There is this amazing anecdote tucked away in Herodotus – I’ve used it before – but I think the moral is worthy enough of a second mention. At the height of their power, Sparta sent soldiers to Teagan to helotize the population – carrying the very chains they intended to enslave them with. Well, Sparta lost. And the soldiers stayed and toiled in the Teagan fields, bound by the fetters they had brought with them.

In many ways, this was Sparta embodied. They’d embark on a course so convinced it was infallible that they’d never consider the consequences. A simple economic accident – that subcitizens labored while men trained for war – dictated every facet of their foreign policy for almost 300 years. Once it was written, it could not be changed. Brasidas, likely the country’s greatest general, was successful almost entirely because he was “un-Spartan.” He was clever and articulate and a rule breaker. Their win in the Peloponnese was ultimately an albatross that they could not bear. The military culture they brought crashing against Athenian walls was the burden that slew Greece. Sparta died in the chains they took against others.

There’s a reason that the conclusion of the 48 Laws looks at formlessness. Sparta had everything else – the power, the brains, the courage, the money – but it meant nothing because they couldn’t think strategically. They could not change courses after they committed.

They lacked the fluidity to survive even in the Ancient world. Today is even faster – you don’t have a century to shift assumptions. It’s really easy to get locked into a path or a mindset. I know I’m more comfortable with certainty or absolutes. But that just isn’t how things work. I don’t want to end up tied to the land I was supposed to conquer. I think that means take nothing for granted, consider the alternatives, and always, always avoid the hubris of thinking there is only ONE way.

References/ Further Reading:

A History of Sparta 950-192 B.C – W.G Forrest (very short)

History of the Peloponnesian War – Thucydides

The Histories – Herodotus (skim)

The Greco-Persian Wars – Peter Green (easy read that explains Thucydides’)

The candor was infectious. It spread back to the beginning of your life. You tried to tell her, as well as you could, what it was like being you. You described the feeling you’d always had of being misplaced, of always standing off to one side of yourself, of watching yourself in the world even as you were being in the world and wondering if this was how everyone felt. That you always believed that other people had a much clearer idea of what they were doing, and didn’t worry quite so much about why. You talked about your first day of school. You hid in the woods until the bus came, you saw the bus leave and then went home and told her you had missed it. So Mom drove you to school, and by the time you got there, you were an hour late. Everybody watched you come in with your little note, and heard you explain that you’d missed the bus. When you finally sat down you knew that you would never catch up.” Bright Light, Big City by Jay McInerney

So, as well as you can (here or otherwise), what’s it like being you?

Today, I came to a conclusion that I liked and then realized that it only clicked so suddenly because Tucker had been explaining it to me for months. Occasionally, I’ll see an email from one person to another where all the words are mine. It used to drive me insane. Now I realize that it means I’m doing something right. I’m starting to think that a belief in the clear delineation between where one idea ends and where another begins is bullshit.

When you accept that very rarely will any idea be original and forgo rights to ownership, you free yourself up to do the important part – complete understanding. I think that means a huge thank you to the people who allow me to get close enough to hear theirs. As we try to absorb, make sense, compile, discard, destruct and create, confuse, iron and simplify, we’re left with one big mess where authorship is a little murky. And that’s how it should be. Hopefully, I’ll be able to return the favor.

If I could end with stealing someone else’s – and they probably know who they are – it’d be that the more you care about credit, the less you’ll actually be able to accomplish.