Horse 3529 - Eudaimonia - Element XX - Enjoy

The problem with humans living firstly in the twentieth century and then the twenty first century, is that we can pretty well get everything we need all the time. The number of people living in extreme poverty where absolutely basic things like food, shelter, and clothing, aren't being met, has fallen to the point where now this purely exists as an allocation issue. This isn't to say that people aren't starving in the world but the reason that they are starving is not caused by lack of food, rather if there was the political and economic will it would literally disappear within a month.

The other side of this is that we live in a world which can now provide constant excess of the basics, to the point where there are diseases caused by that excess.

Perhaps the most visible diseases caused by that excess is Obesity which is the outward manifestation of the excess of food. Various diseases like lung cancer, liver failure, and other organ damage are the manifestation of the excess of alcohol, cigarettes, and other drugs. I would even argue that on a societal level, the fact that we now have entire generations locked out of home ownership, is the manifestation of the excess of capital and power being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.

The traditional viewpoint is that the vice which describes this is gluttony; which is caused by overconsumption. While that might very well describe the vice, the corresponding virtue of temperance and/or moderation, seeks only to modify the behaviour and I don't think actually addresses the underlying problem contained within the human soul. 

As I have suggested on a number of occasions in this series, the centre of the universe is 19mm behind people's corneas. People are not only the centre of their own perception but with constant reinforcement, they are also the hero of their own story. The beast that shouts "I" at the heart of the world, with unlimited unlimited wants, wants everything all of the time. The consequences of trying to feed unlimited unlimited wants all of the time, are described above. If the answer is not necessarily trying to cut off all desire because that seems from the outset to be actually impossible, then what is to be done about this?

As someone who works in an environment where everyone is paid more than I am, what is really apparent is that they aren't any happier than I am, despite and maybe even because of the fact that they are being paid more. Too much is never enough; which seems to be a maxim irrespective of what the field of play happens to be.

What is also strangely apparent is that not even the quality of whatever the thing in question appears to be enough. If it isn't more that people want, then it is a higher and higher quality of stuff that people want. This is why in principle that conspicuous consumption of Veblen Goods, is readily explainable even in the face of logic.

Anecdote is not evidence and I am but one data point but as someone who can eat a cheese and devon sandwich with mayo for lunch, and be more satisfied with my lunch than someone who spends more in a day than I spend in a fortnight, then this suggests that something else is going on.

In the greater scheme of work, I have been driven to despair this year. Mere sadness can sometimes be a useful prompt to lead someone to fix the situation but despair is the more profound realisation that no action will make a difference. Given this, what is one to do in the face of this?

The two things which I appear to have any control over at work, and over which I have any control are when I arrive and the attitude about the situation which I control. Of the former, if I arrive before anyone else, I gain peace and quiet in the space; of the latter, control requires a conscious effort and choice.

Here's the fun realisation. You can choose to enjoy anything. 

I think that the single most glorious thing that exists for lunch, is a grilled cheese sandwich with hochi sauce. There's nothing particularly glamourous or difficult about it but it is nice. 

There is nothing as magical as particular cups of tea, which are just absolutely perfect; seemingly for no reason at all. 

I like my Mazda 2, which is not an expensive car and neither is it a big one. It is fun to drive and I do like to just pootle about in it, even if it is just going to the shops. 

I like mornings where nothing in particular happens, and I can just sit in the sunshine while the washing machine is doing its business.

I mention those things because I think that there is a quiet glory in the mundane. This is not necessarily a defence of simplicity, but it is a suggestion that always wanting more and always wanting better is a fool's errand, which doesn't actually lead to any more happiness.

The Greek philosopher Epicurus once suggested that what he needed for happiness was a jug of wine, a small pot of cheese, and four friends. In this respect, the art of frugal hedonism comes close to the actual concept of this post in that by not chasing after luxury or excess, it gives you a better ability to fully appreciate the simple, beautiful moments around you every day.

The final piece of this particular puzzle is the very point of this post. What happens if life is hard, or lonely, or difficult, or if people are stupid obnoxious and daft? What then? What can you do if this is the case? 

Enjoying things, is actually a choice. It is actually a choice to decide to really enjoy that cup of tea, or to find small pleasures in work, or to enjoy the warmth of the sunshine, or as Epicurus suggests the philos of friends and family, or the calm before the world turns to horridness. It is a choice to choose that enough is enough, or that something simple is beautiful. 

If you want to take this as a command, then do so. Choose to Enjoy things.

Horse 3528 - Eudaimonia - Element XIX - Detachment

There is a skate clothing brand called SMP, which has never stated what the acronym stands for and has been deliberately left undefined. Depending on what the marketing department wanted to do at the time, SMP in various as campaigns has stood for: Skate More Parks, Surf More Pipes, So Much Possibilities, and particularly useful for the purposes of this post Sex Money Power.

That last set of things which the acronym could stand for, are the three things that we would usually associate with what was classically known as the vice of Luxuria or in English is known as Lust. Lust for more Sex, lust for more money, and lust for more power, are generally seen as destructive.

What is curious is that over the centuries, the word Luxuria has become more associated with the concept of luxury and has been decoupled from the notion of moral hazard. On the other hand, Lust generally has narrowed in definition to the point where people's first thought about the word is almost always of a sexual nature and the other perfectly valid uses of the word require qualifiers.

In the first instance it would seem that the antivice would be things like chastity, poverty, and submission. However, while these might address the actions of the moral hazard, they do not of themselves address the underlying motivation of the individual generating them. 

Probably the best word to describe this set of animal urges, physical desires, and material craving, is either Epithumia which mostly is concerned with how the appetitive parts of someone's nature are connected to the soul. This is the part of the soul constantly yelling and demanding the "Yummy, Yummy" thing with no regard for the context or the consequence, either with respect to the individual or anyone else.

In relation to unlimited unlimited wants, this is where a line is crossed into unlimited unlimited unsatisfiable wants; and where the gratification of those wants eventually consumes the individual.

The end of literally all desires in response to this is likely impossible. Wants and especially wants tied to needs such as food, shelter, clothing, warmth, love, peace, calm, et cetera, will always continue to exist as the individual continues to exist.

When all else fails, an interrogation of the wants and needs, must invariably lead one to the conclusion that the satisfaction of those needs and wants must fall short. When it comes to the falling short of wants that perhaps were destructive, or unrealistic in the first place, then it is good to ask "why?" of those wants. 

Humans are limited beings in time, space, ability, and power. The answer to that question of "why?" in relation to why wants those things, is perhaps best met with Detachment and a deliberate choice to let go of those expectations or desires, especially in relation to the unlimited unlimited unsatisfiable wants of sex, money, power, et cetera. 

Since Luxuria and Epithumia are tied to the cultivation of the inner life, then the integration and detachment of one's self is very likely to lead to inner freedom and peace, because if you're not carrying the burden of expectations they can not weigh you down.

Horse 3527 - Eudaimonia - Element XVIII - Generosity

There is a legend which relates to the invention of the number zero, which probably isn't true but inadvertently demonstrates something interesting.

To wit:

A man was arguing with a trader in a marketplace, over the price of spices and they came to a disagreement.

"None of these numbers are amounts that I want to pay," he said to himself.

So he considered all of the numbers and drew a circle in the dust.

"Inside this circle is nothing. This is the amount that I want to pay. I shall call it jeero."

I am not ashamed of sporking this story for a different purpose than intended because although it speaks about the invention of a 0 as a mathematical concept, it also touches on that most base of human desires to want things at no cost to themselves.

Every Economics 1A class will begin with the starting premise that economics tends to describe satisfying unlimited wants with limited resources and that markets are just an allocation mechanism in achieving that. Very rarely is the notion of unlimited wants examined itself. The curious thing about those unlimited wants, is that they are unlimited in being unlimited.

The problem with unlimited unlimited wants is that they are by nature insatiable. It is literally impossible to multiply all the zeroes in the universe and even get to one. 

The Greeks called this "pleonexia". The Romans called it "avaritia". The English word "greed" is derived from the West Saxon word "grædig" which just means "hungry".

Hunger is fine. As a signal that someone hasn't eaten anything in a while, it is useful. As an insatiable desire for material gain, be it food, money, land, animate or inanimate possessions, defined by unlimited unlimited wants, it is destructive.

Unlimited unlimited wants, which almost by definition includes more than one's rightful share, can only come at the expense of others. Unlimited unlimited wants for material things, or social status, or power, at the expense of others in the community, invariably comes with the degradation of those others in the community.

Here's the rub. If you don't actually care about those others, nor care that they are paying that expense, nor care about their degradation, then that's a perfectly acceptable price. For you, it is the price of zero, which is the amount that you want to pay.

Classical Buddhism would suggest that the proper way to stop being dissatisfied with the perpetual grasping for things, is to learn to live peacefully with the skilful desires while letting go of the unproductive ones. That all sounds fine and dandy if you want to pursue a path of asceticism but how practical is it?

There is value in learning to be content with what you have but again, while this is a practice that can be cultivated, as a human where the centre of the observable universe is 19mm behind our corneas, that is easier said than done.

It should be obvious to anyone who has lived for more than 24 hours, that humans as limited animated creatures, have basic needs for things like food, clothing, shelter, and more abstract needs for things like purpose, meaning, community, and love, and that the edges between needs and wants are very blurry indeed. I would argue that it isn't any kind of moral hazard to want to have your needs met, nor necessarily to want nice things.

