. . . "But tell me, my friend, when Diogenes was in exile at Athens, or when he was sold by pirates and came to Corinth, did anyone, Athenian or Corinthian, ever exhibit greater freedom of speech than he?
"And again, were any of his contemporaries freer than Diogenes? Why, even Xeniades, who bought him, he ruled as a master rules a slave. But why should I employ examples of long ago? Are you not aware that I am an exile?
"Well, then, have I been deprived of freedom of speech? Have I been bereft of the privilege of saying what I think? Have you or anyone else ever seen me cringing before anyone just because I am an exile, or thinking that my lot is worse now than formerly?
"No, I'll wager that you would say that you have never seen me complaining or disheartened because of my banishment, for if I have been deprived of my country, I have not been deprived of my ability to endure exile." . . .
--Musonius Rufus, Fragment 9 (tr Lutz)
The Stoic Turn reminds us that the world may provide or deprive us of many things, but only we can can provide or deprive ourselves of our happiness. We are too quick to define our lives by our circumstances, and when those circumstances seem to overwhelm us, we are too quick to surrender.
I enjoy the turn of the phrase here: I may be deprived of my country, but I have not been deprived of my ability to endure exile.
I have often struggled to rightly understand such strength, and over the years I have distinguished between a strength of character and a strength of power. The former is what Musonius describes, the willingness to depend upon my own virtue as the measure of my life, whatever the externals may be, while the latter is the attempt to use my strength to conquer the externals. Both seem, at first, to take the form of self-reliance,though I would suggest that the real difference between them is one as radical as the difference between freedom and slavery.
My self-reliance hinges upon whether it is truly free of hindrance, and I find that nothing is a greater hindrance than making my life depend upon the order of my circumstances, whether or not I have any apparent power over the things around me.
I should not assume that simply having influence and wealth makes someone only strong in power, but I should assume that he is a man who depends upon being strong in power when he loves those things for their own sake.
The man strong in character may gain or lose power over the world, but he does not allow this to determine the value of his life. The man only strong in power will rise or fall entirely on those terms. He does not even control himself, because his life is measured by his circumstances, and he does not even control those circumstances, because fortune can just as easily take away what it has given.
Not all people who are strong, are strong in quite the same way. It is a test of a hardship such as exile that can identify which type of strength we truly possess.
Musonius was himself a man who struggled with exile throughout his life, and we can see by his words and deeds how strong he was in character. I also often think of Napoleon Bonaparte, a man strong in power, but also a man who could not bear exile, because he no longer had power over others. If only he had chosen to rule himself.
Written in 8/2013
Image: Domenico Peterlini, Dante in Exile (c. 1860):
No comments:
Post a Comment