So, here we are, mammoths up to our elbows in self-doubt and societal tar. Where do we find the strength to actually free ourselves from despondency? Whence fortitude? We may have some inkling of what we’re fighting against, but to what end? Just wanting to be free obviously isn’t enough. What are we persevering [...]
Archive for the ‘virtue’ Category
Rooting Out the Crabgrass (Fortitude IV)
Posted in culture, life, self-improvement, society, virtue, writing, tagged "living to work", "purpose in life", "working to live", courage, despondency, Don Quixote, fortitude, good deeds, good works, hopelessness, ideals, prime mover, purpose, sacrifice, society, virtue on June 7, 2008 | 1 Comment »
How Society Feeds the Crabgrass (Fortitude III)
Posted in culture, life, self-improvement, society, virtue, writing, tagged "living to work", "working to live", despondency, hopelessness, rat race, society on May 31, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Despondency is the crabgrass of the soul. It chokes out joy, generative activity, hope. If you want to get rid of crabgrass you need to dig down deep enough to tear it up by the roots. The conviction of our own ineptitude is one of despondency’s observable roots. Its basis is internal to the individual [...]
Despondency as Crabgrass (Fortitude II)
Posted in life, self-improvement, society, virtue, writing, tagged childhood, despondency, discovery, fortitude, hope, hypocrisy, life, purpose on May 31, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Despondency is spiritual crabgrass. It chokes out joy, generative activity, hope. If you want to get rid of crabgrass you need to dig down deep enough to tear it up by the roots. Whence despondency? What are its roots? There’s an old saying about “the straw that breaks the camel’s back”. The despondency that [...]
Discrimination and “Satisfying the Belly”
Posted in life, virtue, writing, tagged discrimination, passion, reason, Socrates, will, writing on May 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Discrimination has gotten a bad name. In fact, if we don’t discriminate (as in exercising discernment, the telling of one thing from another), we’ll all be dead from eating that leftover in the fridge that really shouldn’t be that green and fuzzy or stepping in front of buses hurtling towards us because we just [...]
Fortitude (I)
Posted in culture, life, self-improvement, society, virtue, writing, tagged fortitude, heroes, hopelessness, life, purpose, society, virtue, writing on May 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
A friend of mine graduated from college this May. In April I went to his Senior Oral defense on Dante’s Divine Comedy and that afternoon, over a celebratory lunch, talked with another friend who had graduated from the same school (my alma mater) the year before. That conversation, which turned into a three-hour foray, [...]
Mediocrity and Standardization
Posted in culture, society, virtue, writing, tagged bureaucracy, certification, LEED, mediocrity, organic, standards, tyranny on May 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
“What menaces democratic society in this age is not a simple collapse of order, nor yet usurpation by a single powerful individual, but a tyranny of mediocrity, a standardization of mind, spirit, and condition …” Russell Kirk, The Conservative Mind: from Burke to Eliot (2001)*
A standard is something established by authority, custom, or general [...]
