A True Enemy

I prefer an enemy who tells the truth than an enemy which lies; an enemy which seems more like to us, and which we could slip into thinking well of.

It is far better to know who is your enemy and who is your friend than to be duped by a false friend- someone who is actually your enemy but lies to get something from you.

I feel as if Marxism has been the West's lying enemy/false friend. It spoke sweet nothings to us (sweet things that do not exist in reality), and we listened. We took some of what it said; we believed it, and we still don't know how much (even I keep finding out more assumptions I have that I realise are false). We are taken in and we do not realise it because of the deceitful enemy who masqueraded as a friend oh so many years ago. The more obvious bits we think we have eradicated, but really we didn't know how deeply the world bought into Marxism. And we don't know what we've lost. We don't remember anything before Marxism took us in, so we do not know that we have lost something precious.

(Marxism is merely an example, though a very important one to me, of a paradigm I see in myself. I prefer a clear enemy than a hard-to-peg one. You want to be able to fight your enemy, and you can't do it without understanding your enemy.)

On Getting Used To Things

This will be rather harder to articulate, I believe.

From my own experience, I have learned that clearly we can learn to like things we don't at present like. The process might vary from person to person, but generally if you are exposed to something enough, whether you once hated it, you will grow used to it, and often grow not to mind it, and possibly even grow to like it.

People know this (at least in some areas) in relation to social media and being around certain people enough. You begin to grow like them. You begin to like the same things they like (yes, we may all protest that we don't, but consider it- if it's true, it's very important). Hence some people will say to beware what people you spend most of your time with (and even how you spend that time), and it is the basis for the extreme that some Christians fall into of avoiding 'polluting influences'; that even being exposed once to an 'evil thing' will contaminate you. I do not agree with this because there's no room for anyone figuring out what is bad- you just have to trust some other person and it doesn't even allow for learning wisdom and discernment; for growing.

I believe it is very important to expose ourselves to good things to shape goodness in ourselves, and to counter the influence of bad things all around. We will not even know all of the bad things that are barraging us, and for that reason it is even more important to edify ourselves with good things.

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

- Philippians 4:8, KJV

Realise that if the Bible says this, it means it. Christians must consider why it would be so important to emphasise it as much as this.

Due to my kind of classical background, I have believed it to be important to expose myself more and more to the truly excellent things, like good music, good literature, well-thought-out ideas, just whatever I believe is truly edifying. It is also clearly good for me to do this. I really am whole-er, less dark and despairing, when I am seeing more of those good things. It's not that in my current state it makes some crazy difference; I merely find myself less hopeless than I thought possible. The beauty of a well-composed piece of Baroque music is a boon. Of course what is good has to be debated, but it really ought to be, rather than where we seem to be today, hardly discussing the hierarchy of badness and goodness.

One very interesting thing I often forget is how very, very important it is to make certain I do not fall into the trap of noticing all the things that are wrong in life. I have been, of course, concerned about what's happening these days, as anyone likely is, regardless of which position they take on The Issues. I have tended to focus on what's wrong, instead of 1. focusing on the good elements I can see present, and 2. focusing on the good that I still have a choice to apply in my life. In other words, I am not thinking of what I need, but rather what I imagine is harming me, or impeding me (o victim that I am!), which is the wrong way to go about getting what you need. I do know what I ought to be doing, so I ought to be doing it! And doing what ought to be done is the actual way God prescribes for us to fight the forces of darkness. Christians had better decide if they trust God on this.

Focus on the negative influences us. However, I never see how it does so until I am already fighting against it; saying no to the addictive desire to understand problems, looking instead for something good. If one focuses on the good, I posit one will be more able to see and understand problems, and therefore more able to act. Perhaps the addictive desire to see the negative side of things prevents one from changing it because we know if it's solved, we won't still have that 'scab to pick', so to speak. It certainly is the case in relationships that we refuse to allow people to say they're sorry so that we can still enjoy criticising and finding fault with them.

This reminds me of the what C. S. Lewis said- the better we become, the more we see our badness.

What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.

- C. S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew (Whether you see it being related or not, I'm just leaving this here.)

Lack of Hatred is Not Love

We think it is worse to hate than not to love. But to love is a Christian's duty- being a lover is one of perfected man's identities.

We should love all people, we should learn what is right and good and truly beautiful and love that. We must be lovers, not merely not-haters- it is not enough not to hate things; to be lukewarm towards God and what God created.

So we must seek what is excellent, in the world, in people. It is hard to love people without looking for some good in them- that is why the two  doctrines, the Image of God and the Fall of Man, are so important. We must understand others are 'as good' as we are. We must understand we are 'as bad' as everyone else is. These are the facts that are the remedy for the disinterest and cynicism we often feel towards things- particularly the things we feel it towards which we know are not in and of themselves bad.

This whole 'not hating is not enough/is not love' could be applied to the subject of judgement. We are told not to judge others. The Bible implies in many passages that we are, in fact, called to find the good in things, and I think about it as, we are to amplify the good we see. In the case of 'disagreeable conversation', one applies this by looking to find where the other person is right, where the two people can agree, as well as in a possible case of the other conversant's ignorance, where they got it right. Emphasise the good, make clear where Truth is, go back to the very point of disagreement, and things are a lot better than trying to nitpick apart the other person's arguments, finding everything which is wrong with what they said and even with themselves (it easily devolves into ad hominem attacks).

Policy and Method

It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking a certain way of doing things is what will work, but as Christians we're basically told that that will not necessarily work. Unless you happen to consider as your method the way that God already does things, which is usually not the case as it's hard to accept.

It is easy to fall into trusting policies and methods to solve problems. From what I've seen so far, the actual solution is usually something we don't expect. In the moment we often think we understand problems completely in the big picture, but the recurring fact is that we never, ever really do. Especially when we really think we do- the thing we are inclined to make an exception of this rule. Even those of us who accept this will make exceptions- I do it, even though I've seen this since I was a child. I will want to say that this one thing always works, but it just doesn't. I have also learned that what makes 'this one thing' work in the cases where it does is wisdom.

The example of where I was thinking about this was specifically government policy, I suppose. So many at this time think that if we enacted something in policy, then things would be solved. I am at the point where I see that it will not work, and it probably isn't even possible, to 'fix' what's happening with policy (go ahead, for now, and imagine which side I'm on ;) ). The only true solution is to go back to the most basic level of family and church and do what we ought to have been doing all this time, but forgot because we go off into our Executive Mindsets and think Big and Nationwide is the solution.

God is counterintuitive- He turned the world topsy-turvy. History shows that He is right, too, I believe. The falling of small stones starts an avalanche, and likely the beginning seed that started what we see is not even possible to find out (much to my consternation). I have begun to be very strongly convinced that the Christian's little stones is exactly what God has been drilling into our heads from the beginning of Scripture. Every little principle, love of neighbour. No. It is not a specific kind of love of neighbour. It is merely love of neighbour, agape, charity. And the trouble of that is that you have to follow God and actually look to Him first to find the definitions. That is actually The Christian Walk- we don't know it all, we are gradually learning how little we know, and constantly having to hold out our hands empty and say 'I do not know, You do- show me what I must do.'

We do not trust God if we rely first on the world's prescription of How To Fix Things (and what they should look like, too), and then when that fails turn to God's way- this only makes us mercenary Christians. Kings and nations fall to the ground. We know this. All the Wisdom of Man will fall into dust. It does not continue. It is a deception, an illusion we keep giving in to, even when it betrays us right and left (to our anxiety and despair). The only solution is God's way, the way that fits with all the facets of reality.

What is Hope?

