The path to happiness, a life of profound immersion and intuitive cohesion with the outer world, is based on the this admonition - uphold virtue. Upon knowing your soul's affinity for a particular virtue ie. beauty, truth, and etc, affix this intangible admiration to your present life - this is the form of an ultimate value. It will be, and must be the ultimate end to all means in this daily disintegration of our superficial knowledge of happiness.
Virtue is divine, and magnanimous, but beyond it's out of reach nature, we are strangely familiar with its presence and will expend our mortality for even a glimpse of it. Perfection is never known or entirely experience in our present existence, yet the notion itself can be personified, and can be better understood as a beloved crush whisking in and out of a coffee shop or store, only to catch a glimpse of the side of a face, or the curve of a fleshy palm resting on table. Naturally, as in the nature of the absolute perfection, we never experience the real thing, nor do we see the whole face, yet the anticipation and fervent determination of the eyes suffice. The search quells the hunger enough, but we look not in vain, but simply live for the potential reward. Actuality is wanted, yet few or almost none attain such a gift. As we acknowledge with virtue, it can be exercised to some degree in our attempt to match the whole, or even contribute to the sublime divinity of the whole. We will never have him sit right across from us, and we will never speak, for the virtue exists for us and only us. Moreover, it evolves into a value, or a focus that keeps us coming back to the coffee shop or store, solely to get a glimpse of the cheek, or an extended arm. It is objectified, yet it must be, for it to be a solid consistent ideal. If made into a subject, or a thinking being such as you, or myself, it would be the "he" in my analogy, a person possessing a consciousness: able to move to another state, become sick, or worst of all- die in a car accident. Thus, virtue is an object of all our obsessive affections, for he cannot die. His presence is needed. And, those steps we take to get to the coffee shop and/ or the store all for the gratification of supreme elation and reprieve from mundane ritual, I call them progression.
In simple terms, we gravitate towards the "special", something rare in quantity, but on the absolute threshold of quality and satisfaction. Chaste ecstasy is the only way to describe it, though calling it a feeling would do no justice to the even the most elemental parts of it. Again, it is the end, and nothing is better than that... Sometimes, it is comforting to reach the end, to know my satisfaction is complete, and that I am complete by finding such virtue. Virtue is good and universal, and one's neurotic paranoia, whether an innate drive for petty selfishness or a selfless goal, is calmed by that objective fact that this is "what everyone needs and should need". When there are so many distractions as to what we want, or VALUE, how do we know what works for us is something worth fighting for, yet will outlast our lifespan, and be good for all? This is not assurance of a personal legacy or will for immortality, but an attempt to preserve the continuation of our thoughts and actions beyond corporal limitations- a merging of the absolute forms and the internal transmissions from the depths of PURE THOUGHT. I cannot assure you every idea in your head is worthy of lasting transference, but if it seems to hinge on absolute virtue, you are on the right track. Important questions: How do you want your soul to be understood after you die? How do you want to be appreciated with utmost integrity and respect when evolutionary animal instincts underlie our motives at every turn? ( We deny it, but it is our foundation of biological behavior as flesh and blood beings.) There must be something other than the pure material... There must be...
Not the only answer, but one of the best ways of salvaging the "divine" in every person and life is this: Find your (good) virtue, and try every day to see it in that coffee shop or wherever it lurks. He, or it, will always be waiting for you. It will never disappoint, or fade into nothingness, your admiration will never dissipate, but will grow fonder over time, and as the meetings grow shorter, and failed attempts to catch a glimpse tempt a deviation, your want will remain constant. As expected, your path to the his regular hotspot will be plagued with obstacles, and sometimes you will not see him for stretches of months, or even decades. He may reoccur in various places and take many forms, but his essential essence remains the same. This is the constancy and elusion of virtue, paradoxical, for its profundity and unquestionable beauty will continue beyond human existence, as not only aesthetic perfection, or its ultimate self-sufficiency as the end of all ends, but on the premise of an internal stirring- it conjures up an indescribably satisfying FEELING in our souls. Sensory experience is the medium in which it reaches the recesses of our beings, yet it coalesces into something entirely separate from the sum of all the sensory parts. What comes is the acknowledgment that this is right for ME (singularity, the self)- VALUE, and comfort in taking part in a communal goal (others)- a ubiquitous dream for all - a VIRTUE.
Virtue and value are a balance of personal desire and societal- even existential responsibility- to those that share this life with you. One leads to the other and vice versa; however, both are integral to getting what we deserve, which is a little bit of what we are not- perfection through feeling- brought upon as a pervasive sentiment through action, not form, and sometimes, that is enough. It exhausts all our needs and wants, in a fatal encompassing swoop of intense elation, lasting only seconds, but satiates beyond comprehension, and or want of anything else, besides that moment.
Cheers to Virtue and Value.
Live for nothing else, because these are your hearts desires, for virtue and value together, can never be tangential to the universal harmony and the callings of an observant individual. These are the terms of human experience, never insistent, but deeply felt for those who understand that tried base gratification, never hold a candle to the realization or meeting of the flawed being and virtue. If one makes it his value, he and virtue will meet. Maybe for a second, and maybe it appears over a span of lifetime, successive, till senescence (for a lucky few), but it is there to be discovered for all. Euphoria is not merely a feeling, but a oneness, the feat in itself of a inch closer to merging with what we want, yet what know we will never have. It is the "holiest of affections", because it simply FEELS that way.
Something to ponder over in the month of February. V is for Valentine, Virtue, and Value.
