Saturday, August 20, 2005

Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine:

I feel as though I see the world as it is, not as I want it to be. Although I retain a certain degree of resilient idealism, always is it colored with, if not subsumed by, an almost fatal cynicsm that is nonetheless the natural and probable side-effect of real life. Reason is a virtue, for me, and even more so on account of its relative scarcity.

What does this really mean though? Do I actually manage to keep a level head? Am I really governed by reason? Or do I simply choose to recast an unwillingness to commit myself enthusiastically to X (whatever it is at the moment) into a virtue?

In the end, it's probably a little of both. But then again, that's the way I bet it is for everyone.

1 comment:

LeperColony said...

Note: I can't take credit for the title on this one. It is, in fact, a quote from the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel The Great Gatsby.