Living in the best way 1

"As to living in the best way, this power is in the soul, if it is to be indifferent to things which are indifferent. And it will be indifferent, if it looks on each of these things separately and all together, and if it remembers that not one of them produces in us an opinion about itself, nor comes to us.

"But these things remain immovable, and it is we ourselves who produce the judgements about them, and, as we may say, write them in ourselves, it being in our power not to write them, and it being in our power, if perchance these judgements have imperceptibly got admission to our minds, to wipe them out; and if we remember also that such attention will only be for a short time, and then life will be at an end.

"Besides, what trouble is there at all in doing this? For if these things are according to nature, rejoice in them, and they will be easy to you: but if contrary to nature, seek what is conformable to your own nature, and strive towards this, even if it bring no reputation; for every man is allowed to seek his own good.

"Consider from where each thing has come, and of what it consists, and into what it changes, and what kind of a thing it will be when it has changed, and that it will sustain no harm."

--Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11 (tr Long)

Near the end of the Meditations, Marcus Aurelius, the Emperor-Philosopher, offers a list of ten guiding principles of life. I never confuse these with the Decalogue, because they are coming from two very different places.

The Ten Commandments tell us what to do, with great simplicity and clarity. They are the simplest, and therefore in many ways the best, of rules, summarized by Christ in an even simpler, and even  better, way. Love God, and love your neighbor. That we fail to live up to these demands has nothing to do with the commandments being too demanding; it has everything to do with our own vanity.

No. Marcus Aurelius isn't going to give us a set of moral rules. He's going to give us something else. It's a guide not for action alone, but for our thinking about action.

I will begin with a simple fact. Who I am, and what defines me, isn't measured by the world around me. It's measured by my own judgments. I recognize that anything and everything around me is not a burden, but an opportunity. My circumstances are what I will choose to make of them.

Things will be as they will be. That has nothing to do with me, and that is beyond my power. These things must be indifferent to me, not without meaning in themselves, being immovable in themselves, but they are not about me. I make them about me.

I always thought I had all the time in the world. I don't. My clock is ticking. And the ticking of my clock is as nothing compared to the beauty and grandeur of the Universe. I must put myself in perspective.

I was not made to simply live, but to live well. I can only do so when I understand myself within and through all things. They are what they will be, and they are so for a reason. I must understand myself in this light.

To be continued. . .

Written in 11/2002 

The best revenge. . .

Living with Nature 5

. . . " 'Do I convince you of this or not?'

 " 'You do convince me.'

" 'Such, then, as the causes are in each case, such also are the effects. When, then, we are doing anything not rightly, from this day we shall impute it to nothing else than to the will from which we have done it: and it is that which we shall endeavor to take away and to extirpate more than the tumors and abscesses out of the body.'

" 'And in like manner we shall give the same account of the cause of the things which we do right; and we shall no longer allege as causes of any evil to us, either slave or neighbor, or wife or children, being persuaded that, if we do not think things to he what we do think them to be, we do not the acts which follow from such opinions; and as to thinking or not thinking, that is in our power and not in externals.'

 " 'It is so,' he said.

" 'From this day then we shall inquire into and examine nothing else, what its quality is, or its state, neither land nor slaves nor horses nor dogs, nothing else than opinions.'

 " 'I hope so.'
 
" 'You see, then, that you must become a wise man, an animal whom all ridicule, if you really intend to make an examination of your own opinions: and that this is not the work of one hour or day, for you to know yourself.' "

--Epictetus, Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 11 (tr Long)

Let us not deceive ourselves. If we are to understand the argument offered by Epictetus, we need to do some serious house cleaning.

The world has done me wrong?

No, the world has done me no wrong. The will of others may have intended me wrong, and they may indeed have acted unjustly toward me, But they have not done me wrong.

Only I can do myself wrong. They have only wronged themselves.

To think about life, and to actually live life in such a matter, will cost me dearly, it would seem.  In reality, it will cost me nothing but illusions. Reichsmarks or Confederate Dollars.

I will seem ridiculous if I only wish to be wise and to be good, you may say. I will have thrown away everything I am told is necessary, and I will be rejected by the rich, the important, and the powerful. I will be the laughing stock.

But why should I care what those people think? If I think and live like a Stoic, those people most certainly matter to me, because I must care for the welfare of my fellow man.

But their misguided views on meaning and value need not control me.  Those opinions matter for nothing.

How often do I now hear, in a world ruled by entitlement, that someone is offended?

By all means, feel offended. Now look to your reason, and understand that you are your own master. What another says or does will not change you, unless you choose to let it do so. 

I honestly think it better to seem the fool, than to be the fool.

Written in 11/2002 

Michael Leunig 2

Michael Leunig 1

I hardly know if the Australian cartoonist Michael Leuning is influenced by Stoicism, or if he has ever even heard of it. I may or may not agree with his politics. But Leunig is an iconoclast, one willing to challenge the norm, and his estimation of life speaks to my soul. The Stoic can deeply appreciate what he has to tell us.

He suggests to me that I may have been best off embracing classical Cynicism, not just Stoicism. The fellow seems like a modern-day Diogenes!

Written on 9/9/2016

Living with Nature 4

" 'Well then, was it nothing which moved you and induced you to desert your child? and how is that possible?

" 'But it might be something of the kind which moved a man at Rome to wrap up his head while a horse was running which he favored; and when contrary to expectation the horse won, he required sponges to recover from his fainting fit.

. . . " 'What then is the thing which moved? The exact discussion of this does not belong to the present occasion perhaps; but it is enough to be convinced of this, if what the philosophers say is true, that we must not look for it anywhere without, but in all cases it is one and the same thing which is the cause of our doing or not doing something, of saying or not saying something, of being elated or depressed, of avoiding anything or pursuing: the very thing which is now the cause to me and to you, to you of coming to me and sitting and hearing, and to me of saying what I do say. And what is this? Is it any other than our will to do so?'

 " 'No other.'

" 'But if we had willed otherwise, what else should we have been doing than that which we willed to do?

" 'This, then, was the cause of Achilles' lamentation, not the death of Patroclus; for another man does not behave thus on the death of his companion; but it was because he chose to do so.

" 'And to you this was the very cause of your then running away, that you chose to do so; and on the other side, if you should stay with her, the reason will be the same.

" 'And now you are going to Rome because you choose; and if you should change your mind, you will not go thither. And in a word, neither death nor exile nor pain nor anything of the kind is the cause of our doing anything or not doing; but our own opinions and our wills.' " . . .

--Epictetus, Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 11 (tr Long)

So what was happening in the Magistrate's thinking? Was it pain, fear, uncertainty, anxiety? Whatever passion had consumed him, we can certainly know two things: it was he who allowed the passion to rule him, and it is therefore only within his own judgment and will that we will find the cause of abandoning his daughter.

But surely it is the actions of others, and the circumstances of our fortune, that move us back and forth between joy and misery? These things do indeed push at the outside of us, and sometimes with great weight, but it is only the will that decides what it will do with its conditions. It is we who decide what we do with what is given to us.

Achilles, for example, did not suffer because of the loss of Patroclus; he took the death of Patroclus, and chose to let himself suffer loss.  How differently they heroic history of the Greeks and Trojans would have been if but one man had not allowed himself to be ruled by his sadness and rage.

From the very great to the very small, how much different my own life would be if I had not willed my own grief or despair. One might express this even more fully and positively: how much better any life can still be when it chooses to rule itself.  Nothing hinders us but our own choices, not the past, the present, or the future.

Like the Magistrate, or like Achilles, I might like to blame the world. The world will be what it is, regardless of myself. But what I am quite able to do is to determine my own response, and how I choose to cope with my circumstances and passions.

I can understand anyone feel as he does when he suffers pain. I can now also choose to understand that my own actions are within my power to will.  This may change nothing or no one buy myself, but that is all it needs to change.

Written in 11/2002 

Living with Nature 3

. . . " 'Well, then to leave your sick child and to go away is not reasonable, and I suppose that you will not say that it is; but it remains for us to inquire if it is consistent with affection.'

" 'Yes, let us consider.'

" ' Did you, then, since you had an affectionate disposition to your child, do right when you ran off and left her; and has the mother no affection for the child?'

" 'Certainly, she has.'

" 'Ought, then, the mother also to have left her, or ought she not?'

 " 'She ought not.'

" 'And the nurse, does she love her?'

 " 'She does.'

" 'Ought, then, she also to have left her?'

" 'By no means.'

" 'And the teacher, does he not love her?'

 " 'He does love her.'

" 'Ought, then, he also to have deserted her? and so should the child have been left alone and without help on account of the great affection of you, the parents, and of those about her, or should she have died in the hands of those who neither loved her nor cared for her?'

" 'Certainly not.'

" 'Now this is unfair and unreasonable, not to allow those who have equal affection with yourself to do what you think to be proper for yourself to do because you have affection. It is absurd. Come then, if you were sick, would you wish your relations to be so affectionate, and all the rest, children and wife, as to leave you alone and deserted?'

 " 'By no means.'

" 'And would you wish to be so loved by your own that through their excessive affection you would always be left alone in sickness? or for this reason would you rather pray, if it were possible, to be loved by your enemies and deserted by them? But if this is so, it results that your behavior was not at all an affectionate act.' " . . .

--Epictetus, Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 11 (tr Long)

The old song tells us that we always hurt the one's we love, though I hardly think that is true, rightly understood. We hurt others when we act out of a disordered self-love, and not for their good, but for our own satisfaction and convenience alone.

The Magistrate understands all too well that he expects others who love his daughter, her mother, her nurse, or her teacher, to stand with his her when she is in need, even as he himself has abandoned her.

He likewise would hardly wish to have his friends desert him, or to have his friends turn out to really be his enemies. He surely begins to see that running away was not in response to his affection, but in response to his own pain.

It had everything to do with him, and nothing at all to do with her. It was selfishness, not affection. 

We must simply look at the long lists of people we have disposed of in our lives to see that the Magistrate is within us. If I am to measure the value and dignity of other persons by the pleasure and utility that they give me, then I will surely act in precisely the same way that he does.

If I am faced with an obstacle to my virtue or a problem in my path, it might seem the easiest thing is to simply close my eyes and ignore it.

I can make all the excuses I like, and I may even manage to give the appearance to others and to myself that I have been natural, reasonable, and affectionate.  I have been none of these things, because it is natural, reasonable, and affectionate to give love, to look to the benefit of others, and not merely for myself.

I can hardly, of course, even pursue my own true benefit of living well when I am in conflict with the nature of others, and therefore of Nature as a whole.

Written in 11/2002 

The Death of Seneca

Image: Manuel Domínguez Sánchez, The Death of Seneca (1871)

Living with Nature 2

" 'Well,' said Epictetus, 'if we were inquiring about white and black, what criterion should we employ for distinguishing between them?'

 " 'The sight,' he said.

" 'And if about hot and cold, and hard and soft, what criterion?'

" 'The touch.'

" 'Well then, since we are inquiring about things which are according to nature, and those which are done rightly or not rightly, what kind of criterion do you think that we should employ?'

 " 'I do not know,' he said.

" 'And yet not to know the criterion of colors and smells, and also of tastes, is perhaps no great harm; but if a man do not know the criterion of good and bad, and of things according to nature and contrary to nature, does this seem to you a small harm?'

" 'The greatest harm.'

" 'Come tell me, do all things which seem to some persons to be good and becoming rightly appear such; and at present as to Jews and Syrians and Egyptians and Romans, is it possible that the opinions of all of them in respect to food are right?'

" 'How is it possible?' he said.

" 'Well, I suppose it is absolutely necessary that, if the opinions of the Egyptians are right, the opinions of the rest must be wrong: if the opinions of the Jews are right, those of the rest cannot be right.'

" 'Certainly.'

" 'But where there is ignorance, there also there is want of learning and training in things which are necessary.' He assented to this.

" 'You then,' said Epictetus, 'since you know this, for the future you will employ yourself seriously about nothing else, and will apply your mind to nothing else than to learn the criterion of things which are according to nature, and by using it also to determine each several thing.

" 'But in the present matter I have so much as this to aid you toward what you wish. Does affection to those of your family appear to you to be according to nature and to be good?'

 " 'Certainly.'

" 'Well, is such affection natural and good, and is a thing consistent with reason not good?'

" 'By no means.'

" 'Is then that which is consistent with reason in contradiction with affection?'

 " 'I think not.'

" 'You are right, for if it is otherwise, it is necessary that one of the contradictions being according to nature, the other must be contrary to nature. Is it not so?'

 " 'It is,' he said.

" 'Whatever, then, we shall discover to be at the same time affectionate and also consistent with reason, this we confidently declare to be right and good.'

 " 'Agreed.' "

--Epictetus, Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 11 (tr Long)

Determine the measure. I cannot judge something, unless I have a clear sense of the standard by which I am judging.

"That's good."

Define. How is it good? Please don't tell me that the answer is self-evident. I know some people who think that the good is gratification, and others who are convinced it is mortification. A sad woman, in all seriousness, once tried to convince me that committing adultery with her would make my marriage better, while a bitter man once insisted that I could never even think of my wife with any desire beyond the biological function of procreation. I've seen the whole breadth of crazy.

In my very progressive elementary school, I learned all about the spectrum of colors and the qualities of touch. Yet no one ever asked me to consider right from wrong in any serious way. There were simply rules, and they were to be followed, without question. Twenty years later, those rules are now completely different, and, once again, to be accepted without question.

Twenty years ago, for example, I was clearly told that marriage was between a man and a woman. Now, I'm told it's also between a man and a man, or a woman and a woman. In neither case was I ever given an argument, a measure, or a standard by which to judge what was right. I could learn about all the facts of mathematics, physics, or chemistry, but there were never any real moral facts.

And telling me that something is true "because professionals said so", or "because the Church said so" is hardly enough reason for a thinking man. Fallacies of authority or popularity. 

We teach all about the science or matter or the science of business, but then we pass over the science of the soul. Ask a man how to build a bridge, and he will do the math to the decimal point. Ask him how to make money, and he will offer the most complex rules of accounting.

But ask him how to be a good man, and his jaw will drop. That is how the Magistrate in this passage surely feels. He knows he wants to be happy, and he wants to be good, but he has no idea of how to do so.

Do you wish to claim that all of Nature admits to rule and order, but the soul of man has no true order? Can't you see the foolishness of this claim? We only avoid moral facts because they are inconvenient to our desires. 

How much time have I spent studying how to further my career? How much time have I spent studying how to further my character? The answer that I must honestly give disgusts me.

I will now refuse to hide behind social customs alone. This is the attitude of the herd.

Perhaps I can begin, like Epictetus, with love. Affection is reasonable, therefore natural, and therefore good.

And now would be the time to ask what it means to love. . .

Written in 11/2002 

Living with Nature 1

"When he was visited by one of the magistrates, Epictetus inquired of him about several particulars, and asked if he had children and a wife. The man replied that he had; and Epictetus inquired further, how he felt under the circumstances.

" 'Miserable,' the man said.

"Then Epictetus asked, 'In what respect? for men do not marry and beget children in order to be wretched, but rather to be happy.'

 " 'But I,' the man replied, 'am so wretched about my children that lately, when my little daughter was sick and was supposed to be in danger, I could not endure to stay with her, but I left home till a person sent me news that she had recovered.'

"' Well then,' said Epictetus, 'do you think that you acted right?'

 " 'I acted naturally,' the man replied.

" 'But convince me of this that you acted naturally, and I will convince you that everything which takes place according to nature takes place rightly.' "

" 'This is the case,' said the man, 'with all or at least most fathers.'

" 'I do not deny that: but the matter about which we are inquiring is whether such behavior is right; for in respect to this matter we must say that tumors also come for the good of the body, because they do come; and generally we must say that to do wrong is natural, because nearly all or at least most of us do wrong. Do you show me then how your behavior is natural?'

" 'I cannot,'  he said; 'but do you rather show me how it is not according to nature and is not rightly done.'

--Epictetus, Discourses, Book 1, Chapter 11 (tr Long)

I dare not point fingers. I have been as guilty as the next.  We dispose of those who are inconvenient to us.

When a friend who has amused me, even for years and years, ceases to be amusing, he suddenly ceases to be my friend.

When a lover is no longer as enticing as she once was, she is tossed aside. Find a new one.

When a person is too weak or old, I will lock him up where someone else can take care of him. The problem is no longer mine.

 When a child is inconvenient or unwanted, I will dispose of him. That is my choice.

When I have a worker who is going through hard times, and not as productive as I wish him to be,  I will fire him. It's just business, and not personal, of course. 

Let us not assume malice each and every time we run away from others. The Magistrate Epictetus is speaking to hardly seems a bad man. He is deeply troubled, in great pain, and he runs away from his pain. We can understand why he does it, but we need not agree with what he does.

Is it natural to run from what is painful? Is that the same thing as doing what is right? Most of us will do what is easy, convenient, or expedient. Is that always the right thing to do?

Consider the relationship of Nature and morality. If these two aren't in harmony, what could we possibly mean by either? The Magistrate means by Nature, of course, what most of us think as convention and custom. That isn't morality.  That is simple utility.

Written in 11/2002

Honorary Stoicism 15

It's a trap!

"Suppose that you hold wealth to be a good; poverty will then distress you, and, which is most pitiable, it will be an imaginary poverty.  For you may be rich, and nevertheless, because your neighbor is richer, you suppose yourself to be poor exactly by the same amount in which you fall short of your neighbor.

"You may deem official position a good; you will be vexed at another's appointment or re-appointment to the consulship; you will be jealous whenever you see a name several times in the state records.  Your ambition will be so frenzied that you will regard yourself last in the race if there is anyone in front of you.

"Or you may rate death as the worst of evils, although there is really no evil therein except that which precedes death's coming fear. You will be frightened out of your wits, not only by real, but by fancied dangers, and will be tossed for ever on the sea of illusion."

--Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 104  (tr Gummere)

 Though the world tempts me to think that happiness or misery come from the things outside of me, Stoicism reminds me that they are only from within me. What is so tragic is that once I make an attempt to conquer the the things of the world, to acquire, control, and possess, I have by my own thinking made myself a slave to those things of the world.

The trap is that fortune dangles bright and shiny objects in front of us, and tempts us to reach out and grab what is enticing. Even if I get hold of a trinket, there is always another, and I soon find myself concerned about the trinkets held by others.

If I seek pleasure, I grow tired of the ones I now have, and crave new ones. If I seek wealth and possessions, I am constantly comparing my wealth with that of others. If I want status and position, I will always be envious of precisely that one title I do not possess. The pull of want will never end, and instead of being the consumer, I myself am consumed.

Just as want of things can enslave me, so too can the fear of things. I just recently came across what Seneca describes, a man who so dreads death and disease that he makes himself miserable trying to find any way to avoid them.

Whether it be desire or aversion, as soon as I define my existence through such passions I have traded Nature for illusion.


 Written on 1/19/2000

Image: Pieter Bruegel, Avarice (1558)

"Isn't it all about ME?"

"The ancients have said that the giants advanced themselves against God, to pull him off of his throne. Let us omit these fables. In very truth you querulous and murmuring men are these giants. For if it be so that God not only tolerates but send all these things, then you who thus strive and struggle, what do you do but, as much as in you lies, take the scepter and sway of government from him?

 "O blind mortality! The sun, the moon, stars, elements, and all creatures else in the world, do willingly obey that supreme law. Only man, the most excellent of all God's works, lifts up his heel, and spurns against his maker. If you hoist your sails to the winds, you must follow where your will is forced, not where your will leads you. And in this great ocean sea of our life will you refuse to follow that breathing spirit which governs the whole world?

"Yet you strive in vain. For if you do not follow freely you shall be drawn after forcibly. We may laugh at him who having tied his boat to a rock, afterwards hauls the rope as though the rock should come to him, when he himself goes nearer to it. But our foolishness is far greater, who being fast bound to the rock of God's eternal providence, by our hailing and pulling would have the it obey us, and not we it.