Everything mentioned thus far looks purely at trying to satisfy an individual's unlimited unlimited wants. However, if you open your eyes just a little bit, there just happen to be other people in the world, who also live complex lives and who by virtue of being human, are worthy of dignity and having things being given to them.

Generosity suggests that not only is the other worthy of dignity and having things being given to them, but that it should come at our expense.

If we boil everything down to pure economics, then literally everything worth anything comes down to how much people want the thing at a price and how much someone else is willing to supply that thing at a price. Irrespective of whether the underlying motivation is one of greed or generosity, someone somewhere is paying. 

You can of course see this in the current discourse surrounding Capital Gains Tax proposals, and the almost malevolent opposition to any kind of removal of advantage for people who already own capital and property. People who own these their are definitely not generous, especially when someone else is paying for their advantage by way of rent. The idea that there should be public housing to meet people's needs is anathema to these people. Society repeatedly chooses to not see others as actually worth enough to meet the expense of basic dignity.

Across the OECD, total charitable giving amounts to no more than about 2% even if you choose to allow for tax distortions by including donations to churches and religious organisations which is almost unique to the United States. By demonstration, people just aren't generous. By way of comparison, the broader U.S. food sector represents roughly 6% of GDP and snacks account for about a third of that; which means that charity and snacks are actually valued about the same in economic terms.

In economic terms, we don't really believe that our fellow humans are actually worthy of dignity and having things being given to them; as much as we believe that our immediate need for snacks is important.

Generosity it would seem is reasonably rare. It is so rare that it accounts for one fiftieth of people's actual accounting. The unbelievable truth hidden in plain sight is that if people actually were generous and demonstrated civic philos, the world would change very radically and very quickly. 

But it doesn't and it won't.

Horse 3526 - Eudaimonia - Element XVII - Humility

It seems to me that the vast majority of people when questioned if they think that they are a "good person" will answer in the affirmative. The reason for this is at least twofold as it rests on the twin pillars of the fact that humans must invariably be the centre of their own perception of the universe, coupled with the fact that good self-esteem is basis of how one determines their own overall sense of personal worth and value.

However, a thing judged against a self derived yardstick, especially when motivated to determine a favourable judgement unilaterally, doesn't seem to me to be either objective or reliable. In fact, so egocentric are humans, that if someone comes to the conclusion that they are a "bad person" then the rest of us might conclude that they are somehow faulty and have low self-esteem, even though by an external yardstick that judgement might actually be perfectly honest.

It seems therefore just and reasonable to me that if superbia and hubris are generally marked as vices, then the antivice is going to be the active cultivation of an accurate recognition of one's place in relation to others. 

This actually leads one to a strange conclusion. The logical antivice for Superbia is probably some kind of self degradation. 

The word "humility" itself is derived from the Roman word "humilitas", which relates to being close to the ground or the earth. This was not anything remotely desirable, as for classical philosophers like Aristotle or Plato, this definitely carries a sense of lowness and a lack of social standing. This is a place of failure and debasement; which the Greek at first and then the Romans, would have very much blamed the individual for bringing upon themselves.

The whole idea that humility might be an antivice or perhaps even a virtue, is absolutely not something which the Greeks or Romans would have accepted.

However, an accurate reckoning of the value of one's self, might actually bestow one with a sense of quiet confidence. I might not necessarily be the best at X but I can do M, N, P, and Q, with some degree of competence.

What I find slightly disturbing is that the people who are actually best at putting the needs of others, either singularly or in community, ahead of their own personal recognition, are often the most neglected by others and the community at large. The question of who cares for the carer, is the forgotten question when someone properly cultivates and demonstrates a sense of humility.

Superbia is big and brash and loud but its antivice which tends to be small and measured and quiet, actually has a bigger impact when it is removed. People often whoop for joy when a person who operates with superbia is gone, but they won't necessarily notice when someone who has developed a streak of humility has gone. What they will notice is when the systems being held up by those people start to strain and/or break.

Superbia also happens to come with costs. Maintaining one's fame, or reputation, is expensively draining upon the individual who has to constantly keep face. Perhaps one of the most humble aspects of humility is the fact that not actually having to care about constantly comparing one's self to others in order to establish that sense of self worth, is actually a quiet state of freedom. Someone who is able to genuinely not care about what others think, doesn't have to expend the emotional currency of caring in the first place. Admittedly that does come with the secondary expense of often being treated badly by those people for who superbia is modus operandi.

Probably one of the strangest paradoxes about this antivice is that someone who is actually able to cultivate that sense of not caring about what others think, is also able to eliminate what they think about themselves. A person walking in genuine humility will not be thinking about trying to be humble. If someone is excellent in the task of putting the needs of others, either singularly or in community, above their own, they have no need to demand glory or recognition because in not care about what others think about them or thinking about trying to display humility, they end up not thinking about themselves at all.

Horse 3207 - Eudaimonia - Why Bother?

I encountered a question recently which has stuck in my craw and will not come out. It is a question so incredibly irritating that it simply refuses to go away unless attempts are made to answer it. It also dove-tails nice into those series of posts which Horse has previously written about that grand question of Eudaimonia. Simply put, that question is:

"Why be good?"

I love the elegance of this question. In just three words it takes a sledgehammer to the egg that lies at the very heart of the issue. This is the beauty of "why" on full display. 

I think that we can all agree that a theoretical reasonable person, our Billy Brown from Sydney Town or Jilly Mavis from Brisvegas, will be carrying around in their heads some basic imprint of the underlying planks of common law. Don't kill people. Don't steal from people. Don't hit people. Invariably this will be then backed up by some variant of "the golden rule" which is "Do to others as you would have them do to you" or, "do not to others what you do not wish to have done to you." Variants of this exist across a whole host of cultures, religions, and law systems, and this can even be found in the  Code of Hammurabi. However just because this is practically universal and reasonably reasonable, does not make this so.

The Golden Rule I think implies that cultures, law systems, and religions, have all reasonably agreed that some kind of reasonable standard of universal justice exists. However, I still do not think that even The Golden Rule arrives at answering the question of why anyone should be good. The Golden Rule and justice itself can only last as long and as far as there is some authority big enough and powerful enough to enforce it. All forms of justice, be they restorative, retributive, or equitable, still rely upon that very brittle plank of "fairness" and immediately we run into a problem.

"Fairness" although a useful overlay from which to explain the word, is ultimately bunk. The reason for this is that humans are very much not impartial players in the game. Every one of us, has as the centre of the observable universe, a point which is roughly 19mm behind our corneas. When you then attach a personality, a mind, a soul, whatever, to observe and explain the kosmos from that centre of the observable universe, "fairness" devolves into a mere extension of relative selfishness. Considering that what is fair and just is always coloured by that viewpoint, it is a truly awful standard. Remember, 'tragedy' is when I cut my finger whereas 'comedy' is when you fall into an open pit and die.

If even the most readily agreeable rule immediately crumbles upon inspection, then it has to be thrown out. What if you inspect the authority by which cultures, law systems, and religions, assume to derive their reasonableness from. Again we have a problem. When you have self-interested  cultures, and law systems, even the destruction of people who are not you, can be made acceptable. Granted that you may have to invent some convenient cultural assumption or legal fiction or religious reason to enable that to happen, but if the underlying basis of the authority to determine what is and is not fair, just, or good, it itself not fair, just, or good, then even the plank of authority is itself bunk.

If we then interrogate that central authority which lies at the centre of the universe, a universe with no god has no inherent reason for being good, and a universe with one central all-powerful god also has no inherent reason for being good. Why should they? If you are that central all-powerful god then literally everything in the universe is answerable to you. Anyone and anything that questions your authority can be arbitrarily destroyed for the simple reason that might makes right. To be honest, I find the reason to be good because god is good, to be faulty because all this does is shift the question back to an already crumbled plank of authority, which is itself bunk.

Consistently, the question of "Why be good?" under those circumstances falls back to the opinion and choice of someone. History is littered with cases where cultures, religions, and law systems, have had to choose that other people have inherent dignity and are worthy as being accepted as objects to be good to. Questions of storge, agape, eros and philos, including civic philos are all dependent on a choice which has been made by someone and especially in the case of civic philos where the state has been forced to make that choice because people have demanded it for a very long time. However, the question of "Why be good?" when it is dependent on choice, fails to be answered. Whilst someone may choose that the other is a worthy object to be good to, it still does not adequately arrive at answering of "Why be good?" in the first place.

If I have brushed aside The Golden Rule, the concepts of fairness and justice, and even seemingly explained that goodness is not necessarily dependent on authority itself, then what's left? It seems to me that the answer to the question of "Why be good?" is that it is good to be good. It is good to do good. Goodness is its own end. The telos of goodness is goodness. The kosmos has no problem with atomic concepts like this which are indivisible. Existence exists. 1=1. 

It is as if the kosmos actually does contain a priori elements, that there are unmovable movers, that there really can not be turtles all the way down. The fun thing is that my conclusion which is reasonably possibly wrong, because just like our theoretical reasonable persons of Billy Brown from Sydney Town or Jilly Mavis from Brisvegas, who carry around basic imprints of how the kosmos works in their heads does not make this so, was also arrived at a long time ago:

But goodness, since it has the aspect of desirable, implies the idea of a final cause, the causality of which is first among causes, since an agent does not act except for some end; and by an agent matter is moved to its form. Hence the end is called the cause of causes. Thus goodness, as a cause, is prior to being, as is the end to the form. 

