The Curtain Fold

We left Texas because I couldn’t handle my job. I lacked any degree of confidence and suffered from immense self-doubt, self-critique, and obsessive rumination. I figured moving to Washington and taking on a new job would solve it all. It’s true that I have grown immensely since the move: I am a much more confident person, have very little self-doubt and critique, and my obsessive rumination has decreased measurably. It wasn’t the move that did this but what the move afforded me and that I took advantage of what it afforded me; namely, succumbing to the peer influence of reading broadly. So, if you’re going to move to a new state or live on the road, don’t suppose this by itself will solve your inner struggles. To solve your inner struggles you must look for and take advantage of what the travel offers you by way of new ways to know and understand yourself - your strengths and weaknesses. All in all, it’s not the travel that counts, it’s what you do with it that ultimately matters.

I believe that it is often more helpful to put a check on a person’s faults rather than root out his faults. (This is from Seneca.)

Emotional intelligence is a bit of a misnomer. Your emotions come and go, they're outside your control. However, your behavior in the face of those emotions is absolutely under your control. So, a better name is behavioral intelligence.

Too often, anger will tempt you to an excess of words and behavior - like when Tom succumbed to temptation by picking up the phone and calling Ann in a knee-jerk reaction to an email from her. He unloaded on her.

Paul says to be angry but not to sin. So, anger is not the issue but your response to it. Too often, humankind goes beyond what is appropriate in their words and behavior. However, anger can be used for good: It can compel the reserved and shy person to act on behalf of someone who is wronged. Anger is like a roaring fire. Is your spirit material that repels the fire of anger or is it of dry, kindle-like material that turns the slightest spark of anger into a roaring inferno?

Call it winter, which being full of care, Makes summer’s welcome thrice more wished, more rare.  -Shakespeare

My topic for today’s portion of my self-improvement plan is foreign language: Koine Greek. I’m working my way through Romans 8.

Romans 8:5-6 (my commentary):

The ones being (ontes) according to the flesh think (phronousin) fleshly things - There are people who seek pleasurable experiences rather than seek to live a meaningful life; it is the former who lust after pleasure. To paraphrase Kahlil Gibran - Our lust for pleasure murders meaning in our lives and goes smiling all the way to the funeral. The act of seeking pleasure causes our minds to obsessively think about pleasure. You want to change your mind? Change your actions/behaviors. To accumulate ease, comfort, and wealth is pleasurable. To live a life of tension by which you develop virtue - courage, patience, self-control, moderation, humility - is meaningful.

But [the ones being] according to the spirit [think] the things of the spirit - Your spiritual self is the place within that deals in personal values and virtues. Your spiritual self is that place of the noetic dimension - goal setting, creativity, commitments, love beyond the physical, ideas and ideals, responsibility-taking, and decision-making. When you seek a life of meaning and not pleasure, you will think often about meaningful things.

The thinking upon flesh is death - Those who lust for comfort (pleasures) effectively kill their chances of living a meaningful life, a life of virtue. Like a wet cardboard house, they will fold under Life’s difficulties. As Viktor Frankl said, That which is pleasurable is not always meaningful, and that which is meaningful is not always pleasurable.

The thought on the spirit is life and peace - Develop a desire and a thirst for the pure milk of virtue and meaning in your life. The result will not be an experience of ease, comfort, and pleasure. Rather it will be a life of virtue - courage, patience, humility, temperance, self-control - and meaning. You will be at peace with yourself, regardless of the push and pull of society’s expectation of what is deemed “normal”; namely, the experience of pleasure instead of virtue and meaning.

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I’m reading “Christ’s Crucifixion” by Cumberland in The Columbian Orator. This stood out:

Of those who watched the cross, conviction smote Their fear-struck heart. The sun, at noon-day dark . . . 

Too late they wished The deed undone, and sighing smoke their breasts.

(Those who watched the crucifixion and taunted Jesus wished, upon his death and the remembrance of his prayers and good works and their impious taunts, that the crucifixion could be undone.)

I might use these lines of poetry with a team member at work who tends to put on a facade of maturity (and demands respect from others) but is quite emotionally reactive and immature:

J. D. - "Before you pick up that phone and let T. N. have it, remember that old weighty line about regretting it,

Too late they wished The deed undone, and sighing smoke their breast."

