Fortuna

"Fortuna" 

Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) 

The wind blows east, the wind blows west,
And the frost falls and the rain:
A weary heart went thankful to rest,
And must rise to toil again, 'gain,
And must rise to toil again.

The wind blows east, the wind blows west,
And there comes good luck and bad;
The thriftiest man is the cheerfulest;
'Tis a thriftless thing to be sad, sad,
'Tis a thriftless thing to be sad.

The wind blows east, the wind blows west;
Ye shall know a tree by its fruit:
This world, they say, is worst to the best;—
But a dastard has evil to boot, boot,
But a dastard has evil to boot.

The wind blows east, the wind blows west;
What skills it to mourn or to talk?
A journey I have, and far ere I rest;
I must bundle my wallets and walk, walk,
I must bundle my wallets and walk.

The wind does blow as it lists alway;
Canst thou change this world to thy mind?
The world will wander its own wise way;
I also will wander mine, mine,
I also will wander mine. 

Jacques Callot, Seven Deadly Sins

Jacques Callot, The Seven Deadly Sins (c. 1620) 

Maxims of Goethe 83

Against criticism a man can neither protest nor defend himself; he must act in spite of it, and then criticism will gradually yield to him. 

Chuang Tzu 6.10

Before long, Tsze-lâi fell ill, and lay gasping at the point of death, while his wife and children stood around him wailing. 

Tsze-lì went to ask for him, and said to them, "Hush! Get out of the way! Do not disturb him as he is passing through his change." 

Then, leaning against the door, he said to the dying man, "Great indeed is the Creator! What will He now make you to become? Where will He take you to? Will He make you the liver of a rat, or the arm of an insect?" 

Tsze-lâi replied, "Wherever a parent tells a son to go, east, west, south, or north, he simply follows the command. The Yin and Yang are more to a man than his parents are. If they are hastening my death, and I do not quietly submit to them, I shall be obstinate and rebellious. 

"There is the great Mass of nature—I find the support of my body in it; my life is spent in toil on it; my old age seeks ease on it; at death I find rest on it—what has made my life a good will make my death also a good.

"Here now is a great founder, casting his metal. If the metal were to leap up in the pot, and say, 'I must be made into a sword like the Mo-yeh,' the great founder would be sure to regard it as uncanny. 

"So, again, when a form is being fashioned in the mold of the womb, if it were to say, 'I must become a man; I must become a man,' the Creator would be sure to regard it as uncanny. 

"When we once understand that heaven and earth are a great melting pot, and the Creator a great founder, where can we have to go to that shall not be right for us? We are born as from a quiet sleep, and we die to a calm awaking." 

IMAGE: Isidoro Grünhut, The Dying Man (1887) 

Vivekachudamani 72-107

THE VESTURES 

Formed of the substances they call marrow, bone, fat, flesh, blood, skin, and over-skin; fitted with greater and lesser limbs, feet, breast, trunk, arms, back, head; this is called the physical vesture by the wise—the vesture whose authority, as "I" and "my" is declared to be a delusion.

Then these are the refined elements: the ethereal, the upper air, the flaming, water, and earth. 

These when mingled one with another become the physical elements, that are the causes of the physical vesture. The materials of them become the five sensuous things that are for the delight of the enjoyer—sounds and other things of sense.

They who, fooled in these sensuous things, are bound by the wide noose of lust, hard to break asunder—they come and go, downwards and upwards on high, led by the swift messenger, their works. 

Through the five sensuous things, five creatures find dissolution to the five elements, each one bound by his own character: the deer, the elephant, the moth, the fish, the bee; what then of man, who is snared by all the five? 

Sensuous things are keener to injure than the black snake's venom; poison slays only him who eats it, but these things slay only him who beholds them with his eyes. 

He who is free from the great snare, so hard to be rid of, of longing after sensuous things, he indeed builds for Freedom, and not another, even though knowing the six philosophies. 

Those who, only for a little while rid of lust, long to be free, and struggle to reach the shore of the world-ocean—the toothed beast of longing lust makes them sink halfway, seizing them by the throat, and swiftly carrying them away. 

