Product and Craft from Self and Other
The second domain of Resurrexit Spiritus is Telos. This is where balance is achieved in terms of goals, labour and habits through the reconciliation of product and craft. This is where we spend most of our time experientially as humans. It is the more selfish paradigm in the self-and-other divide since it, like the previous domain of Kratos though more abstracted, integrates the rejections and focuses entirely upon self. Here our prodigal son learns about the cost of excesses and extremes. He realises that wealth without meaning or purpose is emptiness, and any “freedom” without its commensurate responsibility is destruction.
In Telos, we navigate the tension of our individual needs versus our individual desires: the two outcomes of any action for you and the thing upon which you are acting; these outcomes are craft and product respectively. The prodigal son’s longing to return home as a servant is the first step in movement to moderation here between who we are and what we want. His desire has nothing to do with any surrender to his past or any particular way of thinking. It is a simple thinking act of moderation which draws him home. He grows weary of the absurd things in life, eventually valuing stability in itself rather than the endless extremes on offer from the world.
The structural virtues system, as outlined as the Dozen Skills in Reason in Resurrexit Spiritus phenomenology, becomes particularly relevant here. This domain of Telos is marked by an underlying struggle with the virtues of Honour and Temperance. These two are encapsulated in the aspect of reason called Honesty but focused on the moments of Propriety and Morality respectively, which guide an awakening person towards a life of balance. For the prodigal son, the return home is an entry into greater stability for the next domain of Eros.
Honour makes our actions matter. Temperance restrains our impulses and reminds us every action has consequences, whether in deed thought, or emotion. Our own responses must be arrived at through Honesty, on Awareness, Morality, and Propriety: completed as Magnanimity, Honour, and Temperance. More than the other three domains, Telos naturally demands self-correction against the sins of it and its preceding domain of Kratos: Amnesis, Disdain, and, most especially in Telos, Obsession (respectively founded on Conceit; in Ignorance, Apathy, and Lust). These sins linger in the periphery even as we advance. We forget what we rejected or accepted in ourselves, we despise others unrighteously in our perceived self-righteousness, and we become overwhelmed by our worldly desires.
The key to Telos is ultimately in the Propriety moment, which guides us to Spirit (divine love) whether recognised as such or not, and on to Eros domain and the Loyalty virtue, also encompassed in Honesty but more demanding and cinching in the rest with truth. It is here at the crossroads of Honesty and Propriety that we must choose moderation over excess, improvement rather than wants, and grace instead of resentment. The lessons of Telos hint at true freedom without giving it away entirely and answers Kratos and all its rules concretely in the abstract: that, in the least, the greatest freedom cannot be found in the absence of constraints but in mindful application of ones own restraints upon self.
Through Telos, we begin to glimpse the actual path home as a continuous journey in improvement and alignment with God, and therefore our truest selves.