Pride's Role in Morality

Our moral dilemma decisions are answers to questions, whether we realize it or not.  Some questions are simple and unconscious: What will please me the most?  What do other people want me to do?  What ought I to do?  It's good to take notice of these subterranean musings and start to take control of them posing our own questions to direct ourselves.  I've started to use one and it's the prompt for this blog.

What decision will I be most proud of?

I've read a good bit from certain religious authors who say that pride is the greatest of all sins, the essence of all sins, the source of all sins.  That's never really sat right with me for a number of reasons.  One of which is that there's so many definitions of the word 'pride' and another reason is that 'pride' has been such an integral part of moral decisions (both actively and just in retrospection).

So, what I'd like to do, with your help, is to dissect out what good and bad pride are, if there is indeed such things.

“I feel good about this” Pride

• Taking pleasure in something meeting a standard--a decision, a person, an event, your self
• The 'this' could be
• Others
• An action/decision
• Past oriented
• Standard--an internalized one
• Continuum:
• I beat myself up about my decisions--I don't care about my decisions--I feel good about my decisions
• Results
• Likely repetition of behavior since internally rewarded
• Conscience is strengthened when followed
• Endearment to others whom you're proud of
• Attribution
• You did this
• Results in endearment and affection
• Often relationally salubrious
• I did this
• My circumstances are responsible for this
• Helpful questions
• How is my positive feeling pride affecting my view of myself?  Others?  My standard?
• How can I motivate myself to repeat the positive action without being puffed up or comparative to others?

“I’m better than that” Pride 

• Thinking highly of yourself
• The 'this' could be...
• An action, like a vice
• Often positive
• If I give an example like, "I'm better than male prostitution for crack,"  it would seem to imply that I'm better than the people that do those things.  Not necessarily if you also firmly believe that the people doing those actions are also far better than that and deserve way more.
• A situation
• Can be good--like not turning into a door mat
• Can be bad--like not serving others because you're too good for it
• Future oriented
• Standard--internalized
• Continuum
• I deserve punishment/worse than others--I don't deserve anything/the same as others--I deserve rewards/better than others
• Results
• Having standards of treatment
• It is bad for other  people to be allowed to walk all over you.  You lose by being trampled on and they lose by becoming more immoral
• Isolation from others because of an unwillingness to serve
• A resistance of evil
• Attribution
• I get my worth from how I'm treated
• My treatment is indeterminate of my worth
• Helpful Questions
• What would I want others to do for me?
• Am I being hawty/conceited/arrogant?

“I have no flaws” Pride

• Thinking you have no flaws
• Standard
• Fictitious internal one
• Past/present oriented (and future?)
• Continuum
• I am evil/despicable/a failure--I accurately see my flaws--I have no flaws/I'm perfect
• Results
• Inability to grow or see flaws
• Attribution
• I have made myself perfect
• I am among the privileged perfect by circumstances or divine appointment
• Helpful Questions
• What flaws do I avoid seeing?  
• What am I in denial about?
• How can I grow?

“I’m better than you” Pride

• High estimation of social ranking/importance/better than others
• Less bad and/or more good in comparison
• Standard
• Others
• Present oriented (and past?  future?)
• Continuum
• I'm worse than others--I'm the same as others--I'm better than others
• Results
• Isolation
• Judgmentalism
• Inability to grow or see flaws
• Over estimation of ability--disappointment destination/impending failure
• Attribution
• I made me better than you
• God/genetics/life made me better than you
• Helpful Questions
• Is it possible my good is from my circumstances and my bad is from me?  
• What should I own up to?
• Is there a circumstantial explanation for others actions that might elevate my opinion of them?
• What better standard might I use other than those around me?

Conclusion:

• Appreciate the good within you
• It doesn't have to be conceit if what you're appreciating is moral good, justice, righteousness
• Are you appreciating in others the same good, though?
• Realize there is much you can't take credit for
• I think of Newton who said that he couldn't take any credit for the discoveries he made.  He, "Was standing on the shoulders of giants."  The distance he saw was only because of the height of others.
• Recognize your flaws
• It's the only way you can grow
• “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.” Phil 2:3

Consciousness Raising Events

Good science education is providing experiences or information that raises people’s consciousness of the universe around them. It expands minds. Opens doors of understanding. Removes the scales from our eyes.

