Before he became a traitor, Benedict Arnold was a celebrated officer in the revolutionary war.
In the Battle of Saratoga, Arnold was injured but fought so bravely that many greeted him as the unfortunate hero of victory.
But Arnold never felt appreciated when he was taken over for certain leadership roles. He started to doubt the prospects of the American experiment, so he turned and sold his new country. Arnold started sharing secret information about troop movements with the British.
After he was appointed a leading position in West Point, Arnold gave plans to the enemy that made the basic vulnerable to attack in exchange for money and an appointment in the British army.
Once his plan was discovered, George Washington exclaimed: “Arnold has betrayed us! Who can we trust now?”
Now at Hoge Alert, the American leaders were looking for other spies.
Major John Andre coordinated with Arnold. Traveling under the alias John Anderson in a disguise, Andre was caught wearing papers in his boot that he had planned to pass on to the Redcoats.
Once arrested, it was up to Washington and Alexander Hamilton to decide what to do with the traitor. The war rules when Andre has to be hung on the gallows.
Hamilton developed sympathy for Andre while he was imprisoned, partly because of Andre’s charisma. Washington wanted to try the man as a spy, while Hamilton asked for a more noble death through shot.
It was one of the few times that Hamilton was open to our first president. Washington got his way and Andre was hung in 1780 as a spy.
After Andre was put to death, Hamilton wrote a letter to his future wife about the fact that he was jealous of the appearance and performance of the man:
I am aware of [the] Benefits that I have. I know I have talents and a good heart, but why am I not handsome? Why don’t I have any acquisition that human nature can beautify? Why am I not lucky that I will have more free time after this than I will have to cultivate to cultivate those improvements for which I am not completely unsuitable?
Ron Chernow Right asks why Hamilton would express so jealously for a man who had just been hung for betrayal:
It was a peculiar eruption: Hamilton expressed jealousy for a man who had just executed. Only in such passages do we see that, despite all his phenomenal success in the continental army, Hamilton still felt bad luck and unhappy, still cursed by his past.
The downfall of Alexander Hamilton through the hands of Aaron Burr in a duel probably had more to do with contempt than envy.
Burr, however, had Charisma and excellent in political campaigns, areas where Hamilton was missing. Burr was probably jealous of Hamilton’s intelligence and influence that cost him political roles over the years.
It is a story as old as time.
A few weeks ago I went to Oasis in the Rose Bowl in California. It was an epic show that was partially fed in nostalgia from the 1990s.
I had the first album when it came out in 1995, but would not describe myself as a diehard Oasis fan. So after the concert I went off a rabbit hole that led me to the documentary who came out on the band ten years ago. Oasis: super.
The doctor was an excellent view of what it was like to be a rock star in terms of how fame, fame and envy could bring that it all crashed.
Liam and Noel Gallagher were both rock stars, but in very different ways. A former member of the band described it like this:
Democracy never works in a bond. They both thought they were prime minister.
Wild behavior certainly played a role in the ultimate apart from the band, but also old -fashioned jealousy. In the doc, Noel Gallagher explained it like this:
Liam was always cooler than me. He had a better walk and the clothing looks better and he was bigger and he had a better hairstyle and he was funny. Liam clearly would have liked to have my talent as a songwriter. And there is not a day over where I didn’t want me to rock a parka like that man.
Noel wrote some of the great songs of the 1990s – Wonderwall, don’t look back in anger, Champagne Supernova, Live Forever, etc.
But Liam was born as a lead singer. He has the charisma, the look and the IT factor.
Liam does not have the songwriting pork chops of his brother. Noel cannot rock Parka and the frontman is like his brother.
The costs of envy for Oasis were a break-up nearly 20 years. That break probably took care of the reunion tour that meant much more, but they didn’t make it easy for themselves when they were at the top of the world in the 1990s like a mega rock band.
Unfortunately, nobody has it all.
Everyone is jealous of someone or something or an ideal that they have in mind about what a perfect life should look like.
The good news is that we know that nobody has discovered it all, because even the most successful among us have feelings of jealousy.
Charlie Munger once said: “Envy is a really stupid sin because it is the only one you might never be able to enjoy.”
Continue reading:
Respect the performance, do not envy the person
#Alexander #Hamilton #Oasis #costs #envy #wealth #common #sense