For some time, I find it difficult not to grow irritated by others’ behavior, especially when it seems unfair in relation to me. These are subtle, self-inflicted annoyances, and I do not carry them onto my next day. Still, I dislike the unrest of that particular day, or even of a single hour.
Some time ago, inspired by Franklin’s autobiography, I replaced my habit goals with virtues. For instance, the habits of avoid sugar and sleep well both fall under the virtue of moderation, and indeed, it makes little sense to aim for one habit while neglecting the other. Hence, I strip away the burden of habits by focusing on a virtue of choice for one week. The practice of tranquility cures my heart of disappointment and mild sadness.
Instead of directly translating the ancient Greek word philotimia as amor honoris (love of honor) into Latin, the ancient Roman authors chose the closest equivalent, ambitio. Ambitio originally had a narrower meaning: going around canvassing for votes. By Cicero's time, however, it could mean both zeal for glory and excessive striving. In the ancient Roman sense, it often meant the pursuit of public esteem.
To avoid overlap, the Russian language distinguishes честолюбие (love of honor) from амбиция (ambition) in its vocabulary. In modern Greek, philotimia has morphed into philotimo (φιλότιμο), and has a solely positive connotation: self-respect, sense of duty, not letting others down. In Azerbaijani, love of honor is often translated as izzəti-nəfs which is an Arabic word and, in meaning, has relation to dignity and is closer to the modern Greek word than to the ancient one.
The word ambition (ambisiya) has now lost its moral colorig and is often understood as the drive to achieve advancement. Shakespeare probably used the word in its both the ancient Roman (positive, noble aspiration) and the Christian (negative, selfish craving) senses when referring to Caesar. In 1755, it was described in Samuel Johnson's Dictionary as desiring something higher than is possessed at present. Modern translators of ancient authors, however, often choose the word ambition when describing love of glory (see Sallust, Plutarch).
After Bacon, we go back in time to the fourth century. Here we meet Aurelius Augustine, the bishop of Hippo, and The City of God. Saint Augustine analyzes ambition through the prism of Christianity and condemns it.
Book five speaks of the ancient Roman ambition. In chapter xii, St. Augustine refers to Sallust, and explains that glory was what the Romans most ardently loved: they were greedy of praise, willing to sacrifice their great fortunes and even their lives for it. They built their temples of Virtue and Honor in close proximity, and their love of honor made them industrious and disciplined in their pursuit of liberation. Achieving freedom and banishing kings was not enough: ambition pushed them toward domination and they expanded their empire: Caesar waged wars so that his genius could shine forth, commanders fought bloody battles so that there would be occasion to display their valor – they made war a theater for glory. Virgil tells that while other nations dealt with art and astronomy, Romans controlled.
Sallust wonders how Rome, often outnumbered and under-resourced, achieved so much. It must have been not due to the collective virtue, which united only under an external threat, but by the excellence of a few eminent men. But Rome grew so vast and its sheer size and momentum masked the actions of corrupt leaders and the decline of the state.
Out of two great rivals – Marcus Cato and Julius Caesar – the former was the one who was closest to true virtue. Over time, the pure ambition of Romans, such as Cato's – rooted in integrity – degenerated into the pursuit of glory by any means: intrigue, fraud, deceit. Rome moved from a people who sacrificed private wealth for public glory to a people who drained the state for private gain. Ambition gave way to greed and luxury; avarice brought about Rome's downfall.
Ambition depends on the opinions of others. It cannot be a true virtue, since it relies on human judgment and not solely on conscience. Virtue should not be a means to honor, but honor should be the reward of virtue.
Ambition – philotimia (φιλοτιμία), love of honor. Sometimes we praise ambitious men, because they love honor more than others; and sometimes we blame them, because they love honor more than is right. Ambition is a strong motivator for both noble and shameful political action. So there must be an unnamed mean, an intermediate state for ambition, which is worthy of praise.
Aristotle doesn't seem to expand further on the issue. Therefore, we may consider St. Augustine, Aquinas, Montaigne, Francis Bacon (not the painter). We will start with Bacon, which tackles ambition not from a psychological, but from a political perspective. It is the least interesting for our purposes, yet it is the shortest text; and there is no need to make any effort to find a good translator.
Ambition – choler, making a man active, earnest. If not controlled: venomous. If an ambitious man gets his desires blocked, frustration sets in, ambition turns inward and corrodes him. Ambitious men under one's management should always progress, which is often impractical. When they fall, they drag their office down with them.
