Life and The Beautiful

Life and The Beautiful

By Martin L. Cowen III

Readers of this newsletter will be aware of our quest to understand “The Beautiful.” The spur to our interest in “The Beautiful” was our one-year study during Fellowship of Reason Sunday School of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics as translated by Professor Joe Sachs of St. John’s University.

Professor Sachs translates the Greek phrase “To Kalon,” used frequently by Aristotle, as “The Beautiful.” Other modern translations, including the highly influential Loeb Classical Library translation (1926) by H. Rackham, have translated the phrase as “The Noble.”

Aristotle says that the goal of ethical action is The Beautiful. The advantage of The Beautiful over The Noble is that Aristotle uses The Beautiful in its common sense meaning, as in: “She is a beautiful woman.” Or, “That was a beautiful thing that you did.” Or, the opposite, “That was an ugly thing you did.”

We understand The Beautiful. Saying that a thing is “noble” is not so easy. Does it mean that the action is something that an aristocrat would do? What does an aristocrat do? The meaning is not clear. As an ethical guide, the noble is practically useless.

Longtime followers of the Fellowship of Reason will know that our philosophy, Eudaimonism, draws upon Ayn Rand’s Objectivism. Objectivists will know that Ayn Rand drew upon Aristotle, naming, for example, the three sections of her monumental work Atlas Shrugged after Aristotle’s categories, “Non-Contradiction,” “Either-Or,” and “A is A.” Ayn Rand claims that the goal of ethical action is life.

My intention in this essay is to answer the question: How can Aristotle’s claim that the goal of ethical action is The Beautiful be reconciled with Objectivism’s claim that “life” is the goal of ethical action?

I have followed Objectivism for decades, since about 1972, that would be four decades. I actually met Ayn Rand in person. I played Leonard Peikoff’s lecture tapes for audiences in Atlanta in the 1970s, paying him fees. I have read all of Ayn Rand’s writings, excepting her letters. My acquaintance with Objectivism is above average.

Ayn Rand’s groundbreaking ethical claim, intended to remove ethics from the realm of the subjective, is that the standard of ethics is life. The ethical action is one that is pro-life. The relevant life is man’s life, qua man. “Qua man,” means “as man,” and refers to universal man properly conceived, in Ayn Rand’s case, man as producer.

Even Objectivists are not in perfect agreement on what “life” is the goal of ethical action. I have heard Objectivists debate over whether life means life as survival or life as flourishing. If the meaning is life as survival, then an individual is morally justified in doing anything to cause himself to survive. That would include throwing a baby under a bus if necessary to give the actor’s own body sufficient momentum to get out of the way the bus. Most Objectivists claim that life means a flourishing life. The person trying to get out of the way of the bus might calculate that if he throws the baby under the bus that his life will be plagued with guilt thereafter and not worth living. Therefore, he would not throw the baby under the bus.

The bus example is useful because it relates to the virtue of courage, Aristotle’s paradigmatic virtue. Here is Aristotle’s definition of courage:

“So one who [who] endures or fears what [what] one ought, for the reason one ought [why], as one ought [how], when [when] one ought, and is confident in similar ways, is courageous, since the courageous person undergoes things and acts in accordance with what is worthy and in a way that is proportionate. Now the end of any way of being at work is what corresponds to the active condition it comes from, and to a courageous person, courage is a beautiful thing, and so its end is something beautiful as well, since each thing is determined by its end. So it is for the sake of the beautiful that the courageous person endures and does the things that are in accord with courage.”

“Who, what, when, where, why, and how,” these six ideas (Aristotle omits “where” in his definition of courage) are the elements of the news story. These six ideas are a memory tool for storytellers to remind them to include everything about their subject. Aristotle was thorough. “Where” for Aristotle in the case of courage would be everywhere.

Readers of this newsletter will be aware that we have addressed the objection that “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” We have said, “Yes, it is.” We have said that beauty is a perception. We have said that proper training is necessary in order that a person be able to perceive the beautiful. These questions arise when analyzing Aristotle’s definition of courage.

My favorite example of courage is Todd Beamer, who was the 9-11 (2001) hero who led the passenger revolt on United Airlines flight 93 against the Islamist terrorist hijackers. The flight crashed in a field near Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania, with the loss of all aboard, but none on the ground. Realizing that his flight was doomed and headed toward an evil goal, Todd Beamer determined to retake control of the flight with the help of some fellow passengers, starting his charge with the phrase, “Let’s roll!”

