just play the game. Then junior year rolled around, and the only question that now seemed important hung over my head: what will be my college of choice?

That had already been decided for me, by the simple fact that my father had put his sweat and blood into a teaching job that covered my tuition. My parents hadn’t sent me to this high school to win entry to an Ivy League, but to build my character. We simply didn’t have the $100,000 or so required for me to attend one of the “best” colleges; to be quite honest, I was never sure they were the “best” to begin with. Image can be so powerful.

Still, our college advisor became quite furious with me. “Don’t be so stupid, you need to aim for something better!” he yelled at me one day, in front of a group of other students, making me a local laughing stock for a time. So I became “the dumb Irish bastard that doesn’t care about his education.”

I bear that man no ill will, but it was all an epiphany for me. What mattered to him was the social status associated with this or that school, and what mattered to me and my family was helping me to distinguish the true from the false, the right from the wrong.

Is it possible to have both? It could well be, but I will hardly become wiser and better on the inside by accumulating any trappings on the outside. If I need to pick one over the other, I know exactly what is necessary. I would still make the same decision, without any hesitation.

I have made many mistakes in my life, and followed many false paths, yet I did learn that any merit I might have would never come from all of those sparkling accessories. The diploma doesn’t make me better. The job doesn’t make me better. The bank account doesn’t make me better. The social circle doesn’t make me better.

My own wisdom and virtue, arising from within me, are all that can make me better. Now I might not have as much of that as I should, though what little I do have of worth came from my own thinking and doing, not from anyone else’s.

There’s the rub. What is decent about me is all about what is decent in my own soul. I can manage to do that, if only I so choose, whether I am “attending” at a fancy school, and then working at a powerful firm, or reading a good book on the subway, and then picking up other people’s trash.

I don’t need credentials to be a good man. I need only consider myself, who and what I am, to be a good man. Look within, and be willing to leave the rest. I have all I require right here, and must only remember what all those diversions have tried to make me forget.

Written in 9/2015