Seneca on Philosophy and Friendship 7

. . . I should like also to state to you one of the distinctions of Chrysippus, who declares that the wise man is in want of nothing, and yet needs many things. "On the other hand," he says, "nothing is needed by the fool, for he does not understand how to use anything, but he is in want of everything."

The wise man needs hands, eyes, and many things that are necessary for his daily use; but he is in want of nothing. For want implies a necessity, and nothing is necessary to the wise man.

Therefore, although he is self-sufficient, yet he has need of friends. He craves as many friends as possible, not, however, that he may live happily; for he will live happily even without friends. The Supreme Good calls for no practical aids from outside; it is developed at home, and arises entirely within itself. If the good seeks any portion of itself from without, it begins to be subject to the play of Fortune. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 9, tr Gummere

What do I need from outside of myself to live well? I need nothing but opportunities, and every experience offered by fortune is an opportunity.

What do I want from outside of myself to live well? I have learned that I should want nothing at all. I need only to be grateful for anything offered.

Chrysippus, the third leader of the Stoic school, said it rightly. It’s all about the distinction between wanting and needing.

The grasping man wants many things, because he depends upon fortune to feed his desires. He needs nothing at all, because the gifts of his nature are lost to him.

The good man wants nothing, because he knows his life does not revolve around fortune. He needs many things, because everything in his life is an occasion to live according to his nature.

The need for friends is not a necessity that comes from depending on what others may do for my happiness, but simply depends upon the opportunity I am given to love them.

It is only when we falsely reverse the order of life, by confusing the internal and the external, that we think of our need for friends in the wrong way. Some might say that they need friends because they need help, or because they are lonely. Though hardly desirable, the self-sufficient man can live well without help, and he can live well even if he is alone. The need for others is only in what comes from within him.

This can be a hard path to follow, and it must be understood rightly, especially since we are so accustomed to defining ourselves socially. It is hardly that the Stoic is not a social animal, but rather that he is a social animal for a different set of reasons.

I have learned to distinguish the difference between what I call being alone and being lonely. I have spent much of my life alone, sometimes by choice, because I appreciate the peace of solitude, and sometimes by circumstance, because I am hardly a social magnet. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and it has become a means to help me practice self-sufficiency.

But I have also had times where I have terrible lonely, and this isn’t quite the same thing. I can be alone and still be happy, but the sadness of being lonely comes only from my own estimation, because I am feeling the desire to be recognized or appreciated. Knowing that the solution to this feeling is in my own thinking has been a great help.

There is an important distinction, therefore, between needing friends to love, and wanting friends to be loved. To recognize it is to have taken an important step in the Stoic Turn, where we reorder our lives from what comes to us to what we do.

Written 1/2005

Image: Johann Heinrich Lips (1758-1817), An Allegory of Friendship

Seneca on Philosophy and Friendship 6

. . . "The wise man is self-sufficient." This phrase, my dear Lucilius, is incorrectly explained by many; for they withdraw the wise man from the world, and force him to dwell within his own skin.

But we must mark with care what this sentence signifies and how far it applies; the wise man is sufficient unto himself for a happy existence, but not for mere existence. For he needs many helps towards mere existence; but for a happy existence he needs only a sound and upright soul, one that despises Fortune. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 9, tr Gummere

Once again, self-sufficiency is not a separation from things, but rather the manner in which we relate to things. Instead of removing ourselves from the world, we are called to recognize that we are, through our own judgments and decisions, the masters of our own actions. How I think and how I choose depends upon nothing other than myself, and it is in this sense man, as a rational animal, is self-sufficient.

The captain of a ship would hardly be a good captain if he locked himself in his cabin, or the commander of an army would hardly be a good commander if he lazed about at headquarters. He must always be engaged in his mission and the welfare of his men, and he takes full responsibility for those around him. Yet for all of his involvement, he remains self-sufficient, because his own decision is final. He will survey the circumstances, he will seek advice, but his judgment remains his alone. “The buck stops here.”

We will judge about many things outside of us, but those judgments will be exclusively our own, and our actions flow only from our own thinking and willing. This should hardly be seen as a burden, but the greatest of all human freedoms. You can take anything else from me, but you can’t take that.

