Lincoln and May

The Fundamental Dilemma: The Choice in Destiny

Rollo May deliberately and precisely selected the word “destiny” to convey a multilayered conceptualization of the human experience. One layer of human destiny encompasses all contributing factors that shape who we are at any one moment in time. It involves the constellation of experiences to which each of us is fated, situations not of our own choosing. Our destiny is shaped by a variety of experiences: “cosmic” forces, such as reckoning with life and death, including the powers of nature; genetic and environmental influences; and cultural and circumstantial experiences. May (1981) avowed these experiences as the “givens in life” (p. 89), following his existential predecessors, Friedrich Nietzsche, whose cry was amor fati (to love one’s fate), and Otto Rank, who saw that creativity means willingly saying “Yes” to the “Must” (Schneider & May, 1995).

Encroaching on us like the ocean’s ebb and flow throughout our lives, we encounter the cosmic forces, or the givens of birth and death. The marvel of life, insignificant one day, might profoundly move us another day. We suspend our thoughts of death until we receive a call concerning a cancer screening test or we hear of a young life halted in an automobile accident. Destiny challenges us, as well, in the forces of nature over which we have no control. I remember sitting dumbstruck in 2004, as newscasters reported the Indonesian Tsunami fatalities rising to 230,000. As well, daily in the news we are reminded of the impersonal whims of nature: immobilizing snowfalls, merciless tornadoes, hurricanes, and floods, parching droughts, and insatiable forest fires. Birth, death, the power of nature, fated situations add contours to our destiny.

This layer of destiny, related to fate, also pertains to our genetic heritage. The genetic givens in life come in many forms, such as race, sex, physical make-up, and, more abstractly, propensities for or limitations of athleticism, artistry, musicality, and intelligence. My becoming a concert pianist is limited by my paternally transmitted 3-inch, squat fingers. My artistry is enhanced by my maternally transmitted eye for color, symmetry, and visual layout. May recognized destiny in our individuality, a distinctive set of talents and limitations, arising from the complex interplay of genetics and environment.

The fate-related layer of destiny also includes our family experience, birthplace, and the time period to which we are born. Not by choice, but by happenstance, I was born the middle child, to a middle-class family, residing in the Middle West. As well, I grew up during the Cold War, a time period of nuclear threat, in a country whose goal was to out-build and out-spend the Soviet Union. Some may say that the “duck-and-cover” menace of my childhood pales in comparison to the more vicious threat of those growing up after September 11, 2001. When I worried about a Soviet or an American ending the world with the push of a red button, I reassured myself that those people wanted to live as much as I did. This rationalizing strand of destiny, albeit threadbare, no longer holds.

Similarly, other historical circumstances shape our destiny. We celebrate wars or protest conflicts, invent atom bombs or space vehicles, wait in winding gas lines or curse climbing gas prices, revel in prosperity or endure recessions, raise or fell walls, punch cards or surf webpages, record in megabytes or zettabytes, participate in the Montgomery Bus Boycott or elect the first Black President. Historical circumstances once done “cannot be reversed nor avoided nor ignored nor done over again” and shape our destiny (May, 1981, p. 91).

However, May would not have us dwell on the fated aspect of destiny alone, as it is only one stratum in his multilayered concept. To May, destiny is not fatefully set in stone. That these fated situations happen to us is fortuitous; how we respond to them further shapes our destiny. The popular usage of “destiny,” emphasizing the role of fate, neglects May’s emphasis on free will. The term destiny originates from the verb destine, meaning “to ordain, to devote, to consecrate” (May, 1981, p. 89). May emphasized the teleological meaning of the word, using it in reference to one’s destination. Extrapolating from Nietzsche and May, unlike the seedling that grows to a mighty sequoia, or the tadpole that matures to a frog, humans have the unique capacity to develop self, through expanded consciousness. We are, at the same time, both heir and benefactor of our destiny. The gods alone do not ordain, devote, or consecrate; rather, we participate in the development of our destiny while responding to all that has been destined to us. Our response to each of the givens in life further shapes our destiny. Destiny, then, is never complete; through our daily experiences, we continually form it.