By whom this toothed beast called sensuous things is slain by the sharp sword of true turning away from lust, he reaches the world-sea's shore without hindrance. He who, soul-destroyed, treads the rough path of sensuous things, death is his reward, like him who goes out on a luckless day. But he who goes onward, through the word of the good Teacher who is friendly to all beings, and himself well-controlled, he gains the fruit and the reward, and his reward is the Real. 

If the love of Freedom is yours, then put sensuous things far away from you, like poison. But love, as the food of the gods, serenity, pity, pardon, rectitude, peacefulness, and self-control; love them and honor them forever. 

He who every moment leaving undone what should be done—the freeing of himself from the bonds of beginningless unwisdom—devotes himself to the fattening of his body, that rightly exists for the good of the other powers, such a one thereby destroys himself. 

He who seeks to behold the Self, although living to fatten his body, is going to cross the river, holding to a toothed beast, while thinking it a tree. 

For this delusion for the body and its delights is a great death for him who longs for Freedom; the delusion by the overcoming of which he grows worthy of the dwelling-place of the free. 

Destroy this great death, this infatuation for the body, wives, and sons; conquering it, the pure ones reach the Pervader's supreme abode. 

This faulty form, built up of skin and flesh, of blood and sinews, fat and marrow and bones, gross and full of impure elements; 

Born of the fivefold physical elements through deeds done before, the physical place of enjoyment of the Self; its mode is waking life, whereby there arises experience of physical things. 

Subservient to physical objects through the outer powers, with its various joys—flower-chaplets, sandal, lovers—the Life makes itself like this through the power of the Self; therefore this form is pre-eminent in waking life. 

But know that this physical body, wherein the whole circling life of the Spirit adheres, is but as the dwelling of the lord of the dwelling. 

Birth and age and death are the fate of the physical and all the physical changes from childhood onward; of the physical body only are caste and grade with their many homes, and differences of worship and dishonor and great honor belong to it alone. 

The powers of knowing—hearing, touch, sight, smell, taste—for apprehending sensuous things; the powers of doing—voice, hands, feet, the powers that put forth and generate—to effect deeds. 

Then the inward activity: mind, soul, self-assertion, imagination, with their proper powers; mind, ever intending and doubting; soul, with its character of certainty as to things; self-assertion, that falsely attributes the notion of "I"; imagination, with its power of gathering itself together, and directing itself to its object. 

These also are the life-breaths: the forward-life, the downward-life, the distributing-life, the uniting-life; their activities and forms are different, as gold and water are different. 

The subtle vesture they call the eightfold inner being made up thus: voice and the other four, hearing and the other four, ether and the other four, the forward life and the other four, soul and the other inward activities, unwisdom, desire, and action. 

Hear now about this subtle vesture or form vesture, born of elements not five-folded; it is the place of gratification, the enjoyer of the fruits of deeds, the beginningless disguise of the Self, through lack of self-knowledge. 

Dream-life is the mode of its expansion, where it shines with reflected light, through the traces of its own impressions; for in dream-life the knowing soul shines of itself through the many and varied mind-pictures made during waking-life. 

Here the higher self shines of itself and rules, taking on the condition of doer, with pure thought as its disguise, an unaffected witness, nor is it stained by the actions, there done, as it is not attached to them, therefore it is not stained by actions, whatever they be, done by its disguise; let this form-vesture be the minister, doing the work of the conscious self, the real man, just as the tools do the carpenter's work; thus this self remains unattached. 

Blindness or slowness or skill come from the goodness or badness of the eye; deafness and dumbness are of the ear and not of the Knower, the Self. 

Up-breathing, down-breathing, yawning, sneezing, the forward moving of breath, and the outward moving—these are the doings of the life-breaths, say those who know these things; of the life-breaths, also, hunger and thirst are properties. 

The inner activity dwells and shines in sight and the other powers in the body, through the false attribution of selfhood, as cause. 

