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"mhden agan was inscribed on the
temple of Apollo at Delphi. It means "nothing in excess". In
Aristotle's Rhetoric it is attributed to Chilo, one of
the Seven Sages of ancientGreece.
"Moderation in all things"
This line from Andria, written in the second century
B.C. by the Roman playwright Terence, echoes the "Golden Mean"
emphasized two centuries earlier by Aristotle. But the concept
of moderation as a means to a virtuous life is believed to
have been inspired by the Seven Sages (c650-c550 B.C.),
including Thales, Solon, Periander, Cleobulus, Chilon, Bias
and Pittacus, who as a group and individually are credited for
many sayings throughout antiquity.
"A thing moderately good is not so
good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a
virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice. -Thomas
Paine
Confused? Me Too.
How could something so simple, be
so complex...?
If one oversteps the bounds of
moderation, the greatest pleasures cease to please. -
Epictetus
And it just gets more confusing.
This will be the difficulties we
have in transitioning from BS to FLOW.
As each defines the terms in their
own favor, we do approach the model of the prescription
right-->moderation?
Yet, early roots of
Blank Slate are
here, which is intriguing to me because the Greeks seemed
"behind the curve in psychology" compared to the Indians,
which some will say are our oldest "psychologists." I think it
was James Hillman, who did that program, but i can find no
evidence of it and I don't know I'll find my copy
again...casulaties of growth, I think. Hillman died in 2011,
and he was amazing, btw--> a "US psychologist who concluded
that therapy needed to change the world rather than focus on
people's inner lives." -
Obituary is recommended reading from someone said to be as
influential as William James! I think he was snubbed by the
Top 100, i didn't see his name there, but I could be
wrong--shame what happens when you go against the flow, isn't
it?
Back to moderation.
If I could ever figure out what
this means, it might be a good idea here, but I can't, so let
me define it for you.
Moderation seems to be a
self-control mechanism for comparing ourselves to what is
appropriate in composite standards and we are required to
change, or control our whatever, desire, urges, impulses,
behavior, whatever to remain moderate.
Thomas Friedman's column this
morning (March
28, 2012) (biased as he is!) said that in order to find a
moderate republican, you have to go to Australia...sometimes I
wonder if he's been much, because you thought we were
conservative, that former penal colony has interesting ideas
about conservatism in my view...moderation is in the eye of
the beholder and that is why it's get so much play in BS.
THEREFORE,
BS aside, moderation is
for the 1-5% where moderation is an inborn attribute, or
combinatorial set as it emerges. Fine for them, as that is
within their limits, but not a good match for
FLOW.
In
FLOW, you will want to work
asymmetrically with your strengths, gifts and inbornness to
construct scaffolding for what emerges as the needs for
success, and IF those require moderation, then design that
into the system, there are many ways to do this.
One thing that I notice about BS
equality is that because of this swath of the wand, equality
begets moderation, and of course pre-BS, which BS has co-opted
from the stoics, is the idea that honor, duty, moderation in
all things, etc. is a way to remake yourself, and for those
1-5%, it will be
FLOW!
Actually for them moderation in all
things is an asymmetry, because they use that as a hammer
looking for nails, on ALL of us, which means even though they
preach moderation, the reality of it, it has serious limits to
those who are prescribed by it-->go figure.
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