Seneca on Liberal Arts Education 8

. . . " 'What then,' you say, 'do the liberal studies contribute nothing to our welfare?'

"Very much in other respects, but nothing at all as regards virtue. For even these arts of which I have spoken, though admittedly of a low grade – depending as they do upon handiwork – contribute greatly toward the equipment of life, but nevertheless have nothing to do with virtue.

"And if you inquire, 'Why, then, do we educate our children in the liberal studies?,^' it is not because they can bestow virtue, but because they prepare the soul for the reception of virtue.

"Just as that 'primary course',^' as the ancients called it, in grammar, which gave boys their elementary training, does not teach them the liberal arts, but prepares the ground for their early acquisition of these arts, so the liberal arts do not conduct the soul all the way to virtue, but merely set it going in that direction.". . .

--Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to  Lucilius, 88 (tr Gummere)

Seneca has already explained that he does not consider any education ordered toward worldly profit and efficiency to be a truly human education. We then become nothing more, in the words of the great George Carlin, than "obedient workers". Man does not live on bread alone, and he is certainly not defined by his position and status.

None of this negates the value of trade, or of bread, but rather simply puts trade and bread in their proper context. Being rich or well-liked, a supposedly respected and responsible citizen, will only be as good for us as the sense of moral character that drives all of our actions.

And now Seneca throws us for a loop. Liberal education has been, and still is, horribly misunderstood. It was never about creating important and successful people. Surely it was about making us wise and virtuous?

No. It won't even do that. Nothing will make us virtuous but our own choices and actions. An education might assist us in doing so, but it will not 'make' us anything at all. Only we make something of ourselves.

Just as a training in a trade may give us an opportunity to practice that trade, so an education that asks us to think for ourselves, and to rule ourselves, will only be as successful as we are willing to make it. A liberal education is only a material cause, never an efficient cause.

Remember that if you don't know who you are, or why you are here, or what you have to live for, nothing else you do will make any difference whatsoever. But no amount of Liberal education will make you that person. You will have to decide to make yourself that person.

I knew a fellow in graduate school who thought very highly of his place in the order of things. He was convinced that what he did, a teacher in the 'old school' model of the Liberal Arts, made him a hero and a saint. I was never able to be so confident in myself. One day, at a fancy dinner for our Department, a powerful and influential University donor asked him what he did.

His answer was exactly what I expected. "I teach your children the difference between right and wrong."

The donor didn't bat an eyelash. "Well then, you're not doing a very good job, are you?"

And that donor was completely right.  Decent people aren't made by others. They make themselves, even as much as others may help them to do so.

In all my years of teaching, and through all the treatises, novels, plays, or poems I have taught about, I think no text has been as fulfilling as Plato's Meno.

A smug, entitled, and supposedly well-educated young man asks Socrates whether virtue can be taught. The Master suspects that the young man should already know the answer, but throws the question right back. What is virtue? And what does it mean to teach, and what does it mean to learn?

We would all like to think that we are at least trying to be good people. The claim is pointless if I can't even explain what is truly means to be good. Platitudes and shallow posturing won't cut it.

Now ask the second, and equally important, question. What does it actually mean to teach?

Socrates argues that if virtue is a good, and all that is good will benefit us, the only thing that always benefits us is wisdom. Virtue is, therefore, in whole or in part, wisdom put into action.

Now can anyone 'teach 'virtue? They may model and exemplify it, explain or promote it, but in the end, none of us will be wise or virtuous unless we choose to embrace such values. The teacher only offers the opportunity. The student must decide to take it, and to make something of it.

This helps us to understand what Seneca means. The study of the Servile Arts, the trades engaged in money-making and playing the worldly game, won't make us happy. They are, after all, nothing but tools. But even the study of the Liberal Arts, concerned with understanding and freedom, won't make us happy, either.

I am not a piece on a chessboard, and I am not moved by other hands. I move myself. That is Stoicism, that is true philosophy, that is true liberal learning.

Written 1/2010

Seneca on Liberal Arts Education 7

. . . "In this discussion you must bear with me if I do not follow the regular course. For I do not consent to admit painting into the list of liberal arts, any more than sculpture, marble-working, and other helps toward luxury.

"I also debar from the liberal studies wrestling and all knowledge that is compounded of oil and mud; otherwise, I should be compelled to admit perfumers also, and cooks, and all others who lend their wits to the service of our pleasures. 

"For what 'liberal' element is there in these ravenous takers of emetics, whose bodies are fed to fatness while their minds are thin and dull?  Or do we really believe that the training which they give is 'liberal' for the young men of Rome, who used to be taught by our ancestors to stand straight and hurl a spear, to wield a pike, to guide a horse, and to handle weapons?

"Our ancestors used to teach their children nothing that could be learned while lying down. But neither the new system nor the old teaches or nourishes virtue.

"For what good does it do us to guide a horse and control his speed with the curb, and then find that our own passions, utterly uncurbed, bolt with us? Or to beat many opponents in wrestling or boxing, and then to find that we ourselves are beaten by anger?". . .

--Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to  Lucilius, 88 (tr Gummere)

When I am consumed by lofty ideology and a nostalgia for the good old times, I have this delusional sense that people were better and wiser in the past. The noble Greeks and Romans had it right, and everyone held hands in their pursuit of reason and excellence.

If you want your religion, look to the grandeur of the Middle Ages, when true faith ruled all hearts. They were all on fire with the Lord.

And those Victorians were all, obviously, the perfect gentlemen, who always acted with honor and propriety, and treated every woman with the utmost respect.

I think that the true Stoic, and the true Philosopher, understand that, through all the thick and thin, human nature remains the same. There will always be true greatness, and there will always be despicable baseness. The trappings change, but nature is always what it is.

There is a perfectly good, and right, reason for this. A creature gifted with an intellect is also a creature gifted with free will. It is our choices that will define us. Sometimes we sing with the gods, and at other times we grovel with demons. It really can't be any other way.

Seneca saw how the noble pursuit of the liberal arts was sullied in his own time, just as it is in ours. It's one thing to mouth the words, and quite another to commit to the task.

By all means, learn to be a warrior, to be physically tough, and to be skilled in those trades that can make you rich, entitled and live in luxury. How much effort, in contrast, have we spent on improving our souls?

The concept of the 'Liberal Arts' was gradually formed by the Ancients, but Seneca reminds us that the very people who praised them rarely practiced them. Little has changed now.

By the time I was in college, 'Liberal Arts' meant nothing more than a broad education, shallowly covering a variety of disciplines, intended to make the student successful in a trade or in a career.

I once experienced the horror of working with a Dean of Nursing who asked me, quite sincerely, how much philosophy, theology, history or literature her students really needed to get good jobs. She was entirely missing the point.

By all means, be a nurse. Be an accountant, an engineer, a soldier, a software designer, or even, if you must, a lawyer or a politician. But remember that this will never be who you are. Your humanity defines you, and your humanity is only measured by the content of your character.

A liberal education isn't about making you rich in physical strength, money, or status. It's about encouraging you to be you rich in virtue.

And please, let's not just pay lip service. In our hearts, we know what we truly mean. When I was a Teaching Fellow in my PhD years, I was actually honored that my name was on the 'blacklist.' The Division 1 coaches all told their jocks, their mouth-breathers, not to take my classes. I demanded rigor of thought, and I was told that this hardly fit with the life of a college athlete.

