Again and again the great commanders taking over a new army impose new high standards of discipline, cleanliness, hygiene, fortifications, regular drills, immaculate weapons cleaning, and the same is true for sailors on board ship, when there is not a lot for high energy young men to do.
William Blake writes about seeing the universe in a grain of sand, and meaning can be found in meticulous self-discipline and attention to detail and the self-confidence they generate, the knowledge you’re ready for action, whenever the opportunity may come.
Have you read any of Plutarch’s Lives? You’d find the great commanders worthwhile: Lysander, Sulla, Sertorious.
This is dialed in, Chris. The task is all. And I love Plutarch, I've read about half of his lives. My favorite is still Coriolanus, and it is also my favorite Shakespeare play. Sort of off subject, but he would be the character who embodies all of my worst traits. Plutarch's ability to hone in on what matters when it comes to character, good and bad, is a gift.
I haven’t read Plutarch’s Coriolanus and it’s been decades since I’ve read Shakespeare’s blood and guts play about Coriolanus, but now that I know what they mean to you I’ll go back and read them.
I’m leaving tomorrow to attend this retreat, it’s the sort of experience you’d find interesting too, I’m sure: https://greece.costofglory.com/
“Primal Hardship” and “task” clarifies something similar that I see. We have been convinced that ease and happiness are the goals in life. However, I think hardship, pain, suffering, and the overcoming of limitations is the real state in life. Think about the success of a professional sports team. If their singular goal is to win a championship, then they will probably fail. If their goal is maximized their capacity to overcome their limitations of time, talent, background, and relationships, they create a dynasty and have a hall of fame career. In effect, trust the work, not the outcome.
It is a complete shift in mentality. I am genuinely curious at what point, maybe which decade, America shifted from finding meaning in the task and expecting everything to be endlessly blissful happiness. It would be a great study. I appreciate the thoughts, Ed.
It's the difference between the question, "Why bother?" and "What can I do *right now*?"
Both meaninglessness and despair are tied to the first question. The second question suspends the first in the same way that faith suspends questions about the future and how things could possibly work out.
With how little I believe in the world and how meaningless I take most modern work to be, there have been countless times that I've been unemployed or otherwise broke, not knowing how anything could come together in the coming days or weeks...but that never meant I couldn't go to the gym, play with my dog, sit down and write, etc. Indeed, if the daunting things and questions are up in the air, you may as well find something else to do while waiting for them to settle.
Beautiful comment. Have you read Eric Hoffer? Some of your thoughts and deductions are areas he played quite a bit. The True Believer is more intense and focused, but the Ordeal of Change, The Temper of Our Time, and others are deeply existential and very working man / commonsensical. You might dig it.
Sam: smiling as I leave the house for my task. Self-imposed, undesirable, yet attractive in its challenge. BTW, the smile comes from reading this essay! Enjoy the day. Tim
Hey Sam, skipping ease this morning, headed for the boathouse and 8 miles of rowing, it’s primal when you shove off the dock by yourself in the early light. It’s you, the water and the promise of self inflected hardship. One stroke at a time. Can’t complain have to go and do the work! Great post as always. It never gets old does it?!?
I love it. That man's words still resonate inside my mind—he a had a way with them. Not ironically, he had a hard time when he wasn't immersed in hardship. I can only imagine what a force he was when in the wild.
Primal Hardship, a compelling idea. You're seeking the sweet spot of stress or healthy stress - hormesis. Zeroing in on your ZPD or zone of proximal development as a similar idea. Flow states are found when working at the edges of our competence, not too hard and not too easy. It feels good to be fully focused on something. So, too, perhaps, with stress. In times of ease and dis-ease seek to focus fully on something productive. All to get outside the dread inside our own head and focus on something constructive instead.
Your mention of Shackleton’s insight that the cure for meaninglessness is “occupation” gets me to wondering if you’ve ever read any of that great curmudgeon George Bernard Shaw. Here are a couple of his quotes I’m sure you will appreciate given your excellent writing on existentialism:
The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation. — George Bernard Shaw
This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. — George Bernard Shaw
It first started, possibly even as early as during the Great Depression, when there was a shift from seeing people as workers to being consumers. Then, in the 1960s marketing changed when companies stopped “shaming” people into buying their products and started telling them they “deserved” their products. If we see the internet as a platform creating consumers of more than physical products, but ideas and lifestyle, then we are trapped in a dominant culture of seduction.
I first heard about this in 1970s. Then, I wondered what would happen if an economic collapse happened that forced people to no longer see themselves as consumers. Who would they become? Your thought process is leading us in the right direction.
I just finished reading “A Behind-the-Scenes Look at NASA’s Moon Mission Preparations” in EpochTimes before another your great post. And what I remember from the description of the most complicated mission in 50 years is training on “various procedures, such as setting up, breaking down, and stowing all equipment onboard—from the radiation monitors to the toilet.” Tolet!
Again and again the great commanders taking over a new army impose new high standards of discipline, cleanliness, hygiene, fortifications, regular drills, immaculate weapons cleaning, and the same is true for sailors on board ship, when there is not a lot for high energy young men to do.
William Blake writes about seeing the universe in a grain of sand, and meaning can be found in meticulous self-discipline and attention to detail and the self-confidence they generate, the knowledge you’re ready for action, whenever the opportunity may come.
