When have you formed your character for a choice long before you knew the choice was coming?
Career choices, definitely, knowing I would want flexibility, and learning from my mom the importance of saving for future needs from the time I was a child. She cultivated that in me.
What are you doing today in preparation for the choices to come?
Building community and learning community resources.
When (if ever) have you read a story without a climax, where the character has no defining, pivotal choice, but the living out of a thousand small choices?
I've seen these in a few novels, where the author traces the development of a story line as taking place over time, a journey through the characters' lives.
“You keep a narrow door, Master,” said Ged at last. “I must sit out in the fields here, I think, and fast till I grow thin enough to slip through.”
[...]
“Master,” said Ged, “I cannot take your name from you, not being strong enough, and I cannot trick your name from you, not being wise enough. So I am content to stay here, and learn or serve, whatever you will: unless by chance you will answer a question I have.” “Ask it.” “What is your name?” The Doorkeeper smiled, and said his name: and Ged, repeating it, entered for the last time into that House.
I smiled at how Ged is starting to talk like the townspeople of Thwil, who are "so used to the sorcery that is ever at play on the Isle of the Wise that they seemed half sorcerers themselves. They talked (as Ged had learned) in riddles."
And the depth of Ged's changes in motivation and approach to others is evident in his final answer.
"“I cannot take your name from you, not being strong enough, and I cannot trick your name from you, not being wise enough. So I am content to stay here, and learn or serve, whatever you will: unless by chance you will answer a question I have.” “Ask it.” “What is your name?” The Doorkeeper smiled, and said his name: and Ged, repeating it, entered for the last time into that House."
It has the savor of a classical riddle. And I love how we see Ged as a much more humble man here. Willing to take the time to sit and think it out and then to simply ask instead of trying to finagle or brute force his way through the challenge.
And I think there's a wonderful contrast between the slightly despairing way he goes past the Doorkeeper at his entrance, and the peace he feels at his exit.
It’s been a while since I have read it but I think Kristin Lavransdatter was a good example of a lifetime of choices and habits accumulating into consequences and character. Of course a book that covers a lifetime is better situated to do that than a book centered on some event or plot point.
I recently got myself a little memento mori ring to try and remind myself daily of how the way I am and act today is writing my eulogy - not necessarily what anyone will say but what will be true. It is actually helping me choose to try for greater moral/virtuous effort in hard situations. Highly recommend!
I love the movie Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig!) and how it muses on the work & form of attention. As a nun in the film says, "Don’t you think maybe they are the same thing — love and attention?" We know what we love forms our character, but the movie makes explicit that what we pay attention to does the same. There are hundreds of little stumbling choices in the film, not one climactic all encompassing choice. And we see how Lady Bird gets there, how the direction of her attention forms how she makes them, why she makes them, how the choices impact each other and her.
I've been reflecting a lot lately on how, when I make a decision, the reason I make it can be because of a few key conversations or experiences that sometimes happened months or years or a decade+ ago. The choice to pay attention in/to those moments back then shaped what I did today. It's not purely solitary work, dredging the channel of my more moral self, but a collective one shaped by the way I direct the current of my attention. And that current's flow has itself been shaped by others!
In EarthSea, I kept on reflecting over the course of this chapter's incident on the very first chapter - how Ged was finally first *seen* by others because of his power. Because of his studiousness. Because of his devotion to his talent. How that shaped his sense of his own worth. And how that all led to his critical boastful moment with the Enchantresses' daughter & taking the book of the shelf. How he paid such close attention to the words he read (even as he dreaded them) that he could recall them perfectly years later. When Ged stomps up the hill he is doing what he feels he *must* do, because of who he is and has been formed to be.
"When have you formed your character for a choice long before you knew the choice was coming?"
My temperament leans toward delayed gratification. I would have aced the marshmallow experiment.
As a child, I would often earn money to save toward a desired toy. When I finally had enough, I would decide I liked the feeling of having money saved more than I liked the toy, so I wouldn't buy it.
Also as a child, I had a recurring dream where I opened a fridge and discovered it was full of candy. I would start putting it into bags to save for later, but then I would wake up and be disappointed I would never get to eat it.
To improve results, I deliberately drilled into my mind that if I ever encountered a bunch of free candy, I should eat some first, prior to stashing any. It worked! In future dreams of that genre, I always got to eat some candy.
