Saturn & Our Kids

August 5, 2020

How the tale of Zeus' dad is a warning to all parents

Before the gods of the Graeco-Roman world assumed power, the Titans ran things. The king of the Titans was Father Time, Saturn to the Romans, or Chronos to the Greeks. To say that Saturn was a terrible father is an understatement on par with saying … — Before the gods of the Graeco-Roman world assumed power, the Titans ran things. The king of the Titans was Father Time, Saturn to the Romans, or Chronos to the Greeks. To say that Saturn was a terrible father is an understatement on par with saying crystal meth has some minor health defects. He’d heard this prophesy that one of his children would overthrow him, so he proposed to solve this problem by devouring whatever came out of his wife’s womb.
On a symbolic level, Saturn ate the gods because time devours all things. And the truth is that he prophesy holds true for all of us. Eventually, we will all be replaced by our children as we grow weaker with age while they grow stronger. Even Saturn can’t escape the ravages of his own dominion—time.
Like all overbearing parents, Saturn chose to avert the prophecy by consuming his kids’ life force and future in the process. Look up the Freudian archetype of the devouring mother, it’s a terrifying thing. You’ve almost certainly gone to school with one of her kids or met one of these people in your life. Parents who effectively disable their kids through the myriad ways of coddling, controlling, or otherwise crushing their spirit. Just as the devouring mother often succeeds in producing the kind of grown-up children who are totally dependent on them, only to wonder why her kids are such sissies and wimps, the domineering father rarely gets what he wants either. Instead, his kids take up his violent habits. Sometimes they use it on him, sometimes they perpetuate it amongst the next generation.
Saturn gets both. Because not even time can stop the inevitable, and Zeus eventually overthrows his dad and castrates him, rendering him literally impotent. Then he’s locked up in either the fiery hell of Tartarus or the cold, dank cave of Nyx, both of which are terrible retirement homes. Zeus and the gods then proceed to toy with their offspring and ruin many a mortal life.
Bottom line? Don’t be a dick to your kids. Feed their passions and talents, don’t devour them. Give them lots of hugs and don’t bite their heads off when they do things you can’t control. Accept that nobody, not even time itself, will matter forever. And maybe, just maybe, your kids won’t totally emasculate and banish you to some damp dark hole in Florida.

Caesar Was the First Big Brother

January 30, 2020

That phrase Jesus tells his disciples when being consulted for tax advice—"Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s"?

That wasn’t just about what to do with your material goods, it was also a religious question.

Because the Romans had figured out and damn near perfected something the many empires before theirs weren’t nearly as successful at: how to ensure obeisance from your conquered subjects.

And while the guarantee of material gain for the people you crushed in war goes a long way, sooner or later they start wanting more. After all, you did kill their fathers, rape their mothers and pillage their homes.

It doesn’t matter if you then give them aqueducts, deep down they still want to see you die. The physical is easy, the spiritual and mental are much harder to conquer.

Unless...

Leonardo Da Vinci’s Guide to graceful Self-Promotion

November 7, 2019

In one of Leonardo’s many notebooks among his wide-ranging notes and sketches, you’ll find one recipe for blonde hair dye. Il Maestro was probably in his late 30s when he wrote that down and most likely going grey. While we mostly think of the guy who painted the Mona Lisa as the wizard-looking fellow depicted in his later portraits, Leonardo was renowned during his lifetime for being an exceptionally beautiful young man with curly golden locks and a perfectly-proportioned build. He moved with exquisite grace and is even rumored to be the model for his boss, Andrea del Verocchio’s bronze statue of David. In a time when most Italians wore tunics down to their feet, Leonardo showed off his knees by wearing his just above them. Inside such an exceptional person, the people thought, must be an exceptional mind whose taste for aesthetics brimmed over into every aspect of his life.

Say what you will about young Leo the artist, he understood the power of personal branding.

What do you call a freelancer who Isn’t just in it for the money?

October 10, 2019

In days of yore, ‘freelancer’ was practically a dirty word.

Back when loyalty counted for something, the lord would have his trusted knights whom he, or his father before him, had given land in exchange for troops and service when the drums and horns sounded for war.

These men (and occasionally women) were knights, men-at-arms, practically family.

They and their fathers before them had sworn oaths to defend the lord and his fiefdom to the death.

Freelancers, on the other hand, were just that: a free lance. Traveling mercenaries loyal to no lord who were just as likely to sack Constantinople as free the Holy Land, depending on who was easier to loot.

Is it any wonder that they frequently got the worst jobs—the most mind-numbing, soul-killing, life-threatening missions? If freelancers are only around to fight your money, then it’s best for your money if after the fighting there are no freelancers around.

