This week, we worked intensively with acid-base chemistry in class. This section of the course is difficult for almost everyone because it requires them to reach back into their atrophied math skills and use logarithms. I spend time, although I am not obligated too, showing different students how to do the calculations on the varied calculators that they have. Although the math is different, each calculator has a different order of operations, and we only get a useful answer when we use the calculator the right way. I desire that my students succeed, and so I invest the time and effort for those who desire to help them do as well on the exam as they are able.
Students faced various problems with this exercise, and that's very common. Many of them didn't really understand logarithms in math to begin with, and some of them took algebra and trigonometry years ago. A few pushed the "subtract" button rather than the "minus" button. In one case, I could not find the option to compute a logarithm at all! Mostly, I spent time figuring out in what order to push the buttons in order to not only get the right answer but to get one that makes sense. You see, there's no point in calculating the pH if you don't understand the scale or if your number doesn't fit into it. There is an overarching principle here that it's a system of relative chemical potential that ultimately balances to either your ruin or your benefit.
Years ago, I read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, which did color my perceptions of the world. He takes a very logical approach and suggests that we do the following:
“Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
When I feel low on faith, I default to this position because it's a win-win. If the people who do not believe in God are wrong, then living a life of debauchery will be their only reward. Living a good life is a win-win. A just God, of which I testify there is one, will welcome you back for living true to principles of truth and righteousness and reward you accordingly. If we are wrong, then the people who knew us will thank us for making their lives a little easier and more pleasant, and in that way we win long after we die.
Such a philosophy remains unpopular because it doesn't validate self. It calls for us to sacrifice our selfish desires and be good people. I know plenty of people, particularly students, who think you can be good by doing justice to others while doing injustice to yourself or to some few, but that is not true. They do kind things for people they like while they rejoice when their enemies get "their just desserts". They think it's not hurting anyone to engage in lasciviousness behavior and other indulgences without counting the cost to themselves. Even if right now people do not feel hurt, that doesn't mean they are not; most people with cancer don't know they are sick for many months. This attitude my young friends believe to be a principled position- love your friends and hate your enemies, when that is anti-Christ. You really only stand for something when you stand up to protest injustice when it is done to people you don't know and in particular people you don't like. Being excited when karma punches someone who once wronged you in the gut isn't a position of principle; it's a position of selfishness that validates YOU. If we really believe in goodness, we look at people not for what they do but for who they are, and when we really see the hidden rudiments of the child of God in them, we change. We do not wish them ill, but we desire to cast their burdens on our backs. We do not excuse injustices done to them because they deserve it because we recognize that since we are fallen we also deserve punishment.
Most people I know who live good lives found their way there via good means. I already wrote about the fallacy that invirtuous means can lead to virtuous ends, because we reap what we sow. Men do not gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles. In the end, only by doing things the right way can we reap a good harvest. Instead, the Great Deceiver follows the pogrom Screwtape gives Wormwood in Letter #9: "All we can do is to encourage the humans to take the pleasures which our Enemy has produced, at times, or in ways, or in degrees, which He has forbidden." In other words, the devil and those who serve him create counterfeits, false justifications, and say that the order doesn't really matter because the things are not wrong. Yet, as my students can attest, if you type in the information incorrectly into your calculator, it will not give you a pH value that is useful, and more often than not, it tells you "Syntax Error" and fails. No student who gets that result on the exam will leave the room happily. Even if we do the correct things, if we do them in the wrong order or at the wrong timing or in the wrong fashion, things may not turn out well. I think it was Spencer W Kimball who said that "One chief cause of unhappiness is trading what we want most for what we want in the moment." By doing things out of order, it breeds regret, guilt, and ultimately unhappiness.
One final lesson from the calculator exercise is that each life can be a unique experience. Some things will not work in the same order for you as they do for others because the way your life has been calculated varies from that of others. There are a few different paths that lead to the same ends as long as certain key elements of the calculation remain true. Although not all roads lead to Rome, there are multiple roads depending on your individual circumstance that lead you to the right ends. While a large majority of students use the same kind of calculator (because it only costs $5), a few always have different models or manufacturers and necessitate a personalized tutorial by me in order to make relevance of the calculations. However, as I previously mentioned, some things are not acceptable substitutes. Pressing the subtraction button is not the same as changing the sign with the minus button. Logarithms differ from natural logs. If you're in the mode Radians instead of Degrees, the calculator might not accept your input. In other words, there are things that must be there and things that must be absent, and some things must occur in the proper order if you desire the calculation to work out well.
People like to use the cliche that "practice makes perfect". Only perfect practice makes perfect. My sister can tell you that although I can swim well and play the guitar with some skill, I don't do either of those things the correct way because I trained myself to do them. I lack the correct form. Ultimately, it limits my abilities so that I'll never win an Olympic medal or publish a grammy-winning album. I don't care about being perfect or pretend to be perfect at either of those activities. However, far too many people talk up their own virtues when they live lives of anything but virtue. You can push buttons on your calculator and get answers, but unless the answers are meaningful, they still won't win you points on the exam. A few students will never figure it out and, frustrated with syntax errors, will leave those portions of the exam blank. Only in doing things the right way can we obtain the prize. Whenever people persuade us that order doesn't matter, that the ends justify the means, that they love others while showing by their self-destructive behavior that they loathe themselves, it is folly and fit subject for ridicule. Those cliches sometimes work, but probably because of exigent circumstances, yet we assume due to coincidence that our actions caused the outcomes. That's not how math works, and ultimately it's not how life works either.
As Marcus Aurelius suggests, live a good life. When you are gone, the people who knew you will remember you with gratitude because you were a boon in their lives. When you are gone, if you lived well, there will be few who celebrate your passing and even fewer who can justifiably rejoice that you are out of their way. When you are gone and taken home to that God who gave you life, you may then hear the words, "Well done thou good and faithful servant." They say that anything worth doing is worth doing well. Since we're here and alive and still have an opportunity, let us decide to be good and do good and live well, and then if nothing else, in the winter of our lives we can bask in the warmth of a satisfied conscience and enjoy peace that only comes to the truly principled.
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