There is satisfaction in contemplating the life and death of Todd Beamer who acted with Aristotelian courage in the face of certain death. The satisfaction is the perception of “The Beautiful.”

In the case of the bus and the baby, the explanation that the actor analyzes the situation and concludes that he would live his life in guilt if he throws the baby under the bus is inadequate. The true explanation is that a courageous actor instantly perceives that the beautiful thing to do is to save the baby and he does so. There is no analysis. Beauty is a perception. The perception is instantaneous. Obviously, not everyone will act the same way. Some will use the baby to save themselves. You, dear readers, will have an opinion about the actor who uses the baby to save himself. His action is not the beautiful thing to do. It is not likely that you will do business with him or associate with him in any way. He will be shunned by those who know of his actions. He will be ashamed of himself.

Therefore, Objectivist theory fails to account for courage in life and death situations.

This conclusion, though, does not necessitate a complete break from Objectivist theory. Consider the relationship between a flourishing life (Objectivism’s moral target) and The Beautiful (Aristotle’s moral target). Rarely will there be space between a “flourishing” life and The Beautiful. Flourishing and The Beautiful often have the same referents. Flourishing is a part of The Beautiful in cases in which flourishing is a relevant category. In order to be beautiful a life must be flourishing (a necessary condition), though flourishing alone is not sufficient for a life to be beautiful. A tyrant (e.g. Vladimir Putin, Bashar al-Assad, Kim Jong-un) can flourish without being beautiful.

Let us think about this some more.

We all seek the following, yes?

1.       A beautiful life

2.       Beautiful people in character and body

3.       The beautiful in action

4.       The beautiful in thought

5.       The beautiful in art

6.       The beautiful in music

7.       The beautiful in literature

8.       The beautiful in architecture

9.       The beautiful in nature

10.   A beautiful death

If we do seek a beautiful death, then the Objectivist’s moral target, a flourishing life is merely slightly off the true target, the true target being The Beautiful, including a beautiful life. The issue is analogous to Sir Isaac Newton’s physical science and Albert Einstein’s Relativity. Newton’s science applies at slower than light speeds very well. At speeds approaching the speed of light, Relativity is the more useful scientific model. In the same way, targeting a flourishing life will get you morally where you want to go in normal circumstances, but in life and death circumstances The Beautiful is required as the standard. (Comparing Ayn Rand (as Newton) to Aristotle (as Einstein) will not ruffle too many Objectivist feathers.)

My favorite fictional depiction of the thoughtful moral targeting of a beautiful death (and longtime readers and auditors will remember this fact) is the Clint Eastwood film Gran Torino (2008). In the film Clint Eastwood’s character, Walt, befriends a teenaged neighbor, Thao, who is having trouble avoiding a neighborhood gang who seeks to recruit Thao. In the film’s climax, Walt seeks his own spectacular death in a hail of bullets in order to take out the gang by legal process. (The gang kills the unarmed Walt in public and the thugs are taken away by the police for murder.) I will not take the time to “explain” The Beautiful in this scene here, because a properly “trained” viewer can see for herself by watching the film.

So returning to my list above of ten beautiful things we seek, we can easily see that the list can be expanded indefinitely by adding more categories (the beautiful in science, for example) and by subdividing (the beautiful in opera, for example, as a subcategory of music) the existing categories.

The Beautiful is therefore an aspect of life, death, people, action, thought, art, music, literature, architecture, and nature. It is the morally relevant aspect. The Beautiful was one of Plato’s famous Forms. We do not embrace Plato’s Forms. Rather, the Forms are, in our philosophy, abstractions from other categories, ideas, and objects. An “abstraction” is something isolated in thought and to which one’s mind attends. Take “white” as an example. When considering a “white” coffee cup, one “abstracts” the experience of whiteness from the “white” coffee cup in question. One “abstracts” out aspects of objects for a variety of purposes. In the case of a “white” coffee cup, one might attend to whiteness in order to successfully complete her collection of “white” coffee cups. But that is enough of Epistemology for the moment.

The goal of this essay has been to reconcile the claim of Objectivism that a flourishing life is the object of moral action with the claim of Aristotle that The Beautiful is the object of moral action. We have argued that a flourishing life is certainly part of the moral picture and applies to many normal moral situations. At moral situations at the margin of life and death, the proper standard is The Beautiful.