- Summa Theologica, Prima Secundae, Thomas Aquinas (1274)

Since as a reasonable actor, I can only come to a reasonable conclusion, then I think that it is reasonably reasonable that the the question of "Why be good?" is answered "because it is good to be good and that is the end to itself", is itself good enough.

Horse 3180 - Eudaimonia - Element XVI - Protect

When we think about the great heroes of the world, who do we think of? Perhaps we think of some powerful warrior who fights valiantly in battle, or someone who tirelessly fights for some cause to make the lives of the vulnerable better, or perhaps a parent who fights to keep their family safe. In all three examples we have someone who has been given the responsibility and burden of caring for someone less powerful and bearing up underneath that responsibility. The warrior, the champion, and the parent, all display that quality which was known in Greek as the exercise of the quality of stegos (στέγωσ); which means bears under or protect. 

The only place that I can think of where the word Stegos exists in English is the name of the dinosaur "stegosaurus". I have no idea if the name stegosaurus means "protected lizard" or "armored lizard" but given that stegos in Greek means to bear underneath some burden, or protect that which is precious and which is still kind of a burden, and the stegosaurus has plates of armor for its protection, then it would not surprise me.

We likely have a very noble idea of the warrior, the champion, or the parent, and rightly so, because in taking on such a role they have displayed a willingness to also bear underneath personal expense. It might cost a warrior their life to fight for the nation. It might cost the champion who fights for a cause, comfort, time, and considerable effort. Anyone who has been a parent must also concede that it costs many many sleepless nights and quite literally a small fortune to raise a family. Reasonable estimates put the total expenditure at raising a child to the age of majority, at something in the order of a third of a million dollars. 

For all the nobility that this sense of stegos might imply, it absolutely requires that there be a thing or more importantly a person, which is worth protecting. The noble qualities of the warrior, the champion, or the parent, are obvious. The inherent value of the thing, person, or people being protected, might very well not be. Worse, through reasons of xenophobia, which expresses itself in things like racism, ableism, classism, nationalism, et ceteral; the vulnerable person are themselves, more likely to be the objects of violence or harm by others. We may even question the quality of the thing being protected and wonder why they bother.

In the case of warrior, the thing that they think which is worthy of protection, is the nation. However that nation is comprised, the warrior thinks that the continued existence of the collective and the way of life, is preserved. When we send warriors off to fight, they do so on behalf of everyone back home and in return, the are absolved from what would normally be considered a crime because the act of war itself, on behalf of the collective of the nation, can overlook the killing of other people.

In the case of the champion of a cause, the thing that they think which is worthy of protection, is either an idea which they want to see enacted, or the eradication of some disease, or the elimination of things like racism, ableism, poverty, homelessness et cetera. The objects of their cause, is mostly the betterment of people who are unable to overcome the difficulty that they face without help.

In the case of the parent, the thing that they think which is worthy of protection, is far more immediate. There may even be a strange sense of nobility in a parent doing things at great personal expense, including setting aside their own comfort and happiness, for the happiness of their children.

That thing or person that the warrior, champion, or parent thinks is worth protecting, can only come from a well of philos or what we would consider love for that other person or thing. The idea of stegos then takes that root of civic or familial philos and then intends to act upon on it. In putting that philos into concrete action, it watches, watches over, and watches out for the loved one. It does so in the face of difficulty and even in the shortcomings or faults in the loved one. It doesn't even expect to recieve reciprocal or mutual benefit because often, that is impossible. The nation can not repay the warrior. A parent does not expect payment from a child. People who benefit from the results of fighting the cause, often have no idea who the champion was. The art of giving without receiving anything back at all, not even the recognition of effort, describes stegos well.

Of course in the act of trying to protect the one who needs protection, this doesn’t excusing wrongdoing or seek to evade the natural consequences of knavery on their part. There may be the more expensive act of forgiveness and/or learning to live with the consequences (and this has been covered previously in this series of posts) but it means to strengthen what is weak, shield what is vulnerable, and forgive what is provoking.

How does the idea of stegos connect with the overarching concept of eudemonia which this series of posts has been about? Because ultimately I do not think that any kind of eudemonia, can come from any other place except from an active philos of one's self, family, community, and nation. I think that it's almost fair to say that everything that is bad that happens in the kosmos, comes as a result of accident, stupidity, or cruelty. Accident which includes the environment acting, is mostly blameless. Stupidity is the result of people's poor decisions and blunders. Cruelty exists because people actively want to rail against philos. Granted there are instances where competing views of justice might rise up against each other, but cruelty which refuses to see others as human and inherently valuable, is all far too common. Protecting that which is valuable, against the ravages of the kosmos, is what stegos intends to do.

Horse 3178 - Eudaimonia - Element XV - Believe

I have mentioned a lot in this series of posts about one of the central planks upon which I have constructed this house. That is the idea, which I think is self-evident, that every single person is the centre of their own observable universe. As such, I think that it reasonably follows that as everyone only occupies only one viewpoint of the kosmos ever, then this has a tendency to produce universal selfishness in people. 

Political economist Adam Smith started out his "Theory Of Moral Sentiment" in 1759, with selfishness as the base assumption upon which he derived his theory of sentiment and ultimately of commerce/economics, and I think partially incorrectly that people are rational actors who are trying to maximise their happiness and utility of choices. I am just not convinced that people are generally rational and are very subject to a sense of animus; being blown about by the winds of emotion, also dependent on how hungry, lonely, cold, et cetera, they are. Humans are somewhat irrational machines, wrapped in meat.

Nevertheless even as somewhat irrational machines, wrapped in meat, humans have some pretty noble base desires. Apart from the obvious such as air, water, food, and clothing (just like a motor car which needs spark, air, and petrol), humans have a need to know and be known, to be validated, and to be believed.

Plato has a lovely word which he likes to use, which he thinks is necessary for the proper running of society because he not only noticed that people need to be heard but that they need to be believed. The word πιστεύει (pisteuei) is both like a sense that I believe in something, I have faith in something, I trust in something; and I am entrusted with something, I have been given something, or I am persuaded by something. Being believed and being persuaded, are less like transactional elements and more like two people holding ends of a rope and pulling and allowing to be pulled back and forth constantly. People who live in community are bound to each other by invisible cords, that form a network and a web. Just like a spider's web, it is fragile.

I have touched on this previously but the Roman concept of Fidus, or something approaching hope, is the expectation that a thing will do what it says that it will do. In a modern context, money is said to be fiduciary because when we show up at a shop, we expect it to be useful to be able to buy goods and services. If I hand over two dollars, I expect that the idea that I have given you transferrable value, will be good enough such that I can walk out of your shop with a banana and we both think that this was a fair transaction. For instance Money works because we all collectively believe that our money is good and acceptable by someone else. The second that we all stop believing that it is, what we've done is create a loss of confidence in money, possibly a run on the banks.

Pisteuei is more than just a simple sense of Fidus. Believing other people and being persuaded by them, is necessary if we are to accept anything as truth, and especially what other people think and hold to be true. 

Here's the problem. As somewhat irrational machines, wrapped in meat, humans are by nature unreliable narrators. Not only are they small and only see the world from one spot, which means that they can not possibly hold all the world's information at once, but as selfish self-interested irrational machines, wrapped in meat, humans also see the world as it applies to them. People's innate selfishness can on occasion, very much cloud how they see the world; which means that it is possible to be both accidentally and perhaps worse, selfishly wrong.

But what happens if you don't believe people? People who are not believed, come to the rational or irrational conclusion that they will not be heard. People who are not heard might very well have information and/or experience which is not only mission critical but may also demand other moral action. Denial of justice, especially when there have been crimes against the person, including of the most intimate nature, are allowed to perperuate because people are not believed. The kosmos is already an unfair place, made up of people who are selfish, stupid, obnoxious and cruel; to have this not only confimed but then shown by action of those same people that the kosmos is unfair, renders people without hope. Take away people's hope, take away their sense of validation, take away justice; and what you produce are people whose lives are inclined towards destruction of both themselves, their immediate families and the world at large.

Even though people can be liars, or unreliable narrators, if it is not immediate that they are not telling the truth, they should be believed. Sometimes their narration must be taken with a grain of salt, however in general people are objectively too simple to be able to construct broad sweeping and complex narratives. Remember, even in criminal cases, most criminals are not masterminds but really dumb and/or desperate; which is not only why they got caught but explains their motives as well. Pulling back the pointing fingers of blame though, people might want to portray themselves in the best possible light and may be economical with the truth. 

What do you do with that? Why in principle should you believe people who you know are unreliable narrators? Because you are also an unreliable narrator. Why should any believe you?

I think that we can take it from our own internal experience and apply it to everyone else, that everyone is doing the best that they can with the resources they have. Or if they are not doing the best that they can, then they might be very well trying just to get by. This is going to sound really stupid but in a kosmos that constantly demands from us to do more and to be better, then standing up and yelling  "I’m doing the best that I can!" in the face of the kosmos, looks more like frustration in an indifferent place.

Can you be okay with what people have? Can you be okay with people's limits? People live within a tension that their current need for familiarity and security, make it difficult to change things.

