Hubris, Hatei, Nemesis, Tisis

In ancient Greece, in line with the primary goal of one knowing himself and finding harmony and balance, Hubris (Ύβρις) was considered a major unethical act. One committed Hubris when he arrogantly overestimated his abilities or strength, defied his mortal nature and other weaknesses, and used his power to humiliate his victim(s) for personal gratification. The Gods would then send to the one committing Hubris the Hatei (Άτη) which meant the blinding of the mind. Hatei looks surprisingly similar and fits the modern day concept of “hate” (although I could not find any such translation references in Greek or English). Hatei would then make the one committing Hubris to indulge into more of such acts until he would make a major foolishness or mistake. Such a mistake would cause Nemesis, the rage and revenge of the Gods. The Nemesis would then result in the Tisis (Τίσις), the punishment and the destruction of the one committing Hubris. 

So, if despite your self-confidence things do not work out as you want them to, think about whether you have been committing Hubris.

Alternatively, just watch Steve Job’s 2005 graduation ceremony speech at Stanford: You cannot connect the dots into the future, drop in the things that attract your curiosity, try to find what you love in work and relationships, keep looking don’t settle, do not loose faith, remember that you are going to die, do not live someone else’s life, stay hungry stay foolish. A word of caution though: Dropping out of college may not be the best thing for most of the people. 

How to live your life

Having gone past the middle of my probable lifetime I feel that I have some useful advice to give to the younger ones following. Like almost everyone, I had my share of some difficult and disappointing stages in my life. Overall, I feel grateful I was given the chance to live and experience this world. This blog is my attempt to share some of my blessings, lessons and discoveries.

You have to accept that this is a world of opposites. It is the antithesis that gives meaning to everything we value and cherish. There is no good without evil, health without disease, comfort without pain, beauty without ugliness, virtue without vice, bravery without cowardice, love without hate, light without darkness, positive without negative, female without male, richness without poorness, tallness without shortness, yin without yang, happiness without sadness. Unless you are aware of the opposites you cannot fully appreciate the other site. So, if occasionally it happens that you are on the other site of your preference, don't just feel sorry for yourself. Try to learn something out of the bad experience and work some way out of it. Our state of satisfaction with ourselves and our environment depends largely in our state of mind rather than anything else.

To begin with, try to know yourself. This is probably the single most important ancient Greek advice. Know your strengths and weaknesses, know your limitations. There is no point in feeling sorry for attributes of yourself that you cannot change, like your height or other genetic traits, incurable decease or handicaps, your parents or your siblings. While you attempt to know yourself, try to live in harmony and balance. Your balance depends entirely on yourself, since your strengths, weaknesses or limitations are themselves unique. So don’t just be a copycat, try some things your way and learn from your own successes and failures.

Whatever you do, try to enjoy the journey. Set targets and pursue them and try to enjoy the process of achieving them. Kavafis’ Ithaca and Kipling’s If can guide you how to do this. The Ten Commandments can guide you to the sort of things that if you do, or do not, will be the cause of making lots of enemies in this world. So think really hard before you break these rules.

I hope I could be of some help.