Arete, Personal Excellence

The Army wants you to "be all you can be." But how on earth would you do that except by first becoming all that you are? Aristotle and the Greeks were concerned with defining the ideal man, I am concerned with discovering, defining, and enriching the ideal, individual self. Your self, my self.

It seems an impossible ideal, but I believe a world made up of people more concerned with exploring and expressing their particular and very specific selves would be far more interesting, and less dangerous than a world concerned with, say, the latest episode of 90210, or how to master war profiteering.

I have loved the concept of Arete (there should be an accent mark over the final "e" pronounced: are-eh-tay) since I was first introduced to it in some philosophy class at the university of Washington. I wish I could remember the teacher, or the details of the course, but I was never good at those details. Thank you, professor whoever-you-are. And of course, since details tend to elude me in search of larger concepts, I am sure I have mangled Aristotle's original concept. I like to think I have adapted it, brought it forward into this time, integrated it into my modern world-view. Everything is changing, and we can keep the best of what the Greeks were up to, and drop some of those things that no longer fit. Vomitoriums, for example. (although I have been at some parties which... well, enough said.)

The way I understand and use Arete is as a self-referring excellence. The excellence of the thing itself in its function as itself. For example, the excellence (or perfection) of a chair is different than the excellence of an apple. And the excellence of a Gravenstein is different than the excellence of a Red Delicious. Apples to apples, is insufficient, you see, for there are many kinds of apples. And even within varieties, there are differences in what would be the ideal apple, each growing on a different branch, or to be used for a different purpose. And if there is so much variety in apples, which seem to me to have no active choice in the matter of their lives, as it were, then how much more variety in the excellence of a man or woman, boy or girl?

I think the only gauge of excellence which matter at all is how well the thing expresses its own unique perfection. and that is the quest I have put myself on, the highest I hope for my child. At the end of my life, the question I want to answer affirmatively, is this: how well did I live my own life? How fully did I become myself?

Anyway, I have never blogged before. I've only been texting for a month or so. But I'm game to try it, and start putting down my thoughts on this concept which is so important to the way I see the world. I offer it in hope that it can enrich the quality of your particular life, and I write it to keep myself on the path, in a world so overwhelmingly distracting as this.