I am drawing inspiration from Herodotus' imagined debate between Solon and Croesus when I assert the opinion that Solon was a pessimist. His statement that "how much better a thing for man is death than life," belies his belief that true happiness isn't even worth striving for. He believes that the only truly happy man is a dead man, because up until a man's death there is always a good chance that his fortunes will change and he'll be miserable. I feel that he ignores that joy and happiness that can come from every day circumstances.
He believes that happiness comes from one's end being " surpassingly glorious . . . [receiving] the highest honors," while I believe that happiness comes from doing one's best to enjoy life regardless of the circumstances you may be in at the present. If a man cannot find something to make him happy while he is living an ordinary life, he will most likely not be able to find happiness if he receives glory and riches for his amazing deeds. Herodotus' negative outlook would make it very difficult to find happiness in ordinary life, and I shudder to imagine what he thinks a woman would have to do to find happiness. Since women are usually not a part of fighting and battle in ancient Greek civilization, except on rare occasions, I do not imagine he would suggest dying in battle as a great way for them to go. Or perhaps he believed women would only attain happiness through their husbands, so perhaps once their husbands were dead they could just assume that the rest of their lives would be happy. Whether he had different ideas about women and happiness or not, I am glad that I do not have to rely on Herodotus' philosophies to find happiness in this life and the next.
Michelle, I really liked this idea on Solon's characteristics of a happy man. I hadn't really thought of it in that way but I definitely agree. I like how you discussed how could they not find anything to be happy about while they were alive. Me and my husband were at 7 peaks and joking about how if you can't just be lazy for a minute even in the lazy river then we would not want to be them. This post kind of makes me think of that because if they couldn't find not 1 thing to be happy about while they were living life, I would not want to be in their position. President Hinckley said " Life is not to be merely endured but also enjoyed" and I think that we would both agree that we prefer to live life in that manner instead of the way that Solon stated.
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