Christian hope is not idealistic in the sense of being unattainable desire. It doesn't make sense that any hope should be unattainable desire. In our hearts, the idea that hopeful things cannot be reached often creeps in; in cynicism we criticise ourselves and others as wanting too much and wanting impossible things. God asks us to open our mouths and He will fill them (or else it was hands, but bear with me), so why should we not be even radically hopeful? Do we believe He exists? I see Satan's influence creeping in when we are not incredibly hopeful, so hopeful that we seem insane to those weighed down and blinded by cynicism.

Still, though I said that about radical hopefulness, I believe that hope is, should be, realistic longing and yearning. The thing we hope in ought to be possible, indeed. The thing that makes it look radical is that the possibilities we as Christians believe in look fairytale-ish from our earthly standpoint.

Ultimately Christian hope looks forward, believing that 'Death is swallowed up in Victory.' In fact, the hope of the Christian is like believing it has happened, as if stepping into the Eternal Moment that C. S. Lewis talks about, seeing all things stretched out underneath, the Map of the History of Reality laid out so that the End (new Beginning) can be seen. Perhaps that is because the Spirit in us brings us up into that knowledge, into the certainty of the is-but-not-yet, this story's perfect ending.

I feel as if, because of my affluent life here, I see this vision more imperfectly. To those who really suffer greatly, the fact that there needs to be justice (that good ending) is stark. It seems that due to affluence, the Western church has largely lost needing to be radically like Christ. The church lost its zeal, and must recover it.

So I ask Christians: Do we believe in God and all of Who He is, and what that means? Do we believe in the story He tells us about Himself, us and Reality? Do we, if the answer to the first question is yes, have that hope in the trajectory? It is our fire. God, His thereness, is our great fuel.

Character of the Happy Warrior by Wordsworth

Character of the Happy Warrior 

BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH 

Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he
That every man in arms should wish to be?
—It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought
Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought
Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought:
Whose high endeavours are an inward light
That makes the path before him always bright;
Who, with a natural instinct to discern
What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn;
Abides by this resolve, and stops not there,
But makes his moral being his prime care;
Who, doomed to go in company with Pain,
And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train!
Turns his necessity to glorious gain;
In face of these doth exercise a power
Which is our human nature's highest dower:
Controls them and subdues, transmutes, bereaves
Of their bad influence, and their good receives:
By objects, which might force the soul to abate
Her feeling, rendered more compassionate;
Is placable—because occasions rise
So often that demand such sacrifice;
More skilful in self-knowledge, even more pure,
As tempted more; more able to endure,
As more exposed to suffering and distress;
Thence, also, more alive to tenderness.
—'Tis he whose law is reason; who depends
Upon that law as on the best of friends;
Whence, in a state where men are tempted still
To evil for a guard against worse ill,
And what in quality or act is best
Doth seldom on a right foundation rest,
He labours good on good to fix, and owes
To virtue every triumph that he knows:
—Who, if he rise to station of command,
Rises by open means; and there will stand
On honourable terms, or else retire,
And in himself possess his own desire;
Who comprehends his trust, and to the same
Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim;
And therefore does not stoop, nor lie in wait
For wealth, or honours, or for worldly state;
Whom they must follow; on whose head must fall,
Like showers of manna, if they come at all:
Whose powers shed round him in the common strife,
Or mild concerns of ordinary life,
A constant influence, a peculiar grace;
But who, if he be called upon to face
Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined
Great issues, good or bad for human kind,
Is happy as a Lover; and attired
With sudden brightness, like a Man inspired;
And, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law
In calmness made, and sees what he foresaw;
Or if an unexpected call succeed,
Come when it will, is equal to the need:
—He who, though thus endued as with a sense
And faculty for storm and turbulence,
Is yet a Soul whose master-bias leans
To homefelt pleasures and to gentle scenes;
Sweet images! which, wheresoe'er he be,
Are at his heart; and such fidelity
It is his darling passion to approve;
More brave for this, that he hath much to love:—
'Tis, finally, the Man, who, lifted high,
Conspicuous object in a Nation's eye,
Or left unthought-of in obscurity,—
Who, with a toward or untoward lot,
Prosperous or adverse, to his wish or not—
Plays, in the many games of life, that one
Where what he most doth value must be won:
Whom neither shape or danger can dismay,
Nor thought of tender happiness betray;
Who, not content that former worth stand fast,
Looks forward, persevering to the last,
From well to better, daily self-surpast:
Who, whether praise of him must walk the earth
For ever, and to noble deeds give birth,
Or he must fall, to sleep without his fame,
And leave a dead unprofitable name—
Finds comfort in himself and in his cause;
And, while the mortal mist is gathering, draws
His breath in confidence of Heaven's applause:
This is the happy Warrior; this is he
That every man in arms should wish to be.

--

Critical Condition of YouTube made mention of this as I randomly forayed back into her corner of the internet- I hadn't been watching her for a long while now, thinking I wouldn't be particularly interested. It was wrong that I wouldn't be interested, needless to say, at least because of this poem and the thoughts in her head that made her think of it.

This is exactly the sort of thing I have been thinking about a lot recently- the virtuous man. I have been trying to remember the images of beautiful virtue and oldsiness that pervaded my sense of how things ought to be as a child. I was more in touch with it then... I hadn't tried for so many years to understand the mind of the modern world. If I could regret anything, it might be that I had tried to comprehend and get into the modern culture's head, though it may prove useful.

We need to decide: do we believe in this picture above, and others like it about other things? Or do we believe in this false equality, this equalisation of all things, this lack of morality and virtue? Do we believe in a colourless, odourless, senseless world of grey drudgery? At least, that is how I see it, but I will have to expound on that later, I assume.

To Be Actually Virtuous - Considering Nicomachean Ethics

...it is more characteristic of virtue to do good than to have good done to one, and more characteristic to do what is noble than not to do what is base; and it is not hard to see that giving implies doing good and doing what is noble, and taking implies having good done to one or not acting basely.

- The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, translated by Sir David Ross

One is not good simply by doing no evil. At least it is not virtuous simply not to be doing evil. One could conceivably be doing nothing but lying about, eating and sleeping (though according to some that might be quite enough like 'doing evil'). People who do not do evil may simply not have the opportunity or inclination to do it and that means nothing to whether they could resist temptation when it butted its ugly head.

A man who is virtuous is likely to be able to resist temptation; he has a strengthened will, strengthened by the exercise that doing-good is. He is a man who could be trusted to be able to do what is needed - a man you can really depend on - because clearly he has been able to defy his whims already.

Of course some people appear to do good things who find it easy to do them; who do not have to ‘mortify the flesh’ to do those things. So, as with courage where you must be afraid to be able to be brave, so with virtue you must be reluctant to do whatever good you must do for it even to be virtue, and for the doing of it to produce a change in you- to strengthen you into greater resolve later.

Temperance and the Intemperate - Considering Nicomachean Ethics

...as the child should live according to the direction of his tutor, so the appetitive element should live according to rational principle. Hence the appetitive element in a temperate man should harmonize with the rational principle; for the noble is the mark at which both aim, and the temperate man craves for the things he ought, as he ought, and when he ought; and this is what rational principle directs.

- The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle, translated by Sir David Ross
The ‘rational principle’ is the parent of the adult, mature person. If you do not let yourself be ruled by reason, you cannot yet be considered mature, or adult. Ideally, the child grows up to become self-ruled; to cast off the just bands of his parents, so to speak.

Until you submit to reason ('the rational principle'), you cannot be trusted; nothing will contain you but other men and authorities, or you will only appear to be contained by the fact that you are lazy and unambitious.

Of course it is not right that people should assume a person is not mature if they happen to disagree. But it is perfectly natural that a person who cannot govern himself should find out that nobody will depend on him- one would hope that would be the natural consequence, and that he would mind it, but often people don't. To find himself abandoned by people of good self-government and reason is not surprising. One should always be curious why one is being ignored; perhaps it is because one is immature.