"Let us forsake this fondness, and if we are wise let us follow that power which from above draws us, and let us think it good reason that man should be pleased with that which pleases God."

--Justus Lipsius, On Constancy 1.14 (tr Stradling)

 The Renaissance Stoic Justus Lipsius isn't pulling any punches here. As uncomfortable as it may make me feel, he is calling me out for my stubborn pride. I can, in almost every case, trace my problems back to the fact that I am insisting that the things rightly outside of my power should be subject to my own will.

I would get angry at my mother when, after one of my usual adolescent rants and raves about the injustices of the world, she would lovingly say, "so it's all about you?" I was angry because I knew she was right. Pride goes before the fall.

I shouldn't have to feel resentful because I am not God. To find joy and appreciation in what I am isn't making anything less of me. It is making something more of me by understanding how I play a part, small but necessary, in the order of all of Nature. By humbling myself I can truly exalt myself.

I have always enjoyed the wonderful imagery of Tolkien's Creation Myth from the Silmarillion. Iluvatar directs the Ainur to assist him in Creation by singing together in a beautiful harmony, each part playing a role in the magnificence of the whole. It is only Melkor in his vanity who seeks to spoil the great theme with his own composition. But it wasn't all about him.

If I am playing in a symphony orchestra, or singing in a choir, I can freely share in the beauty of the music made by all of us together. Or I might try to stubbornly and arrogantly play or sing only my on tune. In the first case, I am joyfully lifted up into the harmony. In the second, my lone voice of dissent will be drowned out by all the rest, and I will feel resentful and miserable.  So it is with Providence.


Written on 11/23/1999

St. John of the Cross

Godzilla, King of Stoics?

"Consequently, I will assert this-- that the wise man is not subject to any injury. It does not matter, therefore, how many darts are hurled against him, since none can pierce him.

"As the hardness of certain stones is impervious to steel, and adamant cannot be cut or hewed or ground, but in turn blunts whatever comes into contact with it; certain substances cannot be consumed by fire, but, though encompassed by flame, retain their hardness and their shape; as certain cliffs, projecting into the deep, break the force of the sea, and, though lashed for countless ages, show no traces of its wrath, just so the spirit of the wise man is impregnable and has gathered such a measure of strength as to be no less safe from injury than those things which I have mentioned.

 " 'What then?' you say; 'will there be no one who will attempt to do the wise man injury?'

"Yes, the attempt will be made, but the injury will not reach him. For the distance which separates him from contact with his inferiors is so great that no baneful force can extend its power all the way to him. Even when the mighty, exalted by authority and powerful in the support of their servitors, strive to injure him, all their assaults on wisdom will fall as short of their mark as do the missiles shot on high by bowstring or catapult, which though they leap beyond our vision, yet curve downwards this side of heaven.

"Tell me, do you suppose that when that stupid king darkened the day with the shower of his darts, any arrow fell upon the sun, or that he was able to reach Neptune when he lowered his chains into the deep? As heavenly things escape the hands of man and divinity suffers no harm from those who demolish temples and melt down images, so every wanton, insolent, or haughty act directed against the wise man is essayed in vain.

" 'But it would be better,' you say, 'if no one cared to do such things?' You are praying for what is a hard matter--that human beings should do no wrong. And that such acts be not done is profitable to those who are prone to do them, not to him who cannot be affected by them even if they are done."

--Seneca the Younger, On Firmness 3.4 (tr Basore)

From a very young age, I have had an undying loves for all things Godzilla. I would sit down every Saturday afternoon at our kitchen table and hope that at least one of the films on "Creature Double Feature" would feature the King of Monsters. My mother remembers me running around the house with joy if my wish came to pass.  I haven't changed much in all the years, and the joy my daughter now takes in the same movies brings a smile to my face.

One of the beloved formulas in most Godzilla films involved that moment when he rises from the waves, and the Japanese Self-Defense Force does its best to stop him. Besides the battle with his monstrous adversary, this was usually my favorite part. It always played out the same way, but it never got boring for me.

Ifukube Akira's timeless score would play as artillery, tanks, missiles, fighter jets, helicopters, naval destroyers, and all kinds of fancy lasers and masers pounded him. At worst, he would seem annoyed, as a horse is by a gadfly. He steps on tanks and grabs planes from the sky as you and I would with an ant or a mosquito.

Godzilla is physically invulnerable to all of man's weapons because he is an unstoppable force, a warning to all who might think that mankind can conquer Nature. It isn't the body of the Stoic, of course, that is invulnerable in this way, but I do think we can certainly say that of his mind.

Seneca wonders in this section whether it is better for the wise man to be able to bear injury with calm and acceptance, or whether the wise man is, in fact, beyond injury? He decides upon the latter, and this usually seemed ridiculous to me. Surely others can do me harm, but it's just a matter or grinning and bearing it? How could I not be harmed at all?

I must distinguish. People will indeed try to hurt me, and their trying or refraining has everything to do with their virtue and vice. How I allow myself to receive the attempted harm is that which is within my power.

I try to think of it this way: the harm, the only true harm, that can be done to me isn't in my possessions, or my reputations, or my body, or my feelings. The true harm rests only in my estimation of it, in my judgment of good and evil, and in what I make of these attempts at my good.  Strike at all that is outside of me, by all means, but since I am a being of reason and will, it is quite literally true that my mind will only suffer what I want it to suffer, only choose to lose what I wish to lose.

I do not think that being a wise man, being a Stoic Godzilla, comes with ease, but with right judgment and good habit leading me correctly, I cannot help but understand that the only thing that hurts my thinking is my own thinking.


Written on 3/3/2009

No place for snobbery.

"All of us, he used to say, are so fashioned by nature that we can live our lives free from error and nobly; not that one can and another cannot, but all. The clearest evidence of this is the fact that lawgivers lay down for all alike what may be done and forbid what may not be done, exempting from punishment no one who disobeys or does wrong, not the young nor the old, not the strong nor the weak, not anyone whomsoever.

"And yet if the whole notion of virtue were something that came to us from without, and we shared no part of it by birth, just as in activities pertaining to the other arts no one who has not learned the art is expected to be free from error, so in like manner in things pertaining to the conduct of life it would not be reasonable to expect anyone to be free from error who had not learned virtue, seeing that virtue is the only thing that saves us from error in daily living."

--Musonius Rufus, Lectures 2 (tr Lutz)

 It is hard to recognize how one's life is defined by division, harder still to overcome it in living, hardest of all to leave behind any resentment.

It has slowly come to me that most everything I have perceived myself as being is formed by the sense that I am or am not a member of some special club. If I am a member, my fellows will slap me on the back while we all snigger at the outsiders. If am not a member, I am met with the cold shoulder and mocked with derision.

This is true in politics, in religion, in race, in profession, in class. I have noticed it most in the snobbery of my vocation. "We are philosophers," they say, "and we know better."  Replace the term as you see fit. Lawyers, doctors, bankers, plumbers. Most of us won't even engage someone we consider to be ignorant and unworthy. We just laugh and walk away.

It is only when I learn that what defines me does not from without, but rather from within, that I can brush off such snobbery. Musonius rightly reminds me that my humanity is not something I acquire, but is rather something innate. I may have to be trained how to be a stock broker, but no schooling or professional promotion will make me more of a person.

I am already made to know what is true and to love what is good, and it is quite reasonable to expect a man to follow virtue and avoid vice by his very nature. Whatever group or clique I belong to will make no difference. The Stoic is always cosmopolitan, never provincial.

There is something beautifully ironic in the fact that Dives thought himself more of a man than Lazarus, simply because he was rich. Yet both were men by their nature, and all the trappings of his position did not change the fact that Dives was subject to the exact same measure of virtue as Lazarus. There is no place for snobbery in the human condition.  All of us are called to the good life, and all of have the gifts of nature necessary to live it. 

Written 10/2/1992

Image: Bonifacio Veronese (1487-1553), Dives and Lazarus.

Elevating the mind.

"Make for yourself a definition or description of the thing which is presented to you, so as to see distinctly what kind of a thing it is in its substance, in its nudity, in its complete entirety, and tell yourself its proper name, and the names of the things of which it has been compounded, and into which it will be resolved.

"For nothing is so productive of elevation of mind as to be able to examine methodically and truly every object which is presented to you in life, and always to look at things so as to see at the same time what kind of universe this is, and what kind of use everything performs in it, and what value everything has with reference to the whole, and what with reference to man, who is a citizen of the highest city, of which all other cities are like families; what each thing is, and of what it is composed, and how long it is the nature of this thing to endure which now makes an impression on me, and what virtue I have need of with respect to it, such as gentleness, manliness, truth, fidelity, simplicity, contentment, and the rest.

"Wherefore, on every occasion a man should say: this comes from God; and this is according to the apportionment and spinning of the thread of destiny, and such-like coincidence and chance; and this is from one of the same stock, and a kinsman and partner, one who knows not however what is according to his nature."

--Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 3 (tr Long)

I find it humbling and helpful to ask myself regularly how fully I am committed to exercising and elevating the mind. A vague promise is easy, of course, but then I can put my seriousness to the test.

How much of my time and effort have I dedicated to my property, my reputation, the pleasures and perfections of my body? In contrast, how much of my time and effort have I dedicated to the clarity of my thinking?

I can easily deceive myself, of course, by claiming that my academic or professional endeavors are improvements of my mind. No, they are dedicated to my worldly gain in glory and profit, not to wisdom and virtue. I quickly understand how much I pursue what is outside of me, and how little I attend to what is within me. It is a call to improvement.

I once knew a fellow who committed almost all of his time to bodybuilding, honing and sculpting each set of muscles in turn with elaborate workouts and a precise nutritional plan.

One day he simply stared at me and said, with serious insight and a touch of horror, "how good a man could I be if I redirected all of this work to my soul?" Wise words.

To exercise and elevate the mind, to build the habit of sound judgment is to seek the true nature of things, to define them and their purpose with distinction and clarity, to understand what they are made of, where they are coming from, and where they are going.

It is further to pursue how all these parts relate to the whole, how I am joined to Nature and to my fellow man, however ignorant he may seem, how all things point toward the guiding principles of Providence, and how I must act for the higher good. It is seeing things not as vague and separated, but as complete and united.

A student, usually quiet and seemingly disinterested, once perked up and described this as "seeing all things reflected in the face of God." Even wiser words.

Written on 4/13/2010

Image: Gustave Doré, The Empyrean (Dante and Beatrice gazing into the Highest Heaven) (1867)

Honorary Stoicism 14

Honorary Stoicism 13

Stoa and Tao

I have encountered a number of variants of this Taoist story, but I believe I first read it in Huston Smith's The World's Religions. It remains welcome to me both as a teaching tool and as an aid for my own personal reflection:


"In the Taoist perspective even good and evil are not head-on
opposites. The West has tended to dichotomize the two, but Taoists
are less categorical. They buttress their reserve with the story of a
farmer whose horse ran away. His neighbor commiserated, only to
be told, 'Who knows what’s good or bad?' It was true, for the next
day the horse returned, bringing with it a drove of wild horses it had
befriended. The neighbor reappeared, this time with congratulations
for the windfall. He received the same response: 'Who knows what is
good or bad?' Again this proved true, for the next day the farmer’s son
tried to mount one of the wild horses and fell, breaking his leg. More
commiserations from the neighbor, which elicited the question: 'Who
knows what is good or bad?' And for a fourth time the farmer’s point
prevailed, for the following day soldiers came by commandeering for
the army, and the son was exempted because of his injury. If this all
sounds very much like Zen, it should; for Buddhism processed through
Taoism became Zen"

 --from Huston Smith, The World's Religions, Chapter 5

I enjoy this on a number of levels.

First because Taoism and Stoicism walk hand in hand here, joined by the recognition that good and evil are not always what we may think they are.

Second, because just as Smith points out that good and evil need not be seen as polar opposites, so too it is a mistake to assume a false dichotomy between the philosophies of the East and the West. For all the different culture and context, wisdom remains wisdom.

Third, because the reader may understand the lesson, but then may still struggle to apply the lesson, showing us all the more how deeply we must dig to get to roots of our happiness or misery.

Almost every time I have discussed this tale with others, they respond by saying that everything ended up good for the farmer and his son. But is that not still being stuck in circumstantial ideas about good and bad? The 'happy ending' is hardly the point I think, and looking at it in that way may even conceal the meaning.  No circumstance is ever entirely good or bad in itself, but depends upon whether our estimation and our action flow with or against Nature.

I have often suggested the following exercise: continue the narrative, and consider how the story could branch out into further instances and views of good and bad. I've heard some creative responses, but I'm often told that the exercise is impossible.

One could continue on and on forever and ever, I've heard it said, and eventually try to gaze at the balance of the whole Universe from this single instance, seeing now that anything and everything shares in good and bad in subtle and often mysterious ways. It can't end in the usual way at all, because the Tao, or Providence, or whatever we wish to name it, isn't simply about throwing everything into neat piles of good and bad fortune. It's about how we choose to work with fortune, of any and every sort.

Exactly.

Written on 5/19/2006

Honorary Stoicism 12

Dealing with doubt.

"Do you comprehend that you are awake?

 " 'I do not,'  the man replies, 'for I do not even comprehend when in my sleep I imagine that I am awake.'

"Does this appearance then not differ from the other?

 " 'Not at all,' he replies.

"Shall I still argue with this man? And what fire or what iron shall I apply to him to make him feel that he is deadened? He does perceive, but he pretends that he does not. He's even worse than a dead man. He does not see the contradiction: he is in a bad condition.

"Another does see it, but he is not moved, and makes no improvement: he is even in a worse condition. His modesty is extirpated, and his sense of shame; and the rational faculty has not been cut off from him, but it is brutalized."

--Epictetus, Discourses 5 (tr Long)

As Socrates taught us, it is right and proper to question and doubt a claim of truth in order to come nearer to certainty. But skepticism becomes a danger when we doubt simply to doubt, and deny the very possibility of knowledge itself. Ancient skepticism, whether Academic or Pyrrhonian, asked us to always defer certainty in judgment, either because there was no real truth, or because it was beyond our ability to apprehend.

Skepticism has found a new home in modernity. How, after all, can we be expected to speak of anything as being necessary or certain? Aren't all perceptions and judgments equally true? "Who's to say?" I can never really know what anything means, consider what is absolute, or discern right from wrong.

Epictetus makes an interesting claim. The extreme skeptic, whether he recognizes it or not, is crippled by doubt not because he cannot see what is apparent, but because he chooses not to. He pretends not to see what is real, or even deliberately looks away when he perceives his error.

This is, indeed, a bad condition, or the state of a brutalized mind. Why would a man put himself in this state?

I should only speak for myself, but I know this all too well from my own flawed thinking. I don't doubt a truth away because I can't really understand it. I doubt a truth away because I don't really want to accept it, or to face my own commitment and responsibility to serve what is right and good. It is, as Epictetus says, shameless.

I need only look outward at the world of things in my experience, or inward to my experience of myself, to apprehend what is real. I need not prove what is self-evident, that all things in Nature share in existence, and that each has its distinct form and identity. To see the real in the apparent may not be easy or immediate, but with the ordered practice of reason the true becomes distinct from the false. Don't assume that simply because something my be difficult, that it is therefore impossible.

But I don't think I've ever run away from the truth because I thought it was too hard to grasp. I've always run away from it because I didn't want to face it, and I make excuses. My denial may be unconscious or conscious, but the error is in the attitude of my own thinking, not in the content of what is thought.

Such destructive skepticism is nothing more than a symptom of my arrogance. It's like a child who cover his ears and yells "I can't hear you!"

Written on 5/1/2002

Image: Arcesilaus and Carneades, early Academic skeptics.

Things which make us neither better nor worse.

"Since it is possible that you may depart from life this very moment, regulate every act and thought accordingly.

"But to go away from among men, if there are gods, is not a thing to be afraid of, for the gods will not involve you in evil; but if indeed they do not exist, or if they have no concern about human affairs, what is it to me to live in a universe devoid of gods or devoid of Providence?

"But in truth they do exist, and they do care for human things, and they have put all the means in man's power to enable him not to fall into real evils.

"And as to the rest, if there was anything evil, they would have provided for this also, that it should be altogether in a man's power not to fall into it.

"Now that which does not make a man worse, how can it make a man's life worse? But neither through ignorance, nor having the knowledge, but not the power to guard against or correct these things, is it possible that the nature of the universe has overlooked them; nor is it possible that it has made so great a mistake, either through want of power or want of skill, that good and evil should happen indiscriminately to the good and the bad.

"But death certainly, and life, honor and dishonor, pain and pleasure, all these things equally happen to good men and bad, being things which make us neither better nor worse. Therefore they are neither good nor evil."

--Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2 (tr Long)

In something of a precursor to Pascal's Wager, Marcus Aurelius tells us that whether the Divine exists or does not exist, whether it cares for us or is indifferent, this should hardly alter our commitment to living rightly.

But if we only choose to see Nature as it is, we will see that there is the Divine, however I may understand it, because all things do indeed submit to order and purpose. Instead of presuming, as many of us do, that our suffering means the gods do not exist or do not care for our welfare, could we not approach this problem differently?

Instead of asking that Nature should conform to me, should I perhaps ask how I can conform to Nature, and how Providence has already provided me with the means for each and every good? Why must I stubbornly insist that what may seem an unjust evil at first is not actually any evil at all?

First, if Providence has made all things for the good, and Providence has made me, so Providence has also given us the power to benefit myself in the face of any obstacle. Nothing in the order of Nature is random or in vain, and nothing is outside the power of Providence.

Second, it is only bad things that harm us, but the things we usually consider bad, like death, pain, or dishonor, are hardly good or bad in themselves. We must all face them, and the only difference is what we choose to make of these conditions.

What we usually consider a sign that Providence doesn't exist, or doesn't care, or is too weak to act, is actually an indication that these things aren't good or bad at all, but simply indifferent. The good or bad comes from how the good or the bad man transforms them, by his judgment and choice, into benefit or harm.

Written on 8/14/2003

Image: Eye of Providence, Aachen Cathedral

Lawrence of Arabia

For the lover of art, picking a favorite piece of music, painting, poem, novel, or film is as difficult as a parent choosing his favorite child.

If asked, however, to name the film that has moved me more deeply than any other, and has influenced me in more ways that I can number, David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962), starring Peter O'Toole, would have to top my list.  Seeing the restored version on the big screen in 1989 changed my life.

T.E. Lawrence was hardly a saint, Stoic or otherwise. He was a man of struggle, of contradictions, of good in bad and of bad in good. His sense of moral duty was often intertwined with delusional vanity. But this is precisely why he inspires me. Few of us will raise a rebellion in the desert and try to make sense of it all; all of us will face our own rebellions and deserts within ourselves and have to make sense of it for ourselves.

The film is also, of course, a blend of fact and fiction, as is most every legend. These three lines from the film, however, stay with me always as models of self-control and dedication to purpose, however impossible the world may tell us they are. The success isn't in the prize that will be later be awarded by fortune. The striving for virtue is itself the prize. It's only a matter of going.

Written on 7/01/2013

Of man and beast.

"It is no common thing to do this only, to fulfill the promise of a man's nature. For what is a man? The answer is: 'A rational and mortal being.' Then, by the rational faculty, from whom are we separated? From wild beasts. And from what others? From sheep and like animals.

"Take care then to do nothing like a wild beast; but if you do, you have lost the character of a man; you have not fulfilled your promise. See that you do nothing like a sheep; but if you do, in this case the man is lost.

"What then do we do as sheep? When we act gluttonously, when we act lewdly, when we act rashly, filthily, inconsiderately, to what have we declined? To sheep. What have we lost? The rational faculty. When we act contentiously and harmfully and passionately, and violently, to what have we declined? To wild beasts.

"Consequently some of us are great wild beasts, and others little beasts, of a bad disposition and small, whence we may say, 'Let me be eaten by a lion.' But in all these ways the promise of a man acting as a man is destroyed."

--Epictetus, Discourses 2.9 (tr Long)

I need simply reflect back upon myself to see what is at the essence of my being; it is in that very act of thinking that I discern myself in relation to Nature. I am indeed also a being of flesh and bone, a being with senses and with feelings, but these are properties I also share with animals, whether they be tame or wild.

I would be amazed at how others confuse their natures with those of animals, but then I catch myself doing just the same. If I define myself by my feelings, by my status, by my possessions, or by my power, I am surrendering my inner power of judgment to the outer conditions of my passions.

If you have hurt my feelings, and I either crawl away to sulk and lick my wounds, or fight to hurt in return, I am acting not as a man, but as an animal.

If I have won some struggle for a piece of territory or a place in the pecking order, and I strut along filled with pride, I am acting not as a man, but as an animal.

If I have acquired for myself the pleasures of the flesh, and I then reach out for even greater pleasures far and wide, leaving one for the next, I am acting not as a man, but as an animal.

If I have affection for another person, but only feel such affection as long as that person is useful to me, I am acting not as a man, but as an animal. 

But am I not a being of passion? Yes, but there is no room for a false dichotomy here. It is not necessary to insist that reason and emotion cannot exist together. I am not only a mind, or only composed of feelings. Both are necessary aspects of my existence, but both only work together rightly when the higher directs and rules over the lower, when that power which can govern itself orders that power which cannot govern itself.

 As Epictetus makes clear, this confusion about our very nature as persons has been with us all along. It isn't just a symptom of modernity or post-modernity. My students will almost invariably first define themselves by their feelings, and begin with the assumption that animals don't have feelings like they do. Only reflection, the use of reason, can help them resolve this confusion.

Written on 6/19/2006

Image: Wenceslas Hollar, (1607-1677), Creation of Man and Beast

 

The original "Stoic Breviary" is now available in print form.

A Stoic breviary: Classical wisdom in daily practice is finally here in print form. These are the original 365 daily passages and reflections that made a real difference for one life.

https://www.amazon.com/Stoic-breviary-Classical-wisdom-practice/dp/1546669086/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494883214&sr=8-1&keywords=stoic+breviary

This version is in a larger format, and is best for ease of reading. A smaller trade paperback version and a Kindle edition should hopefully follow as time permits.

In the meantime, entries on this blog will continue, as long as there are still further workable passages and reflections remaining, gathered together from over the years, and as long as there is still someone around to post them.

Thank you!

To help and to be helped.

"Do not be ashamed to be helped; for it is your business to do your duty, like a soldier in the assault on a town. How then, if being lame, you can't mount up on the battlements alone, but with the help of another, it is possible?"

--Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7 (tr Long)

The Stoic is hardly cold or indifferent. To depend upon our own character for happiness does not exclude others, but rather must include them. Indeed, acting with love and concern for others is a very fulfillment of our nature.

 I have far less problem giving aid to others, however, than I do in accepting it. Perhaps I am too stubborn, maybe I have been burned once too often, but it's something I have had long need to work on.

Written on 2/7/1996

Honorary Stoicism 11

Honorary Stoicism 10

A Stoic Flowchart

I ran across this recently, quite by accident. Not only clever, but actually very helpful when one needs to take a deep breath and tackle the challenges of the day. My thanks to the kind soul who made this.

Written on 1/12/2017

Losses and gains.

"Keep this thought in readiness, when you lose anything external, what you acquire in place of it; and if it be worth more, never say, 'I have had a loss'; neither if you have got a horse in place of an ass, or an ox in place of a sheep, nor a good action in place of a bit of money, nor in place of idle talk such tranquillity as befits a man, nor in place of lewd talk if you have acquired modesty.

"If you remember this, you will always maintain your character such as it ought to be. But if you do not, consider that the times of opportunity are perishing, and that whatever pains you take about yourself, you are going to waste them all and overturn them. And it needs only a few things for the loss and overturning of all, namely a small deviation from reason."

--Epictetus, Discourses 4.3 (tr Long)

I sometimes wonder if one our favorite pastimes is complaining. One can hardly condemn or point fingers here. We are all guilty at various times.We easily become frustrated and resentful when things don't go our way, and so we blame the world. There's a sort of twisted satisfaction in parading our laundry list of everything that is wrong, and how unfairly we have been treated. If we are to take our litany of grievances seriously, it  would seem that the balance of credits and debits is horribly disordered. I have done everything right, but the world has done me wrong.

I have known places of work where the primary topic of conversation is about how everything is unfair. I have taught students who speak of little more than how their day is boring. The solution is neither the complaining, nor complaining about the complaining. The solution lies in rethinking the measure of balance. If something seems unfair, choose to make it fair. If something appears boring, choose to make it interesting. It all rests in my judgment.

G.K. Chesterton once argued that we are quick to speak of what is wrong with the world without having any sense of what is right in the world. The same insight applies here. It is entirely within my power to understand that what seems to me to be negative can rightly be understood to be positive.

I must contrast what I think I have lost with what I have actually gained. If I have been deceived, I can make this an opportunity to be honest. If I am hated, I now have all the more occasion to practice love.  If the world treats me poorly, it has simply provided me with a means to act rightly. An apparent evil can always be met with a good. I have gained far more than I have lost.

I will only think the balance is upset if I give more weight to what happens to me than what I myself do.  In reality, the former can always be transformed by the latter.

Written on 8/12/2001

Image: Weighing of the Heart, from the Hunefer Book of the Dead

Honorary Stoicism 9

Virtue is unconditional.

"Virtue is not changed by the matter with which it deals; if the matter is hard and stubborn, it does not make the virtue worse; if pleasant and joyous, it does not make it better.  Therefore, virtue necessarily remains equal.  For, in each case, what is done is done with equal uprightness, with equal wisdom, and with equal honor.  Hence the states of goodness involved are equal, and it is impossible for a man to transcend these states of goodness by conducting himself better, either the one man in his joy, or the other amid his suffering.  And two goods, neither of which can possibly be better, are equal.  For if things which are extrinsic to virtue can either diminish or increase virtue, then that which is honorable ceases to be the only good."

--Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius 66 (tr Gummere)

The Stoic, unlike the Epicurean, already understands that life is not measured merely by pleasure or pain. Yet he he may still be under the impression that a virtuous life is somehow better when it is accompanied by wealth, pleasure, or success. That's trying to have it both ways. We can't say that the measure of man is the content of his character, and then proceed to qualify this with the condition that he is better and happier when his character is accompanied by external fortune.

