The Liberation

Jean Delville, The Liberation (1936) 

The Ideas

Jean Delville, The Ideas (1934) 

Owls 17

IMAGE by Mick Thompson 

Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 4.1

Paradox 4: That Every Fool Is a Madman
 
[Translator's note: This paradox takes for its illustration the life of Publius Clodius, a Roman soldier of noble birth, but infamous for the corruption of his morals. He was ultimately slain by the retinue of Milo, in an encouter which took place between the two as Milo was journeying toward Lanuvium, his native place, and Clodius was on his way to Rome.]
 
I will now convict you, by infallible considerations, not as a fool, as I have often done, nor as a villain, as I always do, but as insane and mad. 
 
Could the mind of the wise man, fortified as with walls by depth of counsel, by patient endurance of human ills, by contempt of fortune; in short, by all the virtues—a mind that could not be expelled out of this community—shall such a mind be overpowered and taken by storm? 
 
For what do we call a community? Surely, not every assembly of thieves and ruffians? Is it then the entire rabble of outlaws and robbers assembled in one place? No; you will doubtless reply. Then this was no community when its laws had no force; when its courts of justice were prostrated; when the custom of the country had fallen into contempt; when, the magistrates having been driven away by the sword, there was not even the name of a senate in the state. 
 
Could that gang of ruffians, that assembly of villains which you head in the forum, could those remains of Catiline’s frantic conspiracy, diverted to your mad and guilty schemes, be termed a community? 

 
I could not therefore be expelled from a community, because no such then existed. I was summoned back to a community when there was a consul in the state, which at the former time there was not; when there was a senate, which then had ceased to exist; when the voice of the people was free; and when laws and equity, those bonds of a community, had been restored. 

—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 4 
 
Once again, reading Cicero has me going down the rabbit hole of Roman history. The elaborate schemes, the daring coups, and the brutal reprisals leave my head reeling, reminding me why a study of the past, like any art or science, can only be built upon the foundation of philosophy. Without a standard of true and false, and of right and wrong, there would be no way to distinguish up from down. 
 
I work with many historians, and I even call some of them my friends, but so many of them refuse to look beyond the measures of of wealth, power, and fame. Even when condemning acts as “monstrous” or “deplorable”, they are still buying into the madness of the vices, a view of the world driven solely by greed, lust, and vanity. Such an insanity goes deeper than any colloquial or clinical connotations, because it abandons the rule of reason itself, and can therefore no longer distinguish between good and evil. 
 
Where there is no understanding, there can be no goodwill, and where there is no goodwill, there can be no community. The life of Publius Clodius is a tragic example of what will happen when conscience gives way to concupiscence, which can sadly emerge in any time or place. Virtue springs from wisdom, which is sanity. Vice springs from ignorance, which is insanity. Everything hinges upon the order or the disorder within the mind. 
 
I do not doubt that Cicero had his prejudices, as we all do, but I will not assume malice on his part when he rebukes his opponents. He looks beyond his frustrations to the deeper values of human nature, in which a good man cannot be exiled from society, since a society is formed by sound judgment and free consent. Solidarity is impossible in the presence of lunacy. 
 
While the language may sound harsh, how else are we to describe all the misdeeds that go so contrary to reason? And, in the face of such folly, what could be more sane than the man who knows why his self-awareness is the key to his self-mastery? In the end, the tyrant, whether big or small, has renounced his intellect, so he is the worst sort of madman. 

—Reflection written in 5/1999 

IMAGE: Pasko Vucetic and Viktor Kovacic, Hatred and Madness (c. 1898) 

The Almightier

Carl Hassmann, The Almightier (1907) 

The Last Idols

Jean Delville, The Last Idols (1931) 

From Darkness to Light

Jean Delville, From Darkness to Light (1929) 

The Mother Road 14

Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3.5

But in life we are not to consider what should be the punishment of each offense, but what is the rule of right to each individual. We are to consider everything that is not becoming as wicked, and everything which is unlawful as heinous. 
 
What! Even in the most trifling matters? To be sure; for if we are unable to regulate the course of events, yet we may place a bound to our passions. If a player dances ever so little out of time, if a verse is pronounced by him longer or shorter by a single syllable than it ought to be, he is hooted and hissed off the stage. 
 
And shall you, who ought to be better regulated than any gesture, and more regular than any verse shall you be found faulty even in a syllable of conduct? I overlook the trifling faults of a poet; but shall I approve my fellow-citizen’s life while he is counting his misdeeds with his fingers? 
 
