You know, I’m sure we’ve all heard the saying, “Necessity is the mother of invention,” which suggests that need itself actually has inherent value. “The harder you fall, the higher you bounce.” “We find our strength in the depths of despair.” “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” “It’s always darkest before the dawn.” “When one door closes, another opens.” “Every cloud has a silver lining.” “It’s a blessing in disguise.” All of these point in the same direction. It’s good for bad things to happen.

But the thing is, sayings like these live right alongside advice that’s just the opposite, promising that good times are in our control. “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” “Keep your eyes on the prize.” “Fortune favors the bold.” “Quitters never win, and winners never quit.” “Slow and steady wins the race.” These also point in a unified direction. If we try hard enough, we can avoid difficult times and achieve our goals. The future is in our control because good things happen when we don’t give up.

Equally, though, we hear, “Don’t beat a dead horse.” “Quit while you’re ahead.” “Don’t throw good money after bad.” “Cut your losses.” “Discretion is the better part of valor.” That is to say, our future is in our control because good things happen when we do give up.

Taken individually, I would say each of these three categories has what seems like good advice. But we have to take them as a group, and then they present a clearer and, in my opinion, more accurate picture. Life operates largely at random: Sometimes we get what we want, sometimes we don’t. Sometimes what we want is good for us. Sometimes it’s not.

More to the point, these are not examples of ancient wisdom. Rather, they’re pithy aphorisms, the kind that people like to quote on the Internet but that have little depth or value. Some of them aren’t even old. The only merit of these sayings is that they are cleverly worded, so they resonate with people. They have the illusion of insight, but they’re so shallow that, as I’ve said, frequently they are no more accurate than their own opposite.

Another example. It may sometimes be true that, “Actions speak louder than words.” But the opposite is also true. “It’s the thought that counts.” Or, “The early bird catches the worm.” But also, “Good things come to those who wait.” And Malcolm Gladwell wrote a whole book about why people should sometimes metaphorically judge a book by its cover.

So I would say these common misrepresentations of ancient wisdom are like scam fortune teller observations. They’re easy to digest and they’re seemingly astute, but they’re vacuous, no more right than they are wrong, and certainly not of any lasting help.

Actual ancient wisdom is completely different. Its value doesn’t come from its style, but rather from its content. Ancient wisdom is informed by lengthy investigation and verified by even longer evaluation. It’s time honored and time tested and, often timeless.

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Joseph Finder got me interested in the Ides of March, a date that Julius Caesar immortalized by being murdered on it, leading many centuries later to Shakespeare’s famous warning “beware the Ides of March.” It falls today, March 15 (except not really — keep reading), and conjures up all manner of things, from blood moons to the calendar to springtime rites to mysterious people from the ancient shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea.

(Finder, by the way, is a master author, most recently of The Oligarch’s Daughter: A Novel, which I’ve just started reading. It’s a page turner, probably more engaging than this post of mine, but please don’t let that stop you from reading on.)

The Moon and the Sea

The Ides was originally the “full moon,” long before March was March.

The English word Ides comes from the Latin word Idūs, which, in turn, is “possibly of Etruscan origin.” That is to say, scholars don’t know where it comes from. But that’s fair, because they also don’t know entirely who the Etruscans were. They were important though. They appeared out of nowhere on the shores of the Tyrrhenian Sea with sophisticated writing, advanced art, considerable societal organization, skilled traders, unparalleled equality between men and woman, and an advanced military. The Etruscans bestowed many of their gifts on a local tribe before disappearing as mysteriously as they arrived. The local tribe became the all-mighty Rome.

How to Count to One

These Romans reckoned the month differently than we do. We count forward from the beginning. They counted backward from the end, or, rather, from three ends.

The first end was conveniently also the beginning, the new moon, the first day of the month, denoted the Kalends (Kalendae). But it was the end of the Kalends period. Therefore the last day of the month was the “Day Before the Kalends” (pridie Kalendas); the day before that was “Three Days Before the Kalends” (ante diem III Kalendas) — and yes, it was three days before, not two days before, because the day of the Kalends was reckoned in the counting as day one, there being no possibility at that time of zero days before anything because the concept of zero was still in its infancy.

The second end was the Nones (Nonae), or first quarter of the moon. And it worked the same way. The second day of the month was therefore “Seven Days Before the Nones” (ante diem VII Nōnās).

The third end was the now-famous Ides (Idūs), the full moon. (Confusingly, it takes one week to go from new moon to quarter moon, but also only one week to go from quarter moon to full moon. How’s that for new math?)

Gradually the Roman lunar calendar incorporated elements of a solar calendar, and the months were given fixed lengths. Under this system, The Nones and Ides were standardized as the 5th/13th days of the month for most months, or as the 7th/15th days for four of the months, including March. This is why March 15 is the Ides of March. (Again, though, not really; and again, keep reading to see why.)

Brutality

A quick note: Caesar was murdered by his trusted friend Brutus (leading to Shakespeare’s famous accusation: “et tu Brute,” even you, Brutus.)

The English “brute” stems from the Latin brūtus, with roughly the same meaning; and the English “brutality” veered off from the same root to assume a more sinister meaning. But the connection between Brutus the brutal assassin and brūtus the Latin adjective appears to one of coincidence. Now back to our story.

The Full Moons of Spring

Having been standardized, March 15 is no longer necessarily the full moon; but this year, 2025, it came very close. And this year we also had the glory of a true blood moon, a full lunar eclipse. (Lunar eclipses can only happen on full moons.)

The Ides, or full moons, of early spring are magical times around the world and among the world’s cultures, anchoring such holidays as Holi (a colorful Hindu festival celebrating the victory of good over evil), Purim (a festive Jewish holiday also celebrating the victory of good over evil), the Chinese Lantern Festival (celebrating light over darkness), Madhu Purnima (a Buddhist festival of generosity and harmony), and others, to say nothing of the Jewish Passover (celebrating freedom and renewal) and the Christian Easter (celebrating renewal and redemption). Bummer for Caesar that he was murdered on the Ides.

But as I’ve said twice now, March 15 isn’t really the Ides of March, or, rather, our March 15 isn’t. That’s because the megalomaniac Julius Caesar actually created his own calendar. Until Caesar, the Roman calendar had been lunar and solar, with not enough days in the year, and therefore with the periodic insertion of an extra month (Mercedonius) to make sure the Roman harvest festivals fell during the Roman harvests.

The Sun

Caesar wrested control of the calendar from the fixed lunar cycles and finalized the solar calendar. He also renamed a month after himself: July. (July had previously been called Quintilis, from “five.” Now it’s the seventh month but the year used to begin in March. See above for all the happy March things.)

The calendar Caesar inherited had drifted out of sync with the sun, because the extra months had long been neglected. To readjust things, in 46 BCE Caesar created a year of 445 days — appropriately called the annus confusionis (“Year of Confusion”). Two year later he would be murdered on the Ides of March of his new calendar.

But his calendar — the “Julian Calendar” — wasn’t perfect either. It, too, drifted out of sync with the sun. This was a big problem for the Church, because of Easter. Easter is scheduled with the last remaining hint of lunar-calendarness: it conveniently falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon on or after the spring equinox. But Easter has to be in the spring, and, because of the minor inaccuracies of the Julian Calendar, Easter had been marching forward into summer over the centuries.

Lunacy

Amid all this craziness, and with one more blow to come, it’s worth reviewing a recurring theme. Our saga underscores our battle with nature: Does the moon decide when the month starts or do we? What about the year? Do the months have names? Do the days of the week? (Curiously, in the monotheistic West the names of the days pay homage to Pagan gods.) Who decides where countries begin and end, leaders, or rivers and mountains? Does the past exert an influence over the now?

More generally, how do we order our world?

We may feel that we have outgrown childish influences like the moon, but maybe not: the word “lunacy” after all comes from the Latin lūnāticus, “moon struck.”

At any rate:

The Pope

Pope Gregory in the 16th century fixed Caesar’s calendar, giving us the calendar we use today (well, many of us): the Gregorian Calendar. To get things back on track, His Holiness lopped ten days off of an October; in 1582, the day after October 4 was October 15. And to keep things on track, he also changed the leap-year policy moving forward.

But even though we use the Gregorian Calendar today, don’t you think we owe it to old Julius Caesar to use his calendar to mark his own death on the Ides of March? I do. And his Ides of March, March 15, falls on what we now call March 28. So mark your calendar now. The Ides of March are coming up.

Beware.

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An oligarchy replaces a democracy and a public figure is put on trial for his words.

No, this isn’t the 2025 trial of Mahmoud Khalil (an activist whom the US government wants to deport). But could it be?

Encyclopedia Britannica describes a “coup of the oligarchs” from about 2,500 years ago in Athens: Spartan “opponents of Athenian democracy staged a coup” to “install an oligarchy.” The initial coup was not completely successful, but democracy was quickly upended. “Sparta installed” a group called “the Thirty Tyrants in Athens to establish a far less democratic regime there.”

In that context, the famous philosopher Socrates was tried and sentenced to death for corrupting the minds of the youth with his speech, and for impiety.1 Britannica also notes that Socrates’ jury “might have taken his association” with undesirables as “grounds for considering him a dangerous man.”

Now let’s be clear. Mahmoud Khalil isn’t Socrates. He isn’t a world-famous philosopher and he wasn’t just talking. Nor will he be put to death (at least not in the US).

Still, the parallels are remarkable, and they offer historical perspectives on free speech.

As we’ll see, the lessons from antiquity are these: Societies best thrive when people are treated equally, regardless of what they say or believe. It is destructive tyranny that tries to silence unpleasant voices. And one sign of a poorly run society is that people are rightly afraid to speak.

Tyranny vs. Equality

For instance, the ancient playwright Euripides, writing a bit before the coup of the oligarchs, says:

Nothing is more hostile to a city than a tyrant... By contrast when the laws are written down, the rich and the weak alike have equal justice … and the weaker prevail over the stronger if they have justice on their side.2

Writing at roughly the same time, the historian Thucydides also extols the merit of equality before the law, adding that that tolerance also extends to daily life:

The freedom which we enjoy in our government also extends to our daily life. We do not suspect one another, not are we angry with our neighbors for doing what they like; we don’t even indulge in disapproving looks which, though harmless, are painful to see.3

That is, we tolerate diversity.

Additionally, Plato, Socrates’ most famous student, quotes4 Socrates as rejecting the effectiveness of killing a person for his words:

For if you think that by putting people to death you will prevent anyone from reproaching you for not acting as you should, you are mistaken. For that escape is neither possible in any way nor honorable, but the easiest and most honorable escape is not by suppressing others, but by making yourselves as good as possible.5

So it’s not just that people should be allowed to say what they want. Silencing them doesn’t work.