However, so also the others may ignore you because they are not mature and find your self-government a hindrance to license- indeed ‘intemperate’ people do find mature people an irritating chastisement simply by the mature people being- mature people seem usually to do everything so differently from childish people. In being temperate, temperate people are a living accusation of all who are not like them, and thus are often disliked.

Courage, Bravery - Considering Nicomachean Ethics

...the end which courage sets before itself would seem to be pleasant, but to be concealed by the attending circumstances, as happens also in athletic contests; for the end at which boxers aim is pleasant—the crown and the honours—but the blows they take are sitressing to flesh and blood, and painful, and so is their whole exertion; and because the blows and the exertions are many the end, which is but small, appears to have nothing pleasant about it. And so, if the case of courage is similar, death and wounds will be painful to the brave man and against his will, but he will face them because it is noble to do so or because it is base not to do so.  And the more he is possessed of virtue in its entirety and the happier he is, the more he will be pained at the thought of death; for life is best worth living for such a man, and he is knowingly losing the greatest goods, and this is painful.

- The Nichomachean Ethics of Aristotle, translated by Sir David Ross

Yet ironically courage makes you willing to die, so courage being the road to happiness cannot mean a happiness that requires still being alive. It must be a happiness that is looking beyond this life.

So the point of courage is to bear the most fearsome and painful things well, and the most frightening thing to us is death, the ultimate thing that courage does for us, so to speak, is to make us still capable in the face of death; to allow us our faculties and wherewithal when we could give up. But then, if its most ultimate use is in the face of nonexistence, so to speak, what is the point of it at all? If it led us to accept death, and we did die, it would in a sense be some horrible, crude joke- a thing promising good but instead bringing nothing at all- even our own annihilation.

So if the goal of life is to live, what is the value of virtue if such a virtue as courage so to speak leads to death? If it is a virtue in the face of pain and ultimately death, what is the point of it? Those who dismiss needing to be virtuous because we all die would then be right- there would be no point to be courageous in the face of death; it would perhaps be more ‘virtuous’, if virtue were the road to the happy life, to avoid death; to live a life of caution and safety, avoidance of ills and pain (which I think we have actually come to).

The irony in this idea that we should avoid evils is that to really have a chance at avoiding illness and pain, it seems we first must bear it; we do not become stronger and more capable of defending ourselves except in going through pain and thus fortifying ourselves against it, like the immune system does, and our bodies do not become stronger and more able to withstand injury and illness except by being put through the very things that cause it pain (though perhaps in a more controlled way). So the way nature works, it seems that courage in the face of pain is rewarded, and those who are Christians believe that courage in the face of death is rewarded. Perhaps this is to come later in Nicomachean Ethics that living here cannot be the reward for the virtuous man, but I don’t know what his answer could be, then, except some belief in the Halls of our Fathers after we die. But I don’t know much about the Greeks’ worldview(s).

Submission

Submission to truth is harder for people than any other submission, and until you will submit to truth, you cannot have peace anywhere else.

It is those who submit to truth who are really happy. No one who does not submit to truth is ever really happy. It is impossible to be happy if you refuse to live in reality. True joy comes from the love of truth- how could you be joyous if you were incongruent with reality? Things would be chafing constantly; reality bumping uncomfortably up against us. It is like being the right shape, or the wrong shape. Either you fit reality's shape, or you don't.

Far better to learn Reality's shape and fit with it than to doom yourself to the misery of having to manipulate your perception of reality.

Furthermore, we cannot learn to submit to structures we are inclined to dislike until we learn that we can be the wrong shape, which is in a reverse way realising that there is such a thing as Truth. A student does not submit to teaching unless he is willing to conceive he needs to learn something. Even harder, a student will not submit to giving a subject a chance to grow on him unless he believes it is possibly a worthwhile or lovely thing since others think it is worthwhile and lovely. You give other things a chance to be for you what they are for others. This is, I believe, a great deal of the Christian walk.

At any rate, what I really want to say is that we don't even consider submitting to 'lower authority' if we do not believe in truth. It is those that consider they may not be right who actually consider, really think about, whether they should submit to something or not. Unless you believe in truth, you will not let yourself think outside of the box to find out why one might submit to something.

Pursuit of Truth, Goodness and Beauty is Mere Opinion

According to modern relativism, values and meaning in the world are at most cultural fabrications, perhaps evolving in a culture as a best method. In a sense that sounds like you can interpret experiences (including sense experience) in any way you wish so long as it works for you. To posit that what works for you is objectively useful (true) is something that it seems modern society practically doesn't believe. It's hard to get rid of any form of objective meaning, though- I think that's because it is necessary for thinking at all, and especially for communicating.

Therefore the contemplation and pursuit of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful (the Transcendentals) is only at best a matter of private belief and personal preference, and at worst it is silly and a waste of time because the Transcendentals claim to be objective when objectivity in spiritual matters doesn't exist (note that belief in that is claiming a one truth, though). If it were worthwhile for, say, me to pursue the Transcendentals, it would not be a personal matter any longer- we would be entering value judgement and the question of whether something is good for anyone at all. I am assuming that if you ask if something is good for you, you must consider that it could be good for other people like you, for situations like yours. Otherwise you have no information to consider, if you have never done this thing before. Therefore, even to ask the question of whether it is good for us is assuming the Transcendentals, and if you ask that question, or any other question of whether something is good or bad for us, you are treading the dangerous territory of Objective Morality which is in direct opposition to the pursuit of license (not happiness) in our culture.

Relativism seems, perhaps, to derive from Positivism that meaning and values cannot exist (though it could come from an earlier idea?); you have the idea Lewis talks about in the Abolition of Man that the idea that a waterfall is sublime is someone describing their feelings about a waterfall, not describing the waterfall. The idea that feelings can't be correct about the world around us seems to imply there could be no objective meaning that an object can convey, but I'd have to explain further why I get there and it's pretty hard to phrase. We shall see.

A Bit of Ruminating, High School Times

Many times every day I think about what has happened with education. I don't know as much myself; people I know have said a great deal over the years of its decline. In a need to keep things balanced, I have been acting devil's advocate to the idea of the decline of education in my own head at least, but I do wonder, because I see what I think is a decline. Either I'm way too idealistic, or there has been one.

Reading Scholars Online's site again reacquainted me with my thoughts as a teenager under Dr. McMenomy's tutelage (I don't think I was a good student, but I loved those years). I got to join with my siblings a forum, back in those days, which students who knew each other well chatted about whatever. The other students knew each other before my family joined the online schools (we took classes on Regina Coeli Academy as was; I don't know what it's called now), so we joined into a group of friendly folks who debated theology and other things and fell on swords like good bad Romans.

There was a sense of striving for excellence among us, a sense I have not felt since in any other place. Maybe there is striving-for-excellence-lite in other areas of my life, but I have not felt that good pressure of challenge since, and it hasn't really been good that I've lost it. It was a very good thing for me. I pushed myself to become a virtuous person, in a sense I did not want to be ashamed, but I could distinguish between the bad shames and the necessary shames.

I remembered today that education can push one to a virtuous life. There is such a thing as rigour- oh, how I miss it! High school students studying college texts? Crunchable. I learned from these friends because many of them were better at some things than I was. I learned that I was, at least then, inferior in some ways merely because I wasn't willing to try- I was lazy. I insist that it is probably still so, but in the places I am now, it seems almost normal to be this lazy, in the name of following your dreams, being authentic. I would never try the things I do now if I had not had the pressure I had then. I loved that pressure... a lovely constant hum of desire to be better, and the constant improvement of my soul. If I envy anyone, I envy my past self.

