oriented....................

 

      When it comes to the purpose of the Socratic method, Socrates had colossal ambitions.  He believed that all of the trouble we have leading our lives, all of our dissatisfactions, all of our failures to progress, all of our moral imperfections, all of the injustices we commit, large and small, stem from one source: ignorance.   Socrates' claim that "I know that I know nothing" isn't an empty gesture of skepticism, but rather a plan for life.  It tells you that the key to success, whether you are navigating difficulties in your marriage, your terror at the prospect of death, or the politicized minefield of social media, is to have the right kind of conversations.  Given that we cannot lead lives based on knowledge—because we lack it—we should lead the second-best kind of life, namely, the one oriented toward knowledge.

-Agnes Callard, Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Live

On the "killer instinct".....

I saw a screenshot of a Reddit post recently from a person who wondered aloud why rich people continue to work, because this person said that the whole point of getting rich was that you wouldn’t have to work anymore. I know one thing for sure—that person is never going to be rich.

-Jared Dillian, from this substack post

Uh-oh................................

      In any case, Posidonius would later recall with disapproval that the abundance of Syria in those days made its people "free from the bother of the necessities of life, and so were forever meeting for a continual life of feasting and their gymnasia turned into baths."  He wrote of the "drunken ambition" of the local tyrants.  Things were good, but good times rarely makes for great people, or great governments.

-Ryan Holiday/Stephen Hanselman,  Lives Of The Stoics:  The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius

On the proper harnessing of ambition..........

You can't let ambition get too far ahead of opportunity.  I've seen a lot people who had their sights set on a particular job or project, but the opportunity to actually get that thing was so slim.  Their focus on the small thing in the distance became a problem.  They grew impatient with where they were.  They didn't tend enough to the responsibilities they did have, because they were longing so much for something else, and so their ambition became counterproductive.  It's important to know how to find the balance—do the job you have well; be patient; look for opportunities to pitch in and expand and grow;  and make yourself one of the people, through attitude and energy and focus, that your bosses feel they have to turn to when an opportunity arises.  Conversely, if you're a boss, these are the people to nurture—not the ones who are clamoring for promotions and complaining about not being utilized enough but the ones who are proving themselves to be indispensable day in and day out.

-Robert Iger,  as culled from The Ride of a Lifetime:  Lessons Learned From 15 Years As CEO of the Walt Disney Company

Spare yourself..........................

     When King Pyrrhus was undertaking his expedition into Italy, Cyneas, his wise counselor, wanting to make him feel the vanity of his ambition, asked him:  "Well, Sire, to what purpose are you setting up this great enterprise?"  "To make myself master of Italy," he immediately replied.  "And then," continued Cyneas, "when that is done?" "I shall pass over into Gaul and Spain," said the other.  "And after that?"  "I shall go and subdue Africa; and finally, when I have brought the world under my subjection, I shall rest and live content and at my ease."  "In God's name, Sire,"  Cyneas then retorted, "tell me what keeps you from being in that condition right now, if that is what you want.  Why don't you settle down at this very moment in the state you say you aspire to, and spare yourself all the intervening toil and risks?"

          Because he does not know the bounds of gain,
          And where true pleasure stops, and starts to wane.
                                                             Lucretius

     I will conclude this piece with this old line that I think is singularly fine and to the purpose:  Each man's character shapes his fortune [Cornelius Nepos].

-The Complete Essays of Montaigne, Essay 42  Of the inequality that is between us

Yep...........................

"One of my goals is to be an ambitious 85-year-old."

-Michael Wade

the curious, tinkering boy......

 What eventually set him apart was his mindset and drive. He never stopped being the curious, tinkering boy looking for new challenges.

-Carol Dweck, on Thomas Edison

Worth..............................

3.  An empty pageant; a stage play; flocks of sheep; herds of cattle; a tussle of spearmen; a bone flung among a pack of curs; a crumb tossed into a pond of fish; ants, loaded and laboring; mice, scared and scampering; puppets, jerking on a string - that is life.  In the midst of it all you must take your stand, good-temperedly and without disdain, yet always aware that a man's worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions.


-Marcus Aurelius,  Meditations, Book VII

On ambition...............................

"Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition."
-attributed to her

Heroic spirit indeed..................

"A thirsty ambition for truth and virtue, and a frenzy to conquer all lies and vices which are not recognized as such nor desire to be; herein consists the heroic spirit of the philosopher."
-Johann Georg Hamann

On daring greatly........................

It is not the critic who counts;  not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat. 

-Teddy Roosevelt, as excerpted from this speech delivered at the Sorbonne in 1910.

