Don’t Dye Yourself Purple
Why was purple the color of the royals?
Was it because of its beauty? Was it due to its inherent sense of sophistication?
Well, it turns out that it was exuberantly expensive.
During ancient times (back 1000s of years ago), prior to the advent of synthetic dye, purple was derived from the Murex Snail. The snails were harvested and boiled in large drums, producing an otherworldly purple. Tens of thousands of snails were required to make 1 pound of the dye (according to Google 120 lbs of snails resulted in 1 GRAM of dye). This made the dye extremely expensive, to the tune of about $20,000 today.
Thus, purple was reserved only for those who could afford it, like the royals.
So, what is the message here?
Why are we talking about the color purple?
Marcus Aurelius was the adopted son of Antoninus Pius, the emperor of Rome.
After the death of Antoninus, Marcus found himself thrust into the position of being the most powerful man on the planet. He commanded the most powerful army that the world had ever seen and was able to get whatever he wanted, and no one was able to tell him “no.”
As the famous adage goes “with great power comes great responsibility”, and Marcus was someone who understood that.
In Marcus’ personal diary, later published as a book called “Meditations” he has one passage that stated, “beware of becoming Caesarified, dyed in purple.”
So, what does that mean?
If you can learn anything from ancient rulers is that ultimate power can lead to ultimate insanity. There are 100s of stories of the outlandish behaviors of rules (Caligula made his horse a senator).
Marcus realized this and made sure not to let the power go to his head. He actively made sure he was never dyed purple.
By observing the past transgressions of the rulers that came before him he was able to understand how the power corrupted them and what the outcomes were.
So, what can we learn from this?
There is a lot that we can take away, but perhaps the most important thing is to make sure we never become arrogant. We should always be weary of becoming “Caesarified.”
When you get power, don’t let the power change you. Don’t allow the power to go to your head. Refuse to be dyed purple.
Always remember that success breeds hubris and hubris breeds failure.
Hubris is the enemy, and we must destroy it.
What we are reading this week: The Strategy Of Conflict
This book is probably one of the more technical books I’ve read. It goes pretty deep into different game theory models and the logic behind them. Books like this are fun. They take a deeply technical, theoretical concept and use real-world examples that are extremely actionable. I imagine this will be one of my favorite books.
Quote of the week:
“The notes are right underneath your fingers, baby”
Ray Charles