Your Essential Invitation

And a cheeky confession...

Dear Notes Reader,

We have a confession to make... a shameless, ill-concealed bias... something you’ve probably suspected for a while now...

No doubt you’ve noticed the clues bubbling to the surface in our various missives; sirens calling lowly mortals to shipwreck… tales of the Trojan War leaking into our essays... not-so-subtle references to (dare we say it?) dead, white men... whole passages from the great books, reshaped, retold and reexamined...

Yes, dear reader. It’s true. Your editor is...

... a closet classics lover!

From ancient coin clipping… to hubristic politicos… to Athenian-style democracy and the decline and fall of Rome… the ancient world brims with lessons for our modern times, provided we take the time to study and heed them.

But really, why bother?

After all, we live in the Age of Experts, right? Where our Dear Leaders direct us from great moral heights and Artificial Intelligence does all our thinking for us... where deep, contemplative reading is jettisoned in favor of calorie-free social media feeds and the mainline media...

What could possibly go wrong?

Now, on the off chance such a future worries, or even terrifies you... please read the next few lines carefully.

As you may know, we’re part of a couple of projects here on Substack... these Notes being one... and Classical Wisdom, headed up by our dear wife, as the other.

We like to think of them as complimentary projects.

In fact, when people ask what we write about, we sometimes answer:

“Joel discusses the social and political mess we’re in today... and Anya reminds us that we’ve been here before, and that this too shall pass.”

The stated goal of Classical Wisdom is to “bring ancient wisdom to modern minds.” The more we know about our past, the better we are equipped to deal with our present... and prepare for our future.

Which is why, together with Anya, we put together a video course called The Essential Greeks.

The 10 part video course guides you through a “who’s who” of ancient Greece, starting with the Big 3 philosophers, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle... working through the historians Herodotus and Thucydides... on through the playwrights, Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides... and, of course, Homer’s twin epics, The Iliad and The Odyssey.

Each chapter focuses on the life and works of a Greek thinker and includes videos, a quiz, biographies and transcripts...

And the whole thing is narrated by yours truly, who is now well out of the closet as a bonafide classics nerd.

But here’s the important part: The Essential Greeks video course begins this coming Wednesday, October 15.

That gives you just a few days to enroll before the course commences. And right now, you can get $50 off the regular enrollment rate with the link below:

Please join us this Wednesday, October 15, for The Essential Greeks.

Cheers,

Joel Bowman

P.S. You can, of course, begin the course early... and/or binge watch them, the way you would a worthwhile Netflix show (if that’s such a thing).

You also get access to a special welcome webinar, with Anya, plus coursework, lesson quizzes and even an e-book of The Essential Greeks to reference as you go. Enroll today and grab $50 off, right here...