Can I write a brilliant research paper, produce a convincing legal brief, or offer a profitable business plan? There is no shame at all in being a genius in one's trade.

But have I been kind, just and loving in my actions? Have I acted to fulfill my true nature, to act with true conviction, to love my neigbor as myself? A true 'Liberal' education won't make you a good man, but it will prepare you for that very opportunity.

Written 1/2010

Seneca on Liberal Arts Education 6

 . . . "I come next to the person who boasts his knowledge of the heavenly bodies, who knows:

Whither the chilling star of Saturn hides,
And through what orbit Mercury doth stray.

"Of what benefit will it be to know this? That I shall be disturbed because Saturn and Mars are in opposition, or when Mercury sets at eventide in plain view of Saturn, rather than learn that those stars, wherever they are, are propitious, and that they are not subject to change?

"They are driven along by an unending round of destiny, on a course from which they cannot swerve. They return at stated seasons; they either set in motion, or mark the intervals of the whole world's work.

"But if they are responsible for whatever happens, how will it help you to know the secrets of the immutable? Or if they merely give indications, what good is there in foreseeing what you cannot escape? Whether you know these things or not, they will take place.

Behold the fleeting sun,
The stars that follow in his train, and thou
Shalt never find the morrow play thee false,
Or be misled by nights without a cloud.

"It has, however, been sufficiently and fully ordained that I shall be safe from anything that may mislead me. 'What,' you say, 'does the 'morrow never play me false? Whatever happens without my knowledge plays me false.'

"I, for my part, do not know what is to be, but I do know what may come to be. I shall have no misgivings in this matter; I await the future in its entirety; and if there is any abatement in its severity, I make the most of it. If the morrow treats me kindly, it is a sort of deception; but it does not deceive me even at that. For just as I know that all things can happen, so I know, too, that they will not happen in every case. I am ready for favorable events in every case, but I am prepared for evil." . . .

--Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to  Lucilius, 88 (tr Gummere)

It may seem easy for us to mock astrology, especially if we think of ourselves as intelligent, educated, and modern in our sensibilities.  It is, after all, comforting to think we, in our progressive and scientific age, are more enlightened than our barbarian ancestors.

Let us not be too hasty. Whatever the time or the place, we are all subject to false imaginings and invented causes. I am still somewhat surprised by the number of people I know who take astrology quite seriously. I should not be surprised, however, because there are many other ways in which we replace reason with fantasy.

Seneca is asking us what comfort we might be getting from attributing the aspects of our lives to the motions of the heavens. We look for easy answers to real questions, and we feel so much more secure if we think we can understand and predict our circumstances, to know what will happen and what will become of us.

Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that the stars determine or predict my fate. If it is going to happen, if it must happen of necessity, would it make any difference if I knew?

I have beaten myself over the head, time an time again. If I had only known what was going to happen, I would have made a different choice. Notice how ridiculous this statement is. Either I am destroying the very possibility of freedom by embracing the necessity of fate, in which case there never would have been a choice to begin with, or I am basing my choice upon something that follows from it, having the effect precede the cause.

One of the annoying quirks of my own admittedly befuddled mind is that I seem to always retain the most vivid memories of the events I would most like to forget.  I once decided I was going to propose marriage to a woman I was hopelessly in love with. I still recall every precise detail of that day, the smell of the breeze, the fact that I cut my left cheek shaving, what I ate for breakfast, exactly what I was wearing. I still miss that shirt.

It later seemed to be a deeply foolish decision, one that has never left me. There are times when I have imagined that if only I had the gift of an equally vivid images of what was to come, of the future my poor choice would produce, I would have chosen very differently.

There are at least three ways this is, as they say, all kinds of wrong.

First, such a concept is impossible to begin with. As much as I love time travel shows, like Doctor Who, I must begrudgingly accept the paradox of settling a consequence prior to the decision that brought it about.

Second, even if I were to assume the inevitability of my pain and loss, and I had chosen differently on that day, the same results would still likely have come forth, in however different a manner. I was foolishly committed to someone who was not committed to me. It would have ended much the same, a month, a year, or a decade later. I need to count my blessings on the decade part.

Third, and most importantly, all these imaginings and speculations entirely miss the point of the nature of life, and here is where Seneca's Stoic attitude kicks in. All this time, with all these musings, I have been measuring myself by my circumstances. Could I not make the Stoic Turn, and measure myself by what is truly within my power?

Whether I can or cannot know the future, the things that will happen, the only thing that really matters as a measure if my life is what I choose to do in the face of what has happened, is happening, or will happen.  That is within my power, and the source of my happiness.

In hindsight, despite all the pain, I still think I made the right choice. I loved her, and I wanted to dedicate my life to her. Whether she felt that way or not wasn't up to me, but following my own conscience was up to me.  I learned long ago that there should be no blame of others, only accountability for oneself.

There are indeed times when we see that an effect will be inevitable, or nearly so. I was once thrown into the air after being hit by a truck, and as time seemed to slow down, I knew I was going to hit the approaching pavement. It was going to happen, and it did. Now all I could do was decide what I was going to do with that condition. I braced myself, and expected the pain, but I also prepared myself, and asked myself what I would do with this. That was the only question that mattered.

Seneca is reminding us that liberal education has no room for astrology, or any of the others pseudo-sciences we may still embrace. Genuine education and formation will strengthen the soul, and will give us the freedom, as he says, to 'make the most of it'. The only learning that will ever matter one bit is one that makes me my own master.

Written 1/2010

Seneca on Liberal Arts Education 5

"Now I will transfer my attention to the musician. You, sir, are teaching me how the treble and the bass are in accord with one another, and how, though the strings produce different notes, the result is a harmony; rather bring my soul into harmony with itself, and let not my purposes be out of tune.

"You are showing me what the doleful keys are; show me rather how, in the midst of adversity, I may keep from uttering a doleful note. 

"The mathematician teaches me how to lay out the dimensions of my estates; but I should rather be taught how to lay out what is enough for a man to own.

"He teaches me to count, and adapts my fingers to avarice; but I should prefer him to teach me that there is no point in such calculations, and that one is none the happier for tiring out the book-keepers with his possessions – or rather, how useless property is to any man who would find it the greatest misfortune if he should be required to reckon out, by his own wits, the amount of his holdings.

"What good is there for me in knowing how to parcel out a piece of land, if I know not how to share it with my brother? What good is there in working out to a nicety the dimensions of an acre, and in detecting the error if a piece has so much as escaped my measuring-rod, if I am embittered when an ill-tempered neighbor merely scrapes off a bit of my land? The mathematician teaches me how I may lose none of my boundaries; I, however, seek to learn how to lose them all with a light heart.

" 'But,' comes the reply, 'I am being driven from the farm which my father and grandfather owned!' Well? Who owned the land before your grandfather? Can you explain what people (I will not say what person) held it originally? You did not enter upon it as a master, but merely as a tenant. And whose tenant are you? If your claim is successful, you are tenant of the heir.

"The lawyers say that public property cannot be acquired privately by possession; what you hold and call your own is public property – indeed, it belongs to mankind at large. O what marvelous skill! You know how to measure the circle; you find the square of any shape which is set before you; you compute the distances between the stars; there is nothing which does not come within the scope of your calculations.

"But if you are a real master of your profession, measure me the mind of man! Tell me how great it is, or how puny! You know what a straight line is; but how does it benefit you if you do not know what is straight in this life of ours?"

--Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to  Lucilius, 88 (tr Gummere)

It has taken me many years to become slightly less of a sloppy reader, and therefore slightly less of a sloppy thinker.  I have long had the weakness of assuming false dichotomies, of perceiving a conflict between things where one did not actually exist. In my own case, the problem of seeing imaginary dilemmas is as much emotional as it is intellectual.

If you told me that man was a rational animal, I would conclude that you meant that man was not emotional. If you told me that the heart has its reasons which reason knows not, I would insist that you were taking reason out of the picture entirely.

A few years back, a student and I read this very passage from Seneca together. She became very angry. "Well, that Seneca has just decided that music and mathematics don't matter! He thinks that only ethics matters, and all the other knowledge should just be discarded!"

I was, for once, able to smile patiently, take a deep breath, and carefully work through the text with her. Here was a false dichotomy.

Especially within the whole context of Letter 88, that isn't what Seneca is claiming.  He isn't telling us that a knowledge of music or mathematics is useless. He's only telling us that all of those things are only really useful when we use them to live well.

I suspect I could have been a decent musician, but I never made the necessary connection. I never really understood that playing all those scales, over and over again, would help me in expressing beauty.

I also suspect I could have been a decent student of mathematics, but I never made the necessary connection. I never really understood that learning all of those theorems, over and over again, would help me in expressing truth.

Music should never be about technical skill for its own sake. I recall seeing Berklee students at my favorite music store, Daddy's Junky Music, ripping away on electric guitars. I was always impressed by the skill, and I was always disappointed when I asked them what it meant.

Mathematics should never be about crunching numbers for its own sake. I recall observing students at a local math club, posturing with their ability to solve complex equations. I was always impressed by the skill, and I was always disappointed when I asked them what it meant.

Music and Mathematics are hardly the problem. Using our gifts and and abilities rightly is the problem.

Will you use your knowledge of musical harmonies to inform others in beauty, or will you use them to impress yourself?

Will you use the measures and standards of mathematics to teach truth, or will you use them to impress yourself?

I ask myself, each and every day, how whatever I am doing is helping me to live with greater dignity, and how I might be helping others live with greater dignity.

Have I learned to play "Stairway to Heaven" on the guitar? Excellent. Now how has has that made life better?

Have I learned how to prove the Pythagorean Theorem? Excellent. Now how has that made life better?

How will music help us to be happy? How will mathematics help us to be just? Let us put all things in the right perspective.

Written 1/2010

Seneca on Liberal Arts Education 4

"It is no more to the point, of course, for me to investigate whether Homer or Hesiod was the older poet, than to know why Hecuba, although younger than Helen, showed her years so lamentably.

"What, in your opinion, I say, would be the point in trying to determine the respective ages of Achilles and Patroclus? Do you raise the question, 'Through what regions did Ulysses stray?', instead of trying to prevent ourselves from going astray at all times?

"We have no leisure to hear lectures on the question whether he was sea-tossed between Italy and Sicily, or outside our known world (indeed, so long a wandering could not possibly have taken place within its narrow bounds); we ourselves encounter storms of the spirit, which toss us daily, and our depravity drives us into all the ills which troubled Ulysses.

"For us there is never lacking the beauty to tempt our eyes, or the enemy to assail us; on this side are savage monsters that delight in human blood, on that side the treacherous allurements of the ear, and yonder is shipwreck and all the varied category of misfortunes. Show me rather, by the example of Ulysses, how I am to love my country, my wife, my father, and how, even after suffering shipwreck, I am to sail toward these ends, honorable as they are.

"Why try to discover whether Penelope was a pattern of purity, or whether she had the laugh on her contemporaries? Or whether she suspected that the man in her presence was Ulysses, before she knew it was he? Teach me rather what purity is, and how great a good we have in it, and whether it is situated in the body or in the soul."

--Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to  Lucilius, 88 (tr Gummere)

Let us certainly discuss who Homer was, or whether he even existed. Let us debate the textual specifics or the historicity of his narrative. An ancient scholar may have wondered how old the characters were, or what we might be able to learn about their appearance and behavior. A modern scholar may speculate whether the relationship of Achilles and Patroclus was platonic or romantic. We see what we wish to see, because we often already have a conclusion in mind.

I was always fascinated by the work of Schliemann that seemed to confirm that the Trojan War was based on some sort of real historical events. But I still always felt the odd one out, because I never thought it really mattered to the story.

Was there a real Achilles? Where did Odysseus really travel? What was really going on in Penelope's mind? All that would be nice to know, but it misses the mark.

What can the wrath of Achilles teach us about being just? Wherever Odysseus traveled for a decade, what can that tell us about the nature of the journey of life? Whether Penelope knew or did not know, how can her actions inform us about love and loyalty?

Always the eccentric, it was Hector and Andromache that were at the center of my attention. And always at the center of that attention was a question of virtue. How could this man consider it good to defend a wrong wrapped in a right? Why did this man walk away from his wife and son to die with supposed honor? Those are the questions that are truly 'liberal', truly concerned with living freely and living well.

Plato wrote about the lost continent of Atlantis in his dialogues. I have absolutely no idea whether there ever was such a land, where it was, or how large it might have been. I have always taken it, whether as an allegory or as a fact, as a moral lesson about human pride.

But how many books and articles, how many television shows and films have been made, concerned all about these supposed facts? I find the backlash equally amusing. If Atlantis never really existed, we are told, then the story is totally useless and without meaning.

I imagine Plato either laughing or rolling in his grave. 

I am especially amused when the question strays from human choices and actions to the intervention of aliens. It must be aliens.  This is the modern equivalent of sloppy narrative, the 'deus ex machina.'

Plato wove all sorts of tales, 'noble myths', but I have never considered him a liar. It was no different when I told my children about Santa Claus, or fought dragons outside their bedroom windows to help them sleep, or read them fairy tales to lift their hearts and minds.

Edmund Husserl once said that "merely fact-minded sciences make merely fact-minded people." Of course the facts matter, but their meaning, how we understand them and employ them in search of purpose, is what will make all the difference.

I once knew a lawyer who had made quite a pretty penny on malpractice cases. "Hey," he said, "the government makes the laws, the cops enforce them, the judges interpret them, but I just argue the cases. It isn't my problem what the laws mean or if they're right."

Yes, sir, it is your problem. It is a problem for all of us, big or small, rich or poor. It is the only problem that defines our shared humanity, and the only question that makes any form of education worthwhile.

Written 1/2010

Honorary Stoicism 20

Seneca on Liberal Arts Education 3

"It may be, perhaps, that they make you believe that Homer was a philosopher, although they disprove this by the very arguments through which they seek to prove it. For sometimes they make of him a Stoic, who approves nothing but virtue, avoids pleasures, and refuses to relinquish honor even at the price of immortality; sometimes they make him an Epicurean, praising the condition of a state in repose, which passes its days in feasting and song; sometimes a Peripatetic, classifying goodness in three ways; sometimes an Academic, holding that all things are uncertain.

"It is clear, however, that no one of these doctrines is to be fathered upon Homer, just because they are all there; for they are irreconcilable with one another. We may admit to these men, indeed, that Homer was a philosopher; yet surely he became a wise man before he had any knowledge of poetry. So let us learn the particular things that made Homer wise."

--Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to  Lucilius, 88 (tr Gummere)

We must be careful, I think, not to assume any sort of anti-intellectualism on Seneca's part. The problem with the the pull of scholarship is hardly studying the patterns of poetry, the nuances of history, or the many different schools of philosophy. The problem is when we treat these exercises as ends in themselves, and forget to order their study toward living well.

