So, what does it mean, anyway? Self-referential excellence? What a lot of words. I have to watch that...

It means my real job on this planet is to be exactly myself. To be the most whole and fully expressed self I can be. Simple, right? Maybe not so much. It takes quite a lot of digging to separate my self from my idea of myself. It's like the difference between "tree" -the word, the symbol, the idea- and that one specific California live oak whose acorns crash onto the table in my back yard.

My idea of myself, has been influenced by thousands of events, memories, off-hand remarks, choices, images... And to make it worse, it's a moving target. My self at 45 is not exactly the same as my self at 15, though there are constants. Teasing it apart, in order to own myself, is the discovery work of Arete. Once discovered, finding the courage and compassion to express my self in the world is the muscle-building of Arete. Integrating the various parts of my self, is the maturing of Arete.

I took a workshop with a Japanese potter last weekend, Shuji Ikeda. The workshop was a hands-on, how-to of making a particular kind of clay "basket he makes. when mine is finished drying, firing, glazing, I will post a photo for you. It was a wonderful experience, and I love my basket. But I was thinking about what he really wanted to teach, and it was not the technique. Shuji wanted to share with us a reverence for the clay, a relationship between self and material. And I resonated deeply with that lesson, and the man who wanted to teach it.

I began thinking what I would truly want to teach, what I have always wanted to share when I have taught, and it is never the subject at hand. The subject is just a medium for what I really want to share: this idea of Arete, of putting one's self into every element of life, of work, of art. To me, copying Shuji's beautiful basket, is not the point. It is finding and making my own basket... Taking his basket, and discovering mine inside. Learning his basket is important. Learning it exactly the way it is, the how and the why his basket is built the way it is-- is crucial. Mastering the basket at hand is one of the ways to discover my own basket... But I more wanted to learn his deeper teaching, to see where it resonates with my own. To deepen my relationship with the clay, with my body as it relates to the clay, so that my self can be transmitted into the clay and come forth into the world in form. That is the true lesson, that is what Shuji truly gave me, another avenue to my own Arete.

This blog is to keep me focused on this deeper lesson, this deepening of my relationship to self, and the journey of bringing self into the world, in clay, in cooking, in my business. I'm blogging as a way to test it, to see if the ideas I have stand up to scrutiny, to refine and build the muscles of my own Arete. Thanks for the opportunity.

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.