Tearing Ourselves Apart

Disintegrate

Definition: 1. To separate into parts or lose intactness or solidness; to break up, deteriorate; 2. To decay; 3. To reduce to particles, fragments or parts; break up or destroy the cohesion of.

We have reached a critical point in our cultural evolution where it is standard practice to commit “crimes of the heart” in private and “crimes of the self-serving intellect” at work, while committing “crimes against the body” by denying our physical health and “crimes of the spirit” by betraying our ultimate moral purposes.

Lives of incoherence, inconsistency and incongruity are displayed as a daily media diet of news, celebrity and family strife. The honorable and adult behavior of professionals and dedicated individuals, fed by enduring objective values, has faded from our daily discussion. The span of this “life of disconnected portions” traces the arc from so called “professional athletes” to the crème de la crème of our educated, privileged and articulate CEO class. “Serving the ego or the balance sheet” has replaced “serving the common good.”

Many have lost track of what was once the centerboard of our cultural heritage… that we are made noble by our dedication to what’s best for all concerned — that we have a Social Contract with our families, peers, community and nation to make and keep promises. Folks, we’re in this together. Culture requires debate, but civil discourse demands that we recognize that our opponents in the debate are similarly well intentioned and do not deserve to be routinely vilified. We’d best be civil, we’re connected. As Mom used to say, “When you fight with your father, you tear the family apart!”

Cornerstone

Each of us has a private life, a personal life, a family life, a public life and a professional or work life. They are distinct, but not separate. Together, these many domains comprise one integrated human being. Consider that one can “dis-integrate” one’s own life by pretending there is no connection between the domains of sex and ethics, between politics and family. If I profess a value in public, but fail to live it in private, then I have disintegrated my self — destroyed my own “structural integrity.”

One can’t divorce emotions from intellect, or words from pictures, or spirit from service, or public from private. Not without dissolving the bond between them — the whole individual character. One can’t betray a partner (business or personal) in private and pretend to keep the faith in public. One can’t be compassionate in church and cruel in politics. One can’t be kind to the client, yet rude to the waiter. Well, of course one can do all of these things… but not while remaining fully alive or sane! There’s a price to be paid for conducting a disintegrated life: the loss of our humanity.

A disintegrated tree is no longer a tree — it’s sawdust. A disintegrated tomato — a salad. A disintegrated cow — dinner. A disintegrated human being — nothing, but a series of disconnected “drives” — toward consumption, gratification, self-aggrandizement and self-destruction.

In a time when individual, national and corporate character all seem to be disintegrating, take a moment to consider this terrible price — the loss of our humanity.

Now. What to do:

• Make a promise to yourself… to keep your character intact.
• Make a promise to your spouse… to honor them.
• Make a promise to your family… to serve them.
• Make a promise to your employer/employees to serve and enhance their shared ability to exchange.
• Make a promise to your community and country to serve and to hold them to the highest standard.

It is both our responsibility and privilege as rational human beings to live fully integrated lives. Keeping these promises is where that responsibility begins and ends.

Promises made, promises kept. It’s the secret behind personal character, corporate branding and national cohesion.

Do this — Everywhere. Every day. Always.

Let’s put ourselves back together.

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