From then, he had a very strange 10 years because he hadn’t had a source of income. He first worked for a king in Turkey and tried to help sort out the government to make it more democratic. Then, he got the dreaded invite from Philip II, the dreaded one-eyed tyrant of Macedon. He said, I’ve got an abled son, Alexander, who’s going to be great. You have to come. I don’t think Aristotle particularly welcomed this, but he didn’t say no. He went and put up with it until Philip II was assassinated. He saw some of the worst behavior, I think, that anybody’s ever seen in this incredible despotic court.

As soon as Alexander, the son, marched over the Hellespont, into Asia, and never came back from India, Aristotle bagged the money he had saved, went to Athens, and opened his Lyceum at the age of 49. He had his rival university, which was far better and far more influential as it also had natural sciences and physics. It didn’t just offer humanities. But, he managed about 12 to 13 years before he died of prolific output. He’s an incredible example of late starters, apart from anything else, because he didn’t get the opportunity to be whom he wants to be until he was 49 years old.

Sean Murray  04:52

I’m almost 49 years old myself, and I have to say it’s very encouraging to hear that my best intellectual years are ahead of me. There is hope.

I found it very interesting that Aristotle seemed to believe that we humans don’t fully mature. Rather, we can’t fully attain wisdom until we reach the age of 49. He was very specific about the date. So why is that?

Edith Hall  05:17

It’s not just that. The point is that before that, he wasn’t fully financially independent. He had taskmasters and duties, but he knew the moment when he was free to do what he wanted. I think spotting that opportunity or realizing the moments in life when lots of us have jobs we don’t particularly like for long periods, especially if we’re financially supporting dependents, and so on, there comes a point where you do have to make an effort to fulfill your potential and dream your dream and get on with it. So next year, Sean, it’s you.

Sean Murray  05:56

It’s a fascinating life!

As you mentioned, he got to this point, in Athens, where he founded his school, the Lyceum. He wrote very prolifically on all kinds of subjects, but the subject I want to talk about today, and the one that resonates most, or perhaps, he believed was the most important, was how to live a good life and how to live life well. It’s something that he took up and wrote about, so let’s talk about that.

He has a way of presenting ideas as almost a straw-man, then taking them down (i.e. Maybe happiness is a cheerful disposition, or maybe it’s hedonism.) Walk us through how he introduces this concept of happiness, and how we should think about it.

Edith Hall  06:44

All right. He starts from what he calls the endoxa, which are commonly-received opinions about something. If you ask a guy in the street today: What is happiness? You’ll come up with various definitions, which are not that dissimilar to Aristotle’s definition.

Number one is being rich, having a lot of money. He takes that apart and shows the example of the richest man in the world, then creases the fist here, by saying that, actually, by the end of his life, he’d lost everything. He lost his wife. He lost his son. He lost his kingdom just because he had acquired lots of material goods that did not make him happy. Then, there’s physical pleasure, hedonism. Aristotle is particularly contemptuous of people who think that they can attain happiness by gorging themselves on lovely food and drink all day long and have as much sex with everybody as you want, making life continuously sensual. Of course, he says that can’t be right because that’s no different from the happiness of pigs. If you could pick someone to reproduce with and a nice meal, that can’t be human happiness.

He goes through all of these things and comes up with his definition, which is that happiness is not a state. It’s a process. I think of it as it’s not a noun. It’s a verb. You do it. You do happiness in and out every day because it’s your attitude to life. You don’t acquire the state because the state of either orgasmic or physical or any other kind of ecstasy is always temporary.

You’ve also got to be active. He argues very strongly that you cannot be happy when you’re asleep because you’re not doing anything. It’s got to be while you’re living an active life. That whole thing is a matter of sets habits that you develop and experiences that you acquire, and hopefully, you get better and better during your life at certain kinds of decisions, and behavior is only consummated on your deathbed. Even if your life has fallen apart, and, in external terms, even if you’ve lost all your money or there’s a natural disaster or you’re widowed. If you can lie on your deathbed knowing you tried to do your best, you have got an inner sense of peace and calm that somebody who is played by resentments either about things that they have left undone or about bad things they have done is not going to have that happen.

And so, you can’t, as he says, call anyone happy until he’s dead. Because his whole life is a whole life arc. So, I’ve been trying to be happy in an Aristotelian way or do happiness in an Aristotelian way since I was about 22 years old. I didn’t get it nor was even remotely on track till I was 32 years old. Even though I knew a slice of what I wanted, I’m making no guarantees. If I turn into a horrible person tomorrow and start being mean to my kids or something, then I could destroy [my happiness], so  I’ve got to keep going.

