On Exile 3

. . . "Therefore, just as a man who was living in his own country but in a different house from the one where he was born would be thought silly and an object of laughter if he should weep and wail because of this, so whoever considers it a misfortune because he is living in another city and not the one where he happens to have been born would rightly be considered foolish and stupid.

"Furthermore, how should exile be an obstacle to the cultivation of the things that are one's own and to the acquisition of virtue, when no one was ever hindered from the knowledge and practice of what is needful because of exile?

"May it not even be true that exile contributes to that end, since it furnishes men leisure and a greater opportunity for learning the good and practicing it than formerly, in that they are not forced by what only seems to be their fatherland into performing political duties, and they are not annoyed by their kinsmen nor by men who only seem to be their friends, who are skillful in fettering them and dragging them away from the pursuit of better things?" . . .

--Musonius Rufus, Fragment 9 (tr Lutz)

My own personality is one with a very vivid memory, a powerful sense of nostalgia, and an inclination to reflect upon the meaning of anything and everything. Combine this with the melancholy of my youth, and then the Black Dog of my later years, and you have a truly explosive mixture.

I have been learning, however, to direct those dispositions rightly.

My memory can be a blessing, and not a curse, because I have a storehouse of experience.

My nostalgia can be a blessing, and not a curse, because it can help me to see things from a broader viewpoint.

My reflective nature can be a blessing, and not a curse, because it encourages me to actually be a philosopher in life.

Even my melancholy can be a blessing, and not a curse, because I can see it not as sadness alone, but at what I think is its true root, sensitivity. And sensitivity is the root of compassion.

Yes, even the Black Dog can be seen as a blessing. As much as it has hurt, day by day, year by year,  I can no longer imagine myself without the ability to fight it, and to conquer it.

For someone of my constitution, to be taken away from a place I have loved seems like a death sentence. All of my thoughts and feelings are so closely tied to a room, a house, or a city, that I immediately feel lost without them.

It is only when I can turn my judgment around that I see the real picture. All those people, places, or things that have meant so much to me were, in the end, not me. They helped me to live well, but they never defined me.

If I understand myself rightly, it is foolish to say that I am defined by my environment. Where I live is far less important than how well I live. The place does not make me, but I make the place.

Exile can even be seen as a wonderful opportunity. I can have a clean slate. All the baggage is gone, and the years upon years of residue, of blind assumptions, of poor habits, of stale living can be washed away. I can now see more clearly who I am, and also who my friends really were.

The trick is not to cling to the past, or to worry about the future. The Stoic life discards neither the past nor the future, but asks how living now can be redeemed through the former, and fulfilled in the latter.

Written in 8/2013

Image: Domenico Peterlini, Dante in Exile (c. 1860):