Benjamin Franklin's 13 Virtues: Tranquility (Walking in a Winter Wonderland)

"Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable."

--- Benjamin Franklin on Tranquility

If it hasn't become obvious by now, Franklin's 13 Virtues are not so much to earn outward acclaim --- though his life certainly provides testament to the fact that his regimen in following these virtues may have contributed to his success --- but to make you a happier person.

No topic makes this more obvious than Tranquility, though I know many leaders in their fields make regular daily practice of meditation to be certain they perform at top achievement levels once actively engaged in persuing outward goals.

If there's one area where I have managed to excel, I believe it would be Tranquility.  In fact, I might say I practice it to a fault, easily becoming complacent with an alternative to my original goal.  Perhaps for me the lesson should be to focus on Tranquility only once every thirteen weeks when it comes up in Franklin's Virtue rotation rather than being so quick to accept that, as Voltaire wrote with a bit of irony, "We live in the best of all possible worlds."

Too often I have allowed myself to get off course, perhaps just on the verge of the success I had been seeking, moving on to some new activity before grasping the gold ring, or at least giving the attempted goal every ounce of my being in the effort.

Then again, some people never seem to be content or find peace of mind, even when everything seems to be going their way.

Upon learning the song "Shallow" from A Star Is Born while our granddaughter Emma was visiting us in Redondo Beach last summer, I added it to my playlist for guitar practices.  As often happens for me, I parsed the lyrics into phrases that seem meaningful to me personally, regardless of the songwriter's intention.

"In all the good times I find myself
Longin' for change,
And in the bad times I fear myself."

In this case, I thought the last line was, "And in the bad times I feel myself."

Either would make sense for someone unaccustomed to experiencing Tranquility.  When everything is going well, they long for change rather than appreciate the good before them, seeming to expect something to go wrong, if not unconsciously yearning for that.  When things go bad, they feel more in their comfort zone, but perhaps they also fear their ability to handle the bad times.  Why did I unconsciously change that word from fear to feel, and what does it mean?  I believe it was because in the context of the movie, that's what I thought would be sung by the leading man, who in different retellings of the story always seems to seek chaos not so much out of any discernable fear but because that is where he feels most himself.

I can say that in Los Angeles County, Covid-19 shutdowns have been cranked down another notch, but instead of "fighting the man," I found myself walking in a winter wonderland of Ousel Falls in Big Sky, Montana.  That experience is the very definition of Tranquility.  The photos of frozen waterfalls herein attest to the beauty found by choosing Tranquility.

Benjamin Franklin, however, would undoubtedly have been making a public stand one way or another.  Over the course of his life, Ben spoke out on areas of important policies.  You may recall his Boston newspaper took a stand against innoculation for the extremely deadly disease, Small Pox, but that he reversed himself.  Years later, Franklin delayed vaccinating his four-year-old son Francis, not because he doubted its effectiveness but because the boy had a cold, a decision he always regretted.  The child subsequently died of Small Pox.

On another topic still relevant today, historical revisionists who tend to be left of center politically paint Benjamin Franklin and other Founding Fathers in increasingly unfavorable light.  The 1619 Project, for example, would erase their good deeds and intentions from history books because of the issue of slavery.

However, as with Small Pox innoculation, Franklin's position on Slavery was not so easily pigeonholed for a lifetime based on the worst interpretation of some elements by applying standards as well as laws not in place at that time.

Benjamin actually was against African slaves being brought to Pennsylvania.  One of his early writings said that he preferred to keep the complexion of Pennsylvania white and red, as it already was.  Not the most enlightened way to put it --- though he often presented arguments in a way that he though might win a point rather than aggrandize his own virtue --- but it made an argument of sorts against slavery.

Remember, slavery was never an exclusively American sin, which should be obvious to anyone who takes time to look into the issue.  Slavery had been in existence since before recorded history, and the slaves were not necessarily black.  To be more specific, only a fraction of African slaves brought to the New World came to North America.

According to the Great Courses class , "The Age of Benjamin Franklin," that was about 7%, but other sources including PBS put the figure at 388,000 souls out of about 10 million enslaved people who arrived in the New World. The vast majority were split about evenly between the Caribbean and South America.

For comparison, many times that number of blacks have immigrated voluntarily to the USA since the Immigration and Nationalization Act of 1965 (which I wrote about on our recent trip to Ireland) opened the doors for immigration following forty years of almost zero immigration of any kind.  Over four million first generation immigrants of African heritage (including many by way of the Caribbean) currently legally reside in the USA.

Admittedly, American colonies benefited from the fruit of the forbidden tree, processing sugar from the West Indies into rum, which was a profitable enterprise for New England.

Later in life, Benjamin Franklin headed a foundation to educate black children, some of whom were free but most of whom were children of slaves and therefore damned to be slaves regardless of education.  He also worked to find free blacks jobs.

During the Revolutionary War, Pennsylvania passed the Gradual Abolition Act of 1780, which emancipated slaves through a process where they became indentured servants to age 28 en route to freedom.

Franklin spoke out against the institution of slavery, which was a hot topic of conversation in the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia.  

In the 1780s, Ben became head of the Pennsylvania Antislavery Society.  They proclaimed slavery “an atrocious debasement of human nature.”  The society petitioned our fledgling nation's Congress beginning in 1790 to seek an end to slavery nationwide.

While it is easy to look back and say the compromise brokered to hold the colonies together for mutual defense purposes in a republic where states maintained rights to determine that and other issues independently, the promise of freedom and justice for all has evolved over the years.

As you may note, people struggle to get into our country, not out of it, and that is not because this enlightened American experiment in which Benjamin Franklin played such an important role in crafting has been a failure.

On the other hand, as 1619-advocates would point out, Ben Franklin owned four slaves over the years.  He seems to have treated them well, more like servants he might have otherwise employed.  He eventually gave each their individual freedom, but that doesn't excuse slavery being a despicable institution.  I am against slavery and in favor of freedom for all, which I shouldn't have to state and re-state any time the subject comes up, but apparently some want to assume the worst possible motives for anyone whose thoughts they can't control.

In his will, Ben forgave the debts of and left his Philadelphia house to his daughter and her husband on the condition that they free their only slave.

Could he have done more?  Yes, and perhaps he should have, but that's easy to say from this future American era when anyone in favor of slavery would rightfully be dismissed as a crackpot.

Slavery still persists in some parts of the world, so if you have energy to knock down reputations and statues of Founding Fathers, you might instead devote yourself to ending slavery in your own lifetime.

Benjamin Franklin fought many good fights and in the process undoubtedly faced a great deal of resistance, creating stress, so in his case it was quite important to remember to focus regularly on Tranquility, in order to replenish his vigor and clarify his resolve for important issues that shaped the world.

Taking Franklin's brief definition of Tranquility to its core, don't sweat the small stuff.

People and events will disappoint you.  That's part of life.

You have the freedom to choose how you will process all of that internally to achieve a lifetime infused with Tranquity.