Get by

Scraping by means to lack a vision and a mission. It is said that Alexander, at the height of his power and success, asked his illustrious teacher Aristotle if there was anyone in the world better than him. The philosopher promptly replied: there was someone, in Athens, better than Alexander.

He was a modest craftsman who every day, at the same hour, opened his shop, sold his humble goods, and prepared more. In the evening, he returned home to his family, teaching his children respect and dignity, and so it went every day of his long life. “Fortunate is this Athenian,” concluded the philosopher: he saw his children grow and the children of his children, ready to close his existence in the arms and according to the will of the gods.

Alessandro shivered and continued to believe in his mission, according to his vision.

Today, politicians are accused of being ambitious opportunists without a vision for the future. There is a lack of a leader, that is, someone who guides a people along the path to a glorious future. Yet, modern thought — as weak as it may be — brings us back to a certainty: everything we do has a limited time and value.

The pharaohs built grand structures for an eternity they believed in. Today’s enterprises can last, if lucky, a few years or a little more. And that’s fine: we build not for a “forever,” but for a “little while.” Just enough to get by.

If the vision has become a mirage and the mission an empty rhetoric, what remains is the construction of the “little”. It is not a failure. If the “always” is a deception of tyrants, the “just enough” is the measure of man.

Building for a short time means stopping sacrificing the present on the altar of a future that does not belong to us. In this scenario, “getting by” ceases to be the refuge of the mediocre and becomes the stoic acceptance of our finiteness.

In a world of ruins claiming eternity, the honesty of those who build for today is not just a necessity: it is the only real possibility we have left to be well.