The Mother Road 4

The Basel Dance of Death 8

Matthäus Merian, The Basel Dance of Death: The Bishop (1616) 

"Your dignity has been turned, 

Lord Bishop, wise and well-learned; 

I will draw you into the dance, 

You cannot flee from Death." 

"I have been highly esteemed, 

While I lived in my bishop's office. 

Now the shapeless draw me in, 

To their dance like an ape." 

Ellis Walker, Epictetus in Poetical Paraphrase 53

LIII. 

'Tis but a sorry sort of praise to be 
A droll, the jester of each company, 
A raiser of loud laughter, a buffoon, 
The sport, and the diversion of the town. 
For he that strains to please and humour all, 
Into the common shore of talk must sail. 
He that would make each merry, must of force, 
With ev'ry folly temper his discourse; 
Sometimes talk downright bawdry, then defy 
The gods, and laugh at dull morality. 
For such behaviour, what can you expect 
But to be laugh'd at and to lose respect? 
You think you're much admir'd, tho' much deceived, 
You're neither lov'd, respected, nor believ'd. 
For who would trust, love, honour, or commend 
The wretch, who for a jest betrays his friend; 
To whom there's nought so dear in heav'n or earth, 
He would not make the subject of his mirth.  

Sayings of Publilius Syrus 168

The fiercer the contention, the more honorable the reconciliation. 

IMAGE: Peter Paul Rubens, The Reconciliation of Esau and Jacob (1624) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 74.7

But to pass these questions by: either these so-called goods are not goods, or else man is more fortunate than God, because God has no enjoyment of the things which are given to us. For lust pertains not to God, nor do elegant banquets, nor wealth, nor any of the things that allure mankind and lead him on through the influence of degrading pleasure. 
 
Therefore, it is either not incredible that there are goods which God does not possess, or else the very fact that God does not possess them is in itself a proof that these things are not goods. 
 
Besides, many things which are wont to be regarded as goods are granted to animals in fuller measure than to men. Animals eat their food with better appetite, are not in the same degree weakened by sexual indulgence, and have a greater and more uniform constancy in their strength. 
 
Consequently, they are much more fortunate than man. For there is no wickedness, no injury to themselves, in their way of living. They enjoy their pleasures and they take them more often and more easily, without any of the fear that results from shame or regret. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 74 
 
Here is the sort of passage that reminds me how the Stoics could be just as elegant in their reasoning as an Aristotle or an Aquinas. Once I examine something precisely, and squint at it from all the angles, I often find that my hasty assumptions had been leading me in entirely the wrong direction. 
 
If, for example, I claim that God is perfect, let me be careful about what I mean by such a term. At first, I may speak of the Divine as “owning” everything, like a landlord gazing upon his vast estate, but would it not be better to say that God is complete in identity, not in a relation to a possession? In other words, what is perfect never needs anything added to it from the outside, for it already “has” everything on the inside. 
 
A creature is hardly a supplement to the Creator, merely a contingent expression of the Creator’s absolute existence. As Boethius argued so beautifully in his Consolation, a thing is more or less perfect by its degrees of self-sufficiency, and God is therefore the only total subsistence—what the Peripatetic and the Thomist call pure act without any potency. 
 
In human terms, why would I believe myself to be any better by an increase of fortune and fame? I am at my best when I the master of my own nature, and I am thereby a reflection of the order pervading all of Nature. Having more “stuff” has nothing to do with excellence, which is why God doesn’t require any “stuff” at all. 
 
Along similar lines, I have sometimes wondered why humble animals seem to have advantages over us haughty humans. For all of our supposed intelligence, the beasts are usually stronger, more resilient, and seemingly impervious to our many vices. Oh, to be a simple bird, without a care in the world! 
 
And yet this is precisely as it should be, because they are defined by their instincts, while we are defined by our reason: the animal thrives on fortune, and the man thrives on character. We are intended to rise above our circumstances, even as they are bound by them. 
 
Is it not terrible that a man can choose evil, and that the animal has no malice in its soul? No, it is remarkable that a man has a freedom of judgment, and how even its abuse provides just another opportunity in the struggle for virtue—the errors are then paths for improvement. The animal knows nothing of this, nor should it. 
 
