“I am Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod. I was born in 1518 in the village of Glenfinnan on the shores of Loch Shiel. And I am immortal.” – Highlander
Or maybe it was the scotch that made him immortal? When I drink scotch I’m bulletproof.
I once had a Grandboss (my boss’s boss) that once said, “Reading is the only way that you can know great minds across centuries.” He was deeply philosophical and attempted to use that philosophy to improve business results, and also to use history as analogy for business conditions. Prior to the movie 300 coming out, he was discussing the battle of Thermopylae and the courage of the Spartans to fight to the last man as a business analogy. Needless to say, when you’re using a battle where every single solder dies as an analogy, business isn’t going all that well.
Grandboss also assigned On War (a treatise on war and strategy during the Napoleonic era) by Von Clausewitz for us to read. I’m probably the only guy who actually did read it, and still have my copy. Needless to say, I loved my Grandboss, and still send him cards on Grandboss day. When I quit that job to take a new one, I told him first, and as a goodbye present? I gave him a book.
My Grandboss was right, though – reading allows us to know great minds across centuries. The nice thing is we can read the thoughts of dead Greeks like Epictetus. Epictetus spent his entire life studying and living stoic philosophy, which was a pretty hard thing to do when you were a slave with a gimpy leg. Epictetus eventually became free – we don’t know how, but I imagine he won the annual caddy’s golf tournament and got a scholarship from Judge Smails.
I bet Epictetus just wishes he wrote, “You’ll get nothing and like it.”
One thing we do know is that Epictetus did was spend a lot of time thinking about virtue and vice. We’ll spend more time on virtue on Monday’s post, but Epictetus came to the conclusion that the following things were neither vice nor virtue:
- Wealth
- Health
- Life
- Death
- Pleasure
- Pain
As wealth and health are at least two nominal themes of this blog (this is Friday, so I’m stretching it and saying this is a health post) it might seem a bit hypocritical that I spend time talking about health and wealth and then quote a dead lame Greek that says that neither of those are virtuous. But I would argue that my message on wealth is that true wealth is in having few needs (Seneca, Stoics, Money and You), and although I prefer pleasure to pain, I recognize that a pleasure repeated too often is a punishment (Pleasure, Stoicism, Blade Runner, VALIS and Philip K. Dick). And we also know that health is more controllable by our choices today than Epictetus did.
Immortal and omnipotent. And good on the mariachi trumpet.
Heck, I even got challenged by an Orthodox priest friend on whether or not learning for learning’s sake was, in a religious context, a vice. If so, there goes most of my Monday posts. The priest and I (as I recall, over a BBQ lunch) came to the conclusion that learning for learning’s sake was maybe a vice. Since he was also a fan of learning for learning’s sake, if it was a vice we were both guilty.
Going back to Epictetus’ list, Life and Death are on it as being neither virtues nor vices. I’m not sure about you, but I really prefer Wealth to Poverty, Health to Illness, and Life to Death. Epictetus felt the same way – it was okay to have preferences with the understanding that neither condition is, in itself, virtuous. I finally came to understand that while not virtuous, death is required for life. Oddly, I thank Bill Clinton for this realization.
It was during the Clinton presidency that I first looked around at the national leaders for both parties and thought, “Jeez, what a bunch of bozos.” Both sides were stupid or corrupt. Some were stupid and corrupt at the same time (looking at you, ghost of Ted Kennedy, I’ve imagined you’ve been plenty warm this winter). Back then I was a capital-L libertarian, and could see that both sides had as primary goals the restriction of freedom on their agenda in addition to being incompetent.
Beyond that, they were . . . awful. Spineless. They were tools of groups with different names but the same objectives – objectives that mostly didn’t favor you or me. Throw into this mix that one day at lunch I was thinking about immortality and the implications of living forever, which was spurred on by eating a tuna fish sandwich which might have been as old as Epictetus, who died in 135 A.D.
Elvis will never die. Mobility? That might be an issue.
If people were generally immortal? Our birthrate would plummet – 200 year old women have very few kids. As for me, I’d have plenty of time so rather than putting things off until next week, I’d put stuff off until next century. But the worst consequence?
Bill Clinton would forever be an elder statesman, always trying to increase his (and Hillary’s) power for all of eternity. Our current batch of elected officials would be about the best we’d get, or maybe the only ones we’d get. Senators and congresscritters already stay in office until the only way to keep them alive is though that experimental technique that turns them into zombie-like creatures that feast on living human flesh like Nancy Pelosi, or immortal robots like the Ruth Bader-Ginsbot™ 3000.