That lesson I learned, and that deliberate steering of my character to not take the sameness of the future for granted when making choices, didn't just apply to dreams of candy. It helped me pay closer attention to my life experiences as they happened, so I could hone a more mature perspective on whether a present opportunity was going to be rare or common in the future.
I now have the perspective to know when an opportunity is rare and I should go all in. I can judge when NOW is the time to spend lots of money, to take on a big risk, or to burn the candle at both ends either physically or mentally, perhaps even incurring permanent capability losses as a result.
As a mother of young children, I'm acutely aware that NOW is the most formative time of their lives, and (if you include my birthing them) the most formative time I have left in my own life as well. So I'm roaring my babies into the world with all my power, I'm spending money more freely, I'm trying not to waste too much of my time or attention, and I'm trying not to hold my heart back from my children or my life. I only get this phase of life once. It's the best phase I've had so far, and it might be the best phase of my life that I ever get, so I'm going to enjoy it fully.
When I was a Christian, I absorbed the message that it was idolatrous to care about anything or anyone too much, other than God. Attachments to things in this fallen life - including your children - could tether you too much to this world, making you hesitant to sacrifice those things or relationships for the sake of doing whatever God asked you to. It could even make you appreciate heaven less when you got there. Talk about delayed gratification.
When I gave birth and hit the ground running as a mother, I felt in my bones and blood and womb the sacredness of this NOW. I noticed with a shock that this personality-transforming (grace-imbuing?) and intensely meaningful life event of matrescence was suspiciously absent from Christianity's radar. Almost as if Christianity had been developed by, and for, males.
I'm not trusting that this opportunity to live out these feelings and experiences is unremarkable in the grand scheme of things. I know what I'm doing with my one wild and precious life.
Aug 1, 2023·edited Aug 1, 2023Liked by Leah Libresco Sargeant
What a grace to read this reflection, too!
I think of the sacredness of "NOW" in particular actually when I pray the rosary, and specifically when I pray about the birth of Jesus, something that just had to happened when it did, how it did, in all its awkwardness and humility, as a mystery of love, I pray for the immediate wisdom you describe in being able "to know when an opportunity is rare and I should go all in" and "judge when NOW is the time to spend lots of money, to take on a big risk, or to burn the candle at both ends either physically or mentally, perhaps even incurring permanent capability losses as a result."
I can't say I'm anywhere near there.
The word "mystery" has been very useful for me when wrestling with the tension you describe of loving life a lot, and fearing that this love of life is a sinfully worldly love, a turning away from God. But God is really quiet; isn't God what animates that very love?
Sure, I can get nervous asking, what about "love" that is really addiction or perversion, how can one really know one's love of life isn't too worldly? Well, one can't, but one can have faith, and faith in the mystery of what feels right, and the gift that feeling is. So, because my brain can't reconcile the tension I try to turn back into my weakness and that word, mystery, and trust in God, yes, but also in His presence across all the literature on mystery and weakness and grace and reason, too.
-P.S. What you mention about males reminds me of the distinction between defining ourselves as "mortals" vs. "natals," two incomplete definitions of our humanity, because we just as much die as we are born. I made a mental note of that years ago when a friend was describing an academic book (I think on Plato? by an Italian scholar?), and it has been useful to refer back to now and again when encountering existential anxieties which strike me as particularly ...masculine for lack of a better word, though I do wish there was a better way of carving out this distinction. I could say the anxieties strike me as incomplete. Maybe it's a healthy step, but only a step, to be vigilant against idolatry, on the path of better discerning God in each other and in each moment and even in elements of creation.
Haley Stewart is doing A Year With Jane bookclub on her Substack and we just finished Mansfield Park - to me that's the epitome of a novel that shows Fanny Brice doing the "living out of a thousand small choices." She's not the one who makes a marriage of convenience, she's not the one who ultimately abandons that marriage, she just quietly, steadily, holds to her convictions while others around her waver in or ultimately abandon them.
I’m reading Mansfield Park now with my 15 year old daughter. So many people say it’s their least favorite Austen, but I love it. And I think partly it’s because of just this, Fanny is truly good, steady, quiet, virtuous.
