Abandoned Places 72

Nature 74

Stockdale on Stoicism 60

No men avoid this initial terrible fear that only their imaginations can generate and few, if any, avoid the initial hesitant step of grudgingly giving ground while taking measure of their predicament. 

Finding himself sinking into the quagmire of complicity, hardly a man exists who does not wish he had stood up and blown the "enough’s enough" whistle sooner than he did. For self-respect—and in the long term sense, for mental health—the sooner he blows the whistle, the better.

If a person had delivered up your body to some passer by, you would certainly be angry. And do you feel no shame in delivery up your mind to any reviler, to be disconcerted and confounded?

It is better to die of hunger, exempt from guilt and fear, than to live in affluence with perturbation.

If a man’s sense of honor, his good faith, and his prudence are not destroyed, then he too is preserved; but if any of these perish or be taken by storm, then he too perishes with them.

Once the neophyte political prisoner realizes that experiencing pain is not as bad as its anticipation, a kind of equanimity and pride comes over him. He knows that it is the unpunished complicity, not the tortured compliance, that tears a man apart. 

He casts aside the error of involving himself with externals, of depending on "what is not up to him," on another’s sympathy, gullibility, or the price for making a "deal." 

He uses both the rational and irrational elements of his soul—both part of the same to the Stoic—to see his proper role in the unfolding drama. 

He accommodates himself to fate. He makes a declaration to himself and to the prison regime that, regarding his choices, he is "free." 

He has arrived at the point where the "strategic" side of Stoicism, the accommodation to fate and mind over matter, can bring him peace.

—from James B. Stockdale, Epictetus' Enchiridion: Conflict and Character 

IMAGE: Evelyn De Morgan, Hope in a Prison of Despair (1887) 

Owls 23

 

Henry David Thoreau 19

The youth gets together his materials to build a bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple on the earth, and, at length, the middle-aged man concludes to build a woodshed with them. 

—from Henry David Thoreau, Journals (14 July, 1852) 

IMAGE: James Goodwyn Clonney, In the Woodshed (1838) 

Ralph Waldo Emerson 24

I wish to write such rhymes as shall not suggest a restraint, but contrariwise the wildest freedom. 

—from Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journals (27 June, 1839) 

IMAGE: Paul Emile Chabas, Dancing Nymphs (1899) 

Sayings of Ramakrishna 293

How does the soul stay in the body? 

As the piston stays in a syringe. 

Seneca, Moral Letters 87.11

I think that the reasoning of Posidonius is better: he holds that riches are a cause of evil, not because, of themselves, they do any evil, but because they goad men on so that they are ready to do evil. 
 
For the efficient cause, which necessarily produces harm at once, is one thing, and the antecedent cause is another. It is this antecedent cause which inheres in riches; they puff up the spirit and beget pride, they bring on unpopularity and unsettle the mind to such an extent that the mere reputation of having wealth, though it is bound to harm us, nevertheless affords delight.
 
All goods, however, ought properly to be free from blame; they are pure, they do not corrupt the spirit, and they do not tempt us. They do, indeed, uplift and broaden the spirit, but without puffing it up. 
 
Those things which are goods produce confidence, but riches produce shamelessness. The things which are goods give us greatness of soul, but riches give us arrogance. And arrogance is nothing else than a false show of greatness. 
 
“According to that argument,” the objector says, “riches are not only not a good, but are a positive evil.” 
 
Now they would be an evil if they did harm of themselves, and if, as I remarked, it were the efficient cause which inheres in them; in fact, however, it is the antecedent cause which inheres in riches, and indeed it is that cause which, so far from merely arousing the spirit, actually drags it along by force. 
 
Yes, riches shower upon us a semblance of the good, which is like the reality and wins credence in the eyes of many men. The antecedent cause inheres in virtue also; it is this which brings on envy—for many men become unpopular because of their wisdom, and many men because of their justice. 
 
But this cause, though it inheres in virtue, is not the result of virtue itself, nor is it a mere semblance of the reality; nay, on the contrary, far more like the reality is that vision which is flashed by virtue upon the spirits of men, summoning them to love it and marvel thereat. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 87 
 
I find myself in the odd situation of being inspired by a philosopher whose books I have never read, which is perhaps something like falling in love with a girl you have never met. 
 
Posidonius, I am told, wrote on a wide range of subjects, much like Aristotle, and while he was a firm supporter of the Stoic tradition, he did not hesitate to employ the teachings from a variety of other schools. This immediately endears him to me, for we should always embrace the truth, wherever we happen to find it. 
 
Yet none of his works have survived, and we are left with only references and fragments. Though I am fascinated when Seneca or Cicero discuss his thinking, usually with great respect, I grow frustrated when I cannot go straight to the source, and I imagine what it would be like if someone actually discovered his writings, perhaps safely tucked away under some rubble in Asia Minor. I feel much the same way about Panaetius. 
 
I am pleased to see how Posidonius tried to resolve the problem of the good by distinguishing the different aspects of causality. Even as the source of any action is from the agent itself, there are also the conditions that came before it, which set the grounds, so to speak, for that change to take place. Our own choices are the efficient causes of what we do, and yet various circumstances will influence these decisions, by making one path or the other seem more appealing. 
 
I will speculate that Posidonius intended the antecedent cause to be a type of material cause, though I may well be mistaken. In any case, it serves a similar purpose, by providing the occasion. 
 
Now contrary to what the determinists might claim, the environment does not make the man, but it will certainly give him an emphatic nudge. If you put a bottle of Bushmills in front of me, I will be sorely tempted to drink it all in one sitting. If you show me a picture of the lost love of my life, I will instinctively feel intense pain, and I will be sorely tempted to put a sad record on the turntable and begin brooding. 
 
Yet these are merely temptations, and they do not compel me to do anything whatsoever. Neither the bottle nor the photograph is good or evil for me—it is my judgments about the bottle and the photograph that are good or evil for me. 
 
The injury proceeds from the error in my estimation, and yet it is also my responsibility to avoid those situations that are likely to weaken my resolve. Do I have the excellence within me to be surrounded by luxury? If I believe it to be so, then I can take up the challenge, but if there is any doubt about my capacity, then it is best to leave it be. 
 
Since the benefit or the harm of riches is relative to our character, we cannot speak of money as good or evil in any absolute sense. External things will often present an appearance of worth, at which point I must remind myself why their value hinges upon my internal disposition toward virtue or vice. Seek out that which makes the task easier, and avoid that which makes the burden heavier. 
 
Observe how this applies to every circumstance, such that even something as noble as the wisdom or justice in one can also be twisted into an excuse for envy by another. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I again refer you to the argument on virtue in the Meno: do not confuse the conditional with the unconditional. 
 
Posidonius was willing to grant how the concepts of good and evil can be applied equivocally, as antecedent causes, as long as we understand why they unequivocally rest in the quality of our thinking, as efficient causes. This willingness to seek an agreement between different point of view, by qualifying the various senses of a term, reminds me of another one of my philosophical heroes, Thomas Aquinas. 

—Reflection written in 2/2014 

Snippets from the Handbook 6

Therefore let your will to avoid have no concern with what is not in man's power; direct it only to things in man's power that are contrary to nature. 

But for the moment you must utterly remove the will to get; for if you will to get something not in man's power you are bound to be unfortunate; while none of the things in man's power that you could honorably will to get is yet within your reach. 

Impulse to act and not to act, these are your concern; yet exercise them gently and without strain, and provisionally. 

—Epictetus, The Handbook 2 

Jottings on Marcus 8

Through not observing what is in the mind of another a man has seldom been seen to be unhappy; but those who do not observe the movements of their own minds must of necessity be unhappy. 

—from Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.8 

For so many years, I couldn't get any sleep, because I was always worried about what she might be thinking. 

It only began to get better when I attended to the quality of my own judgments, and I learned a bit about how to discern between the good and the evil within myself. 

The ugly impressions will still present themselves, but now I firmly remind them why they belong to me, and not to her. 

This works far better than drinking whiskey or counting sheep. 

IMAGE: Edvard Munch, Sleepless Night: Self-portrait in Inner Turmoil (1920) 

Owls 22

IMAGE by Ray Brown 

Seneca, Moral Letters 87.10

“That which, while we are desiring to attain it, involves us in many evils, is not a good. But while we are desiring to attain riches, we become involved in many evils; therefore, riches are not a good,” 
 
“Your first premise,” they say, “contains two meanings; one is: we become involved in many evils while we are desiring to attain riches. But we also become involved in many evils while we are desiring to attain virtue. One man, while travelling in order to prosecute his studies, suffers shipwreck, and another is taken captive.
 
“The second meaning is as follows: that through which we become involved in evils is not a good. And it will not logically follow from our proposition that we become involved in evils through riches or through pleasure; otherwise, if it is through riches that we become involved in many evils, riches are not only not a good, but they are positively an evil. You, however, maintain merely that they are not a good.
 
“Moreover,” the objector says, “you grant that riches are of some use. You reckon them among the advantages; and yet on this basis they cannot even be an advantage, for it is through the pursuit of riches that we suffer much disadvantage.”
 
Certain men answer this objection as follows: “You are mistaken if you ascribe disadvantages to riches. Riches injure no one; it is a man’s own folly, or his neighbor’s wickedness, that harms him in each case, just as a sword by itself does not slay; it is merely the weapon used by the slayer. Riches themselves do not harm you, just because it is on account of riches that you suffer harm." 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 87 
 
My head has now been stuffed with this philosophy nonsense for so long, that I find certain passages to be downright humorous, as if they were egghead versions of the classic “Who’s on First?” skit by Abbott and Costello. 
 
For me, this letter is full of such hilarious exchanges, where the Peripatetic remains tied to the notion that “things” must either be good or bad, and he cannot conceive of the Stoic insight that the value is not in the circumstance, but only in the use of the circumstance. 
 
The Stoic: “If money were really a good in itself, it would never be an occasion for evil. And yet you only have to spend some time in a room full of bankers to see how easily it is abused.” 
 
The Peripatetic: “So now you’re going to tell me that walking is evil, because I might trip and fall while I’m on my way to school? Should I never get on a boat, because there’s a chance it will sink?” 
 
The Stoic: “The walking and the sailing are to be treated as indifferent, with the benefit or the harm being relative to the virtue or the vice within us.” 
 
The Peripatetic: “But you’re the one who said that riches aren’t a good, and if they aren’t a good, then they have to be an evil. So, which one is it?” 
 
The Stoic: “It’s neither, until we choose to make something of it.” 
 
The Peripatetic: “Ah, that makes it appear very bad. Are you claiming that money is always bad?” 
 
The Stoic: “I didn’t say that.” 
 
The Peripatetic: “Then money must be a good, which is what I I’ve been saying from the beginning.” 
 
The Stoic: “No, it depends. It doesn’t have to be good, and it doesn’t have to be evil.” 
 
The Peripatetic: “Well, it sounds like you are pointing out all of the downsides, as if there aren’t any upsides.” 
 
The Stoic: “I am conscious of both, just as I know how a sword can become a tool to defend, or a tool to oppress.” 
 
The Peripatetic: “Oh, so now you want to ban all the swords too? What kind of weirdo are you?” 
 
And so on . . . 
 
In the simplest of terms, the critic won’t distinguish between the merits of what we do and the conditions under which we do it, between the dignity on the inside and the trappings on the outside. 
 
He is not yet willing to think beyond the standards of acquisition, possession, and consumption, like a yuppie who defines himself by his stock portfolio, his wine cellar, and his squash club membership. 

—Reflection written in 2/2014 

All Nature Has a Feeling

"All Nature Has a Feeling" 

John Clare (1793-1864) 

All nature has a feeling: woods, fields, brooks
Are life eternal: and in silence they
Speak happiness beyond the reach of books;
There's nothing mortal in them; their decay
Is the green life of change; to pass away
And come again in blooms revivified.
Its birth was heaven, eternal is its stay,
And with the sun and moon shall still abide
Beneath their day and night and heaven wide. 

IMAGE: J.M.W. Turner, Buttermere Lake (1798) 

The Stranger

"The Stranger" 

John Clare (1793-1864) 

When trouble haunts me, need I sigh?
No, rather smile away despair;
For those have been more sad than I,
With burthens more than I could bear;
Aye, gone rejoicing under care
Where I had sunk in black despair.

When pain disturbs my peace and rest,
Am I a hopeless grief to keep,
When some have slept on torture's breast
And smiled as in the sweetest sleep,
Aye, peace on thorns, in faith forgiven,
And pillowed on the hope of heaven?

Though low and poor and broken down,
Am I to think myself distrest?
No, rather laugh where others frown
And think my being truly blest;
For others I can daily see
More worthy riches worse than me.

Aye, once a stranger blest the earth
Who never caused a heart to mourn,
Whose very voice gave sorrow mirth—
And how did earth his worth return?
It spurned him from its lowliest lot,
The meanest station owned him not;

An outcast thrown in sorrow's way,
A fugitive that knew no sin,
Yet in lone places forced to stray—
Men would not take the stranger in.
Yet peace, though much himself he mourned,
Was all to others he returned.

* * * * *

His presence was a peace to all,
He bade the sorrowful rejoice.
Pain turned to pleasure at his call,
Health lived and issued from his voice.
He healed the sick and sent abroad
The dumb rejoicing in the Lord.

The blind met daylight in his eye,
The joys of everlasting day;
The sick found health in his reply;
The cripple threw his crutch away.
Yet he with troubles did remain
And suffered poverty and pain.

Yet none could say of wrong he did,
And scorn was ever standing bye;
Accusers by their conscience chid,
When proof was sought, made no reply.
Yet without sin he suffered more
Than ever sinners did before. 

IMAGE: William Blake, The Agony in the Garden (1800) 

I Am!

"I Am!" 

John Clare (1793-1864) 

I am! yet what I am who cares, or knows?

     My friends forsake me like a memory lost. 

I am the self-consumer of my woes, 

     They rise and vanish, an oblivious host, 

Shadows of life, whose very soul is lost.

And yet I am—I live—though I am toss'd 

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise, 

     Into the living sea of waking dream, 

Where there is neither sense of life, nor joys, 

     But the huge shipwreck of my own esteem

And all that's dear. Even those I loved the best 

Are strange—nay, they are stranger than the rest. 

I long for scenes where man has never trod, 

     For scenes where woman never smiled or wept; 

There to abide with my Creator, God, 

     And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept 

Full of high thoughts, unborn. So let me lie, 

The grass below; above the vaulted sky. 

IMAGE: Laurits Andersen Ring, Walking in a Rye Field (1905) 

The Mother Road 18

The Basel Dance of Death 21

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

"Gracious and pure Lady Abbess, 

How do you have such a small belly? 
Still, I will not hold that against you, 
I would sooner bite myself in the finger." 

"I have read from the Psalter, 
In the choir before the Lord's altar. 
Now no praying will avail me, 
I too must here follow after Death." 

Ellis Walker, Epictetus in Poetical Paraphrase 66

LXVI. 

Doth any one bathe earlier than the time 
That's usually observed, or drink much wine; 
Censure him not, nor say 'tis not well done, 
Say only, he drinks much, or washeth soon. 
For why should you, 'till you have understood 
His reasons, judge his actions bad or good? 
Perhaps he washeth early, with intent 
Thus to refresh himself with watching spent. 
Whate'er your grave sobriety may think, 
In him perhaps 'tis temperance to drink; 
Perhaps his constitution may require 
More wine, his lamp more oil to feed its fire. 
First know the reasons then you may proceed 
With safety to dispraise, or praise the deed: 
Thus will you never any action blame, 
And then on second thought commend the same. 

William Hogarth, Industry and Idleness 4

Many of my peers are so on fire with the struggle for social justice, that they feel the need to despise anyone who is rich, condemn all forms of profit, and cry out for the abolition of property itself. They look at me funny when I suggest that it is not money, but the love of money, that is the root of all evil. 

Given my predilection for sticking it to the man, it took me some time to appreciate the difference between affluence and avarice, and I still need to remind myself why worldly success is entirely compatible with good character. Indeed, if we all chose to play our parts with integrity, and refused to be tempted by sleazy shortcuts, then the wonderful scene depicted here would be the rule, and not the exception. 

Hogarth presents us with an example of good business, in the best possible sense of the word. By proving himself worthy of trust, Francis has now been granted a position of authority, gaining control over the weaver's keys. ledger, and cash. This is as it should be, and it reflects well on both the dedication of the apprentice and the fairness of his master. 

The gloves lying on the desk appear as if they are two hands shaking, which is a perfect image for how any honest enterprise should operate. Sadly, we are far too familiar with workers being exploited, which blinds us to the fact that the greatest gains are always the result of friendship and cooperation. A profit is not selfish when it is distributed according to merit instead of privilege. 

Observe the demeanor of the master: he is proud of his achievements, and he is proud of the young man who has worked together with him. Observe the demeanor of the apprentice: he stands with a glorious combination of confidence and reverence. I wish I had a boss like that, who would offer me such familiarity in return for my service. 

In case there is any doubt that things are going well, the man delivering supplies is wearing the livery of the Corporation of London—a government contract is usually a good sign! The calendar hanging by the desk shows an allegory of Industry assaulting Time, for it is within our power to make the most of the moments we are given. 

The standoff between the dog and the cat may represent the contrast between Francis and Thomas, which in turn symbolizes the deeper conflict of diligence and indolence. Though my own preference has always been for cats, I can accept why a stalwart companion is more reliable than a shrieking ball of fur. 

I would humbly suggest that tearing down the free market is not the best solution to inequality. If it is truly free, then all of us will have the opportunity to prove our worth, and there will be no need for resentment and recrimination. I can decide to begin with myself. 

Matthew 25:21 

Well done good and faithful
servant, thou hast been faithful
over a few things, I will make thee
Ruler over many things. 

William Hogarth, Industry and Idleness 4: The Industrious 'Prentice a Favourite, and Entrusted by His Master (1747) 

Udana 1.3

Thus have I heard. On a certain occasion the Exalted One, soon after the attainment of Buddhahood, dwelt at Uruvela on the banks of the stream Neranjara, at the foot of the tree of Enlightenment. At that time the Exalted One, after remaining in a sitting posture for seven days, experienced the bliss of Emancipation. 

When the seven days had come to a close, the Exalted One arose from the state of trance and in the last watch of the night thoroughly thought out the chain of cause and effect in both the direct and indirect orders. 

Now by the complete destruction of Ignorance, there is cessation of Conformations. And the Exalted One in this connection, on that occasion, breathed forth this solemn utterance: 

"When the conditions of existence dawn upon the strenuous, meditative Brahmana, 

He stands, scattering the hosts of the Tempter, as the Sun, diffusing its rays through space."