If

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:


If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
...


If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!


From If by Rudyard Kipling


View this poem recited by Harvey Keitel.

My Creed

To live as gently as I can;
To be, no matter where, a man;
To take what comes of good or ill
And cling to faith and honor still;
To do my best, and let that stand
The record of my brain and hand;
And then, should failure come to me,
Still work and hope for victory.

To have no secret place wherein
I stoop unseen to shame or sin;
To be the same when I'm alone
As when my every deed is known;
To live undaunted, unafraid
Of any step that I have made;
To be without pretense or sham
Exactly what men think I am.

From My Creed - Edgar Albert Guest

View a video of Ben Kingsley reciting the above.

Culmination and Reset

It has been a very full week, on virtually every level. Last night, we went to the Pagan Discussion, hosted by Thornhaven, and I finally got to meet a few luminaries of the local Pagan Community, Dr. Shelley Rabinovitch, and Dr. Brendan Meyers.

One small step

It feels right somehow to have completed part of my tasks for this year. I am rounding the bend on the first issue of Oak Leaves for this year. A few more tweaks then I send it out for review and editing.

I have made some artistic decisions as well, so hopefully the reviewers will like my approach.  No pearls of wisdom tonight, just a plugging away at it day.

The Truth about Intentionality

Most of my day was consumed with Oak Leaves. Since I was sick anyway, I thought I might at least make a productive day of it. So today I chose to work on Oak Leaves. As I only received the final files tonight, completion some time tomorrow will be acceptable.

I spent a few minutes chatting with Brett Wheat-Simms about the Words of the Ancient Wise blog, and my goals for the year. I also received my evaluation back from Erik for my first Sellars assignment. All in all, it was very positive. He has also asked me to help him set up a mechanism to discuss common Fallacies. Should be very interesting.


At around 8pm the ADF chat started and we discussed, in some depth, the concepts of Kindred. It was interesting, and I am thinking of reintroducing some kind of joint vespers idea with Pam. We have been asked to sing some samples of Taize on the Thursday video chat.

I think that maybe that is the essence of productivity. Always be actively engaged in something. Sunday's reading on the Words of the Ancient Wise brought this to mind:

NOT to be slack and negligent; or loose, and wanton in thy actions, nor contentious, and troublesome in thy conversation, nor to rove and wander in thy fancies and imaginations. Not basely to contract thy soul; nor boisterously to sally out with it, or, furiously to launch out as it were, nor ever to want employment.

MARCUS AURELIUS. MEDITATIONS. Book viii. 19.

It reminds me also of Franklin's Virtue of Industry:  "Lose no time; be always employ'd in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions."

Never fall to the default, but rather choose your next activity. This is what is really important. Am I really doing something I intended to do, or just something I fell into. I spent quite a bit of time figuring out this virtue of Industry (what ADF calls Fertility). I even wrote a complete Meditation on it. It bears re-reading.

There is work and then there is work

I have been wondering lately what it is that I am working at. I have my job of course, which is vitally important to our survival. It provides the resources that support our life and lifestyle. And to do so, it requires my attention and effort. So work is, well, work, a job, a series of consecutive tasks.

But then there is my work. What am I all about? What, besides merely struggling to stay alive, is my work. The Stoics were big fans of differentiating between those things that all animals do, and what sets us apart as a species. The fact of working to feed, shelter and clothe myself and my family doesn't really separate me from the cats, etc. They do the same.

Now the Stoics believe that two things made us distinct from other animals. We are able to reason at higher levels. We are also able to act virtuously to protect and provide for the entire species, to go beyond the family or tribe, and make global differences.

If we are able to combine the two types of work, that which causes us to survive at an individual level, and that which enhances the species, we are well placed. In some small way, most of us do qualify for that, if you follow the rabbit down the hole far enough. But for myself, I know that I want my impact, my contribution to society and the species, to be direct. I want to know that something I have done has made a concrete contribution.

But the brutal truth of it is, that I am just one fairly average man (given the context I am in) so I really can't expect to set the world afire. Perhaps that is why I try to find smaller ponds, in which I can act as a bigger fish, not in the predatory sense, but as a contributor. If I can make a bigger difference in a smaller group, will that satisfy my ego?

Perhaps that is all that it is. Ego, a desire for self-aggrandizement, to be a legend in my own time. Is it because I want to KNOW that I am important, that I need for the people around me to tell me that I matter? Maybe it is because I know that I am merely one of over 6 billion people, a small cog in a massive machine. And the machine grinds on into eternity, occasionally throwing up one of it's parts as a peak of achievement. But as Marcus says, when we are dead we are forgotten by the vast majority of people, and soon even those who remember us are dead and forgotten as well. And not long after that, cosmically speaking, even the energy and particles that made up our existence have been recycled to make other creatures and people and plants. We are litterally dust in the wind.

But that is the point. The thing we must, I must, understand. It is foolish and irrational to wish that I am other than I am. I am a cog in a six billion piece machine. I am going to die, and within a few hundred years, I will be completely forgotten. My ego rails against this, screams for fame and immortality. But my rational mind looks on. If I am to be a cog, I will be the best damned cog I can be. I will do the work that falls within my reach to the best of my ability. I will strive to be human. And that is my real work.