None of this means that man is entirely complete unto himself, needing absolutely nothing. I have always been inspired by Seneca’s distinction about the things we need. We need many things external to ourselves simply in order to survive, but survival isn’t the highest measure of a man. He may live a long or short life, in pleasure or in pain, in wealth or in poverty, but what determines his merit is whether he lives well. To live well requires only wisdom and virtue, a good soul, depending upon nothing else.

I have heard protests against such radical claims. “But I need a good job, money, security, and position to make it in life. It would seem silly to talk about virtue, but be living in the gutter! I need to provide myself with worldly success, and then I can have the luxury of being virtuous.”

Being virtuous isn’t a luxury, however. It is the defining and highest function of the human person. While I may prefer certain benefits of fortune, I can choose to live happily, as a good man, in any and every circumstance. I may be in prison, or I may be a giant of industry, I may be healthy or sick, but that really makes little difference. Each and every situation I am faced with offers equal opportunity to live with justice and conviction.

To “despise Fortune” is precisely to be indifferent to all of the externals, and again, think of this not as a weakness, but as a great strength. How beautiful and wonderful that you can tempt a man with luxury, or try to starve him into submission. But whether he says “yes” or “no” is always entirely up to him.

Written 1/2005

Image: Johann Heinrich Lips (1758-1817), An Allegory of Friendship

Seneca on Philosophy and Friendship 5

. . . For what purpose, then, do I make a man my friend? In order to have someone for whom I may die, whom I may follow into exile, against whose death I may stake my own life, and pay the pledge, too.

The friendship which you portray is a bargain and not a friendship; it regards convenience only, and looks to the results. Beyond question the feeling of a lover has in it something akin to friendship; one might call it friendship run mad. But, though this is true, does anyone love for the sake of gain, or promotion, or renown? Pure love, careless of all other things, kindles the soul with desire for the beautiful object, not without the hope of a return of the affection. What then? Can a cause which is more honorable produce a passion that is base?

You may retort: "We are now discussing the question whether friendship is to be cultivated for its own sake.” On the contrary, nothing more urgently requires demonstration; for if friendship is to be sought for its own sake, he may seek it who is self-sufficient.

"How, then,” you ask, "does he seek it?" Precisely as he seeks an object of great beauty, not attracted to it by desire for gain, nor yet frightened by the instability of Fortune. One who seeks friendship for favorable occasions, strips it of all its nobility. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 9, tr Gummere

The Stoic stands in solidarity with the Works of Mercy, and with the shared values of all people of good will, when he proclaims that the friend is always one who will gladly give of himself, even his own life, for the sake of others. He cannot help but help himself by helping others, because he recognizes that his own dignity and worth rest in his practice of virtue.

I only began to see the difference between true and false friendship gradually, because I was often confused about its proper goal. I might simply make use of another, and wonder why I still felt empty, or I would be used by another, and wonder why I felt so lost. I learned that this was because I still had my wires crossed.

I have long found Seneca’s distinction between friendship and a bargain very helpful. What many of us call ‘friendship’ is usually a contract, conditional upon certain mutual benefits. As with any contract, if one or both parties default on their obligations, the agreement is now broken. It may now be renegotiated or abandoned. The measure of value to be traded in such a bargain may be pleasure, wealth, position, or emotional comfort, and once the gain of one or both ‘friends’ disappears, the relationship disappears.

I have known many people who appeared to reach out the hand of friendship, but I have then seen that hand withdrawn when the situation has changed. I have hurt myself by assuming an integrity and commitment that simply wasn’t there. Though I have always been very sensitive to fair-weather friendship, I have found myself also pursuing the model on occasion, and those instances have long been of great shame to me. I have often tried to right the wrong, though not always successfully.

My own living only began to become better when my mind cleared of all the clauses and conditions of the friendship contract. Friendship isn’t a bargain, but a commitment, and that commitment can really be expressed in three words: I love you. Nothing need be signed initialized, or notarized, because our actions themselves must be the fulfillment of the promise. Indeed, the words need not even be said at all, since what we do matters far more than what we say. I have sometimes found that powerfully expressed signs of affection can reveal very empty hearts, like a fancy exterior on a crumbling house.