That got me thinking.

What are events in my life that didn't change the world around me, but did change the world within me--my perception of reality?

At this point, I should be clear in what I mean by ‘consciousness raising’. I don’t mean a synonym for enlightenment. I don’t mean anything like Gnosticism or Buddhism.

I think the distinction between learning and realizing is a helpful one. ‘Learning’, as I’m defining it, is the accumulation of dispassionate information--largely irrelevant factoids. ‘Realizing’, however, isn’t the addition of a new bit of information so much as it is that fact being real, personal, vivid, 3-D, palpable, first person, high def--experienced rather than just known about.

In no particular order here’s a list of thing that raised my consciousness (often much later looking back on them). I really, really, really want to hear yours. Please comment. Please message. I am fascinated by this topic (for the time being, hehe).

Self

• My appendix rupturing: It was there I accepted I shared a common ancestor with the great apes. This has changed much of how I see myself, psychology, my body, religion and who I am. 
• Puberty: Feels weird to talk about it, but going through puberty was eye opening. I realized then what so many jokes, songs, movies, novels and TV shows were talking about. My body and my understanding of relationships forever changed.. 
• Running marathons: This has shown me a number of things. It’s shown me how much eating right, resting, and exercise really does affect one’s body, health, mind and mood. I had known that, but with running I could feel it. What I did directly affected what I’d do on the track. Also, exercises has given me so, so much more energy and elevated my baseline mood. Didn’t know there was such a connection with what you do and how you’ll feel. 
• Morphine Hallucinations: So, after coming out of appendix surgery I was on some pretty trippy stuff (I was really bad off. I have a six inch scar and was in the hospital for 8 days). It’s kind of a stretch to say that hallucinating raised my consciousness, but it does help me understand why people do drugs. I saw: a room filled with cotton candy, a bowling ball, cat/dog headed people, and I got trapped in a mushroom castle. Crazy. 
• Had a seizure: Just one. I was watching Batman the cartoon as a kid and then suddenly my muscles seized up and I tried to call out, but my parents say that I was just moaning and sticking out my tongue. Haha. That experience helps me relate to people with brain conditions. So weird it happened just once. 
• Teaching: I can think of a couple of times that I was so keyed up from teaching afterwards that I had trouble sleeping. Those events helped solidify what I want to do with my life. 
• Kids: There was a time when my employer asked me to do as a volunteer what I used to be paid to do. Accepting the offer even though I felt insulted made me realize how much I really do love working with kids. 

Culture

• Worship: I was radically affected by an experience of feeling what I perceived to be the presence of God. I truly felt at the time that I had my consciousness raised to a spiritual realm. 
• China: Like no other place I’ve been to, China rocked my world. Everything is different there--toilets, door nobs, locks, side walks, curbs, tonal language (their entire language is one syllable words pronounced in strange ways--up, down, diphthong, flat inflections), pictorial written language (where you have to know ten thousand characters just to be able to read the news paper), they form questions by adding a tag word of ‘ma’ instead of bringing the tone up at the end like we do, the communist government, electronics, drastically different religion, vegetables, smells (When we walk into a store we’re used to smelling synthetic lavender or synthetic vanilla etc. but they have totally different flowers and fruits there so nothing seems normal. You walk into a store and it smells like a synthetic lychee fruit or some asian flower your nose has never experienced. Very weird.) and people just act, think, are motivated differently. The kicker is China is almost a quarter of the world’s population. Also, it was a big deal to me to experience that those 1.4 billion people don’t share my religion. I had known that, but seeing it was different. 
• Language: Language is shaped by reality, but language also shapes our reality. You’ve heard of these examples--some cultures only have four numbers (one, two, three and many), some cultures only have two words for colors (hot colors and cold colors), and some cultures have something like 40 different words for the different types of snow (based on texture, appearance, temperature, etc.). Those are simple examples, but it can get much more complicated when languages have limited tenses, gendered nouns, verbs that describe whether the event happened once, repeatedly or a process over time. There are tribal languages that don’t have different tenses. That has to affect how they think of reality. Taking a Spanish and Greek opened my eyes to their world and by seeing theirs I saw my own. Words create worlds. 

