Work now with the raw material of your soul

Thomas Moore contributes a new blog entry to The Huffington Post, "Molding the Raw Material of the Soul". In this essay, he writes about personal and national maturation:

"I see the point in life to become more mature. That means to have more substance and bite, more character and understanding for having faced certain outcomes of ignorance. You make a big blunder, and you sentence yourself to months and years of sorting it out, until you are a person who won't make that blunder again. You've gone somewhere. You've become something.

When I read the statements of our politicians and business leaders, I'm often struck by this lack of soul-process by which they could become mature enough to lead. I see naive blindness and unprocessed behavior everywhere, as though one of the requirements for these positions is that you have never reflected on values or meaning. They seem to see no problem in floating bubbles of moral platitudes with no intention of ever taking them seriously. They broadside their opponents, routinely flouting the ad hominem principle (attacking the person rather than discussing the idea) instead of engaging in subtle, complex argument.

Self-awareness doesn't arrive on a golden cloud. It's an achievement won through pain and courage. It takes a strong heart to face certain weaknesses again and again until, through this practice of reflection, they become strengths."

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