Ambition

At twenty, John Stuart Mill had been prepared for an extraordinary life. He knew how to think, work, and argue. He wanted to reform the world. Then, in 1826, he asked himself a question: if everything he hoped to achieve came true, would it make him happy? His answer was no. Ambition can give our days direction and make difficult work possible. But it can also turn every achievement into a reason to postpone living. The next promotion, the next title, the next proof that we are enough—each promises an arrival that never seems to come. This film follows Mill’s crisis, Aristotle’s distinction between a means and an end, and research on the pursuit of financial success. It is not an argument against working hard. It is a question about what that work is for—and what we may lose if we never ask. 0:00 A ship without a sail 0:23 The question Mill asked himself 0:37 Ambition 1:18 What ambition gives us 1:47 When attention narrows 2:13 One more success 2:55 When ambition begins to use you 3:03 Aristotle: means and ends 3:41 Learning to live well 4:39 Two kinds of ambition 5:32 The pursuit of financial success 6:25 Mill’s return to feeling 7:19 What are the sacrifices for? 8:05 A life you can stand behind 8:36 What a title cannot repair 9:36 A rudder cannot give a ship wind SOURCES John Stuart Mill, Autobiography (1873), Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, Tim Kasser and Richard M. Ryan, “A Dark Side of the American Dream: Correlates of Financial Success as a Central Life Aspiration” (1993) ARTWORK Fitz Henry Lane, Harbor of Boston, with the City in the Distance, G. F. Watts, John Stuart Mill, Marco Dente, An Assembly of Scholars, Ferdinand Bol, An Old Man Seated at a Table, George Bellows, Solitude, Abraham Bosse, The Prodigal Son: Riotous Living, Berthe Morisot, Reading, Frederic Edwin Church, Storm in the Mountains, Albrecht Dürer, Hercules at the Crossroad, Meindert Hobbema, A Cottage in the Woods, Léon Cogniet, The Artist in His Room at the Villa Medici, Édouard Vuillard, Woman Ironing, Ernest Meissonier, A Painter, Jules Breton, The Tired Gleaner, Gustave Caillebotte, Study of a Man with Hands in His Pockets, Edgar Degas, Conversation, Richard Earlom, The Blacksmith, Pieter de Hooch, Portrait of a Family Playing Music, Robert S. Duncanson, Vale of Kashmir, William Adolphe Bouguereau, Rest, Hercules Seghers, Enclosed Valley, Jean-Charles Cazin, The Boatyard, George Romney, Mater Dolorosa, Benjamin West, Head of a Screaming Man, Raphael Sadeler, Allegory of Wealth, Lust, and Stupidity, Vincent van Gogh, The Large Plane Trees, Anthony van Dyck, A Genoese Lady with Her Child, Andrea Appiani, Portrait of a Musician, Eastman Johnson, Winding Yarn, Arnold Böcklin, Ruin by the Sea, David Octavius Hill, Elizabeth Rigby, Peter Henry Emerson, A Winter’s Sunrise and Rowing Home the Schoof-Stuff, Sanford Robinson Gifford, Haverstraw Bay, Winslow Homer, Early Morning After a Storm at Sea. Additional paintings, prints, and photographs are from the Cleveland Museum of Art’s CC0 collection. The Mill portrait is public domain. Full individual artwork credits are recorded in the production file. #Philosophy #Ambition #JohnStuartMill