Epictetus, The Handbook 4: What is Its Nature?

When anything, from the meanest thing upwards, is attractive or serviceable or an object of affection, remember always to say to yourself, ‘ What is its nature? ‘

 If you are fond of a jug, say you are fond of a jug; then you will not be disturbed if it be broken. If you kiss your child or your wife, say to yourself that you are kissing a human being, for then if death strikes it you will not be disturbed.

Epictetus, The Handbook, Chapter 3 (tr Matheson)

It is crucial to distinguish between what something is in itself, and what is to me and for me. If I can look at something as the former, I can avoid being trapped up by the latter. I need not remove the object of desire to be free of a dependence upon it, but must simply bracket my desire for it. This sometimes sounds easier than it actually is. How do I unravel the difference between a person in himself, for example, and all the reasons I desire that person?

I always remember St. Augustine in the Confessions, mourning the death of his friend, and him realizing it wasn’t his friend he was mourning about at all, but his own loss. I find this sort of exercise very helpful to avoid becoming self-absorbed. Something is what it is, regardless of whether I possess or enjoy it. In making the distinction, I respect things in themselves, and I am no longer making it all about me.

I have faced this with persons. I will often find myself missing another person to the point of despair. I then need to remember that my image of this particular person really has little to do with the reality. This is all about my perception blinding me to what truly is.

Let us say I am willing and able to differentiate what is from what seems to me. I can then also recognize that the good and happiness of another need not depend upon whether I am with or possess that person. I can learn to act both for my sake and for the sake of others, and not get these all tangled up.

I have also faced this with places, where my absence from them, and my memory of them, needs to be sorted out. I do a sort of existential exercise where I imagine the place without me there, and then laugh at myself because I am making myself present as an observer even as I try to remove myself from the picture. I realize that the place is just as good or beautiful whether or not I am there to appreciate it. That can give great comfort.

I have even faced this with things. I once lost a pen that was dear to my father, and I will sometimes suddenly imagine what happened to that pen, where it ended up, and who might have ever used it again. It quickly becomes clear that the reason that pen is important is not that it is a writing instrument, but because it is an unpleasant reminder to me that I was careless, and the feeling that I had let down my father.

If I can achieve such clarity of judgment, I can separate my longing from persons, places, or things, and I can therefore have a mastery over my estimation of persons, places, or things.

  
Written in 4/2001