Adding yet another layer to his conceptualization of destiny, May (1981) contrasted destiny to “determinism.” Determinism, he clarified, refers to objects in the physical world, whereas destiny distinctively describes the human experience. For example, in the physical world, one marble rolls because it is struck by another. Unlike the choice-less rolling marble, people are free to “pause” and to choose a response to a stimulus. Unlike the calculated course of the rolling marble, human choice adds incalculable, mystery to the equation. Destiny, or the givens in life, is like a template. This pliable design can be weakened or forged, bent or formed.

With regard to destiny, May had much sympathy for those living in the modern era. He saw human dignity shriveling, and guideposts for living with meaning abating. He contemplated the pivotal cultural shift that occurred with the development of the atomic bomb. He believed that its development spurred feelings of powerlessness and helplessness, resulting in anxiety. Perhaps today, he would acknowledge that some threats are even more terrifying, more pervasive, yet paradoxically more banal. Reflected in the mid-20th-century societal mirror, May saw the diminishing effects of technology and culture on humanity dignity. Today, it is as if these same concerns are reflected in a distorted funhouse mirror. If, as May wrote in 1972, “mass communication holds a mirror” to our culture (p. 242), what would he see reflected today? May might be disheartened to see sex comingling with violence in technologically savvy TV shows, crassness in language and action, triviality of sex and love, upgrades in chatter with downgrades in content, and relinquishment of responsibility in pleasure-seeking, impulse-driven people. Forty years after voicing his initial concern, May would not overlook the pervasive, ongoing shrinkage of the human spirit. In 1981, May wrote,

The self becomes increasingly insignificant in our world of technology. The emphasis on living now, with no ability to get solace or renewal from the past or future, the inability to commit oneself because one is not sure there is a self, the pervasive sense of purposelessness and vague despondency always threatening to become severe depression—these are all symptoms crying out that something has radically gone wrong with the self in relation to its world. (p. 143)

I assert that people today feel even more confused, more devalued, more turmoil-ridden than when May originally penned these words. People today need models for how to live in relation to destiny so that they may develop a more positive future.

May was not an alarmist without solutions. In the shadow of the modern era, he offered wisdom, hope, and illumination for expansion of the human psyche. His voice, still resonating in his writing, urges us to act on our freedom, assume personal responsibility, heighten consciousness, and create meaning. May (1972, 1981) saw that the ineffectualness of the individual facing threats to human dignity was the problem. He would encourage us to see our state of affairs as both plight and favor, as destiny. May (1981) asserted,

Destiny sets limits for us physically, psychologically, culturally, and equips us with certain talents. But we do not simply ask: How do we act within those limits or how do we develop those talents? We ask the more crucial question: Does the confronting of these limits itself yield us constructive values? Can one, in other words, turn misfortune into fortune and keep fortune fortunate, turn handicaps into assets and keep assets from becoming handicaps? Is something taught us by the very process of confronting hardship that yields greater benefits than we gave up in our hardship and greater gifts than we lost? (p. 127)

To avoid being overcome by our current state of affairs, we must examine and restore personal power. Today, people seem confused about how to develop and assert responsibility in their expanded license, often mistaken for personal freedom. Additionally, there are few exemplars for showing us how to develop strength through adversity, create meaning when purpose is absent, and provide hope for the restoration of human dignity. For modern people, Abraham Lincoln is an illustration of May’s concept of destiny. May (1972) observed that consciousness allows us to influence our “own evolution; therein lies the collective shame and bewilderment of being a [hu]man, and therein also lies the greatness of being one” (p. 142). Such greatness is visible in the life of Lincoln, who unwaveringly encountered his destiny, sought significance, and arose from depression with renewed meaning. Historically, Lincoln will long be remembered for the great political and cultural changes he prompted 150 years ago. Psychologically, Lincoln may serve as an archetype for the reconstruction of human dignity, a manifestation of May’s philosophy.

