The Vocabulary of Self

 Authenticity:

• At first, this idea that the source is within doesn’t exclude our being related to God or the Ideas; it can be considered our proper way to them. In a sense, it can be seen just as a continuation and intensification of the development inaugurated by Saint Augustine, who saw the road to God as passing through our own reflexive awareness of ourselves. - 57
• Herder put forward the idea that each of us has an original way of being human. Each person has his or her own “measure” is his way of putting it. This idea has entered very deep into modern consciousness. - 57
• There is a certain way of being human that is my way. I am called upon to live my life in this way, and not in imitation of anyone else’s. But this gives a new importance to being true to myself. If I am not, I miss the point of my life, I miss what being human is for me. - 58
• Being true to myself means being true to my own originality, and that is something only I can articulate and discover. In articulating it, I am also defining myself. I am realizing a potentiality that is properly my own. This is the background understanding to the modern ideal of authenticity, and to the goals of self-fulfillment or self-realization in which it is usually couched. - 58
• We define this always in dialogue with, sometimes in struggle against, the identities our significant others want to recognize in us. And even when we outgrow some of the latter— our parents, for instance— and they disappear from our lives, the conversation with them continues within us as long as we live. - 59
• So the contribution of significant others, even when it occurs at the beginning of our lives, continues throughout. Some people might be following me up to here, but still want to hold on to some form of the monological ideal. True, we can never liberate ourselves completely from those whose love and care shaped us early in life, but we should strive to define ourselves on our own to the fullest degree possible, coming as best we can to understand and thus gain some control over the influence of our parents, and avoiding falling into any further such dependencies. We will need relationships to fulfill but not to define ourselves. - 59
• we are born with a seed of selfhood that contains the spiritual DNA of our uniqueness— an encoded birthright knowledge of who we are, why we are here, and how we are related to others. We may abandon that knowledge as the years go by, but it never abandons us.Philosophers haggle about what to call this core of our humanity, but I am no stickler for precision. Thomas Merton called it true self. Buddhists call it original nature or big self. Quakers call it the inner teacher or the inner light. Hasidic Jews call it a spark of the divine. Humanists call it identity and integrity. In popular parlance, people often call it soul. - 61
• But we live in a culture that discourages us from paying attention to the soul or true self— and when we fail to pay attention, we end up living soulless lives - 62
• The moralists seem to believe that we are in a vicious circle where rising individualism and the self-centeredness inherent in it cause the decline of community— and the decline of community, in turn, gives rise to more individualism and self-centeredness. The reality is quite different, I think: as community is torn apart by various political and economic forces, more and more people suffer from the empty self syndrome. - 65
• The strongest reason why we ask for woman a voice in the government under which she lives; in the religion she is asked to believe; equality in social life, where she is the chief factor; a place in the trades and professions, where she may earn her bread, is because of her birthright to self-sovereignty; because, as an individual, she must rely on herself. No matter how much women prefer to lean, to be protected and supported, nor how much men desire to have them do so, they must make the voyage of life alone, and for safety in an emergency they must know something of the laws of navigation. To guide our own craft, we must be captain, pilot, engineer; with chart and compass stand at the wheel; watch the wind and waves and know when to take in the sail, and read the signs in the firmament over all. It matters not whether the solitary voyager is man or woman. - 66-67

Virtue

• Aristotle - Happiness
• Now happiness, more than anything else, seems complete without qualification. For we always choose it because of itself, never because of something else. Honor, pleasure, understanding, and every virtue we certainly choose because of themselves, since we would choose each of them even if it had no further result; but we also choose them for the sake of happiness, supposing that through them we shall be happy. Happiness, by contrast, no one ever chooses for their sake, or for the sake of anything else at all...Happiness, then, is apparently something complete and self-sufficient, since it is the end of the things achievable in action. 74
• We have found, then, that the human function is activity of the soul in accord with reason or requiring reason...Now each function is completed well by being completed in accord with the virtue proper [to that kind of thing]. And so the human good proves to be activity of the soul in accord with virtue, and indeed with the best and most complete virtue, if there are more virtues than one. 75
• DeYoung - Vice vs Virtue
• Virtues are “excellences” of character, habits or dispositions of character that help us live well as human beings...Similarly, the vices are corruptive and destructive habits. 77