Homer was a master of language, a weaver of gripping narrative, and he possessed a keen insight into the full range of human thoughts, motives, and actions. To understand this is indeed a great and noble thing. But what is far greater, and without which a knowledge of Homer's poetry will be of little use to us, is how his art can help us to improve our character.

I have sometimes walked away from a book a smarter man, but I know I have used it well if in some way it has encouraged me in virtue, in choosing to dedicate myself to excellence of thought and action.

I had always been raised with a reverence for the 'Great Books', the canon of authors and texts that have defined human civilization. By my early college years, I was so inspired by this model that I would often use my spare time to build my own master list, the works of art, literature, philosophy, history, and science that could help me to become truly educated. I would one day, perhaps, finish reading all the texts on that list, and somehow the scales would be lifted from my eyes.

I did much the same thing with music during those same years. If only I made myself familiar with the great composers, artists, and works of classical, jazz, folk, and rock music, then I'd be on my way. I would often sit with friends until late in the night debating if Handel was superior to Haydn, which period of Miles Davis was the most inspiring, if the Bothy Band were actually real Irish traditional musicians, or whether Frank Zappa was a genius or a madman.

I began to see the cracks in my approach. This happened gradually, but it did happen inevitably. I was in love with all the books, with all the ideas, and with all the sweeping insights and the clever observations I could make about them, those that would have other people nodding their heads in profound agreement, or shaking their fists in anger.

None of the ideas, none of the '-isms', none of the intellectual shapes and patterns were going to be of any use to me, or to anyone else, until they changed how I lived. Was I going to become a man whose words and actions were charged with integrity, justice, and charity? If not, all the books and music were just props, and self-serving props at that.

We hadn't quite worked out the contemporary use of the term 'hipster' back when I was in college, but that is exactly what I was in danger of becoming, a person concerned first and foremost with a clever intellectual image. If only I smoked unfiltered French cigarettes (Gitanes and Gauloises were acceptable, but Celtique were best if you could find them), wore yellow laces in my Dr. Martens, and had an artificially weathered copy of a novel by Dostoevsky sitting nonchalantly on the coffee house table, then I was surely doing well.

If someone said something even remotely useful or inspiring, I would feel tempted to make even the slightest criticism, perhaps about how a word was pronounced, or perhaps about some obscure literary reference, just to seem clever. It falsely seemed that it was better to dwell on a difference of detail than to humbly embrace a unity of understanding.

I even went through a more reactionary, religious stage like this at one point, when I was sure that reading the right pious books and magazines, attending the best churches, rubbing shoulders with the most profound tweed-wearing professors, and criticizing all those heretics would make it all worthwhile.

I should not have been surprised when I still felt lost and empty, and that I was a worse person than when I started, even as such stages may be part of growth for a lover of learning.  I remember when I started working a reception desk at an inner city social services agency, and I was feeling sorry for myself. I was bemoaning the fact that I had spent years upon years dedicated to higher learning, and here I was, cleaning vomit from the front steps.

It was finally coming together by that point. Here I was, doing a small part in making people's lives better, and in only a few months I had probably been of more use than I had been during the rest of my life. I needed to care less for the appearance, and more for the content, and take all that 'book learning', as one of our clients called it, and turn it into 'life learning'.

I eventually came to a certain insight, one that should have been obvious to me from the beginning. It was all good and well to be able to list and define the virtues, in ten different ways and in five different languages, and with all the right footnotes, but none of that made any difference if I wasn't living them, and helping others to live them.

I was beginning to grasp what Marcus Aurelius had meant in Book 10 of the Meditations:

"No longer talk at all about the kind of man that a good man ought to be, but be one."

Or what Thomas a Kempis had meant in Book 1, Chapter 3 of the Imitation of Christ:

"A humble knowledge of oneself is a surer road to God than a deep searching of the sciences.

"Yet learning itself is not to be blamed, or is the simple knowledge of anything whatsoever to be despised, for true learning is good in itself and ordained by God; but a good conscience and a holy life are always to be preferred.

"But because many are more eager to acquire much learning than to live well, they often go astray, and bear little or no fruit. If only such people were as diligent in the uprooting of vices and the seeking of virtues as they are in the debating of problems, there would not be so many evils and scandals among the people, nor such weakness in communities.

"At the Day of Judgement, we shall not be asked what we have read, but what we have done; not how eloquently we have spoken, but how well we have lived.

"Tell me, where are now all those Masters and Doctors whom you knew so well in their lifetime in the full flower of their learning? Other men now sit in their seats, and they are hardly ever called to mind. In their lifetime they seemed of great account, but now no one speaks of them."

Written 1/2010

Babylon 5

Babylon 5 was a show that helped me through the 'Wilderness Years', and it helped me to recognize what it meant to be truly human. There are so many moments, so many scenes, that touched my soul to the core. But the Stoic in me chooses this one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77Ja_cK7P3c

Written on 2/14/2001

Michael Leunig 7

Seneca on Liberal Arts Education 2

"Certain persons have made up their minds that the point at issue with regard to the liberal studies is whether they make men good; but they do not even profess or aim at a knowledge of this particular subject.

"The scholar busies himself with investigations into language, and if it be his desire to go farther afield, he works on history, or, if he would extend his range to the farthest limits, on poetry.

"But which of these paves the way to virtue? Pronouncing syllables, investigating words, memorizing plays, or making rules for the scansion of poetry, what is there in all this that rids one of fear, roots out desire, or bridles the passions?

"The question is: do such men teach virtue, or not? If they do not teach it, then neither do they transmit it. If they do teach it, they are philosophers. Would you like to know how it happens that they have not taken the chair for the purpose of teaching virtue? See how unlike their subjects are; and yet their subjects would resemble each other if they taught the same thing."

--Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to  Lucilius, 88 (tr Gummere)

I have long distinguished between the philosopher, the lover of wisdom, and the scholar, the lover of research, and I'm not sure if I'm relieved or frustrated that the confusion between the two existed as much in Seneca's time as it does today.

 When I was in college, most had the assumption that learning existed as a means to getting a professional job. Some seemed to pursue academics for its own sake, but that too was simply another form of a career, jumping on the 'publish or perish' bandwagon of attending conferences and getting tenure.

A few, however, those who were usually overlooked, loved truth for its own sake, regardless of whether it gave them a career or not, because they understood that the only proper end of study was the improvement of the soul. These were always the folks who were kindred spirits to me.  One of my few friends in graduate school was an electrician who simply took philosophy classes on his own dime because he loved philosophy. He had nothing to prove, and no one to impress. I learned more from him over a pint of Guinness at the local pub than I did in any class. 

I had a professor during my undergraduate years who was shunned by his colleagues because he wrote books for popular consumption, and did not publish serious scholarship. Yet those books have changed countless lives, and played a part in helping many people to become better. That is philosophy, even if it isn't necessarily scholarship. While the former serves others, the latter, on its own, serves only the self.

The depths and technicalities of study are indeed important, but only as a means to character, and never as an end in themselves. I didn't learn to read Latin so I could do better in Law School, or even to analyze the poetry of Virgil or Ovid. I learned Latin so I could read great texts that would in turn bring me closer to knowing myself, my world, and my Creator. I can hardly claim that it did the trick, but that was always the sincere intent.