Self-assertion is to be known as the cause of this false attribution of selfhood, as doer and enjoyer; and through substance and the other two potencies, it reaches expansion in the three modes. 

When sensuous things have affinity with it, it is happy; when the contrary, unhappy. So happiness and unhappiness are properties of this, and not of the Self which is perpetual bliss. 

Sensuous things are dear for the sake of the self, and not for their own sake; and therefore the Self itself is dearest of all. 

Hence the Self itself is perpetual bliss—not for it are happiness and unhappiness; as in dreamless life, where are no sensuous things, the Self that is bliss—is enjoyed, so in waking-life it is enjoyed through the word, through intuition, teaching, and deduction. 

Seneca, Moral Letters 85.5

Fear will grow to greater proportions, if that which causes the terror is seen to be of greater magnitude or in closer proximity; and desire will grow keener in proportion as the hope of a greater gain has summoned it to action.
 
If the existence of the passions is not in our own control, neither is the extent of their power; for if you once permit them to get a start, they will increase along with their causes, and they will be of whatever extent they shall grow to be. 
 
Moreover, no matter how small these vices are, they grow greater. That which is harmful never keeps within bounds. No matter how trifling diseases are at the beginning, they creep on apace; and sometimes the slightest augmentation of disease lays low the enfeebled body! 
 
But what folly it is, when the beginnings of certain things are situated outside our control, to believe that their endings are within our control! How have I the power to bring something to a close, when I have not had the power to check it at the beginning? For it is easier to keep a thing out than to keep it under after you have let it in. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 85 
 
The passions, and by extension the vices, can grow beyond our control, not because they are greater in strength than our reason, but rather because we have freely surrendered to them, from the very moment we choose to make our judgments dependent upon our impulses. The fortress has fallen once the gates are unlocked from the inside, not when the walls are breached from the outside. 
 
If I am confronted with a feeling of fear or of desire, is it necessary for me to submit? When the instincts of the flesh are speaking to me, of their own accord, let reason consider the meaning of these impressions, and thereby order them to their proper purpose. And when the passion stems from my own estimation of what is good and evil, it remains within my power to correct my understanding, and to thereby remove the obstacle. 
 
If my conscious mind does not take the responsibility for shaping my habits, then they have been abandoned to the workings of my unconscious appetites. Where I believe there to be harm, I will experience fear, and where I believe there to be benefit, I will experience desire. Carefully modify the perception, and then you will gradually inform the corresponding emotion: my feeling will only be as good as my thinking. 
 
It will be much harder to evict the passions after I have already invited them in, than to refuse them entry from the very beginning. Let me be mindful of keeping my balance, because very little can be done once I have already tumbled over the edge. 
 
When I was a boy, my mother, an avid gardener, gave me the task of regularly weeding our lawn. She explained that if I simply removed a few of the newly sprouting dandelions or fresh tufts of crabgrass whenever I happened to be walking on by, this would be an easy task. 
 
I did not listen, of course, and before too long the invaders had taken over, forcing me on my hands and knees for many hours, and leaving huge divots wherever I had to pull out the stubborn roots. Instead of cursing his mother for her good advice, the child must eventually learn to curse himself for his sloth. 
 
I have now spent many years battling against a cluster of vices, and I now understand how all the trouble started by being careless about a few wayward passions. I might claim I couldn’t possibly have known, and yet a part of me always knew, from a very early age, that there could be no shortcuts to happiness. As soon as I permit despair, or terror, or indulgence, or lust to make my decisions for me, I have then made myself a slave to circumstances, instead of the master of my fate. 

—Reflection written in 1/2014 

IMAGE: Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Fear (c. 1780) 

Wisdom from the Early Cynics, Diogenes 40

When someone expressed astonishment at the votive offerings in Samothrace, Diogenes' comment was, "There would have been far more, if those who were not saved had set up offerings." 

But others attribute this remark to Diagoras of Melos. 

To a handsome youth, who was going out to dinner, he said, "You will come back a worse man." 