Abraham Lincoln’s Destiny

Abraham Lincoln’s destiny overflowed with hardship. In his youth, poverty and loss surrounded him. It is reported that at age 9 he whittled the pegs for his mother’s coffin (Atkinson, 1908). Lincoln’s father mistreated him and Thomas Lincoln left his young children alone in the wilderness while he fetched a new wife. As well, epidemics ruthlessly swept away Lincoln’s loved ones (Keneally, 2003). However, dwelling on the negative aspects of Lincoln’s life is insufficient, for his greatness is also explained by the positive in his life. He lived in a time and place brimming with growth and opportunity, where men could become “self-made” (Miller, 2002). His mother and stepmother cherished him. The world positively responded to his efforts to fashion relations and station, as he was well liked and well respected by friends and colleagues. Additionally, the chains of race, gender, or enslavement did not bind him as it did others in that time period (Miller, 2002).

May would not focus on the strife and blessings of Lincoln’s givens in life; rather more important, he would underscore how Lincoln created a life of meaning through his encountering destiny. To those who hear Lincoln’s words, it is evident that he was a master wordsmith. He was a poet and savored the poetry of others. Memorizing and reciting poems seemed to provide both intrapersonal comfort and interpersonal enjoyment (Shenk, 2005). As captured in a few stanzas from one of his favorite poems, Lincoln communicates his understanding of the full spectrum of human destiny:

Yea! hope and despondency, pleasure and pain,

We mingle together in sunshine and rain;

And the smiles and the tears, the song and the dirge,

Still follow each other, like surge upon surge.

’Tis the wink of an eye, ’tis the draught of a breath,

From the blossom of health to the paleness of death,

From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud,—

Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud? (Knox, 1877, pp. 26-27)

That Lincoln recited this poem so frequently his contemporaries believed he had authored it underscores its centrality to his personal outlook (Shenk, 2005). Within the framework of May’s philosophy, two things may be surmised from Lincoln’s love of this oft-repeated poem. First, Lincoln accepted the banes and blessings of the givens in life. Second, the final and resounding question informs us as to why Lincoln encountered his destiny. Rollo May asserted that when we encounter our destiny, the act itself becomes a source of power and creativity, a catalyst for expanded freedom. Perhaps, as May (1981) speculated in other cases, if Lincoln were to confront his destiny, “the fates [would] work with [him] rather than against him. In this way one lives with the universe rather than against it” (p. 37).

Lincoln’s adept encounter of destiny becomes more exquisite when viewed through the lens of May’s philosophy. Lincoln took hold of his life and remade it. He filled his life with deep feeling and close relations, including loving indulgences of his four children, two of whom would die before him. He garnered respect, status, and station from friends, colleagues, and voters. When 95% of men he knew labored manually, he forged a career reliant on his mind rather than the backbreaking farm work of his youth (Miller, 2002; Shenk, 2005). Although he possessed a minimal education, Lincoln wrote words so powerful, eloquent, and poignant that they rouse people 150 years later. With a piercing mind, whetted reason, and steely resolve he accomplished his greatest ambitions, yet at the same time he remained fully human. Lincoln was at times wrenched in sorrow, swelled with compassion, and dexterous in prose and humor. Born in a one-room cabin, he lived his last days in what is now the most well-known mansion in this nation. With regard to challenging the givens in life fated through destiny, Lincoln was a master.

