Vertical Thinking

While awaiting his execution in prison in 524 AD, Boethius wrote a short work that would become a best-seller for a thousand years: “The Consolation of Philosophy”. In it, he concludes that bad luck is more favorable to humans than good fortune. Why? Fortune (personified as a fickle goddess) is more honest in revealing her ways than good luck, which can easily deceive us into false security. We are more free through realizing our fragility than with the cloying pampering of good luck.

“Wealth does not bring about excellence, but excellence makes wealth and everything else good for men, both individually and collectively.” This was said by Socrates, the father of Western philosophy, in his defense before the Athenian jury before being sentenced to death 2,423 years ago. The longer I reflect on that line, the more it opens up. Here are a few ways we could understand Socrates’s point. One could use it appropriately to tout traditional values, hard work and academic achievement.

A thought from a grumpy German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, on our tendency to confuse what is new with what is good. “No greater mistake can be made than to imagine that what has been written latest is always the more correct; that what is written later on is an improvement on what was written previously; and that every change means progress.”