Fair-weather friendships can be long or short, or more or less involved, but what they all share in common is that it isn’t the friend that is desired for his own sake, but an entirely different benefit that accompanies the friend. Remove the benefit and remove the friend. That isn’t love or friendship at all.

Written 1/2005

Image: Johann Heinrich Lips (1758-1817), An Allegory of Friendship

Seneca on Philosophy and Friendship 4

. . . Let us now return to the question. The wise man, I say, self-sufficient though he be, nevertheless desires friends if only for the purpose of practicing friendship, in order that his noble qualities may not lie dormant.

Not, however, for the purpose mentioned by Epicurus in the letter quoted above: "That there may be someone to sit by him when he is ill, to help him when he is in prison or in want”, but that he may have someone by whose sick-bed he himself may sit, someone a prisoner in hostile hands whom he himself may set free. 

He who regards himself only, and enters upon friendships for this reason, reckons wrongly. The end will be like the beginning: he has made friends with one who might assist him out of bondage; at the first rattle of the chain such a friend will desert him. These are the so-called "fair-weather" friendships; one who is chosen for the sake of utility will be satisfactory only so long as he is useful.

Hence prosperous men are blockaded by troops of friends; but those who have failed stand amid vast loneliness, their friends fleeing from the very crisis which is to test their worth. Hence, also, we notice those many shameful cases of persons who, through fear, desert or betray.

The beginning and the end cannot but harmonize. He who begins to be your friend because it pays will also cease because it pays. A man will be attracted by some reward offered in exchange for his friendship, if he is attracted by anything in friendship other than friendship itself. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 9, tr Gummere

It is only within this context of self-sufficiency and indifference to externals that we can understand the Stoic nature of friendship. I should seek friends so that I may do good for them, and not so that they will do good for me. I often think of it as the importance of being a friend over having a friend.

The differing views on friendship of the Epicurean and the Stoic become apparent from their respective first principles. If I measure my life by pleasure, then I will choose friends by how they make me feel. If I measure my life by virtue, I will choose friends by what I can do for them. It is simply the difference between desiring a friend when I am in need, and desiring to be a friend when another is in need.

I notice how many people who may never even have heard of these terms are nevertheless Epicurean or Stoic in their daily lives. We all know the folks who will walk away when things are no longer as they desire them, and we all know the folks who will bear the hardship because they love you. Some ask you to suffer for them, while others offer to share your suffering.

It may seem that the pleasure-seekers of this life are those people with the most friends, and it doesn’t make it any easier when they show this off. They do indeed have many acquaintances while fortune smiles on them, much like musicians have their groupies, but whenever the winds change, the crowds will move on. Compare the opening party to the end of the tour in This is Spinal Tap. What appeared to be many friends were neither many, nor were they friends.

There are few things more satisfying than a meeting of genuine fellowship between those who care for one another. I do not confuse this, however, with the social practice of trying to impress others in order to gain their admiration. One is a self-giving joy, the other a self-serving burden.

A sign of our weakness is the prevalence of rejection and betrayal among those who once pledged friendship. This is an outer sign of an inner disorder, for the “fair-weather” friend has now simply found someone or something else more profitable. He will have no qualms about dropping you, because it was always about using you to begin with.

There is a better way, one where I can still look at myself in the mirror every morning. It is love for the sake of love. In my own Roman Catholic tradition, I was raised with the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy, all the ways I can try to relieve the suffering, whether in body or in soul, of others. I believe that Seneca would also have approved:

The corporal works of mercy

—To feed the hungry.

—To give water to the thirsty.

—To clothe the naked.

—To shelter the homeless.

—To visit the sick.

—To visit the imprisoned or ransom the captive.

—To bury the dead

The spiritual works of mercy

—To instruct the ignorant.

—To counsel the doubtful.

—To admonish the sinners.

—To bear patiently those who wrong us.

—To forgive the offense.

—To comfort the afflicted.

—To pray for the living and the dead.

Written 1/2005

Image: Johann Heinrich Lips (1758-1817), An Allegory of Friendship

Stoic Music 20

When I was in college, any interest in Hawkwind assumed that you were a stoner. When I later became fascinated with Progressive Rock, I would still avoid them, out of fear of their massive record catalog.

