Let's continue to talk about humility, a very important concept. Yesterday, we showed humility to begin with loving God, and to consist in simplicity, sensitivity, selflessness and sanctity. Today, we will explore its mechanics, by talking about the concepts of artistic and scientific minds. Humility in this sense is replacing the artistic mind with the scientific one. Now, when I use the word scientific here I don't mean theoretical science, and I do not as well refer to the fine arts when I use the word artistic. These two sorts of minds can be possessed by anyone, whatever their talents be. Individuals who are skilled in the fine arts and humanities - who like to draw or write or sing - can have fully trained scientific minds, and individuals skilled in the theoretical sciences - who like to calculate and measure and experiment - can very well have artistic minds.
An artistic mind is one that is inchoate. It is an immature mind. It is grounded in imagination rather than fact, in possibility rather than actuality. In Aristotle's epistemology, the process of knowing begins with gathering sense data, then forming mental images of them - also called imagination - and finally intellection, also called understanding. In other words, we begin by using any of our five senses - sight, sound, touch, taste and smell - to gather data from our environment, and then we form mental images of these data; in order words we imagine, or form phantasms, and eventually through cogitation we understand. What all this means is that there has to be an intellectual progression from mere sense perception, to imagination, and ultimately to intellection for us to know or understand anything. If this progression is not complete - if say, we stop at imagination without taking the further step to intellection - we hinder our understanding. Minds that rarely or only sometimes complete this progression are inchoate ones, and are artistic. On the other hand, minds that always or most of the time complete the progression from sense perception to intellection are scientific minds. All this has nothing to do with IQ. A very smart person may very well have an artistic mind, whereas a very dumb person may have a scientific one.
Another way to think about the difference between a scientific and an artistic mind is to recall the concept of emotional quotient. An artistic mind has a low emotional quotient, whereas a scientific mind has a high EQ. The value of having a high EQ cannot be overemphasized, and so it is preferable to have a scientific mind rather than an artistic one. Let's take the discussion further. Think of a baby's mind. It is very artistic, because it is still developing. A baby is narcissistic, demanding and emotional. When it is hungry it begins to cry - notice that I use the pronoun "it" to refer to a baby, just like I would an animal. I think the reason we refer to babies and animals by "it" is that they do not possess the necessary power of reason that teenagers and even more so adults do. And reason is the only variable that separates humans from animals. Humans are rational animals. When a baby wakes up in the morning and does not immediately see its mother, it begins to cry very loudly, "Waa, waa, waa!" The mother might be sleeping after a tough, long day, but the baby does not even give a crap. All the baby knows is that it is hungry, and so it continues to cry until the mother rushes to feed it. Recall the episode of Family Guy where Lois was resting in bed after a hard-day's work, and Stewie began to wail, "Mama, mama, mama!" Until Lois, very irritated, squealed "What!" Babies care only about themselves. They are insensitive to others. They do not care whether their parents are tired. When babies are hungry, they cry until they get what they want. Also think of the way babies play. Sometimes they want a toy or something, and someone else has it. A baby has no boundaries. They can simply grab another person's stuff and hang on to it, crying and causing a fit. They want the toy or whatever it is, and they imagine someone should let them have it. They do not understand the concept of respect for other people's property.
More so, a toddler's attention span is short. How many babies for example can sit through an hour-long class on anything - science, computers, gardening, knitting - anything? None. Not without falling asleep or crying, or crawling about. Even elementary school children cannot sit through such an hour-long session. Children and teens need frequent excitement. I have taught these youngsters and I know that to keep their attention I have to be creative: tell stories, sing songs and play games. I have also taught at the university level, and I've not had to be so creative, because the attention span of adults is longer. Using the analogy of babies, I have been so far able to adduce the characteristics of an artistic mind: it is emotional and unstable; it has a short attention span and so is impatient; it is immodest; it is insensitive, and it is immature or inchoate. Next, think of the mind of an adult, especially say, a sixty-year-old retired pastor's. Such a mind is, as they say, cool, calm and collected. You would never find a mature mind crying loudly for food like a baby would. Having lived long enough in the world and observed how things operate, a mature mind knows that it's really not cool to manipulate others with tears simply to get what one wants. A mature mind also knows that the world does not revolve around them and so they need to be sensitive to other people. A mature mind would never see another person tired from a hard-day's job and begin to yell, "Mama, mama, mama!" A mature mind would never latch onto another person's property and begin to throw tantrums till the other person let them have it. A mature mind would not simply fall asleep or cause trouble in an hour-long seminar or class simply because of a short attention span - all this especially if the mature mind was a virtuous or philosophic one.
