The promise of humanity lies in its bold spirit. We have the ability to think, feel and imagine and to climb the ladder of transcendence. We have the ability to give honest and artful expression to the struggle to matter, to make order, to care.
Yes, we live in irrational and difficult times that have deprived many of their hope for a fine and agreeable life. Yet, this life is ours to design, build and furnish, with wisdom, nerve and heart.
Sometimes this struggle to be bold is referred to as a spiritual one. When I talk about spirit and transcendence, however, it’s about an earth-bound, creative process. How do we use our energy, and how do we use our will, to see a bigger picture, be a bigger person, make a bigger contribution and have a bigger life?
Each of us is unique, yet none an exception. The manner in which nature, history and language coalesce weighs heavily upon all. So, in many ways, we begin the struggle at the same starting point. Let me tell you what I mean.
Reminder: Our brains are complex. Each of us is home to a multitude of perceptions and impulses, not all of which are in accord. Each of us must wrestle with conflict or disharmony as incompatible ideas and mutually exclusive impulses compete. Our brains built over millions of years from the bottom up, they tell us, include their evolutionary pasts. Present deep in each of us are functioning structures like those that power the programmed reflexive responses available to reptiles and rats!
Language, a relatively recent evolutionary possibility, permits us a sense of unified consciousness, information processing and purpose. It enables us to distance or detach ourselves, to some extent, from the marching orders of our evolutionary past. Yet, primitive instincts and needs unsettle us, night and day. These influences are neither rational nor consensual. They are messy, in turn, cold-blooded, hot, passionate, ruthless, poised to fight or flee, wired, sated, exhausted, and they contradict or challenge, hour upon hour, our ability to bring order to them.
Of course, even with this information about the impulses that arise from successive stages of biological evolution, not to mention the contradictions that arise between nature and culture, we are called to get a grip and manage ourselves. Sometimes this expectation is referred to as the animating discourse of civilization. It deems us autonomous, not only fully capable of achievement if given the opportunity, but also fully capable of self-determination and self-control.
However, there is far more to our commitment to be autonomous, to overcome or transcend what just happens to us and to make life how it ought to be. We find inspiration, fulfillment and meaning in creating and living values independent of primitive impulse, and we suffer when these values are neglected. (See A voice that unites conscience and deed.)
So, as our brain went about organizing itself to negotiate the challenges of civilized life, what kind of intelligence did it gather and what impact did it have? It’s a piece of “Each of us is unique, yet none an exception. The manner in which nature, history and language coalesce weighs heavily upon all,” that I said earlier.
In other words, what in addition to our motor-running bodies makes us tick? Of course, we want to provide material comforts for our extended families and ourselves. But we are also summoned by the coalescence of nature, history and language to acquire and model moral character, depth and substance and personal authority.
Yet, aside from biology what pressures us the most is Scoreboard. (See Scoreboarding: it almost took us down.) Scoreboard’s domineering intelligence is pervasive, invasive and coercive. It tells us what we should want. It drives us—herd-like—to get it. Its high-handed award of merit and status is actually based on wealth alone. And it leaves character, substance and personal authority off the balance sheet.
We may recognize that we are defined, or that our opportunity in life is somehow limited, by something obvious, such as physical stature or level of energy. But we are also demarcated by knowledge and information insufficient to the challenges we face. Scoreboard’s intelligence is way too programmatic and shallow when it comes to the unique individual labor and love required to create a fine and agreeable life in irrational times.
Of course, it is very difficult to think that we’re programmed, or herd-like. This is because Scoreboard offers variations on its theme, and because we stamp conformity with our personalities and taste.
Said another way, because our personalities differ and our taste is somewhat individualized, we mistakenly think our unique potential is achieved. After all, don’t we love modern when she loves vintage, or watch sports while he sticks with PBS, or put our kids in private schools while they have good reasons for sending theirs to public school, or collect fine art while he collects baseball cards, or make sure we’re on the Scoreboard in a high-profile way while she prefers to stay under the radar?
To have the life we want, to make the contribution that matters, to us and to others, we must be bold enough to leave Scoreboard’s nest and see if we can fly. It’s an exciting prospect. Yes, surely, it’s easier to submit to the dictates of Scoreboard, to hope that variations in taste and acquisition will somehow distinguish us, or to surrender to the irrationality that characterizes these difficult times. But humanity’s bold spirit asks for more.
If autonomy is to be our destiny, if we are not to be subjugated by biology or Scoreboard, now is the time to strike, to make it happen, to give artful expression to the struggle to matter, to make order and to care. (I describe the ladder of transcendence in The will to transcend; there’s life after everything.)