What do you do with that? People need to be believed, despite and in spite of their unreliability of nature because they are doing the best that they can with the immediate circumstances and resources available to them. Believing that we are all doing the best that we can do, opens our hearts to the production of kindness and compassion and most importantly, it allows us to see each other, even with all the flaws and faults that we have, as humans, who are valuable.

Horse 3174 - Eudaimonia - Element XIV - Humility

When I were a wee lad in school, the thing that was all the rage was the idea that kids needed "self-esteem". I remember a lot of lectures in class about self-esteem this and self-esteem that; because the teachers were worried that if the kids didn't have self-esteem, we'd all go off and join a gang. I do not know what kind of gangs that they imagined rolling around suburbia in the 1980s and 1990s but I am sure that having self-esteem would not have addressed the issues of racism, classism, bullying, and straight up nastiness exhibited when the rule of the schoolyard is in force.

In the Christianisation period of the Roman Empire when the Roman religion was being re-synthesised by the church, a fashionable thing to do was to make lists of everything (always with the lists) and one of those lists was the Seven Deadly Sins. It is not by accident that one of the seven deadly sins is Superbia, or what might be called "Pride".

I mention these two things because I simply do not know if a lack of self-esteem is the exact inverse of Superbia on the other. Conceivably I can think of circumstances were one should take pride in what they have achieved and what they have built because it is good and proper to do so. Superbia is listed as one of the seven deadly sins, and I am sure that if you asked people that they would agree that one of the worst traits a human can have is that of pride; but because of the consequences that that has. 

Perhaps the attendants of Superbia as King of the Kingdom of One, are useful at arriving at where a sensible middle is. Superbia's twin sons of Vainglory and Arrogance, seek to direct accolades, glory and praise, to someone who perhaps is not inherently deserving of it. Maybe the answer is purely to ignore the attendants, because whatever crown that Superbia has can not shine in the absence of a light being shone upon in. In short, it might very well be acceptable to be proud of yourself but not to the point of conceit.

However, if the light is shone outwards, then what we arrive at is an idea approaching humility. Humility is not about thinking less of one's self, but of thinking about one's self less. If we can invent some kind of general principle here, then the general idea would be to have a modest opinion of one’s self (not a low opinion) in order to better understand the kosmos. The two word motto "know thyself" seems to also apply to valuing one's self. I suspect that in turn, this will open our eyes and hearts to developing empathy towards other people as well. 

Humility insofar as it is neither Vainglory and Arrogance, is also not self-denigration. Humility teaches us that not only are our neighbours are no less valuable than we are but that we are no less valuable than our neighbours. Instead of the empty rhetoric that all people are created equal, Humility teaches us that all humans are indeed equal and valuable; including ourselves. In looking past our superiority and self-importance, we may perhaps find something greater than ourselves and in the process realise that we are not as pathetic as we thought.

Surely one of the most excellent ways to practice humility is to let other people speak. People have a need for validation and recognition, as well as having their concerns and complaints heard and listened to. It find it no coincidence at all that the political process that the referendum will be heading towards as a result of the series of dialogues with produced the Uluru Statement From The Heart, is called the "Voice". I also find it no coincidence at all that the biggest opponents to the Voice, want to claim that because we are all "equal" that the concerns and complaints  of first peoples should not heard and listened to and nothing should be done.

Letting others speak is important but by the same token, I also do not think that we should demand from people to tell us things that they might not be comfortable with. Some things are just none of our business and duty of care aside, we should not pry into the affairs of other people; especially if we are deliberately looking for something to beat them into the ground with later. Humility does not demand what it is not entitled to. 

Speaking as the perpetual pessimist, I expect things to go wrong. Although having said this, when things go right, I am very happy. It is important to accept being disappointed because if we do not, Vainglory and Arrogance will attend quickly and demand that we get our fair share. The uncomfortable truth is that we have all made mistakes that have either affected ourselves or others in our lives. There is no reason or sense to judge someone else for their mistakes. One should try to apologise for one's mistakes, correct the issue if possible, and be very quick to forgive others. How many times should you forgive someone? As many times as it takes for grace to be extended and to make someone better.

It is also worth remembering that it is perfectly okay if people do not like you. We can not demand the friendship of others, any more than we can demand that a Granny Smith Apple should turn itself red. It is just entirely possible that owing to personality differences, that other people will find you grating and difficult. By the same token, one should try to be polite and grateful because clinking along together underpins a lot of the mechanical actions of civil society. This might also involve complementing other people, which may involve paying attention to people more attentively.

One of the things that I am extremely disappointed in which has occurred especially over the past 10 years, is how the idea of "virtue signalling" has come to be demonised. Virtue should be signalled. Virtue should be practiced. Virtue should be modelled. Instead what we've seen are Superbia's attendants of Vainglory and Arrogance writ large; at the centre of public policy and politics, which has resulted in people seeing their neighbours as less valuable as themselves. If Humility was a public practice, the world would change very quickly. Of course, all of this is very easy to say but much hard to do, when you are literally the centre of your own universe.

Horse 3171 - Eudaimonia - Element XIII - Vidiosus

There is a concept in Seneca's 'Epistulae Morales' (the Moral Letters) which is hinted at, which happens as the result of the citizens of the ideal city living in disharmony with each other; the word in this case is "invidiosus". The word in opposition to "invidiosus" that Seneca uses is "Vita" but this hardly makes much sense. Seneca is probably trying to nail down the Greek idea of Zoe but as applied to an interconnected group of people have no sensible way of articulating this other than to say what is in opposition to it and then trying to reverse engineer the concept. My problem is that the Latin word "Vita" comes out very closely to to the English word "Life" and variations on the word "Vita" exist in modern Romance Languages. 

The thing "Death" is the end of life. Death is the state when Grimaldi Reaper, aka the Destroying Angel, comes to collect the debt demanded by the kosmos' nastiest legal firm Hades, Sheol and Abaddon. Hades in particular has two very hungry daughters called "More" and "More" (very confusing) and feeding time is all the time. Death is not the thing in opposition to Seneca's Vita.

I would like to suggest that the thing in opposition to Vita in the here and now is not death but Envy. Remember, humans are innately selfish being who exist at the centre of their own observable universe; a poison to happiness is not just selfishness but selfishness that wants what other people have. What could be more pathetic and sad than a soul that can not be satisfied? A heart that wants and wants and wants and gets what it wants but still isn't satisfied, is to be pitied; especially when it looks to what others have.

At its worst, Envy is a raging feeling of discontent or covetousness with regard to another's advantages, success, possessions, et cetera. Envy is ultimately derived from the Latin word "invidiosus" which implies something which causes offence, is meant create offence, or worse is positively calcualted and conniving to create ill will or resentment. Envy as that discontent or covetousness with regard to another's advantages, success, possessions, et cetera is then outworked to wish that that person did not have those things. Envy in action is to try to give offense, or hateful and invidious remarks, or perhaps act in an offensive, unfairly discriminating, or maybe even injurious way to that other person. Envy is the well-spring from which contempt bubbles up and ultimately renders the other person as object, rather than a person worthy of care and concern.

We have entire industries devoted to the fuelling of Envy. Advertisers want you to buy their products; so will actively try and create the spark of envy in you, to make you want the thing which they have and want to sell. Practically everything which is touted as a luxury good, is driven by pouring petrol on the spark and then fire of envy. Watches, Jewellery, Motor Cars, Real Estate, Fashion, Dinners, Food, Drink, et cetera et cetera et cetera; for what? Did the man who got everything he wanted really live happily ever after? 

This is where I have had to cheat in order to arrive at this element. How do you find the positive opposite to a negative concept, when the negative concept has an "in" or "un" prefix for a word that doesn't even look like it has an opposite? The opposite of 'defunct' is 'funct'? The opposite of 'unkempt' is 'kempt'? What happens if you have a concept where the opposite doesn't even seem like a thing? I have to assume the opposite of Envy, is going to be derived from the opposite of its Latin root 'invidiosus'; that leaves us with the word 'vidiosus'.

Vidiosus (if it exists) would actively celebrate the good fortune of others. Vidiosus cheers on from the sidelines when someone else succeeds. Vidiosus is happy when someone else succeeds, it smiles when someone else is acknowledged, it cheers when someone else wins the accolades, it will even look kindly when that someone else receives praise and attention. Is the opposite of a pencil line, an eraser? 

We kind of know about a collective sense of Vidiosus if the national sporting team wins, though I am not sure if this is a particularly helpful example. Someone competing on behalf of us means that we are in effect playing by proxy; which is where a source of national pride comes from. Perhaps a better example of Vidiosus in action, is the provision of public goods and services, such as education and health care. Vidiosus would cheer other people's children getting an education, or actively want to see people that we are in commonwealth with, be protected from injury and humility. This may even require giving up private competitive advantage to see the whole community prosper.

I suppose that practiced internally Vidiosus would be the elimination of one's own envy when looking at the world. The stoics might have something to teach us here. Epicurus, the guy who is usually associated with hedonism, said that what he needed to be happy was a pot of cheese, a jus of wine, and four friends. This looks more like hedonism achieved through the laying down of envy and being grateful for the simple things of life. Laying down envy might be one of the most difficult tasks of all, as this demands a selfish heart to deny itself and be unselfish. This is probably put into better perspective when one realises that the world is not only complex but deeply unfair because those with money and power can bend the rules and buy the means to bend the rules. If it is possible to lay down envy for the things they have and the opportunities they have, then even though life is unfair, it is still possible to be happy. The great salve of envy is gratitude for what one has and deciding that what one has and is, is sufficient.

