Words normally are defined like this: b = thing, a = b, but
occasionally you'll have words that are meant to encapsulate a feeling. An
experience. Something less straightforward. Words like nature, where it's
not simply describing b, animals, plants, etc., but how those
things co-exist. How they flow together, how they interact. That's nature.
Pothos is the Greek word for that nagging feeling at the back of your mind.
The one urging you to do better. To achieve your potential.
Alexander was pothos incarnate; constantly longing for more, constantly regretting the lack of it. Marveling at the world, he sought out knowledge with absolute prejudice. The Greeks despise discord and the irrational. Alexander stands opposed to this. He was always searching for the new frontier, always ready to explore it. And explore it he did.
Odysseus parallels Alexander; both desire greatly, but their similarities end where their motivations begin. The former, intrinsically, Odysseus missed his home, so he did everything in his power to return to it. Outcast by the gods, he could've accepted his fate, without strife, but he wanted more. He couldn't live alone, belonging nowhere. Because, what would be the point? This is photos.
My son, look for yourself another kingdom, Macedonia is too small for you. ~ King Philip
if there had been no other competition, he would have competed against himself ~ Arrian¹
1. Fox, Alexander The Great (Penguin, 1973), 5.
Alexander was incredibly capable; his issue was not with preforming
tasks, but finding them. If he set his sights on doing x, he'd
do it perfectly, but he'd be confined to it. Limited by it. Alexander
wanted, more than anything, to transcend.
There exists two mindsets when learning: fixed and grow. The former is of the person who, knowingly or unknowingly, immersed in labels. "Smart person", "Stupid person", "Artistic person". Trapped within in this self-inflicted product of societal and personal imagination, they are left with nothing but it. Eventually, there is nothing beyond it. Over their stay, they, to varying degrees, hyper-focus on it. And eventually, to them, they are nothing beyond it. The growth mindset abolishes the importance of labels. They is no "Smart people", "Stupid people", "Artistic people". People are just people. They may have been stupid, or are stupid, but that doesn't make them any less incapable of learning. If anything, they should be able to learn with greater ease, because they tried. Because they didn't sit around and wait for something to happen, to took action. The result was failure, but the fact that they achieved that means something.
Alexander took the radical approach; he didn't want to be tied down by being "Alexander the man who did this", "the man who did that", "the man who is this", he wanted to push boundaries, because doing nothing would be settling with his current skills and feats. And Alexander did not settle.
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