Post 3 - Aspirations and contradictions

Washington's rising sun chair, upon which he sat in Independence Hall during the Constitutional Convention

Human beings are full of contradictions. We have goals, aspirations, and desires, and so often can be found longing to be something different—or even, something more—than what we are. Yet too often we find only frustration and despair in the longing. An overweight person wishes he were fitter, and in the pain of that unfulfilled desire, comforts himself by overeating and lying in. A broke person wishes she were wealthier, and in the pain of that unfulfilled desire finds herself purchasing more things she doesn't need rather than finding ways to bring in more income.

Contradictions plague institutions, too. Nations, being composed of humans, are also full of them. A nation once declared in one of its foundational documents that “all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This nation called (and still calls) these truths “self-evident” and the rights “unalienable”, meaning they are not a gift from the King or any other person or institution, but are simply the very nature of what it means to be a Man. Yet this same nation went on to violate this aspiration by not only tolerating slavery, but by enshrining slavery in its other foundational document 11 years later. Washington, the hero of the Revolutionary War, held enslaved people in his presidential home. With both human beings and nations, we have the aspiration on the one hand, and the present reality on the other. Aspirations and contradictions.

The names of the nine Human Beings enslaved in Washington's presidential home in Philadelphia

For now, I'll leave off the fact that the aspiration itself did not go far enough. It ought to be obvious that Women, too, are equal and endowed with the same unalienable rights. But that shortfall of aspiration warrants a post of its own. Or rather, it warrants volumes of books, encyclopedias, and theses of its own. I shall have to save the insufficiency of aspiration for another post.

So far as it went, the aspiration was bold, noble, and worthy of pursuit. Why then did it fall so quickly? The new, fragile nation was balanced on the edge of a knife. Its precarious position could only be secured by compromise, and this, to the nation’s disgrace, included the most abhorrent of compromises. Without the compromises, the nation would have disintegrated as the slaveholding states and people would not have accepted abolitionist terms, even though those were the only terms that were true to the Declaration. The nation is today much closer to the aspiration it declared so long ago. Yet there is still much to be desired. A gulf remains between the aspiration and the reality.

So it is with us as individuals; a gulf remains between our aspirations and our reality. Perhaps my own aspiration is insufficient, but I do not here seek to move an entire nation. I am not yet so bold and so confident. But I do aspire to move a few, so I will attempt to do so. You, reader—what are your contradictions? Ask yourself this: What do you aspire to? What is your reality? And why does the gulf between them remain?

You, unlike the nation, are not saddled with the burden of compromise with other parts of yourself. You do not run the risk of disintegration if you fail to reach an agreement with your baser parts. You may well lose or change the parts of yourself that are a detriment to your aspiration, but if your aspiration is noble, is that such a loss? You will, after all, still be yourself—merely a newer version more in line with your aspiration.

There is so much good that needs doing and being in this world, and it is not for me to tell you which is the specific variety of good you must pursue. That is a journey for you and, at most, a handful of your closest friends. But do I hope that if you’re reading this and wondering why you’re something different or less than what you aspire to be, that you might be among the one or two people who hear this message and, with one small action, begin today the hard work of changing the trajectory of your life forever.

Do not be intimidated by the gulf between who you aspire to be and who you are, however expansive it may seem now. As you take those first steps and become more like the person you aspire to be, the better, future version of you will close the distance more rapidly than the current version of you. What now seems insurmountable will become merely difficult, the difficult will become attainable, and the attainable will become well within reach. The important thing is to take those first few faltering steps for, without them, none of the others is possible.

If you do take your first step today, I would love to hear what your aspiration is and the first step you take in the comments below.