"One body is stronger than another: many are stronger than one: the thief is stronger than he who is not a thief. This is the reason why I also lost my lamp, because in wakefulness the thief was superior to me. But the man bought the lamp at this price: for a lamp he became a thief, a faithless fellow, and like a wild beast. This seemed to him a good bargain. Be it so.
"But a man has seized me by the cloak, and is drawing me to the public place: then others bawl out, 'Philosopher, what has been the use of your opinions? see you are dragged to prison, you are going to be beheaded.'
"And what system of philosophy could have made it so that, if a stronger man should have laid hold of my cloak, I should not be dragged off; that if ten men should have laid hold of me and cast me into prison, I should not be cast in? Have I learned nothing else then?
"I have learned to see that everything which happens, if it be independent of my will, is nothing to me. I may ask if you have not gained by this. Why then do you seek advantage in anything else than in that in which you have learned that advantage is?" . . .
--Epictetus, Discourses 1.29 (tr Long)
All of this may still seem so terribly odd. It may seem that the Stoic is in a state of delusion and denial, rejecting the reality of external circumstances, or trying to wish the world away. Perhaps Epictetus is really just saying that if we close our eyes and ears firmly enough, the thief who steals my lamp or the tyrant who grabs me by the cloak will just sort of disappear?
But Epictetus is in no way claiming that the lamp and the thief, the cloak and the tyrant, do not exist. Nor is he saying that there is no value in them. The lamp can give me light, the cloak can keep me warm, and the thief and the tyrant are other men like myself, however misguided they may be.
No, it is not that the things external to me are unreal or without value, but rather that I must understand the order of all the good things in Nature, and how different things become inferior or superior in my relationship to them.
I sometimes think of it like a balance sheet. What has been added and subtracted, credited and debited, and for what benefit and at what cost have I acted? The thief is indeed stronger than me in wakefulness, and the ten men are stronger than me in force. They have now gained either a lamp, or my cloak, or my very body. At the same time they have lost their very excellence as men. Does this seem like a good bargain?
Many people in myth and legend have sold their souls, their very identities, for lower benefits, and the lesson, of course, is that they learn far too late that they have sold something greater for something lesser.
There is far greater strength in ruling and possessing myself, because that is something entirely within my power. There is an unconditional guarantee, or an irrevocable warranty. A dependence upon things external to me is far weaker, because they are outside of my power. It is like trading something reliable for something unreliable.
Only an understanding of my own human nature, as a being made to rule himself by reason and choice, will allow me to see how my own self-reliance, my responsibility for myself, is superior to any circumstances. I have not been truly 'dragged off' or 'cast in' if you take my cloak, imprison me, or behead me, because weaker things cannot defeat stronger things.
It all rests in seeing where and how something is stronger or superior. The thief and the tyrant have made a bad deal.
Written in 4/1999
Image: Cesare Dandini, Personification of Constancy, c. 1634
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