A mature, virtuous, philosophic mind is a scientific mind, while an immature, unstable, non-philosophic one is artistic. The former is well trained, balanced and sound, while the latter is scattered all over the place or unstable. The scientific mind understands, but the artistic mind imagines. The mature mind completes the process of intellection by allowing sense data to pass from the organs all the way to the intellect, while the artistic mind stops short at imagination. The scientific mind exercises the human power of reason, while the artistic mind doesn't. The scientific mind has a high emotional quotient, while the artistic mind has a low EQ. The scientific mind is thoughtful, while the artistic mind is emotional and overly sentimental. A scientific mind is by far preferable to an artistic one, and is more human.
But how do scientific and artistic minds relate to humility and pride? Yesterday, we said that humility starts with respecting God, and displaying in our lives the virtues of simplicity, sensitivity, selflessness and sanctity. All of this is only possible through the exercise of reason; but we have already shown that the artistic mind lacks this necessary rational exercise, and so we deduce that to the extent a mind is artistic, to the same extent is it unable to respect God and display simplicity, sensitivity, selflessness and sanctity - in short to be humble. Conversely, because we have seen the scientific mind to be endowed with the rational capacity, it is manifestly able to respect God and display the four aspects of humility. So, whereas the artistic mind is proud, the scientific one is humble. The artistic mind is grasping, while the scientific mind is simple because of its understanding of property; the artistic mind is insensitive, but the scientific mind is sensitive; the artistic mind is selfish and egocentric, but the scientific mind is selfless, and the artistic mind doesn't even know what sanctity means, whereas the scientific mind does.
When a mind is not fully developed, it remains to the extent it isn't an artistic one. Artistic minds are prone to error, criminality and self-destruction. Because of their low emotional quotient, artistic minds find it relatively easier to hurt others and themselves. Adults who are psychologically immature have artistic minds. Somewhere in the process of their human psychosexual development, these adults were unable to exchange a propensity for imagination with one for intellection. They became trapped in inchoate emotions of greed, envy, fear, anxiety, insecurity and so forth. They were unable to embrace an attitude of understanding. They never learnt to think with their heads, but only with their hearts. Perhaps their childhood or early adulthood was full of trauma, trauma so inescapable that they never lived through or moved past it. And so subsequent events began to be experienced through the tinted vision of these horrific pasts. So for example, a girl was sexually assaulted multiple times by a relative, and subsequently is unable to trust men and have healthy relationships with them, and so remains unmarried even at age 50, even though everyone hears her say her greatest wish is to have a loving home. Such a woman always interprets potential relationships with men based on her imagination, rather than actual understanding; based on phantasms or mental pictures sourced from her earlier horrific experience. For every mental proposal of bliss with a potential partner, scenes from the old experience arise to block and drown out any hope of success in relationships, and so she remains single even at 50, never understanding that one bad experience is not categorically generalizable; always imagining that because she suffered at the hands of one man, she would suffer at the hands of everyone else.
Artistic minds are sick. Some are sicker than others. These minds are proud because they are insensitive, complicated, selfish and unclean, but they are also sick. Healthy minds conversely understand. They know the value of simplicity, sensitivity, selflessness and sanctity, and so choose to be humble. These are scientific minds. Artistic minds on the other hand are unable to make such a choice. Think of a healthy body going out to exercise, and then of a sick body that is unable to run or jog or do any other form of exercise. Similarly, unlike a scientific mind, an artistic mind is unable to be simple, selfless, sensitive and saintly because it is sick and incapacitated. Mental pathology is a serious issue in the field of psychology, but also in spirituality - recall that I said in a previous post that spirituality can handle all what psychology can.
