Ben and Me_ From Temperance to Humility - Cameron Gunn [98]
On Frugality, Harper said I spent too much; Darcy said, “I don’t know what that means.” On Silence, Harper felt I did say things about people but they were mostly nice, and she thought I was very honest when we talked about Sincerity. Tranquillity was difficult to explain, so I presented it this way: “When I spill a glass of milk or something like that, do I get angry and run around the house screaming or do I shake it off and say it’s nothing?”
“Neither,” said Harper. “You say, ‘Oh crap.’ ” At least I had G-rated my expletive.
The rest of their answers were pretty straightforward, but on Order, Harper did mention that my closet was a mess. I found that very ironic given the fact that I had once lived in one.
It was on the animal question that I received perhaps the most honest and perceptive analysis. “If I were an animal, what would I be?” I asked (you would think I would have skipped over this one).
Harper thought about that for a moment and then replied, “I think of three animals: a hippopotamus, an elephant, and a rhinoceros.”
Bracing myself, I asked, “Why?”
“Because,” she answered, “they’re gray and round.”
She is her mother’s daughter. Darcy, by the way, said anteater. I didn’t have the courage to ask why.
Next to last was Chris Levan, he who had led me through this maze of virtues and ethics. Did he regard our efforts as successful, or was I a disappointment to him? We met, again, over a glass of wine at our local café.
“I enjoyed the experience,” he said when I asked him about our thirteen weeks together. He explained that much of his professional life is dedicated to teaching the theory of virtuous behavior, but that my stumbling in the path of Benjamin Franklin was about how the unpredictability of life alters theory. “It was a good reminder,” he continued, “that we can’t control as much as we think.”
I was curious to know if he had learned anything from the course. Or, more important, did he have any final words of wisdom for me? After a moment’s thought, he nodded and said, “Two things. First, anything worth doing takes more than a lifetime; therefore, we must be saved by hope. Second, none of us is as virtuous as we imagine ourselves; therefore, we must be saved by faith.”
Not bad. I think that was worth the price of a glass of wine.
Finally, I moved on to Michelle. Though this was undoubtedly the most important interview, it was also the one I dreaded the most. It was she who designated me sloth, and it is she with whom I intend to spend the rest of my life. Couple this with the knowledge, which you now certainly also possess, that she does not sugarcoat the truth, and I admit that I was more than a little nervous.
“So,” I told her, “I want to do that survey I did with you at the beginning of the course.”
“Why?” That was not encouraging. I persevered, explaining my reasons, and she agreed, though I noted more than a hint of skepticism in her voice.
As I went through the virtues one by one, she described me in almost identical terms from our first interview. I ended each question by asking if she noticed any difference in me with respect to the virtue in question after the completion of the course. “No change,” she’d answer each time.
Should I have expected her to notice a change after just thirteen weeks? Perhaps not, but a little encouragement might have been nice. I would have accepted a little insincerity at this point.
I had saved the animal question until the end for obvious reasons. Had I turned myself from sloth to stallion? There was only one way to find out. “You’ll remember,” I began, “that last time I asked you about what kind of animal you pictured me as and you replied”—I paused—“a sloth.”
“And I stick by my answer.”
“Wonderful,” I replied.
“Wait,” she said, hearing the disappointment in my voice. “I never did explain my answer. Sloth is not negative to me. When I think of a sloth, I think of a