Sean Murray  09:49

You just covered a lot of ground there, so let’s break that down. One big takeaway is this idea that happiness isn’t a state of being. It’s not a noun. It’s a verb. I think that’s a great concept. It’s very useful. It’s a complete mindset shift. What Aristotle is telling us is we do happiness. We achieve happiness through activity, through good habits, by doing the right thing every day.

In the West, you’re right. We often think about happiness as a state we hope to achieve. It’s often in the future. We’ll say, “I’ll be happy when…” And then fill in the blank with “I pile up a bunch of money” or ” I achieve a certain status at work”, or so. We sacrifice the present for the future. We delay finding a spouse because we’re busy working, or we don’t have time for our friends because we’re so busy trying to get to that future state. But all of that is a fool’s path because if happiness is an activity, it is doing, we should be doing happiness today. That’s powerful. Let’s go deeper here. If happiness is an activity, then what should we be doing?

Edith Hall  11:00

Reflection, funnily enough, although there are terrible downsides to the confinement that’s been imposed on a lot of us by COVID-19, there are three things that you can do much more easily if you’re not having to commute to work or bustle around. One of them is to spend time working on your primary relationships. I’ve had very long conversations with my husband, which we haven’t had for years.

The second is cultivating constructive leisure. It’s very difficult for very busy people. I find it hard to figure out how to use my leisure because I’ve worked so hard and I’ve raised a family at the same time. I’ve never had any leisure, so I’m having to make myself learn how to garden. I’m learning new cookery skills, which I’m very much enjoying. I think a lot of people are doing that.

The third most important thing is it gives you time to reflect on your life trajectory. I choose that word advisedly because it means taking into account the past arc, but also where it’s going and what changes and modifications you might need. What dream have you left unfulfilled? What ambition have you left untried? I think that if people use this time to focus any depressive feelings they’ve got into opportunities for learning it’s gonna be very helpful. We don’t usually get that amount of reflections on.

Sean Murray  12:24

Yeah, I think we, in the United States and the West, often value productivity. There are probably a lot of good reasons for that, but I sometimes face a challenge to take time during my day just for reflection because I want to fill it with what I believe to be productive time, getting work done. But then, you go through day after day of that and you realize you haven’t taken the time to reflect.

Edith Hall  12:50

It’s what he wants to have achieved between now and the points of death. It’s as simple as that. Then, he set out and used the analogy of an outlined sketch. He didn’t color in the details, but he uses an outline sketch. So, you might want to write your goal before you finish making an incredibly beautiful garden or if you have a child whom you want to raise perfectly or you have a set of projects. Almost everybody has got creative talents that they haven’t fulfilled and developed, whatever that might be, and then to be very determined about trying to get there.

Sean Murray  13:33

I was drawn to this idea of pursuing the best version of ourselves. According to Aristotle, this is an important piece of the good life. Can you tell me more about that?

Edith Hall  13:44

We’re all born with what he calls a dunamis, which is essentially potentiality. There was a potential Sean or a potential Edith when we were born, and provided were given enough of our basic needs –which are cuddles, food, and education –and provided nothing destructive happens, we should be able to go on and become the best possible Sean or Edith. So, the idea is that you try and imagine what the best possible version of yourself could be, including ethically.

Sean Murray  14:13

There’s so much wisdom in Aristotle’s writings. I find it a bit amazing. We don’t teach this stuff to people earlier in life. I went all the way through high school and college, and I wasn’t asked to read Aristotle, I find that surprising.

Edith Hall  14:28

That’s why I wrote the book. I wanted anybody who could handle 200 pages of reasonably colloquial English prose to have these secrets, these incredible tips on deciding on choosing a partner fun in your life. A day a week I visit secondary schools, kids between ages 14 and 18, and I was thinking they’d want to about how to be persuasive, but actually, no. What they all want is how to make a decision. Nobody has ever taught them how to make a decision, so they’re at the complete mercy of violent emotions.

Sean Murray  15:11

Let’s talk about that because decision-making can have such a big impact on our lives. What does Aristotle teach us about decision-making?

Edith Hall  15:19

When taking an important decision, like, “Shall I chuck my boyfriend?”, instead of going through Aristotle’s amazing eight-step *inaudible* to come to some sort of rational view, the most obvious thing he says is you must get a disinterested counsel. Not uninteresting, disinterested. It’s very helpful for teaching kids the difference between those two. If you go and talk to your best friend, it’s the worst possible move. After all, she will have a vested interest in whether or not you’re going out with this person because she probably wants to see more of you or less of you or so. You have to go to a professional relationship counselor or somebody whose life will be nowhere near affected. That’s just a basic rule, and the very first one is to verify the information. Right? If another girlfriend comes and says, “I saw your boyfriend kissing someone else,” do you just act on that? Or do you go out and verify? You can start by asking him, right?

