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diff --git a/website/src/content/blog/2025-09-18.md b/website/src/content/blog/2025-09-18.md deleted file mode 100644 index eb4e59f..0000000 --- a/website/src/content/blog/2025-09-18.md +++ /dev/null @@ -1,88 +0,0 @@ ---- -title: Changing my ambitions -description: >- - When I started my first degree, I had unrealistic and unhelpful ambitions. For - my second degree, I'm setting my sights on different targets. -pubDate: 2025-09-18 ---- - -Is 'virtue' a terribly old-fashioned word? I don't mind either way. If I've run -into you for more than three seconds in the last couple of weeks, you'll know -that I've just started my second degree, and I'm very happy about it. I'm having -a great deal of fun, and expect my studies to continue to be fun. But fun is not -my goal. My goal is virtue. - -In particular, the virtues I'm striving after in my degree are a greater ability -to ask questions well, and to answer them well; to write well, and to dispute -- -that is, speak with, listen, reason, discuss -- well. Insightfully, sensitively, -humanely, intelligently, informedly, fluently: well. - -But what about all the starving children! I hear you cry. In the past, I myself -have got myself stuck fearing that doing another degree would be ignoring some -more immediate duty to do something about all the evil in the world. So, is my -degree selfish? Or how can it not be? How can this be good? - -I believe it's precisely by abandoning that restrictive sense of public duty -which has freed me at last to do something good. Let me explain. - -During my first degree, I had a great deal of ambition. I was genuinely -convinced that I could find robust answers to big questions if I thought about -them hard enough. I thought I was clever enough to make progress, or at least -contribute. I thought I could, if I wanted to, get into a PhD programme and end -up employed as Dean of Philosophy of Oxford, paid to smoke from a pipe all day -in a tweed jacket with leather patches while quietly resolving all the world's -burning intellectual issues. - -What's changed? If I were a pessimist, I might mention my encounter with that -devil, reality. It turns out that I'm not actually the cleverest person in the -room, that the biggest philosophical problems are pretty intractable, and that I -can't get into Oxford -- and even if I could, it wouldn't necessarily be right -to uproot myself from my friends, family and church community to pursue my dream -career. - -All this did matter a great deal. It's what slowly convinced me to finally drop -those unrealistic philosophical ambitions. It's why, a year and a half ago, I -turned down the offer of a Master's in Philosophy at a excellent university -(albeit not Oxford). - -But that's not the whole story. I'm not sat here with a sob story of broken -dreams. After I turned down that PhD, I didn't feel deflated, I felt liberated. -I haven't just dropped those ambitions, I've found new ones. - -My friends, family and church community ought to matter far more to me, I -realised, than my career. So, turning away from academia, I turned towards love. - -This is what the gospel does. It's the most good story, beautifully true, which -says to the human heart: since God so loved us, so also we ought to love one -another. - -When I'm targeting virtue, I find it helpful to imagine a character who displays -the virtues I'm after. So picture Helpful John. He's an encouragement. Whenever -you talk to Helpful John, you come away feeling emotionally mature and -intellectually confident, because his overwhelming respect wipes away your -anxiety. He listens to you carefully, and insists on understanding you at more -than a superficial level. When it's appropriate to do so, he can ask devious -questions which unlock new possibilities you hadn't considered before. He knows -lots of relevant and often surprising facts. He can compare your perspective -with that of strange and subversive alternative perspectives. He doesn't like to -tell people what to think, but when he speaks or when he writes, you pay -attention, because you know he is capable of profound insight. - -Helpful John sounds great. A model to replicate, right? Not in every respect, -necessarily. Helpful John might not be the life and soul of the party. He might -not be the first person you go to for comfort in times of trouble. He might not -be the most reliable person in the world, or the best with children, or the best -with hand tools. Helpful John is a character, but he doesn't have to be good at -everything. - -Helpful John is roughly my north star. I don't expect to become Helpful John. -But with the Spirit's help, with me continuing to lean in to the process, I do -intend for Useless Joe to become more like Helpful John in his most enviable -respects. - -Is this selfish? Is this a shortage of ambition? Wouldn't you love to have a -Helpful John as a friend? A brother? Across the table at small group at church? -In your workplace? - -So forgive me if I'm old-fashioned: I believe virtue is a virtue. A better world -is one full of better people. |