We might say, too, that just as the translation of “To Kalon” as the noble or as The Beautiful matters to a clear understanding of Aristotle’s ethics, so too does a statement that the standard of morality is a flourishing life versus The Beautiful matters even in normal moral cases. In order to avoid confusion and possible error, I choose always to hold The Beautiful before my mind’s moral eye.

So, we conclude where we began with the claim that The Beautiful is the object of moral action.

Training for Morality

Training for Morality

By Martin L. Cowen III

This essay discloses the object of moral training. We are several steps into new moral territory. We are excited about it.

Larry Woods (a member and Trustee of the Fellowship of Reason) keeps us on our intellectual toes. Larry drives our effort to discover new moral paths. He urges caution as we take new ones. Thank you, Larry.

We read Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics as translated by Joe Sachs. Professor Sachs taught us that a century of attempts to understand Aristotle’s ethics were hobbled by a mistranslation of the ancient Greek phrase, to kalon. The popular modern translation is “the noble.” More accurately, according to Professor Sachs, the meaning of the Greek phrase is “the beautiful” in an expression such as this: the virtuous person acts “for the sake of the beautiful, for this is the end of virtue.” (1115B, 12-13) Aristotle intends to teach us that all ethical action aims at “the beautiful.” Ethical actions flow from virtue. Virtue is a character trait of the excellent man. Aristotle’s virtues are not mysterious: courage, temperance, generosity, magnificence, magnanimity, appetite for honor, gentleness, truthfulness, friendliness, and justice. “The beautiful” is not mysterious. It means that same thing that we mean when we say, “She is a beautiful woman.” Simple. Aristotle says that the goal of morality is the beautiful. That we all recognize some relationship between beauty and morality is illustrated by expressions like “That was a beautiful thing you did” or “Don’t be ugly.”

Larry Woods cautioned us by asking, “Well, isn’t beauty in the eye of the beholder?

Larry is concerned, as are we all, that morality ought not be subjective or arbitrary. The complete moral relativists might say, “If another thinks that murder is a beautiful thing, who am I to insist otherwise.” Or, “One person’s freedom fighter is another person’s terrorist.”

Thus, ended our first level of inquiry.

Next, we learned that “beauty is a perception.” By this, we mean that when we see a beautiful object, we do not analyze the object, ponder the analysis, and then conclude that the object is beautiful. Rather we see a beautiful sunset and it strikes us as beautiful. We hear a beautiful song and it strikes us as beautiful. We smell a beautiful aroma and its strikes us as beautiful. We taste a beautiful flavor and its strikes us as beautiful. We feel and delightful cloth and it strikes us as beautiful.

We learned that each of us has experience and training in different areas and that we can perceive the beautiful in areas in which we are experienced or expert.

We concluded that training is crucial to the perception of the beautiful.

Larry Woods cautions us by asserting: “We beg the question—“Isn’t the judgment of beauty subjective?”—by replacing that question with the assertion that “proper training is necessary for the perception of beauty.” Larry says that we replaced the first question about beauty with an assertion about “proper” training, replacing the question about “beauty” with an implicit question about “proper.”

So that is where we are today in this essay. We want to answer Larry Woods’ newest cautionary comment by answering the question, “Is the choice of training subjective or arbitrary?”

Let us first think about training in general. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of things for which human beings are trained. Here is a short list.

Piano	French	Doctor
Violin	Latin	Lawyer
Guitar	Greek	Pharmacy
French horn	Spanish	Teaching
Oboe	Mathematics	Football
Harp	Physics	Basketball
Ballet	Chemistry	Soccer
Acting	Biology	Golf
Voice	Business administration	Tennis
Gymnastics	Truck driving	Scuba diving

This short list can be expanded simply by listing, for example, more languages, more careers, or more specialties within categories. “Doctor,” for example, does not clarify M.D., D.D.S, Ph.D., etc. or the dozens of subspecialties within those designations.

The point to be acknowledged now is that we have no anxiety about what “proper” training means in any of these fields. The method for training a good lawyer is agreed upon and is virtually the same in dozens of law schools across the United States.

A well trained lawyer can recognize a beautiful brief by virtue of his training. A well trained pianist can recognize a beautiful recital by virtue of her training. A well trained golfer can recognize a beautiful round by virtue of her training as can the rest of us the least bit familiar with golf by virtue of the golfer’s score in that round. About these claims, there is no dispute.