When he came back and said next day, "I went and am none the worse for it," Diogenes said, "Not Worse-man (Chiron), but Lax-man (Eurytion)." 

Diogenes was asking alms of a bad-tempered man, who said, "Yes, if you can persuade me." 

"If I could have persuaded you," said Diogenes, "I would have persuaded you to hang yourself." 

He was returning from Lacedaemon to Athens; and on someone asking, "Whither and whence?" he replied, "From the men's apartments to the women's." 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 6.59 

Wisdom from the Early Stoics, Zeno of Citium 80

Another tenet of the Stoics is the perpetual exercise of virtue, as held by Cleanthes and his followers. For virtue can never be lost, and the good man is always exercising his mind, which is perfect. 

Again, they say that justice, as well as law and right reason, exists by nature and not by convention: so Chrysippus in his work On the Morally Beautiful. 

Neither do they think that the divergence of opinion between philosophers is any reason for abandoning the study of philosophy, since at that rate we should have to give up life altogether: so Posidonius in his Exhortations. 

Chrysippus allows that the ordinary Greek education is serviceable. 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 7.128-129 

Delphic Maxims 92

Πέρας ἐπιτέλει μὴ ἀποδειλιῶν 

Finish the race without shrinking back 

IMAGE: Edouard Manet, The Races at Longchamp (1866) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 85.4

Again, it makes no difference how great the passion is; no matter what its size may be, it knows no obedience, and does not welcome advice. Just as no animal, whether wild or tamed and gentle, obeys reason, since nature made it deaf to advice, so the passions do not follow or listen, however slight they are. Tigers and lions never put off their wildness; they sometimes moderate it, and then, when you are least prepared, their softened fierceness is roused to madness. Vices are never genuinely tamed.
 
Again, if reason prevails, the passions will not even get a start; but if they get under way against the will of reason, they will maintain themselves against the will of reason. For it is easier to stop them in the beginning than to control them when they gather force. This half-way ground is accordingly misleading and useless; it is to be regarded just as the declaration that we ought to be “moderately” insane, or “moderately” ill.
 
Virtue alone possesses moderation; the evils that afflict the mind do not admit of moderation. You can more easily remove than control them. Can one doubt that the vices of the human mind, when they have become chronic and callous (“diseases” we call them), are beyond control, as, for example, greed, cruelty, and wantonness? 
 
Therefore, the passions also are beyond control; for it is from the passions that we pass over to the vices. Again, if you grant any privileges to sadness, fear, desire, and all the other wrong impulses, they will cease to lie within our jurisdiction. And why? Simply because the means of arousing them lie outside our own power. They will accordingly increase in proportion as the causes by which they are stirred up are greater or less. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 85 
 
I never cease to be amazed at how some folks, in other ways perfectly sensible, will convince themselves that one can easily domesticate a wild animal. Even the trusty dog, who has become man’s best friend through millennia of breeding, retains his own instincts, and he might still turn on you at a moment’s notice. He cannot follow reason, precisely because he does not possess reason, being ruled exclusively by his appetites. 
 
A family down the street were recently showing off their new puppy, who had suddenly appeared in their back yard one evening. I struggled to explain to them, as politely as I could, that this was no dog, but rather a coyote. Even when they begrudgingly accepted the point, they remained confident that he would soon become a well-adapted member of the family. A few days later, a trip to the emergency room for their son quickly decided the question. 
 
My own tomcat, Jack, has been as loyal a companion as I can imagine, and yet I respect him enough to know that he marches to the beat of his own drum. While I offer him affection, and occasionally a reprimand, I am under no illusion that he will yield to a sound argument. I work around his impulses, never expecting him to submit to my will. 
 
I cannot treat my vices like a dog or a cat, tolerating their occasional outbursts for the sake of the comforts they otherwise bring. No, like the coyote pup, the vices have no place in my home, and if they have established themselves, they must be driven away as firmly as possible. Otherwise, they will grow roots, like that crazy relative who visits for a week, and somehow ends up living in the garage. 
 