Another of Socrates’ students, the historian and soldier Xenophon, also defends Socrates at length. He starts by expressing shock that Socrates had been convicted at all:

I have often wondered by what arguments the accusers of Socrates persuaded the Athenians that he deserved to be put to death by the state. For this was the indictment against him: Socrates is guilty of not recognizing the gods that the city recognizes ... and also of corrupting the youth.6

He follows up with two chapters on why Socrates is manifestly innocent.

Unchecked Speech

The same Euripides that condemns tyranny also recognizes the danger of unchecked speech:

For whenever a sweet talker with harmful thoughts persuades a mob, it does great harm to the state.7

Troubling Times

Finally, Confucius advises people to be careful about what they say in a poorly governed place:

When the state is well governed, speak boldly and act boldly. When the state is poorly governed, act boldly and speak cautiously.8

And when the Roman historian and senator Tacitus looks back on the ascension of Tiberius, Rome’s second emperor — Rome had been governed as a republic before the emperors — he paints a dire picture:

Meanwhile at Rome, consuls, senators, and knights all rushed into servitude. The higher a man’s rank, the more eager was his hypocrisy, and his looks the more carefully composed, so as not to appear too gleeful at the departure of one emperor nor too unhappy at the rise of another, mixing tears with joy, lamentation with flattery.9

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Echoes of History

The echoes of history are unmistakable. When speech is punished selectively, when fear replaces open discourse, and when power shifts toward oligarchy, we know what will happen. Socrates’ trial was not just about him, but rather a reflection of Athens’ decline. It revealed a society turning against its own principles, where the free exchange of ideas was no longer tolerated, and political expediency outweighed justice. The lesson is clear: a society that fears dissent is a society in retreat, and history tells us that those who silence voices today will create a civilization tomorrow in which no one wants to live.

What does this have to do with Mahmoud Khalil? Maybe nothing. Or maybe everything.

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“Money can’t buy happiness.”

“Money makes the world go round.”1

“It’s no shame to be poor, but it’s no great honor either.”2

“Greed is Good.”3

“More money, more problems.”4

Well which is it? Does money make people happy or not?

There are three answers. Two are obvious and intuitive, but wrong. The third is more nuanced and probably right.

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Money is Bad

It’s easy to find people who say that money is evil.

Perhaps the best-known condemnation of money comes from the eccentric Greek philosopher Diogenes of Sinope:

The love of money is the center of all evil.5

One reason this claim is so well known is that it’s repeated in the Bible:

The root of all evil is the love of money.6

So, according to these sources, wanting money is bad. This sentiment is often abbreviated to “money [itself] is the root of all evil,” even though that’s not what the ancient authors say.

It is however what Sophocles says:

Nothing has ever sprouted that is so evil for people as money.7

The foundational Plato agrees:

It is impossible for people to be both very rich and good.8

And, over 2,000 years later, so does the transcendentalist writer and philosopher Thoreau:

Absolutely speaking, the more money the less virtue.9

For these great thinkers, money itself is bad. And they’re not alone. In agreement with them are St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan Order (12th century); Catholic theologian and philosopher Thomas Aquinas (13th century); philosopher and social critic Jean-Jacques Rousseau (18th century); Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy (19th century); American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald (20th century); reggae musician Bob Marley (20th century); and many more.

Money is Good

Equally, we don’t have to look far to find people who praise wealth, and they often have the numbers to back up their claims.

In the US, Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton found10 that money makes people happier. In a separate study, Matthew Killingsworth found11 the same. (The first study claims that money only makes people happy up to a threshold of about US$90,000, while the second study argues that money makes people happy beyond that. Matthew Killingsworth, Daniel Kahneman, and Barbara Mellers reconcile the results,12 suggesting that unhappiness continues to decrease with more money, even though happiness doesn’t rise as quickly.)

The Pew Research Center found similar data across the world.13 People are generally happier in countries with more money per person, and “richer people are more likely than poorer people to report being happy with their current life situation,” no matter what country they live in.

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Were all of the philosophers wrong? Is being rich simply good? No, because:

Money is Bad, Revisited

It’s not just philosophers who think money is bad. Lots of real-life experience points in that direction.

For instance, Eric Weiner reports14 a chilling experience he had in India, where, to his horror, he ended up renting an apartment with a servant. But the servant was only 11 years old — “a cultural difference that [Weiner] was not prepared to accept.” In the end Weiner tried to help boy, and it didn’t go entirely well. He had “raised his expectations,” he writes, “a dangerous thing in a country of more than a billion restive souls.”

And I have personally seen more happiness among the poor in India than among the wealthy in the US. (Read more: “The Smiling Vendress in Old Delhi.”)

So there seems to be ample evidence that money makes people happy, and also ample evidence that it doesn’t. What’s going on?

Who is Rich?

Seneca gives us an important clue in a quotation from Antipater:

Poverty does not mean the possession of little, but the non-possession of much; so it is not defined by what it has, but by what it lacks.15˒16

He also says, in his own name:

It’s not having little, but desiring more that makes a person poor.17

This gets to the core question left unanswered by the the Pew Research Foundation and by Killingsworth et al.: What counts as rich?

These ancient authors suggest that the answer is relative. People who have little are not necessarily poor; and people who have a lot are not necessarily rich. Rather, people who want more are poor and people who want less are rich.

We shouldn’t be surprised.

For instance, most people throughout history have (obviously) had no electricity or running water. Does that mean that they were as unhappy as you or I would be without those “basic necessities”? No.

Similarly, it’s better to be rich than poor. But there’s no direct connection between having things and being rich.

I’m again reminded of India, of a girl I saw carrying water when I thought she should be in school. Was she happy or not?

Lessons

So what do we learn?

We learn that it’s complicated. Money and happiness are locked in a tumultuous love affair, forever connected, but always fighting.

As a practical matter, the best we can do is know that we have to walk carefully. It’s a mistake to think that money doesn’t matter for happiness; it does. But it’s also a mistake to think that money makes us happy; it doesn’t.

So go ahead. Work hard. Earn lots. Buy nice things. And give to charity.

And at the same time, if it’s happiness that you’re after, don’t stop there.

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“Why do people suffer?”

That may be one of the oldest and most important questions ever asked — and answered.

Unfortunately, our gut instincts lead us astray, and so do modern soundbites. So most people in the modern world live with an albatross of wrong answers choking them when they most need solace. As an antidote to these destructive forces, here instead are five ancient answers that have stood the test of time as a better way to frame life.

As we’ll see, the first one is intuitive but dangerous, while the last one, fortunately, offers great comfort even though it is less intuitive. (For more information about all five, start with my The Bible’s Cutting Room Floor.)

Life Is Fair

The first answer is that life is fair. Good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. This answer is the most intuitive, but also the most harmful.

It’s intuitive both because it reflects the way humans are built, and because it is usually reinforced in childhood. Parents and other adults use a reward-and-punishment system to teach children: ice cream, say, in return for good grades; or no dessert at all in response to misbehavior. As a result, by the time we ourselves are adults, we have so fully internalized our notions of reward and punishment that we seldom stop even to question them.

The “life is fair” approach features prominently in Deuteronomy in the Old Testament. Good things happen to people who follow God’s ways, and bad things happen to people who disobey God. Thousands of years later, most people still think that this is how the world works, whether or not they believe in a deity.

When life takes a downturn, we intuitively ask ourselves “What did I do wrong?” or “What did I do to deserve this?”

The premise of these questions is that life is fair, that misfortune comes as a punishment.

Then, in response to these bad questions, we give ourselves bad answers: “I wasn’t a good enough person,” for example, “so I didn’t get the job.” Or “My aunt was a strong fighter, so she beat cancer,” but alongside that, “My mom is died of cancer, so it must be because she didn’t fight strongly enough.”

But even in antiquity they knew that this approach, while deeply intuitive, was mostly misguided. One doesn’t have to look hard to find good people who suffer and (equally vexing) bad people who thrive. That’s why the Old Testament also includes the Book of Job.

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Life is Enigmatic

The Book of Job, an obvious allegory, opens with God and Satan observing the perfectly righteous Job. Satan suggests to God that Job only praises God because Job’s life is so good. “If I ruined that righteous man’s life completely,” Satan says, “he would curse you.” God (bizarrely in my opinion) says, “Okay, let’s find out!” So Satan ruins Job’s life, afflicting him with painful diseases and killing his children.

The key to the allegory comes when Job finally has a one-on-one with God. Job asks in pain, “Why did You do this to me?”

God’s answer is essentially, “Who the hell do you think you are? You don’t even understand how the world was created! What makes you think you could understand something even more complex, life happiness and suffering?!”

The point of the allegory has nothing to do with Job, God, or Satan. Rather, the point is that we as humans will never understand why we suffer. It’s beyond us, completely out of our human capacity; we shouldn’t even bother trying.

Don’t believe Deuteronomy, the Book of Job teaches. Don’t believe that life is fair. Rather, life is enigmatic.

These two positions define the Old Testament. Though it’s tempting to believe that life is fair, it’s not. Don’t fall into that trap — because if you do, you’ll start asking bad questions like, “Why am I being punished?” And then you’ll give yourself bad answers. “I must have done something wrong.”

But no, Job says. Life isn’t fair. In fact, it’s enigmatic.

Despite Job, though, we weren’t ready to give up on fairness so quickly. We have a third position, and it tries to save reward and punishment.

Life is Fair if You Wait Long Enough

We as humans are so enamored with fairness that we couldn’t fully reject it, despite copious evidence that it’s not how the world works. In response to the obvious observation that good people sometimes suffer, we came up with a way of preserving fairness: life is fair, but not in this lifetime. There’s more to life than just this life.

This is the approach we see in the New Testament, which comes from a time when Jerusalem’s Jews (they were still Jews, Christianity not yet having been formed) were miserably oppressed by the Romans. Surely the Romans weren’t better people than the Jews, the Jews thought. But why then are the Jews suffering?

The answer was that the reward for good behavior comes in the life to come! That is, good people may suffer now, but they will receive an eternal reward after this lifetime. Similarly, bad people (say, the Romans) may seem to thrive, but they will be punished in the world to come. The New Testament gives us Heaven and Hell. Or to look at it differently, Heaven and Hell are a way of preserving fairness in the face of demonstrably unfair human experience.

And it’s not just the New Testament that advances some form of this approach.

