Humpty Dumpty's Dictionary Definitions

and Virtue Ethics

Pride and Humility are both places where an ego feels GREAT... but pride is fragile and takes offense when its greatness is challenged, whereas Humility is resilient and stays peaceful and whole when it doesn't get its way.

PRIDE

  • Vice.

  • Egocentric.

  • Falls from the greatnesses of Compassion and Humility (i.e., takes offense when it isn't the greatest or can't have its way.)

  • Judges.

  • Fragile.

HUMILITY

  • Virtue.

  • Every manifested greatness is given its proper weight in context.

  • Has Compassion for itself when it can't be the greatest.

  • Doesn't sit in judgement.

  • Peaceful.

  • Resilient.

VICE

  • Feels great.

  • Spiritual necrosis.

  • Self-indulgence.

  • Fall from virtue.

GOOD

  • Strength in Compassion and Humility to avoid or repair a fall from Virtue.

  • Accountability

VIRTUE

  • Feels great. IS great.

  • Spiritual soundness or moral uprightness.

  • Compassionate and humble.

  • May be accompanied by good works.

EVIL

  • Inability or unwillingness to recognize that pride has fallen (taken offense) and grow into Compassion and Humility (put itself together again; hold itself accountable).

COMPASSION

  • Virtue.

  • Tender-hearted adoption of multiple perspectives.

  • Desire to prevent or relieve pain (within and without).

OFFENSE

  • Internal fall from greatness.

  • Underlies all ethical failures.

  • Self-inflicted injury.

  • Spiritual turbulence when self-aggrandizement and self-deprecation coincide.

  • Judgement.

  • Opportunity to grow into Compassion and Humility.

  • Necrotic.

  • May be accompanied by verbal or physical violence.

ACCOUNTABILITY

  • Self-love necessary to grow from vice into Virtue.

  • Humble acknowledgement of personal responsibility (for action or inaction).

  • Compassionate acceptance of the results of personal decisions.

HEALTHY

Humbly adapts to changing stature and circumstances without taking offense.

MATURITY

SCRAMBLED

Takes offense when he isn't the greatest or doesn't get his way. May lash out. Grows into Compassion and Humility.

ROTTEN

*Takes offense. Uses verbal and physical violence to get his way. Uses lies and leverage against the embodiments of Truth and Virtue in order to avoid Accountability. Repeats.* 

RIDDLE:

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

All the king's horses and all the king's men

Couldn't put Humpty together again


ANSWER: Pride falls from greatness when it takes offense. No external action, acquisition, or adulation can repair the shards of a shell that has shattered itself.

(SEE ALSO: Humpty Dumpty's Waltz.)

POEMS

HUMPTY DUMPTY'S WALLTZ

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall - (pride is an ego's aloft place.)

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall - (offenses will splinter a child’s face.

All the king's horses and all the king's men - (are powers to fix Humpty's outside.)

They couldn't put Humpty together again - (offenses are injuries inside.)


Humpty's a folk with pride in his yolk, and judgements are formed in his middle.

When words are his pain, then internal blame, is always the place where he's brittle.

The words that we use can light up a fuse, and fire a cannonball volley.

Your mouth can misplace the insults we face, from inside our own source of folly.


Feelings are actual, honest, and factual, but sometimes they're based on a lie.

In order to spot what's valid or not, emotions and facts must align.

When someone is curt, they probably hurt, from something that isn't your fault.

Compassion may find the way to be kind, and mind the oncoming assault.

When you're a liar, then logic mis-fires, and words become bullets and sticks.

Molding what's real from things that you feel, is backward, unhealthy, and sick.

Sometimes a fact gets twisted to black, by pride which incites its damnation.

It's sad, I'm afraid, but some eggs are laid, and rotten beyond all salvation.


Hard sticks and stones may break Humpty's bones, but won't knock him off of his shelf.

The only time Pride will feel like he's died, is when he has scrambled *himself*.

If you don't judge, then Humpty won't budge, and egghead won't fall down and crumble.

When you're aligned in body and mind, you'll find that's the time that you're humble.

GREAT HAIKU

Humpty is humble

When Compassion is the wall

And pride is the fall