 The ever increasing fracturing of academic disciplines is, I think, a symptom of the love of scholarship at the expense of genuine learning. The fault was entirely my own, but over the years I painted myself into an academic corner. I was no longer qualified to simply be a historian of philosophy, but of Medieval philosophy. It then became not merely Medieval philosophy, but the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, and then of the epistemology of Aquinas. It ended up that I was an 'expert' on only a few lines of text about the status of ideas in the Summa.

I had to struggle to convince my Doctoral Board that I could write a a dissertation comparing Thomas Aquinas and the Enlightenment philosopher Thomas Reid, and what I think troubled most of them was my suggestion that two very different thinkers were considering exactly the same truths. I can hardly cast blame or hold a grudge, because, again, the mistake was mine. I was simply thinking differently than they were about the nature of philosophy.

I have never been a good scholar, because, quite honestly, my heart has never been in it. I have never had the knack, for good or for ill, for making myself look worthwhile. It remains my hope that some day, perhaps a person or two will say that I struggled to be a good philosopher, because in my teaching, whether formal or informal, among my students or among my friends, I tried to help someone become better. That's the dream, at least. . .

I have learned to distinguish the philosopher from the scholar, simply by the relationship of words and actions. The scholar may indeed speak noble truths. The philosopher will put his money where his mouth is, and commit noble deeds, regardless of the consequences to his career or his status. This is why all philosophers, whatever their schooling, training, or point of view, will always remain true friends. They will love exactly the same things, their fellow men, united by the love of a shared truth.

Neither wisdom, nor my neighbor, are ever disposable.

Written 1/2010

Seneca on Liberal Arts Education 1

"You have been wishing to know my views with regard to liberal studies. My answer is this: I respect no study, and deem no study good, which results in money-making. Such studies are profit-bringing occupations, useful only in so far as they give the mind a preparation and do not engage it permanently.

"One should linger upon them only so long as the mind can occupy itself with nothing greater; they are our apprenticeship, not our real work. Hence you see why 'liberal studies' are so called; it is because they are studies worthy of a free-born gentleman.

"But there is only one really liberal study – that which gives a man his liberty. It is the study of wisdom, and that is lofty, brave, and great souled. All other studies are puny and puerile.

"You surely do not believe that there is good in any of the subjects whose teachers are, as you see, men of the most ignoble and base stamp? We ought not to be learning such things; we should have done with learning them."

--Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to  Lucilius, 88 (tr Gummere)

I hardly have the aptitude or inclination to speak with any authority on the politics, law, economics, demographics, or administration of education. But I have, in one form or another, been immersed in the task of teaching for over two decades, and I have a special vocation for understanding the philosophy of education. This doesn't just consider questions of curriculum, assessment, or the efficiency of the various means of learning available to us. It also asks, more fundamentally, what the ultimate end of study should be, and how that purpose relates to our human nature.

What Seneca has to say in Letter 88 will hardly be popular in the current climate, and I find that his argument will often cause great animosity, but I only ask that we consider our differences in light of that most basic of questions: why are we here, and how can learning assist us toward that goal? We can only proceed when this has been answered rightly.

I have now heard most every politician, on either side of the political aisle, tell us that we need to increase our support of education. The phrases and slogans change, but the attitude remains much the same. If we improve educational opportunities, we will improve the skills and abilities of the population. This, in turn, will land them good jobs, better salaries, greater security, and thereby also benefit the economy as a whole.

That greater skills can lead us to greater worldly prosperity should be apparent enough. But is such a prosperity itself the measure by which we should define ourselves? President after President, Senator after Senator, and Governor after Governor insist that it's all about the jobs. Jobs do indeed matter, but is that all there is, and is that the most important standard by which we define human success?

Shall I see myself only as a creature made for productivity and efficiency, homo faber, or shall I understand myself also as a creature made for knowing and loving, homo sapiens? Seneca clearly asks us to subsume the lower under the higher, in that any of the circumstances of our careers, possessions, or our status should only be valued as a means to our fuller purpose, the pursuit of wisdom and virtue.

In the simplest sense, I might ask: where's the 'profit'? What is the genuine benefit? As soon as I fix the measure of man's end, from the exterior to the interior, from the goods of the body alone to a body ruled by a a good soul, from wealth and power to truth and character, I am readjusting anything and everything that matters.

This is then also certainly true in my judgments about education. It can't just be about a good job, or greater security, or economic productivity. I cannot claim to to think or live like a Stoic while failing to order all things toward the life of genuine happiness.

So when Seneca says that education should never be about making money, we may feel offended by such a shocking and unusual claim, or we may laugh at such a 'head in the clouds' philosophy.  Please remember that it will only be our estimation of the true dignity of the person that will inform us as to how odd or unrealistic it may rightly be.

Note that Seneca does not discard those trades and careers concerned with worldly profit, but rather says that they are merely a preparation for better things. The problem isn't taking those first steps, but not moving upward and onward any further, much like being trapped in a life of permanent apprenticeship.

I may learn to tie my shoes, but this is of little help if I don't also learn how to walk. I may learn the skills of being a doctor, lawyer, accountant, or teacher, but none of that will be of any use if I don't also learn to use those skills as a wise and decent man. The means must be ordered to the end.

The Ancients and Medievals often spoke of the 'Liberal Arts' or 'Liberal Studies' as a model for educating a truly 'free' person. We will still use these terms nowadays, though usually without that same clarity of meaning. The specifics need not concern us right now, but those teeth have often lost their bite.

So what does it mean to have real liberty, to be truly free? Shall I define them through economics and politics? Is that enough to define my fullness as a human being? Or should I, perhaps, define my liberty not by those things that bind me or do not bind me from without, but rather by what binds me or does not bind me from within?

Education should help me to live well, and to live well is to live with freedom. So what can education do to help me be free? The 'Stoic Turn' reminds us that what gives us real happiness and real liberty is to be able to rule ourselves, and to rule ourselves is to be able to think and act with virtue, regardless of our circumstances.

Education isn't going to help me that much if it teaches me how to become rich, but it will help me greatly if it teaches me how to live with excellence, whether or not I am rich or poor. With Seneca I choose to think of myself as good, and as free, when I can act with wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice.

Let us observe our own teachers. Do their practices live up to their words? Are they helping us to be better men and women who can think for ourselves, the only measure of life that matters, or are they, in the words of George Carlin, just training us "to run the machines and do the paperwork?"

To be continued. . .

Written 1/2010

Honorary Stoicism 19

Stoic Music 6

In my teenage years, and still into college, the New Wave band The Fixx were some of my constant musical companions. Of all their fine songs, my favorite will always be "No One Has To Cry." It was only many years later that I recognized what I had instinctively loved about it. It was almost like a Stoic anthem on the topic of human cooperation and harmony. Why should I ever think I that need to use or discard anyone?

The Fixx, "No One Has To Cry", from Ink (1991)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLzTgw7xdxU

As I wake today, same as yesterday
I get in my car, poor turn my wheels
So much to say, who's got time to listen
Fulfill our dreams, shame is left unseen

Why should someone lose so that I get by?
Why should someone pay just to send me high?

No one has to cry while I can smile
No one owns the sky, so blue above you
But somewhere in this world is a field where we all play
Secrets in your eyes, no one has to cry

There's no self-control as we play our roles
It's all dog eat dog, we're all dressed for show
As we plot and scheme full of American dreams
Who says it's fair who gets the opportunities?

