The Challenge

My interest in polymaths traces it's influence back to many characters, both fictional and historical. Maybe one of the earliest influences is Batman, the epitome of humanism and being all that you can be. Other fictional influences include Mr Terrific, Dr Samuel Beckett, Eddie Morra from Limitless, and a character that I created named Dr John Reyes. Historical influences included American President James A Garfield, King Solomon, and most of all Jesus.

I was inspired by their physical, intellectual, and sometimes spiritual excellence, and their success in multiple things. Clearly I have not attained to the level of my heroes. However, in this case it is not about the destination, but about the journey instead. On this journey I would like to invite as many friends with me as possible.

My challenge to you reader: pursue excellence in every arena that you can.

The first question

What are the arenas that you must grow in, to live a holistic human life? For me there are six areas of the human experience: spiritual, intellectual, physical, occupational, social, and financial. Even within those, there are sub-arenas and cross-sections. Two that come to mind being politics and art. Some may disagree with my model. An atheist reader may say that there is no "spiritual arena". Well, those people are wrong, but they have their right to be. (My definition for religion here is your world philosophy and the practice of you ethical philosophy.)

Second question

What arena comes easiest for you? Or which is the one you spend the most time on? For me it used to be either the intellectual or spiritual arena (or a cross section of the two). Today it probably still is in the intellect arena. I have spent a lot of time reading about (and writing here about) politics. You need to look at your strongest arena and look for ways to continue to cultivate it. I talk about well-roundness, but everyone has a sharp point, and that's OK.

Take time to sharpen yours. If you are a young person reading this, find a specific thing within that arena that you can make a living off of, and go pursue a career in that. If you are a little older, hopefully you've done that already. There is also life outside of a job, so you can also consider volunteering in something of that area.

Weak spot

Next, identify your weak spot. I had two when I started this journey: I was out of shape, and an task-oriented introvert. OK, maybe I still have those problems, but I have made great strides. I have a small group of friends that I am regularly in touch with, and I am making more conscious efforts to make more healthy choices.

You have to start by thinking: how do I want to improve in these areas? Maybe you don't do a lot of reading. You can start by doing a little at a time. After finishing high school, I started reading one book a month. OK, it only lasted for a month, but I picked that goal up again the next year and it stuck. Now I read all the time. Still not as much as I'd like to, but far more than I used to.

So figure out what arenas you are weak in. Then think of small ways that you can grow in those areas. Take small bites. A little at a time.

Get organized

If you haven't rolled your eyes at the whole idea of this challenge, this is normally the part where people begin to roll their eyes. If you want to succeed in this challenge, if you want to have progress, you need to get organized. You need to do difficult things. You need to do things that all your friends are not doing. I have said before "you can be either normal or successful, you can't be both."

If you want to get ahead financially, it will require you to curb your spending and save some for a rainy day (and invest it). You won't be spending as frivolously as your friends. They may laugh at you, but you will benefit from it in the end. If you want to be more productive, you may need to schedule your time, and be more strict with it. It may not be fun, others may chide you, but you will benefit.

If you want to grow in different arenas, you need to set goals in each one. You need to be specific with your goals, and you want to write them down. You probably have a strong desire to put off what I am saying. You don't feel like it. Maybe you know that you should do (and even want to do) some of the stuff that I am talking about. I was there once, and in one brief moment I decided to actually do the things I had been putting off. Little by little. I'm doing a little bit more all the time. I am so glad that I do. My life is so much fuller now than it was five years ago.

So, tell me what you think. Tweet at me @frank_perseo or like Frank Talks on Facebook, then comment on the post for this blog. Are you interested in this challenge? Is this the kind of thing you already do? Am I totally off my rocker? What did you take away from this?

Faith • Life • Civics

The Christian Faith, holistic life, and politics. These three themes have increasingly become part of my life over the past five years. To me, their importance go in that order, each one flowing from the preceding. My recent interest in politics over the past four years has come from a desire to live a full life. If I want to do that, how can I neglect being informed about and involved in politics? (Admittedly, I've gotten a little carried away.)

I have chosen to focus my blog on these three themes, because I believe that they are important for everyone. I consider religion to be your beliefs (narrative/worldview or whatever term you choose to use) and your moral code and practices. Even if you are an atheist, or "not religious", have system like this that you live by. After religion comes holistic life. I believe that there are many "areas" of life, including religion (as previously defined), intellect, health, social, occupational, and more. One may be better in some areas than in others, but we shouldn't neglect one area because we are week in that one area.

