[I wrote this in March of 2007. I’m revisiting it now because it fits so well with the essay I wrote last night about honesty. At just about the same time I wrote this post, I penned an essay about an idea I call The Implied Accusation — the elephant in the room. I lucked upon a sweet cover of the Tom Waits tune quoted below, so I’m adding that as well. –GSS]
I believe in integrity, but I believe in a very Latinly kind of integrity. It’s normal for me to translate words in and out of Latin, to write and think in those words in the way that they are composed from their Latin atoms. So when I think of the word “integrity,” what I think of is “all one thing.”
And I try to live that way, too, with my whole life, as best I can manage it, being the expression of one idea: Splendor.
I’ll give you a definition, which I will immediately qualify:
Splendor is the interior experience of being so enthralled by the act of creating the values that contribute to and ultimately comprise your idealized perfect self that, while you are experiencing it, you are your idealized perfect self.
What’s the qualification? Splendor is not words, and it is not merely thoughts or deeds. Splendor is the tone and the timbre, the warp and the weft of a life spent pursuing it. Words, deeds, thoughts, actions, hopes, dreams, plans, memories, work, leisure, solitude and companionship — everything you do in the pursuit of positive values and nothing that you do in quests for disvalues.
This is such a simple idea, and I love it better than anything. It is everything I want to be when I am being the best person I can be, and it is everything I want for everyone I see. It’s one of the reasons I love being a Realtor, because this job, at its best, is all about Splendor, helping people get the most and the best that life can offer.
I don’t talk to my clients directly about this, but they get the idea. We all of us have it in us, to some degree, and it suits me to cultivate it in the right circumstances. One of the reasons that I like Russell Shaw so much, as a person, is that there is something within him that responds resoundingly to these kinds of ideas, even if he might give them another name.
The other day I was talking about the salutary consequences of making your commitments manifest. There’s a lot more that I could say on the subject — and you can be assured that I will in due course. As a starting point, it does not actually matter if there is another person involved. If we make a commitment of any sort real and undeniable, it’s because we intend to follow through. And if we steadfastly avoid making that commitment real, it’s because we have at least half a plan to default on it. The default is self-destruction — dismantlement of the ego — either way, but it’s much easier to rationalize if we can insist that we never really meant to do that — whatever it is — anyway.
This is a song by Tom Waits, and it’s beautiful because it’s so brutal. This is a man who understands exactly what he is doing — and still won’t stop doing it.
The Part You Throw Away
by Tom Waits
You dance real slow
You wreck it down
You walk away, then you
Turn around
What did that old blonde
Gal say?
That is the part…
You throw awayI want that beggars eyes
A winning horse
A tidy Mexican divorce
St. Mary’s prayers
Houdini’s Hands
And a Barman who always
UnderstandsWill you lose the flowers
Hold on to the vase
Will you wipe all those teardrops
Away from your face
I can’t help thinking
As I close the door
I have done all of this
Many times beforeThe bone must go
The wish can stay
The kiss won’t know
What the lips will say
Forget I’ve hurt you
Put stones in our bed
And remember to never
Mind insteadWell all of your letters
Burned up in the fire
Time is just memory
Mixed with Desire
That’s not the road it is
Only the map… I said
Gone just like matches
From a closed down cabaretIn a Portuguese Saloon
A fly is a circling around
The room
You’ll soon forget the
Tune that you play
For that is the part
You throw awayAh, that is the part
You throw away
We all of us live in my world — sometimes. And we all of us live in his world — sometimes. And sooner or later we each of us have to make a choice…
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Teri Lussier says:
This is such an extraordinary post- fantastic brain food, and beautifully written as well- like an oasis in the desert.
August 21, 2008 — 2:31 pm