Pietas Is Power

Pietas Quest Question: What is the true source of inner power for a man?

Direct Answer
Before pietas a man is ruled by wrath and the hunger for validation—his strength scattered, his peace fragile. After pietas he masters himself through duty aligned with conscience and rests content in Providence. The nearer he approaches immunity from passion, the nearer he draws to real strength and fortitude. Peace and fulfillment follow.

…in all anger, recollect, that wrath is not the manly disposition; that calm meekness, as it more becomes the rational nature, so, it is more manly. Strength, and nerves, and fortitude, attend this disposition, and not the wrathful and repining: the nearer this disposition approaches to an immunity from passion, the nearer is it also to strength and power. - Marcus Aurelius

The practice and cultivation of pietas (the disciplined fusion of moral duty and contentment) sets in motion a spiritual process that infuses our souls with power—not to dominate others, but to master ourselves.

As we align our thoughts, actions, and behavior to the moral realities in which we exist while learning to accept that which we cannot control, we starve the dark and decrepit aspects of our nature. We nourish the soul on sustenance proper to it (that which is good, true, and beautiful), and in the process, we expose our rotten vices to the purifying light of the sun.

We become who and what we were created to be.

This power becomes evident, not by the status it bestows, but by the peace it brings. It may be that only those who share our reverence for conscience are able to perceive our moral strengthening, but contentment solves that problem; it rescues us from the need for external validation and recognition. It enables us to discharge our moral duties for their own sakes, knowing that in doing so we realize our very reason for being.

Peace and fulfillment are the outcomes.