The sun arrives on Earth without haste,
fatigue, or “rooting.”
Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira. [1]
In This Chapter
Em matéria de calma, foi a humanidade sempre deficiente como é hoje?
Was humanity always as deficient as it is today as far as calm is concerned?
The gradual loss of calm as a modern phenomenon began before World War I, greatly intensified with Hollywood’s influence in the 1920s and resulted in the hustle and bustle of the second half of the twentieth century and the beginning of the new millennium.
Today, we idolize haste, a sad characteristic of our days.
Conversely, Dr. Plinio makes interesting considerations about calm and reflection. Non-bookish, keen and intelligent thinking, which one can appreciate, especially in moments of calm, is the juice of life and not something outside of it.
[1] Lecture of 1-30-81.
St. Joseph (Giuseppe) Moscati (Benevento, 7-25-1880 – Naples, 4-12-1927), third from the left, was a young and brilliant doctor who taught his first students. He consecrated himself to Our Lady of Good Counsel, distinguishing himself above all for his virtues, but also for the human qualities he developed.
Seriousness and Calm
Everything is serious. We must realize that every action of ours, however small, has enormous consequences in the genuine and profound order of things, that is, in the presence of God. When you say ‘presence of God,’ everything is said because everything is done in His presence and is related to Him, so it takes on boundless seriousness and importance.
The beatific vision helps us to have this thought.[1] We must remember that our ultimate goal, our only valid reason for being, is to contemplate God face-to-face for all eternity.
Here is a metaphor used to make the concept of eternity accessible in catechism classes: If you take a piece of granite and run a finger over it, a particle of it, however small, is likely to come off. Now, if a swallow were to pass by the Sugar Loaf every a thousand years and brush on it with the tip of its beak, how long would it take for the swallow to complete its work? Yet, when that was done, it would be as if the work were beginning in comparison with eternity.
This metaphor gives us a better grasp of eternity and what it means to see God face-to-face for all eternity. And you understand how serious is all that can draw us closer to or away from the beatific vision.
Anything can take us farther away or closer to the beatific vision. This is not to say that there are no morally neutral actions because there are. But they are actions that, according to the ordination with which man practices them, can bring him closer to God or more distant from Him.[2]
The Roaring Twenties (1920-1930)
During the so-called Roaring Twenties, Brazil experienced a shock of influences, with one side favoring the permanence of traditions and contacts with Europe and the other welcoming Hollywood influence.[3]
If we imagine a small river into which two larger rivers flow, this geographic chaos may serve as an image of the cultural chaos this would create. The small Brazil of that time simultaneously received the great waters of European tradition and the torrential Hollywood current. It is easy to imagine the clash of influences this produced.
One of the marks that distinguished Hollywood’s influence from Europe’s was that Europe had a past built on a culture almost two thousand years old and even older if we go back to the Romans and Greeks, who, in one way or another, received the influence of the Catholic Church and eventually generated the Middle Ages.
Those were centuries of study and reflection, and people acquired the habit of reading, thinking, and studying in the old rhythms of life. It was a quiet life without today’s fast and overwhelming tools of action. Human life ran very slowly, quietly, and filled with interstices.
My great-grandfather, a congressman in the Parliament of the Empire, took a month to travel from São Paulo to Rio de Janeiro to assume his seat in Parliament. Perhaps he would make some electoral propaganda along the way, but today, no one can imagine an MP leaving São Paulo on January 1st to arrive at the imperial court in Rio on February 1st.
Sometimes, whole families traveled from São Paulo to Rio in caravans. The group would stop just before arriving in Rio; ladies would get ready, and men would compose themselves to enter court, as the capital of the Empire was called.
Therefore, there was a considerable time gap during which he received no news and almost had no way to send any. Like it or not, what he thought about during his trip resulted in a pensive life. Whether or not those reflections were good is another question, but reflect he did.[4]
At Talleyrand’s Time
I read this episode in a book about Talleyrand:[5] When he went to the Congress of Vienna, he had a niece at the French embassy there.[6] During the Congress, he would make an extremely important move that also interested his niece. So he told her, “When you hear the sound of my carriage, reach the window or door and see if I have a handkerchief in hand. If I do, it means that everything went well, but if I don’t, it did not work.”