Though she did not appreciate it at the time, I once had to lay down the law when my daughter brought home a young snapping turtle from the park. No, put him back in his pond. Let him be what he must be, but he will only bring you grief if he is living in your bathtub. Perhaps she will one day thank me both for sending the turtle away and for always nagging her about the necessity of building character. 
 
The relativists would have you believe that a certain degree of vice is acceptable, perhaps even natural, and that there can never be such a thing as a bad feeling. They are right to show compassion to those of us who are wrestling with our faults, but they are mistaken in claiming success by lowering the bar. They are also right to point out that emotions do not, in and of themselves, have moral value, but they are mistaken in treating every impulse as if it were healthy. 
 
The passions, in the narrow Stoic sense of disordered feelings, are ultimately connected to disordered judgments. Whenever I deliberately encourage my despair, fear, gratification, or lust, I am also issuing an open invitation to vices like injustice, cowardice, or avarice. Such pesky habits have a way of burrowing their way into my life, and before I know it, they will become nearly impossible to eliminate. 
 
When your child is eager to climb a fence at the zoo so he can pet the pretty tiger, hold him back. When you are tempted to wallow in sadness or to become consumed by desire, redirect your thoughts to a joy in something noble. 

—Reflection written in 1/2014 

Songs of Innocence 10

Laughing Song (1789) 

William Blake (1757-1827) 

When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy
And the dimpling stream runs laughing by,
When the air does laugh with our merry wit,
And the green hill laughs with the noise of it.

When the meadows laugh with lively green
And the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene,
When Mary and Susan and Emily,
With their sweet round mouths sing Ha, Ha, He.

When the painted birds laugh in the shade
Where our table with cherries and nuts is spread
Come live & be merry and join with me,
To sing the sweet chorus of Ha, Ha, He. 

Happy the Man

Contrary to common opinion, I am not a Luddite. I am only concerned when technology is sought out as a substitute for thinking, instead of merely as an aid to thinking. 

As a case in point, I was pleased to stumble across all the usage data on my music app, which showed me that what I was actually listening to, from day to day, was not necessarily what I thought I was listening to, or what I had been telling other people I preferred the most. How enlightening, and how frustrating, to have the facts get in the way of the assumptions! The technology had done its job. 

For example, is Marillion really my "favorite" band, as I usually advertise? Apparently not, if I bother to consult my habits over the last few years. Much to my surprise, two albums by Happy the Man are at the top of my playlists, and that's also by quite a large margin. 

In hindsight, I suppose it is fitting, because the real credit should belong to the art that soothes the soul during the daily grind, not necessarily to the grand productions that serve me well at moments of extreme elation or dejection, but do little for me while I am making my tea, or going for a country drive, or scribbling down my unexceptional musings. 

Happy the Man were a quirky expression of the late 1970's, broadly falling into the "progressive" rock category, though I always come back to simply describing them as eclectic. They produced two albums for Arista Records, at a time when their peculiar style was already markedly out of fashion, and they would now probably be entirely forgotten, if not for a small but dedicated group of followers. 

Their music is not for everyone, but for me it strikes a perfect balance of intellect and passion, complexity and simplicity, simultaneously a comfort and a challenge. I can either pay very close attention, or just have it on in the background, and I oddly feel much the same as when I am listening to Bach or Coltrane. 

Fans will speak of their similarity to early Yes, Genesis, or Gentle Giant, and while I do see the connections, I also get a jazzy, Canterbury vibe here, much like the wonderful mood that strikes me with Hatfield and the North, Caravan, or Soft Machine. It is also no accident that Kit Watkins later went on to play with Camel. 

I still remember the craze for the lists of Desert Island Discs in the late 1980's and early 1990's, and I am just now realizing how both of these collections have crept up on me to become my faithful companions. 