While the recognition of the beautiful in a particular field by a person experienced or expert in the field is a perception, the expert can explain why the thing is beautiful. The explanation, though, will not render the thing beautiful to the inexperienced. A thing is perceived to be beautiful or it is not so perceived. One cannot be “persuaded” into the “experience” of beauty. One “has” the experience of beauty, if one is trained and in the presence of the beautiful.

What is “proper” training for a lawyer is agreed upon and is not arbitrary or subjective. The extreme cynic might say, though: “Who is to say that a lawyer who does not know the law, cannot write a brief, cannot argue a case to a jury, and does not know how to fill out government forms is not a ‘real’ or ‘proper’ lawyer?” How do we answer such a question? The answer is that it is a matter of definition.

A lawyer is defined as a person who knows the law, can write a brief, can argue a case to a jury, and knows how to fill out government forms. If she cannot do these things, she is not a lawyer. Therefore, the “proper” training of a lawyer must result in the creation of a lawyer. That is what “proper” training means. The training in question results in the creation of the object of the training.

Training is not subjective or arbitrary. “Proper” training results in the creation of the object of the training.

We like to separate ethical action into action involving others and action involving ourselves. If ethical action means simply the answer to the question—“What ought I do in this circumstance?”—it seems that ethical action can be action involving only ourselves. For example: “Ought I eat this piece of cake or rather this nice, crisp Fuji apple?” Or, more importantly: “Ought I choose a career doing something I love (e.g. acting), or doing something I like much less (e.g. selling vacuum cleaners) for more money?” One might argue that the more beautiful thing to do is to be, for a while, the starving young artist, auditioning by day and waitressing by night. These, too, are ethical questions.

Larry Woods is more interested in fundamental ethical choices like “selfishness v. self-sacrifice” as the choice pertains to other people and yourself.

Before we go there, let us hammer down the point that enormous domains of human action have objective and widely agreed upon training regimes. Methods of training for lawyering, doctoring, truck driving, what have you, are widely agreed upon.

If we apply what we have learned about training in general to the question at hand, we should ask: “What is the object of moral training?”

Morality provides the answer to the question: “What ought I do?” The object, therefore, of moral training is to create an individual who can excellently answer the question: “What ought I do?” This question, in turn, points to another question: “To what end does the individual act, in the broadest sense?” The ultimate choice is life or death. Ought one act to live or die? The question is easy. If one chooses to die, then he commits suicide and all questions are answered. If one chooses to live, then that choice provides a standard by which to judge various answers in various contexts to the moral question, “What ought I do in order to live?” “Live” in this context means “live well.” The alternative, “live badly” leads in the extreme case to die. “Live well” means to flourish as a human being. Readers of this newsletter will be familiar with this concept because members of the Fellowship of Reason call themselves eudaimonists. We are Eudaimonists. Eudaimonism, derived from the Greek word “eudaimonia,” means “well-being-ism.”

The moralist, therefore, must look to human nature to determine what for a human being is “living well.” A model for this activity is found in determining what it means for a rose (the flower) to live well or flourish. A flourishing rose is large, robust, well formed with a strong stem, sharp thorns, and verdant leaves in the midst of a sunny, moist country garden. (Such a rose is beautiful.) In contrast, a rose that is not living well or flourishing is one found in the crack of a sidewalk in August on Fifth Avenue at 49^th Street in New York City, one inch high with few petals, no thorns, and no leaves, desiccated.

Following the rose model, a flourishing human being is, physically, a healthy, well-fed, well-formed individual. Unlike a rose, human beings have a mental faculty. A flourishing human being is, mentally, happy.

We all know, therefore, what a flourishing human being looks like. (Such an individual is beautiful.)

The moralist must then ask, “How does a flourishing human being come into existence?” How does a beautiful human being who performs beautiful actions come into existence?

The moralist looks to history, psychology, anthropology, and economics for an answers to these questions.

I recently finished reading A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14^th Century (1987), by Barbara Tuckman. As an illustration of what not to do to create beautiful people in beautiful human environments, a better example is not to be found. Human population reached a Middle Ages low point shortly after this period as the result of famine, plague, rape, pillage, and war. This period is part of the Hundred Year’s War. A prominent feature of this time was groups of armed men who roamed Europe killing and looting peasants and anyone else who could not defend themselves.

