The old man always asked his graduate students, “What is one thing you would die for?” I smiled when I first heard about it. I could imagine being a grad student of his.

Some would try for the answer they thought their teacher wanted. Some would look for the one that would set them apart from the rest. Some would just try to come up with an answer at all.

Today he would be pegged as an idealist. Why shouldn’t he be? There seems to be no shortage of those ready to be a martyr in these anxious times. Any old hill looks like a fine one to die on, and the only thing better than finding a hill is finding a crowd to witness it.

We all want to be part of something bigger than ourselves, and bleeding for such seems to offer us the prospect of fulfilment. Perhaps we adopt the principles of our groups as our own.  Perhaps we confuse our membership with our identity.

What if you and I are bigger than our causes? What if we are making ourselves less and not more? Why is fulfillment still so elusive? What if we are nothing more than crusaders?

The funny thing is that the old man wasn’t an idealist. He believed a theory was only as good as its most recent test. That fulfills the definition of a pragmatist. And what is a pragmatist but someone who can let go of a principle without letting go of themselves?

There are causes surely worth our martyrdom, but the trick seems to be that once we find what we would die for, we have to live for it.