HOW TO BE NOBLE

An aristeia or aristia (/??r??sti??/; Ancient Greek: ?ριστε?α [aristě?a?], "excellence") is a scene in the dramatic conventions of epic poetry as in the Iliad, where a hero in battle has his finest moments (aristos = "best"). An aristeia can result in the death of the hero at the aristeia's end.

Because we are not a world at constant war, sports and video games have become a surrogate for the necessary release of baser human interaction. Here’s the truth: we’re essentially dignified animals. We like to fight. We like to kill. We are predators hoping for easy meals, unfettered access to the opposite sex, and safe 'caves'.

Sports and video games tickles our fascination for failure, uplifts and celebrates those we think destined for defeat, and demands our sense of honor. Playing sports highlights what we internally appreciate about war, the opportunity for both comradeship and glory, and minimize what war inflicts in the pursuit of the same. We are a warrior species, and everything we do reflects this simple truth. In no simpler terms, the ancient Greeks had a term for this: aristeia, defined above.

However, aristeia means more than 'excellence' or 'the best of what you can be'. It captures an ideal bigger than talent or skill. In that moment of greatest struggle, that moment when we are matched against a worthy adversary and defeat is certain, aristeia is that thing within us that grasps at victory, and succeeds. It quintessentially captures everything a triumphant hero strives to be.

Imagine a world where you can have all the accolades, you save your comrades and clutch victory from the jaws of defeat… but avoid any loss of life, devastation, famine, or disease. All you have to do is perform at your best and force your opponent to perform at their worst. In other words… sports and video games.

It’s not hard to understand why we love this. It’s all the good parts of conflict without the bad. And it gets better – we actively try and promote these higher ideals and expect fairness and honor in every transaction with our opponents.

Contrary to what’s portrayed in fiction and Hollywood, the idea of leaving someone behind in agony, or worse, to use that moment to take an advantage, is not intrinsic to human psychology. In fact, you can test this by just reading the last sentence again. If it makes you feel queasy, that’s normal. The very idea of NOT screwing over each other is cross-cultural. Nowhere is this more true than in all our surrogates for war.

Let’s talk some facts:

• Warriors want to win. That’s undeniable.
• However, the best of us want to win when the playing field is level. This is what aristeia demands of us, a field in which victory is summoned because of an indefinable quality we call heroism.

Winning because your opponent is distracted (unless you created that distraction) feels hollow. It feels like cheating. And worse, in war we take someone’s life on that cheat.

We really want to win when winning represents overcoming our opponent’s strategy. Winning isn’t physical, it’s a pursuit of mental supremacy. Great victories in combat don’t have to end in death… but they must end in undeniable victory. Winning is more important than surviving, because winning implies someone else noticed, and we LOVE that.

Winning is mental. It’s a statement that says, “When all things were equal, I beat your best strategy and your best attempts to stop me. I triumph because my skill, thinking, and strategy are better than yours. AND EVERYONE SEES IT.”

Everything less than this statement takes something away from the ‘win’. Do you feel good taking candy from a baby? Of course not, we all know that. How about taking money from a blind musician, or punching someone who’s not looking? Don’t these instances of ignobility just feel wrong?

Ideally, we don’t take advantage of those in less fortunate circumstances. When we do we cheapen our own sense of self-worth. We (ideally) want to win against our opponents at their best. The danger of circumstances, i.e. the price of failure, all go up as we toe closer to the line of equality in combat. And that line represents the ‘perfect’ win, something we all strive achieve in our victories.

• What do we love about war? Nothing.
• What do we love about football, dance competitions, the Olympics, Fortnite... everything.

Our current world makes it overly easy to follow what everyone else thinks. And that becomes dangerous. So in a world of political lies, dishonor, and the willingness to fabricate facts to suit one’s agenda or ego, here’s our challenge:

DON’T FOLLOW THE LATEST TREND

• Challenge yourself to be the warrior of old, the one who wants to win when things are fair, when the playing field is level.
• When it isn’t fair, don’t take advantage. Remember you are measured by your opponent's skill.
• Help your opponent become the best opponent you’ve ever faced, because in the end it makes you look that much more amazing.

