We're Sick of Each Other

Read this great article comparing pinterest and facebook.

"What sets Pinterest apart and makes it so appealing is its focus on who we want to be -- not on what we're doing, where we've gone, how important we are or how beloved. While much of the content shared on existing social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare screams, "Look at me," Pinterest posts urge, "Look at this." At least for now, the site offers a refreshing haven away from the boosterism and boasting that plague so many sites."

Art is Work

Chapter "Approaching the Mystery" in The War of Art, (109).

Why have I stressed professionalism so heavily in the preceding chapters? Because the most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.

Why is this so important?

Because when we sit down day after day and keep grinding, something mysterious starts to happen. A process is set into motion by which, inevitably and infallibly, heaven comes to our aid. Unseen forces enlist in our cause; serendipity reinforces our purpose.

This is the other secret that real artists know and wannabe writers don't. When we sit down each day and do our work, power concentrates around us. The Muse takes note of our dedication. She approves. We have earned favor in her sight. When we sit down and work, we become like a magnetized rod that attracts iron filings. Ideas come. Insights acrete.

Just as Resistance has its seat in hell, so Creation has its home in heaven. And it's not just a witness, but an eager and active ally.

What I call Professionalism someone else might call the Artist's Code of the Warrior's Way. It's an attitude of egolessness and service. The Knights of the Round Table were chaste and self-effacing. Yet they dueled dragons.

We're facing dragons too. Fire-breathing griffins of the soul, whom we must outfight and outwit to reach the treasure of our self-in-potential and to release the maiden who is God's plan and destiny for ourselves and the answer to why we were put on this planet.

If you want to pursue a woman...

What does it mean when a man falls in love with a radiant face across the room? It may mean that he has some soul work to do. Instead of pursuing the woman and and trying to get her alone, he needs to go alone himself, perhaps to a mountain or cabin, for three months, write poetry, canoe down a river, and dream. That would save some women a lot of trouble.

Iron John, Robert Bly

Chivalrous Virtues

These 12 virtues were the basis of the knightly code of conduct. It was aimed at others, not at making yourself look good. I think it's so interesting that they chose these!

1) Trustworthy | Integritas: a man's word is his bond. Words matter. You mean what you say.

2) Loyal | Fidelitas: you stand by a friend even if they are wrong, even when you don't feel like it.

3) Helpful | Succurrere: be proactive about having resources and skills so that, if and when a need comes, you can pitch in.

4) Friendly | Benevolus: go out of your way to make others feel welcome. It's not about you, it's aimed at them.

5) Courteous | Urbanus: be aware of your surroundings. Do seemingly trivial things for someone else if they matter to that person.

6) Kind | Benignus: "celebrate others."

7) Obedient | Referre: there is an objective standard outside of you as an individual.

8) Cheerful | Hilaris: live in the light of knowing God is in control. Things are okay when they don't appear to be.

9) Thrifty | Frugalis: make most of your time, resources, money, and talent. Don't squander it.

10) Brave | Fortitudo: move forward, even if you fear to do what is right.

11) Clean | Abolere: well, you know.

12) Reverent | Sanctus: admire what is good.

Transformation

We all want to feel like we are a part of something that matters. It's great that social media platforms create an opportunity where we can identify with movements, churches, causes, non profits - and promote them on our own pages.

Even though it seems harmless - sometimes I get suspicious that this interaction is training me to rely on a "feeling" of connection to a good cause, instead of the good it's actually doing.

I find myself valuing connection to a cause "out there" more than acts of kindness, forgiveness, sacrifice, friendship--things that have been transformational circa forever--and I can do them right here, right now, without a computer.

Without discounting the benefits of using social media, I only mean to capitalize on it's dark side. There's a grey haze over my friends, family, and myself, like we're all under the illusion that out there we'll "find it." Whatever that thing is...the thing that feels big and important and has me at the center, because somehow in promoting this movement, I'm promoting myself as the kind of person who promotes good movements.

We have more than enough platforms to make us feel like we're changing the world, but are we? Tweeting about trendy non-profits does not make you philanthropic...but spending time with inner city kids will. Especially when no one is there to instagram you doing it.

Like | Dislike

As a kind of junior but powerful version of romanticism and existentialism combined, the emotivist movement insisted that all moral discourse could be reduced in any case to statements of likes and dislikes. "Murder is wrong" simply means "I don't like murder." "Giving to charity is good" means "I like people giving to charity." From this point of view, following moral rules and following your own inclinations both boil down to pretty much the same thing. Often today people who are discussing moral choices will say that this person "prefers" Option A or that person "applauds" Option B, as though moral choices were a matter of personal perference or taste. Sometimes they speak of "moral attitudes" as though what a particular person believed about the rights and wrongs of certain actions were simply an "attitude, an innate prejudice which they hadn't bothered to think through.

N.T. Wright, After you Believe, pg 50

Telos

Coined by Aristotle, Telos (τέλος) is one of my favorite concepts in Greek philosophy.

Telos is the ultimate thing you're aiming at, your main ambition, your life goal, the thing that drives you. Once you know what it is, then you decide on strengths of character which will enable you to arrive at that goal, followed by a process of moral training by which these strengths turn into habits.

So you have three things: Your main goal, the character to get you there, and daily habits that are character-forming.

Do you know what your telos is?

I would love it if someone asked me that at a bar instead of what I did for a living. What a terrible question. Sometimes I get roped into it, thinking that work is my identity. I start believing my life ambition is to be Ellie Goulding, or a great film director, but those things don't serve as very good "ultimates." This awful culture has us tricked into believing that it's something we do, when it's supposed to be something we are becoming.

Aristotle's telos was a fully flourishing human being, rounded, wise, and formed in character. He had four principal virtues: courage, justice, prudence, and temperance. He said these were, "The hinges upon which the great door to human fulfillment and flourishing would swing open" (15).

Fulfillment. Flourishing. Like that swimming sensation in your nerves, when every part of your being is coming together, and coming to life. Aristotle was onto something, and Jesus only added to it, by inviting you to live that kind of life with people who have the same goal. It doesn't always look like the illusions of fortune, status, or success, but it has everything else we're hungry for, like love, contentment, knowing and being known.

I think that kind of telos brings out a certain magical quality of life, and I'm lucky to have discovered it so soon.


Quotes taken from N.T. Wright, After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters.