The many shapes of happiness.

"Just as an army remains the same, though at one time it deploys with a longer line, now is massed into a narrow space and either stands with hollowed center and wings curved forward, or extends a straightened front, and, no matter what its formation may be, will keep the selfsame spirit and the same resolve to stand in defense of the selfsame cause, --so the definition of the highest good may at one time be given in prolix and lengthy form, and at another be restrained and concise.

"So it will come to the same thing if I say: 'The highest good is a mind that scorns the happenings of chance, and rejoices only in virtue,' or say: 'It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable, wise from experience, calm in action, showing the while much courtesy and consideration in intercourse with others.'

"It may also be defined in the statement that the happy man is he who recognizes no good and evil other than a good and an evil mind one who cherishes honor, is content with virtue, who is neither puffed up, nor crushed, by the happenings of chance, who knows of no greater good than that which he alone is able to bestow upon himself, for whom true pleasure will be the scorn of pleasures."

--- Seneca the Younger, On the Happy Life 4 (tr Basore)

I absolutely adore the image Seneca employs. An army may change its shape and formation, but it is still the same army by its essence. We can apply this image to the understanding of happiness. I care less for the technical and scholarly nitpicking about the specific words of a definition. I leave that to others. I care more about the deeper meaning that the words point me toward, and how that might help me live with greater wisdom, virtue, and joy.

Happiness is one of those things we're deeply confused about, and we may each define it in very different ways. But we accord with Nature when we see that all of our different phrases should rightly point to one and the same reality.

Happiness is not pleasure, or wealth, or honor, or power. These are are external things, which are indifferent. Happiness depends upon what we do, not what happens to us. That is the ethical core of Stoicism. It is only about one thing, in the end: how well we live, not our passions but our actions, not the conditions but rather what we choose to make of those conditions.

An army changes its position and order of battle, but it remains steadfast in its goal. Our lives ought to be much the same.

Written on 2/24/2001

Image: Roman Legion, Glanum.