MY FAVORITE WORD

If you walk along the streets of San Francisco or any big city, you will notice buildings with the names either painted on the brick facade or engraved into the concrete of the buildings.  Often the owners whose name adorn the fronts are long gone and long forgotten. I think of my first favorite word when I see these buildings.

First draft of the word Hubris

Hubris is a word that has stayed with me since I studied Ancient Greek Literature and read the Oedipus Rex trilogy, the story of a young royal who meets his father at a crossroads, kills him, and then goes on to marry his mother. Since his parents left him on a rock as a baby, he wasn't aware of their parental relationship  until too late. The trilogy shows the consequences of his early actions.

The definition of hubris, "Exaggerated pride or arrogance, motivated by spite," fits so many powerful, fictional characters such as Shakespeare's Macbeth or Captain Ahab from Moby Dick, but hubris also fits powerful, real people who make choices out of arrogance. We can all think of Napoleon and Hitler as prime examples.

Major religions all have some form of the expression, "pride goeth before a fall," within their teachings. Different cultures also teach universal moral values as described by an Oxford University study. The values include help your family, help others outside of family, return favors, be brave, defer to superiors, divide resources fairly, and respect other people's property.

In turbulent times, we need to remind ourselves of these teachings and phrases that most of us received in childhood. I remember one of the first poems I was asked to memorize. The poem is Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley and was written in 1817. Yet, its ideas still resonate.

Ozymandias

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveler from an antique land

Who said--"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert....Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing besides remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare,

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

See you at a No Kings Rally on Saturday!

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Who is Audiffred? Read his interesting history here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audiffred_Building

Oxford University study about universal, moral values:

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2019-02-11-seven-moral-rules-found-all-around-world