A Perfect Poem (Epigram) (for my taste)

A Dust of Snow I write epigrams--highly concise, rhymed lines with a pithy and often surprising ending. Here is an example from Robert Frost that is my paradigm, a perfect poem, the standard to which I aspire:

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

Dust of Snow (1923)

Glory Land

Glory Land
With new dress blues and shiny shoes
and the strut of a brave brass band
Daddy took up his country's flag
and marched to Glory Land.

Without his shoes and new dress blues
but behind the band and flag
Daddy came home from Glory Land
Wearing a burlap bag.
DV

Ambition

Of Ambition

Ambition is both the sin of angels and the father of virtue. Sometimes praised, sometimes condemned, ambition is both a flaw and a gift. The enterprising youth raised up by his own bootstraps--whom we praise--is but a few years away from becoming a rasping, grasping, parsimonious Uncle Scrooge--whom we condemn.

Ambition has produced and destroyed civilization's great monuments. Look at Einstein's work on splitting the atom for an example of each. The ambition of Einstein and his colleagues brought us the promise of an inexhaustible supply of energy and the prospect of a nuclear war. The fruits of ambition's tree are like persimmons--sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter.

When given free reign, ambition is dangerous. When it's contained, ambition is deadly. Macbeth needed no spur to prick the sides of his intent to kill his king and succeed to the throne. He had in its place a vaulting ambition that overleaps itself. Macbeth was driven by ambition that drove him mad. Ambrose Bierce notes wryly that ambition causes us to be hated in life and laughed at in death.

After his stunning victory over the rival general Pompey in the eastern part of the Roman Empire (44BCE), Julius Caesar returned to Rome where he was welcomed by the people. As dictator for life and commander of the Roman army Julius Caesar was the most powerful man in the ancient world. His secret ambition, however, was to be crowned a King. The Romans had not had a king in 500 years. Rome was a republic, not a monarchy.

Republican patriots, who professed love for the republic as a convenient mask for their own envy of a peer who had ascended to a high place, assassinated Caesar. Brutus, Caesar’s friend and murderer, announced the assassination to the people. He cited Caesar’s ambition as the cause. People, senators, be not afraid. Ambition’s debt is paid.

At Caesar’s funeral Brutus defended his assassination of Caesar by citing Caesar ambition: As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honor him, but as he was ambitious, I slew him! There is tears for his love; joy for his fortune; honor for his valor; and death for his ambition. [Act 3. Sc.2].

In justifying plans to murder Caesar, Brutus describes the dynamics of ambition:

. ... lowliness is young ambition’s ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;
But, when he once obtains the utmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks into the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend. [2.2.23--28]


The ambitious are servants to their benefactors. The ambitious are tethered to their benefactors as prisoners are to their wardens. If any can help or hurt the name, the reputation, the income or the prestige of the ambitious, that person is the master and the ambitious one is the slave. The ambitious have many masters. The ambitious wear many yokes. The bridle and the bit are taken gladly by the ambitious. Ambition is the offspring of envy and greed. It is nursed by vanity, reared by glory and driven by fame. Ambition is the house of many sins and the mother of many flaws.

Self-love makes people ambitious and competitive whatever the situation, and makes them greedily take on everything: they not only expect to be rich, erudite, strong, outgoing, pleasant and intimate with kings and leaders of nations, but they are discontented if their dogs, horses, quails and cocks are not the best at what they do. [Plutarch, On Contentment, p. 225]

Plutarch laments the plight of the ambitious

...who are dissatisfied with having obtained a portion of power or status among their compatriots, and who weep because they do not wear patrician robes; and if they do, then because they have not held military command at Rome; and if they have, then because they are not consuls; and if they are, then because when the announcement was made, they did not head the list. The only possible description of this is self-mortification and self-inflicted punishment.[ On Contentment, 222, 223].

The ambitious think they have fixed goals. They do not. What they seek is ever moving and always away from them. Like Ixion, they think they hold Venus when in truth they embrace a mere cloud of smoke. Their perspective on life is the perspective furnished by looking through the wrong end of a telescope. That which is near appears far away. And like a desert mirage, what is clear from afar disappears as they approach.

Old age cures ambition by substituting a worse malady: regret. While the young torture themselves by looking ahead, the old torture themselves by looking back. Over time, fulfilled ambition becomes regret. Unfulfilled ambition becomes more regret. All of ambition’s roads lead to regret. Ambition leads to misery, not happiness.

