On being a dilettante
(pl: dilettantes; dilettanti)
A dabbler. Without commitment. Nonspecialist. Layperson. Amateur. Without knowledge. Jack of all trades, master of none.
Latin: delectare – English “delectable” ? --> Italian: dilettare – to delight --> Italian: dilettante – person loving the arts.
Ours is a highly specialized society fit with highly bureaucratic systems of governmental regulations to the degree that it can be challenging for a highly educated, though non-specialized, individual to come upon a meaningful vocation. Unless one is specially trained, certified, and approved by the government bureaucracy and meets requirements attaining to specialized knowledge, it can be difficult to find a satisfying and well-paying job, depending on one’s life experience. I especially have in mind the teaching vocation (especially in NYS) where exploring teaching as a vocation is not an option unless you commit from the very beginning and throw yourself into debt in order to fund eight years of classroom instruction. Of course there is good in this system too if one considers the longevity of the institutionalization of education. This similar situation applies to engineering, medicine, law, financial services, et al.
In favoring certifications and degrees and government approvals we as a society have lost the emphasis on hiring and employing a certain “kind of person,” that is a person of integrity, honesty, depth, wisdom, compassion, kind, generous, etc. Of course, one is free at any time to launch out with any available capital and establish a business with little or no education and with enough grit and determination turn one’s activity into a profitable venture.
What is the point of all this bahoony? Yes, of course, I have a motivated aim.
I like to think I am good writer, average among writers, I am sure. I’ve been educated, though, this education deals in the realm of religion and theology, something not highly transferable to the “secular” world of business or education.
However, I am driving school buses, certainly not a typical vocation for a seminary graduate with post-graduate education. This being the case, I suggest I am sorely “under-employed” as some call it. Deep inside I have this sense that, because of my individual differences and educational level, I should be entitled to a better, i.e. more socially prominent and well-paying, vocation. In a sense I believed in the beginning that if I went to college and graduate school I would be earning a sound income and rising up in social standing. Yet this is not the case in my instance. Questions for further exploration (why do I feel entitled? Where is the notion that my self-worth and my vocational standing are tied together coming from?)
This, however, is not the whole story. If I were fully open about my situation, and I am trying to be, I would have to share with you about my experience of being employed on a Baptist church staff, with a decent salary, and a socially prominent role, though the role of “pastor” or “minister” has lost some of its social standing as of late in our secular-maddening society (but good in the sense that the sacred can be found in the secular!). I did earn a spot toward what I was aiming at, yet my self-honesty and self-integrity would not allow me to continue in that role and thus upon resigning lost the steady income and social standing and perhaps some self-worth. Upon resignation I applied to drive school buses because I was in need of income in order to help support my small family. The move to drive school bus was not a career move, so to speak, it was a survival move and thus a pragmatic one. But now, I am in a place where I believe that I should still be able to find a good job, with good pay, and good chances of rising social standing, even if not in a professional ministerial setting. Yet have not after a year or more of searching found a position (and this is probably a good thing given the phase of deconstruction I am currently going through). Opportunities abound, no doubt, but do I take a job for security and stability, or do I look for meaningful work based upon my unique traits and desires? Do I do what I love, or do I love what I do?
Yet there’s a shadow-side of this mentality of believing I am entitled to better employment based upon my pursuit of education, of believing I am entitled to a “better” vocation because of my resume’s exceptional (in my mind anyway) tally of educational achievements. These beliefs, driven by fear, self-interest and anxiety no doubt, are aimed at propping up my ego and my sense of mastery over the course of my life. Hidden inside this self-pity (and that is what it is!) is my desire for social standing as well as a desire for individual achievements that result in the experience of personal vocational satisfaction and reward and a sense that I was successful according to my culture’s social standing concept. Wrapped up in all of this is the desire for power, money, and ego-satisfaction according to fearful and self-seeking desires.
If I were honest, I would tell you that I so desire others to see me through the eyes of modern day success, noble envy, primeval power. If Tony Robbins and I were equals then all would be well in the world. So, inside of me is this incessant conflict, this tug and pull between self-seeking, self-pity, ego-filling and then detachment and acceptance and surrender of my ego for God’s sake. And here I am knowing that the former is doomed to be a failed project and the latter will be deeply fulfilling and satisfactory in the course of a lived life.
