{"id":1149,"date":"2008-08-21T00:40:08","date_gmt":"2008-08-21T07:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=1149"},"modified":"2008-08-21T00:42:10","modified_gmt":"2008-08-21T07:42:10","slug":"splendor-versus-squalor-the-part-your-throw-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1149\/splendor-versus-squalor-the-part-your-throw-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Splendor versus squalor: The part you throw away"},"content":{"rendered":"

[I wrote this in March of 2007. I’m revisiting it now because it fits so well with the essay I wrote last night about honesty<\/a>. At just about the same time I wrote this post, I penned an essay about an idea I call The Implied Accusation<\/a> — the elephant in the room. I lucked upon a sweet cover of the Tom Waits tune quoted below, so I’m adding that as well. –GSS]<\/em><\/p>\n

 
I believe in integrity, but I believe in a very Latinly kind of integrity. It’s normal for me to translate words in and out of Latin, to write and think in those words in the way that they are composed from their Latin atoms. So when I think of the word “integrity,” what I think of is “all one thing.”<\/p>\n

And I try to live that way, too, with my whole life, as best I can manage it, being the expression of one idea: Splendor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I’ll give you a definition, which I will immediately qualify:<\/p>\n

Splendor is the interior experience of being so enthralled by the act of creating the values that contribute to and ultimately comprise your idealized perfect self that, while you are experiencing it, you are<\/i> your idealized perfect self.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What’s the qualification? Splendor is not words, and it is not merely<\/i> thoughts or deeds. Splendor is the tone and the timbre, the warp and the weft of a life spent pursuing it. Words, deeds, thoughts, actions, hopes, dreams, plans, memories, work, leisure, solitude and companionship — everything you do in the pursuit of positive<\/i> values and nothing<\/i> that you do in quests for dis<\/i>values.<\/p>\n

This is such a simple idea, and I love it better than anything. It is everything<\/i> I want to be when I am being the best person I can be, and it is everything I want for everyone I see. It’s one of the reasons I love being a Realtor, because this job, at its best, is all about<\/i> Splendor, helping people get the most and the best that life can offer.<\/p>\n

I don’t talk to my clients directly about this, but they get the idea. We Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[I wrote this in March of 2007. I’m revisiting it now because it fits so well with the essay I wrote last night about honesty. At just about the same time I wrote this post, I penned an essay about an idea I call The Implied Accusation — the elephant in the room. I lucked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,24,6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1149","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-casual-friday","7":"category-egoism-in-action","8":"category-marketing","9":"category-real-estate","11":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9781,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/9781\/splendorquest-my-world\/","url_meta":{"origin":1149,"position":0},"title":"SplendorQuest: My world…","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 21, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"[This is me in February of 2004. It's fun for me to read now, because we were selling a lot then, and -- like a lot of folks -- the next year, 2005, was my best year so far. I'm not selling success as a matter of dollars and cents.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egoism in Action"","block_context":{"text":"Egoism in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/egoism-in-action\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2964,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2964\/its-the-difference-between-grabbing-junk-food-from-the-drive-thru-and-sitting-down-with-people-you-lovefor-a-leisurely-and-livelydinner\/","url_meta":{"origin":1149,"position":1},"title":"“It’s the difference between grabbing junk food from the drive-thru and sitting down with people you love for a leisurely and lively dinner.”","author":"Greg Swann","date":"April 13, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"That's Teri Lussier talking about the experience of settling in for a serious read at BloodhoundBlog, as against cruising the blogiverse. I'm inclined to agree -- and I've never been stingy with words. But here's a thousand words Cathleen wrote yesterday afternoon while she was staging and preparing a house\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egoism in Action"","block_context":{"text":"Egoism in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/egoism-in-action\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15831,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/15831\/a-celebration-of-me-man-alive-is-alive\/","url_meta":{"origin":1149,"position":2},"title":"A celebration of me: Man Alive! is alive!","author":"Greg Swann","date":"April 8, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I just traded two weeks of my life for the rest of human history. That's what it feels like. It's funny even to me to live at that level of hubris! I've always been able to work very hard when I need to, and I've always loved the way I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egoism in Action"","block_context":{"text":"Egoism in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/egoism-in-action\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3853,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3853\/unchained-lullabies-splendor-squalor-and-war\/","url_meta":{"origin":1149,"position":3},"title":"Unchained lullabies: Splendor, squalor and war…","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 11, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Teri Lussier sent me this clip as a celebration of Unchained in Orlando: That's sweet, but I always think of this when I think of lullabies: And that's so brutal that it's almost unimaginably brutal -- until you look at this: That's the real face of war. Not well-turned-out soldiers\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Casual Friday"","block_context":{"text":"Casual Friday","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/casual-friday\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11310,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/11310\/the-epistemology-of-splendor-apprehending-the-memes-that-move-me\/","url_meta":{"origin":1149,"position":4},"title":"The epistemology of Splendor: Apprehending the memes that move me.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"February 13, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"I had a great week. That's not something I get to say all the time -- rarely more than fifty times a year. The truth is, most of the time I feel like an undocumented refugee from a forgotten country known as A Different Way Of Thinking. I don't feel\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egoism in Action"","block_context":{"text":"Egoism in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/egoism-in-action\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16387,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/16387\/rock-me-mama-egoism-in-action-the-link-from-art-to-human-values-and-back\/","url_meta":{"origin":1149,"position":5},"title":"Rock Me Mama Egoism In Action: The link from art to human values and back.","author":"Greg Swann","date":"September 3, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Everything is all one thing, so this is a video essay about art about music about morality about song-writing about marriage about redemption \u2013 simple stuff. This is egoism in action, me being me. This video connects directly to the argument I made on Friday about \u2018conservative\u2019 art, and all\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egoism in Action"","block_context":{"text":"Egoism in Action","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/egoism-in-action\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1149"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4024,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1149\/revisions\/4024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}