There are some who live without so that I get by
They pay the price for doubting just to send me high

No one has to cry while I can smile
No one owns the sky, so blue above you
'Cause somewhere in this world is a field where we all play
Secrets in your eyes, no one has to cry

Why should someone lose so that I get by?
Or pay the price for doubting just to send me high?

Written on 6/18/2007

"The smooth current of life."

"Again, living virtuously is equivalent to living in accordance with the experience of the actual course of Nature, as Chrysippus says in the first book of his De Finibus; for our individual natures are parts of the Nature of the whole universe.

"And this is why the end may be defined as life in accordance with Nature, or, in other words, in accordance with our own human nature as well as that of the universe, a life in which we refrain from every action forbidden by the law common to all things, that is to say, the right reason which pervades all things, and is identical with Zeus, lord and ruler of all that is.

"And this very thing constitutes the virtue of the happy man and the smooth current of life, when all actions promote the harmony of the spirit dwelling in the individual man with the will of him who orders the universe."

--Chrysippus, as cited by Diogenes Laertius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers, 7.87

We are, I think, far too keen on creating dichotomy and conflict. It is one thing to employ words like peace and harmony, but quite another to put them into daily practice. Note how often we assume there must an obstacle in our paths, something to be conquered or defeated. In reality, the only thing that ever needs defeating is our own thinking and desire to defeat.

Nature is not some mysterious concept. Observe what something is, and thereby apprehend what perfects and completes it. Then view that thing in its rightful relationship to other things, seeing then how all things work together for a whole. If my own actions are in accord with my own nature, a being that is made to know the truth and love the good, those actions will also be in harmony with everyone and everything else around me.

No, there need be no conflict with my world. Even those things I assume to be somehow bad in Nature, like illness, suffering, or even death, play their own role in the good of the whole, and by our own choices we can participate in that good of the whole, taking all that is given us and turning it toward benefit.

The law common to all things is hardly obscure, though we may seek to ignore it in our vanity. It is, with no apology, a law of love, a reverence and respect for myself, for others, and for all things in the world, each in their rightful place.

I remember that I often avoided team sports as a child, not because I didn't enjoy the activity or the excitement, but because I didn't enjoy all the aggression and bickering that went with them. First, of course, one hated and derided the other team, and if we weren't winning, we started  bickering among ourselves, freely casting blame and throwing about insults.

I knew already that I thought very differently. My opponent in a game is not my enemy, but I rarely found the sense of sportsmanship that respected the other players. I also learned that I understood winning very differently. Getting the most points was far less important to me than simply playing well for its own sake. I often noticed that if a score was so uneven that one side had no chance of victory, some players just gave up. Others, however, the ones I admired, continued to play the game with even more determination.  They didn't stomp off yelling and cursing, but shook hands when they were bested.

It is worth noting that as in sport, so in life, and observe how different people choose very different standards of success and failure. A Stoic attitude, which is shared in common with all approaches of human decency, will not assume that people are intended to be in conflict with one another, that a good can only be achieved at the expense of others, or that anyone or anything is disposable. Harmony, a life of smooth current, is not a pipe dream. It is precisely what we are made for, and if someone else chooses not to live this way, I can still certainly do so.

Written on 8/2/2011

Image: Peter Apian, Cosmographia (1524)

"Smoke and ash and a tale."

"Constantly bring to your recollection those who have complained greatly about anything, those who have been most conspicuous by the greatest fame or misfortunes, or enmities or fortunes of any kind.

"Then think, where are they all now? Smoke and ash and a tale, or not even a tale.

"And let there be present to your mind also everything of this sort, how Fabius Catellinus lived in the country, and Lucius Lupus in his gardens, and Stertinius at Briae, and Tiberius at Capreae, and Rufus at Velia; and think of the eager pursuit of anything conjoined with pride; and how worthless everything is after which men violently strain; and how much more philosophical it is for a man in the opportunities presented to him to show himself just, temperate, obedient to the gods, and to do this with all simplicity: for the pride which is proud of its want of pride is the most intolerable of all."

--Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12 (tr Long)

I am at my worst when I complain, and there's a perfectly good reason for that. It shows me that I care about my fortune more than I care about my character.

It need not even be complaining, as bragging is an equal indication of my dependence. Whether it be good or band fortune, my words and actions tell me that I have defined myself by lies.

I have often worried if there would be anything left of me when I was gone, perhaps a legacy, or at least a memory in the minds of others. I can try to build the fine tale, and I might keep it going for a generation or two, but in the end it will all be smoke and ash. We will all end up in exactly the same place.

I directly experienced the goodness of many in my family, something I felt should endure forever, but I will most likely be the last to remember any of it.  And that is right and proper, because the measure of any person isn't whether or not he is remembered, but whether or not he lived with virtue while he lived.

In my High School and College years, I would often take walks in our local cemetery, just a few blocks from my family home. My sense of peace didn't just come from the silence, and it never had anything to do with morbidity. I would find great solace in simply reading the inscriptions on gravestones, and realizing that all of these people, no different than myself, had lived, loved, lost, and struggled.

Some were buried in ornate graves, others with the simplest of markers. But each and every one told a story about a life, a life that was special and worth living. Many of these graves were a hundred or more years old. I doubt anyone ever came to see them anymore, but that did not make those lives any less valuable and precious.

There was one that always moved me deeply. There were three headstones, from the late 1800's. The first was for a teenage girl, who had drowned at Cape Cod. The second was for her brother, who had died stillborn two years after his sister's death. The third was for the mother, who had died in childbirth at the same time. There was no marker for the father, and I always wondered what became of him.

One need not feel dark or depressed to remember that all the things we worry about are nothing but smoke, ash, and a tale.  Quite the contrary, I take hold of these things to remind me of what truly matters. While I am still here, I am made to love, to show fairness, to give wherever these is a need for giving.

It matters nothing whether I am recognized, now or in the future. The happiness is in the doing itself. The desire for esteem is the pride of wanting pride.

Written on 1/12/1997

Image: Jan van Bronchorst, Fame (1656)

Michael Leunig 6

Honorary Stoicism 18

"Fear nothing, and hope for nothing."

"He who has calmly reconciled his life to fate, and set proud death beneath his feet, can look fortune in the face, unbending both to good and bad. His countenance unconquered he can show. The rage and threatenings of the sea will not move him, though they stir from its depths the upheaving swell.

Vesuvius's furnaces may never so often burst forth, and he may send rolling upwards smoke and fire; the lightning, whose wont it is to smite down lofty towers, may flash upon its way, but such men shall they never move.

Why then stand they wretched and aghast when fierce tyrants rage in impotence? Fear nothing, and hope for nothing: thus shall you have a weak man's rage disarmed. But whoso fears with trembling, or desires anything from them, he stands not firmly rooted, but dependent: thus has he thrown away his shield; he can be rooted up, and he links for himself the very chain whereby he may be dragged."

--Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy, Book 1, Meter 4 (tr Cooper)

The Consolation of Philosophy was one of the texts that changed my life. Many Christians say it isn't really Christian, Most Platonists say it isn't really Platonic, and Stoics usually have little to do with it at all. I claim that it wonderfully exemplifies all three approaches, and I see no problem with that. I consider this a truly Stoic text in so many ways, and the above passage should be a clear indication as to why I do so. I have little interest in the various '-isms'. I care for the truth of the matter.

