Hamartano

HAMARTANO is ‘to miss the mark’. In short this ancient Greek word signifies ‘to err’. It can refer to an error resulting from ignorance, an error of judgement, a flaw in character, or a wrongdoing. Therefore <hamartano> means ‘to fail at something’, ‘to miss one’s point’, ‘to go wrong in something’.

<Hamartemata> are the result of bad habits, of following common opinions, or of bad evaluations. They are our own mistakes in performing actions which can start a chain of bad events.

From the verb <hamartano> derives the term <hamartia> which is a morally neutral and non-normative word.

<Hamartia> concerns dramatic literature and was first used by Aristoteles (Aristotle) in his Poetics. In tragedy, <hamartia> is commonly understood to refer to the protagonist’s error or tragic flaw that leads to a sequence of actions building up to a turnaround from contentedness to catastrophe.

Sokratiko Logo

<Hamartano> is to ‘miss the mark’. So it regards an event which is quite frequent in our life. We all ‘miss the mark’ every now and then. And, of course, it is perfecly normal to succeed sometimes and to fail some other times. The problem would be to always mistake or to always go wrong in doing something. But a bigger problem would be to be unable to accept and understand the failure. Because in not accepting defeats we show insufficient humility to really progress in life. Equally if we do not understand a non-success we have not the tools to reverse the situation and get better. By accepting failures and by understanding the reasons we can move on and advance.