Here's the problem. I think that it is actually impossible to eliminate the wants of the human heart. Hitting one's body with birch branches, or sitting under a tree until the elimination of desire arrives, I think is a fantasy. Seeing other people as people and wanting good things for them, wanting them to be happy, and not being envious of the stuff they've collected, or the accolades they've won, or maybe even the family and friends that they have, is the sign of a human heart which is emotionally secure and dare I say it, mature. Is the opposite of poison is not being poisoned? At best (which is still terrible), all I can come up with is that the opposite of envy is "not envy"; which I think looks exceedingly dumb as a word. If it is a word, then I would like the noun for "not envy" to be "Vidiosus".

Horse 3168 - Eudaimonia - Element XII - Perseverance

I think that the world has a very strange conception on what it thinks strength is. The reason why I think that it has this strange idea, is because people are selfish to the point where what is immediately in front of them is often the most impressive. 

The way we usually think about strength, mostly has to do with what is immediately displayed in front of us. The most obvious display of strength is raw power; that is: Who can exert the most force? Who can punch, swing a sword, pull things, lift things, et cetera, the hardest, the fastest? The strength of one person is not very much though. In antiquity horsepower was greater than manpower. From the industrial revolution onwards, we found a way to replace the horses with machines with many many times more power than one horse. We are currently in the process of replacing human brainpower with machine brainpower as well. When you talk about the strength of a person thought, while we may be impressed that someone can lift a heavy thing, or powerfully swing a club, we can all concede that it takes a very different kind of strength to stand up under hardship, under injustice, under cruelty, and under the meanness of other people.

Who are the strongest people in the world? Is it someone like Magnus Magnussen who can lift Atlas Stones? Or is it a mother who is awake at 3am because their child has the flu? Is it that kid in high school who is being bullied because they are the smallest, or not the accepted race of their immediate cohort, or who is late at passing through puberty? Is it a refugee who has fled chaos and is now waiting just to settle somewhere which might resemble normality and where they might be able to call home? Is it someone who must deal with an illness for which there will be no cure, or pain which will never be relieved? Is it someone who works at a mind-numbing spirit-sucking job who turns up every day, just to keep the lights on and pay their landlord who demands an even greater share of their meagre income? Who actually is the strongest person in the world when framed like that?

The kosmos is populated with people who are all each the centre of their own observable universe; which makes for a world with some pretty horrid side-effects on occasion. We all pretend to be the heroes on the good side; not realising that we are all the villains on the other. A kosmos populated by selfish people, means that they all think of themselves as the most important; which is hardly an objective starting point to determine who is on the good side or the bad side. Actually if you really want to reduce it down to atoms and elements, there is no-one on the good side.

Perhaps related to that point, is that every bad thing which happens in the world either happens through environmental accident, or human stupidity which leads to negligence or accident, or deliberate cruelty. If every bad thing happens due to accident, stupidity, and cruelty, and there are so many of us knaves in the world, then it follows that by the law of large numbers where we repeat the experiment lots and lots of times, that lots of bad things are going to happen and in a variety of interesting ways. 

I have my doubts that things can be reduced to a binary fight or flight response when badness or the nastiness of other people comes. Already there is an implied mismatch in power dynamics which says that one person is very much aware that they can lord it over the other and acts accordingly. We can basically assume that a flight response is either not an option or is not imagined by the person on the receiving end. Either the person on the receiving end backs down or shuts down, or fights back in some way. I suspect that Perseverance is related to some kind of fight response.

Given all of this, then there are a number of responses that people can prepare. Either you can complain, which in many cases is perfectly justified; or you can develop coping strategies, which may or may not be effective at mitigating the badness; or you can choose to persevere and keeping on carrying on.

Perseverance is not a virtue which is easily attained. Like all the the virtues such as patience or kindness, it is one which requires the moral work of discipline to achieve. Perseverance is best described as standing calmly and bravely against the circumstance and then working through the badness of unpleasantness which accompanies it. Perseverance is standing fast in the storm and then walking slowly into it. Perseverance is either gained deliberately because of circumstance, or accidentally because the circumstance is relentless and demands it; where quitting is not an option. Standing calmly and bravely when everything is screaming at you to stop, when other people might be screaming at you to stop by exacting injustice, meanness and cruelty, I think requires a greater display of strength of character, than merely swinging a club.

Perseverance is one of those moral qualities which is masqueraded by the rich and powerful especially and then used as a sheath over the top of weaponised cruelty. "If I am successful and worked hard, then why can't you?" The automatic connection with particularly financial success or lack thereof, is equated with the amount of work that someone supposedly does. Poverty especially is seen as a demonstration of some kind of moral failure. What this does is completely negate the circumstance, as well as the set of starting privileges which the various actors had to begin with. Quite often someone who has achieved a level of quiet calm has been forced to develop Perseverance; whereas the "successful' person from atop their gilded tower has not. Perhaps it is because of the job that I do but experience leads me to believe that richer people when faced with hardship (often of their own making) are more likely to respond with rage and nastiness, than poorer people who have had to practice Perseverance as a standard survival and coping mechanism.

As a moral practice to be displayed and worked outwards, perseverance may involve continuing to love and care for someone despite and in spite of their badness. That person may have very well wronged you. Perseverance as a practice, is always going to be expensive as with every moral work worth doing. This would suggest that Perseverance which I suppose could be though as some kind of positive adaptation after the fact, still requires an active choice to be able to do.

It seems to me that people who have learned to Persevere despite circumstance and hardship, are generally happier with life. This is likely because having learned and practiced how to keep on keeping on, gain a degree of inner confidence that they are capable of continuing; as well as the secondary moral product that the person at the centre of their own observable universe is both worth fighting for as well as not someone who they should be fighting against. Applied outwards it also says that the someone else for whom you choose to Persevere with is also  worth fighting for as well.

Horse 3163 - Eudaimonia - Element XI - Temper

I think that the various uses of the word Temper are interesting.

Tempered Steel is perhaps the most famous of all the tempered metals and the tempering process is one of work hardening, of folding and beating it back into itself, of forging and hammering byt fire, so that the finished product will be one which is more resilient, harder, sharper, and which will not shatter when hit.

Johann Sebastian Bach's "The Well-Tempered Clavier" derives its name from the tempering process of music, which is one of adjusting the various musical notes within a key, such that they sound chromatically correct and in harmony with each other. Specifically, The Well-Tempered Clavier was a work of music in 24 keys, which can be played on a well-tempered klavier/piano/harpsichord et cetera, which has had a kind of cheating process played upon it so that all of the keys are in harmony with each other. As music relies on intervals and humans are notoriously bad at having perfect pitch, then the fact that all of the notes in all of the keys are slightly wrong to make use of a series of compromises, then we no longer care.

The third use where you are likely to come across the use of the word Temper, is in relation to the disposition of humans and animals, and their relative exercise of anger at appropriate or inappropriate moments. One expects a soldier on the battlefield to be really angry in order to be able to do his job; we expect a labourer to be really angry and channel that anger into the striking of hammers into timber, but we can all show scorn and displeasure at someone who has lost their temper and displays inappropriate anger at their family or their work colleagues. We might expect a small child who has not developed or learned proper control of their emotions to display anger for really inconsistent reasons whereas if an adult acted that way against their spouse or their employees, we correctly identify that something has gone seriously wrong.

It is the third usage of the word "Temper" that we usually associate with the disposition of humans and animals but the inspection of the other two gives rise to make me think that they are connected. Quite a lot of the training of a child is to get them to take control of their own emotions and impulses, which is a kind of work hardening. Asking children to perform tasks or play nicely with other children, is training children to play in harmony with each other. In short, work-hardening, playing in harmony, and keeping control of one's anger and emotions, is part of deanimalising of people, as left unchecked and unregulated, even people can display more than a degree of feralness.

I have heard it said that anger is not really an emotion but rather a reaction to circumstance. I do not know if I agree with this, as anger can be displayed as both in reaction to an unmet desire, or a thing going wrong, as well as in opposition to us having being wronged by someone else. In all of those cases, anger wants to play in opposition to an enemy which may be abstract or real.

The Greeks had a very strong sense of those with the word usually rendered as anger - paroxunó (παροξύνω). It denotes one who is being incensed, who is being sharpened, who is being provoked; which seems to suggest that anger is a thing happening to someone more than them having agency to be able to control it. It is that last point which determines whether or not anger is well placed. Anger which leads to action in the face of injustice, is sometimes a noble pursuit. The problem is that humans are biased, selfish, small, self-centred creatures who believe that they are the heroes of their own story. Naturally, they're going to assume that their own anger is justified in the pursuit of justice while other people's is misplaced more often than not.

Broadly speaking, the Greeks never solved the problem Aristotle linked anger to desire which he thought bordered on gluttonous. Anger in Ethics is "a desire, accompanied by pain, for a perceived revenge, on account of a perceived slight on the part of people who are not fit to slight one or one’s own". He thought that "anyone can become angry – that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not easy".

On the other hand, someone like Seneca who wrote an entire essay on the subject of anger, thought that it is the "most hideous and frenzied of all the emotions". He likened anger to a kind of temporary insanity and as an emotion without a logical border, he decried "whole peoples condemned to death in an indiscriminate devastation" in suggesting that anger leads to groundlessness of actions, inability to differentiate fairness and truth, and uncontrolled agitation. 