J. D. - When you react emotionally toward someone, it’s an impious taunt toward that person; and once you’ve let him have it, you’ll wish the deed undone and regret will rend your heart in two.

This poem, Christ’s Crucifixion, prompted me to write the following four poems:

Those of virtue from bondage to ease are set free, And the first fruits of their virtue redeemed.

(The first fruits being strengthened virtue and displays of heroism that is only available to the display of virtue.)

Lust for ease thus virtue unmet, Denunciations from heaven thus regret.

Comfort and ease, virtue a foe; Ironically befalls weeping and woe.

Let this warning strongly move You, in haste, virtue to prove.

Upon the virtueless tree the axe is laid.

Tempestuous winds that blow upon a tree strengthen its roots of virtue. Ease and comfort block these winds, weakening the tree’s root structure.

One of my virtues of leadership is to live out the fact that leadership is a public position. Being in a public position, I am now public property. As such, like a city park, I am available for use by those above and below me in the organization’s hierarchy. I am currently tested in this by making myself available for “use” by the team in that I will now be handling incoming requests for the recently implemented policy at work. This is on top of my pre-existing workload.

The person who is sexually promiscuous is sexually intoxicated. For such a person, sex is not a means to express love but an end in and of itself - to experience pleasure (which may include the purpose of numbing oneself to life’s stings). For such a person, sexual partners are not human beings but things (a tool) by which to experience pleasure. A sexual partner’s uniqueness, individuality is evaporated in the eyes of the intoxicated. As with one who is intoxicated with alcohol, the sexual drive has this person, they don’t have it. This intoxication does not support good psychological hygiene. Good psychological hygiene is characteristic of a person being able to use both faculties - reason and emotion - to direct their lives in virtue. Sexual promiscuity is to submit oneself to animal instincts rather than to his/her human nature (the unique trait of self-transcendence and the use of reason and emotion). For, it is by practicing self-restraint, self-governance, and delayed gratification that we strengthen these virtues and they become available to us in the trials inherent to the experience of being human.

The parent or counselor must take a stand against a youth who is sullying his mental hygiene. Such a youth sullies his mental hygiene when he engages in sexual intercourse while he is sexually mature (biologically) but psychologically immature (has not yet developed a sense of his temperament, personality, values).

Leadership is about an education of responsibility for oneself and those being led. Consider: Suppose I walk down a dark alley at 1am in a crime-ridden part of town. I get mugged. While the culprits are guilty of the mugging, I am responsible for my decision to walk down a dark alley at 1am in a crime-ridden part of town. Until I take that responsibility, I will live the life of a victim - condemning, criticizing, and complaining and never a life of victory - freedom, liberty, responsibility.

I have read many a word by Viktor Frankl. And in the words of Helen Keller, I have never finished reading his words without carrying away a fine thought that grew in beauty and depth as I grow. 

Of an influential person in her life, Helen Keller says, He traces the footprint of love in the life of dogs as well as in that of his fellow-men. (P. 104, The Story of My Life)

Authoritarian leaders either explicitly or implicitly intimidate those they lead. This intimidation inhibits their employees from giving them critique on their leadership. Thus, by way of their power and intimidation, such leaders may escape being held to account regarding their unhealthy leadership practices. It’s like King Lear said,

Through tattered clothes great vices do appear;

Robes and furred gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold.

Plate sin with gold = dress sin in golden armor.

Helen Keller showed that “human nature is not a snake pit” (Sketch of a Portrait, p. 166), even in light of her limitations. She showed this by rising above her physical limitations and learning to communicate, becoming fluent in 4 or 5 languages, and helping other disabled persons.

Somerset Maugham said, “When now and then I have come across real goodness (in people), I have found that reverence rises naturally in my heart.” I’ve found that we tend not to experience reverence toward complainers, condemners, and criticizers. Why, then, do we engage in so much complaining, criticizing, and condemning? Oh may I seek the reverence of others.

May I be as Benjamin Franklin: In order to be more revered than resented: exhibit self-deprecating humor, unpretentiousness, and an unaggressive style of communication.

Franklin said that wealth can enter families and make progress in spite of a principle of frugality. Perhaps Life has protected me: keeping me from great wealth knowing the progress it would make in my life in spite of my principle of simple living without great distractions.