But sometimes it is necessary to employ ambitious men: commanders and soldiers are better when ambitious. As ambitious men climb up blindly, they don't notice the dangers around them, or the consequences of their actions. Therefore, they take risks and shield their managers from danger, including the dangers from other ambitious men.
Honor can serve public good, provide access to power, or simply advance private fortune. A wise prince can discern which motive drives an ambitious man: service, vanity, or self-interest.
A man striving to excel among other strong, talented men pushes everyone upward – this benefits the commonwealth. A man who wants to shine alone, surrounded by flatterers, destroys the office. There are men who desire to prevail in major undertakings and concentrate their energy on a few weighty matters – they are beneficial. There are also men who crave to be always visible, involved, wanting recognition – they are meddlesome and disruptive.
What if, each day, I tackled a single virtue or vice and observed it in my own behavior. That would be a day worth spent.
I search online for a translation of Aristotelian Ethics. Finding a good translator and classicist is half the job done. W.D. Ross. I need book iv, chapter iii, the term I look for is magnanimity.
The translation is old-fashioned. The ancient Greek word megalopsychia (μεγαλοψυχία) is translated as pride – denoting the noble pride of a man conscious of his true worth. It is flanked by two mistakes: vanity (claiming more than one deserves) and undue humility (claiming less). Vain people, not being worthy, adorn themselves with clothing and outward show. Undue humility, however, is both commoner and worse, as it blocks one's path toward desiring great things and acting nobly.
Magnanimity is a mean, not in size, but in accuracy. One must look back and list down his achievements and responsibilities, and claim them without inflation or minimization. One must look around and notice who is honoring him and for what. Recognition from the competent for substantial deeds is to be valued, applause for trifles is to be ignored.
The magnanimous man has proportional courage: he avoids trivial dangers, but does not shrink from great ones when the cause is worthy. There is asymmetry in his generosity – he confers benefits, ashamed of receiving them. He remembers what he has given, not to boast or to remind others of favors owed, but to value himself correctly. He is just, yet forgetful of wrongs, as slights cannot diminish him. He aims at few but great honors, not at minor or common deeds. He is open in hate and love, expressing truth without servility. He never praises himself, nor he speaks ill of another person.
In ancient Greece, moral virtue was tied to physical fitness. The phrase – kalos kagathos (καλὸς κἀγαθός, noun: kalokagathia), translated as beautiful and virtuous, was used by classical authors (including Plato and Aristotle) to denote a perfect man. Mens sana in corpore sano is a later, Latin phrase, coined by the Roman poet Juvenal, and is known as a proverb: a healthy mind in a healthy body. For Juvenal, when praying, one should first desire that, rather than a long life. This ancient ideal inspired Mishima, who was slim and frail until his thirties, to take up bodybuilding after visiting Europe and seeing ancient Greek sculptures.
Wealthy men of ancient Rome were expected to become benefactors, spending their wealth for the community. For Celsus, who was a Roman politician of ancient Greek origin, and for many other recognized Romans, building mighty libraries, hospitals, aqueducts served a double purpose: to fulfil their public duty and inscribe their names in history. For this reason, today, in the Turkish city of Izmir, where the ruins of the ancient Greek city of Ephesus lie, the personification of excellence and virtue, Arete, stands still in the library of Celsus.
The term arete (ἀρετή) refers to many meanings, including the full realization of one's potential. We, again, stumble upon this word when reading many ancient authors – Homer, Plato, Aristotle. Sophist Prodicus narrates the story of Heracles at the crossroads: Arete offering him glory and hardship, and Kakia (vice) offering him ease and pleasure.
For Plato, obtaining arete meant the development of the mind, body, and soul. For the mind, the Greeks exercised oratory, rhetoric, and sciences. For physical training, gymnasion (gymnasium) existed. For spiritual development, the practice of music and virtue. Arete should have served paideia (παιδεία), the rearing of a perfect member of an ancient Greek state. Paideia should have brought about kalokagathia.
Sidenote: Mortimer Adler's paideia proposal was aimed against mechanical education, also encouraging Socratic seminars. In these seminars, teachers would create a set of ordered questions for the development of ideas, instead of memorization of predetermined truths, while being open to all possible answers by students. Skillful management of such seminars required acumen.
We may set paideia in contrast with agoge ( ἀγωγή), the training of an ideal Spartan citizen, which would start for boys at the age of seven. Spartan boys were kept away from their families, deprived of food, sleep, and shelter; they developed pain tolerance through military training, engaged in hunting, dancing, singing, and laconism. Less than ten percent of the population – Spartiates (Spartan citizens) were eligible for such an education. The firstborn sons of both Spartan kings were probably either exempt or subject to modified training.