If anger is the emotion which follows as a result, then temper is the part of mind and soul holding it back. If anger is the beast, then temper is the chains which bind it. It likely follows that self-control and not reacting when every single bone in one's body absolutely wants to take off someone's head from their neck with a club, is a far better option most of the time. If everyone was quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry, then everyone being well-tempered will likely lead to all three definitions of the word being practiced; which implies resilience, harmony, and appropriate reactions to things.

Horse 3160 - Eudaimonia - Element X - Hope

In reading through Plato's "The Republic" in which he imagines the perfect future society/city state, one of the words that comes up with a surprising amount of regularity is the word Elpis (ἐλπίς). It is strange because Elpis appears to be kind of like hope, or expectation, or some kind of trust, which might be similar to the later Roman concept of Fidus. I find it weird because when Plato speaks about the Republic as an imagined future thing, he seems to almost take the expectation that society is going to naturally emerge towards it. I do not suffer from the mislaid illusion that society naturally tends towards rule by the wise, the kind, or the benevolent but the hope that if society collectively puts in the moral work to achieve such and end, is certainly worthy of hope.

It seems to me that in trying to nail down elements of Eudaimonia, the ones that are further along in the list are both harder to identify as well as harder to do. Invariably they all have to start from some kind of civic philos; which also implies that all of them require active work. 

The broadest conception for a definition that I can find for 'elpis' within Greek philosophy, encompasses the whole realm of the expectation of a thing or event happening, or that the person or thing will do what they say that they will do. Elpis can be applied to both family members, or more generally the leaders and administrators in civic philos (such as judges, police, and the entire civil service, the system of civic fabric itself, as well as to the quality of workmanship that goes into a thing. 

Hope as both a moral work and the product of moral work, starts from the standpoint that not only is someone looking outside of themselves but that they are deliberately thinking the bext of them. As applied to people, there are two classic stories which encompass the idea of Hope as a moral work; both of which have been adapted into movies.

The tale "Beauty And The Beast" is the story of Belle, who in the book is described as a victim of horrible circumstance when she is selected by The Beast against her will to be the object of his affection. The moral work of Belle in that story is mostly done by Belle who has to overcome the obvious and very scary thought that The Beast in in fact beastly. We learn throughout the course of the narrative that the moral work that Belle does is learning to love the Beast despite the fact that he looks beastly on the outside and in fact has a truly horrible past for which he is being punished. The moral work of pretending to love the the Beast to appease him, eventually becomes the actual act of doing so. This is the act of Hope not as a ethereal idea but as a hard thing being worked out.

The other story which is similar is the story of "The Magic Mask" in which a man who looks horribly disfigured, puts on a mask which makes him look beautiful to the rest of the work. Eventually after years and years, his own face has grown to conform to that of the Magic Mask and when he takes it off after many years, he has become beautiful. This story was adapted in part to become "The Mask" starring Jim Carrey in which the main character develops confidence in the process of wearing The Mask and pretending to be the character that lives inside of it.

Now both of these stories touch on the idea of Elpis in that in the act of pretending to be the qualities which the characters set out to be, they eventually acquire it through living out those qualities. The idea that one hopes in someone else, or in something else, or for some future set of circumstance, can only be achieved by the decision to hope in someone else, or in something else, or for some future set of circumstance; including if that something else is at the moment not possible. The Beast is only changed into someone worthy of affection because Belle has chosen to make him the object of her affection because she hopes he will be worthy.

This obviously has all kind of implications across a whole range of disciplines where the abstract overlay is not necessarily immediately concrete. People at the cutting edge of science have some kind of hope that what they are doing will contribute to the body of knowledge. People who have hope in political ideologies want to make the world better through the act of political policy. Religious people have hope that the belief set that they have is true, while irreligious people have a similar hope that there isn't anything beyond. Investors have a hope that the money that they spend will eventually give back a return on their investment. Parents have a hope that their children will go on to grow up and lead lives of their own. All of the above has to do with the deliberate act of hope in a future which has not yet arrived. Even at the smallest level, I for instance have hope that a Mars Bar will be delicious, as opposed to not being delicious. 

Of course it would be remiss of me to talk about Hope without mentioning the absence of it. People without hope are in a place which is awful and pitiful. The outcome of not having any hope can lead to a mind which is left unchained and ends up doing work upon itself, to the point of depression, despair and in the worst cases, suicide. A person without hope lacks the expectation that there is any kind of good future or good things happening to them. If therefore seems almost cruel to demand that someone with an absence of hope, somehow generate it for themselves. The act of giving people hope, either through changing their circumstances, or changing their mindset, requires practical demonstration of civic philos; which as with any moral work is expensive for the people doing that work. 

Yet again we are brought back to the idea of practical civic philos, which in this case means deliberately thinking the best of other people, despite and perhaps in spite of what they actually are. This may very well require us to be like Belle and think of others as worthy of saving and showing philos to, even though they look like and possibly are beasts. It might require us to look upon others as though they are wearing The Magic Mask, with the expectation that they will be eventually changed to match the expected or imagined outer appearance. It may even require us to think that we too can be better people and then work and act accordingly. The entire self-help industry, gym memberships, 12-step programs, therapy and counselling, education and training, are all based on that same premise of hope, that some aspect of ourselves can be made better.

Moreover, the practice of Hope, that is the work of the expectation of wanting the best for other people, is related to an alignment position because in expecting and wanting the best for someone else invariably means changing the circumstances so that that can happen; even if it is only changing the dialogue between people. That too requires moral work.

Horse 3157 - Eudaimonia - Element IX - Patience

Beings who see themselves as the centre of the universe, both literally and figuratively, have a deep propensity for selfishness. This is a point which I will labour a lot because as a starting point, it's not only more solid than the rock of Gibraltar but the rock of the entire continent of Europe. Selfishness not only is the starting point for creatures who have needs and wants but the first motivation for having those needs and wants satisfied and in many cases the last motivation and the only logical endpoint of same.

The human being are unfortunately limited not only by space in that they can only occupy one at a moment but also time in that they can only occupy one moment at a moment. The natural outworking is that we have needs which are time dependent and will with the passage of time tend to become more urgent and wants which might not necessarily be time dependent but come crashing in louder and louder with the passage of time. "I need this" or "I want this" becomes louder and louder with the passage of time as 'eventually' becomes 'soon', as 'soon' becomes 'very soon', as 'very soon' becomes 'now', as 'now' becomes 'NOW', and as 'NOW' becomes 'YESTERDAY IF NOT SOONER'.

Patience then, is either the the discipline of perseverance through waiting through the passage of time, or the setting aside of an immediate desire to have one's needs and wants met immediately; so that 'NOW' becomes 'soon', and 'soon' becomes 'eventually', or possibly 'not at all'. Patience is the turning down of the volume of one's internal monologue to the point where it is not heard, or becomes a quiet whisper in the background.

Neither Aristotle or Plato thought that Patience was a virtue. Thomas Aquinas, on the other hand argued that perseverance is a virtue, albeit a compound virtue which is dependent on other things such as temperance, and courage. I would argue that it is not a virtue at all but a practice and a discipline. The hint to this might be found in the Greek work μακροθυμεῖ - (makrothumei) which means to persevere, to be patient; from makros (increase) and thumos (spiritedness).

Patience has to be cultivated. Or itself, a self which is held inside a meatbag vessel which has needs and wants, would ordinarily demand to be fed now, and/or possibly constantly. Patience is related to things like delayed gratification, self-control and especially self-control over one's own impulses. Patience is if you will, akin to power deferred, or to the saving of hope for later.

We know what impatient people are like. Being impatient has a very marked tendency to demand to elevate the self above all others; so that our needs and wants are met now. Impatience places importance on the self, to the time exclusion of others. Impatience leaves the monster of the self, unchecked, unregulated, uncontrolled and unruly. Part of the job of the training of children to be proper members of society is to bind and chain the monster so that it eventually learns to hold itself in check. What is a 'monster' in botany? It is nothing more than a plant which through disease or injury has grown in an abnormal and usually uncontrolled manner until it no longer resembles the prototypical example of its kind. What is a 'monster' in literature? It is a creature which has grown in an abnormal and usually uncontrolled manner; often from the worst qualities within, such as peoples' fears and cruelties. Patience is very much about holding the monster of the self, still.

Having held the monster of the self still, patience as a moral practice is then turned to the discipline of the self's position within the environment and with other people; which also have needs and wants which can come crashing in louder and louder with the passage of time. We live in a world where things often do not work as we expect, or where tasks have to be done which are time dependent, or when people still act as people and are stupid, obnoxious and/or daft. Patience as the learned and cultivated discipline of perseverance through waiting through the passage of time, makes allowances for other people to act, or accepts that even within a time dependent environment with things all yelling 'NOW', including when those things are of vital importance, holds still.

The moral work here involves reframe the issue at hand. A thing which takes effort also takes thought to prize apart why the thing causes irritation. Maybe this requires the acceptance of a bad thing and even a horrible thing which is unavoidable. Pain, Death and Suffering are three cousins who all like to show up and while the physical effects of pain can be mitigated, the effects of the other two might not be able to be. Very rarely have people been able to make themselves not dead any more. Maybe this requires someone learning to be comfortable in the act of being uncomfortable.

