. . . "These things I used to repeat to myself and I say them to you now. If you are wise, you will not consider that exile is a thing to be dreaded, since others bear it easily, but evil. It makes wretched every man in whom it is present. And neither of the two necessary alternatives is a just cause for repining.
"For either you were banished justly or unjustly. If justly, how can it be right or fitting to feel aggrieved at just punishment? If unjustly, the evil involved is not ours, but falls upon those who banished us.
If in fact you agree that doing a wrong (as they have done) is the most hateful thing in the world, while suffering a wrong (as has been our fate) in the eyes of the gods and of just men is held a ground not for hate but for help. "
--Musonius Rufus, Fragment 9 (tr Lutz)
If I remember to understand the source of good and evil rightly, then I will also be able to perceive how all other things fall into their rightful place. It isn't the exile, or any circumstance, that harms me, but my own thinking.
Musonius reiterates a common Stoic formula here, and it reveals the logical order of Stoic thinking just as much as it offers a very practical guide to all the alternatives in our daily choices. This is how I usually repeat it to myself. Any hardship or suffering can, of course, replace exile in this case.
Let us say I have been exiled. If I deserved the exile, then I have been rightly punished. It is entirely up to me if I choose to learn from my situation, to improve myself, and to make right whatever it is that I have done wrong.
If I did not deserve the exile, then I have not done wrong, but others have done me wrong. That is still not an evil for me, but for others.
All that remains for me to decide is how I will act toward the evil by another. If I respond in kind, I have made myself as bad as the original offender. That is, however, still entirely on me. If I respond with care, concern, and assistance for the wrongdoers, I now have the wonderful opportunity to transform evil into good, by my own thoughts and actions alone. Whether I 'win' or 'lose' depends upon me, not upon them.
To love our enemies, to do good for those who persecute us, is hardly a pipe dream. Stoic thinking makes very clear how this logically follows from a right apprehension of what is truly good in our lives.
I have long lost track of the number of times I've been pushed around, and I can barely remember when I deserved it, and when I didn't. It hardly matters, because as soon as I use the actions of another as a justification for anger or hate, I've already thrown away the only thing that can make me good, and could perhaps help other people to also become good for themselves.
Written in 8/2013
Image: Domenico Peterlini, Dante in Exile (c. 1860):
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