Irradiated Gloom

Life is never free of troubles, but we do go through periods of relative calm. If we are wise, we know that they are preludes to future storms. These storms often gather outside of our view and then hit all at once. Maybe a deal falls apart. Some lab work or a scan on you or someone you love shows something that nobody wanted to see. Suddenly, you remember again that the tranquility was on loan.

Aristotle thought about this more carefully than most self-help writers do today. In Book I of the Nicomachean Ethics, he considers the question of whether or not a man can be happy while fortune is still free to ruin him. His conclusion turns on a perhaps surprising thing: habit. Of all things, he says, the "habitual energies of virtue" are the most stable. While fortune remains free to impose loss on a person, it has no hold on his character. In John Gillies' 1797 translation, the passage ends with a line I have found difficult to forget. When calamity not only "impedes his present exertions but darkens his future prospects" the virtuous man's "worth will irradiate the gloom."

Aristotle precedes this striking passage with a description of a man who is able to meet such a moment. He says this: "Of all human things, habitual energies of virtue are the most stable, forming the continual meditation and delight of those whom they adorn. For this reason, they alone are not liable to be forgotten or lost, but are the immovable property in the thoughts and life of a good man, who, whatever may befall him, will behave gracefully, approving his conduct exact, square, and blameless."

Here, he echoes the sentiments of Seneca, who describes the deliberate act of cultivating virtue as providing an immediate joy. "As soon as they begin curing us," he says, "they begin to give us pleasure." The implication is encouraging. We don't have to demonstrate perfect courage or patience in order to push back despair. Some relief comes with even the first dose.

Paul had plenty of reasons to despair. In Second Corinthians 11, he tallies the cost of his ministry: five floggings, three beatings with rods, a stoning, three shipwrecks, a night and a day adrift at sea. Yet he wrote to the Romans, "We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint."

The order in which Paul lists these things is important. Paul reaches hope by way of character. Here, the ancient voices of Aristotle, Seneca, and Paul converge. Hope grows in a formed soul.

But Paul goes further. He tells us why hope holds in the next line, "because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit." For the Stoic, the light comes from inside the man. But that has limits. Paul says it comes from God, and that we have seen it in a person. Christ walked into Gethsemane knowing what was next, but we see him emerge as a light of love, grace, mercy, and courage. His worth irradiated the gloom too, and on the third day, the light broke all the way through.

If you are discouraged right now or just feel lost, I would encourage you to stop waiting to act.

Identify your vices and begin replacing them with virtue. Kill the pride that keeps you clinging to them. Starve the stubbornness rooted in entitlement that keeps you from becoming someone you yourself would admire.

Begin the work in front of you and then finish it. Seneca encourages us by telling us that relief starts with the first step, and then Paul shows us where the road ends.

Yes, the gloom will come. Sometimes it will stay a while. Let it find us working.