Nothing can possibly be better than being pressed by the excellence of your fellows (whom I keenly felt were my superiors in some ways at least) to be better yourself. The love of truth, the love of truly doing right, the love of excellence... nothing can compare. It was a taste of the Best. Perhaps I most saw the good in it, and there was plenty of bad, but after reading Scholars Online's site again, I realise that I wasn't dreaming. It is out there, in some places. I want to find it and amplify it.

I do need to remember the good and apply it now. I have lost touch with the excellence that is possible because I am afraid of setting high hopes; I have killed the sense that this is real. I don't know if it is a threat to society now, but it feels that believing in these deeper, Greater somethings is a threat now.

Link to a Discussion of the Meaning of 'Meek' from the Bible

I found this post (if you can read only one, read this as it's shorter and less convoluted) and this thread talking about the word 'meek', as I ran into some of the writings of objectivists online and had a feeling they misinterpreted the idea of 'the meek shall inherit the earth.' I had heard from source forgotten that 'meek' has a different meaning than how we think of it now- submissive, weak, gullible, and perhaps more positively in the word humble. From my fading memory of that source, I think they were posing it much more on the side of strength than even this thread does.

The thread, especially, reminded me of studying languages and finding out the nuances of the meaning of Old English or Latin words, even to their roots in Proto-Indo-European. Lots of fun nuggets. For some reason learning these things seemed to give me more understanding of how to use words in English better, or that was the sense I got- I feel like my writing flourished when I was studying these things years ago, and I felt more attuned to the careful, thoughtful use of words to really illustrate a particular flavour of a certain topic. For a really general illustration, you can use more English words, or you can use more Latin words, to talk about some topics, and either you choose will give a different flavour to that topic. Gabriel Wyner of Fluent Forever talks about how some topics are better spoken in French than in English- the language is suited to certain topics. If you speak with more English-root than Latin-root words, I feel that there is more of a practical groundedness, like everyday folks doing their business in the English countryside.

So when writing, the use of a word is very important, and in the writing of the Bible I am guessing (at least I would love to think) that there is the same care as to what words were chosen. Besides, I love to think that God is the Lord of Excellence and that His written Word was engineered skillfully and fluidly to properly transmit its meaning.

Since I feel I'm just beginning on the topic of the definition of 'meek', if I had written my own post on it, I would probably have taken quotes bits from these two sources instead of writing my own- perhaps someday I will yet do it, but it would be confusing if I had to keep sourcing bits, especially from a thread written by multiple people.

I could write more about how I see the practical meaning of the passages relating to this, though, because this idea of meekness has been in my head since I was a child, even if I didn't know that it tied to that specific word. It is the beautiful picture of wise, noble Saints.

Fear of God and His Glory

Is our fear of God about His glory? Are we terrified of the expansiveness and greatness of His glory, His beauty? Are we terrified of encountering the True One, the only Person who is Perfect and True, the only One with integrity, the only One who is consistent, the only One who cannot lie, and to Whom all lies are the greatest affront? Are we terrified of seeing our depravity thrown naked by seeing the perfectness of Him? The contrast between Him and our state would humble us. We do not like really to be told we are wrong. It’s a little easier to bear being shown wrong by imperfect humans; there we have the gratification of knowing that they’re not all they’re cracked up to be, either- in them we see ourselves, which is perhaps one reason why when they show themselves better than we ourselves, we are resentful of it, and angry at ourselves- they shouldn’t be any better than we are. But when we are faced with the Perfect, we have no escape in judging that One, except in a rebellious, temperamental fit.

We can try to show Him that He should have made a better world, a world where no evil can be (but then we would have no free will, which we’d mind if we hadn’t lost our free will in that world). We try to judge Him- we try to say, why does He allow evil? Why did He do this to me? Why is my life a horror? But it seems all that we want to do is to find something that can humble Him so that He seems less of a contrast with ourselves. We just want to find out that He is not worthy of praise- He is not actually Beauty and Goodness.

Of course this comes from a Christian who believes that we are always trying to resist God in a desire to preserve our high view of ourselves. It all sounds very judgemental of our resistance of Him, as if it is wrong to ask the question of why there is evil, but that is not what I mean- there is a difference between asking that question, and acting like a spoilt child where the existence of evil is an affront against you alone.

Epektasis, Desire of Beauty

Here is my attempt to summarise this idea which I have just been exposed to in reading the book quoted below by Stephen Turley:

Epektasis is from Paul in Philippians 3:13 (translated ‘reaching’ in some versions), the idea seemingly developed by Gregory of Nyssa to describe our desire (reaching) to be filled with God’s infinite, unceasing beauty (glory, perhaps one could say light or brightness as well?), therefore for that desire to be fulfilled in God, and the fulfillment of the soul’s desire for perfection (?). After the soul is filled with some of this glory, the satisfaction draws us to desire even more of it (since God’s glory is infinite, it can do this), and we keep desiring, hoping, in a constant eros for God, a desire for union with Him Who is the Giver of our being and beauty, and the Giver of the being and beauty of all of creation. We want to be united with the Source, to gloriously enjoy the richness, comfort, excitement of that Source.

Hence, for Gregory, this epektasis, this eternal traversing of God’s infinity, involves an eternal communion with the God revealed in Christ, who is the self-replenishing fountain of love and delight, an infinite sea of absolute Beauty.

- from Awakening Wonder: A Classical Guide to Truth, Goodness and Beauty by Stephen R. Turley, PhD

This is the thing I have felt as desiring to get into beauty (I believe I got this phrase from C. S. Lewis's The Weight of Glory), to somehow pass through that barrier between the tantalising experience of something beautiful and the actual beauty itself.

On Liberty, License and Self-government

Here is an article my mother shared to me when I was discussing how the libertarian idea of freedom/liberty is not the same as the conservative view (what I take to be that, at least).

This is a subject that comes up to me all the time- the question of whether we should just do as we please if it doesn't harm anyone else, and therefore we shouldn't tell others not to do as they please because it won't harm us. But how can one know, not being omniscient, that it doesn't harm anyone else? And does this really work in a society- will the society remain orderly, or will there be chaos? Is it good for us to think this way, and is it good for us to merely do whatever we please if we can't see there are any negative consequences? And the circle goes around again- how can we know there are no negative consequences to us? It is exactly the kind of reasoning a child would use that we teach them out of at least in more obvious circumstances, but consider how we may be just as much children in more adult matters (as we grow, our responsibilities grow with us).

Dystopian Stories as Propaganda?

Are dystopian tales to some extent pushing us towards a view of the world as systems overruling man's original goodness (humanism)? So often dystopian stories bother me at a fundamental level- the level of assumptions of how the world works. It has seemed to me that they are pushing one towards an evolutionary view of social progress, as if we are doomed if we don't adopt certain apparently moral views of society-structure.

I can understand the explanation that dystopian stories are to make us face the ultimate depravity of existence, but the biggest element in much of dystopian story seems to be that there isn't really right and wrong- the eradication of moral outrage. It's as if (at least some) dystopian stories refuse you the right as a reader to react emotionally to what is happening. Really, it's all just so. Nihilism. That is the ultimate depression of our hearts- at least when there is outrageous evil, you have a sense that there is also the opposite. But denying the possibility of evil is also denying the possibility of good- numbing our senses to evil is numbing our senses to good.

But there is a lot more to this, and I am guessing my question may seem to come out of thin air, rather than having a factual basis in what dystopian stories are really like. Regardless, many of them have a sense of really losing oneself into industry and the machinery of society and existence- they seem to divest reality of any colour, feeling, meaning. I believe ultimately they divest reality of truth. There are many reasons why someone might write a story like this; it could be propaganda for many purposes, potentially, but that is the question: is the dystopian story fad a result of humanism and the subsequent philosophical ideas that sprang from it, or is it merely a progression of the human mind, exploring ultimate depravity (you might say)- the loss of meaning in existence?

