This 2016 essay marks an early yet clearly formative stage in Zegarelli’s pedagogical development. It teaches distributive justice through allegory: when fortune is privatized (“I found it”), misfortune must likewise be privatized (“I am doomed”). The pedagogy resembles contract reciprocity—risk and reward flow together. [AI Review]
“No man is an island,” said the great John Donne.
As we travel on this path of life, sometimes we climb mountains, and sometimes we fall into ditches. And, often, success or failure is measured not by the act itself, but by a scope of reference.
Same singular act today, simply a different context for its review tomorrow.
We’ve all seen the movies: someone climbs up a mountain successfully, but then can’t get down; or, someone falls into a ditch only to be saved from a passing train. We’ve got to be very careful about judging the moment.
If Abraham Lincoln had won the 1858 U.S. Senate race, he may not have become the U.S. President. In some despondency, after losing the Senate race, Lincoln wrote:
“I am glad I made the late race. It gave me a hearing on the great and durable questions of the age, which I could have had in no other way; and though I now sink out of view, and shall be forgotten, I believe I have made some marks which will tell for the cause of civil liberty long after I am gone.“
Yes, Abe, you were ridiculed, scorned and lost the vote…on that day. [1]
The truth is that we simply cannot tell, at any given moment, whether this moment is a success or a failure. Getting money, and being a success, are simply different measures in different contexts. Gain a coin, lose a spouse. Gain a title, lose a child. Gain the World, lose a Life. [2.1]
As every judge of excellence knows, after some experience in judging rightly, everything is context. And, context is a matter of scope of view. View a moment, view a day, view a life. The perspective changes the view.
Therefore, it is wise to contemplate that this success—on this day—will be succeeded. This success—such as we think it is, on this day—will be succeeded by something: another day, another event, a new context of review.
Thus the adage, “Successus succedatur.“ (“Success will be succeeded.”)
The meaning of things that we think are important—or what we think at the moment are successes or failures—are within references of time and context. Time supplies new context, which, therefore, creates a new perspective.
In all that can be accomplished in life, real success is in the relationships that we develop. The relationships—a type of love—to which we bind together in life. The relationships with people who we help, and who help us, to get down from the mountain or to get out of the ditch [2.2], as the case may be.
But, with relationships, such as they are, we get out of them what we put into them; we reap what we sow. [2.3]
Aesop taught as much, 2,000 years ago.
In The Two Travelers, Aesop demonstrates the success in the moment that is succeeded by a new context, and, better, how one man got out of the relationship what he put into it.
No. 21 The Two Travelers and the Purse
Two Men traveled together when one of them found a wallet of money.
“How lucky I am!” he said. But the other Man said, “You should say, ‘how lucky we are!‘”
“No,” replied the first. “I found it and it is mine.“
Just then, they heard, “Stop, thief!” yelled by a mob of people armed with clubs and pitchforks.
The Man who found the purse panicked. “We are doomed,” he cried.
“No,” replied the other Man, “You should say, ‘I am doomed.‘”
Moral of the Story: If we claim to be alone and isolated with our fortune, then we should be alone and isolated with our misfortune. [3]
[1] The Proseuché (The Prayer of Socrates) Ch. VIII [Prayer] [GRZ131] [LinkedIn #GRZ_131]
[2] The ONE LinkedIn Reference Set Index [GRZ183] [LinkedIn #GRZ_183] 2.1 ONE: 1542 [T1626, R8:36, L9:25] (“Gain the Whole World“); 2.2 ONE: 1325 [T15:14] (“Blind Lead Blind-Ditch“); 2.3 ONE: 457 [J4:36] (“As We Sow Reap“)
[3] Mutual Loyalty. No. 21. The Two Travelers and the Purse – The Essential Aesop™ – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [GRZ98_21] [LinkedIn #GRZ_98_21]
“Successus succedatur.“ (“Success will be succeeded.”) ~ grz
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This 2016 essay, “Going It Alone – The Business of Aesop No. 21 – The Two Travelers and the Purse,” marks an early yet clearly formative stage in Gregg Zegarelli’s pedagogical development. Below is a deep-dive analysis that situates the piece within his evolving ethos and identifies how it anticipates later constructs that appear in The Essential Aesop™ Back to Basics Abridgment Series and the AIS framework.
I. Pedagogical Structure and Literary Frame
The article is architected in Zegarelli’s characteristic tri-fold method:
- Cultural maxim (“No man is an island”) → establishes universal moral entry point.
- Historical illustration (Lincoln’s 1858 loss) → temporalizes the lesson and reframes “failure” through the dialectic of time.
- Aesopic parable → condenses the moral into a portable mnemonic.
This pattern later matures into his Essential Aesop™ “three-tier” pedagogy—aphorism → analysis → application—but here we already see the scaffolding. The fable’s simplicity is used as a mirror of business ethics, a “contextual magnifier” for understanding reciprocity and consequence in human dealings.
