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The Original Disruptor: Diogenes and the Modern Man's Guide to Owning Nothing and Ruling Everything
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ISBN13: 9798171272296
Publisher: Independently Published
Pages: 78
Weight: 0.26
Height: 0.16 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Publisher: Independently Published
Pages: 78
Weight: 0.26
Height: 0.16 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
You picked up this book because you suspect you have been
enslaved by things you do not need and could not, on
examination, even justify wanting.
This is the central condition of the modern affluent man.
He has more material comfort than any human being who has
ever lived before the twentieth century. He has more
entertainment options than any pre-modern ruler. He has
more information at his fingertips than the great libraries of
antiquity could collectively provide. He is, by every objective
measure of resource access, almost incomprehensibly rich.
And yet he is, by many subjective measures, less free than
men who had a fraction of his resources. He is bound by his
mortgage. He is bound by his career trajectory. He is bound
by the expectations of people he does not actually respect. He
is bound by his consumption habits - the food, the
entertainment, the constant low-grade stimulation that has
become his normal state. He is bound, most invisibly, by his
status anxieties - the constant background project of being
slightly more impressive than the people around him, or at
least not noticeably less impressive.
Diogenes lived as the answer to this condition, twenty-four
hundred years before this condition existed. He owned almost
nothing. He lived in a clay storage jar in a public marketplace.
He ate whatever was given to him or whatever he could find.
He wore a single garment. He had no career. He had no
professional advancement. He had no investments. He had no
social obligations he had not chosen. He had, by every
conventional measure, the worst possible life of any free
person in Athens. He was also, by every account of those who
knew him, the freest. He was famous, throughout the Greek
world, for an attitude that he had earned through his way of
life - an attitude of being entirely unimpressed by anyone or
anything that other people found impressive.
Alexander the Great, the most powerful man in the world
at the time, came to visit him. The story has come down to us
in several versions, but the core is consistent. Alexander,
having heard of the famous philosopher, sought him out in
Corinth. Diogenes was sitting outside his barrel, sunning
himself. Alexander, accompanied by his retinue, stood over
him and asked, in the grand manner: Is there anything I can
do for you? Diogenes, without rising, replied: Yes. Stand a
little out of my sunlight.
This is the scene that has made Diogenes immortal. The
conqueror of the known world, offering his patronage. The
philosopher in the barrel, asking him to move out of the way.
The asymmetry is the point. Alexander could give Diogenes
nothing that Diogenes wanted. Diogenes could give
Alexander nothing that Alexander could take. The two of them
were operating in different economies, and the philosopher's
economy was the freer one.
Alexander, departing, reportedly said to his men: If I were
not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes.
Diogenes is the philosopher you want when you have
begun to suspect that most of what you have been told to want
is not actually worth wanting. He will help you see this
clearly. He will not, contrary to first impression, recommend
that you live in a barrel. He will recommend something
stranger and harder. He will recommend that you become
free of the wants that the society around you takes for
granted, while continuing to function inside the society. The
freedom is internal. The functioning is external. The two
together produce a man no one can pressure, manipulate, or
control through the usual mechanisms, because the levers
that work on other men do not work on him.
more information at his fingertips than the great libraries of
antiquity could collectively provide. He is, by every objective
measure of resource access, almost incomprehensibly rich.
And yet he is, by many subjective measures, less free than
men who had a fraction of his resources. He is bound by his
mortgage. He is bound by his career trajectory. He is bound
by the expectations of people he does not actually respect. He
is bound by his consumption habits - the food, the
entertainment, the constant low-grade stimulation that has
become his normal state. He is bound, most invisibly, by his
status anxieties - the constant background project of being
slightly more impressive than the people around him, or at
least not noticeably less impressive.
Diogenes lived as the answer to this condition, twenty-four
hundred years before this condition existed. He owned almost
nothing. He lived in a clay storage jar in a public marketplace.
He ate whatever was given to him or whatever he could find.
He wore a single garment. He had no career. He had no
professional advancement. He had no investments. He had no
social obligations he had not chosen. He had, by every
conventional measure, the worst possible life of any free
person in Athens. He was also, by every account of those who
knew him, the freest. He was famous, throughout the Greek
world, for an attitude that he had earned through his way of
life - an attitude of being entirely unimpressed by anyone or
anything that other people found impressive.
Alexander the Great, the most powerful man in the world
at the time, came to visit him. The story has come down to us
in several versions, but the core is consistent. Alexander,
having heard of the famous philosopher, sought him out in
Corinth. Diogenes was sitting outside his barrel, sunning
himself. Alexander, accompanied by his retinue, stood over
him and asked, in the grand manner: Is there anything I can
do for you? Diogenes, without rising, replied: Yes. Stand a
little out of my sunlight.
This is the scene that has made Diogenes immortal. The
conqueror of the known world, offering his patronage. The
philosopher in the barrel, asking him to move out of the way.
The asymmetry is the point. Alexander could give Diogenes
nothing that Diogenes wanted. Diogenes could give
Alexander nothing that Alexander could take. The two of them
were operating in different economies, and the philosopher's
economy was the freer one.
Alexander, departing, reportedly said to his men: If I were
not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes.
Diogenes is the philosopher you want when you have
begun to suspect that most of what you have been told to want
is not actually worth wanting. He will help you see this
clearly. He will not, contrary to first impression, recommend
that you live in a barrel. He will recommend something
stranger and harder. He will recommend that you become
free of the wants that the society around you takes for
granted, while continuing to function inside the society. The
freedom is internal. The functioning is external. The two
together produce a man no one can pressure, manipulate, or
control through the usual mechanisms, because the levers
that work on other men do not work on him.
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