Last week’s Catalyst Compass mentioned the insights on courage from Friedrich Nietzsche and Paul Tillich, two brilliant writers who disagreed on many elements of life but were clearly aligned on this front. To Nietzsche, courage was the fuel moving us beyond the mediocrity and decadence incrementally taking ownership of our lives when we’re not paying attention. Tillich connected courage with intentionality, creating the (true) self beyond the sleepwalking version, thus producing a life of depth and meaning. But what is the significance behind these concepts we must (daily, moment by moment) conquer in order to live such a life?
Mediocrity comes from the Latin word ‘mediocritas’ originally referred to as an intermediate state or amount. It was a state celebrated by Aristotle, who saw the balance between scarcity and excess praiseworthy. Sounds great, right? A “sweet spot” between too much and too little. However, that’s not the mediocrity requiring courage in this scenario. Rather, it references the triumph of the ordinary, a willing acceptance of the status quo. It marks the end of the individual’s unique journey of growth in exchange for comfort of conformity with the herd. Part II in the equation – Decadence – is often couched as excessive indulgence in pleasure or luxury. While such indulgences may be symptoms of the term related to broader societal decay, this goes deeper, pointing to a loss of vitality in our lives.
Ah yes – vitality. Intriguingly, the use of the word peaked in 1905 (120 years ago!!) and has been on a downward trend since. Dictionary.com ties it to the capacity for a meaningful or purposeful existence and Merriam-Webster adds the exclamation mark, defining vitality as “the peculiarity distinguishing the living from the nonliving.” Wow. Did you catch that? Vitality – the antidote for the two-headed mediocrity/decadence serpent – is the capacity for meaningful existence distinguishing the living from the nonliving. Which then begs the question: are we (fully) living??
Who are we – really? What is our calling? What makes each one of us unique – differentiating us from the 100 billion people who have ever walked the face of the earth? When I am truly “being” in the fullest sense, who am I? Vitality is the catalyst, the stage-setter, the revealer, the answer beneath the answer to such questions. Vitality is that which prepares us to step into our full being, the revealer of our true selves, and the turbo boost that lights the spark to continue moving forward over time. Perhaps the most intriguingly important aspect of vitality is the way in which it acts as a renewable energy. Once tapped, it continues to grow, producing both external impact and internal expansion.
But first – such vitality must be uncovered. We must first shed the blanket of decadence and mediocrity that keeps it hidden from the world. That uncovering begins with a simple question whose depth may exceed our zone of comfort but, in the end, is well worth the twinge: Am I settling?