I took the plunge one day, around the same time I came out of the closet as a Grateful Dead fan. I am now entirely content listening to Hawkwind, even if no one else does.

This recent tune reflects many things I have been thinking about. I have, indeed, been a solitary man for much of my life. It only remains for me to distinguish the difference between being solitary and being isolated. Man can live through himself, but he need not live alone.

Written in 2/2017

"Solitary Man", from Hawkwind, The Machine Stops (2016)

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81bXCn49oRc

On a desert island I would sing
About love and stress, almost anything
Am I lonely? Yes, I am
But I was always a solitary man

A dream of a white sandy beach
Turquoise sea and coconuts to eat
No constant chatter, no Internet
Am I lonely? Yes, I am
But I was always a solitary man

There's a few things that I would miss
A bit of love and someone to kiss
Maybe my dog, a ball, and a bone
Am I lonely? Yes, I am
But I was always a solitary man

I didn't know what I know

There's a few things that I would miss
A bit of love and someone to kiss
Maybe my dog could throw a man a bone
Am I lonely? Yes, I am
But I was always a solitary man

 

Stoic Music 19

Level 42 were another guilty pleasure of my younger days. I was originally drawn to them through the New Wave connection, but their jazz-funk sound led me to even better things, like Earth Wind and Fire, Stevie Wonder, and Roy Ayers. This also led to my love of Acid Jazz.

I bought this album, back when CD's were hardly cheap, at Kastner and Öhler, a department store in Graz, Austria. I had to wait another six weeks before I could play it, because no one in my Austrian family had a CD player. The wait was well worth it.

The sentiment of the song has stuck with me for over twenty years, and the lyrics will pop into my head at unexpected moments. It reflects, for good or for ill, my romantic tendencies, and it prefigured my love of Stoicism.

Written in 12/2010

"People", from Level 42, Standing in the Light (1983)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZo6BJAiqp4

I'm forever struck
by the people in this town
and the way they go about their world
have they given up
all the fun they used to have in adolescent xanadu
everything is too much time and trouble
they must be seen as being respectable
they're too busy with their social climbing
waiting for a rise

Why can't people just be people

when they were young
they would wish for the summer evenings that would never end
now the day's too long
and the key to life is locked away in childhood memories
some people judge a man as reasonable
if the wine he buys is seasonable
they've time for friendship if it's advantageous
and causes no pain

why are people so deceitful
why can't people just be people

there is more to the world
than is offered by the soap and war found on the TV screen
and there is more to this life
if you would only take the time to look within and find the key
don't believe words when they're superficial
don't put your trust in values artificial
let your heart do the talking for a little
and feel yourself shine

why can't people trust in people
why can't people just be people

find the time and you'll realize
life isn't too much time and trouble.

Seneca on Philosophy and Friendship 3

. . . But he need never lack friends, for it lies in his own control how soon he shall make good a loss. Just as Phidias, if he lose a statue, can straightway carve another, even so our master in the art of making friendships can fill the place of a friend he has lost. 

If you ask how one can make oneself a friend quickly, I will tell you, provided we are agreed that I may pay my debt at once and square the account, so far as this letter is concerned. Hecato says: "I can show you a potion, compounded without drugs, herbs, or any witch's incantation: 'If you would be loved, love.'"

Now there is great pleasure, not only in maintaining old and established friendships, but also in beginning and acquiring new ones. There is the same difference between winning a new friend and having already won him, as there is between the farmer who sows and the farmer who reaps. 

The philosopher Attalus used to say: “It is more pleasant to make than to keep a friend, as it is more pleasant to the artist to paint than to have finished painting.”

When one is busy and absorbed in one's work, the very absorption affords great delight; but when one has withdrawn one's hand from the completed masterpiece, the pleasure is not so keen. Henceforth it is the fruits of his art that he enjoys; it was the art itself that he enjoyed while he was painting. In the case of our children, their young manhood yields the more abundant fruits, but their infancy was sweeter. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 9, tr Gummere

We are perhaps tempted to think of ‘having’ friends like having a well-stocked pantry of goods available for our use and convenience. I have noted for many years how the Christmas tradition of sending and receiving as many cards as possible can too easily fall into this trap. Seneca rather explains that the joy of friendship is less in the possession, and more in the formation itself.

