tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20662860.post3970948868710230843..comments2023-04-02T09:49:12.204-04:00Comments on Problems of Life: Patience & PrivilegeMatthew Pianaltohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16380038537888895216noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20662860.post-19842651985280973752012-05-08T16:05:06.774-04:002012-05-08T16:05:06.774-04:00"Whoever said patience is a virtue was psycho..."Whoever said patience is a virtue was psychologically robust enough never to experience anything as waiting".<br /><br />Maybe. But then I wonder whether the person who was, as it were, congenitally patient would see it as a <em>virtue</em> or rather just as "normal." I suppose that the discomfort with "congratulations" in such a context is a function of the fact that you didn't have to put any effort into cultivating those "virtues" on which others congratulated you. Is that part of it? That congrats should be reserved for <em>achievements</em> of some sort? (Otherwise, it's kind of like being congratulated for winning the lottery...) Of course, such congratulations might also draw attention to beneficial traits we have, that come easy to us, which others lack, and perhaps sometimes need or wish they had. And perhaps then our attention is drawn precisely to the ways in which we are "lucky." (And recently, upon such thoughts, I'm drawn back to Weil's reminders about affliction and the fact that everything that makes me "the kind of person I am" could at any moment be taken away...)Matthew Pianaltohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16380038537888895216noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20662860.post-32745651291425301262012-05-08T11:11:24.540-04:002012-05-08T11:11:24.540-04:00I think your (b) is in fact an interpretation that...I think your (b) is in fact an interpretation that "really, fully works". But your suggestion that "the problem here isn't that genuine patience is not a virtue" makes me feel like developing this into one further particular direction. More generally, I have long felt some discomfort about virtues and their genuineness that has not received the attention I think it deserves. Some people are more patient than others <i>without making any effort to be exceptionally patient</i> - either congenitally or because there is something in their life history (parenting, whatnot) to make them so.<br /><br />I have myself been congratulated on "virtues" which the congratulators view me as having, while my own view of the matter is that they're nothing of the sort, because <i>that's just the kind of person I am</i>. And such congratulations have always made me extremely uncomfortable in a very particular way, which is hard to put into words.<br /><br />So, "Whoever said patience is a virtue never had to wait for anything" can be interpreted in part to mean "Whoever said patience is a virtue was socially privileged enough never to have to wait for anything" - your (b) - but it can also be interpreted as "Whoever said patience is a virtue was psychologically robust enough never to <i>experience anything as waiting</i>".Tommi Uschanovhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02852865209279310471noreply@blogger.com