The Experience of Clarity

53 It is as courageous for me to demand another’s honesty as it is to march a young boy off to the train station, waving resolutely as I send him into battle. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

209 Nothing is more lacking in drama than the slow, steady habit which accumulates strength. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

210 Our strength is measured by the number of times we return to that repetition which necessarily increases our value ... precisely when an exceptional humiliation urges us to the contrary. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

211 Question: If increasing strength serves as my magnetic north, what then would serve as compass?  Answer: My unbounded ambition ... my vanity. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

The Mechanics of Virtue, Matt Berry A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

Matt Berry, A Human Strategy A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

Matt Berry, A Human Strategy A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

Matt Berry, A Human Strategy A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

Matt Berry, A Human Strategy A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

Matt Berry, A Human Strategy A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

Matt Berry, A Human Strategy A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

Matt Berry, A Human Strategy A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

Matt Berry, A Human Strategy A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

54 Ideas multiply by mitosis.  They do not generate themselves spontaneously out of nothing.  An “original” maxim, however whole and independent it appears to a third party, is only half of its original state.  The author sometimes hides the other half for artistic effect, but the sincere moralist goes one step further and hides it from himself. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

212 What I seek is control, not over my destiny, but over the value of my destiny.  I stand at a fork in the road and stare down each lane for as far as I can see, never considering that I have just overlooked another option available to me.   Before I choose between destination A and destination B, what would happen if I took one step back to a prior fork in my road: Do I strive to be at a particular destination at a particular time?  Or do I march by a Magnetic North, a direction determined by the requirement for increasing strength, path or no path, disregarding destinations of time and place, until I am stopped? With the former, I march toward a time and place; whom I become is secondary.  With the latter, becoming is primary. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

55 Vanity is not honesty, but there is no severe honesty without the admission of one’s own vanity ... even as a motive for one’s honesty:  a severe honesty is motivated by the vanity of being more honest than most.   Vanity does more for honesty than honesty can do for itself. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

213 From statistic to tragedy: I can never eliminate the number of accidents from my life.  What I can do, however, is elevate the event by keeping my error-making organ in check, thereby employing each calamity in the service of higher recognitions, realizing a higher fate. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

56 Our honesty shines its brightest light just short of that point where our own vanity will be found out again. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism

214 Maturity is best understood not as a tapering down to nothing upon the approach of old age, but with the entire conception of Past and Future stood on end, like an hour glass, where after we have allowed each day to go by, one by one, through this narrow actuality, we learn to demand less and less of the upper chamber, our future, as time passes so that we may accept more and more of the actuality toward the end.  This is an improvement over our former happiness, when we looked into the upper chamber, our dreams wide and full, demanding more, always more, and caring not for experiences to the contrary as they passed into the lower chamber of our memories. A Human Strategy ** The Mechanics of Virtue ** Post-Atheism