Seeming.

Vasari, The Mutilation of Uranus by Saturn, 1566

Observing Plato one day at a costly banquet taking olives, "How is it," he said,⁠ "that you the philosopher who sailed to Sicily for the sake of these dishes, now when they are before you do not enjoy them?" 

"Nay, by the gods, Diogenes," replied Plato, "there also for the most part I lived upon olives and such like.

"Why then," said Diogenes, "did you need to go to Syracuse? Was it that Attica at that time did not grow olives?" But Favorinus in his Miscellaneous History attributes this to Aristippus. 

Again, another time he was eating dried figs when he encountered Plato and offered him a share of them. When Plato took them and ate them, he said, "I said you might share them, not that you might eat them all up."

And one day when Plato had invited to his house friends coming from Dionysius, Diogenes trampled upon his carpets and said, "I trample upon Plato's vainglory." Plato's reply was, "How much pride you expose to view, Diogenes, by seeming not to be proud." 

Diogenes Laërtius, from Lives of the Eminent Philosophers

Remember Baron von Steuben's warning:

There is nothing more dangerous on the battlefield than the overconfidence of an untested warrior.

Quiet.

Arthur Brooks: In a world of noisy narcissism, escape the cacophony ...

The increase in loud egos has coincided with declines in well-being. The rate of depression in the United States has risen to its highest level on record. Behavioral science offers a compelling thesis that may explain what we’re seeing, as a result of what has been termed the “self-reflection paradox.” An intense focus on self is an evolved trait, scientists suggest, because it confers competitive advantages in mating and survival. But research has also shown that to be so focused on self can be a primary source of unhappiness and maladjustment. So what appears to be happening is that we have developed culture and technology that together supercharge this primal drive of self-reflection—to such an unhealthy and unnatural extent that it has the paradoxical effect of ruining our lives.

Where this grim trend will take our society I have no idea, but I do know that there are measures you can take to protect your well-being—short of checking out and moving to a Himalayan monastery. Unless that is actually what you want to do, then the secret to staying happy amid a culture of loud ego is to adopt for yourself the opposite strategy: cultivate a quiet ego.

Often.

Fools’ names, like fools’ faces, are often seen in public places.

Thomas Fuller

Inordinate.

To rise again - to be the same person that you were - you must have your memory perfectly fresh and present; for it is memory that makes your identity.

If your memory be lost, how will you be the same man?

Why do mankind flatter themselves that they alone are gifted with a spiritual and immortal principle?

Perhaps from their inordinate vanity.

I am persuaded that if a peacock could speak he would boast of his soul, and would affirm that it inhabited his magnificent tail.

Will Durant, from The Story of Philosophy: The Lives and Opinions of the World's Greatest Philosophers

Unlearned.

My yesterdays walk with me. They keep step, they are gray faces that peer over my shoulder.

William Golding

A few months back, Kurt pointed to malignant narcissism and the manifestation of unlearned lessons.

Warning.

Kurt giggles and issues a warning of yet another cultural abomination ...

Listening to them, you begin to understand what Nietzsche meant when he said the strong must be protected from the weak. The force of the whining is so overwhelming, the corresponding urge not to appear mean or unreasonable so great, that one is tempted to make humiliating concessions just to shut them up.

This year our school moved into a different building, one of the many benefits of this being access to eight pristinely-paved tennis courts for recess.  In August, administration graciously provided equipment for pickleball, but the squibs quickly and intelligently abandoned the game, and instead began bringing their own tennis racquets (which they call "thundersticks") for jeu de paume.  Skills are enthusiastically developing and interpretations are thriving.  What a blast.

Hollowed.

Caravaggio, Narcissus, 1596

It's true ...

Above all, the one overarching lesson that students receive is the true end of education: the only essential knowledge is that know ourselves to be radically autonomous selves within a comprehensive global system with a common commitment to mutual indifference. Our commitment to mutual indifference is what binds us together as a global people. Any remnant of a common culture would interfere with this prime directive:  a common culture would imply that we share something thicker, an inheritance that we did not create, and a set of commitments that imply limits and particular devotions.

Ancient philosophy and practice praised as an excellent form of government a res publica – a devotion to public things, things we share together. We have instead created the world’s first Res Idiotica – from the Greek word idiotes, meaning “private individual.” Our education system produces solipsistic, self-contained selves whose only public commitment is an absence of commitment to a public, a common culture, a shared history. They are perfectly hollowed vessels, receptive and obedient, without any real obligations or devotions.

They won’t fight against anyone, because that’s not seemly, but they won’t fight for anyone or anything either. They are living in a perpetual Truman Show, a world constructed yesterday that is nothing more than a set for their solipsism, without any history or trajectory.

Thank you, Kurt.