Life

• Love: Loving another changes you. You want to be a better person. 
• Mexico: I went to Reynosa, Mexico in high school to build homes. It was the whole, “I went there to change their lives, but they ended up changing mine,” experience. I had never seen that level of abject poverty before. The family that we built a house for lived in what couldn’t even be described as a shack. It was a accumulation of boards, scrap metal, sacks and tarps. It was dirt floor. They had no electricity. If they wanted water they had to walk 2 miles to a nasty river--the Rio Bravo. They used an out house. They couldn’t even afford the nominal fee the government charged to get a birth certificate so that their child could go to school (he was around ten and had never gone to school). Seeing that affected me. Made me realize that every American is rich. I was rich. Ever since then I have a personal conviction to never complain about things like gas prices or to take for granted the food, water, and electricity that I enjoy every waking moment of my day. 
• Volunteering at Give Kids the World and going to a special needs foster home: I was probably around ten or twelve when a home school group my family was a part of went on a field trip to a special needs foster home. That was the first time I was around children my age with severe mental handicaps and severe disabilities. We were getting a tour of the facility and I remember the care taker taking us to one room where a young man spent the entire day moaning and screaming. Another room where a girl was nearly brain dead and who had no eyes. If there was any doubt as to whether she had eyes or not the care taker cleared that up by gently cradling her head and lifting one of her eye lids with her thumb. You could see the capillary filled back of her eye socket. That image was burned in my mind as a kid. It definitely affected me and until this day I remember it vividly. Subsequent volunteering at places like Give Kids the World, which give a magical vacation experience to families with children with terminal illnesses, cemented into my consciousness both the beauty of the people that give their lives in the service of loved ones and the level of suffering so many in the world experience. I’ve got it good. Really good. 
• Tallahassee: This isn’t as big as many of the others, but still worth mentioning I think. It’s been great to move to Tallahassee, figure some things out about myself and see that I can support myself and make a great life on my own. That’s felt great. 

Nature of the Universe

• Microscope: Seeing an amoeba for the first time collected from the scum pond water near my house was a transcendent moment for me as a kid. There’s a whole invisible world that is all around us. All the time. Right now. Look around. They’re there!! hehe 
• Plane: I hope you can remember looking out the window of a plane for the first time. You realize how very, very, very, very, very small you are. And how the world is big than you can imagine. Yet also very small, too... 
• Boat: It’s powerful to go so far on a boat you can’t see the shore any more and then realize that most of the world--70-75%ish--is exactly like that. Dirt and land are the minority exception. 
• Snorkeling: When I can’t sleep and my mind is whizzing with thoughts I’ll often transport myself to my happy place--snorkeling off of Fort Lauderdale. There’s a whole new world down there and seeing it first hand has affected how I understand the Earth. 
• Telescope: I was greatly affected by seeing the moons and bands of Jupiter and Saturn’s rings. Eye opening. Also, solar flares in a solar telescope. There’s just something about seeing it live and without a whole bunch of computers and processors; just seeing it with lenses and mirrors. 
• Limestone quarry: I’ve been lucky enough to go to two limestone quarries. One in Aurora, NC and one near Arcadia, FL. It’s amazing to think about what is below our feet--billions of years of history, countless remains that whisper secrets of the past. It’s one thing to read that in a book; another thing to see the layers before your very eyes. 
• Dissecting: Ya, it’s smelly and gross, but I unconsciously x-ray under my skin when I look at my body or have an ache or ailment. I owe that largely to dissecting as a kid with my mother’s biology class. 
• Microbiology lab: I recently swabbed my own skin and then inoculated a petri dish with the critters that were growing on me. Wow. Just to see the different colors and growth patterns of the stuff on you is freaky. Really freaky. But also really neat. We’re never alone!

CoPurposes--Weaving Relationships with Purposes

Love is not a one size fits all.  Each person needs something different and each person can offer something different.  This blog is me taking an idea I've already expressed one step further into the realm of relationships.

I hope these ideas will be helpful for several reasons.  If you're looking for a relationship ideally it'd be with  someone that shares similar values and goals.  While it's both impossible and unadvisable to look for your clone, common ground can mean common footing during future difficult times.  The second, perhaps more important, reason the below could be valuable is that it can help us love our partners better.  Knowing how/why they think the way they do can mean we can support and serve them with both greater depth and specificity.

