Though the proverbial “the world is going to hell in a handbasket,” rings true often enough, we can’t sidle over to the dark side or wring our hands. We have work to do: a planet to (re)green; relationships to manage and grow; social expectations to satisfy; care, compassion and concern to give; hurdles to jump; disappointments to tolerate; and hope to herald. Each of these requires substance—of heart and soul and mind. So, we put our attention on this substance, its wisdom, its practices and its restraints.
The first post I made to my blog in July 2009, was about substance, about the call for responsibility, for obligation, for us to be leaders in our relationships, homes and communities. The post was especially timely in light of the implosion of the stock market, and its attendant fallout that left so many in financial jeopardy.
In fact, though, life’s challenges never cease. Having the wisdom and the nerve to do the right thing is our imperative, and our goal. Every day we “ask” ourselves to rise to the occasion, to choose, to will, to act, to give hope and meaning to the struggle and to solve the problems that occur in the process. This is how we make it matter that we lived at all.
It’s a fierce challenge because there is nothing inside of us perfectly capable of doing the right thing if we simply make up our minds to do so. Wisdom is hard to find. Harder to acquire. And hardest to stick to because it requires so much will and courage. Yet it is to extending the frontiers of our own self-command that we have obligated ourselves.
It is difficult to get, I think, that doing the right thing is nothing more intrinsically true than a point of view about what’s important. Doing the right thing is not foundational to who we are, unless we make it so. Yes, it’s a potential, one of the choices made possible by human brainpower. But this excellent dimension must be given substance—breadth and depth, then watched closely and protected. This is because it competes with many other options that seem important from the point of view of the ego and the Scoreboard.
Back in the day when the seductions of the Scoreboard were not the only options ostentatiously displayed, it was also challenging to do the right thing—dark and selfish impulses are compelling! However, in those days, the reward of heaven was on the horizon. In hope of eternal salvation, history tells us, some people were able to transcend some of their less civilized, less decent drives.
In today’s secular world such a metaphysical horizon is considered by many to be more the stuff of poetry than of reason. As such, it’s not necessarily an omnipresent motivator of doing the right thing. This means that when we obligate ourselves to acquire and enact substance, it is likely to be a conscientious promissory consent made possible by an informed heart and the transcendent practices that give it life.
So, as I said, in today’s material world how we go about organizing and living our lives is, in many ways, up for grabs. Even what constitutes a moral, civil and rational identity, or the need for it, can be bitterly contested. Yes, we are educated to know about traditional imperatives regarding prudence or care, justice, fortitude or courage and moderation or self-discipline. But how they should play out is often a matter of special, sometimes polarizing, interests. Moreover, the self-command needed to embrace and enact these imperatives is not routinely taught nor does it emerge naturally as a by-product of adulthood.
In addition, there is little obvious (on the Scoreboard) incentive and reinforcement for doing the right thing, though it may showcase our disgrace if we fail to do so. What keeps us on the high road is our conscionable recognition of its contribution, and the desperate, subjective hell we experience when we don’t have the inner strength to choose the good and true.
Committed to re-enchant our world, we take an originative look at the challenges and our options in the face of it. We want to create an irrepressible sense of life’s value and majesty, an affinity for the love and pursuit of substance, and a talent for acquiring its wisdom. Through these dedicated efforts we create a subjective and transcendent authority born of expansiveness, responsibility and creativity—each an authentic mark of manner and expression that distinguishes our substance and our practice.
This commitment requires constant creative effort—effort to bring forth the substantive dimension of who we are in timely fashion as the moments of each day call for it. This is our means to the next level of authority over ourselves and to the word and deed by which we communicate this substance when other forces are arguing for our attention.
To take up this challenge is to engage in endless days, endless processing, testing the frontiers of the possible. It is to relate to the world aesthetically like an artist does. Excited by the nuance, subtlety, complexity and daring of human possibility, the artist differentiates a point of view about what matters and illuminates choices once hidden or transparent. And it is to relate to the world ethically and pragmatically. Charged with the timely command of ourselves over our immediate experience and over the manner in which we conduct ourselves, we invigorate life and inspire hope for tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.