Happy the Man, s/t (1977) 

Happy the Man, Crafty Hands (1978) 

Perpetual Emotion Machine

Michael Leunig 82

Cosmos 23

Xenophon, Memorabilia of Socrates 43

Being again asked by someone, could courage be taught, or did it come by nature? Socrates answered: 

"I imagine that just as one body is by nature stronger than another body to encounter toils, so one soul by nature grows more robust than another soul in face of dangers. Certainly I do note that people brought up under the same condition of laws and customs differ greatly in respect of daring. 

"Still, my belief is that by learning and practice the natural aptitude may always be strengthened towards courage. 

"It is clear, for instance, that Scythians or Thracians would not venture to take shield and spear and contend with Lacedaemonians; and it is equally evident that Lacedaemonians would demur to entering the lists of battle against Thracians if limited to their light shields and javelins, or against Scythians without some weapon more familiar than their bows and arrows. 

"And as far as I can see, this principle holds generally: the natural differences of one man from another may be compensated by artificial progress, the result of care and attention. All which proves clearly that whether nature has endowed us with keener or blunter sensibilities, the duty of all alike is to learn and practice those things in which we would fain achieve distinction."

Between wisdom and sobriety of soul, which is temperance, Socrates drew no distinction. Was a man able on the one hand to recognize things beautiful and good sufficiently to live in them? Had he, on the other hand, knowledge of the "base and foul" so as to beware of them? If so, Socrates judged him to be wise at once and sound of soul, or temperate. 

And being further questioned whether "he considered those who have the knowledge of right action, but do not apply it, to be wise and self-controlled?" 

"Not a whit more," Socrates answered, "than I consider them to be unwise and intemperate. Everyone, I conceive, deliberately chooses what, within the limits open to him, he considers most conducive to his interest, and acts accordingly. I must hold therefore that those who act against rule and crookedly are neither wise nor self-controlled." 

Socrates said that justice, moreover, and all other virtue is wisdom. That is to say, things just, and all things else that are done with virtue, are "beautiful and good"; and neither will those who know these things deliberately choose anything else in their stead, nor will he who lacks the special knowledge of them be able to do them, but even if he makes the attempt he will miss the mark and fail. 

So the wise alone can perform the things which are "beautiful and good"; they that are unwise cannot, but even if they try they fail. Therefore, since all things just, and generally all things "beautiful and good," are wrought with virtue, it is clear that justice and all other virtue is wisdom. 

On the other hand, madness, he maintained, was the opposite to wisdom; not that he regarded simple ignorance as madness, but he put it thus: for a man to be ignorant of himself, to imagine and suppose that he knows what he knows not, was, he argued, if not madness itself, yet something very like it. 

The mass of men no doubt hold a different language: if a man is all abroad on some matter of which the mass of mankind are ignorant, they do not pronounce him "mad"; but a like aberration of mind, if only it be about matters within the scope of ordinary knowledge, they call madness. 

For instance, anyone who imagined himself too tall to pass under a gateway of the Long Wall without stooping, or so strong as to try to lift a house, or to attempt any other obvious impossibility, is a madman according to them; but in the popular sense he is not mad, if his obliquity is confined to small matters. In fact, just as strong desire goes by the name of passion in popular parlance, so mental obliquity on a grand scale is entitled madness. 

In answer to the question: "what is envy?" he discovered it to be a certain kind of pain; not certainly the sorrow felt at the misfortunes of a friend or the good fortune of an enemy—that is not envy; but, as he said, "envy is felt by those alone who are annoyed at the successes of their friends." 

And when some one or other expressed astonishment that any one friendlily disposed to another should be pained at his well-doing, he reminded him of a common tendency in people: when any one is faring ill their sympathies are touched, they rush to the aid of the unfortunate; but when fortune smiles on others, they are somehow pained. 

"I do not say," Socrates added, "this could happen to a thoughtful person; but it is no uncommon condition of a silly mind." 

In answer to the question: "what is leisure?" Socrates said that most men do something: for instance, the dice player, the gambler, the buffoon, do something, but these have leisure; they can, if they like, turn and do something better; but nobody has leisure to turn from the better to the worse, and if he does so turn, when he has no leisure, he does but ill in that. 

