The Sagacious Non-King

     Letting go or giving up something that is greatly desired for the cause of another person is the main definition of sacrifice. Though the victor is the one that history remembers, some of the losers are more worthy of remembrance because their achievements, character, or ideology is worth recognition.
     Conrad I, the Younger, was the first German king not descended directly from the Charlemagne line. With his election by the nobles of East Francia (modern Germany) to avoid the absorption of the eastern portion of Charlemagne's empire into the western half, Duke Conrad of Franconia, ruler one of the five most powerful Germanic tribes in the region, was granted power because of a succession crisis. He spent significant portions of his twelve year reign seeking to consolidate power against opposing tribal factions.
     Conrad I never succeeded in solidifying his power, and he was mortally wounded in a battle against one of his rivals. Knowing his demise approached, Conrad instructed his younger brother to offer the crown to Duke Henry of Saxony. Conrad knew that Henry alone among his rivals possessed the knowledge and power necessary to congeal the powers of the warring Germanic tribes. Thus equipped with an alliance between the Saxon and Franconian forces, Henry I succeeded in reuniting East Francia under one king. Henry the Fowler's successor and son, Otto the Great, founded the Holy Roman Empire which became and remained a major power on the European continent for nearly six hundred years.

     Conrad I surrendered his power and lands to his bitter enemy Duke Henry of Saxony to unite the East Frankish Kingdom, secure the autocracy of German dukes, and keep the West Frankish Kingdom out. He gave his power and supporters to Henry bolster unification efforts. Henry I used this power to revitalize the German crown and set the foundation for the Holy Roman Empire; Otto I finished Henry I's actions and succeeded in achieving all of Conrad I's hopes.
     In the face of death, Conrad I sacrificed all his authority and military might to his contender in order to achieve an objective impossible without an alliance. He sacrificed for the love of his people even though it put his antagonist in power. He embraced his own defeat as a sacrifice to raise the authority of the German emperor into such potency as to last through until Napoleon Bonaparte nine hundred years later.
     Winning isn't everything. Sacrifice and compromise can be the best way to resolve a situation to avert pointless stalemate or defeat brought on by division and attrition. Know when to let pride go and seek those who desire your same goals even if slightly different.

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Agatha Tyche

Rock Hard

Your life, soul, who you are is a rock, a steadfast boulder. Perhaps you are like basalt, reflecting things around you with your unique perspective. Or perhaps, you are more like granite with colorful imperfections making your flaws beautiful. Again, your rock may be limestone with a diversity of useful applications. Your rock, whatever it is, represents the true self of your identity. When standing alone, the rock is both a symbolic representation of who you are and your actual self: malleable to an extent but extraordinarily brittle under awkward stresses. Strength lies in the beliefs that direct you toward your goals of achievement, everyday interaction, and, most relevant to this essay, the presentation of who you are in your appearance to others.
Your rock can stand alone, be independent, stand as a monolith, a marker for all to see. Pride is classically said to be green and embitter its possessor, destroying that individual's desire and ability to sympathize and forgive. Instead, think of green as representing a plant: marine algae or terrestrial grass. The green in innocent, even decorative at first, but over time it hides the true rock, your character, covering the uniqueness with the ordinary, yet complex, shades of green. The plant, for which I will claim as algae, grows drawing nutrients and cracking through the base rock, your character, and true self beneath. Should this erosional work continue, the rock will break, crack, shatter, disassemble, and collapse inwardly from the outward force. The root from the plant that is growing into you unproductively uses the nutrients that you have stored.

