“Men are more ready to repay an injury than a benefit, because gratitude is a burden and revenge a pleasure.” – Tacitus

This is probably both true and false. I mean, we have enough literature from the last several thousand years to prove it true. I’ve seen it on a small scale in my life, as I’m sure you have, too.

Depressing. Hopeless. Homo sapiens. I wonder, were the neanderthals more peaceful? Were they kinder? Was there another Homo species that would have had a healthier lifestyle than the shit that Homo sapiens comes up with? … it doesn’t really matter, though, does it?

Here’s the thing. This revenge-obsessed mentality is just one side of the coin. And we shouldn’t ignore it. This disgusting side of humanity is true when we are lost in ego.

When we are lost in ego, we become as selfish as a Shakespearean king, as ruthless as Lalo Salamanca, as cutthroat as Logan Roy. When we are lost in ego, we become a narcissist, a psychopath, a Machiavellian.

It’s incredibly short-sighted. I mean, those guys end up sad, dead, or sad and dead. Isn’t that why we have literature? theater?

But we all do it to an extent. It’s just a part of our beautiful, beautiful brains. And, it strikes me that I don’t have to lose hope in humanity. I don’t have to lose hope in life. I just have to do what Socrates urged:

Live the examined life.

Living the Examined Life

It’s not just meditation. (You might have assumed that’s where this was going). Yes, meditation teaches us to quiet our minds, but can be done without much examination.

It’s not just working, relentlessly toward a goal, toward a future of money and power—that is not quite the kind of examination that will help us to detach from ego. Work ethic may garner a lot of control, advice, power, but it doesn’t guarantee examination.

Examination requires reflection. Learning. Examination is a willingness to see our own stupidity without a bias.

And just as Socrates said, the unexamined life is not worth living. Imagine all that money, power, and still being Logan Fucking Roy. Imagine, all that power over others, but power over your own self. That’s the irony of it all.

Bringing it Home

Those are some really big examples. You and I, we are so much better than the Lalos and Logans of this world. We can sit on our poor-ass high-horses, feeling better about not having PJs or haciendas.

But, we still do this shit.

We still overlook the multitude of gifts, benevolences, kindness of others because of the one little thing that they did to cross us. We let those little pokes and prods fester until they kill us.

Maybe the most radical form of power is the choice to be happy. The choice to be grateful. The choice to accept all that is exactly as it is: both the disgusting and the beautiful. Maybe it’s a choice to find the grub as beautiful as the firefly it will become. Maybe the most radical form of power is to learn to slow down, reflect, and see clearly.

Maybe the most radical form of power is to live the examined life and lose the ego.