I tend to think the fad is definitely the result of recent philosophies, philosophies that are fundamentally false. Of course, we should still ask the questions they by their very substance pose to us.

Prayer - an Amazing Gift

That God would wish us to ask Him for things, that He might give them to us! Think of our great poverty of asking God for things... we fear that we will not get, we fear that we do not deserve, we fear that our silly little desires might not be what God would desire. When we do ask, we bribe, and we water down our desires. We do not let our true yearnings and longings come to God- we are ashamed of ourselves... ashamed of our impatience and our dissatisfaction. But why so? If we are ashamed of what is in our hearts, God already knows it. 'Thou hast searched me and known me.' Humble yourself; tell Him what you want. Boldly face your shame. Spill forth your longings- know that God wishes you to yearn for His help. He will give you what is Good.

Pride and Fear of Man

Can we be proud and fear others at the same time?

Perhaps one is both because of the other. Because of one's pride, one's high opinion of self, one fears the opinion of others that it might not align with one's view of self.

What I do because of this is that I stop saying what I think because I'm afraid of being contradicted, and finding out I was wrong. If I never speak, I can deceive myself that I am never wrong!

Perhaps this is the matter of self-hatred and deprecation, 'low self-esteem' as we like to say these days. I can't quite tease whether it is the same thing or only part of the same thing. (Pray tell if you have an idea.)

The shame of being wrong eventually froze me so that I stopped even trying to be honest about what I think is true. I never learned that what I think is not who I am- I somehow associated my thoughts with my self. So for me to be okay I had to be right... but I see it is more freeing to be a who which has thoughts, rather than a who-thought ( :) ).


I have a strongly held idea. When I sense that others might disagree with it, I want to articulate it so carefully that they cannot disprove it. I do that because I hold their opinion so high (fear of man) that their contradicting my idea must mean I am wrong, or must be some attack on me. I so much want to be right (arrogance, pride) that I fear contradiction, as if others are the authority and can overturn my own understanding of reality.

What I struggle with is due to some very odd fears I've had since I was a very young child of being out of alignment with Reality. Hopefully that puts in some light why this all has so much power over me.

To Let Others Love You

As we hold back speaking truth to others, we prevent them from being able to be grateful to and for us. We hide ourselves from shame and correction and therefore nobody can know and love us. We do not give others the honour of being able to correct us; it is sacrifice to let go of our pride and potentially be wrong. It is respect to another person to speak our mind when we may be wrong and let our wrongness shine strong if it is there. It is not hiding our shame, our incompleteness and our imperfection.

Juxtaposition

What torture to care about people, to be bent to understand their thoughts, motivations and feelings, but to care incredibly about Truth.

Really it should not be torture if I knew that the Truth is always best, but I've obviously taken on some of relativism in my own heart and think that it is nicest to people not to contradict them, not to disagree.

I can't explain just how much I want to stand for the Truth, but feel conflicted as to how it will be taken. I know people won't understand- that's the worst to me. Not their feelings, but whether they can even comprehend... they will think it is mean because they can't see how it could not be.

But my heart aches, and my sleep suffers, my conscience is compromised, and I cannot love life because I will not publicly live out what I feel in my heart: to live is to be in right relation to Reality, nothing else will make us happy.

To be living in a way that is discordant with what I actually to some small extent (oh, how we humans only do things by millimetres) believe is hard. I am entirely compromised. I am polluted and broken, as long as I refuse to do what I believe is right. One cannot be out of concert with one's conscience and live to tell the tale. I am becoming more an animal every moment I keep living out of alignment with Reality.

How rightly MacDonald and Lewis had it. Your mind, your heart, your everything is compromised- you cannot live as well, you cannot think as well... I am a gunked up machine unable to work as long as I refuse to go by my conscience.

But the Truth is not pretty. Our society now will not like it (it never did, though- look at Christ on the Cross). A false morality has made its way into our lives, an easier morality that does not ask for any real sacrifice. To let the Truth be true nowadays would be a great blow to our comfortable existences.

Is Affection Openly Given True Affection?

If there is no particular affection for those we more closely know, and love affectionately, there is no incentive to try to know and love people better- there is no reward for cultivating friendship, for sacrificing oneself, if a love is given liberally to everyone that shows no peculiar regard for those one knows well over strangers and acquaintances. 

Perhaps it is wrong not to show particular affection to those whom we love most. But beware affection shown simply so that others outside of your Group (Inner Ring as Lewis talks about) can see the affection the members show each other- that is not affection to the person it is given. It has been stripped of its innocent ways- it is now only a way to prove to yourself how very great you are to have such a Group that those outsiders don't have.

Is physical affection anything worth earning and having if it is liberally bestowed on everyone? I like hugs, but I don't like being given them by people I don't love. There are, I accept, some duties to hug those blood-bound to oneself, but the prevalence of hugging Anyone and Everyone nowadays is beyond me. I prefer to keep hugs as a special sign of the love of friends for each other. (Side-hugs are in a different category, perhaps. But I'm not sure, not sure...)

I don't let myself become angry for being hugged when I didn't want to, but I'm realising recently that it may be a mistake to hold myself back from being bothered by hugging. My masterful plan is to make myself be numb to the situation of being hugged; not even to know it is happening or has happened. Therefore, I have been doing almost all hugs for the last ten years without any emotion. What I once loved now can bring no satisfaction.

There's a question of preference to the whole affection topic. I believe that the desire to be generous and compassionate to everyone is why we've got ourselves into a very affectionate culture. We don't want to prefer people. It's good to be concerned about wrong preference of people, but we are concerned with preference because of wanting to make ourselves look good in other's eyes. Showing affection liberally doesn't erase one's desire to amplify one's reputation, the most it does is gloss over it.

Not preferring some over others is about not honouring some more than others for reasons related to any earthly, societal value.

Follow Your Dreams... or Not?

Perhaps because of stories like The Little House Books and other things our family read together, I've been very much of the mind that one does what one ought to do for the sake of setting up one's future. Not merely setting it up in view of happiness, but because knowing you've done right by Truth brings a kind of joy.

I assumed for many years, growing up in my family's little homeschooling world, that People In General make choices in life based on future considerations- they take into account their feelings, but always Truth rules over their feelings.

Strangely enough, it has seemed that it is not so anymore, even for Christians who say they believe in truth. I'm not even entirely convinced that Christians typically know what truth actually is, though, so it is perhaps no wonder. I have often been advised to do what I want, and I don't know how to turn some conversations towards should I or shouldn't I? Besides that there are so many things I want that it is not as simple as Just Doing It.

But that's the really, really odd thing to me. I can't figure out if it's just me, or if there is a fear in people of me (or anyone else) not following my desires. I sound like a spoilsport of some sort if I say that I may not really want that, that I would want to discern whether or not it was best. The idea that something could be best sounds like conforming to some standard that won't make you happy.

But I think most emphatically that it would make you happy if it really were what was good and right. Always doing what is right will bring the most joy, even if it is not at the moment. The greatest joys I've had in life were things that at first felt boring and difficult. Sometimes it's only in retrospect that I realise that it was actually wonderful.

We seem obsessed with giving ourselves pleasure in the moment nowadays, even disguising it as what is Best. Because of the psychologising of our culture, we are quick to fear that the root of someone's unhappiness in life is because they aren't pursuing their Dream. But it's very worrying if you can't be happy in life unless you accomplish your Dream- it's a really sad message, because most people on earth will never achieve dreams unless they make them much more realistic. If you learn to tame your desires and love things that are ordinary, you can be happy with much. I do not know why we don't exhort each other to that instead of 'do what makes you happy', which for me is most depressing because I know it won't make me happy... and I can't even say that without someone contradicting me as if I were blaspheming against myself.