We find it another well-known work from the same time period, The Apocalypse of Abraham.1 There Abraham, like Job, has a one-on-one with God (symbolically, of course — this too is an allegory). Abraham’s burning question, again like Job, is why people suffer. God answers by showing Abraham a future world where good people are rewarded and bad people are punished.

Karma is another form of this solution, another way of preserving fairness in a manifestly unfair world. Similar to Heaven and Hell, Karma assumes that there is more to life than just this life. Unlike Heaven and Hell, though, Karma works both forward and backwards. Our suffering in this lifetime, according to Karma, may be compensated by reward in future lives, but it also might be a punishment for previous lives.

What we’ve seen so far is this: We’re tempted to think that life is fair (Deuteronomy), but we shouldn’t believe it (Job), but actually life is fair if you wait long enough (Heaven and Hell, and Karma). There are two more approaches.

Life is Broken

The fourth answer to why people suffer comes from the Book of Enoch,2 an enormously popular crowd-pleaser in its day. (It’s day was also Jerusalem about 2,000 years ago. And while it doesn’t appear in most Bibles, the Book of Jude in the New Testament quotes it.) Enoch starts with the observation that deciduous trees grow leaves in the summer when people need refuge from the heat, and lose those leaves in the winter when people need the warmth of the sun. The world works in perfect concert, Enoch notes.

Except that it doesn’t.

Enoch also revisits a seldom-highlighted passage from the beginning of the Old Testament, where God’s angels come down to Earth to mate with human women in violation of God’s will. “That can happen?” Enoch wonders. “God’s will can be violated?” Yes.

Enoch comes to the conclusion that the world has gone awry. He says we are not (or perhaps no longer) living in the world as it was intended.

There’s a horrible story that repeats itself with some frequency across the world: a driver driving as carefully as possible nonetheless hits a little girl and kills her, even though her parents, too, were acting as carefully as possible. No one’s fault. Just a terrible accident. Deuteronomy says she or her parents must have done something to deserve this tragedy. Job says we’ll never know why it happened. The New Testament says that the girl and the parents will get their reward in the next life; Karma agrees, adding the possibility that maybe the girl or the parents did something wrong in a previous life.

Enoch says it wasn’t supposed to happen. It was a mistake. The world is broken.

This was one of most popular answers 2,000 years ago, and I think it resonates no less deeply with citizens of the modern world.

There’s one last answer, and it’s the most insightful and the most helpful.

Life is a Mixed Bag

The final answer comes from a runaway bestseller, once again from Jerusalem of 2,000 years ago. It was written in Hebrew or Aramaic, then spread through the ancient world in translation, first into Greek, then Latin, then other languages. It was the must-read of the day.

Misleadingly named “The Life of Adam and Eve,”3 the key scene is when Adam (allegorically representing humankind) asks Satan (allegorically representing unhappiness): “Why are Eve and I suffering? What did we ever do to deserve this?”

Satan’s answer is that the question is misguided. “You didn’t do anything,” he says. “It’s not because of anything you did that you’re suffering, but simply because you’re human.” His point is that the human experience is by nature a mixed bag, with both joy and suffering.

Just like teenagers who think that they alone are going through puberty, so too we, when things go wrong, think that we are alone. And just as the teenager shouldn’t ask “Why me?”, neither should we. The only reason is that life includes suffering.

We should stop thinking that our suffering is a punishment, stop thinking that things would be better had we acted differently, stop thinking that this is a test from God, or that it builds character, or that it was sent to make us stronger, or that it’s a blessing in disguise, or that the Universe will make it up to us.

In short, this 2,000-year old document lies in stark contrast to most modern popular wisdom (in particular the destructive soundbites that litter the Internet).

Stripped of our misconceptions about suffering, even life’s downturns become easier to endure, and misfortune, instead of impeding our happiness, becomes part of a happy life.

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Neither interest nor interest regulation is new. Ancient societies in Mesopotamia, the Middle East, Greece, Rome, and China all seem to have capped interest in some way.

The Code of Hammurabi from Ancient Mesopotamia (about 3,800 years ago) established1 a cap of 20% interest on silver loans, and 33 1/3% interest on grain loans. Because ancient agriculture was so risky, the grain rates in particular cannot meaningfully be compared directly to modern times; and even commerce back then was more fraught with uncertainty. But these limits do establish the principle of regulating interest.

From Ancient Greece we have lots of detailed information about interest rates. In Athens — the political, cultural, and economic heart of Greece — a wide range of rates were recorded during the second half of the first millennium BCE. In broad strokes: what we would now call investments generally charged under 10% interest; normal and safe loans, 5-20% interest; loans to municipalities, about 10%; and loans to industry, 10-20%. We also have evidence of loan sharking and usury with rates well over 100%, but except for these, the rates seem to have been limited either by custom or by laws that have been lost to history.

Furthermore, the great Greek philosopher Aristotle (about 350 BCE) denounced usury: “Money was brought into existence for the purpose of exchange, but interest increases the amount of the money itself ... so this way of getting wealth is, of all forms, the most contrary to nature.”2

In Rome, the Twelve Tables — the foundation of Roman law from around 450 BCE — establish a maximum interest rate of just over 8%.

And the Roman statesman Cato opens his great work De Agri Cultura with the observation that, “Obtaining money by trading is sometimes more profitable [than farming], and by money lending, if it were honorable.” He adds that even thieves were considered better than usurers.3

The Old Testament in the first millennium BCE variously prohibits charging interest to the poor and to locals.4

Christian tradition in the first millennium CE doubled down on this Old Testament prohibition, repeatedly condemning usury. For instance:

For in truth it is the epitome of inhumanity that one person, lacking the necessities of life, should be compelled to borrow, and another, not satisfied with the principal, devises ways to profit from the misfortunes of the poor and to amass wealth.5

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In China, Tang Dynasty regulations from the second half of the first millennium CE limited interest to 6% per month (later adjusted to 7%), but also to no more than 100% of the principal, regardless of the length of the loan.6 (For comparison, this corresponds to an APR of no more than 5.30% on a 30-year fixed mortgage.)

Against these numbers, credit-card interest rates in the US seem very high: The average appears to be over 20%, according to Bankrate and Investopedia (which, however, give different figures), and the high end tops out near 30%. At 30%, the Tang Dynasty cap of not paying more than 100% of the principal will be reached in less than two and a half years. (Even at 10%, the cap will be reached in seven years.)

Much of this information comes from the well-researched A History of Interest Rates (Fourth Edition) by Homer and Sylla, who, in the introduction, offer the following warning:

“The chapters on interest rates in ancient Babylonia, Greece, and Rome show, in each case, a progressive decline in interest rates as the nation or culture developed and throve, and then a sharp rise in rates as each ‘declined and fell.’”

Food for thought.

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“There is nothing new under the sun,” according to a timeless observation from the first millennium BCE.1 It’s helpful to keep this in mind today as we grapple with the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI), because even though AI may seem groundbreaking to us now, it is not really new.

Here I make the following three claims:

1. AI isn’t as novel as it seems to us now.

2. Fears surrounding AI are greatly overstated.

3. We should be much more eager to embrace AI.

In short, AI is one more positive step forward in humanity’s ongoing march toward human empowerment.

If you’re not entirely sure what exactly AI is, start with my three-minute introduction to AI for the layperson:

New technologies almost always appear revolutionary when they are first introduced. But it’s hard to judge something objectively when we first encounter it because the “wow” factor blinds us. We know from the past, though, that each breakthrough blends into the background over time. When we talk about revolutionary wireless headphones, we might forget that music itself was once new (and once feared). When we talk about a great book, we might forget that written communication was once new (and feared). Humor was once new. Medicine was once new. The pencil and the pen were once new. Apparently even the wheel and fire were once new. AI, too, will soon cease to amaze. It will join the list of things that we take for granted, things that were “apparently once new.”

Furthermore, what AI produces today — dazzling art from a simple prompt or an expert summary of a complex legal issue or a tack-sharp photo in seemingly impossible lighting — may all seem cutting-edge now, but these will soon seem passé and outdated. To see how, consider the fate of clipart, which once epitomized modernity but now appears tacky and old-fashioned. The same thing will happen with AI-generated content and results. As the technology becomes more widespread, the novelty will wear off, and we will marvel only when AI is used for something new and creative, not, as we do now, every time it is used. This is why AI is not a threat to art any more than clipart was (or, before that, the pencil).

Rather, more than anything else, AI is an empowering technology. It democratizes access to tools and capabilities that were previously reserved for a lucky few. Writing was once a privilege limited to those who could afford parchment. The invention of paper helped democratize writing, allowing more people to document their thoughts. Before paper, the alphabet itself — along with the mass literacy that it brought — paved the way for more people to share ideas. After paper, typewriters and then word processors removed another barrier, making it easier to translate ideas into words. All of these advancements brought the world better art by permitting more people to create art.

We see the same pattern in other realms: Audio recording technology gives the poor as well as the rich access to great music. Electricity enables better recording technology, and, separately, gives more people leisure time. Also with electricity, the telegraph democratized long-distance communication, empowering the masses to collaborate and to socialize. Long before electricity, clocks provided a way to standardize time, enabling greater coordination in work, travel, and science. More recently, the steam engine shrank frontiers for huge numbers of people, while shortly thereafter the bicycle did the same for shorter journeys. Eyeglasses let more people see and read. Crutches helped people walk. The plow further helped make leisure time possible.

In this sense, AI is just a continuation of the process, laying the groundwork for even untrained artists to create the art they visualize, for even poor writers to translate their ideas into words, and for even unskilled photographers to capture intriguing scenes. And AI is already letting the deaf hear and the blind see.

More specifically, AI lowers the barriers to creativity and expression. Tasks that once required specialized skills, such as drawing comics or writing eloquent prose, are now accessible to anyone with an AI-powered tool. This democratization has the potential to unleash a new wave of creativity and innovation.

And as AI makes certain aspects of the artistic process more rote and accessible, it allows artists of all levels to focus on more advanced creative pursuits. That is, by automating routine tasks, AI thus frees up time and mental energy for more complex and imaginative work.

For this reason, as with previous advancements, this AI-enabled shift will inevitably lead to new artistic heights, as creators leverage AI to explore uncharted territories and push the boundaries of their disciplines. After all, the history of art is replete with examples of technological advancements that enabled new forms of expression — from color-pigment technology to improved brushes, from metallurgy to casting techniques, from the invention of the printing press to the development of digital media. AI is the latest tool in this lineage, enhancing the landscape of human creativity.