We will most certainly lose people we care for in our lives, sometimes through mere circumstance, and sometimes through our own sins. Such a loss can be a great burden, and should not be dismissed lightly. If, however, we once again turn our thinking from what is done to us to what we do, friendship can be seen in a different light. For the self-sufficient man the value of his life is not just in what he receives, but in what he gives, and with Hecato, we can understand that friendship is perfected by our own willingness to love.

Do I wish to be loved? Of course, and what better way to inspire love from another than by giving it first? But whether or not I am loved is hardly the point, because that is not within my power. Whether I offer love is most certainly within my power. Many times in life the greatest joy is not in beholding the finished product, but in the making.

Only a very few of my close family and loved ones have been long-term friends, and the support that has often given me is immeasurable. But I will still bemoan the loss of other friends, and the only remedy for that sadness is to make certain of one thing, and of one thing only: Did I give with all of myself for another, and if I did not, what can I do to make it right, asking for nothing further in return?

In my later years I have made it a point to seek out new friends, not for the purpose of adding them to my list, but simply in order to learn to better practice kindness, respect, and trust. I try not to worry if they will stay or go, but I do concern myself with whether I have acted in a way that is in turn worthy of kindness, respect, and trust. The pain of loss is not tempered by rejection or resentment, but by continuing to act as a true friend would, regardless of the conditions.

Written 1/2005

Image: Johann Heinrich Lips (1758-1817), An Allegory of Friendship

Seneca on Philosophy and Friendship 2

. . . But we and they alike hold this idea, that the wise man is self-sufficient. Nevertheless, he desires friends, neighbors, and associates, no matter how much he is sufficient unto himself. 

And mark how self-sufficient he is; for on occasion he can be content with a part of himself. If he lose a hand through disease or war, or if some accident puts out one or both of his eyes, he will be satisfied with what is left, taking as much pleasure in his impaired and maimed body as he took when it was sound. 

But while he does not pine for these parts if they are missing, he prefers not to lose them. In this sense the wise man is self-sufficient, that he can do without friends, not that he desires to do without them. When I say "can", I mean this: he endures the loss of a friend with equanimity. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 9, tr Gummere

In seeking to understand the Stoic model of self-sufficiency, I have found it helpful to think of myself from the outside in, and from the inside out. I remind myself that being able to flip this perception is a part of what I have often called the Stoic Turn. To be self-sufficient is not to exist in separation from the world, but rather to properly understand my relationship to other persons and things.

We are primarily used to thinking of ourselves from the outside in. Things affect us, we respond by changing ourselves to fit these new externals, and we then easily allow those things to measure our value and merit. This is an essentially passive view of the self, because I permit my wealth, position, or reputation to determine me.

In contrast, we can think of ourselves from the inside out. We can look first and foremost to the value and merit of how we think and live, and not allow ourselves to be ruled by our conditions. This is an essentially active view of the self, because I do not see my fortune as something that controls me, but as something I can always use to improve my own action.

The first sort of life can never be truly self-sufficient, while the second most certainly can be self-sufficient. I can remain fully engaged with my world, I can love my neighbor and seek the good for him, and I can always choose to act for what is right. But I should never allow the circumstances of that world to be my master.

This connects nicely with the Stoic ideal of indifference. Life is going to throw many things at us, some pleasant and some painful, some easy and some hard, and, all other things being equal, it is only natural to prefer convenient things to inconvenient things.

Yet as soon as I desire and choose my fortune over my own virtue, I’ve sadly flipped the priorities. By all means, I can desire pleasure, money, fame, health, and many friends, but if seeking them destroys my moral character, I am no longer self-sufficient, because I am no longer indifferent to those externals. In the simplest of terms, we should always seek in our lives what will help us in living well, and avoid what will encourage us in living poorly.

So it is with friends. I would very much like to live in the company of others I can love and trust, and for all of our differences in personality, we are all sociable creatures. But if I must lose friends, and therefore perhaps even be completely alone, in order to be a good man, then I can learn to bear that with acceptance and dignity. I simply can’t sell higher things for lower things, like selling my own soul in order to be liked or respected.

