My Word's Worth: an occasional column by Marylaine Block

vol. 5, #41, July 30, 2000

BESETTING VIRTUES

I was reading a book recently by a man who discovered, after he married her, that the wife he adored for her compassion and kindness was utterly incapable of leaving an orphaned or injured animal to fend for itself. Tame, wild, it didn't make any difference. If they came her way, she adopted them. Since their kids did the same thing, they ended up providing care and shelter to pups and mice, rats and snakes, coyotes, and even a rabbit and guinea pig who contentedly shared a cage. They kept buying bigger and bigger houses until they found the perfect place, known widely as the Avocado Drive Zoo.

Not for the first time, I reflected that, when we try to improve ourselves, we try to change our worst character flaws, and yet the things that drive the people around us nuts may in fact be our virtues. Not only do the people around us have to put up with the consequences of our virtues, they can't even complain because, how CAN you condemn somebody for being excessively admirable?

In Arsenic and Red Tape, Edmund G. Love tells about a woman he knew who, forced to earn a living and raise several children alone, became even more awe-inspiringly efficient than I am in full white rabbit mode. She put charts and timetables everyplace, outlining what each member of the household would be doing at any given time:

7:00-7:07 -- Rene put on water for coffee, eggs. Get breakfast things out of cupboard. Menu on shelf. Set table. Dish list on shelf. Sarah in bathroom. Mother lay out clothes.
7:14-7:21 -- Mother get breakfast. Picking up living room. Rene get paper, pick up room, make bed. Sarah in bathroom.
7:21-7:28 -- Mother eat breakfast. Sarah pick up room and make bed. Rene in bathroom.

And so on, for the rest of each day, including the amount of time allotted for recreation. Scary, ain't it? It's not that efficiency isn't an absolutely necessary virtue when there's so much to be done and you have to make sure everyone meets the timetables imposed by work and school and transportation time, but, who would want to live that way? And what would happen if she married someone whose besetting virtue was spontaneity?

When I think of Ralph Nader, whose besetting virtue is surely earnestness, I'm glad that he's a bachelor. If he had a wife and children, how could they not feel guilty for insisting that he spend time with them? When he lives so spartanly and donates the rest of his money to the cause, how could they feel right asking for anything as frivolous as a Game Boy or a prom dress? How could they not feel selfish when they want Dad to stay home and do the normal Dad things, like checking on the kids' homework, and playing catch with them? And how much tolerance could he have for their normal, selfish needs? As George Bernard Shaw said, self-sacrifice makes it easy for us to sacrifice others.

And yet, as my son pointed out, we need single-minded earnest do-gooders, because without them, no important social change occurs. The rest of us may be well-meaning, may help out for a few hours here, a few hours there; we may donate money, and vote for good causes. But we're casual about it. We won't focus our entire lives around making the world a fairer, better place. Martin Luther Kings and Cesar Chavezes and Elizabeth Cady Stantons are absolutely necessary because they won't rest until we pay attention and do the right thing.

Even the grandstanders and fanatics may be necessary, the John Browns and the anti-government crazies and the suffragists who went on hunger strikes, who make more people aware of genuine injustice than the law-abiding exponents of their causes do.

You just wouldn't want to live with them.

My own annoying virtues include a fierce independence. I guess I never really got over "Mother, I'd rather do it myself." It keeps me from leaning on other people even when it would make my life easier, and even when they would feel better if I WOULD lean on them. And in truth, it makes me a little intolerant of people who can't or won't take care of themselves.

I'm also very solution-oriented, and a good idea person. Give me a problem and I immediately start thinking of different ways to fix it. Which puts me out of tune with friends who simply want to share their problems and get hugs and sympathy -- I keep coming up with possible solutions instead.

My friend Mark suggests that our virtues are really the evil twins of our vices. Broadmindedness, for example, can lead to a complete absence of conviction. Rationality has its uses, but it can't handle fundamental human emotions. Spontaneity is charming, but not if it means that you can't pay your bills because you went off on a lark to Cancun. The fact that I am capable of intense focus on the people I'm talking with means that they absolutely KNOW that they are being heard -- but it means I am also totally oblivious to anything or anyone else around me.

So, maybe, the next time we're having problems in a relationship, we might want to figure out not what we're doing wrong, but what we're doing right -- that drives our nearest and dearest up a wall.

NOTE: My thinking is always a work in progress. You could mentally insert all my columns in between these two sentences: "This is something I've been thinking about," and "Does this make any sense to you?" I welcome your thoughts. Please send your comments about these columns to: marylaine at netexpress.net. Since I've written a lot of these, some of them many years ago, help me out by telling me which column you're referring to.

I'll write columns here whenever I really want to share an idea with you and can find time to write them . If you want to be notified when a new one is up, send me an e-mail and include "My Word's Worth" in the subject line.