Lincoln’s Depression as Destiny

Lincoln’s depression is well documented. Although his persona was peppered with lowbrow jokes, self-deprecating humor, and a love of storytelling, his pervasive mood was one of contemplation, sadness, and gloom. Lincoln’s aid, John Nicolay, remarked that “the music of Lincoln’s thought was always in the minor key” (cited in Shenk, 2005, p. 122). His law partner and friend, William Herndon, observed, “He was a sad-looking man; his melancholy dripped from him as he walked” (Herndon & Weik, 1890b, p. 588). On top of a general cloak of malaise, Lincoln endured two major bouts of depression. At age 26, Lincoln’s self-described gangly 6-foot-4-inch frame withered further. He frequently mentioned suicide, and his concerned friends formed a suicide watch (Shenk, 2005). At this time, he was intensely studying law. Loss engulfed him as a typhoid epidemic stripped away family and friends. This scourge claimed his close friend and possible love interest Ann Rutledge (Burlingame, 1997; Herndon & Weik, 1890a). Her death seemed to be a turning point for Lincoln, as an acquaintance, Henry McHenry observed:

After that Event he seemed quite changed, he seemed Retired, & loved Solitude, he seemed wraped [sic] in profound thought, indifferent, to transpiring Events, had but Little to say, but would take his gun and wander off in the woods by him self, away from the association of even those he most esteemed, this gloom seemed to deepen for some time, so as to give anxiety to his friends in regard to his Mind. (Wilson & Davis, 1998, pp. 155-156)

Enduring another desolate prairie winter in January 1841, Lincoln experienced a second bout of severe depression. He was toiling at his law practice; he was experiencing occupational and financial stress, as well as relationship problems. Namely, he was conflicted in love relations, and his closest friend Joshua Speed was moving away (Burlingame, 1997; Donald, 1995; Shenk, 2005). He became lethargic, bed ridden, despairing. He conveyed his “deplorable state . . . of mind” in a letter:

I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I can not tell; I awfully forbode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me. (Lincoln, 1953, p. 229)

In this poignant communication, Lincoln exposed his wounds and vulnerability. But what is also evident is that he was not enveloped by his depression. He was able to lift the dark, heavy shroud and conceive possibility. His words “I must die or be better” convey that he was encountering his destiny. May (1969) observed that personal transformation occurs as such: “I conceive— I can—I will—I am” (p. 243). Lincoln’s conceiving his depression as destiny would serve as impetus toward his willing and creating a life of meaning.

Further evidence of Lincoln’s apprehending depression as destiny is found in his conceptualization of its causes. Lincoln wrote a consoling letter to his close friend, Joshua Speed, explaining the contributing factors to his friend’s troubled state, or in May’s term, the “givens in life.” First, Lincoln noted the general cause, a familial predisposition, remarking that his friend was “naturally of a nervous temperament.” Following this assertion, Lincoln questioned, why everyone who experiences such strains does not become so troubled. He explained that “nervous debility” is the “conductor of all the particular” causes, “without which they would be utterly harmless.” Lincoln surmised that nervous temperament predisposed him and others to the strain of the specific causes, observing that “it is out of this, that the painful difference between [the downtrodden] and the mass of the world springs.” In terms of destiny, Lincoln observed that some were born with a general sensitivity to their experience of the world. It is this sensitivity or general tendency that makes one vulnerable to suffering. In addition to this general cause, he observed three “particular” sources of distress. The first particular Lincoln noted was that “exposure to bad weather . . . proves to be verry [sic] severe on defective nerves.” Lincoln reminds us of the hardships of 19th-century living: harsh winds, chilling temperature, and the absence of our modern-day necessity, heaters. The second particular, Lincoln observed was “the absence of all business and conversation of friends, which might divert [the] mind, and give it occasional rest from that intensity of thought, which will some times wear the sweetest idea thread-bare and turn it to the bitterness of death.” Here, Lincoln connects to the human propensity to ruminate. The last particular Lincoln addressed was his friend’s worry about love and marriage (Lincoln, 1953, pp. 265-266). These explanations, presumably arising out of his own experiences, permit a glimpse into Lincoln’s conceptualization of the givens in life and of his depression as destiny. In Lincoln, we see a human born to nervous temperament and a contemplative nature, frayed by his environs and social relations.