Many of us forget that the Consolation was one of the most influential texts of the Middle Ages, and I think that is true because it didn't play to a certain school of thought or to any '-ism.' It spoke, and still speaks to, the human need to confront suffering. This is a text that is basically a prison narrative, a man expecting death, though he did no wrong. Now how would any of us manage such a situation?

I deeply regret my years in college. Everyone tells us these should be the best years, or at the very least the years where we begin to blossom and become our best. I made very foolish mistakes. I did continue pursuing the things I loved the most, learning about philosophy, history, literature, and music. But I made one truly fatal mistake. I fell in love.

Loving wasn't the problem, of course, but allowing myself to be ruled by my feelings was a problem. Early in my junior year, after over two years with the girl I thought was the measure of my life, I saw her at a party where she wasn't expecting me. She was wrapped around a fellow on a couch. She hadn't seen me, and I walked away. The realization that 'my girl' was hardly faithful crushed me.

That Monday morning, I sat on a quiet patch of grass behind our library. I played my mandolin, because I'm that sort of dork, and then I read in my copy of the Consolation, because I'm that sort of nerd. I had a very important realization about how I should relate to my circumstances.

Fortune often seemed to hurt, I thought. I had made many mistakes, but I had tried my best. Still, the woman I loved thought it better to fool around with another man. None of this seemed fair at all. Why couldn't she tell me she was unhappy? Couldn't she at least be honest in her intentions?

It was Boethius that helped to begin to manage the pain. It wasn't over then, and it still isn't over now. But I recognized on that pleasant grassy hill that I needed to be more than my fortune. I needed to be constant only in my own character, and never allow myself to depend upon the whims of others. I could, heaven forbid, be my own man. Only that could ever make me strong.

If I only rely upon my own character, I need never fear pain, and I need never expect the world to give me anything. That, I think, is true freedom, and true happiness.

The story doesn't end there, but the root of ending it does begin there.

Written on 4/15/1996

Image: Boethius and Lady Philosophy, Ghent (1485)

Honorary Stoicism 17

The best provision for old age?

"The best life, you will agree, is that of a good man, and yet the end even of such a man is death. Therefore, as I said before, if one in old age should succeed in mastering this lesson, to wait for death without fear and courageously, he would have acquired no small part of how to live without complaint and in accordance with Nature. He would acquire this by associating with men who were philosophers not in name only but in truth, if he were willing to follow their teachings.

"So it is that I tell you that the best viaticum for old age is the one I mentioned in the beginning, to live according to Nature, doing and thinking what one ought. For so an old man would himself be most cheerful and would win the praise' of others, and being thus, he would live happily and in honor.

"But if anyone thinks that wealth is the greatest consolation of old age, and that to acquire it is to live without sorrow, he is quite mistaken; wealth is able to procure for man the pleasures of eating, and drinking and other sensual pleasures, but it can never afford cheerfulness of spirit nor freedom from sorrow in one who possesses it. Witnesses to this truth are many rich men who are full of sadness and despair and think themselves wretched—evidence enough that wealth is not a good protection for old age."

--Musonius Rufus, Lectures 17 (trans Lutz)

I was a child at the tail end of America's great splurge of prosperity.  People who worked hard and applied themselves often had the pick of a career, and could usually go into retirement in reasonable comfort. I distinctly recall older men from my father's family speaking of that great moment when the work would cease, and the pension would begin. It seemed this was the dream, the goal for which I was to aim. Life would now begin at sixty.

It never helped, of course, that I chose a vocation where the possibility of saving for retirement was never really an option. I recall the moment, about fifteen years ago, when I did the math. Though salaried, I was earning less than minimum wage if I measured my work by the hour. I was offered a retirement package, but after I factored in the cost of family health insurance, I would have been bringing home less than $200 a week if I took the plan. A few years later, a new job 'temporarily' cancelled all employer contributions to retirement, as a cost-cutting measure, of course, and never restored them. It simply wasn't profitable for business.  See how these Christians love one another.

Yet I still watch all the ads on TV, the ones that tell us that the single most important thing in our old age is our financial security. For a good slice of our money, of course, someone will manage our assets to insure that we will fade off into the sunset in a state of material bliss. We still haven't learned the lesson, obviously. Define a man by his money, and you make him a slave to money. We never even consider defining a man by his actions, and not by his possessions.

Let, us, by all means, live in as much worldly security and comfort as we can bear, but let us also remember that any of these things are just a means to an end. That end is living well, according to Nature, informed by wisdom and virtue. You cannot buy a retirement plan for this. You can only build it by becoming a true philosopher. I don't mean being like the professional blowhards, because they already have their reward. I means the real folks that have figured out how to live according to the goods of the soul.

There will be no gain if I make my fortune while I have lied, cheated, and stolen to acquire it. If there are victims, destroyed or discarded, on the road to my version of happiness, there is no happiness. To say that dying well is the true benefit of old age is hardly negative, but the most wonderful thing. The stress is on the dying well, because we will all die. Have I learned to live with wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice? Then I have lived well, and I may die well. Care little for the rest.

As I write this, I am what they now call middle aged. Yet given the struggles I have with my health, I must calmly expect that I am far closer to old age. I need not despair. Have I learned to live well, with a love of truth and charity, in the time given me? This is all that matters, and the struggle continues while we still breathe.

Written on 10/06/2015

Image: Gustave Doré , King Solomon in Old Age (1866)

Keep what is yours.

"Hold every hour in your grasp. Lay hold of today's task, and you will not need to depend so much upon tomorrow's.

"While we are postponing, life speeds by. Nothing, Lucilius, is ours, except time. We were entrusted by nature with the ownership of this single thing, so fleeting and slippery that anyone who will can oust us from possession. What fools these mortals be! They allow the cheapest and most useless things, which can easily be replaced, to be charged in the reckoning, after they have acquired them; but they never regard themselves as in debt when they have received some of that precious commodity, - time! And yet time is the one loan which even a grateful recipient cannot repay.

"You may desire to know how I, who preach to you so freely, am practicing. I confess frankly: my expense account balances, as you would expect from one who is free-handed but careful. I cannot boast that I waste nothing, but I can at least tell you what I am wasting, and the cause and manner of the loss; I can give you the reasons why I am a poor man.

"My situation, however, is the same as that of many who are reduced to slender means through no fault of their own: every one forgives them, but no one comes to their rescue.

"What is the state of things, then? It is this: I do not regard a man as poor, if the little which remains is enough for him. I advise you, however, to keep what is really yours; and you cannot begin too early.  For, as our ancestors believed, it is too late to spare when you reach the dregs of the cask. Of that which remains at the bottom, the amount is slight, and the quality is vile. "

--Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 1 (tr Gummere)

Everywhere I look around me, I see people claiming things for themselves. Their popularity, their success, their wealth are all apparently due to their own efforts and abilities. We engage in an elaborate ritual of showmanship, smugly insisting that "this is mine, not yours, and I made it that way."

This instinct is completely understandable. I may believe that I can define myself and give myself a sense of meaning and purpose through such possessions. The tendencies of a consumer society make this all the easier, it would seem.

This appearance of possession is, however, entirely misleading. We are taking credit where no credit is due. The world of our circumstances is entirely beyond our power, and even assuming that it could be within our power, it would in no way in itself reflect our own character. We are completely mistaken about what is truly ours.

Seneca reminds us that only time is ours. Even that is too easy to misunderstand. He does not mean that we are given all the time we would like to have, but rather that we are only in control of what we are to do with the time we are given. I can't help but remember Gandalf's wonderful lines to Frodo whenever I read Seneca's passage.