• Very simply, a virtue (or vice) is acquired through practice— repeated activity that increases our proficiency at the activity and gradually forms our character. 77
• Virtue often develops, that is, from the outside in. This is why, when we want to re-form our character from vice to virtue, we often need to practice and persevere in regular spiritual disciplines and formational practices for a lengthy period of time. - 78
• The ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle called this the difference between acting according to virtue— that is, according to an external standard which tells us what we ought to do whether we feel like it or not— and acting from the virtue— that is, from the internalized disposition which naturally yields its corresponding action. The person who acts from virtue performs actions that fit seamlessly with his or her inward character. Thus, the telltale sign of virtue is doing the right thing with a sense of peace and pleasure. What feels like “second nature” to you? These are the marks of your character. - 79
• saints such as Mother Teresa are a model of kindness and mercy; 79 -- yeah right 
• How do Christ’s example and the work of grace affect a Christian view of virtues and vices? A Christian understanding of temperance, for example, will have to include not only moderating our desire for food, but also fasting and feasting. Likewise, the virtue of courage challenges us to endure suffering for the sake of love, relying on God’s strength, even to the point of martyrdom— this in contrast to contemporary portraits that show us a brave individual charging the enemy alone with guns ablaze. Christ teaches us too how gentleness and humility ground righteous anger, enabling us both to turn over tables of injustice and to turn the other cheek. - 79 --> REFLECTION
• The tradition eventually singled out seven virtues— three theological virtues (faith, hope, and love) and four cardinal virtues (practical wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance). These are the qualities of character that everyone who wants to become Christlike must seek to cultivate, whatever his or her culture or calling. At the same time, these virtues are the foundation of human perfection for all human beings.79-80
• Pieper
• This is all about mother theresa as the virtue of love. what a joke. I skipped it. 
• Ginzburg - little virtues
• As far as the education of children is concerned I think they should be taught not the little virtues but the great ones. Not thrift but generosity and an indifference to money; not caution but courage and a contempt for danger; not shrewdness but frankness and a love of truth; not tact but love for one’s neighbor and self-denial; not a desire for success but a desire to be and to know. . . .  - 85
• Brooks - Moral Bucket List
• It occurred to me that there were two sets of virtues, the résumé virtues and the eulogy virtues. The résumé virtues are the skills you bring to the marketplace. The eulogy virtues are the ones that are talked about at your funeral— whether you were kind, brave, honest or faithful. Were you capable of deep love? - 89
• But if you live for external achievement, years pass and the deepest parts of you go unexplored and unstructured. You lack a moral vocabulary. It is easy to slip into a selfsatisfied moral mediocrity. You grade yourself on a forgiving curve. You figure as long as you are not obviously hurting anybody and people seem to like you, you must be O.K. But you live with an unconscious boredom, separated from the deepest meaning of life and the highest moral joys. Gradually, a humiliating gap opens between your actual self and your desired self, between you and those incandescent souls you sometimes meet. - 89 
• AUTHENTICITY
• I came to the conclusion admired had achieved an spiritual accomplishments. that wonderful unfakeable inner people virtue, are built made, not born— that the people slowly from specific moral I and spiritual accomplishments.  - 90
• Yeah.... through suffering. 
• How he says it:
• The Humility Shift - But all the people I’ve ever deeply admired are profoundly honest about their own weaknesses...They have achieved a profound humility, which has best been defined as an intense self-awareness from a position of other-centeredness. (90)
• Self Defeat -  External success is achieved through competition with others. But character is built during the confrontation with your own weakness. (90)
• The Dependency Leap  - But people on the road to character understand that no person can achieve self-mastery on his or her own. Individual will, reason and compassion are not strong enough to consistently defeat selfishness, pride and self-deception. We all need redemptive assistance from outside. (90)
• Energizing Love - That kind of love decenters the self. It reminds you that your true riches are in another. (91)
• The call within the call - We all go into professions for many reasons: money, status, security. But some people have experiences that turn a career into a calling. These experiences quiet the self. All that matters is living up to the standard of excellence inherent in their craft. (91)
• The Conscious Leap - Commencement speakers are always telling young people to follow their passions. Be true to yourself. This is a vision of life that begins with self and ends with self. But people on the road to inner light do not find their vocations by asking, what do I want from life? They ask, what is life asking of me? How can I match my intrinsic talent with one of the world’s deep needs? - 92
• Mencius - sayings