In his letter, Lincoln outlined his general notions about depression as destiny, but when we delve more deeply into his life, we might discover a more profound contributor: a crisis of moral character. Ethical biographer William Miller (2002) describes Lincoln’s lifelong, purposeful honing and expansion of his moral mind, observing that “Lincoln was a learner. He was in particular a moral learner” (p. 91). Lincoln’s character and reputation were central to his being. He intentionally sought to align his inner character with his outer reputation. This alignment became publicly evident when, at age 23, after being elected to serve in the Illinois State Congress, he pledged to a crowd, “Every man is said to have his peculiar ambition. Whether it be true or not, I can say for one that I have no other so great as that of being truly esteemed of my fellow men, by rendering myself worthy of their esteem” (Lincoln, 1953, p. 8). Modern cynics might see this statement as a political manipulation to acquire votes, but other strands of moral moorings are evident elsewhere.

Lincoln was earnest in matters of “violation of word, honor or conscience,” as evidenced in his relationships with women (Lincoln, 1953, p. 119). He wrote to a woman to whom he had become betrothed, “I want in all cases to do right, and most particularly so, in all cases with women” (Lincoln, 1953, p. 94). For example, as a young man Lincoln promised to a friend that he would marry her sister, whom he had met previously. On revisiting the sister, though, he was disheartened by her physical appearance, finding her unattractive. At question was Lincoln’s dilemma: Shall I forsake desire and attraction for the more importing matter of honoring commitment? In a letter to a friend, he explained, “But what could I do? I had told her sister that I would take her for better or for worse; and I made a point of honor and conscience in all things, to stick to my word.” He reconciles his dilemma by seeking out other “perfections in her” by dwelling on her positive features, reminding himself that “the mind was much more to be valued than the person” and that she did have a good one (Lincoln, 1953, p. 118).

At the time of his most severe depressive episode, Lincoln’s alignment of internal character and outer reputation was challenged on many fronts. He had experienced moral anguish in relation to money and debt, his political career, his reputation, and even his ambivalent promise—a serious commitment in those days—to marry Mary Todd (Donald, 1995; Miller, 2002). In Lincoln’s emerging life, one can almost hear his cry of “How will I be?” He took moral matters seriously, and his dilemmas weighed heavily on him. As May might observe, it is at this pivotal point of closing down to depression or opening to moral growth that we see Lincoln striving to discover and act from his center. May (1953) might observe that at this juncture, “He admits and is aware of the fact that his motives are not completely clear and assumes responsibility for making them clearer” (p. 165). This grappling with moral conscience was, for sensitive Lincoln, a reflection of his “tapping wisdom and insight within himself” (May, 1953, p. 161). It is remarkable that at a young age Lincoln was wise enough to venture into this mature question of freedom and responsibility in life and, in particular, in his moral life.

One facet of his great life is that as a young man, he seasoned his “power to do the valuing,” or what might also be called his “inner capacity to affirm, to experience values and goals as real and powerful for themselves” (May, 1953, p. 162). Lincoln’s contemplative devotion to moral growth and the subsequent pain it caused him were endeavors in destiny. Understanding of Lincoln’s moral struggle and subsequent depression yields two important features. First, it demonstrates his dissatisfaction with his destiny, and his strong desire to evolve. That a mature man emerged on the other side of this moral struggle attests to his encounter with destiny and expanded consciousness. Second, it illustrates the dredging of his moral well from which he will later draw great courage. As he serves as President to a country scorched by war, this courageous spring will serve as critical sustenance in preservation of his own life, as well as the life of this nation.