The algae, for I myself like to think of pride as a scum that clings, resilient to the rock's surface. When it is fresh and wet, it grows, digging into you further, and gets in the way of all else as it hides your real surface. However, when it is dry and hard, stuck tightly onto the exterior, you smell foul as the as the algae attempts to retain moisture and hibernate until needed "again." Either way the rock is hidden beneath the growth.
What can be done?
Nothing - let the algae grow, taking its toll, slight as it is. Keep in mind the order of ecological succession, for, while the algae is small and easy enough to remove, after some time, other, harder and tougher plants take root. Just as a sapling is small and unintimidating, a tree is monstrously large, heavy, and intimidating. To let the algae grow is to abandon yourself to the order of succession and surrender your nutrients to the development of a forest of outgrowth of pride and vices.
Alternatively, to remove the algae is energy intensive, annoying, and difficult. However, to remove the pride or algae while new, saves the rock from scarring and allows it to stand forth as it is truly, not hidden away spending its precious limited allotment of resources in a purposeless forest of vice.
The choice, while easily presented, is difficult. Your choice early on can be undone at any time, but the longer the wait the more impacting the nutrient-sucking roots will be and the less visible your true self will become.
Pride has been called a mask, or, perhaps, a set of scales, but I, with my interest in plants, compare my pride to that of algae: a scum that hides, stinks, digs into, and can remain forever.
It is desirable for aesthetic presentation of no kind. To remove this leech on life is daunting, but its removal leads to the highest rung of bliss and self-satisfaction achievable by the knowledge that you are all you can be.
Scrape your scum away.


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Agatha Tyche

Passions

Ambitions, Passions, Devotion, Drive
These are the fuels that inspire man. These are the causes for change, victory, and success that pepper history books. These are the things that give normal men heart to strive onward through failure to reach their goals.
It is easy enough to break down the success of idolized heroes that achieved greatness: seek a goal, strive forward despite opposition, never quit. The simplicity of success does not remove the need for its application. The most convicted person's passion can fade. The most ingenious man can err, but the one that succeeds will achieve regardless. Greatness can be seen as unexpected or unlikely for those of lower socio-economic standings, but regardless of resources, the persistence to follow passion will accomplish anything it sets out to do.
This consuming passion can pass from a leader to inspire an army to trounce a larger, better equipped enemy, from a single philosopher to individuals that act upon those ideals and create revolutions of mind, matter, government, and society, from a single research paper that incites scientific exploration deeper into theory, atmosphere, ecosystem, or genome. The fire of the desire is what must be protected for mythological greatness to be achieved.

Wild passion spreads, infects, and solidifies its existence, but action, persevering through failure, discouragement, and criticism, awakens the pulse of the goal itself.
Who might we look back on to note their achievements?
Alexander the Great - a charismatic general that inherited a unified Greece and elite Macedonian army. With an army of 30,000, he defeated the largest empire the world had ever seen at the height of its power. Never losing a battle, he onquered the world
Charlemagne - early king of modern day France in a period of war and educational void. He unified the Frankish tribes, united more of Western Europe than any between Rome and Napoleon, reinstituted learning when less than one percent of the population was literate, and set up the basis for modern Europe by acting as an abbot, a loving father, over his subjects. While conquering Germanic tribes to the east and establishing the modern definition of Europe, he struggled to find support from the Byzantine Empire, which he never succeeded in doing.
Genghis Khan - a Mongolian tribesman, he used innovative military techniques that transformed one of the backwoods of Eurasia into the origin of one of the largest empires in the history of the world.
Ludwig van Beethoven - while positioned from birth in a musically enriched family, he proved his substantial abilities but became poor and deaf, yet he still wrote music so energetically that walls and napkins were covered in musical scores.
Leaders throughout time, empire, circumstance, and interest have incited fervent support for their projects. However, passion is larger than mere politics, military intrigue, or economic production. Philosophers, authors, inventors, and those that dared be different achieved that which was thought impossible by reaching through the limiting fabric of realism to achieve what only dreams of determined, insurmountable energy can conjure with a focus that must be admired by others.
You're a nobody? Be a nobody that doesn't quit, that has unrestrained energy for hobbies, goals, and dreams. Be a nobody that matters.


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Agatha Tyche