• A man’s letting go of his true heart is like the case of the trees and the axes. When the trees are lopped day after day, is it any wonder that they are no longer fine? If, in spite of the respite a man gets in the day and in the night and of the effect of the morning air on him, scarcely any of his likes and dislikes resemble those of other men, it is because what he does in the course of the day once again dissipates what he had gained. If this dissipation happens repeatedly, then the influence of the air in the night will no longer be able to preserve what was originally in him, and when that happens, the man is not far removed from an animal. - 94
• Tzu  - Improving yourself
• When you see good, then diligently examine your own behavior; when you see evil, then with sorrow look into yourself. When you find good in yourself, steadfastly approve it; when you find evil in yourself, hate it as something loathsome. He who comes to you with censure is your teacher; he who comes with approbation is your friend; but he who flatters you is your enemy. - 95

Vocation:

• Hardy - Work, Life, Vocational Choice
• First, to those of us who are familiar with the language of the Bible, there is something odd about the phrase “choosing a vocation.” For in the New Testament the primary, if not exclusive, meaning of the term “vocation”—or calling (klēsis) — pertains to the call of the gospel, pure and simple... Here we are not being asked to choose from a variety of callings, to decide which one is “right” for us. Rather, one call goes out to all— the call of discipleship. For it is incumbent upon all Christians to follow Christ, and, in so doing, to become the kind of people God wants us to be. The call of the gospel is not to a particular occupation, but to sainthood. ... We are called, then, not only to be certain kinds of persons, but also to do certain kinds of things.- 125
• the “general” and the “particular” calling - 126
• The general calling is to be a Christian, that is, to take on the virtues appropriate to followers of Christ, whatever one’s station in life. - 126
• The particular calling, on the other hand, is the call to a specific occupation— an occupation to which not all Christians are called...St. Paul refers to such particular callings as the “gifts” of the Spirit: to be an apostle, a prophet, a teacher, a worker of miracles, an administrator, and the like (1 Cor. 12:28– 31). - 126
• As a second preliminary observation, lest we move too quickly from the question of vocation to that of paid occupation, we ought to remind ourselves that vocation is the wider concept. One need not have a paid occupation in order to have a vocation. Indeed all of us have, at any one time, a number of vocations— and only one of them might be pursued as a paid occupation. ... I may not have a paid occupation. But that doesn’t mean I have no calling in life.- 126
• “Today we consider it an imperfection of society for people to be fixed in their opportunities and jobs by class and birth,” management theorist Peter Drucker observes, “where only yesterday this was the natural and apparently inescapable condition of mankind.” Freedom of choice regarding occupation is a relatively novel social phenomenon. Those of us who are faced with such a choice are, historically speaking, a very small minority indeed. - 127
• Taking their initial bearings from the biblical witness together with a reflection upon the human condition, they began with a definition of work that went something like this: work is the social place where people can exercise the gifts that God has given them in the service of others. - 128
• The first step then, in making a responsible choice of vocation, is ascertaining precisely which gifts God has bestowed upon me. - 128
• God can give us two other things that will narrow down the field considerably. First, he can give us a concern. Of course, we are all concerned about ourselves and how we will fare in this life. No special work of God is required for that. But if we can detect within a growing concern for others, then we can be sure God is at work within us. - 131
• Furthermore, God may have endowed us with certain lively interests apart from any other-directed concerns— interests in mathematics, music, or microbiology. Those interests lead us to cultivate skills which we can in turn use in the service of others. - 131
• Rather, in making a career choice, we ought to take seriously the doctrine of divine providence: God himself gives us whatever legitimate abilities, concerns, and interests we in fact possess. These are his gifts, and for that very reason they can serve as indicators of his will for our lives. - 132
• Badcock - Choosing 
• Horne, in which the relevance of mysticism to the question of career choice is highlighted. Horne notes that the typical experience of the mystic in the Christian tradition (among others) involves a path through darkness into light. The darkness is a necessary stage within the whole journey of spiritual development. Horne attempts to draw a parallel between such mystical experience and the psychological processes by which individuals make decisions concerning their future. There is, he suggests, much to be gained from such an analysis. The feeling of being “at sea,” and even of lacking an integrated self-image and of wishing to have one, is common currency in many young people’s experience. We cannot choose for the future without a sense of identity in the present and without a realistic sense of what we may become. - 133
• The potential variety of factors to consider is enormous, so much so that, in the final analysis, there is no escaping the conclusion that any career choice will inevitably be a risky venture, undertaken “in faith,” or in a kind of faith, in relation to what is as yet unseen and unknown. - 134