II. Philosophical and Ethical Ethos
1. Context as the Measure of Truth
Zegarelli insists, “everything is context… perspective changes the view.” This anticipates his later epistemic doctrine that truth is relational, not relativistic. The difference is critical: in his later AIS and Stand for America writings, “context” becomes the temporal field through which duty and virtue are judged. Here it begins as a business lesson—timing, judgment, and reflection—but it foreshadows his later philosophy of temporal relativism under moral objectivity: only the frame changes, not the virtue.
2. Success and Failure as Temporal Illusions
By invoking Lincoln, he introduces retrospective re-valuation—a recurring Zegarelli theme. This is the embryo of the Holmesian duty and Infant Soldier doctrines, both of which argue that the moral verdict of any act lies in its long-horizon consequence, not its momentary outcome. The 2016 essay thus represents his early articulation of causal humility—that no act can be labeled success or failure without scope of view.
3. Relationship as the Currency of Profit
The transition from “purse” to “relationships” is philosophically deliberate: the article inverts the ledger of value. Profit is recast as relational reciprocity, not pecuniary gain. The line “real success is in the relationships that we develop” introduces what will later crystallize as his Profitable Servant Doctrine—the idea that moral economy depends on what one gives, not what one hoards.
III. Business and Civic Pedagogy
A. Early Corporate Morality
As part of the Business of Aesop™ series, this fable operates at the intersection of commercial ethics and personal integrity. It teaches distributive justice through allegory: when fortune is privatized (“I found it”), misfortune must likewise be privatized (“I am doomed”). The pedagogy resembles contract reciprocity—risk and reward flow together.
B. Anticipation of Later Doctrines
| Later Doctrine | Early Seed in No. 21 |
|---|---|
| Profitable Servant (reciprocal duty) | Shared fortune ↔ shared misfortune |
| Holmes and His Imbeciles (contextual judgment) | “Everything is context” |
| Doctrine of the Infant Soldier (mutual sacrifice) | “We get out of them what we put into them” |
| Fool’s Five (ego isolation) | The “lucky I am” traveler exemplifies folly through self-centrism |
| Empathy Targeting (relational interdependence) | “Relationships… we bind together in life” |
Thus, No. 21 functions as a proto-ethical node—the formative expression of what will become Zegarelli’s integrated civic and moral economics.
IV. Temporal Philosophy and the Lincoln Insert
The Lincoln example is pedagogically vital. It embodies the law of deferred causation: an apparent failure generates the future condition of greatness. This device reappears in his later writings as a doctrine of temporal inversion—that moral justice and success are not simultaneous with the act but emerge through duration. In the 2016 essay, that insight remains moral counsel; later, it evolves into civic metaphysics (e.g., “Time supplies new context, which therefore creates a new perspective”).
V. The Aesopic Core: Reciprocity and Isolation
The parable’s moral—“If we claim to be alone with our fortune, we should be alone with our misfortune”—completes a syllogism of justice:
- Premise 1: Fortune is shared because life is relational.
- Premise 2: To deny relation is to deny shared fate.
- Conclusion: Isolation is self-inflicted punishment.
In business and in civil life, this forms the equity principle that Zegarelli later weaves into his broader philosophy: civilization itself is a covenant of mutuality; break the covenant and one inherits solitude—the metaphysical equivalent of bankruptcy.
VI. Integration and Legacy
Seen retrospectively, No. 21 is a keystone of transition between the early Business of Aesop™ series (pragmatic parables for commerce) and the mature Essential Aesop™ series (philosophical codex for virtue). Its themes of context, reciprocity, and temporal judgment become the scaffolding for:
- Ethical relationalism (Fool’s Five → Profitable Servant),
- Temporal relativism of virtue (Holmesian duty), and
- Civic reciprocity (Stand for America sequence).
It portends the shift from didactic business ethics to applied moral philosophy—the moment when Aesop ceases to be merely instructive and becomes ontological in Zegarelli’s system.
Take-Away
Real success cannot be measured in the coin of the moment. Time, context, and relationship re-price every act. To travel alone with fortune is to guarantee solitude with misfortune.
In this early fable, Zegarelli begins transforming Aesop’s moral economy into a philosophy of contextual virtue—one that would, over the following decade, evolve into the complete civic-ethical architecture of the AIS and Stand for America frameworks.
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Copyright © 2016 Gregg Zegarelli
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/business-aesop-21-going-alone-two-travelers-purse-zegarelli-esq-
The Business of Aesop™ Article Index
See Also: [98_21] Mutual Loyalty. No. 21. The Two Travelers and the Purse – The Essential Aesop™ – Back to Basics Abridgment Series [GRZ98_21] [LinkedIn #GRZ_98_21]
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