Sipping Wine with Plato & Da Vinci
SA Episode #7
Hello friends,
And welcome to Episode #7 of The Sovereign Artist series.
In the last couple of months, I’ve felt the urge to do nothing but read books—ranging from very specific subjects (such as the history and culture of Transylvanian Saxons) to general works of philosophy (anything I can find by Montaigne, Chesterton, or Roger Scruton) and finally a little bit of fiction by Umberto Eco, William Blacker, or Alain de Botton.
What I learned about myself is that my favorite type of books either have an epistolary character or are written in the form of journals and notebooks. The transparency you find in such works is simply unmatched! This is what I find seductive: I get access to virgin meditations and confessions.
Emil Cioran has written some of the best letters I’ve ever read to his friends and family. Mircea Eliade, his intellectual comrade, also assembled a few therapeutic journals—one toxic habit I have is that I thoroughly enjoy rereading the parts where he had the guts to attack thinkers such as Freud or Tolstoy. Likewise, my bet is that we’re unable to grasp the real value of Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks—it’s a miracle they survived in such great shape and condition.
It probably makes more sense to adopt a systematic research process and thus only choose to read books directly related to the main subject of my projects... I tried to do this at some point.
That was the plan. And here’s how it worked out:
The books I expected to get the least output from (meaning: notes, comments, and insights useful for my artistic projects) turned out to be the most fruitful. And the books directly related to the themes of my work barely produced any dividends.
The difference between “reading” and doing “research” is similar to the difference between “leisure” and “work”—you turn something playful and nourishing into a form of slavery and suffering.
It’s safe to say that I’ve been wasting so much time reading to delay the writing process. No debates here—this is indeed a form of procrastination! I tried to fight this in the beginning. Yet it felt more natural to give it a chance, to allow procrastination to be in the driver’s seat and finish the job.
The result? What felt like leisure—and at times wasted time—turned into promising essays and aphorisms.
In hindsight, I worked hard; I read and wrote enough. The “problem” is that it felt like play. And I have a compelling argument to prove that: there were days when I spent 6-9 hours locked in my office, writing and reading unceasingly in a fasted state—I simply drank water and black coffee. The only way you can possibly enjoy such deep work sessions is when your work feels like play. Otherwise, if it feels like work, you have to rely on herculean levels of discipline to focus on something for so long… I thus want to take this chance to redefine discipline—or at least help upgrade its meaning—and turn it into a by-product of wild, undomesticated, undirected, and genuine curiosity rather than a conscious effort to “suffer” and delay gratification ad infinitum.
Here are 3 aphorisms, 1 essay, and 2 quotes to reflect on—about the art of reflection.
3 Aphorisms
I.
We work hard and for long hours to reap the benefits that may only be enjoyed occasionally—during strict intervals or whenever they get scheduled in the (sometimes very distant) future:
We’re waiting for the weekend, next vacation, or retirement!
This makes us end up with a chronic condition…
We constantly postpone the zest and will to love life.
II.
Even Michelangelo would have trouble getting out of bed if he had nothing but a day of spreadsheets ahead.
It’s impossible to imagine Leonardo da Vinci working for a corporation or being a government bureaucrat.
If your projects lack flavor and you have no skin in the game—your body will not produce energy. You will procrastinate.
Jash Dholani adds extra notes:
Energy is simply the by-product of courage. Lethargy is the hint that somewhere, somehow, you made the coward’s bargain. Great ambition appears out of nowhere in the face of great risks and great tasks.
No one yawns if they see a monster entering their room. Find your monster.
III.
What doesn’t allow you to live the way you want to live is the belief that you “have” to accomplish what you’re “supposed” to do instead of following your genuine interests and curiosity.
I stole two rules from Naval Ravikant: “better bored than busy” and “only the unscheduled life is worth living.”
The best strategy I use in order to stay consistently fulfilled is to bake boredom and silence into my life in a completely non-negotiable way.
I learned that, by constantly setting goals, drafting plans, and committing to plenty of different tasks, you slowly kill your soul. Too much structure turns you into a boring machine.
Once you learn to trust your curiosity—you’re no longer the driver but the vehicle. Curiosity takes the lead, like a divine force.
Being a slave to your curiosity paradoxically sets you free.
Sipping Wine with Plato & Da Vinci
[This is an essay from my book: The Sovereign Artist]
My goal with this essay is not to downplay the risks of alcohol or make fun of people who get addicted to this substance. My grandfather died because of alcohol and quite a few people from my family also struggle with this addiction. This is indeed a widespread problem in Romania and across the Balkans. I’m not declaring this to ask for sympathy or affection but to make you understand that I’m aware of how destructive alcohol can be. Please note that this essay is dedicated to wine and wine only and not to alcohol in general. Also note that this is not an original essay but an invitation to read I Drink Therefore I am by Roger Scruton.
PLATO FAMOUSLY said that “nothing more excellent or valuable than wine was ever granted by the gods to mankind.” Is he wrong? Was he drunk when he said this?