To pass to another definition. They are not kings or rulers, Socrates said, who hold the scepter merely, or are chosen by fellows out of the street, or are appointed by lot, or have stepped into office by violence or by fraud; but those who have the special knowledge how to rule. 

Thus having won the admission that it is the function of a ruler to enjoin what ought to be done, and of those who are ruled to obey, Socrates proceeded to point out by instances that in a ship the ruler or captain is the man of special knowledge, to whom, as an expert, the shipowner himself and all the others on board obey. 

So likewise, in the matter of husbandry, the proprietor of an estate; in that of sickness, the patient; in that of physical training of the body, the youthful athlete going through a course; and, in general, everyone directly concerned in any matter needing attention and care will either attend to this matter personally, if he thinks he has the special knowledge; or, if he mistrusts his own science, will be eager to obey any expert on the spot, or will even send and fetch one from a distance. The guidance of this expert he will follow, and do what he has to do at his dictation. 

And thus, in the art of spinning wool, Socrates liked to point out that women are the rulers of men—and why? because they have the knowledge of the art, and men have not. 

And if anyone raised the objection that a tyrant has it in his power not to obey good and correct advice, Socrates would retort: 

"Pray, how has he the option not to obey, considering the penalty hanging over him who disobeys the words of wisdom? For whatever the matter be in which he disobeys the word of good advice, he will fall into error, I presume, and falling into error, be punished." 

And to the suggestion that the tyrant could, if he liked, cut off the head of the man of wisdom, his answer was: 

"Do you think that he who destroys his best ally will go scot free, or suffer a mere slight and passing loss? Is he more likely to secure his salvation that way, think you, or to compass his own swift destruction?" 

When someone asked him: "what he regarded as the best pursuit or business for a man?" Socrates answered: "Successful conduct"; and to a second question: "Did he then regard good fortune as an end to be pursued?"—"On the contrary," he answered, "for myself, I consider fortune and conduct to be diametrically opposed. 

"For instance, to succeed in some desirable course of action without seeking to do so, I hold to be good fortune; but to do a thing well by dint of learning and practice, that according to my creed is successful conduct, and those who make this the serious business of their life seem to me to do well." 

They are at once the best and the dearest in the sight of God, Socrates went on to say, who for instance in husbandry do well the things of farming, or in the art of healing all that belongs to healing, or in statecraft the affairs of state; whereas a man who does nothing well—nor well in anything—is, he added, neither good for anything nor dear to God. 

—from Xenophon, Memorabilia 3.9 

The Continence of Scipio 12

Sebastiano Ricci, The Continence of Scipio (c. 1706) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 85.3

They say, “The wise man is called unperturbed in the sense in which pomegranates are called mellow—not that there is no hardness at all in their seeds, but that the hardness is less than it was before.” 
 
That view is wrong; for I am not referring to the gradual weeding out of evils in a good man, but to the complete absence of evils; there should be in him no evils at all, not even any small ones. For if there are any, they will grow, and as they grow will hamper him. Just as a large and complete cataract wholly blinds the eyes, so a medium-sized cataract dulls their vision.
 
If by your definition the wise man has any passions whatever, his reason will be no match for them and will be carried swiftly along, as it were, on a rushing stream—particularly if you assign to him, not one passion with which he must wrestle, but all the passions. And a throng of such, even though they be moderate, can affect him more than the violence of one powerful passion.
 
He has a craving for money, although in a moderate degree. He has ambition, but it is not yet fully aroused. He has a hot temper, but it can be appeased. He has inconstancy, but not the kind that is very capricious or easily set in motion. He has lust, but not the violent kind. We could deal better with a person who possessed one full-fledged vice, than with one who possessed all the vices, but none of them in extreme form. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 85 
 
Those who will only focus on the degrees of less or more, lacking any reference to what is absolute, are paradoxically seeking an estimation without the standard of a measure. If everything is relative, then nothing is ever tied down. 
 