I just finished reading “Extract from the eulogy on Dr. Franklin, pronounced by the Abbe Fauchet, in the name of the commons of Paris, 1790” in The Columbian Orator. It is quite an elegant speech full of captivating metaphors. I would do well to re-read this from time to time, learn it, and allow it to find a home in my unconscious so that I might have it influence my speech in conversations.

Yesterday I started to read Seneca’s On Providence. Today I read a thought-provoking part. It basically got me to thinking about this: Can I learn to bravely, courageously, and defiantly confront misfortune in my life in order to exhibit my strength, honor, courage, and virtue? In so doing, I am truly made stronger. I find this puts wind in the sail of my soul to confront misfortune in such a way. It’s like what Peterson said, When your loved one dies, you be the one to comfort the guests at the funeral.

When a grain of sand enters a mollusk’s shell, it acts as an irritant. The mollusk responds by secreting nacre to coat the irritant, reducing the irritation. Over time, layers of nacre build up forming a pearl. What irritants have entered the shell of my life? Have I thoughtfully and strategically responded to those irritants such that my virtue is strengthened (nacre secreted)? If so, the pearl of my life are the use of those strengthened virtues and lessons learned to bless others.

Carnegie said that when you’re entering an argument with someone and you want to be influential, start out getting the person saying “yes.” One way to do that is to start talking about where the two of you agree. Otherwise, if the person starts off saying “no” to you, his pride of personality demands that he remain consistent with that “no.” By starting with where the two of you agree, you may see that there is not that much difference/space between the two of you. It’s like what Gibran said, Between the Earth and sun is not space, when viewed from the windows of the Milky Way. 

From what I can tell, people hurt themselves when they don't take personal responsibility for their underperformance at work. Unfortunately, this inhibits the opportunity to learn from that experience so as to grow and develop. Shakespeare’s line is appropriate here: 

The injuries that we ourselves procure,

Must be our schoolmasters.

There are those leaders who, in the words of Gibran, talk incessantly about their wisdom and their experiences such that they cast a net, and the gullible are caught (the gullible: those who don’t critically evaluate that leader’s wisdom). Unfortunately, the gullible, in the words of Shakespeare,  are apt to have their ears abused (in other words, they’re easily misled by others). 

According to Sketch of a Portrait, Hellen Keller had far more pleasure in the use of her mind (conversing with others) than in the possession of her mind (possessing knowledge or facts). Oh how I wish that were true of me. I think it would be true of me if I would deeply converse with others rather than engage in mere surface-level (superficial) conversation.

Viktor Frankl’s system gives the sufferer the opportunity to be proud of their suffering, for it can be ennobling (lending dignity to one’s character) rather than degrading. Helen Keller was a living monument to this. It was through her limitations (suffering) that her force of will was forged. By this will, she disregarded the advice of family and friends by entering and completing college. She became fluent in 4 languages. Moreover, she said that she wanted to complete college to show just how far the doubly handicapped could be developed.

Logotherapy teaches that it’s not our burden we carry that breaks us but how we carry it. Keller carried her burden, per the biography The Sketch of a Portrait, by seeing her difficulties as “new heights to scaled” - what for other people were easy or difficult tasks, for her were pleasures. 

For me to not take responsibility for my contribution to a conflict is to languish and rot in the prison of blame. Blame is not only external but internal, too. For to blame my contribution to a conflict on my weakness is to be susceptible to wallowing in that cell of self-pity. Self-blame must catalyze self-improvement.

How many wealthy people have purchased their wealth at the expense of their happiness? As Esop says in The Farce of Lethe, fortune and felicity are as often at variance as man and wife. 

Something that hit me upon reading a scene from The Farce of Lethe (in The Columbian Orator, p. 52-55): One way to “forget” your dissatisfaction of being married to your husband (or wife) is to remember continually that he is your husband. It’s a kind of dual dose of logotherapy's de-reflection and paradoxical intention. A dissatisfied wife (or husband) will tend to obsessively ruminate on the annoyances, weaknesses, and imperfections of her husband, thereby exacerbating the marital dissatisfaction. But, by continually remembering that he is your husband (intentionally putting your focus on him whom you despise) may not only divert your attention away from the dissatisfactions (via de-reflection) but have the paradoxical effect (via paradoxical intention) of exposing your heart to a ray of marital sunlight.

