Then
again, when the mind is elevated by the greatness of its thoughts, it becomes
ostentatious in its use of words, the loftier its aspirations, the more loftily
it desires to express them, and its speech rises to the dignity of its subject.
At
such times I forget my mild and moderate determination and soar higher than is
my wont, using a language that is not my own. Not to multiply examples, I am in
all things attended by this weakness of a well-meaning mind, to whose level I
fear that I shall be gradually brought down, or what is even more worrying,
that I may always hang as though about to fall, and that there may be more the
matter with me than I myself perceive.
When all else seems right with the world,
it makes perfect sense that my thoughts, my words, and my actions should be
simple, humble, and unassuming. I should say less, and I should mean what I say
with a sincere concern that it is first and foremost true and helpful,
regardless of how much attention it brings me. I tell myself that I know full
well how pointless it is to puff myself up with pompous ideas and baroque
language; let Nature temper my vanity.
But then I am suddenly not so sure
of myself. Did I really need to use the term “baroque”, when a much more direct
word would have worked just fine? Did I use it because it was best for the job,
or was I somehow showing off? I am sure I don’t intend to be self-serving, but
I worry I am doing it nonetheless. There is that nagging uncertainty
again, knowing in one sense but being quite clueless in another.
Am I getting it wrong, or am I
worrying too much, which is yet another way of getting it wrong?
The Stoics followed the thinking of
Socrates, that virtue proceeds from wisdom, and that vice proceeds from
ignorance. Hence if I have failed to do what is good, it is because I did not
rightly understand what was good; the merit of my choice will be measured by
the depth of my awareness.
What is happening, however, when I
think I know, and I still find it so hard to follow through in what I do? The
Peripatetics, the followers of Aristotle, suggested that something in our power
of choice is still keeping us back. I may understand a universal concept in
theory, but I am not making use of a particular application in practice. The
comprehension is not complete, and I am not joining the grand principle to the
actual situation.
Take, for example, my general
knowledge that I should not eat or drink what is unhealthy. Yet put a whole
pound of bacon, or an entire bottle of whiskey, in front of me, and I will
still be tempted to consume it all, right then and there. The general fact that
this is unhealthy is hidden, is overcome, by another specific perception, that
it is quite pleasant. I am aware broadly, forgetful narrowly, and I am not
really connecting the dots.
I have never taken the Aristotelian
view to be in contradiction to the Platonic view, but rather as a complement or
supplement to it.
Something similar, I think, happens
to me when I try to be simple, humble, and unassuming, and yet I still struggle
with the temptation of being embellished, vain, and lofty. The conscience
remains only partly formed, because I have not fully built the habit of
applying the rule to the instance. My struggle is not that I don’t know at all,
but that I don’t know as fully and as clearly as I could.
As always, just thinking, mulling it
over as a profound abstraction, will mean little if it is not exercised
concretely in daily life. Like growing pains, my frustration can encourage me
that I am on the right track, but I still have a ways to go.
Written in 4/2011
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