The Spartan pupils were taught to read and write for practical purposes, and were expected to steal food in stealth. If someone was caught, he would be beaten. They were given only one clothing item for a year and educated in laconism – speaking briefly and wittily. Age twenty marked transition to adulthood, making Spartans eligible for military service and voting. At age thirty, they would graduate from agoge and were permitted to have a family. For Spartans, agoge entailed mastery of physical strength and social conventions. Such was the education of a military state.
I (very concisely) explain the fundamentals of getting good at chess:
- Learn the basics via lichess.org/learn or some other resource. Practice piece checkmates.
- Do not memorize openings or traps. There are only three opening principles: (a) control the center; pieces in the center attack more squares; all else equal, more squares under control means a better position, (b) rapidly develop many pieces toward the center; (c) castle to make your king safe behind the pawns.
- Play several games. Consistently ask yourself: what does my opponent want? And: if I play this move, can my opponent capture something for free?
- Although there are exceptions, the following simple rules usually hold: (a) rooks and queens prefer open lines (where there is no pawn blocking the way); (b) knights prefer closed positions (e.g., lots of immovable pawns), bishops prefer open diagonals; if you have a light-squared bishop, put your pawns on dark squares; (c) avoid doubled and isolated pawns; (d) trade pieces when you are ahead in material, trade pawns when you are down.
- For each game played, solve 50 puzzles, which are easily accessible online (e.g., checkmate in 1 & 2, fork, pin, etc.). When calculating moves, start with checks and captures. If you solve a puzzle in under 10 seconds, it is time to switch to tougher puzzles. If you can't solve a puzzle in 5 minutes, it is time to switch to easier puzzles.
Dr. Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs advises Clarice Starling to read Marcus Aurelius. Only a few people know that Aurelius' meditations was not a book, but a note – a personal diary of the emperor who commanded the whole known world at the time.
The last good Roman emperor's diary, and Stoicism in general, is currently promoted a lot by Ryan Holiday and other entrepreneurs alike. The stoic mindset doesn't seem special to me, it doesn't imply a strong or better character, and just like many other forms of philosophy, I approach it as a good enough framework to live by. Nevertheless, after nine years, grabbing the little repetitive diary, I understood something new about myself.
I realized that I had skipped and never read Book One, which seemed to be very boring back then. Why would I bother reading who Aurelius was grateful to, when I could read practical tips? My rushed mind didn't even understand that the first book served many purposes in addition to gratitude: there was self-analysis, historical perspective, simple character traits of the powerful emperor worth imitating. I paraphrase a portion of the content below:
From my grandfather I learned good morals and the government of my temper. From my father, modesty and a manly character. From my mother, piety and beneficence, abstinence from evil thoughts, simplicity in my way of living far removed from the habits of the rich. From my great-grandfather, to have good teachers and spend on education liberally.
These are simple building blocks revealing to us the subtleties of the emperor's character and his clear understanding of its sources. How many of us have taken the time to analyze the beginnings of our character? Why are we who we are? How did we emerge and what is good in us? A deep glimpse into our development could at least increase our self-esteem.
Additionally, studying the precise vocabulary could drastically improve our comprehension of the text. We may strive for not just checking a direct translation of the words manly or beneficence, but aim at exploring what exactly the original Latin or ancient Greek words connoted.
From Rusticus, not to be led astray to writing on speculative matters, nor to delivering little honorary orations, nor to show myself off as a man who practices much discipline, or does benevolent acts in order to make a display; and to abstain from rhetoric and poetry, and fine writing; and not to walk about in the house in my outdoor dress.
At this point, a good reader should stop and ask: Who was Rusticus? Aurelius dedicated one of the bigger paragraphs to him, continuing:
To write my letters with simplicity and with respect to those who have offended me by words, or done me wrong. To read carefully, and not to be satisfied with a superficial understanding of a book.
I only now truly understand the importance of re-reading. Following Aurelius, I will paraphrase Heraclitus and Flaubert: A man cannot step twice into a river, and one can become a scholar by correctly reading half a dozen books. This conclusion may seem abrupt but it is not superficial.
There are a few blogs I find useful and visit occasionally. Below is my curated list sorted alphabetically. Blogs may be active or dormant. I may be biased toward computer science. I may dislike and be against the ideas in some of their writings:
Testing out pin, tags, and image. Refreshing note publication dates dynamically now. Sharing still does not work properly.
Testing Notes. Didn't want to open X or Threads account. Inspired by KQ. I will occasionally update or delete the notes. This format is proper for short writings.