If some of these are trifling, how can it be regarded as more venial when whatever wrong is committed, is committed to the violation of reason and order? Now, if reason and order are violated, nothing can be added by which the offense can seem to be aggravated. 

—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3 
 
I run the risk of only treating some of my vices seriously, worried about the ones that might trigger a harsh reprisal, and willing to ignore the ones where I can weasel my way out. I check the numbers twice on my taxes, because I don’t want to get a hefty fine, but I breeze my way through neglecting a friend, because he’s unlikely to see behind my cheap excuses.
 
Sometimes the consequences are greater, and sometimes they are lesser, but when it comes to the state of my conscience, each instance of wickedness is a corruption of the whole. Where Prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice are broken, the harmony within the nature of the person is gravely disturbed. 
 
Do the little things count? Just as much as the big things, in the sense that a breakdown at one level is a breakdown at every level, much like a flaw in the tiniest component will upset the workings of the entire machine. I know this to be true when my snarky comments restrict my peace of mind just as much as a full-blown temper tantrum, or that covetous gaze is already a surrender of my self-control. 
 
This does not have to become what Catholics identify as scrupulosity, a distorted anxiety about sinning, if I can remember how my failings can always be opportunities for further improvement, and why they will cease to do me harm once I choose to be accountable for myself. Though it is fitting to seek the perfection of our nature, as much as it is within our power, learning from our mistakes is a necessary part of that process. Be firm with yourself, while also forgiving with yourself. 
 
We will be disappointed with the musician who can’t play in tune, or the actor who fumbles his lines, so why should we not expect at least a competence of character in our daily living? We have something backwards when the performer is booed off a stage for the slightest blunder, and yet we look the other way when the simplest of decencies are abandoned. 
 
What makes all the vices equally severe is that each and every one of them prevents our capacity to understand and to love. Whenever we go contrary to the rule of reason, we also make it impossible to exercise any goodwill. This is why the Stoics further made the radical claim that our vices are as crippling to us as a form of madness. 

—Reflection written in 5/1999 

The School of Silence

Jean Delville, The School of Silence (1929) 

The Forces

Jean Delville, The Forces (1924) 

The Basel Dance of Death 17

Matthäus Merian, The Basel Dance of Death: The Physician (1616) 

"Sir Doctor, observe the anatomy
on me, whether it is well made.
Because you have also dispatched many,
who all do now resemble me." 

"I have with my inspecting the water
helped both men and women.
Who will inspect my water now?
I must now go away with Death." 

Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3.4

But someone will say, what then? Does it make no difference, whether a man murders his father or his slave? If you instance these acts abstractedly, it is difficult to decide of what quality they are. 
 
If to deprive a parent of life is in itself a most heinous crime, the Saguntines were then parricides, because they chose that their parents should die as freemen rather than live as slaves. Thus, a case may happen in which there may be no guilt in depriving a parent of life, and very often we cannot without guilt put a slave to death. 
 
The circumstances therefore attending this case, and not the nature of the thing, occasion the distinction: these circumstances as they lean to either case, that case becomes the more favorable; but if they appertain alike to both, the acts are then equal. 
 
There is this difference—that in killing a slave, if wrong is done, it is a single sin that is committed; but many are involved in taking the life of a father. The object of violence is the man who begat you, the man who fed you, the man who brought you up, the man who gave your position in your home, your family, and the state. This offense is greater by reason of the number of sins involved in it, and is deserving of a proportionately greater punishment. 

—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3 
 
I have a vivid memory of one particular week while I was in high school, which challenged me to look at justice in a whole new light. 
 
When we arrived on Monday morning, all the chatter was about a celebrity who had been murdered over the weekend. Even among my progressive friends, there was much talk about a swift and severe retribution: “We’ve lost someone who touched so many lives! The killer needs to rot in jail for what he did!” 
 
Later that day, I noticed some police cars in an alley down the block. The owner of our local diner explained how a homeless man had been beaten to death during the night. His biggest concern was whether the delivery truck could be unloaded on time, and my schoolmates only shrugged when I mentioned what I felt was a terrible tragedy. 
 
For the next few days, the newspapers were full of moving tributes for a singer. I could not find any mention of the vagrant. I knew neither of them personally, but I had great difficulty believing that the life of the one was so much more valuable than that of the other. We place the dignity in the trappings of a life, and so easily forget what makes the man. 
 