O, and once again, life isn't about one thing.  Life is about all of the below.  These are not mutually exclusive categories so much as they are handles to help us understand lofty concepts.  May you take time to consider how you can gain fulfillment from these purposes and consider which one you can grow the most in.

Life is about:

• Relationships
• Activities they tend to engage in: imagining the future with others, outings with others, keeping up with old and new friends, etc.
• Strengths:  values others (either/and a few deep relationships or many social relationships), truly cares, they are the social glue that keeps people together, etc.
• Pit falls: idolizing love, idolizing others, codependence, being clingy, etc.
• Needs:  people, time, access to important relationships, to make new connections and to maintain old ones
• Achievements 
• Activities they tend to engage in: competition, loves goals to work towards, needs a challenge, goal oriented hobbies, enjoying checking things off to-do list, thriving under deadlines, etc.
• Strengths: they get things done, dedicated, focused, task oriented, etc.
• Pit falls: driven, blind to relational damage due to bulldozing, being trapped on the tread mill of achievements and never feeling good enough, etc.
• Needs:  to be cheered on, set achievable goals, make small steps in the direction of goal, celebrate progress, etc.
• Experiences
• Activities they tend to engage in: travel, trying new foods/drinks, sexually experimentation, creative self expression, cognitive stimulation, emotional catharsis, etc.  (Expressed sensually, cognitively and emotionally)
• Strengths: able to appreciate all that life offers, in the moment, exuberant, passion for life, artistic, creative, genius, etc.
• Pit falls: selfishness, hedonism, being snobbish about art/intellectualism, constantly needing a 'fix' of an experience, etc.
• Needs: to go on trips/vacations, to be allowed to budget for trying new things, plan for the future, remember others, appreciate what other people find beautiful, etc.
• Self-Improvement/Growth
• Activities they tend to engage in: religion for the sake of personal growth, self-help programs, physical fitness, etc.
• Strengths:  growing, teachable, wants to improve, etc.
• Pit falls: self-critical, adhering to program to the detriment of the rest of their life, idolization of process, etc.
• Needs: honest feedback, to have mentors/heroes/teachers in their life, accountability, a cheerleader, to appreciate improvements, etc.
• Cause/Mission
• Activities they tend to engage in: volunteering, charity, utopian idealization, etc.
• Strengths: they're givers, passionate, resolute, visionary, optimistic, servants, etc.
• Pit falls: quixotic, unrealistic, jaded, disillusioned, too heavenly minded to be any earthly good, forgets to smell the roses, thinks of people as pawns to be manipulated rather than enjoyed and valued, etc.
• Needs: reality checks, to be involved in something greater than themselves, grateful receivers, to appreciate progress, be around people that care about the same cause, appreciate the now and not be trapped in the future, etc.

Thoughts On Moving

So, I'm moving to Tallahassee, FL.  Here are some thoughts that whisk about my mind on the subject of moving (and more specifically my transition in life trajectories).

"Moving isn't so much about choosing where you want to be as much as it is choosing who you want to be."  --my eldest brother, Mercer Dalzel Walton III

"Life is like an 'X'.  As you travel up the two bottom legs of the 'X' you narrow down your choices of what you want to do with your life until you come to a single point, a juncture and a decision about what to do.  Is that the end?  O, no!  From there the reverse happens and the possibilities inverse so that soon the various paths open up and your choices increasingly expand." - paraphrase of Charlie Behrens

"If you want to hit a home run you have to lean into it.  Lean into it!"  --Me somehow using an analogy from a game I've never play or watched

"Fiscally high risk bonds, even though they may fluctuate volatilely, will over the long term yield the highest rewards.  If you can hold on through the bucks of the bronco, long term you will be better off.  Playing safe, long term, doesn't pay off."  --paraphrase of Sean Cooper   

"I find myself making major life decisions based on this matrix: if my life were a movie, is this how I'd want it to play out?...I really have no idea if that's a smart way of living or making major decisions, but I can't seem to help it!  Relationships, career goals, vacations, living situations, all major decisions I seem to base my thoughts off how it would read or what kind of movie it'd make from another's perspective!  What does that say about me!?  Or, my entertainment driven culture!?"  --Me reflecting on my major life decisions