So the difference between blogging, and sitting alone in my room, writing privately, is that I can get feedback. I like it!
I got a comment from Shelby, an amazing artist, who I am priveleged to also call a friend. It made me sad, but more determined to get straight to the meat of what I am after here, with all this Arete. She thinks the authentic self is damaged, and there is fear in searching for it. She says it boils down to how well you like yourself.

My authentic self is what is beneath all the damage. Damage is done by parents, schools, society, random bad (or good) luck, but most of all by ourselves. Damage is done by interpreting an event or comment to mean that who we are is bad, wrong, or simply not good enough, and therefore should be hidden away. We create an "ideal self" based on all the input we receive, and then spend our lives trying to measure up to it. It was fake to start with. We made it up out of judgement. Or at least that's what I have done.

But the authentic self, the unblemished self is there first. I believe my only real job in my short time on this planet is to be exactly myself. What else is there? Out of being exactly myself, I can give so much. Out of being my ideal self, my should-be self, I can only give an imitation of perfection, and that is not Arete. I can work very hard at becoming excellent at this task, or that sport, or this painting style, but it will never be as good as someone who does that work because it is his or her Arete. If i am doing it for any other reason than the joy of bringiing my true self into the world, it will fall short. it will be hard work, and never enough reward, however much the world may pay me for it.

But at 45, or any age past about 3, it becomes very hard to tell which is which. At school you are rewarded for this or that, and punished for the opposite. Is this wrong? no, it is what we must do to have a society that functions. I am the absolute last person to be advocating the kind of teaching or parenting in which children are encouraged to run wild, or rewarded for everything they do. (My friend Trevor talks about his generation who got a prize just for showing up. I am not from that generation.) This is the"self-esteem" so popular in the 70s and 80s, possibly the "how well you like yourself" that Shelby mentioned. I think it is a poor stand-in for Arete. It was a nice try, maybe an antidote to the success-driven mores from an early time, but it went too far, and I think it has back-fired. It seems to me fragile indeed--based on air, on unconditional approval by grown-ups who were following a script. The new age books tell us to achieve it by affirmations and positive thinking, still so fragile. (But this is probably a rant which should save for another time and place.)
No, the one thing I wanted to get out, to give to Shelby, and anyone else who has any fear at all about Arete, is the access to it. The thing I've looked and looked for, and the one thing it keeps coming back to. I am not the only one who has come to this, but I keep finding it to be true. The clues are in the realm of delight.
Yes, delight. Others have called it bliss, joy, and so forth. I like delight. (de-light: gives light)
Your Arete is talking to you through your senses, and especially through your sense of delight. So in a way, your only purpose on this planet is to delight yourself. (take that as you will...)
But think about it.
You have preferences. You like purple and not brown, or pink, or orange, or chartreuse. And you like them in certain combinations. And even though you might become "educated" about the color wheel, there are certain shades that make you smile, and others which wrinkle your nose. and I have them, and mine may be different than yours. People damage themselves by trying to force themselves to like what they don't, or appreciate art which they hate... Certainly you can grow, and of course your tastes change, but there will always be that color, or that smell or that view, or that phrase of music which makes you smile before you even know why. Those things are yours. They are the very beginning of the access to your innate excellence. They are worth noticing. No one gave them to you, and no one can take them away.

But we get too busy to notice. Or we get depressed from trying so hard to be our ideal selves, that our brains can't register delight any more. I am recovering from a major depression, and I know this. Maybe I will write about it later. But for now, spend the rest of the day, the week, noticing what you respond to. And not judging it. It is your specific, authentic self saying "feed me this" "I need this." It is yours alone.
Feed it. It is the way in to Arete. To the excellence that is only, exclusively, and delightfully yours.