The ambitious may do different things but they all believe the same things. Plutarch describes their creed:

.... if we don’t have the advantages of both plutocrats and scholars, military commanders and philosophers, flatterers and those who speak their minds, misers and big spenders, all at once, we bully ourselves, are dissatisfied with ourselves, and despise ourselves as living deficient and unfulfilled lives. (On Contentment, 228).

On ambition’s ladder, each rung leads the ambitious person not to happiness but to another rung. When at last they’ve scaled the top, they find they’ve merely broadened their horizon. And what do they see in the distance: only people with higher ladders.

Revised March 29, 2008
920 words

Work & Play

Work & Play
Jenna Schroering, a Bellarmine University freshman, would like to know... How do you partake in so many activities and still keep a social life?"

Dear Jenna,

You ask how my many activities leave time for a social life. Your question is wise because is shows your recognition that the need for a social life is vital to your well-being. The book, Bowling Alone, addresses the problem of social isolation in modern society manifested by the phenomena of single bowlers enjoying a recreational activity that was formerly a team sport. Social isolation is a fatal disease.

When I went to Washington in 1989, the Courier Journal published a profile about me. The article said that my ‘idea of a rousing good time was going to a bar association meeting’.

The funny quip was mostly true and reflected my ability to weave social activities into and around my work as a lawyer. In more recent years, I have added other activities such as a writers support group, a photographers club, church activities, civic and social work each unrelated to the job that enables me to make ends meet. Some of my available time comes from time-management but most derives from diminished family responsibilities that go with my season of life.

Before attending Bellarmine, I completed training in the United States Marine Corps. Our day began at 5:25 am (it still does) and by 9:00 pm we had accomplished more in one day than I ever thought possible in two. By the time I arrived at Bellarmine, I resolved that I would try to live the same way, effectively doubling my life (time) expectancy. My legal text writing (American Law of Mining 2nd, Coal Law and Regulation) was done before 9:00 a.m., during travel time and in hotel rooms after my workday was complete.

While at Bellarmine, a professor (tutor, role model and now a lifelong friend), excused me from class attendance and the purchase of the course book. He told me we would meet weekly to discuss what I was working on. He said if I was ever going to achieve my potential, I needed to learn to work on my own, to practice self-discipline, to budget my life and allocate my time according to my own priorities.

I also have been taught and tutored by an especially harsh teacher called failure. I have scars to prove everything I learned.

Each of these experiences contributed to my ability to mix work and play but it remains a constant challenge to do so. Like people who are thin and fit, I have to work at it—-there’s no short-cut, dear Jenna, and no secret formula. Stay well, DV.

Ambition & Motivaton

Ambition and Motivation
The Goddess Ambition Loses Her Head but Keeps Her Laurel Crown
Christine Elder, a Bellarmine University freshman asks: How did you get motivated to do so many things in your life? How do you handle all of the stress of your ambitions?

Ambition and Motivation

Christine: your question(s) is astute, perceptive and insightful.

1) Ambition: for as long as my activities were driven by ambition, life was filled with stress. And when my activities were drive by vaulting ambition, which they were, my life was filled with even more stress, for which I paid dearly.

Read what my Renaissance priest, Montaigne, said:

Ambition sufficiently plagues her proselytes, by keeping themselves always in show, like the statue of a public place.

Can you imagine anything more stressful than always being on public display? Oscar Wilde is more acerbic:

Ambition is the last refuge of failure.

So, the cure for the stress created by ambition, dear Christine, is to abandon ambition and substitute enterprise. While enterprise appears to be ambition’s fellow-traveler, it comes from a different place and leads to a different place even though the two share a common road from time to time.

2) Motivation: Where did my motivation come from? Motivation is the father and mother of ambition and enterprise. Motives can be good, bad, neutral, high-minded or pedestrian. My motivation came from all those places. As I’ve matured, and abandoned ambition for enterprise, I have tried to center my motivation outside myself. The more I succeed in doing this, the more my enterprise and motivation grow even as my stress declines.

Ambition and motivation born of insecurity, if successful, breeds a second generation of ambition and motivation born of arrogance which, if successful, breeds a third generation of ambition and motivation born of greed. I can imagine no genealogy more disgraceful. DV

A Magic Formula for Success Part 1 of 4

A Magic Formula

Remarks

by

Donald Vish

To the Bellarmine Freshman Pioneers
Delivered 11-11@11, 2008


** **

Thank you for inviting me to speak to you about the important journey on which you have embarked. It was suggested that I talk to you about (1) my successes in the world since graduation from Bellarmine in 1968 and (2) my early life (or my ‘antecedents’ as they say), from which you might draw some lessons, inspiration or insights.