Lincoln chose to be better, to live. Lincoln made sense of depression in terms of the givens in life, both in terms of general and particular causes as outlined in his letter to his friend, Speed. Lincoln wrestled with problems of discerning and living values, character, and being. All these instances suggest that Lincoln conceptualized his depression as destiny. However, none speak more loudly, nor more clearly to Lincoln’s understanding of depression as destiny as his conceptualization of “melancholy” as “a misfortune not a fault.” His understanding of melancholy as his misfortune or “unhappy circumstance” meant that it was not caused by personal failing but rather by a force to be reckoned with (Shenk, 2005, p. 89). As May might observe, Lincoln accepted his melancholy as one of the “givens” in his life. Lincoln’s language of “melancholy” as “misfortune” conveys an existential understanding of his experience and his consequential response to it. That is not to say that Lincoln readily or merely overcame his depression. Indeed, he surrendered to it wholly. He missed work. He remained in bed. He evoked concern from his friends. But one day, he got up.

Emerging from depression, Lincoln appeared to be at a crux, grappling with who he was and who he would become. His growth and maturity would arise from this vital struggle. In reference to this period in Lincoln’s life, Shenk (2005) surmised,

It marked the end of Lincoln’s youth, with its dramatic fits of public melancholy, and the beginning of his manhood, with a quiet, weary suffering that many witnessed but few could understand. It marked the end of his startling rise as a provincial politician and the beginning of a long, slow trudge to find a voice in the affairs of the nation. (p. 43)

Central to Lincoln’s arising was his capacity to envision his freedom and responsibility to choose in the profound dilemma: “To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better.” Although Lincoln may have written these words in passing to a coworker, explaining his work absence, they reflect remarkable depth, strength, and courage. At this lowest psychological moment, Lincoln asserts, “I can no longer tolerate this state of being. I am left with two choices, to die or to change.” These central lines reveal Lincoln’s encounter and rebellion against his destiny; his depressive state was his misfortunate given. He is unable to tolerate it further. Moreover, any end to the unendurable state will come only from within. May (1981) enumerated five responses to destiny: First, we can “cooperate” with destiny. Second, we can be “aware” and “acknowledge” destiny. Third, we can “engage” destiny. Fourth, we can “confront and challenge” destiny. Fifth, we can “encounter” and “rebel” against destiny (p. 91). Lincoln’s railing against his current state of being, his conclusion that he must “die or be better,” his wrestling with development of conscience, and his conceptualization of melancholy as misfortune establish his fierce encounter of and rebellion against his destiny. Because of and in spite of his misery, Lincoln engaged, confronted, challenged, encountered, and rebelled against his depression as destiny, a task he would continue to do for the rest of his life.

A Prelude to Great Achievement: Lincoln’s Encounter of Destiny

May (1981) posited that despair can be a prelude to great achievement. Lincoln resurrected from his depression a new man. Confronting his moral crises, reckoning his question of “being,” and accosting despair compelled Lincoln to create meaning and purpose. Shenk (2005) observes that “Lincoln came away [from his depression] with a new clarity about what he would live for and suffer for” (p. 179). As May (1981) asserts, “despair can then act upon the person like the flood in Genesis: it can clear away the vast debris—the false answers, false buoys, superficial principles—and leave the way open for new possibilities. That is for new freedom” (p. 51). For Lincoln, his new freedom may be described as follows:

Whatever greatness Lincoln achieved cannot be explained as a triumph over personal suffering. . . . This is not a story of transformation but one of integration. Lincoln didn’t do great work because he solved the problem of his melancholy. The problem of his melancholy was all the more fuel for the fire of his great work. (Shenk, 2005, p. 156)

When we arrive at the crossroads of misfortune and destiny, as Lincoln did in his moral crisis and depression, May (1981) asks us how we shall respond. Do we wallow in pity and cower in fear, or “do we confront destiny directly, using it as a stimulus to call forth our best efforts, our greatest sensitivity, our sharpest creative vision?” (p. 128). In confronting his depression as destiny, Lincoln asserted his best efforts, heightened his sensitivities, and forged clarity and vision. When it comes to encountering and rebelling against destiny, Lincoln was exemplary.