Written 1/2005

Image: Johann Heinrich Lips (1758-1817), An Allegory of Friendship

Seneca on Philosophy and Friendship 1

You desire to know whether Epicurus is right when, in one of his letters, he rebukes those who hold that the wise man is self-sufficient and for that reason does not stand in need of friendships. This is the objection raised by Epicurus against Stilpo and those who believed that the Supreme Good is a soul which is insensible to feeling.

We are bound to meet with a double meaning if we try to express the Greek term "lack of feeling" summarily, in a single word, rendering it by the Latin word “impanentia”. For it may be understood in the meaning the opposite to that which we wish it to have. 

What we mean to express is, a soul which rejects any sensation of evil; but people will interpret the idea as that of a soul which can endure no evil.  Consider, therefore, whether it is not better to say "a soul that cannot be harmed”, or "a soul entirety beyond the realm of suffering”. There is this difference between ourselves and the other school: our ideal wise man feels his troubles, but overcomes them; their wise man does not even feel them. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 9, tr Gummere

The concept of self-sufficiency in Stoicism can be a difficult one to embrace, because at face value it might seem to say that a man needs nothing beyond himself to live well. He would therefore seem not to need family, friends, or any love for another person.

This is tempting for those of us who are bitten by the Black Dog, or who have been hurt one time too many. But it confuses self-sufficiency with isolation. They are hardly the same thing.

Though we need not dwell upon the details here, Epicurus was the founder of a rival school to Stoicism. In the simplest sense, while the Stoics said that the highest measure of a man was the pursuit of virtue, Epicurus argued that the highest measure of a man was the pursuit of pleasure. Now Epicurus was hardly a hedonist, because he understood that we could never live in perfect pleasure. He therefore suggested that the proper balance was seeking moderate pleasure, and minimum pain.

Epicurus was also critical of Stilpo, a philosopher of the Megarian school. We sadly have none of Stilpo’s writings, but he seemed to encourage being “insensitive” to the world in order to practice true virtue. This seemed ridiculous to Epicurus, and perhaps rightly so. Lucilius is confused about the difference between the Stoics, the Epicureans, and the Megarians, and perhaps rightly so.

Here is one reason why I have always admired Seneca. His ability to distinguish and clarify cuts like a knife. I think only St. Thomas Aquinas can outdo him in this regard.

What do we truly mean by being “insensitive” or “lacking feeling”? Different words, and in different languages, can sometimes tie us in knots. I once recall a heated debate that revolved around the difference between the terms “know” and “believe” in English and in German. The words weren’t the problem, but our own ability and willingness to find a common meaning was indeed a problem.

Seneca explains that Stilpo and the Stoics are really using the term “insensitive” very differently. Stilpo means that that we should not be moved or affected by feelings at all, while the Stoic means that we should not allow our feelings to rule us. In other words, the Megarian removes passion from the equation, while the Stoic puts it in its rightful place. Stilpo’s view is actually what most people assume defines Stoicism, though, as Seneca clarifies, that is hardly the case. People will misunderstand the meaning of terms.

These are really two different solutions to the problem of pain and suffering. Either you excise feeling and thereby excise pain, or you manage and order your feelings, and then you transform pain.

They are also two very different approaches to the question of friendship. I am self-sufficient, therefore I do not need friends, or I am self-sufficient, therefore I must learn to love my friends rightly.

Epicurus might be right to criticize Stilpo for denying his feelings, though this same criticism would hardly apply to Stoicism. Nevertheless, both the Megarian and the Stoic would have to disagree with the Epicurean claim that feeling is the primary thing that defines us. I feel a triangular chart of the relationship between the three views coming on, but you can picture that in your own imagination!

Written 1/2005

Image: Johann Heinrich Lips (1758-1817), An Allegory of Friendship

 

Seneca on True and False Friendship 5

. . . In like manner you should rebuke these two kinds of men—both those who always lack repose, and those who are always in repose. For love of bustle is not industry—it is only the restlessness of a hunted mind. 

And true repose does not consist in condemning all motion as merely vexation; that kind of repose is slackness and inertia.  Therefore, you should note the following saying, taken from my reading in Pomponius: "Some men shrink into dark corners, to such a degree that they see darkly by day."

 No, men should combine these tendencies, and he who reposes should act and be who acts should take repose.  Discuss the problem with Nature; she will tell you that she has created both day and night.  Farewell.

