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(Previous: Eudemian Ethics I.1.)
Focusing now on these things, everyone capable of living as guided by their own commitments must set up some target of living beautifully - whether honor or reputation or wealth or culture - toward which they will look in doing all of these actions, because not organizing one's way of life around something that makes it complete is a sign of much foolishness. First and foremost, then, one should determine for oneself, neither hastily nor sluggishly, what of ours living well consists in, and the thing without which human beings cannot attain it. For that without which it is impossible to be healthy is not the same thing as being healthy, and something similar holds in many other cases; thus living beautifully is not the same as that without which it is impossible to live beautifully. Some of these things are not specific to health or to living but are common to everything, as it were, both traits and actions (for instance, without our share of breathing or being awake or movement nothing either good or bad would exist for us); whereas others are more in the nature of each thing, and these must not escape our notice (for the aforementioned things are not inherent to vigor in the same way as eating meat or taking a walk after dinner). These are the grounds for disagreement about fulfillment, both what it is and what brings it into being; for some consider things without which one cannot be fulfilled to be part of fulfillment.
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)
While corresponding recently with a friend of Elisa's about the celebration of life I'm planning, I happened to formulate the following phrase: "the best way to grieve is to give". Although I doubt that's a universal truth, it's been true to my own experience since Elisa's passing in February. For the first few months everything looked very dark, but slowly I started to engage more with the world - volunteering in my community, fulfilling my responsibilities as president of my neighborhood association, helping friends and family members in need, and making a few beautiful commitments that I won't talk about here because they are private acts of deep personal significance. Many sources of solace have helped me cope, but I've found that giving love to people I care about is especially effective. It's all too easy to ruminate about my situation and wallow in my emotions; by contrast, giving has not only gotten me out of my own head but has also helped me redefine my identity and gain greater self-knowledge about who I am and who I want to be in the final third of my life. Thus I plan to keep on giving as I venture forward into my future.
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)
FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION
Here's a way of looking at life that I've wanted to write about for quite a while. If you envision your life as a long walk on a path (perhaps with a friend or two), six directions provide you with orientation: forward along the path before you, backward from whence you came, upward from the ground beneath your feet, downward from the sky above you, inward from the people at your side, and outward from yourself into the world. Exploring the metaphors, I think of these six directions in the following ways:
Although I find this schema to be helpful in my own thinking about life, I haven't put much effort into defining the directions with precision because I'm not sure how valuable such an exercise would be, and in any case the directions strike me as more suggestive than definitive. As always, your mileage may vary...
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)
In the sacred precinct on the island of Delos, he who declared his opinion, distinguishing what's good and what's beautiful and what's enjoyable as not all existing in the same thing, inscribed the following verse at the entryway to the temple of Leto:
Most beautiful is doing right,
The greatest good is having health,
But that which brings the greatest joy
Is to obtain your heart's desire.
However, we do not agree with him. For fulfillment, being the best and most beautiful of all things, also brings the greatest joy.
Many of the matters requiring our attention about each thing and each nature introduce impasses and must be looked into. Some of these contribute only to our knowing, whereas others relate to getting things and taking action. Regarding those which are the concern of that passionate practice of sagacity which solely cultivates our attention, when the right occasion presents itself we must state what is inherent to that inquiry. But foremost we must look into what it is to live well and how to attain it.
Do all who happen to be called fulfilled become that way by nature, as with those who are tall or short or differ in complexion? Or do they learn to be that way, so that fulfillment is a kind of understanding? Or do they become that way through a sort of training (for many qualities exist in human beings not by nature or from learning but through enculturation, worthless ones if worthlessly enculturated, worthy ones if worthily enculturated)? Or is it none of those ways, but in one or the other of these: either breathed upon us by some divinity as if inspired (as happens to people possessed by some nymph or god) or by luck (for many say that fulfillment and good fortune are the same thing). That its presence exists in people by all of these or some of them or one of them is not unclear, for pretty much everything that happens comes down to these sources, and even all the actions that result from thinking things through can be brought under the heading of understanding.