Thankfully, we live in a world where things die and the world moves on – just like a cell in a human body ceases to exist so new cells can take over. We have a name for immortal cells – cancer. Just like cells pass away, so do we to leave this world to the youth. I didn’t say death is “good” – just that it serves a purpose.
Okay, this is one boy who loved his mother.
Part of that purpose is focusing us on the here and now: in this way we don’t lose sight that life is precious and fleeting, like sedation dentistry. Perhaps the most precious thing we have is the shared time with those who have meaning to us (like your friendly blogger). But for those who have left us, honor them with the virtue that they helped you obtain. Be glad you had a part of their life, and had a chance to witness their virtue and learn from their vices. Look at how they have changed you, made you better so that they live on through their influence on you.
Lastly, for heaven’s sake, write something down. It’s the only way that someone can know your mind when you’re gone, unless they check your browser history.
Oh, man, you had me going for a moment with the LL postage stamp.
Why do we have a Harvey Milk stamp, but not a Lazarus Long one?
Because in 200 years, people will still remember Lazarus Long?
Here I was reading merrily along when I came across your idea that learning for its own sake could be a vice. Everyone of my brain cells cramped and I could read no further. Now the idea is stuck in my head and won’t leave short of a brain wipe (you know, like with a cloth [sorry, I couldn’t resist]). Seriously, how did you and your friend come to this conclusion? If I neglected all my obligations to family, work, and community to do nothing but read and study, then yes, I can see how my learning could be considered a vice. But the fault is mine, not learning itself. Help me here please. BTW, love the blog.
It took me the same way when he mentioned it to me!
The basics of the argument are that any act we take that doesn’t serve a purpose for God or our fellow men (remember, he’s a priest) isn’t wrong, per se. But (like he and I and you and Steve) if repeated too often and to the exclusion of other things, it’s a vice. Not a horrible one: it’s not like murder or not finishing all your french fries.
And, yes, one I participate in willingly.
It took me the same way when he mentioned it to me!
The basics of the argument are that any act we take that doesn’t serve a purpose for God or our fellow men (remember, he’s a priest) isn’t wrong, per se. But (like he and I and you and Steve) if repeated too often and to the exclusion of other things, it’s a vice. Not a horrible one: it’s not like murder or not finishing all your french fries.
And, yes, one I participate in willingly.
And thank you for the kind complement!!!
Just a quick counter argument as it’s late and I’m tired…
Learning something is like entering a deep, unexplored forest: you don’t know what’s going to happen as a result. So the implication that you can “know” ahead of time whether what you are learning will serve your God or fellow man is impossible to assess, so it has no meaning.
Have a great week! Beware the Ides of March.
Indeed! And you as well. I do buy that argument 100% – you never know what information will make you useful. McGyver, anyone?
I agree with Stacey.
“Learning for learning’s sake” is, in my view, impossible. If learning could leave you completely untouched, unaltered, and unchanged, then perhaps “Learning for learning’s sake” could be considered at times, a vice. But it’s not a zero-sum proposition: learning ALWAYS changes you.
Years ago I spent two years taking a night class at the small college where I worked learning New Testament Greek. It had no benefit to me or my career at the time, I just wanted to learn it. But now, I see many words and can often recognize if they have Greek roots, which can suggest other words and lines of thought. I never expected that to happen from learning a form of ancient Greek. It changed my brain in ways I never thought it would. Next up: Latin, or Old English.
I don’t even think one can argue that learning bad things (like how to torture, or poison, or nuclear weapons) is a vice because it’s not the knowing that’s bad, it’s the morality that suggests it might be fun to use that knowledge poorly.
Thought provoking post, as usual.
As noted, the argument is above – not a horrible vice. And I will note that I have learned things that, as S.T. Coleridge wrote, made me “a sad but wiser man.”
Death gives us a chance to bury the frictions, grudges and animus that seems inevitable in everyday interactions. Some cultures exploit this advantage and move on. Others nurture their victimhood status and stay stuck. Serbs and Bosnians were killing each other over “wrongs” that occurred three hundred years ago. African-American race hustlers are flogging the idea of reparations for events that occurred nearly two hundred years ago.
One of my best features is a short memory about how people have wronged me. Just burns a lot of anger that doesn’t do me any good except it does keep me warm in winter!