VIRTUE AND IDENTITY

Mikhail bumps into Dave on the Science class corridor. Dave is embarrassed and looks defeated as if someone gave him a thrashing.

Mikhail asks, “Dave, what happened, I seen you talking to Ms. Luten whom you usually don’t speak to?” Dave says, “Mikhail, she told me a terrible thing. I was just saying nice things to her, trying to be warm for a change but I really meant it. She told me that I don’t need to be kind and I should just be myself. What is strange is that she made it sound as if being kind was incompatible with my identity, as if kindness was independent of my identity and I could never be my identity and kind together. She made it feel like I cannot pick and implement kindness like picking and buying groceries in the bag. What is my identity, Mikhail? Am I just trying to add/have virtues to my identity and what happens to my identity?

And Mikhail says:

We all eat the same fruit. The same energy, from the fruit is expended to serve different purposes. Your eating of the fruit is for you to teach me to learn, that guy on the building up there, his eating, is to construct. And that lady in the corner doing a reconnaissance of the building, her eating is to design. But it is the same fruit that makes all possible, that we eat from over which our identities are formed eventually in what we do and engage with.

Virtues are like those fruits. While we all try to be honest, it is the role and manifestation, the pursuit of honesty plays into the specific dynamics of our lives with specific situations and circumstances that all aid in defining our identity. Some pursuits are compromised; some are sacred to us until the end. Some don’t see the light of day and some are kept alive like the breadth of our lives. In the surge and ebb of the tide (of our lives), there always shines forth one tree that defines us no matter what fruits they bear, Identity.

THE ABONDONMENT OF GOD

Mikhail meets Dave in the morning before school. Dave is looking confused and bitter. After much persuasion, Dave shares, “Mikhail, I know you are very devout and I learn a thing or two from you, but I don’t understand God sometimes. Yesterday, I was in a fix. I had to run many errands. Things were not going my way and people who had promised me help were not delivering at the 11^th hour. I kept God in my thoughts all the time and went on but still felt rather very abandoned. I do not understand why God apparently abandoned me when I needed him the most?

Dave says:

A week back I went to hospital to visit my aunt who is a nurse. She was in the children’s ward. There I saw a boy sleeping peacefully on the bed. The boy is 4 year old and has blood cancer. I cannot understand God’s will sometimes. The boy cannot understand his own suffering or the gravity of it. His age is just an opportunity for utmost grief for everyone around.

When we struggle and things don’t work for us, we wonder where God is in all this. What role his he playing and why with so many petitions and yearnings he does not respond rather eagerly. Every stage of the struggle, every potential donor that refuses to donate or does not oblige, you wonder how God will make a way (or if he even does) or will send us to one extreme of helplessness until we find help so as to remind us, “But I will not take you where my Grace cannot reach you”

Many of us amidst the struggle eventually by every minute of hopelessness forsake petitioning God and carry our own stuff, our own strengths, our own skill, our own ‘contacts’, our own will, our own peace and our own frame of mind. We snap at people and leave ourselves bitter when refused aid. We say: Look, things are not working for me, so you better co-operate and not vex me. Actually, what we are saying is: Look, nothing is working; even God has left the room and is not listening, so now it is up to me to do it and if I fail, it will fall entirely on me, so you better remind me of things and people I can do and count on not God who right now I don’t know is doing what and cannot afford anymore wondering about what mysterious plan he has about withdrawing from me and my ordeal.

I guess this is what we typically go through everyday rather implicitly in a struggle. You can imagine that after already establishing that God has abandoned you and now you are taking refuge in your own strength, that if you still receive God’s Grace, then it is only out of his Love and mercy. You did great initially by ‘keeping the faith’ but soon were cornered by circumstances apparently so unbearable that someone invisible and seated far away observing your plight and means to the end is too far-fetched to believe. But God knows Man and is immensely patient, if not, He would have abandoned us too. We never understand ‘why God has abandoned us’ whether momentarily or otherwise or why his will is not as noble and just as our own cause and fight? When we don’t understand this, it all the more perplexes us and starts a new game altogether right in between of our grief: Is God even worth believing in?

When our schooling is over, we realize what its purpose was. When our parents die we understand their value and how much more we could do just by being obedient, nothing extra ordinary actually. When our struggle is over, we assess all the things we could do, how we went out of our way, Those, whom we called on, whom we tried to reach to, what we learned, and that, Good somehow always triumphs over loss of hope and privation of Good. Now God becomes a little clear, his patient observation and his mysterious plan now take on a much greater cause and fight than our own need of its understanding.