And by enabling more and more individuals to express themselves, AI aligns with fundamental human values such as dignity, empowerment, and equality. Similarly, as more people gain the ability to create and share their ideas, society itself benefits from a richer tapestry of perspectives and innovations.

Of course there are, as with any new technology, reasons to be cautious with AI. Ancient metallurgy techniques brought both artistic jewelry and lethal weaponry.2 The printing press helped spread the ideas of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., but also those of Adolf Hitler and Stalin. Alfred Nobel’s dynamite made construction safer but warfare more dangerous.

So too, AI has potential dangers, from facilitating the spread of malicious ideas to hindering the recognition of the truth. And AI presents some technical challenges to privacy. But these are not new. And to reject AI, or even to fear it, simply because it embodies the proverbial double-edged sword makes no sense, no more than longing for a return to the days before fire and the wheel.

Rather, it is a privilege — practically a moral imperative — to embrace this latest stage in the ongoing project of advancing human dignity, empowering human creativity, and democratizing access to humankind’s collective accomplishments.

There is, after all, nothing new under the sun — but AI lets more people than ever before benefit from what has always been there.

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Snakes have a bad rap.

The most famous portrayal of a snake is from the Bible, where it is the source of all human misery. The snake in Genesis coaxes the first humans to disobey God, and this leads to their downfall. We have been suffering ever since. Another source, also from about 2,000 years ago, clarifies that the snake is the very embodiment of evil.

To this day, calling someone a snake is a particularly heinous insult.

And beyond the metaphor, real snakes elicit particularly acute fear and loathing in most people.

Why then would we want a whole year in honor of the snake? There might be a good reason.

The Snake

In addition to its role in the Bible, the snake has been associated with evil since at least the days of Greece.

Aesop writes of a man who sees a snake in winter. The snake is almost dead from cold, but the man rescues it, warming it against his body. Once the snake revives, it bites and kills the man. The man’s dying words are that he deserved to die, because he took pity on the wicked. The snake represents wickedness.

The same basic image appears in Phaedrus’ Fables1 (and Erasmus’ Adagia)2 and, much later, in Chaucer and Shakespeare.

Similar in point are reversals such as what Demodocus of Leros describes, where a snake bites a Cappadocian, but it was the snake who died because the Cappadocian’s blood was so vile.3 Voltaire uses the same insult.4

While Matthew (10:16) uses the snake as a symbol of wisdom — “be as shrewd as the snakes and as innocent as the doves” — this is most likely a direct reference to a wordplay in Genesis. There the snake is called “the most shrewd,” but the Hebrew for “shrewd” sounds like the Hebrew for “naked,” and the point is that the snake, along with Adam and Eve at this point, are all innocent.

But the snake also features prominently on the Rod of Asclepius, the ubiquitous symbol of medicine.

Snakes are connected not just to evil but also to healing.

Why?

Many people think it’s because snakes shed their skin, a process reminiscent of healing.

The Year of the Snake

As my friend Ka Yan points out, this may be the blessing of the year of the snake. We, too, have an opportunity to shed our metaphoric skin and to define ourselves anew. We don’t abandon our essential core, of course, any more than snakes do.

But we get to leave some things behind in the year now ended. We can ask ourselves what no longer works for us, what we have outgrown, or, perhaps, what never fit us in the first place.

Then with a fresh slate of opportunity, we can decide who we want to be in the world. And, with a whole year of possibility in front of us, we can take our time and grow into our new skin.

Happy Year of the Snake.

蛇年快樂! 🐍

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History is often the story of unintended consequences. This is certainly the case for Christmas and Hanukkah, which coincide this year, and which share a surprising connection.

Our saga starts with the military mastermind Alexander the Great. Then it meanders through Carthage’s greatest fighter, Hannibal; father-and-son leaders in Syria (only one of whom was crazy); freedom fighters in Jerusalem; Rome’s triumvir Pompey; and finally the wicked Herod of Jerusalem and the redeemer Jesus of Bethlehem. That’s how we get Hanukkah and Christmas.

👉 Adapted from Chapter 1 of my The Bible's Cutting Room Floor.

We start with Alexander the Great. It’s well known that he conquered his known world in the 4th century BCE, and left a permanent mark in the form of cities that bear his name: Alexandria in Egypt, for example, and, 2,000 miles away, Kandahar in Afghanistan. It’s equally well known that, as with many matters of importance during those years, Alexander’s most lasting contribution lies not in what he did but in what he failed to do: He did not plan for his own succession.

At the young age of 32, Alexander was the undisputed leader of both Europe and the East. He was married to two women. His favorite, Roxana, was seven months pregnant with his child. Alexander had no way of knowing that he wouldn’t live to see that child’s birth, or that the power vacuum left by his untimely death would ultimately lead to the creation of both Hanukkah and Christmas.

Illness took Alexander’s life in the year 323 BCE. Foreshadowing the turmoil that would follow, Roxana murdered her dead husband’s second wife even before giving birth to his son. Eventually, Roxana and her son with Alexander were also killed. The newly conquered world was left without any prospect of a recognized leader.

Three men from Alexander’s fighting force stepped in: Antigonus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus. And because Greece, Egypt, and Syria form natural geographic centers, the new leaders eventually consolidated their power in those regions. Antigonus took Greece. Ptolemy got Egypt. And Seleucus ended up with Syria. In the conceptual middle of these three sites lies a city called Jerusalem.

The Jewish capital was thus left at the mercy of three competing leaders and their descendants. Worse, the dynasties of Antigonus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus were frequently unstable, so Jerusalem was buffeted by a series of lengthy military campaigns, ill-fated political deals, and violent insurrections.

For about a hundred years, the Ptolemies of Egypt ruled Jerusalem. Then around 200 BCE, the Syrian leader Antiochus III (“the Great”) won the holy city. (Here’s how: The descendants of Seleucus and the descendants of Antigonus ganged up on the descendants of Ptolemy when the sixth king of the Seleucid dynasty in Syria, Antiochus III, plotted in secret with Philip V of the Antigonid dynasty back in Europe to attack Ptolemy V in Egypt. In other words, Syria and Greece waged war on Egypt.)

A complex turn of events then brought the famous Hannibal to Syria after Rome defeated him. Hannibal convinced Antiochus III — the new owner of Jerusalem — to continue the struggle against Rome. Not surprisingly, Antiochus lost, and in the year 190 Rome won Syria, and, therefore, Jerusalem. As part of the terms of surrender, Antiochus III sent his own son, Antiochus IV, to Rome as a prisoner.

This may be why Antiochus III is known by the epithet “the Great” but his son Antiochus IV was called “the Insane.” When Antiochus the Insane escaped from Roman captivity and returned to rule Syria, Jerusalem found herself under the control of a madman.

Among his other steps, Antiochus the Insane rededicated the great Jewish Temple in Jerusalem to the Greek god Zeus. Largely in response, a group of people called the Maccabees mounted an insurrection. A Jewish priest named Mattathias took his family to the hills, from where they waged a guerrilla offensive against Antiochus the Insane.

Mattathias died in 166, and his son Judah “the Maccabee” took over the cause. In 165, Judah and his troops succeeded in recapturing the Temple and in rededicating it back to the Jewish God. This is the triumph that is celebrated to this day in the form of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.

Unfortunately, the Maccabees — also called the Hasmoneans — ruled just as viciously as the Seleucids. Judah was followed as leader by his brother Jonathan, then by his brother Simon, then, in 135, by John Hyrcannus I, one of Simon’s sons. (Simon’s other two sons were unavailable because Simon’s son-in-law had murdered them, along with Simon himself.)

John Hyrcannus continued the expansionist military campaign that his father and uncles had begun. Among the cities he occupied was Idumaea, the site of biblical Edom. And as was his practice, the Hasmonean leader forcibly converted the locals to Judaism. John Hyrcannus had no way of knowing that, in so doing, he was paving the way for Jerusalem’s destruction.

Starting around the year 67, two of Hyrcannus’s nephews vied for control of Jerusalem, and in 63 the Roman leader Pompey had to step in to mediate. An Idumaean power-broker named Antipater sided with the victorious Hasmonean brother, and, by extension, with Pompey. Then when Julius Caesar usurped control of the Roman Empire, Antipater shifted his own allegiances to the new Roman leader.

Caesar wanted to reward Antipater by giving powerful posts to his two children, Phasael and Herod. An obvious choice was the role of leader of Jerusalem, but that position had to be filled by a Jew. As it happens, though, the Hasmonean leader John Hyrcannus had already converted Antipater’s father, technically making his descendants Jewish, and as a result allowing an otherwise Pagan Herod to rule Jerusalem.

Herod was an especially vicious tyrant — the mention of his name for an ancient reader was akin to a modern reference to Stalin or Hitler — and is the same ruler mentioned in Matthew 2:1: “In the time of King Herod,” wise men, or magi, came to Jerusalem after Jesus was born.

Matthew’s mention of Herod is not simply a matter of reckoning time. It is a way of emphasizing Jesus’s birth as the Messiah just at the time when the denizens of Jerusalem most need Him. This is the event that is celebrated to this day in the form of the Christian holiday of Christmas.

Had Alexander the Great planned better for his death, Antiochus the Insane would never have ruled, in which case the Maccabees would never have mounted the insurrection commemorated by Hanukkah, so the Hasmonean leader John Hyrcannus would never have converted Herod’s grandfather, so Herod could never have ruled Jerusalem, and Jerusalem might have enjoyed prosperity instead of suffering the turmoil into which Jesus was born, as commemorated by Christmas.

Unintended consequences.

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[Adapted from Chapter 1 of my The Bible's Cutting Room Floor: The Holy Scriptures Missing from Your Bible from St. Martin’s Press. Originally published in substantially the same form for “The History Reader.”]

Toxic Positivity

Some years back I had dinner with a friend whose husband had tried to smother her with a pillow. We met in an Italian restaurant. Tears rolled freely down her cheeks as she related the story over our main course. Their bed. A minor fight. He probably didn't mean it. She probably caused it. If she behaved better he probably wouldn't do it again. What did I think she should do?

At one point our waiter walked over and (this being America) asked us gleefully, “How is everything?”

And (this being America) I replied with equal glee: “Great! Thanks!”

The circles in which I walk generally demand happiness: “Have an amazing day!,” I’m told every single day, and in the face of misfortune, “Don’t let it get to you!”

Even when real sorrow or tragedy hits, the pressure is for optimism. People can get away with saying, “I’m sad...” as long as the rest of the sentence starts with “but...”