As much as the romantic in me daydreams about the beasts attending magical banquets in the forest, their particular purpose is of a very different sort. A man has the power of understanding, and he has the power of love, and for this he has no need to rely on accidents. In this, he is a little image and likeness of his Maker. 

—Reflection written in 10/2013 

Maxims of Goethe 60

In art and knowledge, as also in deed and action, everything depends on a pure apprehension of the object and a treatment of it according to its nature. 

William Hogarth, The Company of Undertakers

Doctors get a lot of flak, surpassed only by the invectives hurled at lawyers. Though any man, in any trade, has it within himself to become a total scoundrel, I suspect that the quacks and the shysters have targets painted on their backs, because their vocations ought to be so noble, and yet far too many of them are instead seduced by fortune and fame. 

Did you honestly think those mercenary mothers nagged their daughters to marry a surgeon on account of  the rich moral lives they would surely share together? 

In my own neck of the woods, I can confirm that academics are just as likely to be vainglorious blowhards, but the difference is that only other academics will bother to notice. Furthermore, an incompetent plumber will quickly lose his customers, while an incompetent doctor can still hide behind the magnificent appearance of his profession. 

When students see this work by Hogarth, their first reaction is invariably to comment on how ignorant people were back then, and how blessed we are to now be so scientifically enlightened. I encourage them to see the human condition more broadly, and to recognize how charlatans can be found in any time or place, but they remain convinced that modern medicine can do no wrong. I fear some of them will learn otherwise, sooner rather than later. 

Of all the parish priests I had in my adult years, only one stood out as a man of true faith, and the rest were abusers or frauds. Similarly, of all the doctors who ever treated my family, only one was a true healer, and the rest left us both sicker and poorer. You can counter with your clever statistics, and I will rely on my education from the school of hard knocks. I will leave it at that. . . . 

Hogarth presents his doctors in a caricature of a coat of arms, with three infamous snake oil peddlers of his time on the top—John Taylor, Sarah Mapp, and Joshua Ward—and a dozen "reputable" physicians below them. The "quack-heads" and the "cane-heads" differ only by their professional trappings. In modern terms, one dispenses his cures from a storefront in a seedy strip mall, while the other receives junkets from the pharmaceutical corporations. 

The description further mocks their posturing with the refined language of heraldry: 

The company of undertakers beareth, sable, a urinal, proper, between twelve quack-heads of the second, and twelve cane-heads, or consultant. On a chief, nebulae, ermine, one complete doctor, issuant, checkie, sustaining, in his right hand, a baton of the second. On his dexter and sinister sides two demi-doctors, issuant, of the second, and two cane-heads, issuant of the third; the first having one eye, couchant, towards the dexter side of the escutcheon; the second, faced, per pale, proper, and gules guardant. With this motto—Et plurima mortis imago. 

"And many are the faces of death." 

William Hogarth, A Consultation of Physicians, or the Company of Undertakers (1736) 

Delphic Maxims 69

Ἐγγύην φεῦγε 

Flee a pledge 

IMAGE: Jean-Francois de Troy, Jason Swearing Eternal Affection to Medea (1742) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 74.6

It is a result of complaints like these that we are unappreciative in our comments upon the gifts of heaven; we complain because they are not always granted to us, because they are few and unsure and fleeting. 
 
Hence we have not the will either to live or to die; we are possessed by hatred of life, by fear of death. Our plans are all at sea, and no amount of prosperity can satisfy us. And the reason for all this is that we have not yet attained to that good which is immeasurable and unsurpassable, in which all wishing on our part must cease, because there is no place beyond the highest. 
 
Do you ask why virtue needs nothing? Because it is pleased with what it has, and does not lust after that which it has not. Whatever is enough is abundant in the eyes of virtue. 
 
Dissent from this judgment, and duty and loyalty will not abide. For one who desires to exhibit these two qualities must endure much that the world calls evil; we must sacrifice many things to which we are addicted, thinking them to be goods. 
 