In the snare of depression, Lincoln would never imagine that one day freed slaves would call him “Father Abraham.” However, the dawn of emancipation was present even at Lincoln’s darkest hour. The great historical significance of his ending slavery can be understood existentially in relation to Lincoln the man. Consider that in September 1841, the year of his depressive episode, Lincoln wrote about the following experience: As a young man he traveled on a steamboat where he saw 12 slaves chained together like “fish upon a trot-line.” Lincoln empathized with their being stripped of their families, friends, and homes. Lincoln saw them dancing, singing, playing games, and joking, and he wrote, “Yet amid all these distressing circumstances . . . they were the most cheerful and apparently happy creatures on board.” Lincoln then considered “the effect of condition upon human happiness,” concluding that “‘God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,’ or in other words, that He renders the worst of human conditions tolerable, while He permits the best, to be nothing better than tolerable” (Lincoln, 1953, p. 260). Lincoln’s meditation on the conditions of human happiness reveals his notions about the hardships of life, fate, and destiny. These reflections were more than mere musings. The observation of the shackled slaves was central to Lincoln’s being. Fourteen years later, the threat of expanded slavery in new territories reignited his political ambitions (White, 2009). On his return to politics he spoke about the shackled slaves. This story began with a reflection about the conditions of human life by a man who had confronted his destiny in terms of happiness, misery, and misfortune. The story continues with a young man who is “thunderstruck” by the slavery dispute and engages his destiny in his return to politics (White, 2009). The story concludes with Lincoln unchaining the trot-line as President of the United States.

Lincoln spoke about his depression and thoughts of suicide with Joshua Speed, his close friend. Speed said that Lincoln had considered suicide but chose life because “he had done nothing to make any human being remember that he had lived” (Wilson & Davis, 1998, p. 197). In this moment of decision—the choice between being or nonbeing—Lincoln thrashes against the smallness of his existence. That he wanted others to remember that he had lived is moving. That Lincoln recalled this very story to Speed decades later as he signed the Emancipation Proclamation (Miller, 2002) is awe inspiring. This triumphant story exemplifies Lincoln’s deciding and designing his destiny. May (1994) argues that awareness of mortality fills the artist with rage and emboldens creative expression. “Creativity,” he declares, “is a yearning for immortality.” He explains that “the rage is against injustice. . . . But ultimately it is a rage against the prototype of all injustice—death” (pp. 31-32). Rage that stirs the poet or artist to create also disquiets the citizen to end injustice. Having faced the possibility of death—choosing being over nonbeing—Lincoln’s creative act made his name known. Now he and the indelible mark of his creative expression live beyond death. The desolation followed by the possibility of “I can” is Lincoln overcoming his fate and deciding his destiny. May might suggest that as Lincoln wrestled with his destiny, he combined two mighty ingredients—compassion and power—resulting in both personal and social transformation (May, 1972).

At the conclusion of Lincoln’s Melancholy, Shenk (2005) asserts that Lincoln’s life journey can be understood in terms of three distinct phases: “fear, engagement, and transcendence” (pp. 213-215). Lincoln succumbed to his depression. He surrendered to it, sank into it, and fully experienced it. The marvel is that his submitting to it ultimately strengthened him. When Lincoln fearfully asked the questions, “Can I live?” and “Can I live with life’s misery?” he was nearing the end of his journey’s first leg. With his resounding answer, “Yes! I must!” he marked its completion. As Lincoln exerted his ultimate freedom in choosing life over death and being over nonbeing, he could then savor life, grow, and contribute. Through pause and self-discovery he could continue to address the question, “To what am I called in this world?” (May, 1981, p. 129), a beginning place for Lincoln’s greatness. At this critical juncture, the question before Lincoln changed from whether he could live to how he would live. In this leg of his journey, he decided to develop meaning. About this period of engagement author Joshua Shenk (2005) writes,

Lincoln knew what he wanted to live for, but for years he suffered without any clear prospect of how he would achieve it. He continued to plod ahead, even as clarity about why eluded him. He lived with paradox: showing in full force both resignation and defiance, pathos and humor, fear and hope. (p. 213)

After sinking into depression, Lincoln got up. He responded to the realities of his world while seeking a general sense of purpose. There were no guarantees that he would find his way, but he held fast to the belief that he would. His transcendence was dependent on his early experiences, his early suffering, and his early survival. The first two legs of his journey, “fear” and “engagement,” prepared him for “transcendence.” Fear and engagement prepared him to endure his most taxing, most grave, and most meaningful work of emancipating the enslaved, uniting these States, and binding the wounds of this war-torn nation.

