Let me begin this letter by offering you the most important lesson
you will likely ever recieve.
Your parents are very, _very_ smart people.
If you remember nothing else I tell you, I pray you remember that!
I have had the great fortune to be considered a friend of your immediate family and I can tell you without hesitation that your parents are truly good and admirable people. That makes you a very lucky person indeed because life's hardest lessons will come much easier to you by virtue of your illustrious heritage.
I say you are fortunate because the models of human excellence can actually be found within your own house. If you ever wish to set a benchmark for your behavior, you need only to reflect upon the principles of your parents and then set your mind to act accordingly. If you contemplate their behaviour with due consideration, you will find that they behave with insight and moderation as a course of habit, and that this habit is so ingrained in their behavior as to seem entirely natural to them. It is an extremely rare gift to be raised in such an environment, and you may find that a life of personal fulfilment can most easily be attained simply by imitating those who have come before you.
It is fitting that a son should inherit his parent's friendships. I hope that as your parents' friend I might offer you some ideas as to how you might best serve them. Much more than that, however, my admiration for you is such that I wish you happiness and fulfilment on your own account, and so it is my sincere desire to offer you practical advice in that regard. It may be that these two interests coincide, but that is a matter for you to determine for yourself.
I do not expect to teach you anything new, for I know your parents to be excellent teachers. It would be sheer folly on my part to presume to tell you anything of value which they have not already imparted. Nontheless, I believe you were born with a capacity to accomplish great deeds and to help a great many people, and my responsibility and priviledge as a friend is to offer you my counsel even if it serves only to reinforce what you have already learned. A man will sometimes take lessons more readily from a friend than from his immediate family.
So first and foremost, my young master, I encourage you to embrace a life of physical and intellectual excellence.
Sincerely, I implore you. Embrace excellence as if it were going out of style.
You are a very promising young man, and the universe is literally at your disposal to be bent and manipulated as you will. This will obviously not be a simple task, however. Many people wish to bend the universe to their will, but there are only a few people every generation who are actually capable of doing it. The world can be a very rough place and so you must train yourself for the challenges you will face.
Just as all sports and athletic activities benefit from basic physical fitness, it is also the case that all professions, arts and sciences benefit from a basic intellectual fitness. The study and practice of elementary philosophy allows us to train our minds for difficult tasks later in life, just as a runner might jog around his neighborhood in order to begin training for the Olympic games.
The first of our excercises may seem difficult until you get the hang of it, but should be very simple to understand.
To begin training for a life of excellence and happiness, you must decide, at every waking moment, to be a good person.
I know this sounds simple, but it can actually be very difficult.
When we train ourselves for a new activity, we often find it is difficult to pick up at first. Recall, for instance, the first time you learned to ride a bicycle or the first time you learned to ski. It was hard at first and you fell down and hurt yourself a few times, but you were resiliant! You were steadfast in your commitment to master those activities and now, years later, you excell at them. You can now ride a bicycle and skis as if you were born to do so. It is, as Aristotle might have put it, second-nature to you.
Consider this to be a similar challenge. You must practice excellence over and over and over again, until it becomes a habit. It is much more difficult to learn than riding a bicycle, but it offers proportionally greater rewards.
For every decision you make, every action you take, every word you allow to escape from your lips, you must practice asking yourself, "Is this what a goodwilling person would do? Is this what a generous or a courageous person would do? Is there a wiser approach?" It is, perhaps, not in our nature to behave perfectly all of the time, but the first step on the path to true human flourishing is to make a habit of thinking and acting virtuously.
These ideas may seem strange to you, and others may not consider you old enough to understand them yet, but it is helpful to start thinking about such things when you are still young. And, in fact, I happen to know that your parents have prepared you for such ideas since you were very young, indeed.
I've been studying philosophy for half of my life now, and I basically only read books that are over 2000 years old, but I'm still learning to apply philosophy as a way of life. Philosophy, as I see it, is a calling - it is a lifestyle choice. By the time I had completed my first philosophy course, when I was 16 years old, I had undergone a conversion; not to a new religion, but to a tradition of thought, a tradition which valued human excellence above all other things. You have the right to this inheritance, if you so wish it. The first step to claiming it is to decide that you want to be an excellent person.
Let us start with that much for now, and I'll get back to you with more later on. Meanwhile, I will challenge you to remember that virtue and true happiness are acquired habits. By studying and imitating excellent, content people (and, again, your parents are a prime example), you can become an excellent and happy person yourself.
I must warn you that this will be hard work, so I'd like to recommend
a little light reading to help you get into the swing of things. We
can work our way up to more complex issues as we move along, just as a
runner will start training by running short distances at first, and then
increase his workload once he has developed a certain amount of
strength and stamina. Your success is my greatest ambition, my young
friend, and I have the utmost confidence in your abilities in this
regard.
Above all else, my lad, take good care of your health. You can do nothing in the world to please me more.
Pope[BRAK]