People who don’t drink alcohol may get offended by this. People who drink too much alcohol—or have a history where they used to drink too much alcohol—may get offended by this too.
I’m not interested in discussing whether wine is good or not. I’m certain this has nothing to do with wine per se. I’m only interested to find out how to drink it.
To do that, since we’ve already mentioned Plato, it’s convenient to take a closer look at the Ancient Greeks. The best experiment they carried out was, like many things in life, counterintuitive.
This experiment, notable as the title of a work by Plato, is the underrated symposium—which is, in essence, a drinking party with clear rules and guidelines.
Roger Scruton came up with a great description:
“The symposium would invite Dionysus, god of wine, into a ceremonial precinct. Guests, garlanded with flowers, would recline two to a couch, propped on their left arm, with food on low tables before them. Manners, gestures, and words were as strictly controlled as at the Japanese tea ceremony; everyone was allowed to speak, recite, or sing, so that conversation remained always general.”
It may be useful to consider that Leonardo da Vinci, Epicurus, Cato, Montaigne, and even Kant were (great) lovers of wine.
If cutting out alcohol has been a “game changer” for you—you likely (used to) drink the wrong alcohol in the wrong quantities with the wrong people for the wrong reasons and in the wrong contexts.
The great hero, Odysseus, shares his views on alcohol with a farmer, arguing that he indulges in wine so he can “dance, sing at the top of my lungs, and laugh like a fool!” There’s a clear pattern here. Odysseus doesn’t drink wine to drown his sorrows. He drinks so he can dance, sing, and laugh. He drinks to heighten his soul! He drinks in order to celebrate life.
Roger Scruton adds an extra note:
Of course we’re aware of the medical opinion that a daily glass of wine is good for one’s health; and also with the rival opinion that drinking more is not healthy. This is not unimportant—but as long as this is detached from the symposium culture, it doesn’t make much of a difference. Most people no longer have an arsenal of topics, books, poems, songs, and ideas with which to entertain one another in their cups. They drink to fill the moral vacuum generated by their culture. And while we’re familiar with the side-effects of drinking on an empty stomach, we’re now witnessing the far worse effects of drinking on an empty mind.
If you still want to insist that drinking wine is a vice, let’s take a brief detour to the Ottoman shisha or hookah.
My observation is that the greatest difference between smoking cigarettes and shisha is that consuming the latter entails some sort of pseudo-ritual while the former is a banal, mundane activity.
If you want to smoke shisha, there’s a set of customs you need to abide by. You make a conscious decision to meet up with your friends in a specific place. You get some tea and never alcohol—the rule is simple: you’re allowed only one single vice. Namely, the vice you came for. You never combine vices. I have a friend from Istanbul who’s fed up with Russian tourists smoking shisha and drinking vodka at the same time. He has a point though: Russians, vodka, and shisha sounds like a terrible combination. And, finally, the experience requires thoughtful preparation. When the shisha is ready, you acknowledge its presence; a beautiful device that catches your attention. It’s a special event. In contrast, cigarettes—first of all, they taste like crap—are all too convenient, too easy to get and consume. They’re designed to make you addicted; smoking cigarettes is a habit that can be picked up anytime and anywhere. As Thomas Jefferson was surely right to argue that “wine is the best antidote to whiskey,” my friends from Istanbul have the right to argue that “shisha is the best antidote to cigarettes.”
Similarly, the symposium Plato wrote about entails only one “vice” and a ritual that needs to be respected. The greatest revenge against a culture that doesn’t know how to drink alcohol is not to give up on it altogether and “go sober” but learn how to integrate it into a lifestyle packed with love, friendship, prudence, and philosophy. One rule I have is that a good wine should never be enjoyed alone; and it must always be accompanied by a good topic.
At the risk of getting canceled, my position is that if you truly enjoy wine—then enjoy it! Guilt is unnecessary. And note that prudence and pleasure are best friends, not enemies. This is not a medical opinion; this is for the soul. The problem is not that you drink (too much?) wine. The problem is that you make the same mistake both the hedonist and the abstainer make: you regard wine as a drug. The problem is that you’ve invested no ritual, ceremony, or genuine appreciation into this otherwise sacred drink—only aristocrats of the soul understand that this approach is not “elitist” but functional.1
Roger Scruton is invited yet again to speak and end this essay in exactly the same fashion Odysseus spoke to the farmer:
Wine—drunk in moderation, at the right time, in the right place, and in the right company—is the path to meditation, peace, joy, and philosophy.
2 Quotes to Reflect on
“We don’t learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience.” — John Dewey
“Experience isn’t what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you.” — Aldous Huxley
Wrapping up...
Hope you liked this episode!
Any feedback, suggestion, or criticism is welcome.
Thank you for your time,
Vizi Andrei
Creator of KronArête
Like a lot of things, wine is neither good nor bad.
I like this perspective. Wine leads to meditation, peace, and philosophy. Love that.