Finding fulfillment - that is, living blessedly and beautifully - consists especially in three things which are thought to be most preferable: some people say the greatest good is wisdom, some excellence, some enjoyment. Yet some contest about the importance of these for fulfillment, saying one of them contributes more to it than another: some say that wisdom contributes as a greater good than excellence, others that excellence is greater than wisdom, yet others that enjoyment is even greater than both of those. Moreover, some say that a fulfilled life consists in all of these, some two, some a certain one.
(Next: Eudemian Ethics I.2.)
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)
Three works on soulcraft have come down to us from antiquity under Aristotle's name: the Nicomachean Ethics, the Eudemian Ethics, and the Great Ethics (a.k.a. Magna Moralia). Scholars dispute the authenticity of the Great Ethics, which paradoxically is much shorter than the others, but the first two are accepted as authentic. For my "prelude and fugue" about Aristotle, I've been translating the Eudemian Ethics (the lesser-known "little brother" of the Nicomachean Ethics) in order to better understand Aristotle's perspective on the good life. To make this work-in-progress accessible to interested readers, I've decided to publish it serially here, which means I'll post one short chapter a week for the next 79 weeks (typically on Mondays). These will be my draft translations, subject to change as I harmonize and improve my renderings of the Greek text. I hope that some folks will find this to be a useful exercise. Although I'll refrain from providing explanatory notes on each chapter, questions and comments are welcome.
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)
FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION
Although today is my sixtieth birthday, I can't say I'm feeling exceptionally reflective, likely because I'm always thinking about my life anyway (without, I hope, overthinking it). That said, during the process of self-discovery I've been engaged in over the last few months, I've come to realize that there are three things I was born for back on August 6th, 1966: making music, seeking wisdom, and giving love. By way of contrast, it's true that I had a successful career as a technologist, but I never felt that I was born for that work despite the fact that I excelled at it, had some significant accomplishments, earned enough to retire at age fifty-five, and collaborated with so many wonderful people.
When I was twelve or thirteen years old (exact dates are hazy), I had three experiences that fundamentally formed who I am: I started playing guitar, I read The Fountainhead, and I fell in love for the first time. In characteristic fashion, I went deep on all three and I'm well aware that I lost my head in several respects because I'm such a passionate person. (As one example, I went intellectually overboard by mainlining Ayn Rand during my teenage years, and it wasn't until I wrote The Tao of Roark around thirty years later that I finished working through all that; yet despite the many twists and turns I've taken since then, it was my encounter with Rand that set me on a course of seeking wisdom and striving to live in truth - what Pierre Hadot calls philosophy as a way of life - and for that reason I've always been grateful to Rand for her provocative writings.)
At the time I had no idea how to process, let alone express, the powerful emotions I felt - indeed, even now that can still be a challenge for me! As early as age four or five I had the sense that my emotional experiences were abnormally intense. Once I got to elementary school, I quickly realized that for the sake of self-preservation I needed to hide those feelings or I would end up being crushed. In my teenage years - a roiling cauldron of emotions for just about everyone - I went through a rationalistic phase in which I stopped playing or listening to music because my mind told me it was irrational even though my heart knew that, as Nietzsche said, life without music would be a mistake. Et cetera.
In addition to numerous recent commitments of giving love to family members, one reason I haven't posted much lately is that I've been more focused on making music than on seeking wisdom (though if you ask me the two are intertwined because I happen to think that the arts are an alternative path to wisdom). In particular, my dear friend and musical partner Manuel Nunez has moved back to Colorado and we've been busy settling on repertoire, arranging songs, and developing our real-time rapport for purposes of performance and recording. As a result, my normal regimen of reading, writing, and translating has taken something of a back seat. I suppose it'll all balance out eventually, but in the meantime I might be rather quiet here.
(Cross-posted at Beautiful Wisdom.)
FOR FURTHER EXPLORATION
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