The Path of Hercules
And Why You Must Pursue it
Tuesday, April 8th, 2025
Writing to you from Denver, Colorado
“Between sloth and hardship, I choose hardship. Between forgettable ease and immortal glory, I choose the struggle of virtue.”
No matter whether our civilization is in a stage of rise or decline, life - when it comes down to the individual - will always be difficult.
The difficulty is in large part due to the fact that we are in total control of ourselves (we should be at least) - it’s up to us to make the critical decisions. Yet, when it comes to the outcome of a civilization, we have little to no sway.
And, that’s okay.
The focus then - since this is all that is in our control - comes down to who we want to be.
Our civilization (and the culture attached to it) desires that you go down the wrong path. One which promises a life of ease where your life path is essentially prescribed for you - K-12, college, job, marry, kids, retire, die.
A prescribed life leads to moral laziness, amorality at best, and immorality at worst.
If your life is directed for you it’s clear that you don’t have to think all that much. Especially, since our culture emphasizes and pushes “authority” figures to lead our lives for us. All you have to do is toe the line.
What’s scary about these “authority” figures and the abundance of moral laziness is just how bad things can get very quickly.
In good times or bad - if you don’t have to think for yourself (and don’t know how), don’t have a clear understanding of right and wrong, and don’t seek the path of good - there’s no telling what kind of evil you can do…
The Choice We Face
In The Choice of Hercules (click here to read full story) Hercules comes to adulthood and is faced with a monumental choice that will effect him for every moment of his life.
Two deities come before him: Virtue (Arete) and Vice (Kakia) - both go to him to argue their case.
P.S. in the story Vice is actually called Pleasure.
Virtue appeared with a gentle glow and a beauty that was pure - not exaggerated. At the same time, Vice appeared and she wore makeup to amplify a more dull completion…a complexion that was just good enough to hide the soullessness behind it.
Vice scrambled ahead to get to Hercules first while Virtue walked with a calm sureness.
Vice began telling Hercules how easy his life would be with her:
“If you choose to follow me, I will lead you on the easiest and most delightful path. You shall taste every pleasure without labor or pain. You will never have to fight or suffer, and all good things will come to you effortlessly."
He would never have to work again, she said. He could eat and sleep as much as he wanted - his bed would always feel soft and fresh, and every bite of food just as good as the last.
But, once Virtue began to add her piece, Vice began to argue against her until Virtue dealt her an verbal death blow…
"The pleasures she offers are sweet at first, but bitter in the end. She leaves her followers empty, ashamed, and forgotten."
And then she adds:
"If you wish to earn the respect of the gods and the praise of men, you must follow me. I offer no ease, but struggle; no rest, but constant toil. Yet the fruit of this path is glory that never fades, and a soul that is free."
Hercules took the path of Virtue and sealed his fate as a man among boys.
Mythological stories like this used to play a large part in our culture and other cultures like it. They are theatrical reflections of life. The truth is, we are all given the choice of Hercules:
Will we pursue virtue - live honorably, be industrious, act generously, and hold the image of the good man we could be at the pinnacle of our thoughts?
Or…
Will we choose Vice - an endless pursuit of pleasure, dishonorable, soulless, empty of all that is good, and continuously choose to commit subtle or extreme evils because the ends justify the means?
THAT is what is in our control. Choose wisely.
The Scales
As I said, we as individuals have little to no sway on the outcome of our civilization…it’s often not worth trying to change the world.
“Man conquers the world by conquering himself”
-Zeno of Citium
You do however, have the ability to tip the scales of the world ever so slightly further towards good by living a wholesome, pure, and consciously-driven life.
Instead of being like the tamed Athenians after the Peloponnesian war or the brutish thugs that the Spartans became - you can, through civilizational times of decline or rise, choose to be a virtuous man.
Immovable, precise, focused, steady, righteous.
-Maxim Benjamin Smith
“Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men.
And, weak men create hard times.” (not sure who the quote belongs to)
Your age may give you an advantage Maxim
Nice thoughts indeed ...
But once the size of a community reaches a tipping-point at which personal accountability cannot be enforced any more by the public, the boundaries of virtue and vice shift ... The West is currently at this stage and no need to tell you into which direction it shifts ...
Mass-societies as we currently know them, are all slated to implode in utter chaos due to the vast majority of people having no basic skills; of which thinking and deciding for themselves in a sound manner is lacking entirely.
For the lucky few that DO have the skills, de-centralization or emigration into regions with lesser population-densities is the only resolve.