When have you formed your character for a choice long before you knew the choice was coming?
Career choices, definitely, knowing I would want flexibility, and learning from my mom the importance of saving for future needs from the time I was a child. She cultivated that in me.
What are you doing today in preparation for the choices to come?
Building community and learning community resources.
When (if ever) have you read a story without a climax, where the character has no defining, pivotal choice, but the living out of a thousand small choices?
I've seen these in a few novels, where the author traces the development of a story line as taking place over time, a journey through the characters' lives.
Here's a part I loved from this chapter:
“You keep a narrow door, Master,” said Ged at last. “I must sit out in the fields here, I think, and fast till I grow thin enough to slip through.”
[...]
“Master,” said Ged, “I cannot take your name from you, not being strong enough, and I cannot trick your name from you, not being wise enough. So I am content to stay here, and learn or serve, whatever you will: unless by chance you will answer a question I have.” “Ask it.” “What is your name?” The Doorkeeper smiled, and said his name: and Ged, repeating it, entered for the last time into that House.
I smiled at how Ged is starting to talk like the townspeople of Thwil, who are "so used to the sorcery that is ever at play on the Isle of the Wise that they seemed half sorcerers themselves. They talked (as Ged had learned) in riddles."
And the depth of Ged's changes in motivation and approach to others is evident in his final answer.
I loved this too!
Yes! I loved this passage.
"“I cannot take your name from you, not being strong enough, and I cannot trick your name from you, not being wise enough. So I am content to stay here, and learn or serve, whatever you will: unless by chance you will answer a question I have.” “Ask it.” “What is your name?” The Doorkeeper smiled, and said his name: and Ged, repeating it, entered for the last time into that House."
It has the savor of a classical riddle. And I love how we see Ged as a much more humble man here. Willing to take the time to sit and think it out and then to simply ask instead of trying to finagle or brute force his way through the challenge.
And I think there's a wonderful contrast between the slightly despairing way he goes past the Doorkeeper at his entrance, and the peace he feels at his exit.
It’s been a while since I have read it but I think Kristin Lavransdatter was a good example of a lifetime of choices and habits accumulating into consequences and character. Of course a book that covers a lifetime is better situated to do that than a book centered on some event or plot point.
I recently got myself a little memento mori ring to try and remind myself daily of how the way I am and act today is writing my eulogy - not necessarily what anyone will say but what will be true. It is actually helping me choose to try for greater moral/virtuous effort in hard situations. Highly recommend!
I love the movie Lady Bird (Greta Gerwig!) and how it muses on the work & form of attention. As a nun in the film says, "Don’t you think maybe they are the same thing — love and attention?" We know what we love forms our character, but the movie makes explicit that what we pay attention to does the same. There are hundreds of little stumbling choices in the film, not one climactic all encompassing choice. And we see how Lady Bird gets there, how the direction of her attention forms how she makes them, why she makes them, how the choices impact each other and her.
I've been reflecting a lot lately on how, when I make a decision, the reason I make it can be because of a few key conversations or experiences that sometimes happened months or years or a decade+ ago. The choice to pay attention in/to those moments back then shaped what I did today. It's not purely solitary work, dredging the channel of my more moral self, but a collective one shaped by the way I direct the current of my attention. And that current's flow has itself been shaped by others!
In EarthSea, I kept on reflecting over the course of this chapter's incident on the very first chapter - how Ged was finally first *seen* by others because of his power. Because of his studiousness. Because of his devotion to his talent. How that shaped his sense of his own worth. And how that all led to his critical boastful moment with the Enchantresses' daughter & taking the book of the shelf. How he paid such close attention to the words he read (even as he dreaded them) that he could recall them perfectly years later. When Ged stomps up the hill he is doing what he feels he *must* do, because of who he is and has been formed to be.
"When have you formed your character for a choice long before you knew the choice was coming?"
My temperament leans toward delayed gratification. I would have aced the marshmallow experiment.
As a child, I would often earn money to save toward a desired toy. When I finally had enough, I would decide I liked the feeling of having money saved more than I liked the toy, so I wouldn't buy it.
Also as a child, I had a recurring dream where I opened a fridge and discovered it was full of candy. I would start putting it into bags to save for later, but then I would wake up and be disappointed I would never get to eat it.
