There
is a ‘demotivational’ poster floating around the Internet that carries the
message: “It could be that the only real purpose of your life is to serve as a
warning to others.”
For
the author of How Plato and Pythagoras
Can Save Your Life, the Ancient Greek Prescription for Health & Happiness,
the first part of his life might well have fit that message. The second part
serves much more like a beacon.
This
book is the story of how author, Nicholas Kardaras, PhD, came face to face with
the bottom of the pit, and, with a lot of help, turned himself around. He’s a
first generation American, born of Greek parents, and he writes of some of the
struggles that went along with that. He describes that he was not an easy son
to live with.
Born
and raised in New York City, he eventually became something of a wild child, and
a glitz set celebrity. He had managed to become owner of a flashy nightclub frequented
by some high rollers, and he was once named by Vanity Fair magazine as one of New York’s “50 Most Fabulous
People”.
That
lifestyle lead him to a downward spiral through booze and drugs. At one point,
he got close to the bottom only to be rescued by his parents. He tried to clean
up, but rejected his parents’ insistence on rehab and fell even further. But he
underestimated his parents’ intelligence; despite their humble roots, they
turned out to be a lot smarter than he thought and they made him look hard in
the mirror. Eventually, he did manage to clean up, with even more help from
fellow survivors, and returned to school. Against his expectations, he fell in
love with learning and education.
Today,
he describes himself as being perhaps the only nightclub owner to hit rock
bottom and wind up as a PhD and university professor.
Somewhere
along the line, Kardaras fell in love with philosophy. Not just any old
philosophy, but the good stuff: Plato and Pythagoras. These guys saw the world
through a different lens than most. In their own ways, they each looked at the
world with a combination of childlike wonder, bewilderment, spiritual yearning,
and a firm desire that we must always be searching for the way forward,
examining the path behind us, and constantly questioning our beliefs and
suppositions. In short, they agreed that life was work, but work that was well
worth the effort.
The
philosopher and public gnat Socrates, whose words we know only through the
writings of Plato, once said, “the unexamined life was not worth living”. The
exact interpretation of that phrase lies within each of us; but essentially it
means something like Socrates suggesting that a human who doesn’t examine – in
every sense of the term – both her own life and life in general, nature,
reality, relationships, motivations, and thoughts is wasting the experience.
Such a life is, therefore, not worth living.
This is where Kardaras appears to have made his
personal breakthrough. He latched on to the teachings and musings of the Greeks
– with whom he shares a common heritage – and began to see life for what it can
really be.
This book takes us through the author’s personal
journey of discovery and reacquaints us with the knowledge of the ancients. The
book is an excellent read for a variety of reasons. It is written in a very
conversational and friendly style and we can almost feel some of the pain of
his early years. Even though we might think his situation was his own fault, we
can all recognize that there but for fortune …
Kardaras reintroduces us to the Greek philosophers in
a way that should drive away the fears of anyone who found these writers to be
difficult when they were forced to study them. He guides us to the ideas that can
teach us to be happy, no matter our station in life. And he does all of this in
a style that should appeal to everyone.
German alchemist Hennig Brand tried to create a
‘philosopher’s stone’ from his own urine in 1669. Instead, he produced a white
powder that glowed in the dark. Eventually, it was named phosphorus and has
since been put to numerous practical uses. In that same vein, Kardaras
concludes his book:
“So may the universe be with you, as I hope that you
join me in the Alchemy Survivors' Club.”
Hennig Brand would get his point.
Look for this book from Conari Press (ISBN
978-1-57324-475-6) or at these online links, here and here.
Paul Richard Harris is an Axis of Logic editor and columnist, based in Canada. He can be reached at paul@axisoflogic.com
Read the Biography and additional articles by Axis Columnist, Paul Richard Harris