The author of an autobiography* I’m currently reading says that the definitive element which separates the ‘men from the boys’ is their moral convictions.
Wow. It hit me quite forcibly, not because I’m such a shit, but the lucidity of the statement.
The writer is a psychoanalyst and, from his life story, he’s been around the block a few times.
So
have I, but I hadn’t (yet) picked up the clarity of his observation.
It made me wonder if part of the confusion and anxiety which I perceive in my fellow human beings stems from the excess of choice with which we’re all presented every day – coupled with the propaganda we absorb – much, I suspect, subliminally – when vested interests seek to influence our lives.
And technology provides an added complication by its power of distraction, the result of which is too little private time to spend with ourselves in that ‘inner space’ of our mind where all that’s hidden from the world exists. Not only is there too much attempting to enter and be sorted every day, but time and fatigue take their toll.
I sometimes wonder if the bottom line of all this is that what I’ve begun to call ‘pseudo activity’ has the debilitating effect of making it more and more difficult to know ourselves.
And this happens for those of us who, we hope, are constantly in the maturing process. In the ‘What Men Do’
Guide there’s constant reference to the 7-year life changes which is an inherent element in being human; how we respond to the challenge of these changed perspectives is, I reckon, a very personal way we measure (oh-so-privately) if we’re spending our Life wisely.
Fools, whose fears make them cling to sameness, inevitably stagnate. As for their moral convictions, do they ever reach that state? It strikes me that few people have convictions – about anything. ‘Hang Loose’ and ‘Anything Goes’ seem to be closer to the fashion in the style of the Twenties and Sixties of the last century.
But growing anxiety and the state of Depression seems to be the result.
So, if this is the ‘Dividing Line’ as the man says, it strikes me as a wonderful measure we can all use to get some clarity (and happiness?) into our lives.
It’s certainly woken me up.
*The Pillar Of Fire by Karl Stern.