He who goes about to reform the world must begin with himself.
― Ignatius of Loyola
I often hear people say they're proud troublemakers, eager to go "against the grain."
In our narcissistic age, we've gotten that Elizabethan idiom backwards.
In Shakespeare's day, to go "against the grain" meant to resist not the herd's instinct, but your own; to act in ways contrary to your own desires; to be a spartan, not a contrarian.
If you've ever used a plane, you know that to go "against the grain" isn't just hard: it's impossible.
But try we must.
The Catholic priest Ignatius of Loyola, who died only eight years before Shakespeare was born, urged his followers to try through the injunction agere contra, Latin for "act against."
Whatever it is you intend to do, Ignatius preached, resist your first instinct.
Go against the grain.
We're advised today to "go with our gut," but in Ignatius' time that idea was thought dangerous.
Your gut is too selfish. It leads you away from just acts. It leads you away, people thought, because human nature has been robbed of justice, thanks to Original Sin.
The source of this notion was the "universal teacher" and church doctor Thomas Aquinas.
Aquinas taught that our "fallen nature" is in every regard still uncorrupted except in the area of justice.
Left to our own devices—our gut instincts—we're always going to act unjustly, thanks to Adam and Eve. Because they defied God, the instinct for injustice is baked into human nature. It manifests in our worst habits and most insidious impulses.
Given our narcissistic bent, we could all use a little of Ignatius' advice to agere contra.
Imagine how much better off we'd be if, rather than performing a "gut check," we checked our gut.
Addicts would get sober.
Fat people would lose weight.
Lazy people would contribute.
Killers would lay down their handguns.
The wealthy would pay taxes.
Politicians would speak truths.
Cynics would take heart.
Mean people wouldn't suck.
I hope to go against the grain and put a little agere contra into daily practice myself.
You with me?
