That even though I decided that my morality would never demand that I be a hero… there nonetheless just isn’t a coherent, enduring shape that fits my soul that doesn’t make that the thing I ultimately want for myself.
Reading that, I’m not sure whether you’re grieving because you’ve given up on that belief or because it’s true. I hope the former. The desire to be a hero is dangerous—a hero needs villains. As Nietzsche said, he who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t do what you can, but we all fall short of perfection. We all burn fossil fuels, for one thing. A bit of humility is in order.
It’s not your job to save the world. That’s God’s job, and if that job has driven God crazy it would explain quite a bit.
Now you’re getting it. The world can’t be fixed. It can’t even be survived. But it can be a nice place to live.
The worst people in the world, the Stalins and the Osama bin Ladens, try to be heroes but they’re as flawed as anyone else. If they start to succeed those flaws can manifest in horrifying ways. They often destroy imperfect but necessary things in attempts to build perfect things that can’t exist, like true Communism or functional political Islam. Humility and temperance are called heavenly virtues for a reason.
That even though I decided that my morality would never demand that I be a hero… there nonetheless just isn’t a coherent, enduring shape that fits my soul that doesn’t make that the thing I ultimately want for myself.
Reading that, I’m not sure whether you’re grieving because you’ve given up on that belief or because it’s true. I hope the former. The desire to be a hero is dangerous—a hero needs villains. As Nietzsche said, he who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster.
I’m not saying that you shouldn’t do what you can, but we all fall short of perfection. We all burn fossil fuels, for one thing. A bit of humility is in order.
It’s not your job to save the world. That’s God’s job, and if that job has driven God crazy it would explain quite a bit.
If it’s God’s job, then it’s definitely not going to get done, because something that doesn’t exist can’t do anything.
Now you’re getting it. The world can’t be fixed. It can’t even be survived. But it can be a nice place to live.
The worst people in the world, the Stalins and the Osama bin Ladens, try to be heroes but they’re as flawed as anyone else. If they start to succeed those flaws can manifest in horrifying ways. They often destroy imperfect but necessary things in attempts to build perfect things that can’t exist, like true Communism or functional political Islam. Humility and temperance are called heavenly virtues for a reason.