If I am easily flattered, I am not free.

Something that just occurred to me: Dr. Chamorro-Premuzic said that confidence follows competence. As I develop competence in being a nurse, my confidence grows in that field. I think the reason for this is that greater competence facilitates agency; that is, the ability and power to handle something for which I have competence. So then, with greater agency comes increasing confidence.

Western culture values skill, power, assertiveness, and relentless hard work. But it also values being people smart (Lencioni), agreeable, and cooperative. Some, with whom I've worked, seem to focus on and value the former to the exclusion of the latter. As Douglass said in Self-Made Men, While the world values skill and power, it values beauty and polish, as well.

In my reading from The Colombian Orator today I had this thought: Both fundamentalist Christians and atheistic climatologists revere the earth - one as God’s creation the other as a beautiful, fragile limited resource. To the climatologist it may be asked (as pastor’s have asked their flocks): "How ought your reverence for Mother Earth affect your conduct?" You might respond, “To protect her with all diligence and at every cost.” But we may further ask: "What about your fellow human to whom you’re socially and spiritually connected and interdependent? How ought your reverence for Mother Earth affect your conduct to your fellow man (both friends and foes)?"

Will the difficulty before me make me better or worse? That’s up to me. 

This morning for my self-improvement curriculum, I’m reading Theory of Happiness. It brought to mind superstitions. We suppose a black cat that crosses our path portends something bad or negative. Per Stoicism, I have the freedom and power to reinterpret this occurrence and use it for good. I can simply choose to interpret the occurrence as, “Cool, a black cat! I don’t usually see one of those.” Or, I can use this chance encounter as a reminder of meaningful tasks yet to be accomplished for the day. In other words, I, not society, assigns the purpose of the encounter.

Turn a difficulty into a practice field for strengthening a virtue. 

In Western culture, success is external achievement (e.g., a promotion at work). There is a more fulfilling success: the development of inner virtue and maintaining equanimity in the face of difficult circumstances and people. 

I make myself invincible in life by: 1) Focusing on what I can control, 2) Disregarding what I cannot control, and 3) Thoughtfully responding to difficulty by seeing what there is to learn rather than react while my emotions burn.

Carnegie said that one way I can get people interested in me is to study what interests them and then talk about that; for, the royal road to people’s hearts is to talk about what they treasure most. I find that my boss knows well the royal road to his own heart; that is, he knows what he treasures. Unfortunately, he projects his treasures on others and thus talks to them about what he treasures. He does not get to know what they treasure and therefore does not talk with them about that. I am thankful for this model of how I do not want to lead others.

Per Aurelius, my character requires daily efforts of improvement and discipline. Also, I read poetry not as some outward show but to use it to make advice or common sense more vivid and, thereby, remembered. 

Be neither led astray by nor employ sophistry (i.e., manipulation in word or deed to influence. 

Whether I am benefited from my habits of self-discipline or another is benefited from my benevolence, don’t try to make these virtues stand by displaying them to others. They can and will stand on their own. And that is enough. 

If I do not repress my will to meaning, I will know which bridge to cross and which to burn. 

It is a necessity and joy that I learn to live on but little: books. 

My books are a fountain of my life and all other aims are as parched lips. As Gibran said, The greatest gift you give to another is to turn all his aims into parched lips and his life into a fountain.

I suspect that many people do not know of the food I eat and water I drink: my books sustain and enliven me.

A lesson Steve Jobs learned from his father was, when building kitchen cabinets, to be just as meticulous with the backside that will be flush against the wall as you are with the side that is front-facing. This influenced Jobs to be meticulous about the iPhone’s packaging, interior design of the hardware, and the user’s experience with both the hardware itself and software. Leaders can model this by intensely doing inner work toward their self-improvement. This precision will payoff, though it’s not public. This work will never be seen (it’s flush against the wall) because it’s often done in quiet solitude. I don’t know that my boss is meticulous about his inner, unseen development and improvement as a leader. 

