Coming To Terms With (both of) Ourselve(s)
NYTimes Op-Ed columnist David Brooks grapples with the push and pull of resume qualities and eulogy qualities. One set of qualities helps us to cope with the day to day demands of being human, the talents, skills and drive that help us survive and thrive on the planet. The other involves our greater sense of meaning and virtue, how we would like to feel, what we would like to be remembered for when we die. Brooks explains what he learned from the writings of a man named Joseph Soloveitchik, who was a rabbi who wrote a book called “The Lonely Man Of Faith” in 1965. Soloveitchik characterizes these dueling parts of ourselves as Adam I and Adam II.
Brooks explains the theory put forth in Soloveitchik’s book: “…Soloveitchik argued that these two sides of our nature are at war with each other. We live in perpetual self-confrontation between the external success and the internal value. And the tricky thing, I’d say, about these two sides of our nature is they work by different logics. The external logic is an economic logic: input leads to output, risk leads to reward. The internal side of our nature is a moral logic and often an inverse logic. You have to give to receive. You have to surrender to something outside yourself to gain strength within yourself. You have to conquer the desire to get what you want. In order to fulfill yourself, you have to forget yourself. In order to find yourself, you have to lose yourself.”
The idea that Brooks puts forth in this TED talk, and I very much agree with, is that Adam I is disproportionately represented in our modern lives. That is order to live a fulfilling, meaningful and peaceful life, these two parts of ourselves must be in balance. Below is a link for Brook’s full talk:
