Tea at Trianon: The Three Principles of Crafting a Great Life

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, May 3, 2025

The Three Principles of Crafting a Great Life

From Culturcidal:

Let’s start with…
1) You’re either growing or getting rotten: There is no standing still in life. In every part of your life, you’re either going forward or backward. Whether you’re talking about your health, your career, your relationships, your knowledge level, or your skills, you’re either improving or getting worse.
While it is impossible to work on everything at once, the moment you become content in an area and think you can afford to coast is the moment you start going backward.
Granted, not everything improves or decays at the same rate. At 20, if you’re already in a pretty good spot, you may be able to afford not to pay a lot of attention to your health, but at 40? At 60? You are going to rapidly decline if you aren’t working on getting better.
Right after the honeymoon, when everything is going great in your relationship, you may be able to skate a little bit in your relationship. But, what if you’re still doing it in year 5 when your sex life has dropped off a little? When your husband is finding excuses to get out of the house? When you realize you’re dressing like a frumpy old maid for your husband and saving your hot outfits for nights with the girls? You better get to work, or your relationship may be at risk.
You think you can coast and still get that promotion at work? Still get by with going through the motions when your kid is going through something? Do you think if you haven’t advanced as a human being from 20-to-40, you’re going to be doing fine? Not really.
Similarly, drinking with the boys a couple of nights per week can turn into an alcohol problem. Eating a little too much can turn into thirty pounds if you change jobs and go from moving all day to sitting at a desk. You can very easily wake up one day after five years of playing video games and watching reruns, then wonder, “What did I do the last few years of my life? How did I ever get into this big of a rut?” Some people will have something bad happen to them and mentally live in it for years, decades, or even a lifetime. Meanwhile, the longer they trap themselves in that negative space, the rottener their life becomes.
For growth, for happiness, for just plain old, being a better, stronger human being, you need to learn more, add new skills, and keep adding to your strengths. Even small consistent improvements over the course of a lifetime will take you further than a vast majority of the human race. On the other hand, decline is a choice and if you aren’t actively trying to improve, you’re declining. (Read more.)