We often focus on what our work is for us; that is, what it gives us by way of a salary and health insurance. Too infrequently do we focus on what we are for our work; that is, what we bring to our work by way of our strengths and abilities and skills. It’s what we give to our work that brings satisfaction; for, anyone can draw blood who’s a nurse, but fulfillment is found when a nurse encourages an ill patient via his/her unique personality.

Regarding the pursuit of pleasure in life, Frederick Douglass quotes a poem in Self-Made Men:

For pleasures are like poppies spread,

You seize the flower, its bloom is shed!

Or like the snow - falls in the river,

A moment white - then melts forever;

Or like the borealis race,

That flit before you can point their place; 

Or like the rainbow’s lovely form

Evanishing amid the storm.

Jefferson said that the greatest of all talents is never using two words when one will do. Those who have not developed such a talent, when they speak, make, as Frederick Douglass said, an abundance of sound with a great destitution of sense. 

The farmer who prays for a good crop must supplement his prayer with plowing. 

Humans would do well to be cognizant of the different uses to which they can put their circumstances, strengths, potential, and spirit (noös). 

One’s dependence on luck for health or achievement must vanish and the wisdom of adapting to circumstances and opportunities manifest. Now being later in my life, I’ve started to do this. 

As I reflect on the extended period of time in my life when I 1) obsessively ruminated on what I perceived as negative in my life, 2) obsessively self-doubted, 3) self-sabotaged, and 4) obsessively self-pitied, I now clearly see these things, in the words of Jefferson, as having uselessly occupied and disquieted my mind.

I’ve refrained from eating any kind of sweet for quite some time. There is a kind of negative pleasure I experience in that I avoid the unpleasant feeling after eating such a food. However, there is a positive pleasure that had not ever before occurred to me: The pleasure of exhibiting self-discipline and self-control in refraining from eating that which is at first pleasurable. This is a virtue.

I find Einstein’s statement true of me: “The monotony of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.”

Dale Carnegie said that a person who doesn’t listen long and talks incessantly about himself, his experiences, and his wisdom, is not well educated no matter how well instructed he may be. I would describe such a person thusly: This person may be well instructed in how to build an effective process or system, but he is not well educated in navigating the people who run the system. In other words, he isn’t, per Lencioni, people smart.

To slightly paraphrase another of Carnegie’s lines: Irate people tend to soften when they are intently listened to. I remember when I practiced this with a co-worker during a difficult season of work. He was extremely irate. I finally took the stand to intently listen to him for 20-minutes, during which I occasionally sprinkled in questions to show him I was listening and to ensure that I understood what he was saying. I did not jump in to correct some of the erroneous assumptions he made. I stayed in a posture of intently listening to him. He softened at the end of the 20 minutes. 

I have such a passion and desire to read broadly that it feels like Life is pulling me. This shows up in that over the last several weeks I’ve nearly jumped out of bed at 3:30am (on weekends too) to dive into my readings. However, with all that I’ve put on my plate as a daily reading regimen, it at times feels a bit overwhelming. The result: I feel a swell of negativity toward my spouse and co-workers when I believe they are interrupting my reading schedule. This negativity is neither healthy nor helpful. One other significant observation I’ve made: This feeling of overwhelm strikes in my efforts to memorize vast amounts of material. I strive to memorize reading material in order to use it in conversation at home and work. However, when I read and memorize without the intent to use it in conversation but 1) to simply honor the material, 2) for the joy in and of itself that I experience, and 3) for my own self-improvement, the overwhelm is like a morning mist that rises, leaving the dew of joy on the field of my life.

Yesterday, I started to re-read Douglass’s Self-Made Men. He says that the self-made men to whom he’s referring are those who, under peculiar difficulties and without the ordinary helps of favoring circumstances, have attained knowledge, usefulness, power, and position and have learned from themselves the best uses to which life can be put in this world . . . . 

In my life, I, myself, have not been subjected to peculiar difficulties and have had the ordinary helps of favoring circumstances. However, most of my life has been marked by an absence of the work to “acquire knowledge, usefulness, power, and position,” and thus I’ve not had these things from which to learn the best uses to which my life can be put in this world. I, alone, bear this responsibility. So, what do I find for myself in reading Douglass’s speech? It spurs me on to attain “knowledge, usefulness, power, and position” and learn how I can best make use of these to which my “life can be put into this world.” In so doing, I desire to make myself worthy of the ordinary helps I’ve received from favoring circumstances.