Gone is courage, which should be continually testing itself; gone is greatness of soul, which cannot stand out clearly unless it has learned to scorn as trivial everything that the crowd covets as supremely important; and gone is kindness and the repaying of kindness, if we fear toil, if we have acknowledged anything to be more precious than loyalty, if our eyes are fixed upon anything except the best. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 74 
 
When I grumble about how I didn’t get what I wanted, did I first bother to ask about what I needed? My frustrations come from loving the wrong things, not from receiving the wrong things. 
 
It took me some time to realize how many of our efforts are wasted on griping, and now I discipline myself to avoid whining about the whiners. It is enough for me to manage my own resentments, while offering a kind word to my neighbor who also struggles. Even a solidarity of silence is healthier than incessantly casting blame. 
 
I long assumed that other people were far happier and more fulfilled than me, but I was allowing myself to be misled by the outer impressions. Once I got to know something more of their souls on the inside, I saw the very same anxiety and pain, all because we had lost our way. 
 
We too easily forget who we are, and what we were made for, by seeking out a remedy in all the wrong places. If I am only tinkering with the accidents, while neglecting the very essence, I will never find peace. 
 
The philosophy of it is simple, though it feels so formidable because its demands are absolute: as a creature of reason and will, I will achieve happiness, the fulfillment of my nature, by perfecting those powers. The rest is relative, becoming good or bad through the exercise of my judgments about whatever may happen. 
 
To speak of virtue or honor may sound so stuffy, but what other terms can describe the pinnacle of human excellence? I suspect our apprehension about first and foremost being good people has to do with a fixation on the lower at the expense of the higher, a fear of risking an ascent from the base to the noble. 
 
No, the virtuous man will not surrender to the vulgar, the lowest common denominator, because he chooses what is best, not what is easy. Without such a moral conviction, a man fails to freely embrace his total responsibility for himself, and so he can hardly practice any justice or compassion for others. 
 
Each moment spent complaining could be better spent improving. When there is virtue in here, there is no threat from obstacles out there. 

—Reflection written in 10/2013 

Allegory of the Virtuous Life

Jan Bruegel the Younger and Hendrick van Balen the Elder, Allegory of the Virtuous Life (c. 1626) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 74.5

Similarly with the gifts which Fortune tosses down to us: wretches that we are, we become excited, we are torn asunder, we wish that we had many hands, we look back now in this direction and now in that. 
 
All too slowly, as it seems, are the gifts thrown in our direction; they merely excite our cravings, since they can reach but few and are awaited by all. We are keen to intercept them as they fall down. We rejoice if we have laid hold of anything; and some have been mocked by the idle hope of laying hold; we have either paid a high price for worthless plunder with some disadvantage to ourselves, or else have been defrauded and are left in the lurch. 
 
Let us therefore withdraw from a game like this, and give way to the greedy rabble; let them gaze after such "goods”, which hang suspended above them, and be themselves still more in suspense. 
 
Whoever makes up his mind to be happy should conclude that the good consists only in that which is honorable. For if he regards anything else as good, he is, in the first place, passing an unfavorable judgment upon Providence because of the fact that upright men often suffer misfortunes, and that the time which is allotted to us is but short and scanty, if you compare it with the eternity which is allotted to the Universe. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 74 
 
Yesterday, I read some lines by one of the “modern” Stoics on the internet, a fellow who is sadly still caught up in courting Fortune: “If you change your attitude, you can build your empire!” 
 
For a brief moment, I hoped he might be talking about a sovereignty over his own soul, but he promptly bragged about how his self-confidence had won him a promotion at work. He’s quite right to pursue a transformation of thinking, even as he hasn’t yet overcome his dependence on the circumstances. 
 
True honor, which is a commitment to virtue for virtue’s sake, does not beg for trophies or titillations. As tough as the hustler would like to appear, he is always at the mercy of opinions and happenstance. When he can no longer charm the crowd, he is suddenly on his own. When Nature throws him a curveball, he is unceremoniously cut from the team. Even when his ducks do happen to be in a row, he must guard over them constantly, lest they wander away. 
 
If I find myself too impressed by the promises of the rat race, I imagine the whole affair to the soundtrack of a Benny Hill skit, and I can then promptly feel at ease. If I am in a more cultured mood, I gaze upon a copy of Balthazar Nebot’s Allegory of Fortune, and I am relieved not to be a part of the mob. For people who are supposedly in a state of bliss, don’t they appear rather miserable? 
 