After “I’m sad my father died...,” listeners expect to hear “...but at least he didn’t suffer” or “...but at least he lived a long life” or “...but at least my mother is still alive” or some other “but at least.” And if the speaker doesn’t fill in the “but...,” the interlocutor often does: “At least you still have your health,” for example.

This is toxic positivity — an outrageous, heartless, unfeeling, and unrealistic ban on anything that isn’t superb. And it’s killing us.

Not Being Okay

Largely in response to this disastrous state of affairs, a slogan has arisen: “It’s okay not to be okay.”

But no.

It is manifestly not okay not to be okay. The whole point of dividing things into “okay” and “not okay” is to distinguish the second category from the first.

Suppose I slip on the ice in Manhattan. Lying on my back, writhing in pain, unable to stand, barely able to move, I look up and see concerned onlookers.

“Are you okay?” they ask.

“No,” I say. “I’m not okay.”

“Well,” they reply, “it’s okay not to be okay!”

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We would never accept such an approach with physical pain. Why do we tolerate it, and even encourage it, with emotional pain — particularly when emotional pain can be more severe than physical pain?

We shouldn’t.

A Middle Ground

There is a better way to approach these things, a middle ground. It emerges from a closer look at our common assumptions.

One reason many people say, “It’s okay not to be okay” is that they tacitly assume that only a happy state of affairs is okay. They group “unhappy” with “not okay.” And this brings us back to toxic positivity.

Even in the midst of sorrow, though, we can actually be okay, despite modern society’s expectations. So it’s okay to be miserable. It’s okay to mourn. It’s okay to miss loved ones. It’s okay to have a hard day. It’s okay to cry. Just as it’s okay to rejoice, to celebrate, to cherish loved ones, to have a good day, and to laugh.

At the same time, life’s misfortunes can, at times, be so debilitating that we are not okay. Those cases are true emergencies.

Most of real life, however, lies between the emergencies and the popular culture of “have an amazing day!” Most days are neither amazing nor emergencies. Rather, most days are a mixed bag, with ever-changing proportions of the good and the bad.

Humanity has known this for thousands of years, only to forget it in modernity:

Sorrow lies within happiness. Happiness hides within sorrow. 1

Joy and grief seized her to her core.2

No human passes through life unscathed, completely unharmed.3

For no one on earth was born to be fortunate in everything.4

There’s even a whole ancient treatise5 that underscores the “mixed-bag” nature of our lives.

So — especially before the holidays — practice saying a few short sentences: “I’m sad.” “I’m in pain.” “I miss...”

And practice hearing them.

These sentences are complete in themselves. They don’t require qualification. They don’t need a “but...” And they are okay.

Sometimes, in fact, what makes misfortune “not okay” is the very pressure to discount it. Counterintuitively, by non-judgmentally accepting the unhappiness in our lives, and in the lives of those around us, we actually diminish its power to overwhelm us. By acknowledging the ubiquity and appropriateness of unhappiness, we actually let it live side by side with joy.

Albert Einstein is reported6 to have said that a theory should be as simple as possible, but not simpler.

Similarly, our most realistic expectation for the holidays is not for pure untarnished bliss, but for as much happiness as possible.

Merry Christmas and happy Hanukkah.

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It’s been a banner week, marking the birthdays of Emily Dickinson, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and Edvard Munch. In honor of these diverse luminaries, here’s a meandering romp through what their works convey about hope, evil, and fear.

Hope

Emily Dickinson (born December 10, 1830) is up first. An American poet renowned for her innovative style, introspective themes, and profound exploration of life, death, and immortality, she lived a reclusive life in Amherst, Massachusetts. Most of her work was published posthumously. (Read it here: The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson.) Along with “Because I could not stop for Death,” one of her most famous poems is titled, “Hope”:

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

Honestly, I’ve never liked this one. Or perhaps I should say that I’ve never agreed with Dickinson. She had me at the beginning, with Hope as a songbird perched in my soul. Beautiful. But she loses me at the end. Hope never asked anything, Dickinson says.

I vehemently disagree. For me, hope is forever brandishing disappointment, threatening me, warning me, and eventually attacking me. I’ve often asked what is worse: disappointment or despair. And the answer is never clear to me.

Aeschylus splits the difference in Agamemnon:

Of many shattered hopes, I have only seen one fulfilled.

Πολλῶν ῥαγεισῶν ἐλπίδων μιᾶς τυχών.1

Is one hope fulfilled enough to redeem a lifetime of hopes shattered? Maybe.

Cicero also hedges:

...I do not want to bring you anxiety through my uncertainty, or hope through an assertion. Nevertheless, you, in accordance with your wisdom, ought to hope for the best, consider the most difficult things, and endure whatever may come. [my emphasis]

...nec tibi sollicitudinem ex dubitatione mea nec spem ex affirmatione afferre volui ... tu tamen pro tua sapientia debebis optare optima, cogitare difficillima, ferre quaecumque erunt.2

One key line, which survives to this day, is “hope for the best.” It is perhaps more powerful in light of the potential difficulty that Cicero believes is looming on the horizon.

Bacchylides dislikes hope for a different reason:

Hope robs people of sense.

Ἐλπὶς ἀνθρώπων ὑφαιρεῖται νόημα.3

For him, hope is therefore a danger.

And Seneca quotes the Greek philosopher Hecaton of Rhodes:

You will stop being afraid if you stop hoping.

Desines timere si sperare desieris.4

His point, too, is that hope is detrimental. Fear and hope are both aspects of what he calls a troubled mind that is anxious about the future.

Plutarch has another approach to hope, offered in the name of the pre-Socratic philosopher Thales of Miletus:

“What is the most common thing?” [Thales of Miletus says] “Hope; for those who have nothing else always have that with them.”

“Τί κοινότατον;” “ἐλπίς· καὶ γὰρ οἷς ἄλλο μηδέν, αὕτη πάρεστι.”5

Evil

This brings us to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (born December 11, 1918), a Russian novelist, historian, and dissident who experienced and then exposed the brutality of the Soviet regime, particularly through his landmark work The Gulag Archipelago. (The Gulag — an acronym for Главное Управление ЛАГерей / Glavnoe Upravlenie LAGerei, or "Main Camp Administration" — was the brutal Soviet forced-labor prison system established by Lenin and expanded by Stalin.)

In his In the First Circle (1968), Solzhenitsyn’s hero Bobynin, an inmate, refuses to talk to the Minister of State Security. The minister says, “whatever it takes — we will make you talk.” Bobynin replies, “You are wrong,” because, he says, he has nothing left. A bomb killed his wife and children. His parents are dead. Even his ragged underwear belongs to the state. He’s forty-two years old and serving a twenty-five year labor sentence.

“Give me a smoke,” Bobynin tells his captor. The minister complies, the power dynamic now fully reversed.

In a further show of disdain, Bobynin even complains that the minister’s cigarettes are the wrong brand. (He later regrets his show of strength at the cost of good tobacco.) Then he gives the minister a tip:

You are strong only as long as you don’t take everything from a person. But a person from whom you’ve taken everything is no longer in your power — he is free again.

Вы сильны лишь постольку, поскольку отбираете у людей не всё. Но человек, у которого вы отобрали всё — уже не подвластен вам, он снова свободен.6

So what about hope? Does hope also enslave us? Do we have to lose hope as well to truly be free?

Solzhenitsyn doesn’t say. In fact, he isn’t generally concerned with hope.

Rather, he focuses on evil.

In one often-cited passage, he wishes evil were as simple as people seem to think:

If only it were so simple! — That somewhere there are dark people insidiously committing dark deeds, and we only need to distinguish them from the rest and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of each individual. And who will destroy a piece of his own heart?

Если б это так просто! — что где-то есть черные люди, злокозненно творящие черные дела, и надо только отличить их от остальных и уничтожить. Но линия, разделяющая добро и зло, пересекает сердце каждого человека. И кто уничтожит кусок своего сердца?7

Aeschylus, by contrast, laments the evil of the entire people of Lemnos:

Indeed the Lemnian represents evil in speech: It is lamented as a calamitous abomination, each new horror compared to Lemnian trouble.

Κακῶν δὲ πρεσβεύεται τὸ Λήμνιον // λόγῳ: γοᾶται δὲ δὴ πάθος κατά- // πτυστον: ᾔκασεν δέ τις // τὸ δεινὸν αὖ Λημνίοισι πήμασιν.8

Nothing has changed in 2,500 years. Various modern factions in 2024 still portray themselves as the warriors of good, battling entire races of evil.

Similarly, the Roman statesman and Stoic philosopher Cato the Younger (1st c. BCE) is reported to have told the Roman senate to put the affairs of state in the hands of Pompey alone:

For the same men who caused great evils, he said, should put a stop to them.

Τῶν γὰρ αὐτῶν εἶναι καὶ ποιεῖν τὰ μεγάλα κακὰ καὶ παύειν.9

Again, nothing has changed. We don’t have to look far in 2024 to find people who divide politicians into good and evil.

Solzhenitsyn disagrees. Everyone is good. Everyone is evil. It’s not a thought I’m comfortable with, but this comes from a man who saw horrors that, hopefully, neither I nor any of my readers will ever know. There’s a reason the Gulag is the modern equivalent of the Lemnian: the very embodiment of evil and suffering.

Fear

And that brings us to Edvard Munch (born December 12, 1863), the Norwegian painter and printmaker, best known for his iconic work The Scream.

According to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Munch said about this work:

I walked with two friends. Then the sun sank. Suddenly the sky turned as red as blood ... My friends walked on, and I was left alone, trembling with fear. I felt as if all nature were filled with one mighty unending shriek.

Fear may be the most universal of emotions — useful for avoiding pain, but also potentially crippling. Anacharsis says:

It is torture if you fear what you cannot overcome.

Crux est, si metuas vincere quod nequeas.10

Yet what, really, can we overcome? Almost nothing. The truly awful things in life, like the truly wonderful ones, are almost always beyond our control: health and sickness, life and death, companionship and loneliness.

Emily Dickinson knew this. In a letter to an unnamed relative, she wrote:

Affection is like bread, unnoticed till we starve, and then we dream of it, and sing of it, and paint it, when every urchin in the street has more than he can eat. We turn not older with years, but newer every day.11

I'm not sure I see the connection of Dickinson's last line about years and days, but I like it.

And it brings us full circle.

It’s been a week of Emily Dickinson, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and Edvard Munch — and, I have to assume, for all of us a week marked by hope, by evil, and by fear, presumably in different proportions for everyone, but all exerting influence nonetheless.