Some people, whose life has been saddled with difficulty and grief, have risen above these things, chose their attitude, and attained knowledge, usefulness, power, and position. Others, whether having a life saddled with favorable circumstances or peculiar difficulties, have not made use of their powers and opportunities.

I find myself energized when I read for the love of reading, learn for the love of learning, and memorize for the love of memorizing. Anything other than these are merely fleeting external satisfactions.

Through my study of literature and poetry, I desire to express myself in, as Helen Keller has said, clear and animated language.

Weekly, I am reading a strategic array of topics as a part of my self-improvement curriculum. Through this, I am planting seeds of a variety of roses and plants along, in the words of Helen Keller, every byway of my mind.

Upon her first experience of snow in the north, Keller described the earth by saying, “The very spirits of the trees had withdrawn to their roots, curled up in the dark, lay fast asleep.” This reminds me of what Shakespeare wrote: Or call it winter which being full of care / Makes summer’s welcome thrice more wished, more rare. I also think of what Kahlil Gibran wrote: Accept the seasons of your heart as you accept the seasons that pass over your fields. My heart and mind, as the land, needs this time of withdrawing into my inner self (roots), curled up as it were in the dark, and laying fast asleep to regain strength for the seasons of life that lie ahead.

In Isaacson’s book Benjamin Franklin, he told of the inventor being more practical than theoretical in his study of physics. Franklin was far more interested in how things worked than why they worked. For example, to know that a piece of china that is unsupported in the air will fall and break is far more useful than why it falls and breaks (though Franklin recognizes that it is interesting to know why this is the case). This got me to thinking: Knowing how I react to difficulty is far more useful than knowing why I react the way I do. (After all, the complexity of the brain is such that it may be impossible to attain a certainty of the why.) When I understand how it is I react to difficulty, I can use the tools of cognitive-behavior therapy with great effect.

Isaacson also told of the account when New Englander’s got rid of the blackbird due to it eating all of their crops. The result - the worm, which blackbirds ate, flourished and ate both the crops and grass of their fields. This got me to thinking: May we beware of ridding ourselves of the blackbirds of our lives - unpleasant emotions - through the use of medication; for, both our unpleasant and pleasant emotions will subsequently be eaten and destroyed.

Isaacson also said that Franklin was correct in his suspicion that summer breezes do not by themselves cool a person. Instead, the cooling effect comes from the increased evaporation of human perspiration caused by the breeze. This got me to thinking: This cooling effect is an example of the fixed, autonomic biological reaction of humans. We humans do not have a choice of our bodies reacting to a cool summer breeze. However, we humans can choose whether to walk into the breeze, away from it, or shield ourselves from it. This choice of direction is distinctly human. This choice is not determined by our biology. Animals, on the other hand, react to the breeze rather than make a conscious, strategic decision whether to walk into the breeze, away from it, or find protection from it.

I believe it was Viktor Frankl or Joseph Fabry who said “yes-sayers” are those who say yes to life in spite of its difficulties. “No-sayers” are those who say no to life in the face of difficulties. The former find meaning in difficulty while the latter, desiring pleasure, do not see meaning to fulfill in difficulty. There are those who would rather be alive and face the difficulty than die and end the difficulty. Or, as Shakespeare said in King Lear, That we the pain of death would hourly die / Rather than die at once!

I find that those authors, both dead and alive, who have inspired me did not plant new seeds in the soil of my heart and mind. Rather, they have simply watered the seeds that have been there all along, hidden and unknown under the soil.

My job does not make me indispensable or irreplaceable; it only gives me the chance to be so. I make myself indispensable or irreplaceable by taking the opportunity to bring my uniqueness, strengths, personality, and character to my job. So then, it’s not so much my job that matters or what my responsibilities are, but what I bring to my job. Everyone in their job is replaceable by one other person in the world, but what they bring to their job by way of their uniqueness is not replaceable. This is a mixture of what I learned from The Doctor and the Soul. 

The person for whom earning a lot of money is an end in and of itself is a person in whom concern for livelihood overshadows life.

In life’s difficulties, I have the freedom and power to choose my response to the difficulties. I can, in the words of Frankl, keep my chin up or become completely apathetic.