Plutarch’s Roman Lives

I read Plutarch’s Roman lives. The Oxford edition. This edition is a little limited, but still very readable.

First of all: I loved it. I want to read all the lives at some point. Some of these lives are “doubles”, where Plutarch paired up a famous Roman life with a Greek life he thought was analagous. People say the double lives are even better than the single ones. Piques my interest.

Second: Lives threw me into a depression for a couple days. After reading all about these great lives, I just couldn’t help thinking about how much I don’t measure up. Most of these men seem to have led great lives from the jump: commanding armies in their twenties and thirties, serving as senators in their forties, etc.

How can I ever measure up? How can we ever measure up? Statistically most of us cannot be great in the Plutarchian sense of the word. There are just too many people in the world, and too few spots of great command and power.

So what if we just stop measuring?

Not measuring is easy - just tell yourself you don’t care until you believe it. At first it’s really cathartic. Think about the club from Fight Club - their whole thing was that they found some form of enlightenment by embracing “you are NOT your job, you are NOT how much money you have in the bank”

But what kind of life does that lead to? Do you really not want to be anything? To do anything? Do you really just want to stick your head in the sand and pretend nothing means anything anyway?

Personally I think that’s a way to die, not a way to live.

So maybe we change the way we measure?

Measuring is very hard. If you measure against the wrong things (like I apparently am) you are doomed to unhappiness.

Consider Julius Caesar. Even Caesar - THAT Caesar - cried comparing himself against Alexander. I guess he didn’t think he had done enough to justify his name.

What of Pompey? Pompey’s military career is littered with greatness - he was the first general to have three triumphs, commanded remarkable respect and love from his men, and was generally one of the most feared commanders of his age. Romans literally referred to him as “Pompey the Great”. The first time he tasted serious defeat was as an old man against Caesar during the civil war. And how did he handle it? Once he realized his troops were losing, he left the battlefield. Before the battle even ended! He was completely bewildered. Did he feel great then?

Again, measuring is hard. We never learn how to do it in school. So where do we start?

The only way I can see of doing this, is by looking at people you admire and considering what THEY might measure by. Or what they might have.

Consider my neighbor Jay. You don’t know Jay. Jay is a former elementary school teacher who lives two doors down. He fishes on sunny days and weaves chairs on rainy ones. He has two daughters, several grandchildren, a deceased wife (brain cancer :/) and a live in girlfriend.

Everyone in my family loves Jay. My Dad especially. My Dad just gushes about Jay. Whenever my Dad was embarking on some ambitious instruction process, Jay was always around lending him equipment and giving him guidance. When our power went out during hurricane Sandy, Jay was the one who lent us a generator to keep our house warm. Jay taught my Dad a lot. Jay made my Dad a better man.

Jay taught me, and my siblings, a lot too. I remember he paid us five bucks a day to collect his mail for him while he was on vacation. I mowed his grass a couple times for a crisp twenty. One day we came over and he had axe throwing set up. I wasn’t very good at it.

Jay knows everyone. It turns out people in the neighborhood have had similar encounters with Jay. People just kind of know him. Sometimes, when I’m walk in the park across the street, I come back on the road and see him sitting out on his porch, and I join him for a quick conversation. Every time, without fail, a couple cars honk his way. He just looks up at them and waves.

Jay has been through a lot of shit. His wife went through brain cancer, which started as breat cancer but metastizied and climbed up her spine. He took care of her for over ten years, slowly watching her die. He lost her a few years ago.

I’m sure there’s a lot more to his story too. Good and bad.

But he seems… happy?