I probably can only describe David Brooks’ “The Road to Character” with superlatives. It is one of the best books I have ever read. I only hope that in sharing the ideas and insights of Brooks (who recently left The New York Times and took a new position as a writer for The Atlantic) with readers of this weekly column, I can convey why I consider the book great. The following are the opening lines of Brooks’ book:
“Recently I’ve been thinking about the difference between the resume virtues and the eulogy virtues. The resume virtues are the virtues you list on your resume, the skills that you bring to the job market, and that contribute to external success. The eulogy virtues are deeper. They’re the virtues that get talked about at your funeral, the ones that exist at the core of your being — whether you are kind, brave, honest, or faithful; what kind of relationships you formed.”
Using the categories Adam I and Adam II to characterize human personalities, Brooks claims that Adam I wants to create, produce, and win victories. In contrast, Adam II wants to have a solid sense of right and wrong, not only to do good but to be good. Brooks thinks that Adam I wants to conquer the world while Adam II wants to obey a call to serve the world, viewing life as a moral drama.
Announcing that for much of his life, his personality was predominantly Adam I, Brooks writes the following:
“This book is about Adam II. It’s about how some people have cultivated strong character. It’s about one mindset that people through the centuries have adopted to put iron into their core and to cultivate a wise heart. I wrote it, to be honest, to save my soul” (p. 11).
The general outline that Brooks follows is to give a biography of someone’s early life, and in the biography, he stresses what he thinks are especially important character traits in the individual’s early development. He then shows how what he has highlighted in the individual’s early life has greatly benefited the individual as an adult, and not only the individual but also society, and sometimes countless others.
I was familiar with the lives of both St. Augustine and Dorothy Day, but I found Brooks’ comments on each of them interesting. I think that Brooks could study the early lives of 11 people and discover some talent or need that eventually blossomed into an adult life that was almost incredibly fruitful, amazing. I was familiar with both St. Augustine’s and Dorothy Day’s lives, but I still found Brooks’ insights interesting. What especially struck me in Brooks’ treatment of Augustine and Day was their experience of God’s presence in their lives, even before they could identify it. That sense of God’s presence, described by some as the presence of the hound of heaven pursuing us, is one of the many reasons why I am so enthusiastic about Catholic novels. Recalling some of the many Catholic novels I have read, I wonder if there are any in which God is not a mysterious presence in the lives of some of the characters. Discussing Augustine, Brooks writes the following:
“Augustine’s pain during his years of ambition … is not just the pain of someone who is self-centered and unstable. It is the pain of someone who is self-centered and unstable but who has a deep sensation that there is a better way to live, if only he could figure what it is. As other converts have put it, they are so rooted in God that even when they have not found God, they feel the lack. They are aware of a divine absence, which picks at them from the inside, and that absence is evidence of a presence” (p. 201).
Writing about Dorothy Day, Brooks points out that she had a deep spiritual hunger. “She had a sense that there was some transcendent cause or entity or activity that was out there and that she would be restless until she found it. She was incapable of living life on the surface — only for pleasure, success, even for service — but needed a deep and total commitment to something holy” (p. 82).
Causing me to review what I know about Augustine and Dorothy Day has been an unexpected gift from Brooks’ book. It is one of those books that might open new doors for readers. I think that David Brooks is a special blessing. I don’t know of any contemporary columnist who so often touches on spiritual themes.
Reading him regularly can have a profound influence on our consciousness and on our conscience. I find that his columns often invite a second and third reading.
Father Lauder is a philosophy professor at St. John’s University, Jamaica. His new book, “The Cosmic Love Story: God and Us,” is available on Amazon.com and at Barnes & Noble.