Much of the strength of our faith is not how much we believe in our convictions often but how much we are ready to persevere when the times is not conducive to conviction and everything is chaos. Much of our faith is how we see through sunrise and sunset ‘keeping the faith’ when the wind is blowing the other way. When we are on the brink and God is now having faith in us to not give up. It is this faith that God has in us, to never stop loving Him and finding Him that is the faith of our faith that helps us. It keeps God’s grace going. Whether it is strength to battle on, perseverance to see failures or just comfort to return home in peace to a new sunrise. Some of the reasons why God plays truant will be more far reaching than all the help we tried to gather on our own steam. If all things have to be accomplished, this too, we will have to keep the faith in.

KNOWLEDGE IS VIRTUE

Mikhail and Dave are walking on a football field. They have just finished football practice.
Dave asks: Mikhail, the other day I was standing near the entrance of the train and the guy behind me and to get down. Apparently he had some difficulty getting down as It seemed I obstructed him. He called me immoral. I think his argument was that I did not have to get down yet was standing at the entrance when others who had to get down could stand there. But why did he call me immoral? I did not choose to obstruct him.

Dave stands up and says:

Man is essentially without morals. By his nature, he has no knowledge of what morals are and so has none-> w/o morals, an amoral state. But he cannot ‘choose’ to be without morals for it means his choosing is based on some alternative that he refused to choose i.e. morals. The Choice to be ‘without morals’ instead of morals, is immoral. The principle difference then between ‘without morals’ and immoral is knowledge. Thus Man often acts in ignorance of Morals. Once he has chosen, he ceases to be in that ignorance. He ceases to be in a ‘without moral’ i.e. amoral state.

Now a common objection is that even when he is amoral (without morals and not immoral), he is not making any effort to be moral and so he is making a continuous implicit choice to be amoral and is averting from choosing morals. Thus in making a continuous implicit choice (everyday) to be without morals, he is being immoral. This objection may sound true but it is not. It contradicts the definition of ignorance.

If he is not making an effort to be moral, he may choose not to. In this case, how did he choose? There has to be some knowledge to choose from. Thus he has knowledge that he can be moral and still chooses not to, which makes him immoral. But there can be no ‘continuous implicit choice’ because this choice (implicit or not) means he has knowledge of morals and is still staying amoral which falls under immorality. So if he stays amoral doesn’t necessarily mean he is making a ‘continuous implicit choice’. The fact that is he amoral means that he is ignorant (ignorance of morals). There is no choice when there is no knowledge (no knowledge is defined as ignorance). Man can be ignorant that a choice can be made to be moral. As soon as one has knowledge, a choice is made, whether he makes it implicitly in his conscience or speaks it out aloud to himself in the mirror in whichever’s favor, knowledge allows you to make a choice between morality and staying amoral, that is, immorality. Ignorance of morals means lack of knowledge of morals.

That is why Socrates said, Knowledge is Virtue. Socrates claimed, we do not become virtuous (morally upright) by our will or strength or courage. We become moral by knowledge alone (which then needs will and courage). Only when we have knowledge can we know to what end we should will, with what amount of courage and the strength to apply. Without knowledge, how can we ascertain, whether our strong will power is being directed towards good or Evil (Hitler had a strong will), whether our courage is helping defend the right cause or just courage to fight like hooligans. If we wish to be moral, then try to have knowledge. Socrates said, Know! (And the greatest personality development course you can ever undergo on your own) and ‘KNOW THYSELF’. KNOWLEDGE IS VIRTUE!

Causes and Compromises

Dave meets Mikhail in a troubled situation sitting in one corner pondering.

Dave asks: What is it, Mikhail that is troubling you so?

Mikhail says: Dave, I have fallen into trouble with certain school authorities but I am clear in my conscience and I am convinced I am right just like others do.

Dave asks: So whats the problem then? What are the administrators going to do?

Mikhail replies: they may do something, they may accept their folly and not do anything at all. But everything is a risk. For my mother, everything is a danger and not so much a risk.

Dave replies: Mikhail if you believe in something, you go for it. Don’t be afraid of anything. Pursue your ideologies and causes. We live for them. You are your principle.

And Dave stands up and says:

I have not right to fight for causes that undermine the ability of my mother (who sponsors my education) who pays me to have causes in the first place. I cannot fight for causes on another’s account. There is conflict of interest. She is paying for my college and trusts me to honor all the promises of being a diligent student. When I fight for a cause and jeopardize this promise, I fight for a cause that is not supported by people I am responsible towards.

I can convince her to see light on why these causes are as important to me as important it is to her to see me as a good student. Thus, If I don’t have these causes, it would not mean a thing for me to even be a student no matter how successful I am, that I would be esteemed in my parent’s and world eyes (to be a successful student) but not in my own. If I am not esteemed in my own eyes, I could question my very existence and reason to go on in life.

If they are still not convinced either I do it on my own account if my causes are so worthy of fighting or I remember to be responsible and show prudence and make peace (interior and prudent peace calls to ‘cease’ and not necessarily cease to have causes) with antagonism and not necessarily with my causes.