The problem with moral discipline is that it takes effort. Almost similar to longsuffering, patience requires one to accept the circumstances or at very least to make the effort to tolerate them. Those circumstances often include people who are stupid, obnoxious and/or daft, and maybe even deliberately so. Patience is the waiting through without annoyance; without anger; without anxiousness, so that the thing has passed. You very much find that they most patient people have had to learn the skill and have produced patience as a moral product, moreso than patience being a mere by-product if temperament. I do not think that patience is a virtue but rather a quality which should be signalled and practiced.

Horse 3156 - Eudaimonia - Element VIII - Kindness

 Occasionally Horse receives correspondence to the editor, which petitions for things to be written. As I already write day and and night like I am running out of time, I am happy to entertain such requests; including if they are serious or silly. The world is already full of enough grief, malice, cruelty and sadness, that a little bit of silliness and even stupidity in the name of entertainment is fun. Last week I was asked to write some more pieces on Eudaimonia. Here then, is the first of a few:

Kindness

Kindness is not something which comes naturally to people. The art of doing something nice for someone else, is either difficult to do because of inertia or because of our own competing interest. The wall standing in front of kindness is in fact put there by ourselves a lot of the time. I have been here on planet Earth long enough to realise that there aren't any inherently good people. The fields of economics, law, religion and even behavioural science if they don't agree on some things will all generally concede the point that at very least, humans are pretty selfish. That inherent selfishness has a way of playing itself in a multitude of ways and arguably, the entirety of criminal law and a great deal of civil law, is either looking at the formal outplaying of that, as it relates to a set of agreed rules. Arguably, every bad thing which happens in the world is the result of accident, stupidity and most commonly of all, selfishness.

It is strange that I should visit this tenth element of Eudaimonia, with something which if humans are inherently selfish that they should find so difficult to carry out. The Greek word for Kindness is χρηστεύεται (chrēsteuetai), which is derived from chréstos; which means as you would expect "to be kind". Take note of the fact that chréstos is a verb; which means that this is a thing to be done. 

It probably surprises nobody that someone who is kind, or has a reputation for kindness, only accrues that reputation because they have been kind. As a verb, being kind is a quality which is performed and which is done. That might sound obvious to the point of banality but the fact that kindness consists of acts performed, is already the beginning of a state in which humans want to fight against their own nature. I almost suspect that kindness is not an action which is the default setting of humans but rather, something to be learned, something to be practiced, something to be perfected, and something which has to be continually performed.

Whether we like it or not, the centre of the observable universe is about 19mm behind people's corneas. I know that this is a fact that I keep on returning to but this is important. In order for anyone to perform kindness, there must be some other person to whom kindness can be performed to and on, and the acknowledgement that that other person exists. You will generally kind that in cases of extreme cruelty in which basic kindness is not extended, that this requires the moral gymnastics of firstly othering the other person and is then most effective when the other person is transformed into an unperson. 

In order to perform any act of kindness, one must admit the fact that one is not actually the centre of the universe. Kindness as a mostly voluntary action, therefore requires us to think of that other person as being worthy enough to have an action performed for. Before we even get to any action of kindness, we first have to either break or suppress our own internal drive for selfishness. As performing kindness requires some other person and we esteem that person worthy enough, then that must by inference shift our attention away from our own desires and wants to be able to do so. It then requires that we expend something valuable to us; be it time, money, attention, care, or a combination of all of the above.

Here's the rub as to why kindness is such a hard thing to carry out. Our close bonds such as family and friends, pull on our attention constantly. We like those people. Even then though, showing kindness to the people that we like and love, is still going to require of us an expense of time, money, attention or care. Showing kindness to people we don't know and/or don't like is far harder because not only does that require of us the moral work of being unselfish but it also demands of us the same expense as before and possibly even more. People that we don't know and/or don't like, are going to draw from us a larger amount of internal moral effort, even though the amount of time, money, attention or care expended might actually be identical.

Giving someone your attention, or time, or care, or money, especially to those whom we already deem either unlovable or unworthy, is a more difficult moral work than it would be otherwise. Giving anything, even for purely altruistic reasons, still makes us do a mental calculation for return on investment; in terms of expected happiness, expected fame and fanfare and presumably for those people who think that the universe keeps score via karma or some equivalent, expected attention, or time, or care, or money in return. The problem with acts of kindness, is that the nominal return on investment is likely too be zero in most cases. Especially in cases of people whom we either don't know and/or don't like, they may not even acknowledge that we did anything for them at all. 

In some respect, kindness is an outworking of what the Greeks called philos in some capacity. Kindness and the act of demonstrating it, which has already deemed that other people are worth demonstrating it to, ultimately boils down to considering the other person worthy of love and then doing that love to and/or for them. I have a suspicion though, that kindness is more likely to be the moral product of discipline which goes to the effort of imagining others as complex and worthy. That in itself is already difficult enough; to then make the expense of attention, or time, or care, or money, is harder.

Horse 3087 - Eudaimonia - Element VII - Excellence And Praise

It would be remiss of me of me if I was to write a series of blog posts on the elements of eudemonia and not have seven of them. Seven appears to be a thing in western consciousness, with seven deadly sins, seven days in a week, seven dwarves and it appears on the list of the most favourite lucky number whatever that means. If you ever find "Thursday, the sneezy dwarf of superbia", you will know why.

The seventh of seven is not really one thing but two parts which combine together; they are arete (ἀρετὴ) and epainos (ἔπαινος). Arete is in its broadest sense, a thing that is excellent. Epainos in its broadest sense, is praise or accolade of that which is excellent.

The Greek concept of arete was that a thing should fulfil the function for which it was intended, to its highest ability. A table should be good at being a table. A cat should be good at being a cat. A person should be good at being a person. Plato particularly thinks that everything has its own unique highest form of excellence; that a bull which is particularly good for breeding is the best bull, which is going to be different from the best kind of person and even then, the best slave is different to the best aristocrat who are already presumed to be the exemplary of arete. In fact the root of the word for 'arate' is the same as 'aristos', which describes superlatives, superiority, and in plural the 'aristocrats' who are the nobility.

The idea of arate is not necessarily limited to the usual masculine traits of strength and bravery either. In the Odyssey, while Odysseus is off doing his quite frankly stupid things, it is his wife Penelope who is at home who is waiting for him and also has to manage the household and property, who is seen as best expressing arate. Not only does she do so with humility and wit, but also economy as she has to hold off frequent attempts by idle suitors who want to marry her and thus claim the estate and who are literally eating her out of house and home.

Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" includes the virtues such as bravery, wit, strength and the quieter virtues of patience, justice, self-control, self-restraint, and even knowledge itself as included as arate. This is likely because as a philosopher, there's probably a degree of superbia going on, where of course someone engaged in the theoretical study of human knowledge is going to be considered among the virtues of highest human ability and happiness. Probably Aristotle's own name is derived from that same root word which 'arate' and 'aristos' are.

How does one be the best thing that they can be? Certainly education in the sciences, literature, the arts, languages and grammar will hopefully build someone suited to living in a society, which is why we have education in the first place but when it comes to arate, not only would we find violent disagreement between people who think that it is built up of different things but we'd also have violent disagreement about what kind of training should be done to build and acquire it. You might very well be able to say that there are common traits such as goodness, kindness, bravery, patience, the ability to take instruction, some kind of reverence for kin, kith and country, self-discipline and self-respect, but you definitely will not find agreement on the best ways to build and obtain arate in a person.

It is also something of a paradox, that not only do we not really know the best ways to build arate or even agree as to what those ways are, there isn't even a common agreement on deciding on what is praiseworthy. We can all agree that when training someone, some amount of praise or epainos is useful in encouraging the results and behaviour that we would like to see but again, what exactly those results and behaviours are is up for dispute.

We have very limited means of displaying public epainos for people. We have medals and trophies, rings and pennants for champions in sport. We have trophies for film, radio, television, painting, theatre, sculpture, journalism and writing. We have medals for valour. We even have titles which may appear before someone's name or after, such as Sir, Doctor, Professor, Dame, Lord, Lady, KC, OAM, LLB, B.Sc. B.A. et cetera. 

The problem is that for the vast multitude of people, there is mostly nothing. You usually do not get a reward for displaying any virtue save for the immediate gratitude which someone might express. Granted that there are some kinds of rewards for people working in organisations and firms which may include increased rates of pay but that is because those organisations and firms mostly see this as a transactional set of conditions, where the issue of rewards is in expectation of future reciprocal benefits for those organisations and firms (which in a corporate sense is almost always with the expectation of future profits).

So where does this leave arate and epainos? If they are reduced to mere transactional tokens, which are based on the performance of action, then what is the inherent good of them at all? I do not think that arate and epainos are mere transactional tokens which are the moral equivalents of rent, profit, dividends or wages. I rather think that the expression of rate and epainos are themselves, inherently good in themselves.

The best expression of arate is to be brave, to be kind, to be self-controlled, to be curious and know and learn, to practice and fight for justice and perhaps most important of all, to be patient with everyone else because we are all little selfish idiots who are blinkered and very much think only of ourselves and what is in front of us.

The best expression of arate in community is when people work together to do a thing. This is why corporations exist, why partnerships exist, why marriages exist, why teams exist, why republics and commonwealths exist. We all sort of know that a thing built in community is bigger and better than things which are built by individuals because of things like specialisation and efficiencies due to economies of scale. We know that people have different abilities and strengths and weaknesses and the point of being brave and kind and self-controlled and curious and fighting for justice and being patient, is that working together, we share the surpluses together.