Warriors of old knew something we’ve forgotten. Your legend is measured by the strength of those you defeat, not by the number of victories.

The distasteful truth is that violence and competition are part of our DNA, but this is counterbalanced by another truth: kindness, love, and hope are also part of our DNA. We are just as much actuated by acts of kindness as by violence and bigotry. It’s up to us to choose which path to follow. There are easy reasons to follow bigots, liars, and hatemongers, to believe in the worst, and to fight unfairly. They yell a lot, and it's easy to just shut down the old noggin' and nod our heads. Don't.

• They all stem from some part of you giving up.
• DON'T DO IT.

I saw an Olympic runner stop, then go back and pick up a competitor so that they could both cross the finish line together. Better, she pushed her competitor forward at the very last step so the girl with the injury placed higher than her. Somewhere the basic plight of another superseded her need for victory, for the 'win'. This, too, is aristeia, for it calls upon the best of what we are and can be to the forefront.

In fact, there are dozens if not hundreds of clips on YouTube showing athletes taking care of each other, even if they are on opposing teams. For example, when the English soccer team sang the French anthem at Wembley after the terrorist attack in 2015. We belong as one giant community, despite our differences. This is something sports has distilled from war, to our benefit.

Reading through most history leaves you with the glorified stories of victory and conquest, but there are also thousands of stories of veterans purposely shooting over their opponents’ heads… on both sides. Part of our very basic humanity is something that calls or demands fairness from us. I like that. It makes sense.

It can be easily circumvented because of tiredness, pain, survival needs, or training, but in general we’re wired to care about each other. We want to win (and I love this) but we want to win in a way that our opponent survives to acknowledge our superior mastery. And that only means something IF we win fairly. This is intrinsic to our sense of self-worth. Otherwise, why did we even compete?

However, all this leads to a real question: Why do we care about winning in the face of doing what's right? Does our political alignment supersede our ability to judge right from wrong? Will we run by the runner who fell, or will we stop and offer a hand to a fellow human being?

Our times today demand we rise to the level of our loftiest goals, and not fall to the examples of political and racial bigotry that surround us. We aren't what we see, we are what we believe. This is more important now than ever.

I HOPE EVERYONE REFLECTS ON THIS – Realize how much you can teach your kids once you acknowledge that the fairness of sports comes from a distillation of what war demands of heroes. Sports lets us celebrate those same heroes in a spectacle designed to bring out our best.

I'm not a Brad Pitt fan and the atrocity of watching Troy as a person who minored in Greek philosophy tested my mettle. However, there was one line during the movie that I never forgot. When a little boy tells Achilles, "I'd never want to face someone that big", Achilles replies, "And that is why you will never be remembered."

Brilliant. Aristeia at its best. It's that call to heroes, to the chance to show our best because we're demanded it by our opponents. It's that thing that makes every parent proud of their child, when they stand up and stand firm because they know what's right.

Let’s teach our kids to love this moment. Yes, it's scary. I requires us to let them fail now and again. However, without failure they don't learn resilience. They don't learn bravery, or gumption.

The only compass they can count on is the one first focused by us, and handed to them at the start of their journey through life. Let's keep their eyes on the north star, the place where nobility triumphs (trumps) self-adoration. A place where bravery isn't being fearless, it's acting in spite of their fear.

Here it comes...

Let’s teach them to love BACON!

• Brave – Bravery is the willingness to act despite fear.
• Amazing – be focused on delivering more than people expect.
• Curious – be interested in and seek out things you don’t know.
• Open – be willing to learn from those who know more than you.
• Noble – act generously and defiantly in defense of the weak. Do not allow evil and injustice to go unanswered.

So the final question is this:

• Does Aristeia live within you? Can you instill in your friends, children, compatriots, and fellow workers, the idea that being great IS NOT being a cartoon cut out hero.
• Being great is BACON. It's hard not to laugh, but the acronym was chosen for a reason.

We are never tested by what we can do. We're tested by what we can't. Remember this.

V