The Servant of Ego
In A Primer for Forgetting,ª Lewis Hyde quotes the artist Agnes Martin regarding a problem of the intellect: It’s “the servant of ego,” she says, and “everybody’s born 100% ego; after that it’s just adjustment.” Martin eschews facts and ideas to cultivate a quiet, empty mind primed for inspiration.
Nice for an artist, you may think. But what about “knowledge workers”? Don’t we need facts and ideas to solve our problems?
Well yes, but what happens if we share those facts and ideas with others, who will undoubtedly see them differently? If we’re lucky, they’ll critique those facts and ideas, saving us the trouble of bad ones, making good ones better, or perhaps just adjusting our egos (hopefully with some good humor).
And what if we disengaged from ego even more by leading with curiosity about others’ ideas before sharing your own?
ª https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374237219
The Solution to Anger
The loss of actor Chadwick Boseman at the relatively young age of 43 is truly sad. Yet as we remember him in this moment of U.S. history, he gives his fans a parting gift in his portrayal of leadership in Black Panther, a story that expresses some of the societal themes with which we are currently struggling.
Boseman’s character is strong while merciful, intense while self-controlled, and ultimately guided by virtue. While the character that Boseman portrays is fictional, King T’Challa is worth remembering in such tumultuous times, when at least from Mitch Albom’s perspective,ª widespread anger is engulfing and exhausting the United States.
On the subject of anger, the 4th century desert ascetic Evagrius, who actually lived in Africa (north of the fictional Wakanda), has something worthwhile to say: the opposite of anger and its solution is love. For the Christian Evagrius, love expresses itself in many ways, as patience, kindness, sacrifice, et cetera, but its most important expression as a cure for anger is imperturbability and self-control.
In his psychology, Evagrius writes of three parts or powers of the soul: the desiring, the spirited, and the rational. Anger comes from the spirited part. He asserts that the soul operates in a natural, healthy way when the desiring part desires virtue, the spirited part does battle for it, and the rational devotes itself to the contemplative observance of the created world. According to Evagrius, the virtues proper to the spirited power of the human soul are courage, perseverance, and imperturbability—not anger and its company (rage, resentment, hatred, et cetera).º
Doing battle for virtue means first doing battle to attain and cultivate it oneself. Leaders have additional responsibilities to the people they serve. While there are relatively few people with positions of leadership that allow them to pass laws, create policies, or reform systems, everyone can be part of the solution for an angry nation if we remember these two Africans—the one a fictional native and the other a real immigrant—and devote ourselves to the practice of virtue, and especially to dispassionate, imperturbable love.
º For an excellent introduction to Evagrius on this subject: https://svspress.com/dragons-wine-and-angels-bread/
Fear’s Function
If you were walking through the woods and saw a bear, which then turned to look at you, I hope you would feel some fear.ª The function of fear is to protect us from threats.
Those pursuing power and greatness sometimes come to believe that the greater or more powerful they are, the less they have to fear. But this is a dangerous error.
When a man grows inwardly and increases in holiness, he is something great and marvelous. But just as the elephant fears the mouse, so the holy man is still afraid of sin, lest after preaching to others he himself “should be cast away” (1 Corinthians 9.27).
Saint John of Karpathos
If the saint fears sin, what does the person aspiring to worldly greatness fear? The lawsuit alleging racial discrimination or sexual harassment? Being convicted of theft or fraud? He often doesn’t seem to fear them before they happen, too late for fear to protect him.
In his first inaugural address,º President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered the famous line, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” It was meant to exhort his hearers to progressive action and away from the fear of paralysis and retreat caused by the Great Depression.
But please don’t quote President Roosevelt’s line out of context. Only a fool would aspire to be fearless.
ª Unless, of course, you were Saint Seraphim of Sarov.
º https://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/froos1.asp