Conversations with Christine
Conversations with Christine, Chapter 4: Vices and Virtues
Photo by Nadiia Ploshchenko 🇺🇦 on Unsplash
“I think the Greek Philosopher Aristotle had a really good strategy for knowing thyself,” Christine started the following evening’s lesson.
That evening, we had settled for dinner in the backyard of our West Seattle home. Brett had made a little bonfire and we were grilling chicken and sausages over the open flames.
Christine continued as she flipped through her notebook, “It was the Ancient Greeks dating back to the 4th century BCE that created the foundational framework of virtues as we know it in the West.”
“Define virtues,” I chimed in before she got much farther.
“Virtues were transformed by philosophers like Socrates, Plato and Aristotle to help humans flourish by developing an internal framework of moral character.” Christine continued. “These ancient Greeks helped humanity set the bar for a term they called ‘arete,’ which translates into English as ‘excellence’ or the realization of one’s full potential.”
“When you say ‘know thyself,’ are you referring to knowing our early childhood wounds? I asked.
“Yes. Remember how the other night we talked about a core question that humans have been asking themselves for maybe 100,000 years: “Who am I?” As children we often interpreted a look or a glance to mean that we weren’t doing something right, that we weren’t enough. We then took on beliefs of who we thought we were,” Christine stated.
“Because of these experiences,” she continued, “we slowly forgot we were born pure and whole, we fractured into different aspects of who we thought the world wanted us to be. This persona we develop is called the false self, or the egoic personality.”
“I’m tracking you,” I responded. “What was Aristotle’s strategy that you think worked for knowing thyself?” I asked.
“Each of the early Greek philosophers had great minds and brought us a glimpse into deeper inner work, but Aristotle birthed the philosophy of the Golden Mean. What I like about my interpretation of his philosophy is that it removes the myth that in order to be enlightened we need to be in a total state of calm and tranquility 24/7. A standard that I don’t think is obtainable, except maybe for monks in a monastery.” Christine paused to brush a balsamic glaze over the chicken and to turn the sausages over.
“Aristotle’s philosophy introduced humanity to the habit of mind, which is what philosophy is, and that virtues are the exact middle point between two extremes. One extreme is a deficiency, or too little, and the other is excess, or too much. Doing the right thing, or virtuous right action, is about finding that sweet spot in the middle. For example, Aristotle wrote about the emotion of anger, which is considered a vice. We grew up believing that it was wrong or a sin to be angry, but Aristotle’s philosophy shows me how that emotion can be helpful.”
Christine paused and grabbed her journal and reading glasses which were laying in the grass beside her chair. She read out loud from some notes she had written and highlighted with a pink marker.
“Anybody can become angry, that is easy; but to be angry with the right person, and to the right degree, and at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way, that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.”
“What I think Aristotle is stating is that just reacting to someone and verbally getting angry isn’t very wise. But learning to notice our anger and respond in just the right way, although it isn’t easy, is the middle point between the two extremes. We tend to either withdraw when we get angry, which would be the deficiency or too little, or we lash out, which would be excess or too much.”
She then looked up. “This is why I think it is essential that we understand our wounds. When we become reactive to something that is occurring in our lives, I think it is something that we are unconscious of. I think what Aristotle is stating is we get caught in our wounds or vices, which the Enneagram calls fixations and passion.”
I paused for a while taking in what my sister was speaking about. There were many of times that I had not spoken up and played small when I knew internally it wasn’t the right thing to do. Often, I was fearful of what other’s would think and I let my own vanity and deceit prevent me from engaging with others is a deep and meaningful way.
“What is the definition of a vice?” I asked as I poked at the fire.
She was excited I had asked that. She turned to her journal once again and read, “The Ancient Greeks describe vices as a form of ignorance or psychological imbalance preventing a human from being able to live a flourishing life, a term in Greek called ‘eudaemonia’.” Christine continued after a sip of seltzer water. “Vices prevent us from being able to reason logically, prevent us from being in harmony with each other and blow situations completely out of proportion. Where we get trapped in unconscious behaviors and don’t move out of the habit and patterns. If we understood the vices, then we could know when we are acting from a place of reactivity of extremes of deficiency, or too little, and the other extreme of excess, too much. Again, that is why I liked Aristotle’s Golden Mean. We want that sweet spot in-between.”
