Plutarch, The Life of Cato the Younger 28

And now the clerk produced the law, but Cato would not suffer him to read it; and when Metellus took it and began to read it, Cato snatched the document away from him. 

Then Metellus, who knew the law by heart, began to recite it, but Thermus clapped a hand upon his mouth and shut off his speech. At last, seeing that the men were making a struggle which he could not resist, and that the people were giving way and turning towards the better course, Metellus ordered men-at‑arms, who were standing at a distance, to come running up with terrifying shouts. 

This was done, and all the people dispersed, leaving Cato standing his ground alone and pelted with sticks and stones from above. 

Here Murena, who had been denounced and brought to trial by him,⁠ came to his relief, and holding his toga before him, crying to those who were pelting him to stop, and finally persuading Cato himself and folding him in his arms, he led him away into the temple of Castor and Pollux.

When, however, Metellus saw the space about the tribunal empty and his opponents in flight through the forum, being altogether persuaded that he had won the day, he ordered his armed men to go away again, and coming forward himself in orderly fashion attempted to have the law enacted. 

But his opponents, quickly recovering from their rout, advanced again upon him with loud and confident shouts, so that his partisans were overwhelmed with confusion and terror. They supposed that their enemies had provided themselves with arms from some place or other in order to assail them, and not a man stood his ground, but all fled away from the tribunal. 

So, then, when these had dispersed, and when Cato had come forward with commendation and encouragement for the people, the majority of them stood prepared to put down Metellus by any and every means, and the senate in full session announced anew that it would assist Cato and fight to the end against the law, convinced that it would introduce sedition and civil war into Rome. 

Seneca, Moral Letters 85.8

Now if the life of the gods contains nothing greater or better, and the happy life is divine, then there is no further height to which a man can be raised. 
 
Also, if the happy life is in want of nothing, then every happy life is perfect; it is happy and at the same time most happy. Have you any doubt that the happy life is the Supreme Good? 
 
Accordingly, if it possesses the Supreme Good, it is supremely happy. Just as the Supreme Good does not admit of increase (for what will be superior to that which is supreme?), exactly so the happy life cannot be increased either; for it is not without the Supreme Good. 
 
If then you bring in one man who is “happier” than another, you will also bring in one who is “much happier”; you will then be making countless distinctions in the Supreme Good; although I understand the Supreme Good to be that good which admits of no degree above itself. 
 
If one person is less happy than another, it follows that he eagerly desires the life of that other and happier man in preference to his own. But the happy man prefers no other man’s life to his own. 
 
Either of these two things is incredible: that there should be anything left for a happy man to wish for in preference to what is, or that he should not prefer the thing which is better than what he already has. 
 
For certainly, the more prudent he is, the more he will strive after the best, and he will desire to attain it by every possible means. But how can one be happy who is still able, or rather who is still bound, to crave something else? 

—from Seneca Moral Letters 85 
 
If it is already the best, then it can’t get any better. Among all those who have lived happy, there is no special award for claiming to be the happiest. 
 
Once a good life is truly attained, it will leave nothing more to be desired. Yet observe how the grasping men, the ones who are the first to boast about how blessed they are, are never content with what they already have, and they are constantly looking over their shoulders, as if happiness were a competition. 
 
They would be relieved of their burdens if only they recognized why contentment is about the quality of our thoughts, and not about the quantity of our playthings. They would abandon their envy if they just realized how each instance of virtue is complete within itself, and there is no limit on how much of it there is to go around. 
 
After many disappointments with chasing worldly prizes, I sought to reconsider the faith of my fathers, and I was encouraged to find some people who still kept their priorities pure and simple—the love of God and the love of neighbor. But I then let myself get waylaid by the impostors, the ones who were gifted at talking the talk, but never seemed to actually walk the walk. 
 
I was confused when they preached about character, even as they simultaneously schemed for greater power and plotted against their enemies. I asked them why the pursuit of virtue apparently required getting my hands dirty with all sorts of nasty little deeds. 
 
