Letters From An Enthusiast

Life's Lessons Vol. 6

Here related is the story of the flea and the man:

"Once, a flea was irritating a man relentlessly.  So he caught it and said to it:
    'Who are you, who makes a meal of all my limbs, biting me all over at random?'
    The flea answered:
    'That's the way we live.  Don't kill me, for I can't do much harm.'
    The man started to laugh and said:
    'You're going to die now, and at my hands, for however great or small the harm it is imperative to stop you from breeding.'"

    The attitude of this man may catch the modern man off guard.  The modern attitude would call this man, "cruel" and state that he should simply "swat the flea away".  But to the Greeks and Romans, justice was about doing what is right and not about being attentive to the feelings of your enemy.  Ayn Rand once spoke of how the clemency given to the guilty is treason to the innocent.  Similarly, any clemency given to a threat is treason not only to your own future innocence, but to the innocence of anyone else upon whom the threat is released.

    The statue of Lady Justice displays a blindfolded woman holding a system of weights.  In our day-to-day dealings with reality, we must face each problem rationally and free from our passions (blind-folded), weighing the evidence to make a decision.  Only in this manner may justice be served.  Anything else is treason.

-----Jason Roberts

Life's Lessons Vol. 5

   

Here related is the story of the ass bought at a market:

"A man who intended to buy an ass took it on trial and led it to the manger to mix with his others.  But the ass, turning its back on the others, went and stood beside the laziest and fattest of the lot.  As it stood there and did nothing, the man put a halter on it and led it back to its owner.  The owner asked the man if he had given it a fair trial, and he replied:
    'I don't need any further trial.  I am certain of what he's like because of the companion he chose among the lot.' "

    That human beings have volition is a fact of nature not to be disputed.  But something many people forget, especially those firm believers in volition, is how one's friends, society, and environment influences them.  Usually the influences are very subtle, including the way a person speaks (including slang phrases) and certain mannerisms. But slowly, these small and seemingly harmless things translate into much larger and deeper problems.  A cynical, joking attitude between friends, over time, translates into a cynical view of life.  Listening to nothing but foul-mouthed language slowly turns into a brutish way of speaking.
    The ancients taught us that, in the words of Aristotle, "We are what we repeatedly do."  Habits form the basis for our character, no matter how big or small.  Knowing this, the man chose not to buy the donkey based upon the sloven crowd that he associated with.  Sloven friends leads to a sloven life.  The moral then?  For positive results, surround yourself with positive things, positive environments, and positive friends.

-----Jason Roberts

Life's Lessons Vol. 4: The Eagle and the Arrow

    Here related is the story of the Eagle and the Arrow:

An Eagle was soaring through the air when suddenly it heard the whizz of an Arrow, and felt itself wounded to death. Slowly it fluttered down to the earth, with its life-blood pouring out of it. Looking down upon the Arrow with which it had been pierced, it found that the shaft of the Arrow had been feathered with one of its own plumes. "Alas!" it cried, as it died,

"We often give our enemies the means for our own destruction."

    As reader Bryan pointed out, this fable is a perfect illustration of how the West has been acting recently, in terms of foreign policy.  From 1980 to 1988, the United States sent money and materials (including weapons) to Iraq, aiding them in their war with Iran. Also in the 1980's, the United States sent a couple of billion dollars in aid to Afghanistan in order to fund their operations against Soviet Russia.  This is the same Soviet Russia that the United States kept alive during both World Wars, sending food, money, and weapons over.  All three turned out to be enemies of the US, and two of the three have fought a war against the US.

    The moral, then, is obvious.  An enemy of your enemy is not your friend.  A friend is only one who agrees with you on a moral level.  It was not wrong in World War 2 for the United States to send aid over to Great Britain.  It was wrong to send aid to the Soviet Union.  It is not wrong today for the US to send aid over to Israel.  It is wrong to send aid to nations such as Saudi Arabia.

    What we need is a return to a Foreign Policy of Self-Interest.  Actions should be made on principle, and that principle is clear: love thy ally almost as thyself, and kick the hell out of thy enemy.

---Jason Roberts

Life's Lessons, Vol. 3

Here related is the story of the man and the fox:

"There was a man who had a grudge against a fox, for the fox had caused him some damage.  He managed to seize it, and in order to take his full revenge, he tied a rope which had been dipped in oil to his tail.  He set fire to the rope and let him go.  But, prompted by some god, the fox ran into the man's fields and set fire to all of his crops, as it was harvest time.  The man ran after him helplessly, lamenting his lost crops."

Our passions can be a good thing, if directed towards the Good (such as love).  Oftentimes, however, we fall prey to our passions.  The Farmer in this fable had indeed suffered injury from the fox, but it was his emotions that, clouding his rational judgement, caused him more damage.