Politics exists in two of the aforementioned areas: intellect, as you must have an understanding of the issues, and occupation, as you often must get involved. It is also influenced by religion, since your worldview and moral beliefs will effect your political ones. Now my religious views don't call for me to use political power to foist my faith on you. In fact, quite the opposite. However, as I've said before, I believe that there are certain self-evident moral laws which most of us can agree on and build our laws on. For instance, most of us can agree that murder and theft are wrong.

Therefore, these three topics, in my mind, encompass everything. These three themes are what I eat, sleep, and breathe. So it would only make sense for me to write a blog revolving around them.

My story

I was raised in the midst of Christianity. I was first Catholic, before switching to a non-denominational evangelical church. However, from a very early age, I suffered from deep existential and epistemological doubts. How could I know anything for certain, let alone the existence of an invisible God.

This doubt followed me until I was 18 or 19, when I took an apologetics and critical thinking class.

The teacher of the class, Keith, is a Christian apologist who hosts a radio show and podcast. I was familiar with apologetics, and very interested in the topic, but critical thinking principles helped me to look at it in a different way. The course helped me to realize that I can know certain truths for certain, and that I can be certain of God's existence.

Being certain of what you believe has a way of igniting your passion for it. Long after the critical thinking class, Keith began to mentor me one-on-one. We met up once a week for the entire summer, and talked about literally everything. One of our recurring themes, however, was the holistic life; particularly how the Christian faith applies to each area of life.

I don't know where my interest in holistic life started, but it continues to grow. I had an interest in a number of both real and fictional polymaths (or Renaissance men) like Leonardo Divinci, Bruce Wayne, and President James A Garfield (who became my favorite president after reading his biography my senior year of high school). I adopted my model of the six areas of life (spiritual, intellectual, physical, social, occupational, and financial) from Dave Ramsey and Zig Ziglar. Every year I've been setting more and more goals in these areas. There is always a sense of self-gratification when you make a change that betters your life. My goals for this current year include reading the whole Bible, reading a number of fiction and non-fiction books, learning one song on an instrument, writing these blogs, and ceasing my task-orientedness every so often to invest time in others.

During these meetings with Keith, I became convinced of the need to be an informed voter. I always liked controversy, but understood little about politics. It was at this time that I came to identify as a conservative (rather than a moderate or libertarian). After that, I have spent more and more time over the years learning more about politics from different perspectives. I wanted to share the things that I was learning, which is one of the reasons I started this blog. I also want to use this to share some of my thoughts on Christianity and holistic life, since I believe all three themes are connected.

Your Thoughts

So what do you think? Tweet at me @frank_perseo or comment on the Frank Talks Facebook page. Are these themes important in your life as well? If not, do you want them to be? Are you interested in reading more about these themes? What do you think of the definition I presented for "religion"? Do you think we talk about politics too much here on Frank Talks, or not enough?

God Talks- Righteousness

RIGHTEOUSNESS

What does it mean to be righteous?

Righteousness is more than simply not doing bad, it deals with doing good! You could, in theory, never break a law, but if you don't do the things that you know you should then you are not righteous.

(James 4:17) So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

Now, let me get one thing straight. Only one is perfectly righteous: God, particularly speaking of Jesus. Personally, I see three types of righteousness. I call them God-righteousness, human-righteousness, and self-righteousness. Each one deals with who sees you as righteous, and by what standard. We are sinners, but when we put our trust in Jesus, God sees us with Jesus’ righteousness. Now that we have Christ’s righteousness living inside of us, we strive by the Holy Spirit to “live it out”. We are called to live like Jesus (1 John 2:6). Righteousness calls us to not only avoid evil, but do the things that we know we should.

Think about it. What are some things that you have been putting off, that you know you should be doing. The things that you say "I'll do it later" or "I've been meaning to do that". Do you have a daily devotional time of prayer and Bible reading? You might argue that it's not explicitly commanded in Scripture, but if you know it's a good thing then why aren't you doing it. Even if it's just a few days a week.

This is one of the many struggles I had when I was 18, and I started to think about this subject of "righteousness". I knew that I needed to get a job, take care of my body, better educate myself. These are just a few of the things I was convicted of. Maybe you are convicted of similar things, or maybe there are other things that you know that you need to do.

Follow your conscience

I call the James 4:17 verse, the principle of conscience. You see, as Christians we believe that God has put in everyone a conscience, a moral compass to guide us between right and wrong. This is mentioned in many verses, including Romans 2:15 "They show that the work of the law is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them". When we go against our conscience it can become seared (1 Timothy 4:2), but it can also be strengthened and sharpened by the Word of God.

