It All Turns on Affection

In a previous post – "Courage Before Discipline" – I pointed out that there are three parts to Ryan Holiday's book, Courage is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave:

• Part I: Fear
• Part II: Courage
• Part III: The Heroic

In the previous post – "Love Thy Neighbor" – I addressed Part II, choosing to focus on two chapters:

• Love Thy Neighbor
• If Not You, Then Who?

In this post – "It All Turns on Affection" –I address Part III, again choosing to focus on two chapters:

• The Selflessness of Love
• Make People Bigger

You may remember that purpose here is to share a recent personal journey, which entails getting back on track not only with this blog, but with some other aspects of my retirement as well. I have chosen to frame this journey using two of Ryan Holiday's books, Courage is Calling and Discipline is Destiny, and this post is the third of three posts devoted to Courage is Calling. The next three posts will focus on Discipline is Destiny. My overarching goal is to regain a disciplined practice, but upon reflection, I have come to realize that – for me anyway – courage is a precursor or condition for discipline.

I have made a couple of important discoveries (thus far) on this journey. The first is that the opposite of courage is not fear, but apathy, which can be framed as a loss of agency. The second is that the foundation for courage is love. I know for my part, as I reflect back on the 75 years of my life, I honestly cannot think of a single instance where an act of courage on my part wasn't grounded in love. And this brings to mind another important essay by Wendell Berry, It All Turns on Affection (Counterpoint, 2012), which was published 30 years after Solving for Pattern (see my first five blog posts). "It All Turns on Affection" was Berry's response to being invited to give The Jefferson Lecture – "our nation's highest honor for distinguished intellectual achievement" (from the book's back cover). The following paragraph captures – in my view – the essence of his message (p. 14):

I will say, from my own belief and experience, that imagination thrives on contact, on tangible connection. For humans to have a responsible relationship to the world, they must imagine their place in it. To have a place, to live and belong in a place, to live from a place without destroying it, we must imagine it. By imagination we see it illuminated by its own unique character and by our love for it. By imagination we recognize with sympathy the fellow members, human and nonhuman, with whom we share our place. By that local experience we see the need to grant a sort of preeemptive sympathy to all the fellow members, the neighbors, with whom we share the world. As imagination enables sympathy, sympathy enables affection. And in affection we find the possibility of a neighborly, kind, and conserving economy.

Now, with that said, we can turn to Part III of Courage is Calling, in particular the two chapters I listed above in this blog post. In the first of these chapters, "The Selflessness of Love," Ryan Holiday shares the story of Captain James Stockdale, who was captured when his fighter jet was shot down over North Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Here is the entry for Stockdale on the Congressional Medal of Honor Society website (https://www.cmohs.org/recipients/james-b-stockdale):

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while senior naval officer in the prisoner-of-war camps of North Vietnam. Recognized by his captors as the leader in the prisoners' of war resistance to interrogation and in their refusal to participate in propaganda exploitation, Rear Adm. Stockdale was singled out for interrogation and attendant torture after he was detected in a covert communications attempt. Sensing the start of another purge, and aware that his earlier efforts at self-disfiguration to dissuade his captors from exploiting him for propaganda purposes had resulted in cruel and agonizing punishment, Rear Adm. Stockdale resolved to make himself a symbol of resistance regardless of personal sacrifice. He deliberately inflicted a near-mortal wound to his person in order to convince his captors of his willingness to give up his life rather than capitulate. He was subsequently discovered and revived by the North Vietnamese who, convinced of his indomitable spirit, abated in their employment of excessive harassment and torture toward all the prisoners of war. By his heroic actions, at great peril to himself, he earned the everlasting gratitude of his fellow prisoners and of his country. Rear Adm. Stockdale's valiant leadership and extraordinary courage in a hostile environment sustain and enhance the finest traditions of the U.S. Naval Service.

The key element of this story is that Captain Stockton was willing to sacrifice his own life to protect the lives of his men. It all turns on affection.

In "Make People Bigger," Holiday presents a number of examples of heroes who make those around them bigger (pp. 219-220):

Don't let your buddy down–that's the basis of military courage. But a hero goes beyond that. The essence of greatness is more than talent or skill. As Jackie Robinson said, a life is meaningless except for its impact on other lives. The athlete who makes their team better? An athlete who makes their team better off the court too? The leader who gets more out of the people around them? The artist who inspires their audience? The soldier whose calm is contagious?

That's what we're talking about.

Longfellow captured the true heroism of Florence Nightingale in a poem. It wasn't just her bravery, it wasn't just the deprivations she endured without complaint. It was what she did for people.

She made people bigger. She made them better.

You can read Longfellow's poem here: https://www.hwlongfellow.org/poems_poem.php?pid=145