Lessons on how to live

ADVICE

When I was in high school, I read a book called The Catcher in the Rye it was a required class reading. I thought the book was inherently quirky because it did not seem to develop a deep story, - rather it showed what a week looked like for a fringe high school boy. As I got to the end of the book, I came across what I believe to be the archetypal piece of advice. “Among other things, you will find that you're not the first person who was ever confused and frightened or even sickened by human behavior. You are by no means alone on that score, you'll be excited and stimulated to know. Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. You will learn from them—if you want to. Just as someday, if you have something to offer, someone will learn something from you. It is a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isn't education. It's history. It's poetry.”. I was shocked, that one quote made the whole book worth it. But to my surprise when it came time to discuss the theme of the book, not a single person mentioned it. The idea that someone has been where you are today and has recorded their experiences is a fundamental prerequisite to seeking advice. You do not have to know everything you just need to know where to look and that is worth remembering.

HAPPINESS

Happiness is never far away. Happiness as most people think of it today is a feeling of joy, but happiness to the ancients was a way of being. Aristotle famously said a human is flourishing when they are doing what they have been made to do. That can be an individual purpose or anything that is uniquely human. The former is simple to understand, Aristotle believed every human was born with a purpose. Something they could do exceptionally well. Figuring that thing and doing it, he said would make that person happy. For Van Gogh it would have been painting, for Einstein mathematics, and for Shakespeare literature. This purpose is said to be obvious to children and is associated with a “flow state”. Meditating on questions like “what do I do best?” and “what idea is at the core of my nature?” or simply doing a lot of things and narrowing on what you enjoy is critical. The second part - what is unique to humans, is ambiguous. What is unique to humans? The answer is 3 parts - the character, the intellect(Reason) and the spiritual life. The intellectual life consists of activities like reading and writing and subjects including contemplation (politics, philosophy) . The spiritual life consists of activities like meditation and serving others. Character is the development of virtues, most notably courage, temperance, justice and wisdom. Incorporating these unique aspects of human life is said to make you happy. If that is true it means happiness is never far away.

SUCCESS

Pop culture is notorious for dumbing things down and fantasizing where it can, the stories of success are not excluded from this “Hollywoodfication”. Movies tell us that success is found in money, fame, sex, power etc. but 1) this seems shallow- have there not been people with money who have hated their life same with fame and power? And 2) so out of the reach of the everyday individual. I once thought of success in this narrowly tailored way, but it is wrong. My mind started to change after I read Dante’s Divine Comedy. In short it is about a man's journey into heck, purgatory and finally heaven. There are many insights in the book, but I will focus on the most powerful. After the main character “Dante” escapes heck he arrives in purgatory and begins his journey up to “Paradiso” by moving through the 7 levels of purgatory . At each level a human urge must be overcome to move on. The seven levels are as followed, for the prideful, the envious, the wrathful, the avarice, the gluttonous and finally the lustful. Eventually the nature of purgatories is revealed. Purgatory is designed to get people to love well. The bottom four terraces are for people who love what is wrong. the next one for people who love too little and the final three for people who love excessively. This is where I get the notion of success from - success is to love well. To not love anything too much or too little and to not love the wrong things. If one can learn to live their life accordingly, then they can say their life has been a success.

In good faith

Kene Ezeaputa