The word of God gives us clear commands, but not on every subject. For instance, God's word doesn't tell you what TV shows and movies to watch. However, by knowing God's word we get a sense for the things that God does and does not like. Based on this, as well as godly wisdom and the leading of the Holy Spirit, we can navigate our way through subjects that the Bible doesn't address directly.

One cannot use "well the Bible doesn't talk about it so that makes it ok" as an excuse. Children are the ones who need clear instruction on everything. As adults we learn to read between the lines and to use common sense. As mature Christians we must be able to do the same with God's word. Smoking is a great example of this. You could argue that the Bible doesn't say anything about smoking, and therefore it is ok for you to pick up the habit. However, smoking isn't healthy, it's not good, and there are plenty of verses I could use to advise against it (1 Cor 6:19-20).

Growing in all areas

"And Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man." (Luke 2:52)

This verse outlines four ways that Jesus grew: mind, body, spirit, and reputation (socially). God has created us as multifaceted creatures, with many aspects to human existence. This includes, but is not limited to: spirit, intellect, body, social interactions, occupation, and finances.

Spirit- this is the eternal part of us. Since this will last forever it makes sense to take the best care of it. I believe that our spirit grows in proportion to our relationship with God. Our spirit is fed by God's word (Matt 4:4) So it's important to be in God's word. Again, there are are no clear biblical commands to have a personal Bible study. In Bible times most couldn't read, so they listened to the word through sermons. However, today most people can read, and it's good for them to read the Word of themself, so they ought to do it. (Remember James 4:17?)

We also must pray often (1 Thess 5:17), which is just talking to God. God speaks to us through His Word, we talk to Him through prayer. Through this dialogue, we grow closer to God. We must also do what the Bible says, not just read it (James 1:22).

Intellect- Our intellect works in tandem with our spirit: what we think affects what we believe, and vice versa. The key for our intellect is to "seek knowlege" (Pro 18:15). Always be looking for the truth, and looking to learn new things. By doing that you "exercise" your mind.

Body- bodily exercise does profit, albeit little, compared to spiritual discipline (1 Timothy 4:8). We must be good stewards of the body that God has given us. Our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19).

Social interactions is pretty self explanatory, and there are too many verses to go into here on how we are to interact with others. Occupation is whatever you do with your time, including your job, hobby, ministry, recreation, and education. Even if you are practicing a sport or an instrument. (See Ecc 9:10 and Col 3:23.) In finances we have been called to be good stewards of all that God has given us (Luke 16:11), and to be generous with our abundance (Luke 3:11, 1 Tim 6:17-18).

There are plenty more areas which I haven't mentioned. Among them are art, politics, family, and entertainment; although many of these will fit inside one or more of the aforementioned areas. Furthermore, each of these areas can include more subcategories that we need to grow in. For instance, intellectually, there are many subjects in academia which we should be familiar with.

Do you see how it is important to for us to grow in all of these areas? We might not excel at everything, but we should seek to grow in all the areas that we can.

Arete- Pursue Perfection

Arete is an ancient Greek word that I learned about last year in Western History class. It was one of the highest virtues in Greek culture: the pursuit of perfection. The Greeks were perfectionists, but I don't think it was to a fault. They simply sought to genuinely make everything the best they could. That's why they invented democracy, to debate and seek out the best form of government. Their statues and art portray physically ideal human beings, because they, as a culture, valued idealism.

Now I'm not saying that this Greek perfectionism is Biblical, but I think it is something that people, especially Christians, could learn to value a bit more. To many Christians (and other people) think “Well, it will never be perfect, so why even try.”

In Phillipians 3:12-14 Paul admits that he is not perfect, but he strives to be. As we should, he seeks to improve his relationship with Jesus, his knowledge of Him, and his walk with Him.

Ecclesiastes 9:10a says "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might"; and Colossians 3:23 is like it "Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men". We are to do our best in everything. In 2 Corinthians 9:8, Paul hopes that through God's grace we might "may abound in every good work". Even if it's something small, we are called to be faithful (obedient). When we are faithful with small things, God will give us greater things, in this life or the next (Luke 16:10).

So what are the things that you know you should be doing? Let me know in the comments. Let's turn this into a conversation so that I can make this into a series. What are the types of things that you know you should be doing, but keep neglecting? What are some of those areas that you need to grow in? Do you know that you need to be taking better care of your body? Do you need to start a personal Bible study and prayer time? Do you need to get involved in your church? Taking your education more seriously? Or maybe start reading books to educate yourself more?