Is it actually necessary to tell our children that they can Do Anything, that they should do what they love? Is it possibly harmful? Apart from forcing your child to say he loves something he does not, what is the harm in teaching a child to realistically plan their future? I have thought that true joy belongs in a person who has discernment and wisdom, who knows when his feelings are in accord with reality and when they are not. That person can train his feelings to follow Truth, and true fulfillment is only found in Truth.

Conflict and Love

I don't necessarily like or dislike conflict, because conflict isn't a question of like or dislike; it just is. It will be there in honest relationships, and festering conflict must be dealt with so that Truth can be restored.

Truth looks like being able to love and be honest with people, speaking the truth in love as the Bible says. I mean particularly truths that can seem negative or hurtful when looked at through an enabler's eyes (in codependency). As long as two people hide from each other and continue in deceit and manipulation, there can never, ever be real love. It will always be insipid placation of the other, a work of trying to appease the negative emotions (not just anger, but sadness and disappointment as well) that could arise in the other. It is slavery, not love.

Love in my mind is honesty and truth- love is not possible without those. Oh, how beautiful a love that is truthful and honest is. A love that does not lie even when it seems the truth could hurt. Especially lie with sweet, syrupy lies that masquerade love.

There cannot be true relationship between people unless there is in each person an allegiance to Truth above any selfish concern. If both parties do not ally themselves with Truth, when adversity comes along, it will sunder the relationship either by separation or by turning the relationship into a sickly exchange of mutual buttering-up, ultimately a fear of letting the other person down, losing them due to disagreement.

To let someone continue to appear in right relationship with one is the sweet, syrupy lie of saying 'I'm in right relationship with you.' It's not love, it's not compassionate or respectful. Deceit can never be respectful- it is saying to the other person that you cannot trust them to handle the truth. The soft bigotry of low expectations.

God Made Us to Run on Him

“God made us: invented us as a man invents an engine. A car is made to run on petrol, and it would not run properly on anything else. Now God designed the human machine to run on Himself. He Himself is the fuel our spirits were designed to burn, or the food our spirits were designed to feed on. There is no other. That is why it is just no good asking God to make us happy in our own way without bothering about religion. God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there.”

― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Since all (good) things proceed from God, we are nothing apart from Him. Our worth cannot be found in ourselves, but only by looking at, and to, God. In God we will find our natures, because our nature is God's Image in us. So therefore if we wish to find happiness, the only actual happiness we can have, we will find it by looking to God. In Him we will find all that which is Good proceeding out from Him, ready to be received by our curiosity and wonder.

Interestingly, curiosity and wonder are at odds with greed. When we are greedy for things, we want to be the owner, the god, of them. But by trying to turn them into our right and by possessing them ourselves, they are wrested from God, and by being taken out of Himself, they lose all that made them worth wanting in the first place. Because of this we will keep pursuing these things, trying to Contain them, but never get to them, like the carrot on a stick in front of the horse... we can only reach the goal when we know it is not ours, but God's.

Self-discipline and Self-esteem

If you’re raising kids, you’re much more interested in their self-control than their self-esteem. They’ll be a much better human being if they know how to control themselves than if they think well of themselves. And by the way, if they can’t control themselves, they will think well of themselves.

- Dennis Prager, in an interview with Candace Owens

So refreshing to me, because I've been fighting in my head the battle between self-discipline and the modern idea of self-esteem. I think self-esteem is a myth. There is the self-possessed person, which I think some believe is a person with self-esteem, but I do not agree. A self-possessed person is humble, which is not the same as having-self-esteem.

Self-esteem used to mean 'self-respect', but now has gone on to mean something like loving oneself in most people's vocabularies, and because it is in most people's vocabularies, we ought not to use 'self-esteem' when we clearly mean self-respect- it does not help the case for holding yourself to the standards of objective virtue. It seems wrong to believe that for a depressed person to lead a productive life, they have to fill themselves with messages of how wonderful they are. I think that we don't really believe we're wonderful until we prove it to ourselves, so the first step is simply to act, and it is not easy- we cannot invent anything that will make being a fully developed human easy. All of this self-esteem rot seems like an attempt to ease ourselves into maturity, but it just isn't easy- it is always an upstream battle until you build the muscles.

What if those who think highly of themselves (who do not have self-control as Prager mentions) are the ones who need to be told they should think well of themselves? It sounds counterintuitive, I know, yet I would not have such hatred of myself if at the same time I did not think incredibly highly of my abilities. I wouldn't be afraid of voicing my opinion if I did not think highly of myself. I wouldn't fear the disapproval of others if I didn't care how brilliant they think I am.

Yet I do care. And that paralyses me, keeps me from saying what I think. It was freeing recently to realise that I actually think that I ought always only to say what is 100% correct... that I am paralysed and cannot speak my mind because I think I need to be perfect.

I know that no human can know everything, yet for some reason, isolated as I am, I imagine that I do know a great deal, and so when I find out I said something inaccurate, I feel so ashamed, you can't imagine (though to be honest feeling an emotion is pretty nice after numbness). My shame is partly because I imagine I ought to have known better and I cannot stand that I didn't. I just really want to have been smarter than that; to have seen what was going to happen and avoided it. I desire control, I think I am God.

So perhaps we only need self-love and self-esteem now because everyone is incredibly conceited, and those who are conceited need their egos stroked. People who are narcissistic cannot sustain their egos without having others worship them. You do not think highly of yourself without paying the price of your independence- you cannot think yourself wonderful without depending on the rest of the world (including the inanimate products of your labours) to keep that afloat.

If a self-loving person ever realised they were did not live up to their own standards (for which they could love themselves), their balloon would be burst, and they would crash into true hopelessness. Not merely self-hate, but the loss of hope and meaning in life. This is why we cannot start with love of ourselves- it depends on our being worthy of our love and that is not possible.

--

For a long time I used to think this a silly, straw-splitting distinction: how could you hate what a man did and not hate the man? But years later it occurred to me that there was one man to whom I had been doing this all my life—namely myself. However much I might dislike my own cowardice or conceit or greed, I went on loving myself. There had never been the slightest difficulty about it. In fact the very reason why I hated these things was that I loved the man. Just because I loved myself, I was sorry to find that I was the sort of man who did those things.

- C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity

Should We Teach How One Must Feel?

Finally I'm reading The Abolition of Man by C.S. Lewis. He's certainly making the rounds on my blog, and he'll probably keep doing so for awhile yet.

It reminded me of a question in my mind, one that's been here ever since I was a child. I was raised rather a bit in the world of classical education. For me, there was an aura of there being better things and worse things- that not all art is equal, not all literature is equal, and not all actions are good. There are standards of excellence. There is Truth.

I love all this. Maybe I was brainwashed or conditioned, but if so, I like what I was brainwashed into because it certainly makes sense to me. It felt to me as if I was being welcomed into what I really wanted the world to be like, warts and all, because believing that excellence and truth exist, that means you have to live up to them, and it implies that people often do not (what reason is there for a standard if it is the status quo?).

It's always been an intriguing question to me whether these Classical ideas are really better, or whether that's brainwashing, illusions, so on. In The Silver Chair (by Lewis, again, what must you all be thinking?) the Witch is enchanting the characters to believe that what they came from (the surface of the earth) is not real; that only under-the-surface is real. The Sun they invented by looking at her lamp and imagining a bigger and better lamp. If I am wrong and Truth is made up, I would far rather believe in it than not, as they replied to her about their apparently made-up world.