Whatever the degree of the circumstances, the crime is still the same in kind, though it is often difficult to see through the layers of our many attachments and aversions. Why, for example, do we say that it is worse to kill our own kin than it is to kill a stranger? Or why are we more offended at the abuse of children and the elderly? 
 
Behind the impressions of malice or brutality, we are also compounding many different offenses into one, such that mistreating my wife is both a violation of her rights as person and the betrayal of a special bond of fidelity, and thus it should carry with it a harsher penalty. 
 
The wrong, of course, remains a wrong, regardless of the many different ways I may express it, or how many times I may commit it. I notice how the courts like to pile up endless lists of charges in cases where the public is especially outraged, though I sometimes wonder if one count is already more than enough to prove the point, and five or ten life sentences will hardly end up being all that different. 
 
At the very least, I should not say that my lie is less of an injustice because I only told it once, or that my treachery is less severe because it happened so long ago. I ought to feel regret for any of my vices, and not to believe that a greater or lesser penalty somehow changes my fundamental responsibility. 

—Reflection written in 5/1999 

Modern Stoicism?

The Mothers

Jean Delville, The Mothers (1919) 

The Victorious Spirit

Jean Delville, The Victorious Spirit (1914) 

Ellis Walker, Epictetus in Poetical Paraphrase 62

LXII. 

In outward actions to spend to much time, 
Is of stupidity too sure a sign; 
As long to exercise, and long to eat, 
To spend whole days, at least, to cram down meat, 
To try what drink your belly will contain, 
To be disgorg'd, to be piss'd out again, 
Then half an hour, like a dull grinning fool, 
To make wry faces over a close stool; 
Or like a brutish swine, in sensual strife, 
To wallow out whole hours with your dull wife, 
When all this precious time should be assign'd, 
For brave endeavours to improve your mind. 

William Hogarth, Marriage A-la-Mode 6

One of my most thoughtful students had a charming habit of asking herself questions out loud, which she would then answer after a brief pause. While others might find this odd, it impressed upon me the importance of an inner dialogue, even if it did happen to seep out into the open from time to time. 

While we were looking over this final entry in the series, she began to wonder: "Why does Hogarth have to be so over the top, so melodramatic? I understand that these folks are selfish, and lustful, and treacherous, but am I expected to believe that this sort of terrible punishment will befall all the villains of the world? I see all kinds of nasty people who are sitting pretty." 

I knew better than to say anything, because she soon offered her own reply: "But they aren't really sitting pretty, are they? Their vices leave them rotting on the inside, though that would make for sort of a boring painting, so Hogarth takes their internal misery and reflects it in an external story. It's like an allegory about the state of their souls. Their Fortune mirrors their Nature." 

Well, there you have it! Your sins might not drag you into poverty, or burden you with some wasting disease, or leave you completely alone, but they will never permit you a moment of peace. 

Silvertongue has been hanged at Tyburn for the murder of the Earl, and the Countess can only return to her perpetually cash-strapped father. Though she has incurred no legal penalty, her life of status is now definitely over. Not even the needs of her child can overcome her guilt—or is it just shame? She has taken a fatal dose of laudanum. 

Only the old maid seems to show any grief. The father is already removing his daughter's wedding ring, the last vestige of her former glory, in a desperate attempt to feed his avarice. The starving dog proves how far he has now fallen. 

The child gives her mother one last kiss, though the marks on her face and the brace on her leg betray her final fate. The doctor berates the servant for having provided the drug, even as he appears more concerned with his professional pride than with his patient's comfort. 

While I do know of some swindlers, dissemblers, and philanderers who found themselves penniless and friendless, I fear that most of them are living under the illusion of success. Don't let yourself be tricked by the facade. 

William Hogarth, Marriage A-la-Mode VI: The Lady's Death (painting, 1743) 

William Hogarth, Marriage A-la-Mode VI: The Lady's Death (engraving, 1743) 

The God-Man

Jean Delville, The God-Man (1903) 

The Death of Orpheus

Jean Delville, The Death of Orpheus (1893) 

Prometheus

Jean Delville, Prometheus (1907) 

The School of Plato

Jean Delville, The School of Plato (1898) 

Sayings of Publilius Syrus 194

Fortune makes many loans, but gives no presents. 

Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3.3

You borrow, says one, these views from philosophers. I was afraid you would have told me that I borrowed it from panderers. 
 
But Socrates reasoned in the manner you do—by Hercules, you say well; for it is recorded that he was a learned and a wise person. 
 
Meanwhile as we are contending, not with blows, but with words, I ask you whether good men should inquire what was the opinion of porters and laborers, or that of the wisest of mankind? Especially too as no truer sentiment than this can be found, nor one more conducive to the interests of human life. 
 
For what influence is there which can more deter men from the commission of every kind of evil, than if they become sensible that there are no degrees in sin? That the crime is the same, whether they offer violence to private persons or to magistrates. That in whatever families they have gratified their illicit desire, the turpitude of their lust is the same. 

—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3 
 
The observant teacher quickly discovers all of the ways his students will try to escape from an argument that makes them feel uncomfortable, and one of them is what I like to call the “stigma of snobbery”, a sort of corollary to the informal fallacy of ad populum. 
 
“Yeah, well only eggheads say things like that! Why should I listen to some snooty philosopher?” 
 
Indeed, if you are merely referring to a professional scholar, he may have much to teach you about footnotes and etymologies, even as he may not have much to offer you on becoming a wiser and a better human being. But do you include a Socrates, or a Diogenes, or an Epictetus in such a category? Were their noses in books, or were they out on the streets? 
 
If I want to get something done right, whose guidance should I seek? It is the carpenter who can show me how to craft a chair, not the banker. It is the farmer who can advise me on growing a crop, not the lawyer. And it is the philosopher, properly understood, who can teach me right from wrong, not the celebrity demagogue of the hour. 
 
The power to master a trade is within all of us, though only a few will freely choose the self-discipline necessary for such an excellence. Do not confuse the pretension of elitism with the authenticity of merit. 
 
The Stoic claim about all virtues and vices being equal in kind is far more than a theoretical notion. It does me a world of good to remember why there is no such thing as a little bit of theft, or a little bit of adultery, or a little bit of murder, and that whatever the degrees of circumstance, each and every instance is a violation of my nature. As much as I justified the trifling diversion as harmless, it was a surrender of character from the very beginning. 
 
When I first began to take my Catholic faith seriously, I was taken aback by the stark simplicity of an old-school confession: “number and species”. I was not being asked to provide any elaborate narrative for my sins, as if this could somehow alleviate my responsibility, and I was just required to state what I had done, and how many times I had done it.
 
If it involved mortal sin—grave matter, full knowledge, and deliberate consent—then each and every instance was itself a deal-breaker, which completely separated me from sanctifying grace. Behind the formal language, it turned out to be a healthy dose of common sense. 
 
The libertine will assume I am being priggish and repressed, but I have found that gently nurturing my conscience, without falling back on any cheap excuses, has allowed me to become far more compassionate and merciful: I know precisely what sort of a total jerk I have been, so I can hardly hold it against you. Beware the equivocation of the knave! 

—Reflection written in 5/1999 

Satan's Treasures

Jean Delville, Satan's Treasures (1895) 

The Love of Souls

Jean Delville, The Love of Souls (1900) 

The Oblivion of Passions

Jean Delville, The Oblivion of Passions (1913) 

The Angel of Splendor

Jean Delville, The Angel of Splendor (1894) 

Maxims of Goethe 86

Whether memoirs are written by masters of servants, or by servants of masters, the processes always meet. 

IMAGE: Nicolaes Maes, The Idle Servant (1655) 

Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3.2

Will any man call a person honest, who, having a deposit of ten pounds of gold made to him without any witness, so that he might take advantage of it with impunity, shall restore it, and yet should not do the same in the case of ten thousand pounds? 
 
Can a man be accounted temperate who checks one inordinate passion and gives a loose to another? 
 
Virtue is uniform, conformable to reason, and of unvarying consistency; nothing can be added to it that can make it more than virtue; nothing can be taken from it, and the name of virtue be left. If good offices are done with an upright intention, nothing can be more upright than upright is; and therefore it is impossible that anything should be better than what is good. 
 
It therefore follows that all vices are equal; for the obliquities of the mind are properly termed vices. Now we may infer, that as all virtues are equal, therefore all good actions, when they spring from virtues, ought to be equal likewise; and therefore it necessarily follows, that evil actions springing from vices, should be also equal. 

—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3 
 
If I look at it from the side of my circumstances, then one crime can be radically different from another, either more or less severe, but if I look at it from the side of my character, then every crime does my soul an identical amount of harm. A virtue is the complete affirmation of my humanity, and thus it can become no better, while a vice is a complete rejection of my humanity, and thus it can become no worse. 
 
This takes some getting used to. It is not a denial of our complexity, where both good and bad are at work within us, nor does it ignore the very real consequences of our choices. It rather asks us to measure our progress by the fulfillment of our whole being, instead of just subtracting some points over here, and then adding a few more over there. 
 
Once again, I find both of Cicero’s examples to be extremely helpful. A man may commit fraud at the corner store for $10, or he may commit fraud on the stock market for $10 million, yet the duplicity itself is just the same. Another fellow may give up the booze for the new year, and he then starts to gorge himself on donuts, yet the gluttony itself is just the same. 
 
When I worked in social services, it was common for the staff to lift their lunch money out of the petty cash box; the boss wasn’t looking, and surely no one would care about such a small amount. There was much outrage and pearl-clutching, however, when it turned out that a manager had paid for his vacation to San Francisco on the company credit card. Crucify him! 
 
When I was in college, I found myself in a circle with unwritten rules about cheating on girlfriends or boyfriends. If you fooled around when you were drunk, this was considered a harmless amusement, but if you dared to go all the way when you were sober, you would face the wrath of the entire community. I was not surprised when so many of my peers later had failed marriages. 
 
Over the years, I have grappled with countless temptations, some of which I mastered, many others which I allowed to master me. One of my greatest mistakes was to underestimate the little enticements, thinking it more important to take giant leaps instead of baby steps. I was forgetting how a man who cannot be good in small things cannot be good in big things, because any vice, at any scale, is equally an affront to his dignity. To sell myself for a trinket is as bad as selling myself for a kingdom. 
 
As the perfection of our very nature, there is nothing higher than virtue. As the denial of our very nature, there is nothing lower than vice. Though the debts we owe to others may be greater or lesser, the debts we owe to ourselves are always absolute. 

—Reflection written in 5/1999 

IMAGE: Briton Riviere, The Temptation in the Wilderness (1898) 

Delphic Maxims 95

Γυναικὸς ἄρχε 

Lead your wife 

IMAGE: Jan van Eyck, The Arnolfini Portrait (1434) 

James Vila Blake, Sonnets from Marcus Aurelius 28

28. 

Καταφρονήσει μού τις; ὄψεται. ἐγὼ δὲ ὄψομαι ἵνα μή τι καταφρονήσεως ἄξιον πράσσων ἣ λέγωνεὑρίσκωμαι. μισήσει; ὄψεται. ἀλλὰ ἐγὼ εὐμενὴς καὶ εὔνους παντὶ καὶ τούτῳ αὐτῷ ἕτοιμος τὸ παρορώμενον δεῖξαι, οὐκ ὀνειδιστικῶς οὐδὲ ὡς κατεπιδεικνύμενος ὅτι ἀνέχομαι, ἀλλὰ γνησίως καὶ χρηστῶς. 

May it happen that some one disdains or looks down on me? That will be his own business; but J will see to it that I be not found doing or saying anything worthy of disdain. May some one haply hate me? That will be his own affair; but it is my business to show myself moved with kindness and good will toward every one, ready to show even to this very one who has ill used me his mistaken view, not rebukingly, nor as displaying to others that 1 put up with it, but genuinely and simply.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.13  

28. 

Doth any one contemn me, let him look to ’t! 

How recks it me to wrangle it at all? 

My part it is to rule me so withal, 

And live so, that no cynic mood can hoot. 

Hath any hated me, let him look to ’t, 

Have, if he will, a sole, ne’er double, brawl; 

My part is to hate not, and know ’twill fall 

That as the tree is trained so is the fruit. 

If one have stripes, fangs, claws and fur, 

As such there be among us human creatures 

In spiritual mark, why, then we see 

A tiger with the tiger manner stir, 

And tiger thrift go with the tiger features. 

But I, who am a man, must man-like be. 

IMAGE: Hu Zaobin, Victory or Defeat (c. 1930) 

Vigilance

Sayings of Ramakrishna 283

A kite with a fish in its beak was followed by a host of crows and other kites, which were screeching and pecking at it, and were trying to snatch the fish away. 

In whatever direction it went the crowd of kites and crows followed it, screeching and cawing. 