As the week draws to a close, I hope that that dastardly, omnipresent mix indeed makes us not older by a year but rather newer by a day.

Have a good weekend.

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Who can forget the repeated scenes of Charlie Brown falling flat on his back yet again after trying to kick a football that Lucy has impishly yanked away? No matter how many times he’s failed, good old Charlie always believes that this time will be different. Lucy has changed. And he’ll finally succeed.

It’s funny because we all know that Charlie Brown will miss the ball.

But really, I think, it’s funny because we see ourselves in the character of Charlie Brown.

Each year at the holidays, we are accosted by images of happy children reveling in their newly received gifts.

The best-selling card game on Amazon — I had never heard of it until today — is called “Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza.” It is apparently “perfect for all-ages,” and look at the joy it offers:

Smartly-dressed children and teens laugh hysterically with their carefree parents in an immaculate living room showcased by what looks to me like perhaps 10,000 watts of illumination. You even get a pool:

All from a $10 toy.

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More traditional games (a.k.a. things I’ve heard of) promise a similar return to Eden. The classic “Connect 4,” it would seem, even teaches your children to be gracious losers, as with the girl on the right here, who couldn’t be happier for her sister’s victory:

Elsewhere on the Internet, outlets like CNN offer “the perfect gifts for your loved ones.”

What a concept: “The perfect gift.” Good grief!

It’s as though the only thing standing between children and unlimited bliss is the right gift. Find the right toy, and even teenagers will be gleeful. Siblings will stop fighting and start getting along. You and your spouse will get home from work in time to enjoy the evening with your children, who suddenly will have no homework. Even your house will magically become spotlessly clean and gloriously well lit. All if you find the right gift.

Children and adults alike buy into the myth, with real dollars.

But it doesn’t work. Like Charlie Brown, we find our goal of a Gift To End All Sadness snatched away at the last minute.

And, worse, we come to a reasonable but wrong conclusion when it fails: we think that we have simply bought the wrong gift. So we set out — again like Charlie Brown — with the firm but wrong expectation that next time will be different. The next gift will make our lives better, and fix what’s wrong in the lives of those we love.

Ancient writers primarily discuss gifts in the context of bribes. But not exclusively. Homer underscores the value of a small gift (“Δόσις δ᾽ ὀλίγη τε φίλη τε” — “A gift, though small, is welcome.”)1 And Ovid writes that the value of a gift comes from the affection of the giver (“...acceptissima semper // Munera sunt, auctor quae pretiosa facit.” — “The most acceptable gifts are always those which the giver makes precious.”)2 “It’s the thought that counts,” we might say.

Yes and no, of course. Sure, it’s the thought that counts. At the same time, there are things that are inherently nice to have.

So I have nothing against gifts. I like giving them and I like getting them. I will keep buying things for the important people in my life, and nothing I write here should dissuade you, dear reader, from buying things for me.

I like presents.

Even more, I like the messages of the holidays.

And lest I once again fall flat on my back, I try not to confuse one with the other.

[Originally published in similar form in 2010.]

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Western culture is framed by obnoxious axioms like “time is money” and by destructive advice like “the early bird catches the worm.” As a result, we constantly feel pressed to work faster and show up earlier. Is it any surprise that we are in a never-ending state of emotional and physical exhaustion? But there’s a better way to live.

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Augustus Caesar — founder of the Roman Empire — liked to say:

To do something quickly enough, do it well enough.

Sat celeriter fieri quidquid fiat satis bene.1

In other words, if you’ve done something well enough, that automatically means you’ve done it quickly enough. It seems counterintuitive now, or just plain wrong. But this advice isn’t coming from some unaccomplished peon. Augustus Caesar left his mark on the world in the form of one of history’s most powerful empires. (He also has a month named after him.)

This giant was even more fond of a pithier saying:

Hurry up slowly.

Σπεῦδε βραδέως.2

He meant that there has to be balance. Speed isn’t always good.

In fact, he loved this approach so much that coins were minted with a dolphin and an anchor, the dolphin representing “hurry up” and the anchor representing “slowly.”

Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466–1536), in his seminal work on Greek and Latin sayings, devotes considerable attention to the Latin equivalent of “hurry up slowly,” festina lente, which was his favorite among all the sayings he collected. (He says the phrase goes back to the Egyptians.)

Confucius sees speed similarly:

Do not desire speed and do not seek small profit. If you desire speed, you will never arrive; and if you seek small profit, you will never accomplish big things.

無欲速無見小利欲速則不達見小利則大事不成.3

His point is that focusing on speed is like focusing on short-term gains instead of the big picture. Speed is detrimental.

In English we have:

Haste makes waste.

a saying that dates at least to the 16th century:4

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The best and worst thing to man for this life,
Is good or ill choosing his good or ill wife.
I mean not only of body good or bad,
But of all things meet or unmeete to be had,
Such as at any time by and means may,
Between man and wife, love increase or decay.
Where this ground in any head gravely grateth
All fiery haste to wed, it soon rebateth
Some things that provoke young men to wed in haste,
Show after wedding that haste maketh waste.

But this isn’t quite the same.

Our modern English proverb is less powerful than the ancient Greek, Roman, and Chinese notions. Heywood’s point here is that we shouldn’t make snap decisions. This is different than demanding that we take our time even once we’ve decided on a path. And for me, “haste” already suggests “undue speed.” Of course undue speed is bad. That’s why it’s undue.

This connotation of “haste” is reflected in a 14th-century proverb:

The more hast, the worse spede.5

But the idea goes back at least to Plato:

For by hastening to do everything quickly, I ended up going slower.

Σπεύδων γάρ, ἔφην, ταχὺ πάντα διεξελθεῖν μᾶλλον βραδύνω.6

So for Plato, too, the problem with haste is that it impedes speed. In these cases, it’s not that speed is bad; rather, speed is good, but haste gets in the way.

By contrast, Confucius and Augustus say that speed itself gets in the way.

We have another similar expression in English:

Slow and steady wins the race.

But again, this is a hedge. Confucius says more boldly that “slow wins the race,” at least sometimes. And, again, so does Augustus, and John Heywood, along with the countless other people for whom “hurry up slowly” was a watchword: French satirist Rabelais,7 English playwright Thomas Lodge,8 Spanish philosopher Gracián,9 French fabulist La Fontaine,10 French poet Boileau,11 English polymath Sir Thomas Browne,12 and many more.

So this week, toss out the idea that faster is always better. Slow down. Take your time, not as a self-defeating strategy, but in recognition of its inherent merit.

Or if you’re going to hurry, at least do it slowly.

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We know that “good enough is good enough.” How could it not be? But we don’t generally behave accordingly. Instead, we ensnare ourselves in the self-built trap of perfectionism by ignoring this obvious truth and aiming beyond what is necessary. Why? And what can we do to break free of this common destructive trait?

We start by understanding both the attraction and the flaws of perfectionism.

The biggest attraction of perfectionism is its simplicity, because it stands in contrast to the complicated question, “How much is enough?” And that’s both subjective and vexingly difficult to pin down.

What is enough in one situation might be inadequate in another; what suffices for one person might disappoint the next. So determining “enough” requires elusive clarity — about our goals, about our priorities, about our internal and external costs, and about the trade-offs we’re willing to make as we balance all of these.

Furthermore, no amount of hard work can guarantee enough information for us to come to a decisive conclusion. We don’t know what other people will think. We don’t know what we ourselves will think.

And we have to allow for miscalculations. Even engineers, who know exactly how much is enough, regularly over-engineer their projects in case they’re wrong.

In the face of such a complex, nebulous, and unclear constellation of considerations, shooting for perfection can seem like the path with the lowest emotional cost. “Enough is enough” is devilishly complicated. But perfectionism is easy: Never stop.

Working in tandem with this drive toward the simplicity of perfectionism is the seemingly obvious belief that more is always better. It has to be, right? If four hours of work is better than three hours of work, surely five hours of work is better yet. Walking four miles a day is healthier than walking three, so five must be healthier yet. (Even as I write this — and anyone who has ever written anything knows what’s coming next — I’m asking myself if my text here needs one more revision.)

In this regard, popular psychology also does us a disservice, by highlighting the “more is always better” approach: “all or nothing,” “go big or go home,” “give it your all,” “110%,” “the sky’s the limit,” “second place is the first loser,” “give it everything you’ve got,” “you can’t be too careful,” “better safe than sorry.”

But all of this is misguided.

More is not always better. Rather:

Going too far is as bad as not going far enough.1

This is from Confucius. The context is two students. One doesn’t do enough. The other doesn’t know when to stop. Surely going too far is better, right? Better safe than sorry, right? Wrong, Confucius says. Both extremes are bad.

Aristotle agrees:

Virtue is a midpoint. How? In that it is a midpoint between two vices, one of overshooting2 and the other of deficiency.3˒4

(Aristotle actually calls this “moral” virtue, but his concept extends beyond what we would now call “morality.”)

Aristotle goes on to warn that finding this midpoint is a difficult task. It’s easy to become angry at someone or to give money to someone, he says. But just as specialized knowledge of geometry is required to find the middle of a circle, he adds, so too it’s hard to be angry with, or to give money to, the right people in the right amount at the right time for the right purpose in the right way.

For this reason:

Doing well [by finding the midpoint] is rare and praiseworthy and noble.5

Again: against such a challenge, is it any wonder that we embrace perfectionism?

Our difficulty in compromising is compounded by both external and internal pressures. We don’t want to disappoint people at work or at home, and over-delivering can feel safer than risking criticism. And perhaps most diabolically, we don’t want to disappoint ourselves, and — particularly in the social-media era — we are surrounded by unrealistic benchmarks.

But we pursue perfection at our own peril. In chasing extreme standards we drain resources that could be better spent elsewhere. And trying to do everything perfectly leaves us less capable of doing what truly matters well.

Even excellence is sometimes pursued at our own peril. Not everything has to be great. Over-doing is as bad as under-doing. We need balance.

Good enough is good enough.

The road to “good enough” is a rough one, guarded menacingly with superfluous warning signs that steer us away. We are smitten with excellence and poisoned against mediocrity. But “mediocrity” was not originally bad! It meant “neither good nor bad.” While there is nothing wrong with excellence, neither is there anything wrong with mediocrity. Take it from Aristotle (a pretty successful guy) and Confucius (another man who did pretty well for himself).

This week, give good-enough a shot, at least once. Pick one task and commit to doing just enough.

As I say, it’s a rough road, but I think you'll like where it leads.

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Some 80 million Americans, or about 25% of the entire US population, are predicted to travel more than 50 miles in the coming days, so here are eight ancient and modern perspectives on travel. They show a decidedly mixed view, variously praising or condemning travel.