So, is classical music actually such a great form of music? Is Dickens such very good literature? What of the great, classic painters? Is The Lord of the Rings such a great story? Are these better than pop culture? Could there be a hierarchy of music, values of worth?

I have always felt that we have left Excellence. It is not a value in our society anymore. Beauty no longer is a standard that art should aspire to. It is as if we don't believe in beauty, truth, or any of the other standards we used to think existed. Yet, underneath it all it seems that the desire for all this is still there, and I wonder if we are creating generations of very lost people by divorcing ourselves from these standards. They were our life and breath. They make us Man. We will turn ourselves into only animals if we keep on the course we are in... and we really have forgotten our roots. We really have. Even I have, yet still wanting to believe this. It's very hard to firmly plant yourself in these old standards when everyone around you so obviously doesn't feel the same- people now want to live 'their truth' and feel their own sensations and not judge themselves. I wonder if by not judging ourselves, we are going to lose any respect we could ever have for ourselves.

Humour is a Serious Business

... our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.

- C. S. Lewis, from the essay The Weight of Glory

Merriment can be had between people who take each other seriously, and I believe the same is the case with merriment about things: you cannot laugh at something until at first you took it seriously; it wouldn't seem absurd otherwise.

The quote struck me when I first read it. I have always felt that really wise, serious people are the ones who are most funny. It doesn't surprise me, but I realise how ironic it may seem. I think of it as like Christ turning everything upside down; the last shall be first and all that. But it is no contradiction.

People who really understand how things are can see the humour best. Cynical people (whom we often call serious or some other such word) are not understanding, though they really think they are. Not being able to see the good is not 'understanding'. Yet, there is bad in life, and being blind to it will not help you laugh at life.

The merriment and humour I mean I will lamely call the good humour. I don't care for cheap humour, where people are trying to get attention in any way, and don't care about the joke that much. These people, especially in more apparently-prudish times, might use other than crass humour, but now it is very common to be crass. I know many people do it because others do it, at this point, but I suspect it is a kind of Inner Ring thing, where you desire to be in and so you do what everyone else is doing (I think Lewis has an essay on that in The Weight of Glory, which is where The Weight of Glory essay comes from. How confusing.).

Those people who have been really fun to listen to, and knew how to enjoy the absurdities of life, have often gone through the worst in life. It doesn't surprise me - perhaps a sign of my numbness - but it is amazing, beautiful, anyway. Meeting people like this, seeing this, lifts my mood more than most things can. There is nothing like seeing the formed pearl, the purified silver.

Die to Yourself

Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be truly yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.

- C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Sticking this here because I ought to think about this now, and it helps if I publicly spit it out so that I can't avoid it.

I love the truth that if you look for yourself, you don't find anything good, but when you look to God and Truth, you gain yourself- your true purpose, and all the capability God meant for you to have, which is substantial. That capability in moments of feeling it seems infinite, perhaps because it is, due to its being God's strength in you, or perhaps it's because it's so vast compared to what we're used to that it seems infinite. But I bend towards the former because God is behind everything we contain and something like capability and strength given us would be in a way infinite... in that all choices of what we are logically capable of (and what is morally good) are open to us.

Ramble, ramble.

Can Masculinity Be Bad?

The phrase 'toxic masculinity' gets me thinking.

It implies that some of masculinity could be bad, if not that masculinity is bad entirely (but that's the sense I get because of how people talk about masculinity/men nowadays). But like one's identity, I think of the words 'masculinity' and 'femininity' as talking about the core and good nature of men and women.

We talk of aggression as a trait of masculinity now, but it just seems utterly wrong to call that a masculine trait. Maybe it is a perversion of the masculine trait of strength/guard-doggishness/protectiveness. But I'm not sure it actually is- it seems to be like that good trait, but really something else entirely. (If I ever gather my thoughts properly on why I think this way, I will write about it- it relates to a lot of other topics as well, like sins-and-virtues. Proceed now to a load of waffle...)

The negative traits I can think of right now of both men and women appear always to be true perversions of human nature as God intended it. The examples I can think of right now seem cases where a person wishes to be seen as something- when there is a selfishness in him. Aggression and recklessness show up when people want to show off. Always to be seen as something, to their gods or to other people. They are not any more the useful traits humans possess to get through life holistically- they are self-serving absolutely with no practical end (we can rationalise them, of course). As an example, recklessness is not 'taking a risk'- a risk is only a risk if you are weighing the pros and cons, which if you're thinking of pros and cons, you've lost your 'reckless' status.

So then the traits that really define a true man, and thus are those that are truly masculine, are those neutral-and-good ones which are necessary to his life, and promote his and others' health.

There's this sense in mainstream dialogue that if you use 'masculine' descriptively, or goodness! as a compliment, you must be, uh, toxically masculine yourself, or for the Patriarchy.

It just makes me actually want to run around complimenting men for being masculine when they actually are, because masculinity seems on decline and I miss it, or the memory of it left in stories and history.

Some people do have a bad picture of what men should be like. But why, oh why, should them define 'masculine' for us? They are misdefining it. Do not give them the floor. Fight back and say what being a proper man really is. Saying 'be a man' doesn't necessarily mean 'impose your strength over all weaker people.' Some people mean 'take the initiative and find out when people need help and give it.'

Beauty, Poetically

The Lord of the Rings revealed to me the True, the Good and the Beautiful. Before that I thought that wanting things to be beautiful (which to me includes goodness and truth) was asking for perfection and too much. But also too much to ask for, without it being the true and the good as well. Asking for life to be too good. I must expect the worst.

Beauty awakens desire for goodness and truth and even beauty itself, in a circular way it calls up more desire for itself. Beauty strikes you and makes you notice something good, and somehow there is an expanding, and you find you see after that more things that are beautiful- you grow bigger and bigger, with more room to appreciate. You see more things around you that once you hardly noticed, or didn’t notice at all- you see how beautiful they are. Your eyes are opened. And you see how small you are, how little you do see, and are awed by how much more there is to see, and very glad, too. It is exciting when there is always more to find out. You are not ashamed of being small and mean, but simply glad that there is so much to gather, to collect, to appreciate.

The feelings of encountering beauty awaken a desire to get inside beauty; a desire to manifest beauty. To become beautiful so as to continue the communication of beauty to other people and the world. To praise God.

But no- perhaps it is not to communicate that one desires to manifest beauty. It is desired in itself, somehow. If you desired only to communicate it, perhaps you wouldn’t be wanting it at all. But then, in desiring it, you desire to communicate it; the love of it overflows in a loving desire for others to have it, too. You want others to feel as you do, because it is so good. So then you hope that you will become exactly and rightly like it just for that purpose: because it must be shared, it cannot be kept for one’s lonesome.

I don’t believe the encounter with true beauty can result in a selfishness… we cannot hoard it. Perhaps it is that it cannot be hoarded; one loses it as soon as one tries to hoard it. It cannot fit through the door into our hoard, and so must always be shut out when we go inside our hoard, even if we don’t realise we’re leaving it behind. So therefore when we love beauty, we never can hoard it, or else we immediately lose it. We then begin to love the things that shone with beauty rather than the beauty itself… we lust after the thing we thought contained the beauty- the beautiful picture, or piece of music. But those things are only the offspring of true Beauty, but are not Beauty itself. When we seek them, to hoard the beauty, we idolise the thing that glittered, but not the light that made it glitter. It is somehow easy for us to forget the beauty in our lust for the thing that evoked it, our desire to control and keep that beauty for ourselves. We are incredibly forgetful of our visions of God’s paradise.