To improve results, I deliberately drilled into my mind that if I ever encountered a bunch of free candy, I should eat some first, prior to stashing any. It worked! In future dreams of that genre, I always got to eat some candy.
That lesson I learned, and that deliberate steering of my character to not take the sameness of the future for granted when making choices, didn't just apply to dreams of candy. It helped me pay closer attention to my life experiences as they happened, so I could hone a more mature perspective on whether a present opportunity was going to be rare or common in the future.
I now have the perspective to know when an opportunity is rare and I should go all in. I can judge when NOW is the time to spend lots of money, to take on a big risk, or to burn the candle at both ends either physically or mentally, perhaps even incurring permanent capability losses as a result.
As a mother of young children, I'm acutely aware that NOW is the most formative time of their lives, and (if you include my birthing them) the most formative time I have left in my own life as well. So I'm roaring my babies into the world with all my power, I'm spending money more freely, I'm trying not to waste too much of my time or attention, and I'm trying not to hold my heart back from my children or my life. I only get this phase of life once. It's the best phase I've had so far, and it might be the best phase of my life that I ever get, so I'm going to enjoy it fully.
When I was a Christian, I absorbed the message that it was idolatrous to care about anything or anyone too much, other than God. Attachments to things in this fallen life - including your children - could tether you too much to this world, making you hesitant to sacrifice those things or relationships for the sake of doing whatever God asked you to. It could even make you appreciate heaven less when you got there. Talk about delayed gratification.
When I gave birth and hit the ground running as a mother, I felt in my bones and blood and womb the sacredness of this NOW. I noticed with a shock that this personality-transforming (grace-imbuing?) and intensely meaningful life event of matrescence was suspiciously absent from Christianity's radar. Almost as if Christianity had been developed by, and for, males.
I'm not trusting that this opportunity to live out these feelings and experiences is unremarkable in the grand scheme of things. I know what I'm doing with my one wild and precious life.
What a grace to read this reflection, too!
I think of the sacredness of "NOW" in particular actually when I pray the rosary, and specifically when I pray about the birth of Jesus, something that just had to happened when it did, how it did, in all its awkwardness and humility, as a mystery of love, I pray for the immediate wisdom you describe in being able "to know when an opportunity is rare and I should go all in" and "judge when NOW is the time to spend lots of money, to take on a big risk, or to burn the candle at both ends either physically or mentally, perhaps even incurring permanent capability losses as a result."
I can't say I'm anywhere near there.
The word "mystery" has been very useful for me when wrestling with the tension you describe of loving life a lot, and fearing that this love of life is a sinfully worldly love, a turning away from God. But God is really quiet; isn't God what animates that very love?
Sure, I can get nervous asking, what about "love" that is really addiction or perversion, how can one really know one's love of life isn't too worldly? Well, one can't, but one can have faith, and faith in the mystery of what feels right, and the gift that feeling is. So, because my brain can't reconcile the tension I try to turn back into my weakness and that word, mystery, and trust in God, yes, but also in His presence across all the literature on mystery and weakness and grace and reason, too.
-P.S. What you mention about males reminds me of the distinction between defining ourselves as "mortals" vs. "natals," two incomplete definitions of our humanity, because we just as much die as we are born. I made a mental note of that years ago when a friend was describing an academic book (I think on Plato? by an Italian scholar?), and it has been useful to refer back to now and again when encountering existential anxieties which strike me as particularly ...masculine for lack of a better word, though I do wish there was a better way of carving out this distinction. I could say the anxieties strike me as incomplete. Maybe it's a healthy step, but only a step, to be vigilant against idolatry, on the path of better discerning God in each other and in each moment and even in elements of creation.
Hear, hear!
Haley Stewart is doing A Year With Jane bookclub on her Substack and we just finished Mansfield Park - to me that's the epitome of a novel that shows Fanny Brice doing the "living out of a thousand small choices." She's not the one who makes a marriage of convenience, she's not the one who ultimately abandons that marriage, she just quietly, steadily, holds to her convictions while others around her waver in or ultimately abandon them.
I’m reading Mansfield Park now with my 15 year old daughter. So many people say it’s their least favorite Austen, but I love it. And I think partly it’s because of just this, Fanny is truly good, steady, quiet, virtuous.