This quote was brought to mind by this post about the $20 Billion real estate development project at the Hudson Yards in Manhattan.  Breathtaking vision combined with incredible ambition.   Do scroll through it.

thanks craig

On frustration.................................

"We are in the position of the man who has only two ambitions in life. One is to invent the universal solvent which will dissolve any solid substance, and the second is to invent the universal container which will hold any liquid. Whatever this inventor does, he will be frustrated."
-Norbert Wiener, as excerpted from The Human Use of Human Beings

Funny, I don't remember it that way....

"Let us not fool ourselves into thinking we went to the Moon because we are pioneers, or discoverers, or adventurers.   We went to the Moon because it was the militaristically expedient thing to do.
-Neil deGrasse Tyson

Tyson was nine years old that July day in 1969 when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin set foot on the moon.  I was seventeen.  It felt to me that, while competition with the U.S.S.R. was certainly a factor, our main drivers were a lot more idealistic than simple Cold War competition.  I don't care what the historical revisionists come up with, we were pioneers, discoverers and adventurers.   Successful ones at that. And, damn, but it felt good.

On home study.............................

       "There is one weakness in people for which there is no remedy.  It is the universal weakness of lack of ambition!  Persons, particularly salaried people who schedule their spare time, to provide for home study, seldom remain at the bottom very long.  Their action opens the way for the upward climb, removes many obstacles from their path, and gains the friendly interest of those who have the power to put them in the way of opportunity."
-Napoleon Hill, as excerpted from Think and Grow Rich

On equality.......................

"Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition."
-Timothy Leary and/or Marilyn Monroe

Trying (hard) to make sense of it all..............

Victor Davis Hanson rambles on a bit about the state of agriculture, land values, real estate cycles, cynicism vs optimism, immigration, and California.  The man always has an interesting point of view and can cover a lot of ground in a hurry. VDH asks the question, "Does anyone still believe in the old idea of labor laboris gratia?"  I'd say he does.  A few excerpts:

Central California is also a magnet for very rich Punjabis. Their three-story gated castles of 6,000 square feet are suddenly commonplace. For every copper-wire thief, there is an immigrant agribusiness man who smiles and says: “No problem. I just got more barbed wire, more video cameras, more lights” — such an impressive confidence so characteristic of the immigrants who have always energized America.

The Sikh community arrives with capital, English, and education — and wishes to become even richer, better spoken, more highly educated, and more successful. In this nexus, land is not just a wise investment, but immediate proof of visible, tangible success, in the manner of the old idea of a landed aristocracy.

So California is both more poorly managed than any time in its past, more divided between rich and poor, more fragmented by opportunistic ethnic identity politics, more impoverished by massive illegal immigration — and never more naturally wealthy. The other day I drove through the verdant Central Valley on Manning Avenue. Each acre I zoomed by is producing thousands of dollars in global profits. At I-5, I looked out at fracking country, before descending into the land of Facebook, Google, and Apple — all on mostly poor roads, with terrible drivers and third-world public rest stops, and now and then passing inferior schools.

California may be in awful financial, social, civic, and political shape — but it is far, far from broke.

Rubbing salt in the wound................

...............in a funny and good-natured kind of way.

Really, really faithful readers might remember that on this blogger's bucket list sits the ambition to travel and watch, live and in-person, all four of golf's Major Tournaments plus the Player's Championship, preferably in the same year.  No progress has been made on that front, even though several entreaties have gone forth, through various channels, seeking tickets to the Masters.  So you might imagine the whimsical smile that crossed my face when I found this in my mail yesterday afternoon.  Stapled to the cover was this note:  "22nd next best thing to being here!  Doug".   Did I mention that one of the various channels used in seeking tickets was through that rascal operative of the "Mastersticity" blog?

Self-help..............................

     Drew began business on his own account, with a capital of a few shillings; but his character for steadiness was such that a neighboring miller offered him a loan, which was accepted, and, success attending his industry, the debt was repaid at the end of the year.  He started with a determination to "owe no man anything," and he held to it in the midst of many privations.  Often he went to bed supperless, to avoid rising in debt.  His ambition was to achieve independence by industry and economy, and in this he gradually succeeded.  In the midst of incessant labour, he sedulously strove to improve his mind, studying astronomy, history, and metaphysics.  He was induced to pursue the latter study chiefly because it required fewer books to consult that either of the others.  "It appeared to be a thorny path," he said, "but I determined, nevertheless, to enter, and accordingly began to tread it."
-Samuel Smiles, as excerpted from his book, Self Help; With Illustrations of Conduct and Perseverance.  The Drew being discussed is Samuel Drew.

Hey, I resemble that remark....................

thanks jonco

Dare.............................

“The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare. The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore.”
-Dale Carnegie

image of Apollo 13