Seeking Peace Of Mind: A Letter

Quintus Curtius Thought , ,

peace3

We cannot always choose our circumstances, but we can adapt our minds and attitudes to the circumstances we are presented with.  Plato, in the Republic (604c5 ff.), famously compared life to a game of dice that was structured at two levels:  the throw of the dice (over which we have no control), and the way in which we deal with the results of the throw.  This same dice analogy is found in Epictetus (II.5.3).  Our attitudes mold our lives.  If we do not adapt our attitudes to our circumstances, we will be like the man who carries a hidden sickness wherever he goes.  He travels here and there, always seeking a better environment, but he finds himself equally miserable wherever he is.  Why is this?  It is because the problem lies in his mind.

Continue reading →

Some Thoughts On The Use Of Words, Gathered While Eating Bolinhos De Bacalhau

Quintus Curtius Language , , ,

 

I was sitting last night (and early this morning) at a locally well-known restaurant in Rio de Janeiro named Cervantes (it’s in Copacabana, near Leme).  I was eating some of the best bolinhos de bacalhau I had ever had, and talking with a girl I’ve known for a while here.

As the flow of the conversation in Portuguese progressed, and as I added more red pepper sauce to my bolinhos, I began to think more about words, language, and their uses.  A few glasses of beer also helped.  I thought it might be useful to commit some of those thoughts here.

Continue reading →

Your Defiance Is Your Abundance

Quintus Curtius Thought ,

def1

We hear a lot, here and there, about creating a “mentality of abundance.”  We read much about how we need to create an “abundance mindset.”

Abundance!  Abundance!  Abundance!  Scream the hype-men, the carnival-barkers, the chest-beaters.  It is a tiresome pantomime.  All under the circus big-top.

Step right up, ladies and gentlemen!  

Which is fine, as far as it goes, I suppose.  I’m a firm believer in abundance, and its mentality.  I want to roll in abundance, if I can.  I want to eat and drink of it.  If I can.

Gorge myself on it.

But when I hear too much of this abundance talk, I want to grind a grapefruit into someone’s face.  I want to say to the chest-beaters and carnival-barkers:  take your abundance mentality and shove it up your ass.  I prefer a defiant mentality.  My will is my abundance. Continue reading →

What Is The Best English Translation of Sun Tzu’s “Art Of War”?

Quintus Curtius Thought , ,

My article this week at Return of Kings deals with Sun Tzu’s Art of War.  

Sun Tzu’s The Art of War is one of the most widely read of the military classics. A very large number of translations exist, of decidedly uneven quality. Some of these “translations” omit large portions of the original text’s commentary; and some of them are glossy, slicked-up books that bear little relation to the original.

As it turns out, The Art of War has much to tell us about the art of translation. The translator must know the language, of course; but he must also know his subject, and have a sensitivity to the nuances of a work’s historical context. The quality of a translation can make or break a work. A good translation can communicate the spirit of the original, while a bad one can alienate a reader permanently.

[To read the rest of my article, click here.]

The Apple Of Empress Eudocia

Quintus Curtius Biography, History , ,

I came across a poignant little tale yesterday, languishing in a forgotten volume of history on the reign of the Roman emperor Theodosius II (A.D. 401-450).  The book is the Chronographia of the ecclesiastical historian John Malalas (c. 491-578).

Continue reading →

Coming This Fall: Stoic Paradoxes

Quintus Curtius Current News , ,

stoic.para.kindle.cover

Stoicism has proven itself to be an enduring and influential philosophy.

It may not have attracted the greatest number of adherents when compared to other schools of philosophy, but the men that it did attract tended to be the best men.

Cicero, whose name is synonymous with eloquence, wrote a great deal on Stoicism.

I will be releasing a new book this coming fall.

I have decided to issue a fresh, new translation of one of Cicero’s lesser known works, a treatise called Stoic Paradoxes.

Continue reading →

The Ethic Of Prison Camp Survival

Quintus Curtius History , ,

prison1

One of the greatest accounts of suffering and survival that I’ve read is the book Prisoners of the Japanese by writer Gavan Daws.  It’s a compendium of anecdotes, stories, and harrowing accounts of Allied prisoners taken by the Japanese Army in the Pacific.

More than this, it is a painstakingly-assembed oral record of the men–almost all of them dead now–who lived and survived in now-forgotten hellholes like Changi Prison, Cabanatuan, the Burma-Siam railroad, Davao, and a dozen other places.

Thousands of men from the armed forces of the United States, Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand, and the Netherlands were done to death in these camps, either by disease, forced labor, starvation, or related causes.

Continue reading →

Back To The Basics: The Educational Teachings Of John Comenius

Quintus Curtius Thought , ,

100_0857

I’ve recently learned something about the theories and works of a little-known philosopher and educationalist named John Comenius (1592-1670).  He was a Czech cleric perhaps best remembered for his progressive theories on universal education.  Some exposure to his ideas made me realize just how out of focus the educational system is here in the United States.

In Comenius’s time, illiteracy was the rule in perhaps a majority of Europeans.  He spent decades traveling around Europe to promote educational reform, and to attempt to bring the art of instruction in line with modern realities.

Continue reading →

“Do What I Say, Not What I Do”

Quintus Curtius Thought ,

sam1

We live in times where our “leaders” at the top lecture us on duty and responsibility, yet aggregate to themselves a larger and larger portion of the pie.  They grow fat on your labor, and on your backs; and yet you have very little to call your own.

And in their spare time, they sweep away our cultural inheritance to make way for corrupting entertainments, distracting amusements, and intoxicating spectacles that offer nothing in the way of meaningful value.  We see this as the lesson of the great film Harakiri (1962).  It is one of the great samurai films, and a powerful indictment of institutional hypocrisy.

Continue reading →

Stephen Mitchell’s “The Iliad”

Quintus Curtius Literature ,

I like to listen to audiobooks when driving around.  News doesn’t interest me as much as in years past, and I can get what I want from websites.

I recently rented Stephen Mitchell’s new translation of The Iliad from my city’s library, thinking I would give the old tale another chance.  I had read bits and pieces of it in years past, but it had never seized my imagination.  But tastes change, and our perspectives change with our own life experiences, and it is good to give some things a second look.

Continue reading →