But you college freshman have not come here to hear me talk about me. You are here with the hope that I will give you a Magic Formula that will enable you to complete the education you have begun. You are eager to get from me some clue, if not a precise recipe, on how to do what you hope to do. Your interest in my success and my antecedents is limited to your need to determine for yourself whether I hold the proper credentials to address you about the secret formulae, the clues and the recipes you need to succeed.

So, let me assure you I am, in the conventional sense, a successful lawyer, writer, photographer, civic volunteer and social worker with a fair share of spectacular failures as a person, friend, father, husband and citizen. I have written books, practiced law with Kentucky’s best law firms, held appointive office in Washington D.C., won awards for my photography and have seen my poetry included in the Kentucky Anthology, a catalog of Kentucky writers over the last 200 years. In between, I have known divorce, depression, weakness, fear, failure, panic and every manner of human frailty.

Recently, I was introduced at the Bellarmine Awards dinner for “distinguished graduates” with an extravagant description of my accomplishments. The text was less than 500 words. So I divided my age into the number of words and concluded: I have accomplished eight words per year.

As far as my antecedents are concerned, suffice it to say I had and have many obstacles to overcome. Plato said: Be kind. Everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

The details of the obstacles—like the specifics of my success—are beside the point. Everyone has obstacles to overcome. And that leads me to the first part of the Magic Formula I have prepared for you:

Part 1: Develop Healthy Coping Mechanisms.

Did you hear the word ‘healthy’? It’s there to emphasize that you will get coping mechanisms whether you want them or not. Some will destroy you: alcohol, drugs, gambling. For those who cannot avoid these traps, I say your outlook is bleak—there’s nothing I can teach you.

A Magic Formula for Success Part 2 of 4

Part 2/4

A Magic Formula

Remarks

To Bellarmine Freshman Pioneers
11-11@11-2008


The second part of the Magic Formula comes from Calvin Borel, the jockey who won the 2007 Kentucky Derby. Calvin’s family circumstances were humble. Conditions did not allow him to get much schooling. Calvin’s father was unable to read. Calvin came from the place known as ‘hard times’ and a school called ‘hardscrabble.’ Perhaps some of you have been there.

As he grew, Calvin’s luck stayed bad. He broke many bones but no records on the race track; he lost a lot of little races riding a lot of underprivileged horses. Then, in 2007 Calvin won the Kentucky Derby. Within hours, he was dining with the Queen of England and the President of the United States at the White House. In an interview, Calvin was asked the same question you are here to ask me: how’d you do it? What’s the secret?

Calvin didn’t hesitate: I owe it all to my Dad.

That is an intriguing answer. Calvin’s father was not a jockey; he couldn’t introduce his son to the top breeders; he couldn’t coach his son on the secrets of riding race horses. So the interviewer asked the next question? What did your father do for you? Calvin’s answer was short, a four word treatise on great parenting: He believed in me. That is the second part of the Magic Formula:

Part 2: Find Someone Who Believes in You (including yourself).

Do not tolerate a milieu in which you are berated or diminished. Always accept criticism, in fact, seek it out and welcome it, but never put up with abuse even if it masquerades as good-natured banter. At one time, 30 pounds ago to be exact, I consulted a nutritionist and personal trainer. Under her aegis, I lost 40 pounds and learned about Evil. Yes, sheer Evil taught in a class on nutrition and personal fitness. Those of you who have tried to lose weight will recognize her warning.

My nutritionist warned me that with my ‘new body’ and my new eating habits, people in my immediate social group, and maybe even my family group, would begin undermining my success and making light of my new enterprise. They would offer rich deserts, candy, fattening foods and chide me with advice: Oh come on, you can have just one. What’s the point of losing weight if you're not going to enjoy life? It is a grim truth. Be forewarned. Some people in your social sphere will try to undermine your success. Be prepared. And that leads to the third part of the Magic Formula.

A Magic Formula for Success Part 3 of 4

Part 3/4

A Magic Formula

Remarks

Delivered to Bellarmine Freshman Pioneers
11-11@11-2008


Part 3: Seek a Supportive Environment, Find a Support Group.

I was an English major in college. But I knew of and was intrigued by the search of physicists, cosmologists and mathematicians like Einstein and Stephen Hawking for the so-called Theory of Everything—that is, one equation that explains the entirety of physics—the world reduced to one formula. Each of you is like those scientists—that’s why you are here, to see if you can discover from me the Theory of Everything, reduce the world to one equation, explain success in one formulation.

Well, I have it.

Let me give it to you first in Latin since no worthwhile formula is presented in a straightforward manner. Dei memor, gratus amicus.