A few years back, I started posting very brief Stoic passages on social media among a small group of friends.  It was a great joy to see that others were having similar struggles and similar reflections, and I recognized that I wasn't the only one out there that thought Stoicism was of wonderful assistance in life.

One woman, a former colleague, seemed especially inspired by the passages we were all discussing. Yet one day she finished off a comment with these words: "well, it's a wonderful ideal, isn't it, but I can't ask myself to give up my job or my house or my family for all of this. I need to be happy as well as good, I guess."

I respectfully suggest that this is a misunderstanding of Stoicism. Being happy and good are one and the same, and as soon as I claim, like a follower of Immanuel Kant, that they diverge from one another, I have lost my way. If I present any sort of tension or opposition between happiness and virtue, I will end up trying to serve two masters. As with my friend, because of the pull of things of the world, the measure of of wisdom and virtue will now be conditioned by pleasure.

I choose not see a false dichotomy here. As a being of intellect and will, I am made to know the truth and to love the good. All other aspects of my nature are secondary to this end. The true joy of my life, that which completes my nature, is to live well. It is not a burden at all, but a great privilege, to know that either pleasure or pain, success or failure, wealth or poverty are all equal opportunities for me to act with excellence.

I think of this differently than most. Instead of saying that my life is worth living when things are going well, I can now say that my life is worth living both when things are going well, and also when they are going poorly. That ends up being a much broader view of happiness, and is hardly restrictive. My life can now becomes pleasant because it is good, not good because it is pleasant.

Written on 1/30/20012

Image: Leonardo Da Vinci, Allegory of Pleasure and Pain (c. 1480)

Don't live long, live rightly.

"We rail every day at Fate, saying 'Why has A. been carried off in the very middle of his career?  Why is not B. carried off instead?  Why should he prolong his old age, which is a burden to himself as well as to others?'

"But tell me, pray, do you consider it fairer that you should obey Nature, or that Nature should obey you?  And what difference does it make how soon you depart from a place which you must depart from sooner or later?  We should strive, not to live long, but to live rightly for to achieve long life you have need of Fate only, but for right living you need the soul.

 A life is really long if it is a full life; but fullness is not attained until the soul has rendered to itself its proper Good, that is, until it has assumed control over itself.  What benefit does this older man derive from the eighty years he has spent in idleness?  A person like him has not lived; he has merely tarried awhile in life.  Nor has he died late in life; he has simply been a long time dying.

He has lived eighty years, has he? That depends upon the date from which you reckon his death! Your other friend, however, departed in the bloom of his manhood.  But he had fulfilled all the duties of a good citizen, a good friend, a good son; in no respect had he fallen short.  His age may have been incomplete, but his life was complete.  The other man has lived eighty years, has he? No, he has existed eighty years, unless perchance you mean by 'he has lived' what we mean when we say that a tree 'lives.' "

--Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius 103 (tr Gummere)

When I was young, I was often frustrated by the old saying: "youth is wasted on the young." I didn't resent this because I happened to be young, but because I was fairly certain that it had nothing to do with either being young or old. Life is wasted on fools, whether they be old or young.

We live in conflicting times. On the one hand, we are told to venerate old age, because old age brings with it the benefits of experience and insight. That may be a remnant of a past attitude. Scratch the surface a bit, of course, and you will find a different story. Youth is worshiped like a god. Vitality and good looks are what count. So which is it?

I once knew a fellow who tried to grow a beard at sixteen so he would look older. I later knew a middle-aged woman who put frosty highlights into her hair so she would look younger. Both wanted to be something that they weren't.

I have known many people, both old or young, who were full of ignorance, greed, and the love of petty things. I have known many people, both old or young, who were full of truth, charity, and the love of great things. In my experience, the line is drawn pretty much right down the middle. 

My life is hardly complete when it is measured in years. My life becomes complete when it is measured by my character. Living is not mere existence. Living is doing well.

Written on 5/5/2007

Image: Leonardo Da Vinci, An Old Man and a Youth Facing One Another (c. 1500)

Honorary Stoicism 8

Harper Lee and Stoicism

I have now had the great pleasure and honor of teaching To Kill a Mockingbird, a true great of literature though not without its controversy, to young people for just over fifteen years. The first year my 8th grade class and I read it together, when we had just gotten to the halfway point, I asked them to pick a passage that expressed the moral compass of the story. Almost all the answers were from either of these two passages. I repeated the same assignment just this fall, and those same two passages came up time and time again.

In the first, Atticus is trying to explain to Scout why he will most likely lose the court case, but it is still right to defend Tom Robinson.

In the second, Jem is angry at Mrs. Dubose for all of her insults and abuse, and even angrier when she has left him a gift upon her death. Atticus still defends her.

I hardly know what was going through Harper Lee's mind when she wrote the character of Atticus Finch, but passages such as these seem to be in such perfect harmony with a Stoic world-view. In both cases, a man recognizes the true sources of victory and defeat, not in the ways of the world around him, but within his own character. I felt this when I myself first read the book and saw the film in my early teens, and I feel it still.

Don't let anybody get your goat.
Fight with your head.
Die beholden to nothing and nobody.
Understand what real courage is.

From Chapter 9:
“If you shouldn’t be defendin' him, then why are you doin’ it?”
“For a number of reasons,” said Atticus. “The main one is, if I didn’t I couldn’t hold up my head in town, I couldn’t represent this county in the legislature, I couldn’t even tell you or Jem not to do something again.”
“You mean if you didn’t defend that man, Jem and me wouldn’t have to mind you any more?”
“That’s about right.”
“Why?”
“Because I could never ask you to mind me again. Scout, simply by the nature of the work, every lawyer gets at least one case in his lifetime that affects him personally. This one’s mine, I guess. You might hear some ugly talk about it at school, but do one thing for me if you will: you just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don’t you let ‘em get your goat. Try fighting with your head for a change. . . it’s a good one, even if it does resist learning.”
“Atticus, are we going to win it?”
“No, honey.”
“Then why—”
“Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win,” Atticus said.

From Chapter 11:
Jem’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “Old hell-devil, old hell-devil!” he screamed, flinging it down. “Why can’t she leave me alone?”
In a flash Atticus was up and standing over him. Jem buried his face in Atticus ’s shirt front. “Sh-h,” he said. “I think that was her way of telling you — everything’s all right now, Jem, everything’s all right. You know, she was a great lady.”
“A lady?” Jem raised his head. His face was scarlet. “After all those things she said about you, a lady?”
“She was. She had her own views about things, a lot different from mine, maybe. . . son, I told you that if you hadn’t lost your head I’d have made you go read to her. I wanted you to see something about her — I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. Mrs. Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her. According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew.”

Written on 12/16/2010