“Well, it’s never that simple, is it? How can you do anything good without acquiring the money to back it up? How can you serve God when the other guy has an advantage over you? You won’t get anywhere in life if you don’t play by the rules of the game.”
 
I now understood completely, but not in the way that they had hoped. In my own set of rules, a man cannot serve two masters, and the ends do not justify the means. Just as some of the ancient philosophers were tempted to dilute the virtues, so some of the modern evangelists wanted to have their cake and eat it too. Whether we happen to be rich or poor, revered or reviled, robust or feeble, there can be nothing greater than some basic human decency. 
 
If the businessman is honored to provide his services, he won’t need to have the college name a building after him. If the lawyer is content to protect the innocent, he will gladly forgo the mansion and the trophy wife. If the bishop is at peace with his piety, he can easily do without the limousine to the airport. Once they insist upon supplementing their virtues, they never had those virtues to begin with. 
 
Have you practiced prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice in everything that you do? Then you can be supremely happy, and no man can ever take that away from you. 

—Reflection written in 1/2014 

The Peasant Poet

"The Peasant Poet" 

John Clare (1793-1864) 

He loved the brook's soft sound,
  The swallow swimming by.
He loved the daisy-covered ground,
  The cloud-bedappled sky.
To him the dismal storm appeared
  The very voice of God;
And when the evening rack was reared
  Stood Moses with his rod.
And everything his eyes surveyed,
  The insects in the brake,
Were creatures God Almighty made,
  He loved them for His sake—
A silent man in life's affairs,
  A thinker from a boy,
A peasant in his daily cares,
  The poet in his joy. 

Owls 15

Melancholy

Edmund Joseph Sullivan, Melancholy (1885) 

I Joy Not in No Earthly Bliss

"I Joy Not in No Earthly Bliss" (1588)

William Byrd (1540-1623) 

I joy not in no earthly bliss, 

I force not Croesus’ wealth a straw: 

For care, I know not what it is, 

I fear not Fortune’s fatal law. 

My mind is such as may not move,  

For beauty bright nor force of love. 

I wish but what I have at will, 

I wander not to seek for more. 

I like the plain, I climb no hill, 

In greatest storms I sit on shore 

And laugh at them that toil in vain, 

To get what must be lost again. 

I kiss not where I wish to kill, 

I feign not love where most I hate: 

I break no sleep to win my will, 

I wait not at the mighty’s gate: 

I scorn no poor, nor fear no rich; 

I feel no want, nor have too much. 

The court and cart I like nor loath, 

Extremes are counted worst of all; 

The golden mean between them both, 

Doth surest sit and fears no fall. 

This is my choice: for why? I find 

No wealth is like the quiet mind. 

Justus Lipsius, On Constancy 1.15

A passage to the second argument for constancy, which is taken from necessity. The force and violence thereof, this necessity is considered two ways, and first in the things themselves.

"This is a sure brazen target against all outward accidents. This is that gold armor wherewith being fenced, Plato wills us to fight against chance and fortune, to be subject to God, and in all events to cast our mind upon that great mind of the world. I mean Providence, whose holy and happy troops having orderly trained forth. 

"I will now bring out another band under the banner of necessity. A band valiant, strong, and hard as iron, which I may fitly term the thundering legion. The power of this is stern and invincible, which tames and subdues all things. Wherefore, Lipsius, I marvel if you withstand it. 

"Thales being asked what was strongest of all things, answered, 'necessity', for it overcomes all things. And to that purpose there is an old saying, though not so warily spoken of, that the gods cannot constrain necessity. This necessity I join next unto Providence, because it is near kin to it, or rather born of it. For from God and his decrees necessity springs: and it is nothing else, as the Greek philosopher defines it, but a firm ordinance and immutable power of Providence. 

"That it has a stroke in all public evils that befall, I will prove two ways: from the nature of things themselves and from destiny. And first from the things, in that it is a natural property to all things created, to fall into mutability and alteration: as unto iron cleaves naturally a consuming rust, to wood a gnawing worm, and so a wasting rottenness. Even so to living creatures, cities, and kingdoms, there be certain inward causes of their own decay. 

"Look upon all things high and low, great and small, made with hand, or composed by the mind, they always have decayed, and ever shall. And as the rivers with a continual swift course run into the sea, so all human things through this conduit of wastings and calamities slide to the mark of their desolation. Death and destruction is this mark, and the means to come thither are plague, war, and slaughters. 

"So that if death be necessary, then the means in that respect are as necessary. Which to the end you may the better perceive by examples, I will not refuse in conceit and imagination to wander a whiles with you through the great university of the world." 

Seneca, Moral Letters 85.7

Then, again, we should see to it that two principles which ought to be tested separately should not be confused. For the conclusion is reached independently that that alone is good which is honorable, and again independently the conclusion that virtue is sufficient for the happy life. 
 
If that alone is good which is honorable, everyone agrees that virtue is sufficient for the purpose of living happily; but, on the contrary, if virtue alone makes men happy, it will not be conceded that that alone is good which is honorable.
 
Xenocrates and Speusippus hold that a man can become happy even by virtue alone, not, however, that that which is honorable is the only good. Epicurus also decides that one who possesses virtue is happy, but that virtue of itself is not sufficient for the happy life, because the pleasure that results from virtue, and not virtue itself, makes one happy. 
 
This is a futile distinction. For the same philosopher declares that virtue never exists without pleasure; and therefore, if virtue is always connected with pleasure and always inseparable therefrom, virtue is of itself sufficient. For virtue keeps pleasure in its company, and does not exist without it, even when alone.
 
But it is absurd to say that a man will be happy by virtue alone, and yet not absolutely happy. I cannot discover how that may be, since the happy life contains in itself a good that is perfect and cannot be excelled, If a man has this good, life is completely happy. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 85 
 
In different corners of our lives, we will sometimes assert conflicting values, sometimes out of hypocrisy, because we believe we can pull a fast one, and sometimes out of ignorance, because we aren’t yet making the necessary connections. How often I assured myself that a good conscience would be more than enough, and yet I then found myself obsessed with acquiring some further comfort, as if I were stepping back and forth between two different worlds. 
 
But it is always one and the same world, and we are always called to the excellence of one and the same nature, however much we may object. My attempts at trying to have it both ways are usually a sign that I remain deeply confused about who I am meant to be, unwilling to commit by trying to play it safe. If an integrity of character leaves me short, can I still fall back on chasing after the fortune and the fame? 
 
Do I understand what I mean by this “good” that I seek? We are constantly using the term, and yet we rarely bother to examine what it means. “You know—the sort of things that I want.” And what sort of things should I want? “You know—the ones that are good for me.” Ah, yes, I’m glad we had this chat. 
 
Will there be a list of many things, or will it reduce down to a single thing? For the Stoics, in their admittedly irritating manner, the human good will solely be the excellence of our nature, and such a rational nature is defined by the quality of our judgments. 
 
Hence the virtues become the deciding factor, through which any other circumstances can become beneficial for us, and the absence of which brings us nothing but harm. If it is sufficient for a creature to be what it was made to be, then our moral worth stands as absolute, and everything else is relative. 
 
There remains the temptation, however, to squeeze in some other goods, as if a righteous soul still needs a few accessories. Perhaps we also require a certain amount of money, or some approval from our fellows, or a fairly healthy body? Before we know it, we have muddied the waters, and we have added so many conditions that virtue now seems to depend upon everything except itself. 
 
And so certain Academics and Peripatetics spoke of the most favorable conditions, forgetting how any situation at all can become an occasion to do what is right, and the Epicureans claimed the primacy of pleasure, as if an effect can swap places with its cause. I wonder if they were so fixated on their preferences that they began to compromise on their principles? If we grant that virtue is indeed the greatest human good, as is evident from our very identity, then any other considerations will fade in comparison. 
 
When we face our hardships with dignity, virtue remains as complete and self-sufficient. When we find that we have been granted the deepest joy, it is only the perfection of virtue that made this possible. A man properly feels good because he knows that he does good. 

—Reflection written in 1/2014 

Storm on the Sea 30

Henri Adolphe Schaep, Shipwreck (1857) 

Ruins 20

Charles-Caius Renoux, Pilgrims Praying at the Ruins of an Abbey (1825) 

Memento Mori 13

Tobias Stimmer, Old Man Taunted by Death (1580) 

Vanitas 98

Evert Collier, Self-portrait (1684) 

Sayings of Publilius Syrus 191

Fortune has more power over a man than his own forethought. 

Seneca, Moral Letters 85.6

Some men have made a distinction as follows, saying: “If a man has self-control and wisdom, he is indeed at peace as regards the attitude and habit of his mind, but not as regards the outcome. For, as far as his habit of mind is concerned, he is not perturbed, or saddened, or afraid; but there are many extraneous causes which strike him and bring perturbation upon him.”
 
What they mean to say is this: “So-and-so is indeed not a man of an angry disposition, but still he sometimes gives way to anger,” and “He is not, indeed, inclined to fear, but still he sometimes experiences fear”; in other words, he is free from the fault, but is not free from the passion of fear. 
 
If, however, fear is once given an entrance, it will by frequent use pass over into a vice; and anger, once admitted into the mind, will alter the earlier habit of a mind that was formerly free from anger.
 
Besides, if the wise man, instead of despising all causes that come from without, ever fears anything, when the time arrives for him to go bravely to meet the spear, or the flames, on behalf of his country, his laws, and his liberty, he will go forth reluctantly and with flagging spirit. Such inconsistency of mind, however, does not suit the character of a wise man. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 85 
 
Stoicism is hardly opposed to feelings, and not even to intense feelings, but it does warn us against being at the mercy of unbridled feelings, where we are swept along instead of deciding upon our own path. That so many of us choose to be consumed by anger, or fear, or lust does not mean that such agitations somehow ought to become our natural state. 
 
The common assumption is that since our emotions just “happen” to us, we are therefore obliged to obey them, much like we believe our happiness to be determined by the arrangement of our circumstances. So, we might praise a man for being ordered in his thinking, but we then excuse his rage, or his dread, or his cravings on account of events that are beyond his control. 
 
Indeed, I often hear people insisting that wrath and hatred are righteous responses to whatever we find to be unpleasant, as if indiscipline were somehow a mark of excellence. I recently asked a student why she felt obliged to insult her peers whenever they proposed a different point of view, and she stared at me with confusion. “Well what else am I supposed to do? I was offended!” 
 
Heaven knows, I don’t wish to add up the number of times I have lost my temper, and fallen into despair, and burned with longing, and yet all of my blunders have taught me why there is nothing worthy in the act of losing myself. My courage can be without malice, my suffering does not call for self-pity, and my love need never demand gratification. If the understanding is sound, and the intentions are sincere, my feelings do not have to become bitter and twisted. 
 
I’m not saying much if I claim to be untroubled on the inside, though I might lose my composure as soon as the world frustrates my preferences. If my priorities are in order, I will recognize how the rise and fall of fortune has absolutely no power over my character, and why a confusion in my values is the only obstacle to my serenity. The Stoic Turn, as I call it, asks me to place a far greater importance on my own judgments than on any external conditions, treating any variations in the latter as a means to the stability of the former. 
 
Once I can justify slandering my neighbor because he voted for the wrong party, or giving up all hope because the odds were stacked against me, or cheating on my wife because the other woman was simply irresistible, what could possibly be left of my so-called virtue? At least it would be more honest of me to openly admit that I care more for convenience than I do for character, rather than pursuing the one under the appearance of the other. 
 
Yes, the Stoic is asking for much when he proposes keeping the passions at bay, but he is not asking for too much, because he trusts in the great capacities of human nature, and he knows why a compromise on the minor flaws will inevitably weaken us in the face of the major vices. Do not rely on a man who overlooks the lesser things, for he will lack the conviction to conquer the greater things. 

—Reflection written in 1/2014 

IMAGE: Dosso Dossi, Anger (c. 1515) 

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)