Capacity et al.

I reached a significant milestone in my writing and professional life on or about Dec. 20, 2008. That was the date I wrote my "Passing Dad" essay and realized that now that I had "passed" him in the number of days lived, I was free, in a way I never previously realized, to develop my own style/life. So, I decided to curtail the number of essays published, focus on other professional developments, deepen a relationship with a special woman and, finally, do all I could to master/recapture my Latin. Now, ten weeks later, I am writing to provide a bit of a "check up" on how things have gone. What has become apparent to me is that my new focus has given me insights about what makes life "work" for me. I hope these lessons are transferable--i.e., not unique to me. They are: the importance of cultivating what I call "capacity" or "expanse"; the centrality of persistence, and the need for spirit in that persistence. A few words on each will suffice.

Capacity/Expanse

The most important realization is that I am fueled not only by opening and cultivating new fields of learning but also by centering on the way I can use these intellectual domains to help individuals and organizations. The skills I bring to any encounter include an ability to isolate the nub of a problem, hold it up to clear view, press responsible people about how they want to deal with the problem, write extensively and precisely on the issue and, finally, develop and carry through a process that helps them responsibly handle the problem. The key to this ability is my continual development of intellectual capacity, the "vast caverns" of memory as Augustine characterizes them, and the clear and precise expression of ideas. At this point my capactiy is expanded primarily through recapturing Latin. I have a series of old Latin readers, mostly developed for advanced HS students 100 years ago, which provide the texts, comments, grammatical and other aids and insights to stimulate my own further learning. Now I am reading Book II of Virgil's Aeneid, and it has stimulated me not simply to get "all the words" in Latin, but also to begin to memorize the great epics in their original languages. I began doing that with Paradise Lost last summer, making it through several hundred lines, but then became distracted by other tasks. (I recall having memorized the first 200 lines of the Iliad in Greek in 1978 or 1979, but not continuing with it). So, this capacity building, this development of the expanse of learning, this sort of "Jack LaLanne of the mind" activity, is key to being able to provide diligent, alert and helpful advice to an increasingly diverse array of clients.

Persistence

We all give up somewhere along the line. Sometimes we do it because we just can't "hang on" any longer; other times we decided that it is a waste of time to keep doing what we are doing. But the key insight here is that most human activity becomes enriched, deepened, and clarified through persistence. Knowledge builds, misunderstanding fades, perspective is gained, opponents are worn down, problems are finally defined, people are gradually "brought over" to your side. The tasks making up persistence are many, and we often flag in zeal especially when we lose energy or run into obstacles. But I tend now to agree with the Scriptural statement, "those who endure to the end will be saved." Building capacity (or, more precisely, filling the capactiy that is already there) and persistence are two crucial lessons of life.

Spirit

But persistence alone doesn't save. One can persist with all kinds of negative emotional freight or baggage. The key to productive living is to persist with spirit. This is the real challenge, and the place where we almost always fall short. We become terribly bored by the demands on us; we don't want to go over the lesson one more time; we wish that things were just a little bit easier. But they aren't. But we become as much a part of the problem as those who give up if we just persist with negativity dripping from us. We need a life of persistence with spirit. This requires us to face the following question: What are the sources of spirit for us? What are the springs that feed our life, that enable us not simply to develop and fill our capacity or to persist in an activity, but to do so with a measure of grace, energy, personal charm, clarity and engagement? It might just be the importance of the task as it is before us, or the fact that we are emissaries of someone's mission--whether it be religious, political, business or some other vision. It may be that we have developed our own way of doing things, and we know that unless we maintain "the faith" that things just won't continue. What gives you spirit in your persistence?

Conclusion

Life is opening its remarkable frutifulness to me in a year of debilitating economic conditions. The primary reasons are that I am being much more aggressive on the three issues just mentioned. Not only do I know that I can help people think through individual and group problems, but I know also have little reluctance in telling them that--when it becomes apparent to me. People live in confusion. I help them remove it. These three items just mentioned are the keys to it..

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