The Death of Marcus Aurelius

The Death of Marcus Aurelius

Monday, November 13, 2017

Epictetus, The Handbook 30: Led by the Nose


If any one trusted your body to the first man he met, you would be indignant, but yet you trust your mind to the chance comer, and allow it to be disturbed and confounded if he reviles you; are you not ashamed to do so?

Epictetus, The Handbook 28 (tr Matheson)

Socrates liked to challenge us to consider why we upend the order of priority in our own nature. Why do we care so much for the external goods of the body, which are conditional and temporary, and so little for the internal goods of the soul, which are unconditional and lasting?

Epictetus follows in the same spirit. How odd that we are not willing to hand over our bodies, our property, wealth, or influence to others, yet when it comes to the way we think and decide, we surrender ourselves without question? We allow ourselves to be led by the nose, and we agree blindly with the prevailing fashions in ideas.

Whenever I make such an observation, I am often met by one of two different responses. First that this is surely too negative a view, or second, that it is simply proof of how corrupt we have become since the times of the Ancients.

I think of something as negative if it only points to the problem without seeking a solution. Stoicism offers that solution in the very stating of the problem, in asking us to consider what defines us as human, and which goods are the greater.

Perhaps modernity sells its soul in a greater degree, but any authority, from any time and place, will tell you how confused human beings always have been about what matters more or less.

All of this is only to be a doomsayer or a reactionary if we see the evil without finding the good. That good should remain the recognition that, through my estimation of myself and my world, I can turn myself around, and I can see that my greatest freedom is to rule my own thoughts and deeds. I can realize, as Socrates had already taught, that any external good of the body is only as good as the inner wisdom and virtue which guides and orders it.

I think we all wonder why we can be so shallow, so petty, so vindictive, and so greedy to own and possess. From a Stoic perspective, I would suggest that this is, first, because man is free, and, second, because of the weight of habit.

As creatures of reason, this means we have free choice to act according to our own understanding. When I can do what I decide, there is always the opportunity to decide poorly. Sometimes the things that are worst for us appear so tempting.

With time, our actions become ingrained, and for good or for bad, acting with habit becomes acting with little effort. This can be a blessing if we act with the habit of virtue, and a terrible burden if we act with the habit of vice.

If I have followed the poor habits I see around me, and then I have developed my own, it may seem like fixing my life is too difficult. I think of Colonel Slade from Scent of a Woman:

Now I have come to the crossroads in my life. I always knew what the right path was. Without exception, I knew. But I never took it. You know why? It was too damn hard.

Now here's Charlie. He's come to the crossroads. He has chosen a path. It's the right path. It's a path made of principle that leads to character. Let him continue on his journey.

I know that feeling all too well. I’ve neglected the better side of me for the worse, the higher for the lower, even when I somehow knew I was going down the wrong path, because it just seemed easier to let myself be led by the nose. It seemed easier to follow all those glittering prizes.

Of course, it wasn’t easier at all. I started to protest when it didn’t work out the way I thought it would. I never had a right to protest, because the fault was mine, not the world’s, and my life was disordered because I had chosen not to rule myself in my mind, but to be enslaved through my body.

The beauty is that Colonel Slade did learn that through Charlie, and he is now finally choosing to take the right path.  So it is for all of us. We don’t need to trade the dignity that is within us for all the false glories that are outside us.

Written in 6/2007

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