The Ulysses Pact

A Reframing of "Flaw"

The Ulysses Pact

I came across something interesting today—an Idea I have been unknowingly playing with for a while now. It’s called the Ulysses Pact. The name comes from the story of Ulysses (or Odysseus) and the sirens.

If you don’t know, the sirens were mythical creatures whose songs were so intoxicating that any man who heard their voices would lose all sense of reason. In the case of a captain, he would crash his ship in a blind desperation to get closer. Ulysses, wanting to hear the song without destroying himself in the process, came up with a plan. He instructed his men to fill their ears with beeswax so they couldn’t hear, and then he had them tie him to the mast of the ship. No matter what he said, no matter how much he begged, they were not to listen to him. They were to keep sailing forward. And that’s exactly what they did. Ulysses was able to hear the siren’s song, but being completely restrained, he was unable to act on his immediate desires and thus, unable to bring about the destruction of himself and his men alike.

The pact was a conscious and preventative measure against his known future inadequacy.

Personal Experience and Regret

I don’t have issues with alcohol. I don’t really have a tendency toward drugs. I don’t struggle with food in any serious way (mostly). But gambling—gambling is different. In the past I have generally rode the edge of what you might describe as my own gambling “skill,” only to eventually fall off after slowly being taken over by emotion. A simple way to characterize it is a delusion that through sheer intuitive will I can and will win, and that my emotions are somehow a guiding compass rather than the driving force leading me directly off a cliff. And in the past, that delusion has cost me. It has cost me money, it has cost me time, and it has, at times, bled into the lives of people around me in ways that are definitely regrettable.

The concept of the Ulysses pact proves useful here. The fact that this idea has existed since at least the time of the Romans suggests that struggles like mine with gambling are more universal than I might have assumed. It’s not necessarily solely a sign that I have failed the world, the universe, and everything good (Yes that is technically still the case but…)—it’s also a manifestation of a common human weakness. Rather than being some catastrophic and completely unique flaw, it becomes a vulnerability that can be managed and minimized through structured constraints like the Ulysses pact.

Before I even knew this concept had a formal name, I was attempting to incorporate it. In a similar situation to a casino, I would tell a friend, “If you see me in this mode, pull me out. No matter what I say, don’t listen to me.” I was, in effect, attempting to tie myself to the mast while still being able to hear the Siren’s song.

A Multitude of Often Unaligned Personalities

Thinking about the Ulysses pact allowed me to expand further on an older idea. To explain this expanded idea, here is a quick framework for context.

For the sake of this framework, imagine that within you are multiple personalities—multiple versions of yourself that show up in different circumstances. The you that is hungry is not the same as the you that is aroused. The you that is full of energy and refreshed is not the same as the you that is exhausted and just wants to rest. Not only do you generally behave completely differently when in different states, but oftentimes the behaviours will act in conflict to the long term goals of any of the individual states. You might be dedicated to fitness Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday… and then on Sunday… in all your deep and profound wisdom, you eat seven pints of mint chocolate ice cream alone in the dark at 2 am. Are you the Gym Bro Beefcake or are you the scraggly, hunched over, Ice Cream Gollum?

The short answer is you are neither the Beefcake nor the Gollum, nor the road rager nor the post meditation clairvoyant. You are the one who vigilantly ever observes all of these personalities as they arise and disappear.

Strengths and Weaknesses in Different Contexts

Some parts of yourself are indispensable in certain situations and completely disastrous in others. For example, I have the ability to hyper-focus and obsess. This has served me well in many ways. It’s why I was able to make Video Game streaming a full time job. It’s why I was able to complete no-hit runs before the majority of others. It’s why I was able to grab World Records in speed runs for games I had never played before. It’s why I was able to learn the one-arm handstand, a skill that took years of thankless, repetitive effort. It’s likely a major reason why I found any success as a fighter.

But that same obsessive quality, in the wrong context, is destructive. Give me a trading account, abstain from providing solid structure or behavioural rules, and I will run that account into the ground. Face down in the ditch, cocaine out my goddamn ears.

This is where, for me and for my past self, the idea of the Ulysses Pact is very useful. In situations where I know my obsessive side is a liability, it would be generally prudent to create hard constraints before I even step into the situation. To make it so that, if and when the moment of weakness arrives, the side that would bring about pathological destruction, is not able to captain the ship.

A Reframing of “Flaw”

It might be said, “But Faraaz, why do you even need something like this? Shouldn’t you be able to just exercise willpower? Shouldn’t you be able to just decide no?”

Maybe. And yes that is the eventual goal. But the notion that the Ulysses pact after all these years is still very relevant, suggests that some temptations, some internal compulsions, are better dealt with over time and with assistance, rather than head on and naked at every momentary occurrence. As much as part of me would like to think it is, the hardest path is not always the best path.

That leads me to the expanded idea I want to explain. The obsessive part of me—the part that hyper-focuses, that locks onto a goal and has an incredibly difficult time giving in—is still immature. It definitely has strength, but not necessarily wisdom. It’s almost like a headstrong teenager… vibrant with a false sense of invincibility, at times the golden boy, and at other times almost feral. Over time, or at least I hope, that part of me will become more experienced and understanding of itself, it will become more akin to a clear eyed and spry old man. And Ideally as the other parts of me develop, it will integrate and align, as will the other parts of me, with my unified best interest across time. And as such, I think while in certain situations it is currently a flaw, with enough time and attention I believe it can become a blessed gift.

That is the idea I want to convey here today. The idea that the parts of ourselves that may be looked upon in a disgraceful manner, may just be the adolescent form of a potentially indispensable and invaluable trait. Perhaps a number of our flaws that cause us our deepest shames are actually just misplaced late bloomers that have only recently learned to walk.