I think of whatever time I have as nothing more than the presence of opportunity, the opportunity not to possess many things outside of me, but to possess my own choices and actions. Only those things remain under my power, regardless of the external conditions. It is really only that time that can be wasted, and we will deeply regret it when we have too little left. The problem arises from being thoroughly confused about the true difference between wealth and poverty.

I recently noticed a friend dropping constant references to the new house she had bought in one of the nicest neighborhoods of town. We have all bragged about things, both big and little, though in the end anything we need to brag about is really very little. Partly in jest, partly in seriousness, I finally asked, "what ever would you do if you lost that wonderful house?" I expected a clever answer along the line of "no worries, I'll just buy another one!" Instead I was met with a very serious gaze. "I'll never lose that house. It's everything I am."

I felt sadness, not resentment, at least on that occasion. No, the tiniest thing can make us lose a career, a home, a family, and no, we are far, far more than the sum of such things. Keeping the vanities of life may actually do us far more harm than losing them. It was a helpful reminder of how to distinguish rich from poor.

Written on 07/02/2000

Image: Jan van der Venne, The Three Ages of Man (early 17th century)

Stoic Music 5

I fell into what I now call my 'Wilderness Years' for the simple reason that I had loved all the wrong things, and all the wrong people, in entirely the wrong way. 

The Acid Jazz craze of the mid-90's came at exactly the right time to help me out of the doldrums. It was not only something that I could appreciate musically, but in most every case, the lyrics and themes were intended to lift the soul. It was about hope, and love.

 This was the antithesis of grunge. Brooklyn Funk Essentials reworked an old classic by Pharoah Sanders in around 1995. Back when we still had true Acid Jazz clubs in Boston, this was usually the last song played by the DJ. I would wait until last call, and miss my train to hear it. It was always well worth it.

Brooklyn Funk Essentials, "The Creator Has a Master Plan." from Cool and Steady and Easy (1995)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkVLS6muw1k

The creator has a master plan
Peace and happiness for every man
The creator has a working plan
Peace and happiness for every man
The creator makes but one demand
Happiness through all the land

Written on 4/14/1997

Be on your guard against. . .

"There are four principal aberrations of the superior faculty against which you should be constantly on your guard, and when you have detected them, you should wipe them out and say on each occasion thus:

"First, this thought is not necessary.

"Second, this tends to destroy social union.

"Third, this which you are going to say comes not from the real thoughts; for you should consider it among the most absurd of things for a man not to speak from his real thoughts.

"But the fourth is when you shall reproach yourself for anything, for this is an evidence of the more divine part within you being overpowered and yielding to the less honorable and to the perishable part, the body, and to its gross pleasures."

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

Right after having offered his ten principles of Stoic thought and action, Marcus Aurelius suggests not only what we should do, but also what we should avoid.

How is the thinking about my life helping me? Am I solving something, or dwelling upon it? Or am I perhaps denying what I should truly be thinking and doing? Thoughts can be bugbears. I can make excuses, I can wish things away, I can concern myself about the very things least worthy of my concern. I suspect only two things are necessary. What should be the nature of true judgment, and how will that judgment help my to live with virtue? Anything else is not only a waste of my time, but a damage to my character.

Are my thoughts and actions about harmony, or about discord? If there is even a hint of smugness, resentment, or of keeping tabs, I'm doing it in a totally wrong way. As soon as I think of another as my enemy, or as soon as I hold a grudge, I am well off the path to happiness. We were made for one another, and as soon as we think otherwise, we are not working with Nature, but vainly struggling against it.

Am I saying what I really mean? It is one thing to speak with concern, charity, or kindness. It is quite another thing to use my words to manipulate and coerce. In our hearts, we truly know the difference. Lies do indeed hurt others, but first and foremost, they destroy the liar. A mask of false appearances will not change who I really am. Deception not only breaks trust, and thereby the bonds of fellowship, but it also tuns me into a self-deceiver, a man who believes his own lies. I become my own worst victim.

Finally, do I harbor resentment? That itself is an indication that I am allowing my reason, my ruling part, to be ruled by my passions and circumstances, those things that should be ruled. But most importantly, am I resentful of myself? Marcus Aurelius isn't denying an awareness of our responsibilities. He's rather reminding us that we are the ones that control our actions, and unnecessary guilt or shame arise from nothing else than allowing ourselves to be ruled by wasted regrets. If there is something wrong, it is right now within my power to change it. Reproach is little more than surrender. 

Written in 11/2002 

Stoic Music 4

I've heard all sorts of interpretations of this tune, anywhere from being a Christian song to being a reflection on the life of Socrates, to being the story of Icarus. I'll take them all, thank you. Keep the change.

It always spoke to me about that most basic of human struggles. Do I conform simply to what is expected of me, or do I fight for something bigger and better? And if I choose the latter, how do I confront my own vanity? How am I to be a man of nobility, but not of self-service?

Whatever Kansas and Kerry Livgren intended, it's become a tune where I must immediately stop what I am doing. hold back the tears, and show reverence.  These values are about as Classical as you could possibly make them.

Kansas, "Carry on Wayward Son." from Leftoverture (1976)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5ZJui3aPoQ

Carry on my wayward son,
For there'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more

Once I rose above the noise and confusion
Just to get a glimpse beyond the illusion
I was soaring ever higher, but I flew too high
Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man
Though my mind could think I still was a mad man
I hear the voices when I'm dreamin', I can hear them say

Carry on my wayward son,
For there'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more

Masquerading as a man with a reason
My charade is the event of the season
And if I claim to be a wise man, it surely means that I don't know
On a stormy sea of moving emotion
Tossed about I'm like a ship on the ocean
I set a course for winds of fortune, but I hear the voices say

Carry on my wayward son,
For there'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more

Carry on, you will always remember
Carry on, nothing equals the splendor
Now your life's no longer empty
Surely heaven waits for you

Carry on my wayward son,
For there'll be peace when you are done
Lay your weary head to rest
Don't you cry no more

Written on 3/21/1995

Stoic Music 3

I was just beginning to take the possibility of a Stoic life seriously, not simply as a theory but as an everyday practice, and the blokes in my favorite band band, Marillion, had to release this tune. Those insightful bastards. My wife and I had just lost our first son. I was beginning to understand that I had made truly horrible professional choices, and even more severe personal ones, for my entire adult life.

St. Augustine said that when you sing, you pray twice. I also think that when you hear truth, not only in words but also in music, you are twice blessed.

Marillion, "Rich". from marillion.com (1999)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7x2B5AhcKXs

Reality is something that you rise above
We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are
Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run
The fearful fall foul of fate as often as the reckless

You don't need money to be rich anyhow
Spending yourself is what it's all about

No tears
No lies
No pain
No doubt
No darkness
No confusion
No loneliness, despair
No more, no more
It's all illusion

If you have made mistakes
There's always another chance for you
You can start over again at any moment
Any little time you choose

Talk about failure
To fall is not to fail
Failure isn't about falling down
Failure is staying down

Energy makes energy anyhow
Spend yourself and get rich right now

No tears
No pain
No lies
No doubt
No darkness
No confusion
No loneliness, despair
No way, no how
It's all illusion

Reality is something that you rise above
We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are
There's always another chance for you
You can start over again
Start over again
Over again
Any little time you choose
Get rich right now

Written on 8/01/2010