Which ones speak most to you? (I’ve got my own thoughts below.)

Travel

The first perspective, from Lao Tzu 2,500 years ago, is the oldest:

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Without leaving the house you can know the whole world.
Without looking out the window you can see the whole Tao.

不出户，知天下；不窥牖，见天道。1

From about 2,000 years ago we have these three observations from Horace, Seneca, and Ovid:

Horace:

They change their clime but not their mind, who rush across the sea.

Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt.2

Seneca:

Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind.

Vectatio iterque et mutata regio vigorem dabunt.3

Ovid:

He delighted to wander in unknown lands and to see strange rivers, his eagerness making light of toil.

Ignotis errare locis ignota videre flumina gaudebat studio minuente laborem.4

And from the (relatively) modern world, we have:

Middleton and Rowley:

He travels best that knows When to return.5

Thomas Fuller:

Never any weary traveller complained that he came too soon to his journey’s end.6

Thomas Jefferson:

Traveling makes men wiser, but less happy.7

Alexander Pushkin:

All the vexation accumulated during his dreary journey, the traveler takes out on the stationmaster.

Всю досаду, накопленную во время скучной езды, путешественник вымещает на смотрителе.8

Thoughts

Perhaps not surprisingly, Lao Tzu’s approach is the most foreign for me. He seems to be saying two things: that there is no merit in travel, and that travel is detrimental. As an avid traveler, I find both parts of this troubling. But Lao Tzu follows up by connecting travel to “moving farther away,” suggesting that distance (from anything? from oneself?) diminishes awareness; that’s why it’s better just to stay in one place. As I say, I don’t particularly like it, but equally I wouldn’t want to dismiss Lao Tzu out of hand.

Horace also takes a dim view of travel. He doesn’t go so far as to call it detrimental the way Lao Tzu does, but he does say it’s pointless. You might end up in a new place, but you’ll still be the same person, so why bother? I think there’s some merit to this, as it’s easy to expect too much from travel. But I also think that Horace is selling travel short. So does Seneca:

Seneca says travel can do wonders, giving the mind new vigor. Now there’s a pitch worthy of a modern travel agency: Go somewhere new and come back reinvigorated. I’ve certainly had this experience. Through my speaking I’ve been fortunate to see much of the world, and even arduous journeys have given me fantastic memories, opened my mind to new ways of thinking, and introduced me to some of my dearest friends.

Ovid basically agrees, and goes one step further. He says that the delight in visiting new places can overcome the work of getting there and being there. I like this nuance. It’s not just that travel is worth it, but even more, the benefits actually mitigate the difficulties. Sure, jetlag is difficult, but it’s easier to cope with if you’re also learning new things and seeing new places.

The prominent English playwrights Thomas Middleton and William Rowley seem to appreciate the value of travel, but warn against staying too long. I can relate to this as well. If a little time in a foreign place is beneficial, it’s tempting to think that a lot of time will be even more beneficial. But as with so many things, enough is enough. Knowing when to return is part of enjoying a destination.

The preacher Thomas Fuller says that travel is tiring, so the end of a journey is to be welcomed. Fuller actually brings this up in the context of death. (His point is that — even though he will welcome the end of his weary journey whenever it comes — he still doesn’t want to be unprepared for death. He concludes with another maxim: “Thus no guest comes unawares to him who keeps a constant table.”) Fuller’s musings about death notwithstanding, I think there’s a point worth recognizing here. Travel is tiring. It’s fun to go places, according to Seneca, Ovid, and Middleton and Rowley — and, I think, according to many modern travelers — but we are still allowed to want the journey to be shorter.

Jefferson’s observation is in many ways the most interesting to me. He says that you learn from travel but you end up less happy. I have experienced this as well. I’m fortunate to have a wonderful home in one of the most beautiful parts of the world. But the more I travel, the more I see ways in which, by comparison, my home is lacking. Similarly, I miss far-off people and places. I often wish I could combine elements of all of my travels into one perfect place. In that sense there are certainly some ways that I would be happier if I’d never traveled the world.

I adore what Pushkin writes here. Oh that poor stationmaster, victim of all the frustration of every weary traveler. Pushkin inherently agrees that travel is tiring (without taking a position here on whether it’s worthwhile), and in beautiful poetic fashion he expands that observation into a deep if troubling insight about the world: Human nature is to blame the person in front of us.

The stationmaster isn’t responsible for train delays. Or, in modern terms, it’s not the flight attendant’s fault that your plane is still on the ground and is only number 28 in the long queue to take off and for the love of God why are the seats so uncomfortable?!

We lash out at the people trying to help us, even though our woes are not their fault, and even though we will soon be getting a benefit they may not.

Perhaps as we all get ready to travel — now and in the future — we can take note of our good fortune. We are able to reap the rewards of going to new places, of seeing new things, and of visiting new friends and old. Instead of misplaced vexation, we can share our gratitude, thereby enhancing other people’s lives and in the process making our own lives better.

Travel well.

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“How can I not mock what I see ... when my gut burns with rage: the people are oppressed by gangs, who here follow a man who’s defrauded his ward and sold him into prostitution, there follow a man condemned in a meaningless verdict?”1

Can you guess what this is about? It’s Rome, almost 2,000 years ago!

The words are from Decimus Junius Juvenalis (Juvenal), a Roman poet and satirist. In his Satire I, from which this passage is taken, he describes moral decay, hypocrisy, empty rhetoric from leaders who ignore urgent issues, corruption and immorality, and a society that forgives vice and rewards deceit.

Like a time-traveling mirror, Juvenal’s poetry could have been written in the US in 2024. It reflects how voters on both sides of the aisle in the US feel — along with voters in other elections the world over. Some people think they are ousting the old immoral leaders; others think it’s the new leaders who are immoral. But — in a rare unifying bout of common sentiment — nearly everyone agrees that society has gone awry, in ways remarkably close to what Juvenal wrote about.

But Juvenal has a solution: In circumstances like these, he says, “it’s hard not to write satire.”2 So that’s what he did. He wrote a satire.

Maybe we should, too? Maybe in response to our own shocking state of affairs, we can compose satire as well.

Juvenal’s text is reasonably easy to understand but tricky to render in English, not just because of his style, but because he wrote in poetry.

So instead of a direct translation, here is a stab at some modern satire in the vein of Juvenal: here’s his text in various poetic styles.

Poetry

Limerick

My gut burns and I deconstruct
A society hollowed and plucked
   By crooks lewd and crude —
   And the people they’ve wooed —
’Cause we know that society’s...

One rascal’s a sly backroom fox,
Selling souls in cheap rendezvous spots.
   His cronies all cheer,
   While downing their beer,
As he struts with his ill-gotten lot.

Another’s condemned in a flash,
In courts that are quick with the lash.
   Their verdicts are bare,
   Their morals stripped there,
As justice lies loose for their cash.

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Dr. Seuss

One goon, two goons, red goons, blue goons,
Coming and going — so many buffoons.

This one’s a cheat, a fraud, and a cad,
Who swindles his ward and grins like he’s glad!
Another’s condemned but only in name
In a kangaroo court so that no one’s to blame.

Oh, rage in my belly, so hot that it stings,
That all I can write is satirical things.

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Emily Dickinson

How can I not deride the Sight,
When Rage — within — doth boil?
The People pressed by ruthless Bands,
By leaders’ wounding toil.
One frauds his ward — a tragic Bond —
And sells him to the night,
While others, judged by hollow Words,
Are banished from the light.
In silent Fumes, I scarce contain
The Parody of this Refrain.

Shakespearean Sonnet

How shall I not deride what I behold,
When ire doth churn in depths where rage lies bound?
The folk oppressed, their freedom bought and sold,
By knaves and gangs that plague this blighted ground.
Here, one doth follow fraud who taints the light,
Selling his ward to sinful streets of base.
Whilst there, the crowd uphold with cruel delight
One falsely judged by judgement’s foul disgrace.
Thus, noble hearts grow wearied by the sight,
As justice falters, weighed by mock and scorn,
And honest voices silenced in the night,
Whilst folly rules, and liberty be torn.
And still I watch though heavy grows my sight
As dawn is dark and ashen like the night.

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Stoicism in its most simplistic form has become so popular of late that many people think nothing should ever bother us. But that's a mistake.

Even Seneca acknowledges that emotions are in part beyond our control, having three stages, the first of which is unavoidable:

The first impulse of the mind is not something we can escape by reason, any more than the body’s reactions we have mentioned, such as wanting to yawn when someone else yawns, or blinking our eyes at the sudden approach of someone’s fingers.1

Euripides knew this:

Take courage, my child, and do not let your body be so troubled.
With calm and a noble spirit, you will more easily bear your sickness.2

The key here is “more easily.” It still may not be easy, just easier.

Particularly on this Veterans’ Day in the US, as we think of the tragedy of war and the sacrifice of soldiers — but also in the context of more mundane day-to-day life — let us not be misled into thinking that our pain is our own fault because we should be able to control it. It’s not.

Some emotional pain is unavoidable. The very least we can do — and sometimes the very most — is not make things worse by imagining that it’s in our control to make things better.

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In the aftermath of one of the modern world’s most divisive days, here’s some ancient and modern guidance to help everyone. (Snippets appear first. Read to the end for the full texts and poems.)

Be Your Higher Self

First up is Confucius:

Nobles bring out the best in people, not the worst in people. Petty people do the opposite.

It’s often easy to bring out the best in people who agree with us.

👉Are you working to bring out the best in people you can’t stand?

Marcus Aurelius goes into more detail:

In the morning, tell yourself: I will encounter people who are meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, and unsociable… But the nature of people who do wrong is that they are my kin, not of the same blood or birth, but sharing in mind and a portion of the divine.

👉How do you treat people who (you think) do wrong? As your kin, sharing in mind and a portion of the divine?

In a similar vein, Kipling (“If”) writes that triumph and disaster are both imposters:

If you can dream — and not make dreams your master;

If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

👉Are you willing to see past the disguises of triumph and disaster?

Meander in the Rain

The Song-dynasty poet Su Shi (Dongpo) writes that we should hum and whistle even in the rain:

Ignore the pattering of rain on the leaves.

Why not hum and whistle as you meander?

👉When it rains, do you keep humming and whistling? Do you run away or meander?

Finally, Horace warns as not to trust the future, but for him that’s a good thing!

Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the future.

👉What will you do right now to seize the day?