Sean Murray  16:21

Let me just sort of recap what we’ve covered so far. Aristotle is saying happiness is doing, it’s not being. Happiness is an activity, and the activity we should be pursuing is to become the best version of ourselves. One way we do that is through better decision-making, and he’s got these eight steps to better decision-making. And, we make decisions, but sometimes we make the best decision we can, and it doesn’t always work out. So, what does Aristotle say about the role of luck in a good life?

Edith Hall  16:57

Far more than any of the other ancient philosophers and most modern ones, Aristotle writes in a very, very committed, and almost passionate way about luck. The Best Laid Plans, Of Mice and Men, *inaudible*, go awry all the time, and all you can do is, somehow, when you’re making plans, try and factor in random bad luck. The spouse you’ve chosen so carefully gets run over tomorrow, or has a blow to the head and changes personality, or you’re in a very competitive field, and you simply never get the career that you want, or whatever. He’s the first person to stand up straight in the face, and the figure he uses there is Priam, king of Troy, a very much loved ruler. All those years, he’s got numerous children, loving marriage, everything he could want, and he dies, ignominiously, with all his children dead.

So, when Aristotle produces these wonderful analogies from what was then the popular culture, which is why I’ve tried to mention lots of movies that people know, to illustrate these things. But he would say that however appalling the things have happened to you are, and I talk in the book about a couple of instances that have touched me –of people who lost everything in the tsunami, women, like me, who’ve lost husband and children and parent and went from a very good life to total isolation. Amazing. But the woman I mentioned has survived because she has some inner sources to draw on a knew it wasn’t her fault.

Also, I think what I like about Aristotle is his candor. He doesn’t wrap it up in sweetie papers. He knows it’s tough. He knows just how tough it is. Aristotle lost his parents when he was 13 years old. That can’t have been any fun at all. So, he had some good luck, like his adoptive father; he had some appalling luck, falling madly in love at 37 years old when he left the Academy and went to Asia Minor, and he sees her die in childbirth –he never married again, and he talks a lot about her; and, of course, the awful business over the academy due to envious, rivalrous people not appreciating that if they had put him in place as the head of the academy, they would, in his slipstream, have done so much better themselves. He suffered from a lot of things. All of us also had either very bad luck or bereavements that we didn’t deserve, that were premature, or envious rivals stabbing us in the back. I certainly have that at the academe. It’s poisonous.

Sean Murray  19:35

I want to go back, if we can, to this idea of potentiality because Aristotle says something that resonated with me, which was to try to find what you do that’s unique and that brings you joy. Channel yourself into that, and most likely, it’s in creative in some way, and that’s where you’re going to find your happiness. Also, you can’t necessarily look at other people. What we often do, I guess the fatal flaw, is to live the life that somebody else has for us.

Edith Hall  20:07

Absolutely.

Aristotle also had a very broadened sense that all humans are born with diverse talents. It’s quite amazing how we used to be well looked after and educated. In society, we do have people to fulfill every function, and happily so. That is an extraordinary thing about human communities, that enough people seem to come up who are good at math, enough people are good at nurturing and caring, and enough people are good like Einstein, who just breaks through to the next level. If those talents are spotted by carers while people are little, and people are encouraged to listen very much to themselves and are exposed to as much varied stuff as possible and watch for pleasure. That’s the other brilliant thing. Aristotle says it’s not rocket science. You just see pleasure. If a child is doing it with pleasure, they will not want to stop. You’ve just got to stop imposing it on them. It’s important that this goes on.

Sean Murray  21:24

As parents, I think our ultimate goal is we want our kids to be happy. I have two kids, a 16-year old and a 14-year old. But then, we get into, as you mentioned, pushing them in this way or that way, or we get competitive with other parents and how they’re raising their kids. What Aristotle is saying, which is brilliant, is let it emerge, channel their passion into what it is that will help them in their potential.

Edith Hall  21:47

You can start making compromises later. In this kind of economic structure we live in, there are enormous pressures to find a way to monetize yourself. But that should be secondary, right? The primary part has got to be that you’re going to try and monetize something you enjoy doing, in some way or another. Peter Sellars, a very famous director, said recently that he could not believe his luck getting paid to do what he’d be doing anyway because he loves it so much. I feel like that. I genuinely adore teaching my students and researching Ancient Greek. If you can, you are so lucky.

Sean Murray  22:27

Yeah, and I think what we all need to do, too, personally is to find out what it is that we do, think about what our potential is.

Edith Hall  22:35

Exactly! And there’s always time. I’ve had old ladies writing to me, saying that they enjoying life more since they’ve read this book. They’ve figured out some plans and they’re trying to implement them and they’re not so scared of death. It’s never too late. It is quite tough, though, the initial stages. If you want to slide into Aristotle’s ethics, you have to be incredibly honest. Candor is crucial. You’ve got to assess yourself quite brutally, not just mentally, just very, very clearly, because if you don’t figure out where your big moral weaknesses are, you can’t work on them. You’re in denial.