This is why when we are wrapped up in God, we desire to share, but left in our own devices, in our sin, we cower and hide from sharing anything and lose our bounty. We diminish and fade, even to ourselves. But when we let beauty come inside of us and overflow out of us, we become fountains of richness, wholeness, light. We overflow with God’s glory as He fills us. For if we desire to be filled with beauty, we will be filled with it. I ought to know this by now, but I forget, and I doubt, even after such glimpses as I’ve had.

For some reason to me manifesting the beautiful is the only way to communicate truth, goodness and beauty perfectly. One must become beautiful to be whole with God. Not in one's own power, but from an invitation by God to be beautiful… to be our true selves. We must not feel we must do it; we are allowed to do it.

Must We Learn That Truth Is Beautiful?

Glancing over my post titles, it occurred to me how it seems to take awhile for someone to find Truth beautiful in itself.

When I was a child, I didn't have any particular appreciation for Truth as a thing. I guess I liked trueness; I liked to know how things stood. But that isn't the same as loving Truth.

There were some things in my childhood that I just loved how beautiful they were. Not lovely, or charming, or glorious even, but just beautiful. Arthur Rackham's illustrations, and other very good book illustrations- real adult ones, as I saw it then. Of course these were for children, but they were illustrations you could love throughout your life. I loved that. And of course, they were beautiful... with the added benefit of not always liking his artistic choices and getting to disagree. There's nothing like disagreement to make you appreciate a thing. How strange.

So, I appreciated art. Of truth, though, I thought it was only about not lying, and all that. So it was at best unfreeing, if not downright restrictive. That is all in the connotation of a word, though- if I'd known that that word is what I now see as 'Truth', I would have loved it.

The plot device in all my stories will be 'Then I read the Lord of the Rings.' I'm in danger of losing people's interest, but that's, well, the truth.

I did read the Lord of the Rings, and it did seemingly rewire my thinking a bit. I guess I began to think of Truth as a great and wonderful thing, without realising it. I just realised I had always thought so. Those beautiful artworks I had liked- I liked them... because of Truth. I still don't know how else to describe this. The love of the things I love is a love wrapped up in Goodness, Truth and Beauty. It's a holistic thing. It is not even mine. It seems that it has come to be part of me, but it is not mine.

The funny thing is that it seems that one doesn't get to loving Truth until one has seen Beauty. I'm not certain of this yet, but what Stephen Turley has said makes it seem I'm not the only one to feel this way. Being hit by Beauty seems to have happened first to me, and it took a book analogising it for me to see Truth. I wish I could define Truth, but right now I feel the best way would be in some form of poetry. It is a very big thing, and a very beautiful thing. It is all that is good, which is to say all that really Is. It seems to me the very best way to talk about it is in poetry. And I've never cared greatly about poetry, likely because I was never interested in the poetry I read.

I feel I've gone and done a very bad job of saying what I mean to say. But the title helps: I feel I had to learn that Truth was beautiful by seeing true things and their beauty. It took being struck by the aesthetic for me to eventually, somehow, see beneath it to what was looking so wonderful.

How on earth can I explain it? The Lord of the Rings was like a guide to what is so beautiful, why anything is beautiful, because I wanted to know so badly ever since I was a child- I wanted to EAT the beautiful things, to consume them, to be one with them. What was beautiful? Truth. And of course, it would not be so beautiful were not Truth intrinsically Good. If Truth were bad, somehow it could not be beautiful. Somehow. I don't know why. It seems to be as plain as day, anyhow. Unnecessary to analyse. Or is that just me? And so I must analyse it, somehow.

What is Identity?

I want to say that I will probably do a terrible job of a title like this, but the title seems the best way to start.

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My dear friend Lady W. helped me along inadvertently.

1. Identity is whatever makes you you. Your core. Essence. Whatever. Hooray for lameness- it seems to show how ambiguous this topic is.

2. One's true identity can never include anything wrong- sinful, destructive to oneself or others in any way. (This is the idea that came from Lady W.)

3. Identity is not something we create or discover directly. By thinking of ourselves, looking in at ourselves, we lose any ability to really see ourselves. We look inside at the emptiness that is us, trying to find things in it, and not seeing any.

4. Our Selves can be seen only through our imprint on the world around us. Firstly we know our distinctness physically by the fact that our bodies get in the way of other things and can't take the same space like a spirit does- we are not all thought. Secondly we know our wills are there because they butt up against the wills of others.

5. Strangely enough, it seems that we stay mentally healthy largely by having an influence and impact on the world through creating things, changing things (for the better, I hope), and just generally making a nuisance of ourselves by affecting others. I seem to always think I'll have a negative effect, so I'm making fun of myself.

6. We know ourselves in relation to what is not us... even understanding ourselves through our affect on ourselves by understanding how others affect themselves (sorry if this is confusing; disregard if it is). I wonder if we couldn't know about ourselves without interacting with people- we know we exist because people exist which we are not. 

7. We see who we are by comparison with others. We know about our attributes because someone else doesn't have those attributes (it doesn't matter who does have the attribute). If everyone had all the same character, it would not be character- it would just be clumped in the definition of Human. The way we know that a thing is not another thing is through whatever element in that thing is necessary for it to be what it is, and either not present or unnecessary in another thing.

I don't know if those are all the points I have in my head about identity itself. There is always the negative, but the negative doesn't know when to shut up. There is a lot that can be said about what something is not, than what it is.

History of Identity (Sort of)

I have a lot of thoughts on this topic, so here goes for a starter post, made of confused, entangled thoughts.
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We've been obsessed with the idea of identity for around a century, with the invention of psychology (perhaps it was not invented, but it seems so by the history). It seems we get more and more obsessed as time goes on. It seems that before the 1700's or so, people thought of Who They Are far less than we do today. Especially with the invention of novels (late 1700's?) it seems people started to think more about our Internal Monologue. The importance we put on that monologue has grown over time.

It just doesn't seem to have mattered to people much before what you thought, which brings its own set of troubles, but if what you think doesn't matter that much, it conveniently means that what others think doesn't matter that much, either. However, I doubt anyone was particularly concerned whether or not what they or others thought mattered. We often infer upon the past that they might have been secretly controlling others, knowing that others could have given input, but most likely a lot of the usual chafing between people happened for mostly non-malicious reasons, not that there was no fault in what people did.

(It occurred to me today that that one thing is probably what would be the most culture-shocking about time travelling- the completely different way we think about Our Selves nowadays.)

I haven't yet decided how I rate that, bad or good- so far it seems it's a mix of the two. There is a lot of good in not minding much about your self, highlighted because of our current cultural fixation on Self, but there are some issues, such as advocating for personal needs. I'll leave this off, because there's a lot to go into here.

From what little I know of the past century, the idea of Self and Identity has grown a huge network of language and its own set of new concerns. It is amazing when I consider how things might used to have been contrasted with how we think about all this now. Our whole culture has radically shifted just because of our hyper-psychologised way of thinking. Everything surrounds and concerns the individual in a way unparalleled in the past... the little I can think of in comparison is what seems to be the self-indulgence of cultures in other times or places where the richest and most powerful people have been free to concern themselves purely with how they feel and what they want- where they have the time and energy to simply think of themselves.

We in our affluence nowadays have the luxury to think this way, possibly even more so than they did (although we do not have slaves and servants). We have convenience beyond all past ages because of the inventions and the infrastructure developed over centuries.

So therefore, in our freedom from bare necessity, from the mere struggle to live, we can think about our selves. And thus, we have begun to think about our identities, who we are, which I begin to think may be a culturally regressive thing.

It's fine to think about what you happen to be like- what your attributes are in relation to reality, but to define yourself by those things, to restrict your growth by saying you're just like this and can't help it, that is going too far. I don't mean that you can always change, but rather that we needn't restrict ourselves by our defining Boxes. They are simply useful explanations of whatever is.

I may have to prove that there is an epidemic of self-definition now. Ah, well.