We took a break to have dinner outside by the fire. We had made a blueberry crisp from some blueberries that she had picked while she was home in Sitka during a school break. She had vacuumed packed them and brought them down to make one of my favorite desserts. Brett had just pulled it out of the oven and brought it to the backyard. We served ourselves, adding heaps of vanilla ice-cream.
I asked Christine, “So what is the difference between the Ancient Greek’s view on vices and the Catholic concept of deadly sins that we grew-up with?”
“I’m not a big fan of the way we were raised to view sin, especially the concept of a punishing God that banished us from the Garden of Eden because we had fallen. The word sin really translates from Ancient Greek into ‘missing the mark.’ I just feel that if we weren’t so locked into viewing sin as evil thoughts, a concept that was introduced by a Greek-trained Christian monk who was living in the Egyptian desert around 375 CE, and more on missing the mark on how we could have been acting in proportion to the situation, such as Aristotle’s Golden Mean, we would be more inclined to focus on knowing thyself.”
I was shaking my head up and down because I agreed with her, but the dessert was also making me very happy! Christine smiled, content that she had brought down the fresh picked berries.
“I think that the idea of good and evil being something outside of us was developed as a result of religions.” She continued.” I do believe that there is good and evil in the world, but I think it is a reflection of our own unconscious habits, patterns and beliefs. It is us, our internal landscape that is fractured. Not something outside of us. God and the devil, these are all within us. Good and evil, this is within us. Lightness and darkness, this is within us, not outside of us.”
The conversation was touching on many topics that I had been reflecting on. I had been reading about CG Jung’s Transcendent Function which addressed the conflicting opposites that Christine was mentioning and I made a mental note to bring it up at a later date.
“It could be possible that the work that Russ Hudson and Don Riso did in regards to the evolution of the teachings of the fixations and passions of the Enneagram could describe what Aristotle was teaching.” Christine continued on. “Fixations, the vice of deficiency of the intellect, cause us to fixate on situation within our mind. The passions, the vice of excess emotions, affect how we act emotionally. At least the is how I have understood their teachings. The sweet spot, or Golden Mean, is the place in the middle and that is what I believe the Ancient Greeks saw as virtues—the place of excellence, where we really excel at being the best human being that we can be.”
It was starting to get late so we let the fire slowly die down, each of us lost in our own thoughts. I was reflecting on Aristotle’s Golden Means as a tool for finding a response that was more conscious, verses reactionaary. I liked the idea of finding the sweet spot in between.
We all gathered up the dishes that were licked clean, leaving no traces of blueberries in the bowls.
Conversations with Christine Series
Becky has been exploring creativity, spirituality, and the patterns that shape us through her ongoing series, Conversations with Christine. The series imagines two sisters in deep conversation about life’s larger questions, who we are, what shapes us, and why we are here.
Chapter 1: Archetypes, Symbols and Talismans ·
Chapter 2: Defining the Ego ·
Chapter 3: Woundings ·
Chapter 4: Vices and Virtues ·
Chapter 5: The Spiritual Practice of Journaling ·
Chapter 6: Redefining God ·
Chapter 7: Trinities
Shop Nunn Design Wholesale
Nunn Design has been supplying jewelry artists with findings for over 20 years. Shop wholesale jewelry findings for creative jewelry makers.
Shop Nunn Design!How to Purchase Wholesale?
If you are interested in becoming one of the many designers who trust their jewelry to Nunn Design Findings, please join us by registering to become one of our wholesale customers!
Please visit our Where to Buy Page for a listing of online stores that sell Nunn Design Findings retail.
If you enjoyed reading this post, please subscribe to our blog. Here are 10 Reasons Why to Subscribe and a place to do so!