Sean Murray  23:12

One of the things that Aristotle is really big on is self-knowledge, and you write about this in the book; understanding what our strengths are and what our weaknesses are, and then being able to take action. So, how do we do that?

Edith Hall  23:24

He gives a chart, which I tried to reproduce. You can do this with a questionnaire. I found out it helps you with your skills. It helped me realize that I have a good analytical brain, not a creative one; I can’t write poems; I have communication skills. That’s about it. So, I had to find a job where those two were paid for. I also discovered or had to face that I’m highly vindictive and that I want payback, but I’ve had to learn that if I’m spending all my time thinking about payback, it makes me miserable. And, by far, the best revenge is to live well.

Sean Murray  24:01

And that’s a hard thing for you to overcome, it sounds like?

Edith Hall  24:04

I still haven’t. I still have several minutes a day of unpleasant dark thoughts about how to get vengeance on people. It was not doing me any good at all. Some people will have other challenges. Some people probably need anger management or are unkind, they’re just not smiley and nice. Also, as both my parents are very 50s parents, we were all terrified approaching them. They weren’t that bad parents, but they never smiled and said, “Yes, dear. What do you want?” So, I made this vow when I had the first baby that I would always put things down and smile at them when they came to me. Always. Even if you’re tired, you’re hungry, you’re fractious, it’s unbelievably important that your kid feels they can come anytime they want. I think exactly what Aristotle says was if you make a conscious decision to do it every time, after a while, it will become unconscious. That does happen. This is his theory of habit-forming.

Sean Murray  25:07

Yes, Aristotle talks a lot about habits and the important role they play in our lives. It’s critical to make virtue a habit, and, at the same time, to take an honest look at our bad habits. This speaks to the self-knowledge point, to take a look at our lives and make an effort to change what is holding us back. Maybe you could talk more about Aristotle’s theory of habits?

Edith Hall  25:29

It’s just like when you first learn to drive a car. You have automatics in America, but when you first use the gear stick, you have to think every time, “Shall I go into second? Shall I go into third?” I never think what I’m doing with that, and that the idea is that these good habits of relating to other people or fundamental instincts, all these kinds of habits do become much more habitual. At that point, you stop being somebody trying to live the good life, but somebody living a good life.

Sean Murray  25:57

Yeah, that sort of relates to where we started with happiness being activity and working on something meaningful and constructive, something that’s going to last. And if that’s important, then the habit becomes important because we can turn it into this routing process where you automatically go into that activity. You don’t have to go into some kind of anguish and deliberative state of should I do this or that. It frees up your mind to go to the next level.

Edith Hall  26:26

That’s the idea.

Sean Murray  26:27

Yeah. Well, this has been a wonderful conversation. I’ve enjoyed learning more about Aristotle. I highly recommend Aristotle’s Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life. I have found Aristotle sometimes challenging to read, and you even mention this in the book.

Edith Hall  26:44

Also, he wrote two kinds of books: one was for his students, postgraduates in philosophy, which are the ones we’ve got; and also wrote little mini pamphlets for the general public in much, much more accessible prose because he wanted everybody who could be remotely literate to have access to. We haven’t got those. So, my book is trying to fill that hole. He did want it to be accessible, but we can’t all read at the level of a postgraduate in classical Athens.

Sean Murray  27:11

I’ve taken on Aristotle, it’s a challenge. You have to bring your A-game. You’ve got to stay concentrated, keep a lot of things in your head as you’re reading it. It’s very logical, and a little dry at times. By contrast, you’re bringing in examples from movies and songs and popular culture, and relating it to your own life, which I found very accessible. I recommend it as a way to get introduced to Aristotle’s thoughts. If you’re not familiar with it, or even if you are familiar with Aristotle, it’s a great way to reinforce, so I want to recommend it. Also, I just want to say thank you for being on the show. How can people find out more about you and what you’re doing and what you’re writing about today?

Edith Hall  27:54

I’ve got a personal website which is www.edithhall.co.uk. Pretty much, everything I do is on it, including quite a lot more on Aristotle. Also, I have my Twitter handle, @edithmayhall. I tweet quite a lot about Aristotle but also all kinds of things to do with ancient Greece.

Sean Murray  28:20

Great. Edith, thank you for being on The Good Life.

Edith Hall  28:23

Thanks, Sean!

Outro  28:25

Thank you for listening to TIP. To access the show notes, courses, or forums, go to theinvestorspodcast.com. This show is for entertainment purposes only. Before making any decisions, consult a professional. This show is copyrighted by The Investor’s Podcast Network. Written permissions must be granted before syndication or rebroadcasting.