![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A Couple Of Unfinished Virtue Essays....
Jul. 21st, 2006 01:25 amModeration
"Zaphod grinned two manic grins, sauntered over to the bar and bought most of it."
Moderation is a difficult virtue for many people to practice, so it should come as no surprise that it's also difficult for many to write about. The Delphic maxim “nothing in excess is an excellent example of a concise definition of this concept.
The virtue of moderation is what allows one to go shopping in the most tempting store and purchase a small treat instead of spending all that’s in your wallet. It allows you to take a bowl of ice cream from the carton, not the entire carton itself, or have a glass of wine without downing the entire bottle. This is not to say that indulgence is always a bad thing- who hasn’t heard the saying “everything in moderation- including moderation”? However, a lack of control over one’s impulses and desires can be troublesome- or far more dangerous. It’s nearly impossible to turn to the media anymore without seeing news of some celebrity going into drug rehab, or advertisements for various means of help for those with any number of addictions. For those with addictions, moderation is extremely difficult or downright impossible.
In our contemporary culture in the US, advertisers and the media frequently seem to scream “More! Bigger! Faster! Extreme!” and we push ourselves to the limit in many ways- credit card debt and bankruptcy filings are out of control. Workaholics barely know their families. Cars and trucks are bigger, faster, louder. Many celebrities lead very public lives of hedonism and indulgence.
We may consider a classic tale of indulgence- the tale of King Midas and his golden touch. When King Midas was granted his wish that everything he touched turned to gold, he got it…and everything he touched did turn to solid gold- including his own daughter.
Vision
Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable, let's prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Vision is literally the ability to perceive the world around you through sight. But more than that, vision is also the ability to look beyond mere physical sight and see something more, bigger, better. It is a virtue and a gift without which the world would be a dull, drab place.
It is through vision that an abandoned, overgrown and littered lot becomes a community park. And through vision, great works are created- art, literature, building, education, science, medicine…vision gives us commerce and technology. Once upon a time, a computer took up an entire building and performed little more than today’s four-function calculators. As a result of many people’s visions, there are calculators small enough to be incorporated into pens and wristwatches; computers are small enough to fit in the palm of our hands and powerful enough to create a full-length movie or replicate a symphony orchestra. Without vision none of this would be.
Vision allows someone to identify a need or a want and find a way to fulfill it. Vision has given us everything we have- from the Declaration of Independence and the US constitution to portable music players that sit on a fingertip to cures for diseases that only a few years ago spelled certain death for sufferers. Vision is what gives us new products and improves old ones.
Perseverance
The word "impossible" is not in my dictionary. In fact, everything between "herring" and "marmalade" appears to be missing.
-Dirk Gently, Dirk Gently's Hollistic Detective Agency
Perseverance is the virtue of not giving up. In the words of Tennyson, “To strive, to seek to find and not to yield.” Or as others may say in slightly less eloquent language, “keep on keepin’ on.”
The pagan community in the United States is currently living in the middle of a painful, very emotional lesson in perseverance- that of Roberta Stewart and her fight to have a pentacle placed on her husband’s memorial plaque in Arlington National Cemetery. Vowing to see its approval in her lifetime, she took up the mission- now in its ninth year-when Rosemary Kooiman passed away, unsuccessful in her attempts to have the symbol approved by the United States Veteran’s Administration. This has resulted in letters, phone calls, faxes, emails, meetings and rallies in support of the issue- even statements of support from such unlikely allies as the Rutherford Institute, one of the largest right-wing conservative Christian think tanks and lobbying organizations in the country.
Perseverance, a virtue that is also admired in our ancestors, is exemplified in such stories as the labors of Herakles.
Simply stated, perseverance is what pushes us to keep going when we’re past the point of giving up
"Zaphod grinned two manic grins, sauntered over to the bar and bought most of it."
Moderation is a difficult virtue for many people to practice, so it should come as no surprise that it's also difficult for many to write about. The Delphic maxim “nothing in excess is an excellent example of a concise definition of this concept.
The virtue of moderation is what allows one to go shopping in the most tempting store and purchase a small treat instead of spending all that’s in your wallet. It allows you to take a bowl of ice cream from the carton, not the entire carton itself, or have a glass of wine without downing the entire bottle. This is not to say that indulgence is always a bad thing- who hasn’t heard the saying “everything in moderation- including moderation”? However, a lack of control over one’s impulses and desires can be troublesome- or far more dangerous. It’s nearly impossible to turn to the media anymore without seeing news of some celebrity going into drug rehab, or advertisements for various means of help for those with any number of addictions. For those with addictions, moderation is extremely difficult or downright impossible.
In our contemporary culture in the US, advertisers and the media frequently seem to scream “More! Bigger! Faster! Extreme!” and we push ourselves to the limit in many ways- credit card debt and bankruptcy filings are out of control. Workaholics barely know their families. Cars and trucks are bigger, faster, louder. Many celebrities lead very public lives of hedonism and indulgence.
We may consider a classic tale of indulgence- the tale of King Midas and his golden touch. When King Midas was granted his wish that everything he touched turned to gold, he got it…and everything he touched did turn to solid gold- including his own daughter.
Vision
Let's think the unthinkable, let's do the undoable, let's prepare to grapple with the ineffable itself, and see if we may not eff it after all.
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency
Vision is literally the ability to perceive the world around you through sight. But more than that, vision is also the ability to look beyond mere physical sight and see something more, bigger, better. It is a virtue and a gift without which the world would be a dull, drab place.
It is through vision that an abandoned, overgrown and littered lot becomes a community park. And through vision, great works are created- art, literature, building, education, science, medicine…vision gives us commerce and technology. Once upon a time, a computer took up an entire building and performed little more than today’s four-function calculators. As a result of many people’s visions, there are calculators small enough to be incorporated into pens and wristwatches; computers are small enough to fit in the palm of our hands and powerful enough to create a full-length movie or replicate a symphony orchestra. Without vision none of this would be.
Vision allows someone to identify a need or a want and find a way to fulfill it. Vision has given us everything we have- from the Declaration of Independence and the US constitution to portable music players that sit on a fingertip to cures for diseases that only a few years ago spelled certain death for sufferers. Vision is what gives us new products and improves old ones.
Perseverance
The word "impossible" is not in my dictionary. In fact, everything between "herring" and "marmalade" appears to be missing.
-Dirk Gently, Dirk Gently's Hollistic Detective Agency
Perseverance is the virtue of not giving up. In the words of Tennyson, “To strive, to seek to find and not to yield.” Or as others may say in slightly less eloquent language, “keep on keepin’ on.”
The pagan community in the United States is currently living in the middle of a painful, very emotional lesson in perseverance- that of Roberta Stewart and her fight to have a pentacle placed on her husband’s memorial plaque in Arlington National Cemetery. Vowing to see its approval in her lifetime, she took up the mission- now in its ninth year-when Rosemary Kooiman passed away, unsuccessful in her attempts to have the symbol approved by the United States Veteran’s Administration. This has resulted in letters, phone calls, faxes, emails, meetings and rallies in support of the issue- even statements of support from such unlikely allies as the Rutherford Institute, one of the largest right-wing conservative Christian think tanks and lobbying organizations in the country.
Perseverance, a virtue that is also admired in our ancestors, is exemplified in such stories as the labors of Herakles.
Simply stated, perseverance is what pushes us to keep going when we’re past the point of giving up