Employers today may no longer be trying to literally work their freelancers to death, they’re still throwing them stuff nobody else wants to do—working late to produce the ideas that are least likely to survive, let alone taste glory.

But what if you took a more chivalrous point of view? Out of the same age from which the freelancer rode, also came the knight-errant. A warrior who tested his skills by wandering the land, aiding men and women from all walks of life.

The knight-errant lived by a code. Where mercenaries fought for money, the knight-errant fought for love. They embarked on quests to solve problems nobody else would.

There’s a reason video games about driven characters with noble purposes sell better than ones about desk workers and indentured servants.

These men and women were shining examples of what we could all be.

Why does this matter now?

Between automation, downsizing, daily predictions of an imminent recession, and the rise of the gig economy, it would seem the old retainer model of full-time employment is on its last legs.

We are entering once more into a period of great upheaval. And it is in these times when the institutions that enforce social norms are collapsing and our truth sources can no longer be trusted (our celebrities are secretly monsters, followers are bought, news is easily faked, and government is a circus), that we must rely instead on judgment of character and word-of-mouth. On older, more deadly serious markers of quality like integrity, and honour.

Time also to reckon with an exciting truth: we have always been self-employed, because our job security is totally dependent on us. How we carry ourselves, how we sell our solutions, how we execute on our promise. When your reputation is all that matters, then it’s your job to make sure it precedes you. And just as in times of old, the most-often told legends are about mighty deeds done in the service of others. We live in a world where several platforms exist purely to spread the word. That should be as much permission as we need to do the things our companies deem too risky, too expensive, too outside their interests. So pick a problem, the world and your community is filled with them, and vanquish it. Most political ads suck and the one good councillor out there running for election could use your help. Despite children screaming at the UN, the world still doesn’t care enough to reduce its consumption. The opioid crisis is still out of control. And if all of these are too grand for your level, there’s always the organization you’re in right now. Freelancers have an objective opinion that the right ears want to listen to, and you have the freedom to voice it that lifers do not. Don’t try to fix these issues because it will garner attention, generate profits, or even because they can be fixed by you alone. Do it because you are uniquely situated and skilled to do it, because that’s what knight-errants do.

The freelancer model is best-equipped to adapt to the modern economic landscape. Steady jobs are vanishing, so whether your craft is the sword or the pen, you’ll have to hit the road.

But that doesn’t mean you have to be a mercenary.

Your lance is finally free. That means the decision of which giants it will take down, is yours.

Note: I hope you enjoyed this post. More than any other, this has been one I’ve mulled over for quite sometime. I really believe that freelancers, and freelance creatives in particular, have a freedom and duty to act better and do more. What’s more, while freelancers are often left off credit sheets and award entries, you nonetheless deserve to be celebrated just as much as any creative. If you agree, please sign up to my mailing list for updates and ideas on how we can make this happen. Thank you! -Richard

A legendary stoic invents seppuku - Death of Cato by Johann Carl Loth

RYAN HOLIDAY’S MINDLESS MISTAKE: WHY THE STOIC SELF HELP MARKETER HAS ZEN ALL WRONG

December 12, 2016

Ryan Holiday knows there’s more to stoicism than its common definition as a synonym for spartan (cold, rigid, brutally harsh). He knows that if it really was just that stereotype, the philosophy wouldn’t have lasted so long. Nor would he be able to write numerous illuminating articles and two best-selling books on it. Which is why it is so disappointing that he could not pay Stoicism's Eastern cousin, Zen Buddhism*, a modicum of the same respect--dismissing it in a few sentences with the straw man stereotype of the monk-recluse alone in his garden on a cliff.

What Ryan does not mention is that feudal Japanese life, like caste-based Indian life or Imperial Chinese life--all lives Zen and Buddhism made better--was anything but a holiday. It was a grueling, hierarchical and wretched existence full of familial obligations and draconian laws. These were the ties that bound people together in a land where resources were scarce and disaster was always a couple of bad harvests and a disgruntled warlord's rebellion away. It would be very easy under such repressive and oppressive regimes for leaders to tyrannize their subjects and engage in needless bloodshed, as many did.

But there was one group of people whom the daimyos and despots not only feared, but who were capable of changing their hearts and slaking their bloodlust: Zen monks. Those gardens weren't celestial pleasure domes where Orientalists like Coleridge might have escaped from reality, but places of meditation where emperors and commoners alike sought advice, gained mental clarity and even sparked creativity, not unlike the bedside of Marcus Aurelius or the olive tree under which Socrates and his friends sat.

Everything You Do is Political

November 25, 2016

Advice from the OG democrats.

My blog has moved.

How the tale of Zeus' dad is a warning to all parents

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