• Jesus speaks of the human goal in two ways. The first is in terms of the great commandments. The human goal and the divine imperative here coalesce: “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart . . . ; you shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30– 31 par.). From the standpoint of the spiritual life, the human goal is succinctly summed up in these key statements. The second, and literally crucial way in which Jesus speaks of the goal of life is in terms of discipleship: “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34 par.). - 136
• I have sought to develop a different understanding of the Christian vocation. Christian vocation is not reducible to the acquisition of a career goal or to its realization in time. It is, rather, something relating to the great issues of the spiritual life. It has to do with what one lives “for” rather than with what one does. - 137
• Lewis - Learning in War Time
• Let us clear it forever from our minds. The work of a Beethoven and the work of a charwoman become spiritual on precisely the same condition, that of being offered to God, of being done humbly “as to the Lord.” This does not, of course, mean that it is for anyone a mere toss-up whether he should sweep rooms or compose symphonies. A mole must dig to the glory of God and a cock must crow. We are members of one body, but differentiated members, each with his own vocation. - 138
• By leading that life to the glory of God I do not, of course, mean any attempt to make our intellectual inquiries work out to edifying conclusions. That would be, as Bacon says, to offer to the author of truth the unclean sacrifice of a lie. I mean the pursuit of knowledge and beauty, in a sense, for their own sake, but in a sense which does not exclude their being for God’s sake. An appetite for these things exists in the human mind, and God makes no appetite in vain. -  139 ***Might use this for my beauty paper ~
• Humility, no less than the appetite, encourages us to concentrate simply on the knowledge or the beauty, not too much concerning ourselves with their ultimate relevance to the vision of God. -- now this is a definition of Humility that I don't mind.  - 139
• The intellectual life is not the only road to God, nor the safest, but we find it to be a road, and it may be the appointed road for us. Of course, it will be so only so long as we keep the impulse pure and disinterested. That is the great difficulty. As the author of the Theologia Germanica says, we may come to love knowledge— our knowing— more than the thing known: to delight not in the exercise of our talents but in the fact that they are ours, or even in the reputation they bring us. Every success in the scholar’s life increases this danger. If it becomes irresistible, he must give up his scholarly work. The time for plucking out the right eye has arrived. - 139
• Good philosophy must exist, if for no other reason, because bad philosophy needs to be answered. The cool intellect must work not only against cool intellect on the other side, but against the muddy heathen mysticisms which deny intellect altogether. - 139 - fuck you too Lewis. 
• Perhaps it may be useful to mention the three mental exercises which may serve as defenses against the three enemies which war raises up against the scholar. - 140
• The first enemy is excitement— the tendency to think and feel about the war when we had intended to think about our work. The best defense is a recognition that in this, as in everything else, the war has not really raised up a new enemy but only aggravated an old one. -140
• The second enemy is frustration— the feeling that we shall not have time to finish. - 140
• The third enemy is fear. War threatens us with death and pain. No man— and specially no Christian who remembers Gethsemane— need try to attain a stoic indifference about these things, but we can guard against the illusions of the imagination. - 140
• Bonhoeffer - the place o f responsibility 
• Human beings experience the divine grace that claims them. It is not human beings who seek out grace in its place, for God lives in unapproachable light (1 Tim. 6:16). Instead, grace seeks out and finds human beings in their place— the Word became flesh (John 1:14)—and claims them precisely there. - 142
• People do not fulfill the responsibility laid on them by faithfully performing their earthly vocational obligations as citizens, workers, and parents, but by hearing the call of Jesus Christ that, although it leads them also into earthly obligations, is never synonymous with these, but instead always transcends them as a reality standing before and behind them. - 143
• The question of the place and the limit of responsibility has led us to the concept of vocation. However, this answer is valid only where vocation is understood simultaneously in all its dimensions. ... The boundary of vocation has been broken open not only vertically, through Christ, but horizontally, with regard to the extent of responsibility. - 143
• Vocation is responsibility, and responsibility is the whole response of the whole person to reality as a whole... Responsibility in a vocation follows the call of Christ alone. .- 143
• Buechner - Vocation
• [Vocation] comes from the Latin vocare, to call, and means the work a person is called to by God. There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, say, or the Superego, or Self-Interest. - 145
• Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet. - 145
• Campbell - Vocation as Grace
• I would have to quote the whole thing... but vocation comes from connection to others. You do your vocation because of someone else, and they do it too because of you.