"The second characteristic is that, when the soul is disciplined in the way above mentioned, one should do deeds not only great and in the highest degree useful, but extremely arduous and laborious and fraught with danger both to life and to many things that make life worth living.
"All the glory and greatness and, I may add, all the usefulness of these two characteristics of courage are centered in the latter; the rational cause that makes men great, in the former. For it is the former that contains the element that makes souls preeminent and indifferent to worldly fortune. And this quality is distinguished by two criteria: (1) if one account moral rectitude as the only good; and (2) if one be free from all passion.
"For we must agree that it takes a brave and heroic soul to hold as slight what most people think grand and glorious, and to disregard it from fixed and settled principles. And it requires strength of character and great singleness of purpose to bear what seems painful, as it comes to pass in many and various forms in human life, and to bear it so unflinchingly as not to be shaken in the least from one's natural state of the dignity of a philosopher.
"Moreover, it would be inconsistent for the man who is not overcome by fear to be overcome by desire, or for the man who has shown himself invincible to toil to be conquered by pleasure. We must, therefore, not only avoid the latter, but also beware of ambition for wealth; for there is nothing so characteristic of narrowness and littleness of soul as the love of riches; and there is nothing more honorable and noble than to be indifferent to money, if one does not possess it, and to devote it to beneficence and liberality, if one does possess it. As I said before, we must also beware of ambition for glory; for it robs us of liberty and in defense of liberty a high-souled man should stake everything. And one ought not to seek military authority; nay, rather it ought sometimes to be declined, sometimes to be resigned."
--Cicero, On Duties 1.20 (tr Miller)
When trouble or hardship came my way, my father would regularly offer a single word: "courage". This would often frustrate me, because I did not think I could be brave. I understood courage to be a virtue for those who were strong in body and in will, and I felt weak in both. The brave were those who succeeded, and I was rarely successful.
The problem was that I misunderstood what my father meant, and I did not grasp the true nature of courage. I measured it by the things outside of me, not by the character within me. I assumed that being brave meant being a "winner" who received worldly rewards. I didn't understand that courage was about my attitude, not about my circumstances.
Fortitude isn't a some magical formula, some gift of strength given to some and withheld from others. Fortitude is rooted simply in my willingness to be indifferent to what happens to me, and caring first and foremost about the excellence of my own thoughts, choices, and actions. As soon as I can embrace that most basic value of Stoicism, then I can be brave. This is precisely because I will no longer fear losing the sorts of external things that are no longer important to me. Once again, change the thinking, and you change the doing.
If I am indifferent to wealth or poverty, pleasure or pain, honor or dishonor, a long or a short life, caring only for knowing the truth and loving the good, then I can be a man of courage. And no circumstance or consequence will take that from me.
Written on 7/24/2014
No comments:
Post a Comment