Part 4: Mindful of God, Grateful to Friends.

Gentles, the motto mindful of God, grateful to friends is my Universal Equation and it answers every question you have of me: How I succeeded, How I overcome obstacles, How I endured, How I prospered, How I recovered from failure.

The God referred in my recipe may or may not be the God of an organized religion but it must be an honorable God and not a false God? What is a false God? That is the equivalent of a secular idol that will destroy you—like the Demon Rum, the Devil Dice, The Great God I, The Archangel Me and that well-known Unholy Trinity called sex, drugs and rock n’ roll.

Let me puncture a myth today: before you got here you learned the truth about Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and the many spooks and spirits of Halloween. I’m here today to add another casualty to your list. Are you ready?

There is no such thing as a Self-made Man (or Self-made Woman).

Who claims to be self-made is an ingrate. The successful person is rich in debt to many others. The successful person is grateful to friends. The successful person lives outside of self.

When I was 50 years old, I sent out a notice to all my friends and family announcing my retirement from the business of giving advice. One wag asked for a parting bit of wisdom. What was my best advice, daughter asked? My answer constitutes the fifth part of the Magic Formula:

Part 5: Be flexible.

Be surprised by nothing is Horace’s wise counsel. Don’t peer too far is Sappho’s warning. Rigidity destroys dreams and plans. When plans do not unfold as expected, some quickly declare the cause lost. They see no Plan B. The ability to reconfigure the dream, to make the most out of the unexpected, to see and seize new opportunities, to salvage something from failure, to draw new ideas from setbacks---this is the stuff of which successful people are made.

A Magic Formula for Success Part 4 of 4

Part4/4

A Magic Formula

Remarks

Delivered to Bellarmine Pioneers
11-11@11-2008



It’s not how many times you get knocked down that measure your progress it’s how many times you get back up.

Let me tell you about two people I admire greatly, who have given me (and the world) so much. Cicero, the prominent Roman orator and politician effectively lost his job when Julius Caesar closed the forum and put an end to politics in Rome. So what did the ‘unemployed’ Cicero do? He pursued a career as a philosopher and writer and left an immortal legacy to the world during his forced and unexpected retirement. He excelled in a career he did not plan and did not want.

Dante, the poet and pilgrim of the Divine Comedy, was an aristocrat, a man of means, powerful and educated. In his timeless masterpiece, we meet Dante the pilgrim in a tangled wood, lost in the middle of life’s journey, near suicide. Dante the poet had lost his power, his property, his place, his prestige, his family and was under a death sentence when he found himself at odds with his church and his government.

Some of you have little, some of you have nothing and some of you have even less than that. Dante had everything and lost it.

In exile, stripped of everything, Dante used his unexpected ‘bad luck’ to write one of the greatest works of art known in Western civilization. In his poem, he travels from the dark and tangled wood into the celestial light of God’s divine presence; the only mortal ever afforded such a privilege. Why and how was the pilgrim transported from dark to light, from death to life, from Hell to Heaven? The poem answers the question: because he was a man of hope.

There’s a story I like to tell about the Sufi Sage. He was chastised by the Fool for not giving thanks when he was blessed by good luck or doing penance when he was cursed by bad luck. The Sage had an explanation: That’s because I’m never sure which is which.

There’s a proverb that teaches: if the sky falls, catch larks. That’s what Cicero and Dante did and you should think of them, catching larks and the Sufi Sage every time it looks like you have a set-back or an unexpected interruption in your plans.

During my time at Bellarmine, I met many real living and breathing friends, mentors and role models. But my liberal arts education introduced me to a host of other teachers, tutors and sages from the past. Those who know me well often hear my citations to Erasmus and the wisdom of his secular bible the Adagia; to my high pagan priest Seneca and to my Renaissance humanist preacher, Montaigne.


Montaigne had inscribed on the ceiling of his library various mottos, proverbs and bits of worldly wisdom that inspired him and governed him. As a Bellarmine student, I began collecting wise adages with the hope that I might one day own a ceiling on which to inscribe them. In time, I learned that it was more important to live them than to write them. While not on my ceiling today, they are always near. Collectively, they constitute everything I know or think I know or even suspect. In the aggregate, they are less than 500 words.

So, I conclude in summary by telling you about myself: (1) I have accomplished 8 words per year and (2) everything I know worth knowing can be said in less than 500 words (so I apologize in using 2000 words to address you). And I leave you with the last component of the Magic Formula which is my own personal motto:

Part 6: Always Make Haste Slowly.




DV
11/5/2008
1924 words