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 3, tr Gummere

Similarly, we have the sort of people who feel the need to be in constant action, always busy doing and achieving, as well as the sort of people who don’t ever do much of anything at all. Much as we are tempted to do with trust, so we are also tempted to do with action, pursuing far too much or far too little.

I note that neither sort of person is capable of being a true friend, because we have lost a sense of the balance between ourselves and others.

My own temptation has usually tended toward the latter, though I wonder if that is because I am reacting to my experiences of the former.

I have a vivid memory from childhood. I was attending a new school, and I felt the urge to find friendship and companionship. A fellow who seemed very bright and charming didn’t seem to mind me tagging along after him, so that’s exactly what I did. He shared many of his own thoughts with me, and seemed to encourage me to express my own.

Something frightening happened one day, and I can never claim to have really understood why. Perhaps he was making himself feel better by putting me in my place. He was telling one of his jokes, and I laughed with him. Suddenly, his expression became very serious, and he insulted the way I laughed. He then went on to give a long litany of all the many ways I was, as he called it, a loser.

Needless to say, that hurt me very deeply. I crawled into myself, interested neither in doing anything nor in trusting anyone. In different way and at different times, similar things have happened, and I have always had the same instinct to hide away. I felt, over and over again, that I had, as they say, put myself out there, only then to be cut down.

It took thought, and not just feeling, to begin to recognize what I was doing to myself over the years. It seemed that I wanted to love and to live well, but the world also appeared to be telling me that I couldn’t do that.

It is deeply frightening and disturbing, for example, when someone has said that you will be a best friend for all of time, and now will not acknowledge you or give you the time of day. Then you recognize there was no love there at all.

Nature was rather asking me to learn to distinguish about what it meant to love, and what it meant to live well. She had been telling me all along that what mattered was who I loved, and why I acted. I can only be a friend when I have figured that out. 

Written in 7/2009

Image: Giotto, The Kiss of Judas (c. 1305)

Seneca on True and False Friendship 4

. . . There is a class of men who communicate, to anyone whom they meet, matters which should be revealed to friends alone, and unload upon the chance listener whatever irks them. 

Others, again, fear to confide in their closest intimates; and if it were possible, they would not trust even themselves, burying their secrets deep in their hearts. But we should do neither. It is equally faulty to trust everyone and to trust no one. 

Yet the former fault is, I should say, the more ingenuous, the latter the more safe. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 3, tr Gummere

Swinging between trusting too much and not trusting at all will quite often speed past the middle ground, where we learn who we should trust and why we should trust them. I may have attempted friendship, and I may have practiced it poorly, or allowed myself to be seduced by the externals. Perhaps the solution is now never to have any friends at all? Trust was broken, so shouldn’t trust be thrown away?

Our mistake is to assume that we should discard the things that don’t work, and replace them with entirely different things. We overlook the true solution, which is to make the broken things work again. It is entirely possible, and advisable, to find the right balance.

Though I may not understand why, I desire friendship, so I begin sharing my thoughts and feelings with anyone and everyone. I may also think that friends will benefit me by what they will do for me. I am that first sort of man that Seneca describes, confident, ambitious, and outgoing. I will very quickly be disappointed. I have discovered that I loved and trusted all the wrong people, and they, in turn, did absolutely nothing for me.

I may still not understand why, but I will begin to reject the very possibility of love and trust altogether. In a typical fight or flight fashion, I oppose or reject what has seemingly hurt. And I have now become the second sort of man that Seneca describes, who can no longer even trust himself.

And all that time, while going from one extreme to another, I have been neglecting a healthy sense of love and trust.

Instead of being everyone’s friend, or no one’s at all, I can recognize that the person worthy of friendship is someone who shares my own commitment to living with excellence. Only with that common goal can our thoughts and actions be ordered in harmony toward the same end.

Instead of expecting the benefit of friendship to be what I may receive, I can recognize that its true merit lies in our capacity to give, and through shared giving there is a double benefit. Only when I expect nothing from externals, seeing my own dignity and that of others in our internal character, will friendship become a blessing.