Season Finale

With the end of the weekend came the end of the holiday season. The tree is down, the decorations are ready to go back into storage, mom-in-law is on the bus back to Peterborough. The big dinners and get togethers are done, and it is time to get back to work. This is the year in which things are going to get DONE! So out with the old procrastination, and it with the new 'Damn the Torpedoes! Full speed ahead.'

It seems that so often we procrastinators are so afraid of making the wrong decision, so afraid of wasting precious time and resources going down the wrong path, that we are frozen in indecision, and thus end up wasting the time and resources anyway. And what is worse, we have consoled ourselves with this waste (for we are fully aware of it!) by telling ourselves that at least the energy wasn't spent on the wrong things, thus promoting the wrong results. By holding ourselves back , we are arrogant in our superiority that we are somehow better than the adventurers and risk takers, by pointing out those who try and fail. We have adopted the Homer Simpson attitude towards life, "If at first you don't succeed, don't try!"

Well to hells with that. I am 44 this year, and what success I have is due to the risks I have taken. Asking the woman of my dreams to marry me on our first date. (She said yes BTW) Picking up and moving to Cornwall, during a recession. (Where I found my teaching carreer) Moving out of Cornwall into our house, a month or so after it became available. (And buying the house of my Grandparents). So this year, I am going to finish everything I have started, because it needs finishing.

So happy New Years, and let's get to work.

Getting Myself Committed

Confirmation comes in strange clothes. This blog is about my personal journey, and so the only ones I expected to have any real interest are my friends and family. Imagine my surprise when I received a comment from a new contributor to yesterday's blog. The comments were positive, encouraging and served to confirm my resolve to resolve to commit.

The idea of having commitment as my personal theme for 2010 really only coalesced at the end of yesterday's blog. I think that validates the psychological practice of 'talking it out.' So if 2009 was the 'Year of Change,' which had the result of not changing a damned thing, then 2010, as the 'Year of Commitment,' is going to change everything. As a Stoic, I just love paradoxes.

So here are the things that I am doing right now, that I am going to keep doing throughout the year.

1. I am currently working on the DP, and will complete it by year's end.
2. I have already started the Olympian Oracle, to prepare it for publication. That is also to be done by year's end.
3. Complete the Oak Leaves submissions on time for the balance of the year. I have to get to work on this one, as the blue line for the Spring issue is due in a few days.
4. I have made some significant progress on the Stoic Studies program with Erik at the College. I am going to complete this, which shouldn't take more the 4 - 5 months. Afterwards, I am going to continue working through the yet to be developed Stoic Mentorship program.
5. Pam and I have decided to work our way through some personal Stoic studies. We will start the year off with Keith's Stoic Serenity course, and when that is complete, work on William's Guide to the Good Life. This may not take us to the end of the year, but some other course may come up in the meantime to flesh it out. The point is that we study, deeply, together.
6. Words of the Ancient Wise. Everyday, alone or together.
7. This Blog, 3 times/week minimum. I have already experience of the power of writing, beyond mere catharsis.
8. Renovations to the upstairs of the house. With the holidays over, there are simply no excuses for not finishing what we started.
9. Health. This one is a bit of a stretch, but I might just try to shoehorn it in. The car broke down this week (New Year's Eve) and we decided to go car-less, for the time being at least. This means more walking (a lot more!). I am also going to be taking the bus to and from work. The extension of more activity in my life seems to be reasonable though. Wii on nights when we have no-where to go, and walking to places where there are things to do.

So these are the nine things I have committed to continue. None of them introduce new intentions or practices, none are strictly speaking, new. The list even breaks down nicely into Spirit (1-3 in green are focussed around the ADF), Mind (4-6 in blue are all about Stoic Studies) and Body (7-9 in red). The last is also easy enough to figure out, with the physical/emotional action of writing, the labour of renovations, and the obvious health focus.

Not too much. Not too little. So I am committed to the Nine through the end of Ten.

Janus Rex

New year, new start? Other than a purely psychological shift, there really is no difference between the change from 2009 to 2010. Yesterday was Thursday, and today is Friday. No magic, no transition, no difference. Except that there is. The new year is simply a reminder, a global trigger to look backwards and forwards, at what has been, and what may be.

2009 was supposed to be my self proclaimed 'Year of Change.' It was the mental kick in the ass that I set myself to really try, really do something about what was, and is, important to me. And yet, here I find myself, once again, at essentially the same place I was last year. No great changes. Health, wealth, faith, and mind are all still where they were, with a few small progressions, but hardly what I qualify as change.

I have restarted the Stoic Studies with the College, and so far have stuck to it for 2 months. I have made some promises to work on the DP, more as a test of my faith, then as a confirmation of it. It would be so easy to just drop it and walk away, and say it wasnt for me. But then it would be the same thing. Perhaps I should not give up quite so easily. Perhaps that is the change, the greatest change in me, to stop changing my mind on a whim. Perhaps that is what 2009 has granted me, an sense of exhausition from the inability, or more truthfully the unwillingness, to stay with a plan, any plan.

So despite the call to change, to walk a new path (are there any?) perhaps that is what 2010 offers me. A chance to NOT change, to stay, to commit, if only for the year.

We shall see.