Conclusion

That Lincoln survived these debilitating bouts of depression is a feat. That he grew from despair is a marvel. That he prevailed against depression and actualized purpose is a phenomenon. In the seven score and 6 years that have passed since his death, hundreds of books about Lincoln have been authored and read by countless people. The resurgence of interest in Lincoln may be more indicative of our contemporary thirst for a modern hero than the bicentennial celebration of his birth. His very rebellion against destiny and the resulting depth and strength are why he now serves as a model for all humanity. May (1981) writes that if we stop and listen, we will find that destiny “is the design of the universe speaking through the design of each one of us” (p. 90). The very act of encountering and railing against destiny is the how and why of Lincoln’s hammering out purpose and meaning “on the anvil of his own suffering” (as said about William James, May, 1969, p. 271). Ethical biographer Miller cautions that we and Lincoln are ill-served when we idealize him. It is true that we do Lincoln a disservice when we venerate him as god-like. However, the irony is that the mere acknowledgement of Lincoln’s humanity, with his talents and limitations, compels us to place him back on a pedestal. Many revere Lincoln exactly because of his vulnerabilities and imperfections and for the strength he developed in facing them.

I hold in my mind’s eye three vital images of Lincoln that illustrate May’s concept of destiny, as archetypal encounters. I see a young, gawky, Abe, worn from a day of chores, yet eagerly nestling before a fire to read. This hayseed boy from rural Kentucky, lover of the written word, had no inkling that one day he would amble into law, then politics, and finally into the executive mansion. I see a youngster who preferred a book to a hoe, a quill to a plow, to cultivate mind rather than field, a boy who conceived and willed a life contrary to ilk and kin. I see a youngster who upended the fated elements of his destiny: a naïf who would weave words to console and incite, hone humor and wit to disarm, displace ignorance with intellect, and harvest character from fragility of spirit. I see Lincoln as an archetype, boldly rebelling against the “givens of life.”

Second, I see Lincoln sitting at a table dimly lit by a low-burning candle. His rawboned palm cups his chin, furrowed brows frame tristful eyes, and pursed lips form possibilities as he contemplates the exact word—one that is both expressive and melodious. His lanky, ink-stained fingers scrawl, “To ease me of this power to think/That through my bosom raves/I’ll headlong leap from hell’s high brink/And wallow in its waves” (cited in Shenk, 2005, p. 40). As he contemplated suicide in soliloquy, Lincoln encountered his depression as destiny. In his misery, Lincoln could have found many means to ease him of the “power to think.” He could have denied. He could have slept. He could have caroused. He could have leapt. Instead, he embattled destiny, fortified by his proclivity for language. Instead, he scribed his willful exertion of intellect over emotion, creation over obliteration, and being over nonbeing. I see Lincoln as an archetype, encountering depression as destiny, with eyes wide open.

Finally, I see Lincoln lumbering into a tavern. Friends, replete with barroom spirits, ask him to contribute to the gaiety with song. Somber Abraham declines. He does, however, concede to recite a poem, long ago committed to memory. The locals fall silent as he delivers the ode that begins and ends with the question, “O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud?” (Shenk, 2005). To Lincoln this query was neither mere refrain, nor mere bookends to a poem, rather a question to mull, to will, to live. Through the hollow thud of depression came Lincoln’s thundering answer to this question: create meaning. In the Great Emancipator, I see an exemplar of May’s conceptualization of destiny, a reconstruction of human dignity.