Steven Pressfield

I'm not a Jewish.

Jewish.

But you know what?

I grew up in your neighborhood.

Right.

I'm from Long Island and Westchester County.

I grew up in your neighborhood.

I was envious of all the Catholic kids in class because they got Friday afternoon off to go to religious instruction, you know?

Oh, Hydaspis, the river in India, you know, where Alexander finally stopped.

Yeah.

Is it self-awareness even?

There's a moment when he says, early on in the book, he's sort of drafted into the latest war that's going on, but he deserts.

And when he comes back and the priest, who's his friend, asks him, you know, why did you do it?

He says, I will never harm another human being again.

So he comes to that.

He just unilaterally decides, I'm not going to be the soldier anymore.

Whatever happens, whatever the universe wants to do to me, I'm not going to harm another human being again.

So that is a lesson learned.

Well, it certainly has not even had a glimmer of ending in real life history.

But I do believe that over the long... This is really getting mystical.