This is, of course, the preferred state of affairs whenever we wish to give ourselves handy excuses. The result, unfortunately, is that the indulgence of our trivial foibles becomes the breeding ground for our crippling vices. For the man of comfort this sounds like austere nonsense, while for the man of character it is the way to freedom. 
 
My attempts at becoming better will be, quite literally, pointless without always keeping in mind the noble end of what is best, a lesson I did not learn from some dusty old book, or dream up while my head was up in the clouds. No, I speak from hard experience when I say that an action divorced from the understanding of what is ideal will always leave me running around in circles, trapped within my own deficiencies. 
 
Given the powerful force of habit, the changes will not happen overnight, but each step forward, however pitiful it may at first appear, is a worthy achievement. If I overlook some vice, because it feels so insignificant in the bigger picture, I have forever denied myself a place in that bigger picture. 
 
We are rightly shocked at one brutal murder or at a vast scheme of financial fraud, and yet just as harmful is the steady accumulation of those supposedly little sins, those bitter words or those white lies, making up in frequency for what they lack in scale. And it doesn’t stop there, since each tiny drop of wickedness will gradually erode the integrity of a whole conscience. 
 
I wonder if I should prefer to have many minor flaws, or one enormous flaw? The question is academic, for I am falling short in either case, and I am gifted with the ability to improve myself if I so wish. 
 
I am delusional when I say that I can tolerate myself being slightly ignorant, and a tad cowardly, and barely intemperate, and occasionally unfair, as if virtue could be divided into convenient parts. I either have it or I don’t. Some who strive with intense conviction are rewarded with the prize, and others who are still struggling at the task are making valiant headway—both are honorable, though only one has achieved the goal. 
 
The critic will claim that “nobody’s perfect”, which, like every aphorism, requires a distinction; I am grateful to the Thomists for teaching me that. While a man is a finite creature, and so cannot contain within himself the infinite perfection of the Creator, it remains within his power to fulfill his particular nature. We should righty discuss the limits of that nature, and how much he must rely upon what is above him, but it would be contradictory to say that a thing is designed to fail at its innate purpose. 
 
No, regardless of the circumstances beyond his control, if the virtuous man is doing it right, then he is simply doing it right. Even as he retains the option of suddenly abandoning his resolve for tomorrow, he has lived up to his duty for today. In this sense, as Aristotle said, no man is completely good or happy until his death, for the work is still ongoing, and must be continually renewed for every moment. 

—Reflection written in 1/2014 

IMAGE: Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Proserpine (1874) 

Sayings of Ramakrishna 280

The Avadhûta saw a bridal procession passing through a meadow, with the beating of drums and the blowing of trumpets, and with great pomp. 

Hard by the road through which the procession was passing, he saw a hunter deeply absorbed in aiming at a bird, and perfectly inattentive to the noise and pomp of the procession, casting not even a passing look at it. 

The Avadhûta, saluting the hunter, said, "Sir, you are my Guru. When I sit in meditation, let my mind be concentrated on its object of meditation as yours has been on the bird." 

Man's Search for Meaning 19

Occasionally a scientific debate developed in camp. Once I witnessed something I had never seen, even in my normal life, although it lay somewhat near my own professional interests: a spiritualistic séance. 

I had been invited to attend by the camp's chief doctor (also a prisoner), who knew that I was a specialist in psychiatry. The meeting took place in his small, private room in the sick quarters. A small circle had gathered, among them, quite illegally, the warrant officer from the sanitation squad. 

One man began to invoke the spirits with a kind of prayer. The camp's clerk sat in front of a blank sheet of paper, without any conscious intention of writing. 

During the next ten minutes (after which time the séance was terminated because of the medium's failure to conjure the spirits to appear), his pencil slowly drew lines across the paper, forming quite legibly "VAE V."

 It was asserted that the clerk had never learned Latin and that he had never before heard the words "vae victis"—woe to the vanquished. 

In my opinion, he must have heard them once in his life, without recollecting them, and they must have been available to the "spirit" (the spirit of his subconscious mind) at that time, a few months before our liberation and the end of the war. 

—from Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning