Fortune has no voucher.

"All these fortuitous things, Marcia, that glitter about us--children, honors, wealth, spacious halls and vestibules packed with a throng of unadmitted, clients, a famous name, a high-born or beautiful wife, and all else that depends upon uncertain and fickle chance--these are not our own but borrowed trappings; not one of them is given to us outright.

"The properties that adorn life's stage have been lent, and must go back to their owners; some of them will be returned on the first day, others on the second, only a few will endure until the end. We have, therefore, no reason to be puffed up as if we were surrounded with the things that belong to us; we have received them merely as a loan. The use and the enjoyment are ours, but the dispenser of the gift determines the length of our tenure.

"On our part we ought always to keep in readiness the gifts that have been granted for a time not fixed, and, when called upon, to restore them without complaint; it is a very mean debtor that reviles his creditor.  And so we should love all of our dear ones, both those whom, by the condition of birth, we hope will survive us, and those whose own most just prayer is to pass on before us, but always with the thought that we have no promise that we may keep them forever--nay, no promise even that we may keep them for long.

"Often must the heart be reminded--it must remember that loved objects will surely leave, no, are already leaving.  Take whatever Fortune gives, remembering that it has no voucher."

--Seneca the Younger, To Marcia on Consolation 9 (tr Basore)

I have always been especially taken with Seneca's letter to Marcia. In it, he tries to console a woman who cannot seem to overcome the grief of losing her son. Our own situation may not be the same, but we have all felt the pain of loss in different circumstances and degrees, and we have all experienced the weight of despair. We may lose our possessions, our reputations, our livelihood, our health, or our friends and family to time, distance, or conflict.

When I first read this letter in graduate school, I could not understand the specifics of Marcia's grief. It was providential, I think, that Seneca's words would be helpful years letter, when my wife and I also lost a child. But at the time of my first exposure to the text, I could relate all of his words to a different circumstance, the loss of a friend. The cure does not simply address the particular circumstances, but asks us to step back and consider the very way we consider all of our circumstances.

I have often been frustrated when people are told that they must simply "get over" their pain of loss, and "move on". I find this neither helpful nor considerate, though I imagine we innocently say such things when we don't know what else to say. I know, however, from hard experience, that ignoring, resisting, or suppressing pain offers no true relief, and may, in fact, make the suffering even worse.

I do not expect pain to simply disappear, for it is a passion that is often beyond our power. What I can learn, however, is how to change my judgment and estimation of myself and my circumstances. One of my stock Stoic phrases, kept at hand for easy and quick reference, is "change the thinking and you change the living".

Seneca suggests that we rethink our relationship to persons and things outside of us.When we think that something is ours, "belongs" to us, our attachment seems like a right, and we make our happiness dependent upon these things. Accordingly, when we lose what we think is ours, we fell the pain of loss, and the degree of our agony is in direct proportion to the degree of our reliance.

Seneca is not saying that we should reject love and affection. That isn't what Stoicism is about. But he is saying that we become our own torturers when we assume that a gift of fortune is our possession, and that we are entitled to that possession. Our circumstances are things beyond our power. Rather, the people and things in our lives are a gift of Providence, lent to us to love and find joy in, and we must gladly accept that Providence will ask for their return.

Once I can understand this, that what I thought was mine was never mine, and that I must find my happiness in what I do and give, not in what happens to me or is received, that my thinking is taking the right turn. I will learn not to mourn the loss of someone or something, because I can't lose what wasn't mine to begin with. Remove the relationship of "ownership" from the estimation.

This admittedly seemed cold and heartless to me at first, but I learned that it is actually deeply kind and compassionate. Seneca was helping Marcia to love her son, but not to suffer loss in that love.

Written on  9/12/2013

Image: Auguste Toulmouche, Consolation (1870)