In the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 5, verses 1-20, Jesus and his disciples went to the region of Gerasene, and there they met a demoniac. This fellow had a sick mind. The bible states that "he had been dwelling among the tombs," (v4) and had resisted every attempt to subdue him, breaking off binding chains, and cutting himself with sharp rocks. When he caught sight of Jesus, this possessed individual pleaded to be left alone. He called himself Legion because he contained within himself many evil spirits. If this man lived in our day and had no faith in spirituality, he would be taken to a psychiatric ward and kept under lock and key. His body would be plied with many psychotropic drugs and he would probably experience some relief - laborare est orare; working is praying - but a man of faith could also exorcise and set him loose faster, which is exactly what Jesus did. The Lord forced the evil spirits out of the man and into a herd of swine that subsequently all committed suicide. Perhaps that would have been the demoniac's fate. Eventually, the evil spirits would have driven the poor man to kill himself, like the pigs did.
In our time, many people suffer from many psychological diseases; afflictions of the soul, such as: depression, mania, hysteria, anxiety, loneliness, insecurity, grief, chronic anger, and so on. Psychiatry has a thousand and one diagnoses for these conditions, ranging from bipolar disorder through ADHD, and on to PTSD. Visit psychiatric wards and see for yourself the suffering among inmates there. It used to be even worse in the past. In 17th Century Europe, mentally challenged individuals were treated even worse than cows, pigs and horses. These unfortunate, artistic minds suffer terribly. Now, not every artistic mind is that bad. There is a gradation with regard to both artistic and scientific minds. For scientific minds, the higher the grade the better. So, a more scientific mind is more blessed: more stable, more sensitive, more astute, more understanding, more holy - more humble and better. Conversely, a more artistic mind is more cursed, more bedeviled: more emotional, more unstable, more insensitive, more complicated, more wicked - more proud, and more devilish, especially as Lucifer is as proud as they come.
A criminal may not be remanded in a psychiatric ward, but he or she has an artistic mind nonetheless. Such a person is so proud that they feel they are entitled to take another person's property by force, quite like a baby that latches onto another person's toy and demands to be given it. A gossip or a troublemaker, or a perpetually angry person, or a lonely person; or a person suffering from chronic depression - all these people may not be in jail or in a psychiatric ward somewhere, but they all have artistic minds. They cause hurt to themselves and to others. There was once a set of twins, let's call them Freyer and Alice. Freyer was always bubbly and optimistic and sporty. She was a cheerleader and a member of the female basketball team. Her grades were good and she was homecoming queen. Her twin Alice on the other hand was moody, short-tempered and lazy. Her grades were poor and she was disinterested in sports and pretty much everything else. Alice brought untold pain and sorrow to her parents and her sister, and especially to herself. It hurt her to get out of bed every morning. She imagined that she was going to have a bad day everyday, and her negative, pessimistic actions nearly always made sure of that. Freyer on the other hand understood that if she stayed positive and worked hard, she would always succeed.
Many times Alice went to the school counselor's office, and the counselor would ask her why she always had such bad grades. Alice would say it was because her attention span was poor. At the start of the semester, on the first day of class, she would be quite excited. The new subjects would intrigue her. But half-way into the term, she would lose all desire to go on. Artistic minds are like that. They are quick to start something, but they never finish. They are like monkeys, jumping from one tree branch to another, without stopping long enough to perch on any of them. Scientific minds on the other hand are like butterflies. They stop long enough on a flower and suck the nectar slowly. When they are done sucking, they can then gracefully move on to another flower and stay there long enough as well to suck the nectar. I know someone who definitely has an artistic mind. Something very terrible happened to this person when he was a child, and so life has been tough for him. This person has never graduated college, never married, never held down a job for more than a couple months at a time, and depends on others for sustenance at age 37. This person imagines that life will always be tough, and fails to understand that with effort and determination he can succeed.