There’s a deep spiritual need to move from a desire of social acceptance on the wings of success, money, power, and social standing toward a form of being in the world that is one of contentment, surrender, poverty of mind and spirit, lowliness of opinion of self, and ego-blindness. I’ve got to be reminded that the “social standing” and “affluence” are merely relative positions based solely on human creations sourced in fear and ego. What’s more necessary is to be a certain kind of person, one of virtue as the Greeks say, and one of holiness as the Jews say. My manner of being in the world supersedes my mode of being in the world. Social standing as Rich and powerful will not guarantee a full and satisfying life. Humility and contentment are more sure guarantees of fullness and satisfaction.
In Thomas Merton’s Seven Storey Mountain a woman, I forget how she is related to the story, in an abrasive, condescending manner offers her sage advice to Thomas- something to the effect of, “Don’t become a dilettante like your father.” Thomas’s father was an artist, a painter of landscapes primarily. He painted landscapes from all around the world and so Thomas and his family were often moving and traveling so that his father could satisfy the need to capture beautiful landscape on canvas and hopefully paint enough to sell and support his small family. According to Thomas’s story, his father had a hard time supporting the family financially, and so Thomas’s maternal grandfather, an American, often supported Thomas and his brother for much of his life, especially after his mother’s death (she died when Thomas was young). The woman who said this to Thomas then advised that Thomas to go into business and learn to support himself. She was the practical one, no doubt! In her mind, a successful person was a person of means and wealth and material gain, one of pragmatic vocational choice who could then provide for the finer things. Thomas knew better, or I should say, believed differently. Another person in the story, I forget who, gave Thomas advice while in college to forget learning philosophy since it had very little material effect on a person’s living. Thomas did not follow the advice to his benefit, I think. The point here is that Thomas was well-trained educationally and he could certainly have been a successful businessman, but Thomas chose differently. He was overcome with the desire to find God and to know God and to be loved by God and to experience God’s love and share God’s love with others through his talent as a writer and educator.
I bond with Thomas on his reactions to the unsolicited advice he received. Though his life was troubled with moral and spiritual fits and starts, Thomas had an intuitive sense that he was not built for the world of trade and business (certainly some are). Instead he was keenly aware of his connection to the academic, to the human, to a vision of the depth of experience that can be achieved when a life is dedicated to the search for God in the human experience. The advice he received was centered on identity, self-image, ego, and power. But he saw through those things as being empty cisterns as they certainly are. Thomas loved literature. He was naturally attracted to writing and creating art with his words. He was an academic and loved buying books (as any bibliophile can attest) and classes and had idealistic views of being an academic and then a monk.
From my reading of his memoir I have learned that Thomas Merton and I have similar interests and feelings and ideals. While he came from a non-religious childhood, I came from a highly religious childhood, but we both ended up in a place where we knew that God has called us to be something for him, something dedicated to the life of faith and life of spiritual vitality. I, like Thomas, however, have had a rough start getting “serious” if you will, about this calling and spiritual gift. Thomas did not become a dilettante like his father (in fact, his father certainly was no dilettante, just a starving artist!). He chose to follow a path that led him to God and that path led him to help thousands of spiritual dilettantes like myself.
Me however? I have become a dilettante. I have dabbled in spirituality and faith, but I have not made the determination to live a dedicated life to the depth of the spirit given as a gift by God.
This being the case I believe I am built for the life of faith and spiritual activity – a God-lived life, but my connection with God seems to have burst a fuse. My ideas of God have had to change. God is no longer the genie in the bottle. He no longer owes me anything and I no longer have a claim on him, as I thought I did when I signed up to be God’s child.
Thomas was free to become a priest and a monk. This was his calling. I, however, am not in a position to turn my life over to a monastery or a parish. I am not even Catholic! The lesson from Thomas though is that he became his authentic self. He moved in the direction of his calling and surrendered his life to the becoming of a kind of person full of God. That’s where I am. This search to fill my identity with ego, self-image, power, success, and standing are lingering in the dim and stuffy light of an age of old and are in need of transformation from being dilettante to being a professional at living a life of God.
What can I learn from Thomas Merton? I ask myself, “What kind of life does a person live who reflects a meaningful existence, one that is true to self and God?” He is person of great spiritual understanding, a person of depth and wisdom, a person of sound moral constitution, a person with social influence through a wholeness of being, a person of compassion for a world in need, a person of sober and genuine love for others, a person free from the passions of the self, one who controls his desires and focuses them on matters of the virtuous, one who uses his energy in a productive manner for the improvement of society. These are some of the many characteristics that may prove to be a person who is that “kind” of person worth being. Business and trade and markets and professions and associations and the like are good and worthy things per se, but the kind of person involved makes them good or evil.
I cannot become a monk, though I think I would like that in the idealistic sense, but I can become the kind of person who fills the characteristics of a monk.
Monks have a set way of being. Set prayers, set meditations, set working hours, set rules for living.