But more importantly, this fable discusses the nature of justice.  While it is true that the Farmer deserved justice for his loss, the farmer went about enacting justice in the wrong way.  Justice clouded by emotion is revenge; it was revenge that the Farmer sought, not justice.  Ironically, he who could not properly enact justice was justly reciprocated.

In the post 9/11 era, it is important for us  to think about the nature of justice.  John Galt, a character in Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged", describes justice as:

"...the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake the character of men as you cannot fake the character of nature, that you must judge all men as conscientiously as you judge inanimate objects, with the same respect for truth, with the same incorruptible vision, by as pure and as rational a process of identification...that to place any other concern higher than justice is to devaluate your moral currency and defraud the good in favor of the evil..."

I will let Ayn Rand's words stand on their own as a testament to the importance of justice guided by reason.

-Jason Roberts

Life's Lessons-Vol. 2

I was really pleased with the last "Life's Lessons", and loved the feedback! Thus I present Volume 2:

 Here related is the story of The Braggart:

    "A man who practised the pentathlon*, but whom his fellow-citizens continually reproached for his unmanliness, went off one day to foreign parts.  After some time he returned, and he went around boasting of having accomplished many extraordinary feats in various countries, but above all of having made such a jump when he was in Rhodes that not even an athlete crowned at the Olympic Games could possibly equal it.  And he added that he would produce as witnesses of his exploit people who had actually seen it, if ever they came to his country.
    Then one of the bystanders spoke out:
    'But if this is true, my friend, you have no need of witnesses.  For here is Rhodes right here - make the jump.' "
    *Pentathlon: Greek Olympic Event considered the top test of an Athlete.  It included 5 events: running, wrestling, long jump, javelin throw, and discus.  The purpose was to test the athletes abilities overall as opposed to specified in one area.

    And thus we see the greatest weapon against one who brags: demand the proof.  Words may be great, but actions are greater still.  In fact, we are truly defined by our actions, not by our words.  I would apply the lessons of the Fable to all aspects of life-especially in the political realm.  We hear so often from foreign leaders, "We will support you in your war with Iraq".  What should our response be? Prove it!  We hear nations boast of their greatness? Show it!  Nobody should be afraid to display in actions what they proclaim in words; for if they are afraid, then indeed their words are hollow and they are cowards.

    But even worse still, those who make a pretense to greatness show the moral fault of not being great.  I admire nations like Japan  who aided the US in Iraq, as opposed to a nation like France who did not support us at all. But reality has a beautiful sense of justice; in the end, the victors are the men of actions, not the men of hollow words.  Thus he who brags and boasts now finds himself sunk in the long run.  Thank you reality.

    What do you think?

-Jason Roberts

Life's Lessons

    Aesop is a particular treasure of mine.  His short but to-the-point fables have always struck me as important yet practical lessons to be learned.  Far from the theoretical, Aesop deals with the everyday issues in life.  Thus I came up with the idea of presenting different fables from Aesop and discussing them.  All stories from Aesop will come from "Aesop-The Complete Fables", translated by Olivia and Robert Temple.

    I wish one of the fables I ran across was plastered on the wall of every school in the world.  It relates the story of a Fox and a Billy-Goat:

    "A fox, having fallen into a well, was faced with the prospect of being stuck there.  But then a billy-goat came along to that same well because he was thirsty and saw the fox.  He asked him if the water was good.
    The fox decided to put a brave face on it and gave a tremendous speech about how wonderful the water was down there, so very excellent.  So the billy-goat climbed down the well, thinking only of his thirst.  When he had had a good drink, he asked the fox what he thought was the best way to get back up again.
    The fox said:
    'Well, I have a very good way to do that.  Of course, it will mean our working together.  If you just push your front feet up against the wall and hold your horns up in the air as high as you can, I will climb up on to them, get out, and then I can pull you up behind me.'
    The billy-goat willingly consented to this idea, and the fox briskly clambered up the legs, the shoulders, and finally the horns of his companion.  He found himself at the mouth of the well, pulled himself out, and immediately scampered off.  The billy-goat shouted after him, reproaching him for breaking their agreement of mutual assistance.  The fox came back to the top of the well and shouted down to the billy-goat:
    'Hah!  If you had as many brains as you have hair on your chin, you would't have got down there in the first place without thinking of how you were going to get out again.' "

   A wealth of lessons can be learned from this fable.  My favorite lesson, however, is this: always think ahead.  Or as my parents constantly reminded me: think before you do.  Often, we are led by our passions, desires, emotions, etc. and end up finding ourselves wrapped up in a problem.  This problem could have simply been avoided had we taken just a few seconds to think things through.

    That point brings up another lesson: do not let yourself be guided by the 'whim of the moment'.  One of the reasons that the Billy-goat got himself stuck in the well was because he was, "thinking only of his thirst."  When we fail to use reason as a guiding force in life, we begin to find ourselves trapped by whatever "pleasure" we run to or "pain" we run from.

What do you think?

-Jason Roberts