 Written in 7/2009

Image: Giotto, The Kiss of Judas (c. 1305)

Seneca on True and False Friendship 3

. . . Speak as boldly with him as with yourself. As to yourself, although you should live in such a way that you trust your own self with nothing which you could not entrust even to your enemy, yet, since certain matters occur which convention keeps secret, you should share with a friend at least all your worries and reflections.

 Regard him as loyal, and you will make him loyal. Some, for example, fearing to be deceived, have taught men to deceive; by their suspicions they have given their friend the right to do wrong. Why need I keep back any words in the presence of my friend?  Why should I not regard myself as alone when in his company? . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 3, tr Gummere

The joy of friendship should rightly rest in the unity that comes from trust and commitment. It is for this reason that the Ancients often spoke of the friend as a “second self”, the person with whom we can share what is closest to us, both the good and the bad.

It is perhaps because we so desire the comfort of such a bond that we become discouraged when we see it neglected and abused. We wish to practice honesty and concern, but we find that others act only with deception and selfishness.

We have already seen Seneca’s advice that we choose our friends wisely and carefully, seeking first and foremost the same sense of wisdom and virtue to which we aspire. We will all stumble and fall in our attempts at living well, but the friend will help us to do good and to avoid evil; he will not meet a wrong with another wrong.

This is a variation of the “Golden Rule”. If I wish a friend to be loyal, just, considerate, or merciful, I myself must treat him with loyalty, justice, consideration, or mercy. It seems so odd that we would say that the friend is a second self, and then harm him, as if we were somehow trying to harm ourselves.

We can perhaps understand why we would act in such a contradictory way. I may have been hurt by the rejection or neglect of another, and so I now defend myself by becoming untrusting and inconsiderate. It may seem safer to withdraw from commitment when others have failed to commit.

But then we merely compound the problem. We feel anger or sadness when we experience vice in others, and by allowing ourselves to be ruled by those feelings, we ourselves embrace vice, and thereby merely encourage it in others. The vicious cycle continues.

The Stoic need never fear the grief or resentment of loss, because he knows that his happiness rests in how well he lives, in what he gives, and not simply in what he receives. He breaks the cycle of broken friendship simply by practicing being a friend himself.

Written in 7/2009

Image: Giotto, The Kiss of Judas (c. 1305)

Seneca on True and False Friendship 2

. . . Indeed, I would have you discuss everything with a friend; but first of all discuss the man himself.  When friendship is settled, you must trust; before friendship is formed, you must pass judgment. 

Those persons indeed put last first and confound their duties, who, violating the rules of Theophrastus, judge a man after they have made him their friend, instead of making him their friend after they have judged him. 

Ponder for a long time whether you shall admit a given person to your friendship; but when you have decided to admit him, welcome him with all your heart and soul. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 3, tr Gummere

I have caused myself much unnecessary grief because I have sometimes flipped the crucial order of this rule. Instead of choosing a friend carefully, and then committing myself fully, I have committed myself far too hastily and carelessly. I then foolishly sat in the ruins, confused about what had gone wrong.

The problem always lay in my own ability to decide upon a measure for friendship. At first, it was nothing but the appearance of beauty. I was that shallow. Then it was charm or intelligence. Then it was the illusion of being learned or educated.

I finally, after too many years, realized that there was really just one thing that mattered as the measure for friendship. You and I can have the most diverse of interests, tastes, preferences, or backgrounds. These things are all about externals. We can, and will, only be friends when we share a common sense of what is right and wrong, of the internals, guided by a moral compass.

To judge others does not mean to condemn them; it means simply to understand them for who they are. I must reflect upon how and why this person acts as he does, and I must make my trust and friendship flow in harmony with those values he employs to live.

Others will be as they are. Blame will never change that. The Stoic grasps that blame has no place in a sound moral universe, and the only solution is to take upon myself a full moral responsibility for myself. I should worry about what I do, and never what is done to me.

I could write whole volumes blaming others for being poor friends, but it would neither help me, nor would it help them. To do so would be the very antithesis of friendship.

To avoid grief, guilt, or resentment is to do nothing more than to be accountable for oneself. If and when I choose to love someone, and to be a friend, there will quite simply be no conditions, no requirements, and no contracts. Love and friendship do not admit of such limitations.

Written in 7/2009

Image: Giotto, The Kiss of Judas (c. 1305)