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Texts

Confucius is straightforward:

Confucius says: Nobles bring out the best in people, not the worst in people. Petty people do the opposite.1

子曰：「君子成人之美，不成人之惡。小人反是。」

Marcus Aurelius recognizes that there’s good and evil, but says we should be patient with the meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, and unsociable people we meet, because they are just like us:

In the morning, tell yourself: I will encounter people who are meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, and unsociable. All this has arisen in them because they don’t know good from evil. But I have understood the nature of the good, that it is beautiful; the nature of the bad, that it is ugly; and the nature of people who do wrong, that they are my kin, not of the same blood or birth, but sharing in mind and a portion of the divine.2

Ἕωθεν προλέγειν ἑαυτῷ: συντεύξομαι περιέργῳ, ἀχαρίστῳ, ὑβριστῇ, δολερῷ, βασκάνῳ, ἀκοινωνήτῳ: πάντα ταῦτα συμβέβηκεν ἐκείνοις παρὰ τὴν ἄγνοιαν τῶν ἀγαθῶν καὶ κακῶν. ἐγὼ δὲ τεθεωρηκὼς τὴν φύσιν τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ὅτι καλόν, καὶ τοῦ κακοῦ ὅτι αἰσχρόν, καὶ τὴν αὐτοῦ τοῦ ἁμαρτάνοντος φύσιν ὅτι μοι συγγενής, οὐχὶ αἵματος ἢ σπέρματος τοῦ αὐτοῦ, ἀλλὰ νοῦ καὶ θείας ἀπομοίρας μέτοχος.

Rudyard Kipling is not brief:

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!3

Su Shi (Dongpo) is pretty hard to translate. My version is somewhere between a translation and a new poem based closely on his. He starts with an introduction which I translate as well:

On March 7, while traveling through Shahu, I encountered rain. My rain gear had been sent ahead, and my companions were distressed, but I alone felt unaffected. Soon the sky cleared and I composed this verse.

Ignore the pattering on the leaves.

Why not hum and whistle as you meander?

With a bamboo staff and straw sandals, lighter than a horse,

Who’s afraid?

With a straw coat I’ve endured misty rain throughout my life.

The chilly spring breeze sobers me up,

slightly cold.

The angled sunlight on the mountain greets me.

Looking back at bleakness I’ve passed,

I return

to where there is neither windblown rain, nor clear skies.4

三月七日，沙湖道中遇雨。雨具先去，同行皆狼狈，余独不觉。已而遂晴，故作此词。

莫听穿林打叶声，何妨吟啸且徐行。

竹杖芒鞋轻胜马，谁怕？一蓑烟雨任平生。

料峭春风吹酒醒，微冷，山头斜照却相迎。

回首向来萧瑟处，归去，也无风雨也无晴。

The most famous line from Horace’s poem is “seize the day,” but it’s actually the context that makes the most impact:

Do not ask — it is forbidden to know — what the gods will have given me, given you, Leuconoe, nor should you attempt Babylonian numerology. How much better to endure whatever will be, whether it is lots of winters that Jupiter gives us, or this last one, which now weakens the Tyrrhenian sea against the pumice bluffs. Be wise, prepare your wine, and cut back your lengthy hope into your brief time. As we speak, jealous years have already fled. Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the future.5

Tu ne quaesieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi

finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios

temptaris numeros. Ut melius, quidquid erit, pati.

seu pluris hiemes seu tribuit Iuppiter ultimam,

quae nunc oppositis debilitat pumicibus mare

Tyrrhenum: Sapias, vina liques et spatio brevi

spem longam reseces. Dum loquimur, fugerit invida

aetas: Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero.

👉 Carpe diem. Seize the day.

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It’s going to be a rough week for at least half of the US, for roughly half of anyone who cares about the US, and probably for hordes of onlookers — and that’s in addition to the usual ups and downs. Here’s some ancient advice: be polite and go with the flow.

“Confucius says: Respect without manners leads to toil; caution without manners leads to timidity; courage without manners leads to chaos; frankness without manners leads to pain.”1

子曰：「恭而無禮則勞，慎而無禮則葸，勇而無禮則亂，直而無禮則絞。」

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While we could bicker over the nuances of 禮 (“manners”) — and as a translator I’d love to — the general point is that there is a proper way to behave in society: manners, politeness, courtesy, propriety, decorum, civility, respect, even integrity.

This week in particular, consider how you behave toward the people you encounter.

Next up is Seneca:

“Fate leads the willing, but drags the unwilling.”2

Ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt.

Seneca’s point is that you don’t get to decide what’s going to happen. You can go willingly or kicking and screaming, but you’re going to go where fate leads.

This week in particular, go forward willingly.

A final note: Confucius’ advice seems easy to carry out because what we do is almost completely in our control. We can decide to be polite. By contrast, Seneca’s advice seems difficult to master, because how we feel is almost completely out of our control. Can we really decide to be willing?

But which one do you find easier in practice?

And perhaps these are two sides of the same coin?

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“Uphold justice and love mercy and walk humbly,”1 says the ancient Book of Micah, because we need all three. But most people have an unbalanced approach. They prefer justice over mercy, which leads to politically conservative viewpoints and voting; or mercy over justice, leading to politically liberal viewpoints and voting. And no one seems especially good at humility during election years.

Justice and Mercy

This divergent approach to morality (justice vs. mercy) is well documented. Just for instance, George Lakoff makes the case in his superb Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think. (More additional reading appears below.) And our preferences seem to be so deeply rooted in who we are that most people are blind even to the clear merits of different approaches.

For example: A woman sneaks into the US to get a better life for her child. There are two obvious considerations: Is it fair to let her stay (justice)? Is it compassionate (mercy)? The answers are as obvious as the questions. No, it’s not fair, and yes, it’s compassionate. But most people, before they even finish reading the sentence, cling so firmly to either justice or mercy that they have difficulty recognizing that two dynamics are at play.

Here’s a real-life example: A beggar girl approached me in India a couple of years ago. With my American mentality, and having by chance having just withdrawn a couple hundred dollars from an ATM, I gave the girl the equivalent of a dollar or two — a huge sum in India. I did it out of kindness. A local friend of mine was furious, even accusing me of ruining his country, because, he said, it wasn’t fair. Mercy vs. justice.

It’s not that I don't value justice, or that my friend isn’t kind. After a discussion with my friend I even saw his point. And he was a local. Surely he knows more about his country than I do. But I would still do it again. It’s just who I am.

I saw similar dynamics with an immigrant man and immigrant girl I spoke to in Sweden, and with a taxi driver in Hong Kong whose traffic fine I paid.

The Pew Research Center even found in 2022 that most Democrats think most Republicans are immoral and vice versa (“Republicans and Democrats increasingly critical of people in the opposing party”). We should not be surprised, considering how strongly we identify with justice over mercy or mercy over justice.

Good News

But there is good news.

We don’t completely disagree. No one is against justice. No one is against mercy. We just prioritize them differently. The apparently huge gulf in modern politics is, it would seem, really just a matter of priorities. And unlike fundamental differences, which can be impossible to bridge, disagreements over prioritization can usually be overcome.

Humility

And this brings us back to Micah: “...and walk humbly.” No one has a monopoly on truth. Everyone can make a mistake.

Some years ago a teacher I was supervising sat in my office and for nearly an hour spewed the most ridiculous political nonsense. She worked for me and my job was to support her. I couldn’t yell back, “What idiot hired you?” (It is a bitter nuance that I had hired her myself.) I had to listen empathetically. So I sat there, interminably, accosted by inanity and trying to appear sympathetic to lunacy.

Afterward I went to a colleague for moral support. In respone to the story, he smiled and said, “You know, it makes you wonder what we’re sure of that’s wrong.” Humility.

Ancient sources agree.

Plato explains why he is wiser than a man he meets:

“But while I do not know, I do not even think that I know. In this respect, then, I seem to be a little wiser than him.”2

(Plato is ironic and pretty funny here. He prefaces this by saying that the man “seemed wise to many other people and to himself.”)

Plato also says:

“No one of repute believes that a human willingly errs, nor that they willingly do shameful or bad things.”3

Ovid’s Medea says:

“I see a better course and approve, but I follow the worse course.”4

Sometimes we all make mistakes even knowing there’s a better way to do things.

Confucius also emphasizes human fallibility:

“A noble person’s mistake is like an eclipse of the sun or the moon. The mistake draws attention from everyone, correcting the mistake draws admiration from everyone.”5

Now is a time to strive for admiration in this regard.

Moving Forward

The ancient texts seem to suggest:

If you naturally prioritize justice, try to pay more attention to mercy.

If you naturally prioritize mercy, try to pay more attention to justice.

And whoever you are, try to pay more attention to humility.

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Reading

• Lakoff, G. (2002, revised 2016). Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think. Analyzes metaphorical models—"strict father" for conservatives, "nurturant parent" for liberals—that underlie political ideologies.

• Haidt, J. (2012). The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. Explores how moral foundations shape political beliefs, with conservatives emphasizing authority and liberals focusing on empathy.

• Hibbing, J. R., Smith, K. B., & Alford, J. R. (2013). Predisposed: Liberals, Conservatives, and the Biology of Political Differences. Examines biological factors influencing political leanings, highlighting conservatives’ physiological responses to threats and liberals’ empathy.

• Tuschman, A. (2013). Our Political Nature: The Evolutionary Origins of What Divides Us. Discusses evolutionary roots of political divisions, connecting justice and mercy preferences to adaptive strategies.

• Schreiber, D., et al. (2013). Red Brain, Blue Brain: Evaluative Processes Differ in Democrats and Republicans. Published in The Journal of Politics. “Liberals and conservatives exhibit different cognitive styles and converging lines of evidence suggest that biology influences differences in their political attitudes and beliefs.”

• Frimer, J. A., et al. (2013) Liberals and Conservatives Rely on Common Moral Foundations When Making Moral Judgments About Influential People. Published in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. “The moral codes of liberals and conservatives do differ systematically; however, their similarities outweigh their differences. Liberals and conservatives alike rely on care, fairness, and purity when making moral judgments about influential people.”

• Pew Research Center (2021). Growing share of Americans say they want more spending on police in their area. Highlights Republicans’ support for increased police funding vs. Democrats’ preference for reallocating funds to social services.

• Pew Research Center (2022). Republicans and Democrats have different top priorities for U.S. immigration policy. Examines partisan divides on border security and pathways to citizenship.

• Pew Research Center (2022). Republicans and Democrats increasingly critical of people in the opposing party. Finds that 72% of Republicans and 63% of Democrats view the other party as more immoral than other Americans.