9.06.2008

Merchant of Venice

To say what I love is much harder to say what I hate. I mean if I speak about the little every day things. It is much easier to say that we love or hate the "big things" like friendship, love, honesty, justice, temperance, freedom, or egoism, violence, troubles, lust, venality, vanity (Narcissism)...I haven't said which one of those I love or hate so far, and you can already guess, because, usually people love the virtues and hate the vices, hopefully. And in this case it is as easy to say what I love and what I hate. So there are virtues and vices. Then there are the seven deadly sins. Sins are vices, but only some vices are sins. There are seven sins (humility against pride, kindness against envy, abstinence against gluttony, chastity against lust, patience against anger, liberality against greed, and diligence against sloth), and seven holy virtues (faith, hope, charity, fortitude, justice, temperance, prudence) : I just wonder how they chose the seven sins among all the existing vices possible: 

absent-mindedness 
addiction 
aggression 
alcoholism 
animosity 
antagonism 
apathy 
bigotry 
bitterness 
callousness 
caprice 
carelessness 
child sacrifice 
cowardice 
corruption 
cruelty 
denial 
dependence 
despair 
diffidence 
dishonesty 
dishonor 
disobedience 
disrespectfulness 
drunkenness 
excess 
favoritism 
filthiness 
flippancy 
flightiness 
foolishness 
greed 
hatred 
hostility 
ignorance 
inconstancy 
indecision 
indifference 
indolence 
indulgence 
inequality 
infidelity 
ingratitude 
injustice 
insincerity 
intemperance 
immodesty 
immorality 
impatience 
impiety 
improvidence 
irresponsibility 
irreverence 
laziness 
lewdness 
licentiousness 
lightmindedness 
malevolence 
malice 
misanthropy 
misandry 
misogyny 
moral relativism 
negativity 
omissiveness 
officiousness 
paranoia 
parasitism 
passivity 
permissiveness 
perversion 
pessimism 
poor judgment 
prejudice 
presumptuousness 
pride(hubris) 
procrastination 
promiscuity 
purposelessness 
rashness 
rudeness 
ruthlessness 
secretiveness 
self-degradation 
selfishness 
sensuality 
shortsightedness 
slackness 
slavery 
slothfulness 
suppression 
stinginess 
stubbornness 
stupidity 
tactlessness 
treachery 
unfairness 
unforgiveness 
unkindness 
unscrupulousness 
unsophistication 
vanity 
violence 
wantonness 
weakness 
wildness, uncivilization 
wiliness 
worldliness


Let's not get too depressed, let's see the virtues now, to cheer up 


acceptance 
altruism, unselfishness 
appreciation 
assertiveness 
attention, focus 
autonomy 
awareness 
balance 
being beautiful in spirit 
benevolence 
charity 
chastity 
cleanliness 
commitment 
compassion 
confidence 
consciousness 
consideration 
continence 
cooperativeness 
courage 
courteousness 
creativity 
critical thinking 
cunning 
curiosity 
dependability 
detachment 
determination 
diligence 
discipline 
empathy 
endurance 
enthusiasm 
excellence 
fairness 
faith 
fidelity 
fitness 
flexibility 
foresight 
forgiveness 
fortitude 
free will 
freedom 
friendliness 
generosity 
happiness 
health, health-minded 
helpfulness 
honesty, truthfulness 
honour 
hopefulness 
hospitality 
humility 
humor 
idealism 
imagination 
impartiality 
independence 
innocence 
integrity 
intuition 
inventiveness 
joy 
justice 
kindness 
lovingness 
loyalty 
manners 
mercy 
moderation 
modesty 
morality 
nonviolence 
nurturing 
obedience 
openness 
optimism 
patience 
peacefulness 
perfection 
perseverance 
philanthropy 
philomathy 
piety 
potential 
prudence 
purity 
purposefulness 
respectfulness 
moral responsibility 
social responsibility 
restraint 
self-awareness 
self-confidence 
self-discipline 
self-esteem 
self-reliance 
self-respect 
sensitivity 
sharing 
sincerity 
spirituality 
strength 
sympathy 
tactfulness 
temperance 
thankfulness 
tolerance 
trustworthiness 
truth 
understanding 
wisdom 

Aaahhh, I feel better now.

Well. Let's complicate everything now:

The seven sins were founded by the early Christian, and the seven virtues too, by a Roman poet, Christian too. There are also "Cardinal virtues" (Classic Western virtues: temperance prudence fortitude justice), four this time, and "Theological virtues" (in Christianity, love, hope, faith), three. 1 Corinthians: 13,thirteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, is also citing, categorizing, clasifying, picking up, choosing, electing, virtues and vices, throughout the description of agape, the concept of selfless love (derived from there the 7 contrary virtues: humility, kindness, abstinence, chastity, patience, liberality, diligence ). And I don't even talk about the Hindu virtues, the Islamic ones (Goodness, moral consciousness, patience, justice and fair-mindedness, cleanliness, trust in God, repentance), the Roman, Buddhist, Samurai ones. I have to had another layer of classification : virtues can be grouped into categories of values.


So now I just can say that I love to wake up in the middle of the night before an important exam day for example only to realize that I have still a few hours of sleep. I love to be half awake half asleep, like when one is struggling watching the end of a movie and finaly give up. Usually what happens here is that I close my eyes once just because it feels good, open them again to watch a bit more, and then I think that I can just close my eyes a few more minutes, because they start burning, and open them again soon, thinking that I won't miss anything of the movie because I would listen to the actors voices, dialogues, so it's going to be okay. And I do open my eyes again but I have actually slept and missed half an hour of the story. Then I just turn off the TV. Pointless. I love to study hard for a test, to be in a hurry because I have only a few hours before the exam, and then look at my notes to discover that I made a mistake, my test in in three days, I am free, and on the top of it, my work is all done. 
I love to have too much things to do, to fight with my schedule, it really turns me crazy, and stressed, but I am just depressed when I have nothing to do, I don't remember the last time this happened actually. 
I am going to contradict myself now, because I love also to find that I have an hour with nothing special to do, and fill it up with a nice walk, a great book, a sketch book, to draw, paint, write, swim. I love summer storms and fireworks. I love eating apple and any other fruit or vegetable that crunch and make a lot of noise. I am currently into carrots. I like eating grapefruit like if they were oranges. I like to be organised, to put things in boxes, figuratively, as I write for example, I need paragraphs, I love to untangle tangled ideas, but not to untangle my tangled cables. I love l'Oulipo.
I hate spending hours on the phone. But there are exceptions. I hate spending hours on TV. No exception. I hate infinitely repeated sounds, depends which ones. But the tic tac of my alarm clock it's okay, but not the cat next door. I hate chocolates with alcohol inside because one can never tell which ones are those. It's like hot peppers : never know which the bad and horribly hot ones are. I hate the chalk on the blackboard, and the fork grating a plate. I hate superactive people around me while I am having breakfast. I hate sarcasm, most of the times. I hate bank statements.

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