The best expression of epainos is when people are temporarily rewarded for being their best selves and then driven onwards to be better still. The best expression of epainos in community is when the group is driven together to be its best self. I think that this is the reason why when nations go to war and win, they are collectively relieved that it is over; why when national sporting teams win, the whole nation rejoices; when teams win, their legions of fans are also joyful.

But again, being brave, kind, self-controlled, curious, fighting for justice and being patient with people, and working hard at doing those things, is not only a good thing but a good thing to do because it is good.

Horse 3084 - Eudaimonia - Element VI - Admirable

The word εὔφημος (Euphemos) is like a pack of Araldite in that it comes in two parts. 'Eu' generally is signifier that something is good and 'phemos' is the report about something. In various Greek texts 'euphemos' means anything from the mere the utterance of good or auspicious words, such as a good report, or praise; to the crystallisation of the quality onto something or someone who is then said to be either very important and/or delicate or something that needs protected at all costs.

The English reception of Greek words, particles, and components, is somewhat problematic.  Consider 'euphemism' (good report) which generally means a nicer word standing in for a bad thing; or 'eugenics' (good genes) which has included policies of sterilisation and extermination of people; or 'euthanasia' (good death) which implies a calm method of either assisted suicide or veiled murder. 

The word euphemism which means a good word standing in for a bad word, also can describe a whole line of things which have stood in for the previous word in the euphemism chain; so much so that 'Eu' has itself come to stand in at the beginning of words for concepts which are unpleasant. I want you to throw all of your existing cultural assumptions about 'Eu' away because euphemos is actually genuinely good.

The thing which most people consider as admirable are generally those products of moral formation which have been expensive to produce. One doesn't usually think about things like bravery and valour, patience and long-suffering, or perseverance and determination, as being things which are made and produced but they don't just appear from nowhere. Those qualities which we tend to see in other people and maybe ourselves which are worth celebrating, are generally the result of some kind of serious work in quiet places. Sometimes these qualities are forged and work-hardened as the result of someone moving through bad and hard times. I do not think it a coincidence that the trente-glorieuses immediately followed a twice unpleasantness and the destruction of a hundred million people. 

Bravery and valour are the qualities of facing a dangerous or scary thing and then steeling one's self to do some task or work in the face of that dangerous or scary thing. We hand out medals for valour on the battlefield, where the dangerous and scary thing is the possibility of sudden and imminent death in the face of the enemy but bravery is very often not rewarded nor visible. Bravery might entail acting calmly in the face of unfriendliness which results in racism, sexism, ableism et cetera. Bravery might entail overcoming one's fear of performing a task in the face of physical danger or in the face of loss of face. It has been said that if given the job of performing a eulogy at a funeral, that most people would prefer to be in the casket than standing on the podium.

Qualities to do with standing in the face of unpleasantness, such as something which is boring, or tiring, or difficult; which leads to the moral products of patience, longsuffering, calmness, levelheadedness et cetera, are also all aspects of euphemos. 

It is the quiet and unheralded things such as going above and beyond what's expected, or offering to take on  additional duties and tasks to free up someone else, or simply as an act of kindness, are often expensive in time and effort to the person doing those things. Whether it is by offering an extra hand when you know that someone is overburdened and laid down with work, or uplifting them and making them look better, then this is when euphemos plays out in practice.

When it comes to doing work, the art of euphemos is also important. One can speak about the skill and talent which someone wields in doing a job and also the craftsmanship of that job once completed. This used to be more evident in the manual arts, such as painting, woodworking, cabinetry, pottery and ceramics, needlework and tapestry, and is positively celebrated on the sporting field when sportsball players, runners, swimmers, motor racing drivers et cetera, perform feats of skill. The "beautiful game" is not called that accidentally, for compared with the other football codes such as the two rugbys which are pugilistic, there is an amazing amount of skill in placing a well directed cross from out on the wing, onto the head of a striker at 17 yards away and having them defeat a keeper. We do not appreciate this now but Olympic medals were awarded in the past for things like sculpture, painting, and weirdly to us, town planning.

Euphemos can also involve knowing how to say something which is useful but with tact. Sometimes an opinion is extremely valuable and indeed necessary but should be offered appropriately and kindly and not bluntly or with rudeness or meanness; even though someone should rightly be told that they are doing a really silly thing in a really silly way.

By the same token, refraining from complaining about things and handling feelings of negativity in a much more constructive manner, is far more useful. Granted that life and work is often stupid, obnoxious and daft and filled with stupid, obnoxious and daft, which includes those most stupid, obnoxious and daft of all people, you and I.

Complaining is perhaps unjustly maligned as being a toxic behaviour, which can inhibit people from raising serious objections to things but serial complainers don't exactly develop the most kindly of reputations as they tend to bring everyone else down and ruin positive environments. It might be helpful to stop, get a cup of tea and come back to a thing before developing solutions or taking a different outlook.

Generally those things which display euphemos are those things which are deserving of respect and approval. None of those things just spontaneously happen and are the result of quiet work, practice, and maybe even repeated failure; which ironically is itself a display of euphemos as repeated failure and finally being able to achieve or do a thing is the result of hard work and an outworking of determination.

Horse 3078 - Eudaimonia - Element V - Lovely

It never really occurred to me as an Australian that there are some perfectly ordinary words which we use differently to the rest of the world. That's only to be expected when you have an isolated prison island hidden in the summer for a million years; which although was outward looking, up until recently was still quite culturally backwards.

One of those words is 'lovely'; which is mostly used in the United Kingdom in a sarcastic tone, and underused in the United States, where having used it in normal conversation I was accused of sounding old-fashioned for using it. In Australia though, 'lovely' is a perfectly normal word which is used to describe something which is pleasing, pleasant, and agreeable. 

Again, probably due to the fact that we live in a summer paradise for at least half of the year, it follows that as we have the environmental enemy of the weather trying either to freeze you to death or thrash you with rain, being mostly absent, that what follows is a higher degree of friendliness. Having said that, there still are very racist elements in the country and it does not help that we have a pretty dominant right-wing trashmedia controlling most of common discourse. The art of being lovely is practiced far more by the general public than the political and popular press would have you believe.

In thinking through the fifth element of eudaimonia, we find what the Greeks sort of called Prosfile (προσφιλῆ); which comes from the two components from 'pros' (the preposition which means 'for') and 'phileó' which is one of the four general categories of love; which we might consider friendship, both between people and between people and the state.

There is kind of a preemptive sense of manners about this. The point of manners and etiquette is not as is sometimes presumed meant to regulate a set of behaviour for the mere sake of doing so but rather, to draw down the minor barriers for other people. Virtues like patience and kindness aren't just inherently virtuous but actually useful. If we think of other people as having some kind of intrinsic value, even if they may actively want to harm us, then this tends to promote of more peace-motivating set of conditions. If we then in principle attempt to deliberately forget any record of wrong committed against us, what we are left with is a sense of hope which tends to endure through hard circumstance. 

To reclaim a term used by the right-wing trashmedia, 'virtue signalling' is actually a good thing that aught to be done. Signalling in both the economic and psychology sense, means that an actor has indicated either through words but mostly through action that these are the things that they would like to receive and/or purchase. Since the biggest set of signals which exist in economics are the rational decisions that people make in buying and selling goods and services, then signalling is the end point indication that the various actors and the market generally would like more of a thing. Or perhaps metaphorically, putting your money where your mouth is because money talks. More generally, virtue should be signalled and even better practiced and demonstrated, if we want more of it to occur.

This sounds suspiciously like the very old saw 'do to others what you would have them do to you'; for good reason. In general, the great moral philosophers, by they Hammurabi, Aristotle, Plato, Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, et cetera, are all going to arrive at roughly the same conclusion because that would indicate that at least some kind of common and general morality exists and to be perfectly honest, no new general morality is likely to be discovered or invented beyond 'be nice to people' and 'don't be a knave' because no moral philosopher ever invents a new kind of morality ever, do they?

If you are patient with other people, then what cause do they have really to be impatient with you? If you are kind to other people, then what cause do they have really to be unkind to you? To actually reach the point where it is justified to be impatient and unkind to someone, must mean that you have already crossed some boundary where a bond is severed and you have decided to unperson them. The state of being indecent, unlovely, and unpleasant, is at best disagreeable and and worst a state of war. Competition for riches, power, honour, and position, are in fact the most likely causes which places competitors into a probable position of indecent, unlovely, and unpleasant, because the prize of winning those things is calculated in the minds of the competitors as being worth entering a state of disagreement and of war. 

Prosfile as practiced, assumes that the other person is valuable enough to be considered as being a person; which means that even if there are things such as riches, power, honour, and position, that they should either be shared for the mutual benefit of all, or that one thinks so highly of the other that one is willing to surrender one's claim in preference to the other.

Prosfile in the secondary sense which is used far less in ancient Greek, is in the consideration of that which is aesthetically pleasant, what is beautiful, what is nice. Plato's suggestion of "the forms" which says that there is a theoretical perfect version of a thing somewhere at least hints at the idea that prosfile is a concept which can be obtained. I would like to think though, that in addition to the physical beauty of objects, places, and people, that the intangible beauty of things such as a pleasant afternoon, those fleeting moments of absolute joy, and those temporary moments of glory, if they are not included in prosfile are at least adjacent to the concept. 

It is lovely to be lovely.