It is not possible in the remaining few paragraphs of this essay to survey history, psychology, anthropology, and economics for further guideposts. The method is established. The moralist will conclude from a thorough survey that a dominant feature of periods during which human beings have flourished is HUMAN FREEDOM. These periods include Ancient Greece during the 5^th century, Rome during the period of the Good Emperors, the Italian Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution in England, and the Nineteenth Century in Europe and America. Freedom means the protection of property rights under the rule of law.

            The beautiful human circumstance is freedom. The individual in the circumstance of freedom is allowed by the social circumstances (government and cultural) to do his work, to trade his product in voluntary transactions with others, and to keep the products of his work and trade.

The goal of moral training then is the human being trained for liberty. This is the meaning of a liberal education. Such training produces ladies and gentlemen. Ladies and gentlemen are human beings trained in and, therefore, suited for freedom. (Recall  and compare the flourishing rose in the country garden.)

To summarized, we have asserted that the goal of moral action is the beautiful. We have asserted that the beautiful is in the eye of the beholder. We have asserted that beauty is perceived. Beauty is perceived by a person well trained in the domain in which the beautiful action or thing exists. “Proper” training results in the creation of the object of the training. The object of legal training is a lawyer. The object of musical training is a musician. The object of moral training is a human being who can answer the question, “How ought I live well.” Living well is determined by an examination of history, psychology, anthropology, and economics. That examination shows that human beings flourish under freedom. Freedom is the protection of property rights under the rule of law. The object of moral training is to create ladies and gentlemen, individuals suited for liberty.

Ladies and gentlemen can recognize beautiful human action by virtue of their training.

Utopianism or How I Would Like to Save the World

Utopianism or How I Would Like to Save the World

By

Martin L. Cowen III

I want to save the world. To do so I will attempt in this essay.

We are recently blessed with wonderful visitors at FOR Pub. Special thanks are due to President Ron for having revived this activity, thus bringing many old friends back to us and providing an easy meeting place for new friends.

We have had in recent months three visitors who have been on spiritual journeys. (Psychologist Nathaniel Branden defines “spiritual” as “of or pertaining to consciousness.”) I myself have been on a spiritual journey and most of us in the Fellowship of Reason have been on spiritual journeys, so draw no negative connotation from this observation.

Sometimes spiritual journeys begin with, or at some point involve, the observation that the world is troubled.

Billions and Billions

The world population is about 7,114,000,000 people today, over seven billion. Among these numbers are people in the various stages of life: infant, child, adolescent, young adult, middle age, mature adult, and senior, each stage with its own problems and pleasures. Among these numbers are people who live under different regimes, ranging from totalitarian to democratic socialism. Some people live in grinding poverty (by American standards). Most Americans and Western Europeans live comfortable middle class lives. Among these numbers are people who are mentally and physically disabled in various ways. The variety and number of people and circumstances are unfathomable.

Slavery

Among the many existent human circumstances is slavery. Yes, there is slavery in the world today. One web site, www.freetheslaves.net, says this: “There are 27 million people in slavery today. They are forced to work without pay, under threat of violence, and they’re unable to walk away.” A map from www.freetheslaves.net shows the following slave states and continents:

World Map of Slavery

Slavery is a big problem.

There are billions of horrible human situations.

The Beautiful

On the other hand, there are countless beautiful things, circumstances, and human actions. Here is “Hunters in the Snow” by Peter Bruegel (1565), one of the most beautiful paintings in the world.

There are beautiful people. Here is a picture of my own beloved son.

In the lives of the people of the world there are beauties, like “Hunters in the Snow” and Lindsey, and there are horrors, like slavery.

To what do you pay attention?

I observe that Utopians tend to focus on the ugly rather than on the beautiful. Furthermore, Utopians tend to focus on the big rather than the small. Slavery in the world is a big, ugly problem. A felled tree across a public street in one’s neighborhood is a small problem.

A big, ugly thing, like slavery, is impossible eliminate. I remember my experience with writer’s block. I vowed to work at least 3 hours a day on my book. Nothing happened. When I changed my goal to 15 minutes per day, bingo! I started writing. Of course, I usually ended up writing more than 15 minutes per day.

The point is that a too-big goal causes paralysis. Having “eliminate world slavery” or “achieve world peace” as a personal goal is impossible and paralyzing.

While human beings can conceive of the infinite, an individual can only act within an arm’s length or a day’s walk. While human beings can conceive of eternity, an individual can only live about 60 years as an adult (from age 20 to age 80). In my sixties now, I can assure you that this is not a long time.

Big Goal Utopianism is like insisting that one write 3 hours per day. The goal is impossible and paralyzing.

