A Proverb

It requires no humility to admit you have faults. A great many boasts begin with an admission of fault. It requires humility to admit what those faults are, and to do so in such excruciating detail that one cries for shame.

Dilbert In Hell

“Screwtape: What sort of things is this friend going to tell him to do?

Wormwood: Shape up. Come to work on time, not look so hungover every Monday morning, stop being quite so flirtatious with the secretary.

Screwtape: This coworker sounds like a bad influence, but you have a number of options.

Wormwood: I knew you could help.

Screwtape: If your patient doesn’t like the message his coworker gives, he should complain about the medium.

Wormwood: What do you mean?

Screwtape: If the coworker tells him to shape up via email, your patient should respond that a phone call would have been more appropriate. If the coworker tells him via phone call, your patient should tell him an in-person meeting would have been more appropriate. If the coworker tells him in person, your patient should say that he “feels cornered.”

Wormwood: Excellent. What if complaining about the medium doesn’t provide enough leverage to fully disregard the coworker’s warning?

Screwtape: Complain about the tone of the message. The patient should say it’s too shrill, too aggressive, too vague, too patronizing, too familiar… too something. Whatever happens, you don’t want the patient actually engaging with the content of the message. Tone is a great way of leveraging room to avoid the message.

Wormwood: Interesting. What if the tone is perfect?

Screwtape: Timing. Complain about the timing of the message. Tell your patient to say, “This should have been brought to my attention months ago.” Between complaints about the medium, the tone, and the time, a full eighty percent of thoughtful criticism can be avoided.”

-from my latest for CiRCE

On The Tripartite Soul

Plato claims there are three realms of human desiring: mind, heart, and stomach. The mind knows, the heart feels, the stomach yearns.

The mind is the least strong of all three. It has the least power. In and of itself, knowing rarely leads to action. Knowing must usually be paired with feeling and yearning. Apart from the efforts of the heart, the stomach will almost always triumph over the mind. In other words, we must not only know what is right in order to do what is right. We must both know and love what is right in order to do it.

All of these claims are commonly traded. I will add this, though:

Given it is weakest, the mind is also easiest to control. We may think about whatever we want to think about. We may change our thoughts instantly. We may of cars, then trucks, then coffee, then scissors in quick succession.

We cannot move from feeling to feeling so easily. Feelings are much harder to change, though they can be changed. If a man wants to feel sad, he may do so with great effort.

And yet changing our desires is very, very difficult. If a man is hungry, it is nearly impossible for him to decide he does not want food. If a man is tired, he must feel tired. Nothing changes with greater difficulty than the stomach.

Just One Man’s Opinion

“Next to [Piglet’s] house was a piece of broken board which had: “TRESPASSERS WILL” on it. When Christopher Robin asked Piglet what it meant, he said it was his grandfather’s name, which was short for Trespassers William.”

This is the best joke in a work of twentieth century literature.

When A Friend Recommends A Dumb Book

“Tom: So, what did you think of The Art of Reimagining Community by Carlos Carson?

Harry: I’ll be honest with you. I didn’t like it.

Tom: That’s interesting. Do you think it’s possible that you just didn’t understand it?

Harry: No, I understood it just fine. I didn’t like it.

Tom: Well, perhaps it’s not the kind of book you’re meant to like.

Harry: What do you mean?

Tom: The Art of Reimagining Community brings up a lot of really important issues—the sort of issues that most people shy away from. It’s a pretty confrontational book.

Harry: I never felt confronted while reading this book. In fact, there was a lack of confrontational material in this book.

Tom: Well, I would say it’s a very intellectual book, as well. Perhaps you just like books with more action.

Harry: No, I’ve enjoyed a great many books that didn’t contain any action.

Tom: Perhaps you didn’t realize all the ways you were being confronted.

Harry: No, I could tell when the author thought he was confronting me as a modern day American—and I don’t mind being confronted, but this book never truly confronted me. I didn’t think the book was very good and so I didn’t like it.

Tom: Wow. So, I’d love to hear about the passages of the book that you took issue with, but before we get into that, I have to ask about your claim that you “didn’t like” the book. That strikes me as a very reductive sort of judgement.”

-from my latest for CiRCE