A few years ago, I went to see one of my favorite musicians, former Marillion frontman Fish, for an appearance at a local record store. After he finished telling his engaging anecdotes, he mentioned that he had a few signed copies of his latest release to give away. In an instant, I was jostling my way forward and thrusting out my hand, together with a few dozen other rabid fans. 
 
I then felt a bitter shame, and I retreated from the scrum. 
 
“What, don’t you want one?” a fellow yelled at me. “It’s the limited-edition double disc!” 
 
“No, thank you, I don’t want it that much.” 
 
Now you may say that pushing through a crowd for a rare freebie is hardly a mortal sin, but it wasn’t really about the album, was it? For me, it was about practicing some basic human decency and exercising a touch of self-restraint. Who would have thought Seneca could rub off on me like that? 
 
Rapacious men blame the world when they don’t get what they want, and they are still aggrieved when they do get what they want. They tussle over cheap baubles. I no longer wish to remain in the company of such men. 

—Reflection written in 10/2013 

IMAGE: Balthazar Nebot, Allegory of Fortune (c. 1730) 

Joachim Beuckelaer, Fire

Joachim Beuckelaer, The Four Elements: Fire. A Kitchen Scene with Christ in the House of Martha and Mary in the Background (1570) 

Joachim Beuckelaer, Air

Joachim Beuckelaer, The Four Elements: Air. A Poultry Market with the Prodigal Son in the Background (1570) 

Joachim Beuckelaer, Water

Joachim Beuckelaer, The Four Elements: Water. A Fish Market with the Miraculous Draught of Fishes in the Background (1569) 

Joachim Beuckelaer, Earth

Joachim Beuckelaer, The Four Elements: Earth. A Fruit and Vegetable Market with the Flight into Egypt in the Background (1569) 

Landscape with Allegories of the Four Elements

Jan Bruegel the Younger and Frans Francken the Younger, Landscape with Allegories of the Four Elements (1635) 

James Vila Blake, Sonnets from Marcus Aurelius 19

19. 

Περισκοπεῖν ἄστρων δρόμους ὥσπερ συμπεριθέοντα καὶ τὰς τῶν στοιχείων εἰς ἄλληλα μεταβολὰς συνεχῶς ἐννοεῖν: ἀποκαθαίρουσι γὰρ αἱ τούτων φαντασίαι τὸν ῥύπον τοῦ χαμαὶ βίου. 

Look all around on the courses of the stars, as if running around their races with them; and give mind unceasingly to the mutations of the elements with one another. For the impressions of these things cleanse away the sordidness of the earthly life. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.47 

19. 

Confirm thyself in meditation oft 

O’ the elements—as fire, and how it burns, 

And water the extinguisher, and soft 

Billow of air that to a tempest turns. 

Reckon their casual conflicts, when they rage 

In civil strife, or banded ’gainst the earth 

In ireful havoc, but soon their wrath assuage 

To bake the meats and green the plain for mirth. 

Then up, beyond these elements surmise, 

Pondering what may be the circling stars, 

Yet as if riding with them through the skies, 

Driving the coursers of those fiery cars. 

This fellow converse scours away the rust 

Gendered of earthy days mid noise and dust. 

IMAGE: Jan Bruegel the Elder, Abundance and the Four Elements (c. 1606) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 74.4

Picture now to yourself that Fortune is holding a festival, and is showering down honors, riches, and influence upon this mob of mortals; some of these gifts have already been torn to pieces in the hands of those who try to snatch them, others have been divided up by treacherous partnerships, and still others have been seized to the great detriment of those into whose possession they have come. 
 
Certain of these favors have fallen to men while they were absent-minded; others have been lost to their seekers because they were snatching too eagerly for them, and, just because they are greedily seized upon, have been knocked from their hands. 
 
There is not a man among them all, however—even he who has been lucky in the booty which has fallen to him—whose joy in his spoil has lasted until the morrow. 
 