Rightly choosing on what to focus is crucial.

Choosing the Beautiful

People go on spiritual journeys because they are experiencing a “dis-ease” of consciousness. The true goal of a spiritual (remember this word means “of or pertaining to consciousness”) journey is to “ease” your consciousness.

Having too-big, unrealistic goals that paralyze one’s body and mind is not the proper path to ease of consciousness or to well-being, or to eudaimonia.

We have recently learned from our study of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics that the goal of all ethical action is the beautiful. Therefore, one should surround oneself with the beautiful and endeavor in one’s life to create the beautiful. The ultimate experience in the presence of the sublime (the extreme of the beautiful) is wholeness of self, harmony of self, and radiance of self. This experience (wholeness, harmony, radiance) is the goal of all spiritual journeys. Just ask those who have successfully completed their journeys.

Surrounding oneself with the Beautiful

Choosing the beautiful involves at least two activities. The first is to surround oneself with beautiful things, circumstances, and people. Beautiful people are people of good character. Choosing to associate with people of good character is the most important choice an individual can make in order to achieve “ease” of consciousness. An individual of good character is one who possesses virtues: courage, temperance (or moderation), magnificence, generosity, greatness of soul, gentleness, sociability, playfulness, justice, practical judgment, wisdom, and the capacity for friendship. These are some of the virtues identified by Aristotle.

Not among Aristotle’s virtues are these: cleanliness, punctuality, pleasantness, persistence, and honesty. These last five will guarantee one a job, for those still looking for one. J

As friend Larry loves to tell me, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” So be it. One need not choose “Hunters in the Snow” for one’s living room wall. There are many other great and beautiful paintings, musical presentations, theatrical presentations, and dance presentations with which to surround one. Great sporting events are beautiful in the eyes of many beholders. Human greatness abounds. One need only choose to experience it.

Acting toward the Beautiful

Choosing the beautiful involves at least two activities. The second is to act to create the beautiful. I am not speaking of creating “Hunters in the Snow,” though that would be marvelous if one had the capacity. Rather, I am thinking of the usual activities of our everyday lives.

Doctors find disease in their patients and cure it. A beautiful thing. Lawyers find clients who have made a mess in their lives and help them clean it up. A beautiful thing. Software engineers find a problem that needs a solution and code it. A beautiful thing. Parents find their children need an education and provide it. A beautiful thing. Yardmen find grass that needs cutting and mow it. A beautiful thing. Most human activity is action to create the beautiful. A beautiful thing.

Carrying your end of the log

The wanna-be utopian might object that his “big, ugly thing” is in the world and needs fixing. The list of “big, ugly things” is long. Some examples include war, terrorism, torture, slavery, crime (murder, rape, kidnapping, armed robbery, burglary), poverty, racism, sexism, homophobia, bigotry, whale hunting, poaching of elephant tusks in Africa, you name it. This list is endless. Remember, I could not function with the self-imposed goal: to write for 3 hours a day. I could only function with the goal: to write for 15 minutes a day. Applied to “save the whales” or “achieve world peace,” the lesson is that one has to have reasonable, achievable goals. One cannot “save the whales” or “eliminate poverty.” These tasks are too big.

The only thing an individual can do is to “carry her end of the log.” What this means is that one can only do one’s part of the task or tasks she chooses. The bigger the task, the smaller one’s part. In the case of “save the whales,” the best one can reasonably do is to be a financial contributor to Greenpeace. If one is really into “saving the whales,” one might get a job with Greenpeace and devote one’s entire working life to “saving the whales.” However, one cannot “save the whales” by working for Greenpeace and at the same time “eliminate world poverty.” An individual does not have enough time or resources to do both tasks as a full time job. As we said above we can think of infinity of space and eternity of time, but we cannot move an infinite distance or endure an eternal time. An individual’s life has a very specific duration (about 60 adult years) and a limited range (usually only within one or two cities during her life).

Defining your World

Most people are not utopians or even “reasonable” utopians. (A “reasonable” utopian is a monetary contributor to group acting to cure his “big, ugly thing.”) Sure, some tens of thousands of people among the seven billion people in the world act to “save the whales” by donating small amounts to Greenpeace, but, in truth, most people do not spend any time or money on the long list of “big, ugly things” started above.

Most people’s worlds consist of their spouses and their children. Plus, a few good friends and, usually, a small moral community to which they voluntarily adhere (like the Fellowship of Reason).

