Time Capsule #152
The Permissibility of Indulgence.
Greetings everyone,
2023 is almost over — every year, I do a yearly review where I look back at the goals and vision I set for myself 12 months ago.
My key values for 2023 were: Hard work; Humility; Honesty; Godliness; Faith.
I look forward to reviewing 2023 in great detail later this year — I highly recommend this practice to others.
This week’s newsletter at a glance:
The Permissibility of Indulgence
A Book Recommendation
The Peloponnesian War
Enjoy!
Rien n'est plus important que l'empathie pour un autre être humain qui est en train de souffrir.
—Audrey Hepburn (1929-1993)
✏️ The Permissibility of Indulgence
Nowadays, I steer clear of most of the typical indulgences of mankind: drinking, smoking, gambling. I’ve seen far too many people ruin their lives with such things — and more frightening, I’ve seen far too many become less than they could be because of them.
But I wonder whether indulgences have their place in the world. For one, they aren’t going anywhere — there will always be a lineup at the pub. But more interestingly, I wonder whether such things give people respite from the grind of everyday life. Even the highly driven and successful tend to enjoy a drink when it is warranted. Though that isn’t something I do, I kind of get it: from a simply utilitarian perspective, if you can do such things without doing any harm to those around you, who am I to judge you? Live and let live.
For me, the fear of losing everything in my life (which I associate with such activities) outweighs the benefits of enjoying such things. But for those who feel like they can harmlessly indulge, perhaps the world isn’t worse off because of it.
Audentes Fortuna Iuvat.
Fortune favours the bold.
💡 Food for Thought
Like judging a painting before it is complete, you cannot judge a man until his time is up.
🔗 Sunday Best
🚨 Book Recommendation: Poilu
I’m loving this book right now.
Along with millions of other Frenchmen, Louis Barthas, a thirty-five-year-old barrelmaker from a small wine-growing town, was conscripted to fight the Germans in the opening days of World War I. Corporal Barthas spent the next four years in near-ceaseless combat, wherever the French army fought its fiercest battles: Artois, Flanders, Champagne, Verdun, the Somme, the Argonne. Barthas’ riveting wartime narrative, first published in France in 1978, presents the vivid, immediate experiences of a frontline soldier.
This excellent new translation brings Barthas’ wartime writings to English-language readers for the first time. His notebooks and letters represent the quintessential memoir of a “poilu,” or “hairy one,” as the untidy, unshaven French infantryman of the fighting trenches was familiarly known. Upon Barthas’ return home in 1919, he painstakingly transcribed his day-to-day writings into nineteen notebooks, preserving not only his own story but also the larger story of the unnumbered soldiers who never returned. Recounting bloody battles and endless exhaustion, the deaths of comrades, the infuriating incompetence and tyranny of his own officers, Barthas also describes spontaneous acts of camaraderie between French poilus and their German foes in trenches just a few paces apart. An eloquent witness and keen observer, Barthas takes his readers directly into the heart of the Great War.
The Peloponnesian War: Athens vs. Sparta (Context and Overview)
Allow me to put you on one of the most underrated history channels on YouTube.
In this lecture, I cover Greek history from 478-404 BCE with an emphasis on the Peloponnesian War. This is intended as a primer on the topic and I devote more time to establishing the context and causes of the war than I do going through the details of conflict itself.
Try not to hide shameful memories of your sins in dark corners, but on the contrary, try to keep them forever ready to be used when you’re called upon to judge someone else.
—Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910)
I wish you a happy December.
See you next week.
AT
Glad to see you enjoyed Poilu.