Arete is normally translated as "virtue", although
it actually means something closer to "being the best you can be", or
"reaching your highest human potential". The person of arete is a
person of the highest effectiveness; they use all their faculties: strength,
bravery, wit, and deceptiveness, to achieve real results. It means moral
excellence and perfection. Arete in itself is also goodness and gracious acts.
My favourite thing about the word is just how much it says.
Arete is the essence of perfection, the virtue of being, the telos or
completeness of being... it is the essential and ultimate expression of the person
and the mind. When you think of virtue in general terms you are normally led to
a kind of moral virtue, but arete as more a way of describing quality, is so
much more. It encompasses the whole caboodle.
In modern times we find ourselves pursuing either happiness
or purpose. Those are the basic things we seek as humans, we can lump people
into seeking either one or the other as their life mission (or using it as a meaning
of life). We live with a purpose or to find happiness, nothing wrong with
either one.
Happiness as a meaning of life is not talking about the
short term pleasures life sometimes has to offer or the superficial happiness,
but the happiness that can be found in achieving your long term dreams. This means
that your ultimate goal is to maximize your long term happiness by taking
actions that you think will get you there in the long run. This is not a bad
life philosophy to have as a whole. Most people will in their search for
happiness at least contribute something of value to the world. The problem is
that happiness can often twist on itself when you make it the goal of all your
actions. And then getting what you think would have made you the happiest person
(dream job, perfect spouse, etc) just leaves you unhappier and emptier than
before.
The other popular life philosophy is purpose or to provide a
service to others. This is basically to live with a purpose of helping others
as a means of achieving the meaning of life. Some people might argue that these
miss out on happiness for themselves, but if you look at amazing people like
Mother Theresa and Corrie Ten Bloom, etc. and see the joy they received from
helping others you begin to get what Rabindranath Tagore meant when he said “At
first I thought life was joy. Then I learnt that life was duty. Finally, I
acted and, behold, duty was joy.” Thus serve and you will be happy. The only
problem with the purpose life philosophy is that it kind of loops unto itself,
i.e. the meaning of life comes from having a purpose; therefore your purpose in
life is only to have a purpose, now is there a purpose to your purpose? Serving
and purpose is an amazing viewpoint to have, but it does leave some wanting
more.
Now take the concept of arete as a meaning of life.
Excellence in all things, being the best you can be. Is it not in itself a
better view of life than purpose or happiness? Arete also covers the idea that
there is excellence in everything. Thus pursuing excellence, whether it creates
happiness for yourself or service for others is your ultimate goal. Thus both major
life concepts are mere by-products of the general meaning of life. The problem
comes in in describing the level of excellence or quality to attain. Thus I do
not know the complete secret to life, however if you decide to pursue arete it
clarifies a lot of things. Like instead of focusing on just your total
happiness or your total service, you focus on the quality of what you do. A
painting can be arete, pure excellence. It might not be your life purpose or provide
long term happiness, but the painting in itself can be arete.
Arete is used in the original Greek texts in the Bible as
well and is translated to various forms of the word; praise, virtue,
excellence, excellencies and moral excellence. For example:
“Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence (arete) and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.” Philippians 4:8I believe the meaning of life is Arete. To be the best at all things that you possibly can be...
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