Within and among their family, friends, and moral community they build beautiful lives and are fountains of value and beauty to those around them.

An individual with a spouse and children does not normally go on a spiritual journey because a family is a fulltime job, loaded with meaning, requiring most of her conscious thought and energy. The family is the natural, automatic source of meaning in human life.

One need not have a spouse and children in order to find meaning and beauty in life. It is just a little harder and requires effort that is more conscious.

All adults have some life experience without a spouse or children. The average age of marriage for men in America is about 29 and for women in America, about 27. Most parents live to have their children grow up and move out of the house. One spouse will survive the other. Therefore, the state of being single with no kids is an almost universal experience for adults. “Dis-ease” of consciousness is common at these times.

The rules for “ease” of consciousness for SINKs (single income, no kids) are stated above: (1) surround yourself with beauty, including beautiful people, and (2) act to achieve the beautiful in your own life, even at the tiniest level of taking a shower every day.

Utopians make the mistake of defining their worlds too widely. “World peace” or “eliminate poverty” is not an achievable individual goal. Happy, healthy children are an achievable individual goal. Performing well in a job that you enjoy is an achievable individual goal. Having and enjoying a few good friends is an achievable individual goal.

Still stuck on that “Big, Ugly Thing?”

Having an unachievable goal that renders one paralyzed has its advantages. If one is paralyzed, one does not have to work. I have at least 10 tasks per day that contribute to my various goals. Ten times 365 (days) times 60 (adult years of life) equals 219,000 lifetime tasks. If one is paralyzed, one need not start or complete 219,000 tasks. Whew! That is a lot of work avoided by being stuck in front of one’s “big, ugly thing.”

Here is a partial list of my daily tasks (with the help of my beloved wife):

1. Get the kids ready for school (showers, breakfast, clothes, school lunches): 1 hour
2. Take the kids to school: 1 hour
3. Teach or prepare to teach high school French: 1 hour
4. Work at the courthouse: 2 hours
5. Work on my private cases: 2 hours
6. Pickup kids from school: 1 ½ hours
7. Take Alexander to choir: 5 hours (twice a week for choir; on other days we are at home and eat a family dinner)
8. Get the kids ready for bed: ½ hour
9. Read, work on FOR projects: 2 hours
10. Jog (when I get the chance)

My life missions are revealed: happy, healthy children, enjoy French, make a living, work on the Fellowship of Reason, fitness.

I do not have time to “save the whales.” Most people do not.

My point is not that these tasks ought to be another’s, though most people with children live exactly this life. My point is that everyone should choose beautiful things to create and set about creating those things.

Have I saved the world?

Define the “world.” The worlds I am interested in are my own family, friends, and associates through the Fellowship of Reason.

In this essay, I am interested in the “world” of our three visitors who are on spiritual journeys. If I have been “heard, understood, recognized, acknowledged”: HOORAH!, then perhaps I have saved their worlds.

To summarize:

The world is big. There are billions and billions of people. Through the stages of the life of each individual (of those billions and billions), there will be many triumphs and tragedies. In the end each of us dies. There are big, ugly things and there are beautiful things.

Focus on the beautiful. Surround yourself with beauty. Act to create the beautiful.

Carry your end of the log. Do only what you are capable of doing. Do not set goals that are impossible to achieve and thereby paralyze yourself. Do not target any of the big, ugly things in the world that are impossible to change.

Find yourself a spouse or life partner. Find yourself some beautiful friends. Join the Fellowship of Reason.

I have saved the world!

One Last Thing

I have shown you a picture of my beautiful son, Lindsey, above. I have two beautiful sons and a beautiful wife. That which is particularly interesting about Lindsey, in the context of this essay, is that he autistic. He cannot speak. He is only partially potty-trained. He cannot be allowed, unattended, outside a highly protected environment. Yet Lindsey is a beautiful child. He is supremely happy. He is well cared for thanks to his mother and me. He will be well cared for after we are dead by his loving brother. Focus, my friend, on the beautiful.

Do not project your own prejudices about life onto others. I remember visiting Peru some years ago. I saw remarkable poverty previously unknown to me. I saw a 6-year-old child herding cattle beside the road on which passed my tour bus. I saw a mother and children pulling potatoes from a field in front of their one room, mud brick hut. I expect, though, that the people I saw were happy people living full, rich lives.

Friend, carry your end of the log. Your end of log is your own life. Live it well.