The most sensible man, therefore, as soon as he sees the dole being brought in, runs from the theater; for he knows that one pays a high price for small favors. No one will grapple with him on the way out, or strike him as he departs; the quarreling takes place where the prizes are. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 74 
 
I regularly encounter those who like to call themselves realists, though I wonder if they are better described as opportunists. They declare that it if you want to get ahead, you need to play the game, a model of life where character is always bowing to convenience, where integrity is naïve, and guile is sophisticated. 
 
It all depends, of course, on where we perceive the true benefit, and what we are willing to surrender. I see no prudence in gratification, no refinement in mistaking the greater for the lesser. I will respectfully propose that anyone who compromises his conscience is a slave to the circumstances, the weakest of men, not the strongest. 
 
There is no need to play anyone else’s game. If the other boys aren’t playing fair, you retain the option to pick up your ball and go home. 
 
As much as I might believe I can outwit Fortune, she has the upper hand from the moment I agree to her terms. If I can somehow manage to keep a hold of her trinkets, I will soon find them wanting, never as exciting as advertised, but it is far more likely that they will be lost in the scuffle. 
 
The toy looked so much better on television than when you held it in your hands, and then promptly broke once you fought over it with your brothers and sisters. In any case, whatever is left ends up in a box pushed to the back of a closet, and yet the pattern repeats itself for the next birthday party. 
 
You’d think the bitter disappointments of childhood would teach us some important lessons for adulthood, but we sadly only increase the stakes. 
 
If I genuinely have no interest in the bickering, if my convictions are sincere and soundly reasoned, I will have the sense to walk in the other direction. No one will try to stop me, because I possess nothing the squabblers could possibly want. Even if they do take off with my property, I have maintained my dignity, and so I have gotten the better end of the deal. 

—Reflection written in 10/2013 

IMAGE: Taddeo Kuntze, Fortune (1754) 

Sayings of Ramakrishna 257

Visit not miracle workers. They are wanderers from the path of truth. 

Their minds have become entangled in the meshes of psychic powers, which lie in the way of the pilgrim towards Brahman, as temptations. 

Beware of these powers, and desire them not. 

Seneca, Moral Letters 74.3

Every man is troubled in spirit by evils that come suddenly upon his neighbor. Like birds, who cower even at the whirr of an empty sling, we are distracted by mere sounds as well as by blows. 
 
No man therefore can be happy if he yields himself up to such foolish fancies. For nothing brings happiness unless it also brings calm; it is a bad sort of existence that is spent in apprehension. 
 
Whoever has largely surrendered himself to the power of Fortune has made for himself a huge web of disquietude, from which he cannot get free; if one would win a way to safety, there is but one road—to despise externals and to be contented with that which is honorable. 
 
For those who regard anything as better than virtue, or believe that there is any good except virtue, are spreading their arms to gather in that which Fortune tosses abroad, and are anxiously awaiting her favors. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 74 
 
My first real worry in life was that so many people seemed wicked, and this gradually led me to harboring deeper and deeper resentments. Then came a point when I saw the disorder within myself from blaming others for their disorders, a self-perpetuating cycle of frustration. Might it not be wiser to ask why any of us, whatever tribe we belong to, are inclined to feel so unsettled? 
 
When I am anxious, it is ultimately from being in a state of discontent, a desire for something to finally bring me some peace of mind. If I had already held firm to what I truly needed, there would no longer be any fear or lust, and I could be relieved of the constant grasping and scheming. If the exercise of my own nature is enough, why must I make demands of you? If I know how happiness proceeds from my virtues, where is the lure of vice? 
 
Nature has provided all that is required—it must simply be nurtured and cherished. But once I am jealous of his property, or I am diverted by her charms, I have enslaved myself to the circumstances, and there will be no end to the grief. One craving is replaced by another, because no escape to the outside can replace an emptiness on the inside. I remain forever flustered and jittery, unsure of when the amusements will fade. 
 
Though I was once impressed by the important people, intimidated by their show of self-confidence, I slowly began to notice the cracks in the facade. Behind the bravado was nothing but stress, the combination of an insatiable appetite and a lingering terror: they witnessed their rivals falling around them, and they wondered when their turn would come. When they thought no one was looking, you could see the fatigue on their faces. 
 
This calls for pity, not for admiration. 

—Reflection written in 10/2013