Notice first how quiet the street had to be so she could make out the noise of Talleyrand’s carriage. And how a simple piece of information, which would now be transmitted with a phone call, would only be received after all the time necessary for the session to end, for him to say goodbye to everyone, descend the staircase with someone’s help (he was lame), and get into the carriage. The footman had to open the door and lower a ladder on which he climbed. He sat down, so did his secretary, and the footman shut the door. He still took his hat off to greet some people. The coachman climbed on the cab, and the other livery lackeys followed behind. The horses began pulling the carriage through the cobblestone streets of Vienna and so went Talleyrand shaking in the coach all the way to the embassy. Today, long before all this had been accomplished, that information would have been sent by a simple phone call from his secretary to his niece.
That was the time it took for news to spread inside the city. It is easy to imagine how anxious his niece was. She wanted to know the result so badly that both resorted to the handkerchief trick to shorten the waiting time! While waiting, she would think of something else, for anxiety alone is tiring. So, she had time to delve deeper into different issues and reflect on them. This natural process generates a way of life we have no idea today. Why? Because the Hollywood rush took over life and gave it other rhythms in which reflection does not enter.
If Talleyrand had lived in this day and age, he would have told his niece: ‘My secretary will send you the information as soon as the session ends. And from here, you call the foreign minister in Paris and our embassies in Rome, Berlin, London, Madrid, Lisbon and Washington, telling them what happened! By the time I get home, I want to have the reactions of all those ministries.’ That would be normal today. She was a very intelligent woman and would take care of it. He would arrive gasping and inquiring what the foreign ministry had said, how the deal he obtained had been received, and what the feedback from Washington was like.
In the calm life of bygone days, people would reflect as the carriage moved. In paintings representing those people, you can see that they all have the physiognomy of a reflecting person. They had time for it.[7]
Certain types of minds have not only the habit of reflection but also a thirst for it. The Middle Ages were the era of reflection, the most profoundly meditative time in history. One must not only have a thirst for reflection but also a deep understanding of its primacy.[8]
Calm and Its 20th-Century Opposite
Photographs of people from World War I show their physiognomies becoming increasingly irreflective. The photo is a snapshot because people no longer know how to pose. In order to pose, you have to reflect a little, and you don’t even know how. People are always on the run. A snapshot is a souvenir left by a person on the run.
Without getting lost in details, life in the old style began to end in the 1930s. By old style, I mean before the 1920s and less and less during the 1920s.
Bedrooms were spacious in houses of the average bourgeoisie and even more so among the upper classes. Men’s bedrooms usually had simple furniture – a sofa, a few chairs, and a bed and night table. The bedrooms, which were the innermost part of the house, were the place for private conversations.
During the day, a person sometimes retreated to the bedroom to think. He only lay in bed when ill or to sleep at night. He would sit on the couch and think, half-reclined, isolated from everyone.
A famous painting depicts Madame Récamier, a person of great social authority in France of the Directory and Restoration.[9] For example, she was visited by men like Chateaubriand and the Duke of Montmorency, a minister of State. They would entertain themselves in conversation. In the famous painting, she looks as if meditating, thinking. Yet she was a woman of intense social life. Today, if a lady has a social life, it is so busy that she almost has no time to lower her eyelids! The hustle and bustle has invaded everything.[10]
Under the Hustle-and-Bustle’s Dictatorship
People’s actions are currently unaccompanied by the underlying contemplation they should have.
The hustle-and-bustle is very harmful because it takes away the habit of thinking. It produces the very harmful conviction that a man should do as much as possible and think little. The same applies to ladies, boys, girls, and children. The dominant conception is that thinking wastes time, and a life of thought is not worthy of being called life. You have to do, do and do. The more you do, the better. The rest is a waste of time. In this inebriation with doing, the individual thinks he would be wasting his time by thinking.
Para certa mentalidade executiva, quem vive para doutrina e princípios vive no sonho. Deve-se viver para o ganho, para o dinheiro, e o que não for isso não é verdadeiramente viver. Daí o desagrado, o desprezo, ou pelo menos o menosprezo da reflexão, imposto pela pressa e pelo gosto do indivíduo. O executivo que tem a mentalidade inerente à sua própria atividade pode ser visto como um símbolo da não reflexão. Executivo é o que executa, mas executar é fazer o que outro pensou ou simplesmente mandou.
