. . . All
these vices are dissipated by virtue, which plucks a man by the ear, and
measures the value of pleasures before she permits them to be used; nor does
she set much store by those which she allows to pass through, for she merely
allows their use, and her cheerfulness is not due to her use of them, but to
her moderation in using them.
"Yet when moderation lessens
pleasure, it impairs the highest good."
You devote yourself to pleasures, I
check them; you indulge in pleasure, I use it; you think that it is the highest
good, I do not even think it to be good: for the sake of pleasure I do nothing,
you do everything.
—Seneca
the Younger, On the happy life,
Chapter 10 (tr Stewart)
When
considered as the measure of happiness, pleasure itself will lead us only into
the pursuit of selfish desire. Even if I have acted with the appearance of
justice in order to increase my own power, or acted with the appearance of
courage in order to bolster my reputation, or acted with the appearance of
temperance at one moment for the sake greater satisfaction at another, I have
still reduced right and wrong to the whims of my passions.
Nature
does not revolve around how I feel, and I must consider my feelings by how my
choices and deeds exist within the harmony of the whole. Virtue, action ordered
by the knowledge of what is good and bad in things themselves, is the great
arbiter and mediator, the guide that shows me how I should relate to all of the
circumstances that accompany me in my life.
Sometimes
the world may give me wealth, and sometimes it may give me poverty. Sometimes
others will love me, and sometimes I will be despised. Perhaps most
importantly, sometimes I will feel pleasure, and sometimes I will feel pain.
I must
not take any of these things as good or bad in and of themselves, but I must
rather ask myself how I should make use of them, and how I should manage and
direct them, in order to live well. That is the measure of wisdom and virtue,
the greatest good within my own nature, that informs me about what I should seek
and what I should avoid.
I once
gave up the offer of a much more pleasant job because I had already signed
another contract, and later I once weaseled my way out of a different job
because of the lure of a much better one. The first choice was less convenient,
but it was the right one. The second choice was very convenient, but it was the
wrong one. Everything will bring with it different degrees of pleasure and
pain, but the only path to peace and contentment is resting in the knowledge
that, whatever the circumstances, I have treated both others and myself with
right respect. I still don’t regret the first decision at all, though I regret
the second one all of the time.
Not all
of my decisions will be useful or pleasant to my position in the world, but
they should always be beneficial to the content of my character. This is what I
owe to myself, and this is what I owe to others.
My own
attempts at the practice of Stoicism have only gradually come to a point where
I no longer look first to pleasure, wealth, power, or reputation as the
standards by which I think, decide, or act. I no longer seek to pursue pleasure
without condition, or to avoid pain without condition.
I seek
to measure the value of pleasure and pain, to filter their effect upon me, through
the constant of virtue. I should hardly be surprised anymore when a change in
the quality of my estimation leads to real change in the quality of my living.
Written in 11/2004
Image: Annibale Carracci, The Choice of Hercules (1596)
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