Getting tired of this annoyance, the kite let go the fish, when it was instantly caught by another kite, and at once the crowd of kites and crows transferred their kind attentions to the new owner of the fish. 

The first kite was left unmolested, and sat calmly on the branch of a tree. 

Seeing this quiet and tranquil state of the bird, the Avadhûta, saluting it, said, "You are my Guru, O Kite; for you have taught me that so long as man does not throw off the burden of the worldly desires he carries, he cannot be undisturbed and at peace with himself." 

Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3.1

Paradox 3: That All Misdeeds Are in Themselves Equal, and Good Deeds the Same 
 
The matter it may be said is a trifle, but the crime is enormous; for crimes are not to be measured by the issue of events, but from the bad intentions of men. The fact in which the sin consists may be greater in one instance and less in another, but guilt itself, in whatsoever light you behold it, is the same. 
 
A pilot oversets a ship laden with gold or one laden with straw: in value there is some difference, but in the ignorance of the pilot there is none. 
 
Your illicit desire has fallen upon an obscure female. The mortification affects fewer persons than if it had broken out in the case of some high-born and noble virgin; nevertheless it has been guilty, if it be guilty to overstep the mark. 
 
When you have done this, a crime has been committed; nor does it matter in aggravation of the fault how far you run afterward; certainly it is not lawful for anyone to commit sin, and that which is unlawful is limited by this sole condition, that it is shown to be wrong. 
 
If this guilt can neither be made greater nor less (because, if the thing was unlawful, therein sin was committed), then the vicious acts which spring out of that which is ever one and the same must necessarily be equal. 
 
Now if virtues are equal among themselves, it must necessarily follow that vices are so likewise; and it is most easy to be perceived that a man cannot be better than good, more temperate than temperate, braver than brave, nor wiser than wise. 

—from Cicero, Stoic Paradoxes 3 
 
As if it weren’t shocking enough to hear that virtue is the only human good, the Stoics then proceed to claim that all virtues are equally good, and that all vices are equally bad. This is why I am plodding through this section even more slowly than usual. 
 
I would like to think that I am sensitive to subtleties, and yet I also run the danger of piling on so many conditions that I end up erasing the original distinction. Initially, it didn’t sit right with me that good and evil could be so clearly delineated, although I eventually discovered why my confusion arose from my own vacillation, a desire for a convenient escape clause from my own responsibilities. 
 
Even as we should rightly speak of more or less, this can only be gauged by first recognizing a simple state of presence or absence. However great the extent of the degrees, the identity always remains one and the same in kind, just as increasing or decreasing the quantity does not alter the underlying existence of a quality. 
 
Furthermore, as much as the circumstances will vary, the intentions behind our human acts are either in accord with nature or contrary to nature, such that an offense may be viewed as big or small, narrow or broad, but it stands as an offense nonetheless, and it therefore serves to deny us a life of excellence. Fiddle with the accidents as much as you wish, the essence will stay constant. 
 
If that comes across as too abstract, Cicero’s examples are refreshingly grounded in everyday experience. Regardless of the cargo, the captain was still careless at the helm. Regardless of her background, the playboy still treated the woman shamefully. The slacker is a slacker, and the scoundrel is a scoundrel. 
 
I will never forget a nasty little fellow I once knew, who crashed my friend’s car, but refused to take the blame on the grounds that it was already such a wreck. I had to remind myself that beating him senseless could not be justified on the grounds that he was already such a selfish bastard. 
 
A few years later, I watched in horror as a frat boy ridiculed a young lady until she burst into tears. I couldn’t find the words to put him in his place, so I merely stared at him in disbelief. “Chill out, dude,” he said. “It’s not like she’s a hottie or anything.” This is what happens when we grade our behavior on a sliding scale of utility. 
 
Whether it is to save my hide or to avoid an awkward moment, to lie is to lie. Whether it is to win the big contract or to satisfy a whim, to steal is to steal. So too, any integrity is an act of courage, and any gift is an act of kindness, no matter the stakes. The true value of the deed is in the purity of the disposition, not in calculating the most favorable outcomes. 
 
In other words, virtues and vices cannot be tabulated on a business ledger. One person can be richer than another, but all good people are equal to one another, whatever their other assets might be. 

—Reflection written in 5/1999 

IMAGE: Quentin Matsys, Ill-Matched Lovers (c. 1525)