For people with a certain executive mentality, those who live for doctrine and principles are dreamers. You must live for gain and money, or you don’t really have a life. Hence a hasty individual shows displeasure or contempt for reflection. An executive with the mentality inherent to his activity can be seen as a symbol of non-reflection. An executive executes, but executing is doing what others thought or ordered.
Speed, speed, speed – causes a person to become addicted to his action just as others can get addicted to drugs.[11]
The Man-Machine
We know that some great philosophers of ancient Greece were slaves. But if they were also philosophers, it is because they had time to philosophize. Now, what boss today – never mind worker—has time to philosophize? There is much talk about human dignity, but which of the two is the most slave? There is no question that the man-machine is a slave.
The Sun is neither late nor early—it sets the time! It lands on Earth slowly, without fatigue or “rooting.” [12] Neither lazy nor hurried, it transposes untold distances to get here, where it lands and shines, fully performing its function. So must a calm person be.
Human rights, as conceived and manipulated nowadays, is a psychological weapon employed against all forms of authority — the boss, the father, the State. In terms of human rights, no one asks: How many people have been killed by the idolatry of haste?
Some Thoughts Are Possible Only in Calm
Taking up a doctrinal subject and examining it with interest should become second nature. More than with interest, we should analyze it with passion, for the real juice of life is found in a true and well thought and not just bookish theory rather than in something fossilized and out of it. Only by this means can one achieve a dual experience: First, nothing is more real than theory; second, nothing is more practical than theory.
The wrong position is believing that to know reality, man must leave his solitude, abandon the book and begin dealing with countless people. It is said that practice is made of experience; experience is made of doing, and so reflection does not help experience: what matters is to do. In this view, reflection is the opposite of experience; it is to do nothing.
Obviously, experience is gained by doing, but there is no true experience without reflection. Experience is not only to do; it is also to reflect on what has been done. This is even more obvious for those unwilling to act like animals.
Imagine a laboratory where both a scientist and a janitor work. The laboratory floor gets dirty as the scientist works on his research, and the janitor cleans it. Now, a good janitor needs to think about his small job: the best way to grab the broom, where the best place to start cleaning is, which detergent is best to remove such a stain, etc. A good janitor will have a thousand little observations to do an ideal cleaning.
A scientist who is doing research also experiments, but the most important part of his work is reflecting on the experiments rather than just doing them.
Velásquez’s painting shows the Marquis of Espinola receiving the surrender of Breda
Intelligence and Reflection
The important thing for a man is not to be very intelligent but to love to reflect. A man who loves reflection in light of the supernatural loves what theology defines as prayer—the elevation of one’s mind to God. Often, the reflection of the less intelligent is more blessed and brings more light than that of the more intelligent. To write the Summa Theologica, St. Thomas Aquinas did much more by being holy than by being intelligent.
A painting by Velasquez shows the Marquis of Espinola accepting Breda’s surrender. I like to think about how he receives the bourgeois and how the two greet each other. I reject the idea that small delights should be rejected, and the scene with this little episode offers me a pleasant and high-class treat.
One should not live exclusively on the quest for delight because this extrapolates the natural order. God has created countless delectable things and wants our souls to be open to all. Therefore, let us also delight with small, pleasant impressions.
While working here, I can open the door and lean a little on the terrace counter. If I enjoy watching a child playing with a ball, someone could say, “That is insignificant; look for a great sensation!” Without the slightest reluctance, I would rectify matters: By acting like this, I am happy because I find the proper delight at the right time in small things.[13]
Notes:
[1] Beatific vision: vision of God in the heavenly paradise.
[2] 1-30-81.
[3] 1-30-81.
[4] 1-30-81.
[5] Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord (1754-1838), diplomat, man of action during the French Revolution and the Restoration, and Bishop of Autun.
[6] The Congress of Vienna was intended to redraw the political map of the old Continent after the defeat of Napoleon (1814-1815).
[7] 1-30-81.
[8] 12-2-69.
[9] Jeanne-Françoise-Julie-Adelaide (1777-1849), by the painter David.
[10] 1-30-81.
[11] 1-30-81.
[12] See note 11.
[13] 12-2-69.