"The being of the Good is a certain Will; the being of the Bad is a certain kind of Will. What then are externals? Materials for the Will, about which the will being conversant shall obtain its own good or evil. How shall it obtain the good? If it does not admire the materials; for the opinions about the materials, if the opinions are right, make the will good: but perverse and distorted opinions make the will bad.
"God has fixed this law, and says, 'If you would have anything good, receive it from yourself.' You say, 'No, but I have it from another.' Do not says so, but receive it from yourself.
"Therefore when the tyrant threatens and calls me, I say, 'Whom do you threaten?' If he says, 'I will put you in chains,' I say, 'You threaten my hands and my feet.' If he says, 'I will cut off your head,' I reply, 'You threaten my head.' If he says, 'I will throw you into prison,' I say, 'You threaten the whole of this poor body.' If he threatens me with banishment, I say the same.
"''Does he, then, not threaten you at all?' If I feel that all these things do not concern me, he does not threaten me at all; but if I fear any of them, it is I whom he threatens. Whom then do I fear? the master of what? The master of things which are in my own power? There is no such master. Do I fear the master of things which are not in my power? And what are these things to me?
--Epictetus, Discourses 1.29 (tr Long)
The words we employ, wittingly or unwittingly, tell us very much about our values. That we have regularly replaced the language of virtue with the language of success, gratification, and recognition can be an indication that we are straying from the path of Nature. I regularly hear people being praised for their success, their ambition, their popularity, or their sense of humor. I don't recall when I last heard of anyone being praised for his constancy.
Constancy is nothing but being loyal and faithful to ourselves, to our fellows, and to what we know to be right and true, and doing so in the face of burdens and obstacles. It is to be unchanging and enduring through the good and the bad. As with any virtue, it is one thing to speak of it, another thing to practice it. One only has constancy when the actions conform to the words, regardless of the circumstances.
On the day of our wedding, my wife was beaming, except at the moment when we recited our vows, when a look of anxiety came over her face. But I only had to smile at her, and her joy returned. I did not take this as a bad sign, or as a hint that she didn't love me. I'd been through all that before. Quite the contrary, I understood it as an indication that she took those words of absolute commitment seriously, and that was exactly the reason I had asked her to marry me. She was someone who was serious about constancy, because she recognized that her deeds would need to match her words.
How many times have we heard the words "I love you" said without true commitment? "Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds."
When, as Epictetus says, I grasp that my moral good rests in the disposition of my will toward my external circumstances, and that my good is never itself determined only by those externals, I am on my way toward living with constancy.
Whenever I fail at being constant, as I quite often do, it is because I fear the loss of something, and I am terrified of the hurt I am so sure will follow. Conversely, I may be drawn to the promise of some benefit if I will only break my commitment, just this once.
Now the only way to overcome this temptation is to fix my judgment. What is it that I may lose or gain? Property? Reputation? My body itself? These things are externals, beyond my power, and they do not concern what is truly me, that which is within my power. If I understand that my measure of good and evil is mistaken, then I will no longer fear losing or desire to gain such things.
Written in 4/1999
Image: Cesare Dandini, Personification of Constancy, c. 1634
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