Have you read any of Plutarch’s Lives? You’d find the great commanders worthwhile: Lysander, Sulla, Sertorious.
This is dialed in, Chris. The task is all. And I love Plutarch, I've read about half of his lives. My favorite is still Coriolanus, and it is also my favorite Shakespeare play. Sort of off subject, but he would be the character who embodies all of my worst traits. Plutarch's ability to hone in on what matters when it comes to character, good and bad, is a gift.
I haven’t read Plutarch’s Coriolanus and it’s been decades since I’ve read Shakespeare’s blood and guts play about Coriolanus, but now that I know what they mean to you I’ll go back and read them.
I’m leaving tomorrow to attend this retreat, it’s the sort of experience you’d find interesting too, I’m sure: https://greece.costofglory.com/
“Primal Hardship” and “task” clarifies something similar that I see. We have been convinced that ease and happiness are the goals in life. However, I think hardship, pain, suffering, and the overcoming of limitations is the real state in life. Think about the success of a professional sports team. If their singular goal is to win a championship, then they will probably fail. If their goal is maximized their capacity to overcome their limitations of time, talent, background, and relationships, they create a dynasty and have a hall of fame career. In effect, trust the work, not the outcome.
It is a complete shift in mentality. I am genuinely curious at what point, maybe which decade, America shifted from finding meaning in the task and expecting everything to be endlessly blissful happiness. It would be a great study. I appreciate the thoughts, Ed.
It's the difference between the question, "Why bother?" and "What can I do *right now*?"
Both meaninglessness and despair are tied to the first question. The second question suspends the first in the same way that faith suspends questions about the future and how things could possibly work out.
With how little I believe in the world and how meaningless I take most modern work to be, there have been countless times that I've been unemployed or otherwise broke, not knowing how anything could come together in the coming days or weeks...but that never meant I couldn't go to the gym, play with my dog, sit down and write, etc. Indeed, if the daunting things and questions are up in the air, you may as well find something else to do while waiting for them to settle.
Beautiful comment. Have you read Eric Hoffer? Some of your thoughts and deductions are areas he played quite a bit. The True Believer is more intense and focused, but the Ordeal of Change, The Temper of Our Time, and others are deeply existential and very working man / commonsensical. You might dig it.
Sam: smiling as I leave the house for my task. Self-imposed, undesirable, yet attractive in its challenge. BTW, the smile comes from reading this essay! Enjoy the day. Tim
Rock on Timothy, I appreciate it. Get after it.
Hey Sam, skipping ease this morning, headed for the boathouse and 8 miles of rowing, it’s primal when you shove off the dock by yourself in the early light. It’s you, the water and the promise of self inflected hardship. One stroke at a time. Can’t complain have to go and do the work! Great post as always. It never gets old does it?!?
That's all there is to it. Yours is a particularly enjoyable task because you get some solid inside-the-skull time. Enjoy the water, Charles.
Great stuff, Sam. I’m also reminded of the Shackleton family motto: “Fortitudine Vincimus” — “by endurance, we conquer.”
I love it. That man's words still resonate inside my mind—he a had a way with them. Not ironically, he had a hard time when he wasn't immersed in hardship. I can only imagine what a force he was when in the wild.
Excellent Sam, I’m envious of your talent for expression.
I suggest a nuance, not just meaninglessness, but also hopelessness, they are first cousins.
A great measure of the quality of your writing is the people you’ve attracted to your substack as proven in the comments. Extraordinary.
Primal Hardship, a compelling idea. You're seeking the sweet spot of stress or healthy stress - hormesis. Zeroing in on your ZPD or zone of proximal development as a similar idea. Flow states are found when working at the edges of our competence, not too hard and not too easy. It feels good to be fully focused on something. So, too, perhaps, with stress. In times of ease and dis-ease seek to focus fully on something productive. All to get outside the dread inside our own head and focus on something constructive instead.
Your mention of Shackleton’s insight that the cure for meaninglessness is “occupation” gets me to wondering if you’ve ever read any of that great curmudgeon George Bernard Shaw. Here are a couple of his quotes I’m sure you will appreciate given your excellent writing on existentialism:
The secret of being miserable is to have leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure for it is occupation. — George Bernard Shaw
This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. — George Bernard Shaw
“I have its conceptual framework mapped in its entirety”
So you’ve done the really really hard part. Good for you, Sam! 👏
I am already excited for that book!
It first started, possibly even as early as during the Great Depression, when there was a shift from seeing people as workers to being consumers. Then, in the 1960s marketing changed when companies stopped “shaming” people into buying their products and started telling them they “deserved” their products. If we see the internet as a platform creating consumers of more than physical products, but ideas and lifestyle, then we are trapped in a dominant culture of seduction.
I first heard about this in 1970s. Then, I wondered what would happen if an economic collapse happened that forced people to no longer see themselves as consumers. Who would they become? Your thought process is leading us in the right direction.
I just finished reading “A Behind-the-Scenes Look at NASA’s Moon Mission Preparations” in EpochTimes before another your great post. And what I remember from the description of the most complicated mission in 50 years is training on “various procedures, such as setting up, breaking down, and stowing all equipment onboard—from the radiation monitors to the toilet.” Tolet!