Pink Elephants

I skimmed a mildly interesting article from Wired.com yesterday morning: Scientists Re-Create the Conditions That Sparked Complex Life. A quote:

Examples of endosymbiosis are everywhere. Mitochondria, the energy factories in your cells, were once free-living bacteria. Photosynthetic plants owe their sun-spun sugars to the chloroplast, which was also originally an independent organism.

Interesting. I think I’d heard that once about Mitochondria (The Powerhouse of the Cell, of course), but I hadn’t heard it about chloroplast.

Then, last night, wouldn’t you know it, reading The Expanse Book 9 (Leviathan Falls), this quote:

If mitochondria and chloroplasts hadn’t set up shop inside other organisms, eukaryotic life wouldn’t exist, including all of us.

— Corey, James S. A.. Leviathan Falls (The Expanse Book 9) (p. 321). (Function). Kindle Edition.

Seems about right.

Over the past weekend, I listened to Dan Carlin‘s 2nd Hardcore History episode about Alexander the Great, in which he used the word “Arete” as one of the key defining characteristics of the protagonist.

From the wikipedia page:

Arete (Ancient Greek: ἀρετή, romanized: aretḗ) is a concept in ancient Greek thought that, in its most basic sense, refers to “excellence” of any kind^[1]—especially a person or thing’s “full realization of potential or inherent function.”^[2] The term may also refer to excellence in “moral virtue.”^[1]

And today, wouldn’t you know it, I got an email newsletter from David Sparks, speaking about how he views happiness, and he sums it up by saying:

Pursuing your best self (Arete) + Ethical Living = Happy Life.