Jesus had something to say about starting something without finishing. He recommended that before anyone embarked on any project, such a person was to take stock of the requirements for such project and determine if he or she had them. If not, the person could start building and not finish and would then be the laughing stock of passersby who would say: here is a person that started to build but could not finish (Lk 14:28-30). Taking stock of the requirements for a task means that we endeavor to understand everything the task entails and find in ourselves the potential to meet these requirements. We should not simply imagine that because others are doing it we can as well, or negatively, because others are unable to do it, we might as well give up. Some of the things that hold us back are simply imaginations based on negative emotions; dredging up phantasms to confirm our erroneous beliefs: "My father died, and so I have no support and therefore cannot succeed"; or, "I am the son of a common janitor, and so I can never attend Yale." Or, "I am not very smart and so I cannot pass my exams." A scientific mind rather says, "Even though my dad is dead and it seems I have no support, God is helping me and so I can progress," or, "Even though my dad is a janitor, his own IQ does not define mine, plus scholarships are available to meet the cost of going to Yale if I do very well on the entrance tests," or still again, "Even though I am not that smart, I can study very hard and pass my exams." In each case, understanding prevails over imagination in the scientific mind and leads it on to success.
A scientific mind is successful. A scientific mind starts something and nine out of ten times finishes it. A scientific mind has positive relationships. A scientific mind is optimistic and entrepreneurial. A scientific mind is a blessing to themselves and others. A scientific mind is modest. We all want to be successful; we want to start something and finish it. We want to see the actualization of our hopes and dreams; to have positive relationships, and manage affairs. We want to be humble, and liked by others, and respected too. We want to enjoy life, and not be oppressed by the sorrows of the unstable, emotional artistic mind. We don't want to experience sadness, or loneliness or any mental challenges. We want our souls to be healthy. And so we all desire a scientific mind. But how can we replace an artistic mind with a scientific one? How can we grow from being a baby to being an adult, especially a philosophical one? How can we develop our EQ? How can we replace pride with humility?
Rene Descartes, eminent philosopher and mathematician, has the solution. It is a three-step plan that can help us grow our EQ and replace pride with humility; imagination with understanding; failure with success; pain with joy, and an artistic mind with a scientific one. The first of the three steps is consciousness. Descartes says that whenever we are confronted with a negative emotion, such as fear, or anger, or insecurity, or depression, we should be conscious of it. We should notice it. Some people don't notice the emotions they feel. If you ask them, "How do you feel?" They say truthfully, "I don't know." We should not be oblivious of how we feel. We should always be able to pinpoint whatever it is we are feeling. We should be conscious of our emotions. If we don't know how we feel, we will spontaneously act out and be like we were victimized or something. No, we should know what we feel at every point in time.
The second step is to exercise restraint. In other words, we should take a step back and reflect. We shouldn't just feel and then proudly act. This is arrogance. We should never arrogate to ourselves a right to act on our emotions however unjustified they are and however hurtful to ourselves or others they may be. This is the height of insensitivity, selfishness, wickedness - which is the opposite of sanctity - and disrespect for God. Rather, we should apply the power of reason by thinking of the emotions, the results of the phantasms in our souls obtained through imagination rather than through thought, and their potential result. By allowing ourselves time to think, we enable the imagination, the phantasm, to make the short trip to intellection, to actual thought. At this realm of thought, intellection or understanding, we contemplate the foundations of our emotions, and evaluate the consequences of acting through them. We see the damage for example that can result if we speak or act angrily. We mentally take stock of the impetus and impact of our possible action, just like Jesus said to in Lk 14:28-30.
The third and final step is consideration, rationalization or repentance. This is where we have thought about the emotions we feel and their consequences and therefore inform our mind to desist from acting in so and so way. It's like playing parent to yourself. You speak to yourself, engage in intrapersonal mental dialog. You say to yourself for example: Samuel, don't do that. Don't act on the insecurity you feel. Just believe - I mean God has brought you this far, right? This rationalization allows you to realize that there is an alternative to acting out your negative emotions. There is an alternative to speaking out of turn for example because you are angry. There is an alternative to quitting your job simply because you feel frustrated. There is an alternative to robbing a grocery store simply because you feel greedy. There is an alternative to getting a divorce simply because you feel disappointed at your spouse. You can always choose your behavior. By being conscious of whatever negative emotion it is you are feeling, taking a step back to think through it, and then speaking to yourself thoughtfully, you can always act with sensitivity, simplicity, selflessness and sanctity. You can sacrifice a whole world of negative emotions and behaviors in preference for positive ones, and so place yourself perpetually on a path to success. You can increase your EQ, be more humble and develop for yourself a scientific mind.
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