Blog 2

Excellence, virtue and good quality  are the characteristics that made the Ancient Greeks one of the most powerful and unique civilizations of all times. This set of qualities also form up their philosophy, way of life, known as arete. Arete is the pursue of excellence through a series of struggles (agons), that can be physical or mental. However, is arete anything more than just the pursue of perfection ? Can it also change the way we view the world? Ourselves?


There are those who view upon this idea as a simple and superficial way of self improvement. Nothing more than just getting better at what one does, that is work, studies, sports, etc. Furthermore, people argue that those who pursue arete may just do it for the ability to brag about their achievements. That the main reward of working hard is the ability to tell others what they did.


On the other hand, arete can be seen as more than just a way of self improvement. Lets look back at the ancient Greeks. In their culture, someone who won a wrestling match, debate or even javelin toss were given the positions of  generals, diplomat and even leaders. This is because the Greeks believed that someone who had the capacity to beat, persuade and outsmart someone else in a competitive manner can do it in a political/ militaristic one as well. When someone spends hours, weeks and years training with hard work cannot simply look for bragging rights or to become the best at a certain thing. Arete is an ideology, that when followed correctly can make dreams come true. How many times has someone told themselves they can't achieve something  because they think is impossible? like becoming a professional athlete for example. Becoming someone with the mindset of "always forward" and "always pushing", completely changes the way we behave and think. This is how the Greeks were able to become so dominant in their times, because they believe that the pursue of excellence brings about joy and pleasure. It is not all about the bragging rights, if at all, but the search of pleasure by achieving what we thought impossible


 This ideology does have mixed opinions and it has surely made me think over what I should follow as a model when moving forward with life. I certainly agree that arete is far more than just the search and practice of self improvement and that it allows us to gain pleasure and happiness by achieving difficult and time consuming objectives, but I have yet to find out what will I chose as my philosophy, or simply