"They are ill at ease," he
replies, "because many things arise which distract their thoughts, and
their minds are disquieted by conflicting opinions."
I admit that this is true. Still, these
very men, foolish, inconsistent, and certain to feel remorse as they are, do
nevertheless receive great pleasure, and we must allow that in so doing they
are as far from feeling any trouble as they are from forming a right judgment,
and that, as is the case with many people, they are possessed by a merry
madness, and laugh while they rave.
The pleasures of wise men, on the other
hand, are mild, decorous, verging on dullness, kept under restraint and
scarcely noticeable, and are neither invited to come nor received with honor
when they come of their own accord, nor are they welcomed with any delight by
those whom they visit, who mix them up with their lives and fill up empty
spaces with them, like an amusing farce in the intervals of serious business. .
. .
—Seneca
the Younger, On the happy life,
Chapter 12 (tr Stewart)
Seneca’s
adversary suggests that the pleasure seeker may be ill at ease simply because he
is sometimes distracted or confused. Seneca
agrees, though he considers that the confusion is much deeper, and arises
precisely because people have chosen to pursue a completely misguided end,
which in turn arises from completely misguided judgment.
If I had
read this passage as a much younger man, I would probably have scoffed at
Seneca’s colorful distinction between those who seek pleasure and those who
seek virtue. I might even have said that I would prefer to be the crazed
buffoon than the uptight stick-in-the-mud, because at the very least the raving
pleasure seeker might get a bit of fun out of the whole thing.
Seneca
never minces his words, of course, which hardly makes him a writer who will
appeal to the young and brash. With all the extreme images aside, experience
has come to teach me precisely what he means.
I have
now seen it all too often. Drunks sit in the bar, pretending to enjoy a happy
hour, their faces devoid of any reflection or contentment. Junkies grasp violently
at anything and everything as they come off of their high. Philanderers drive
themselves insane in the pursuit of their prey. The captains of industry are
obsessed with increasing their assets. The politicians struggle to be more
liked. The proper professionals run around wildly in the hopes of improving
their power and position. It happens in every walk of life, and it is indeed a
form of madness. We ignore our better judgment in favor of gratification,
though if we are given all the pleasures we seek, we are still ill at ease.
In
contrast, the wise man, the man who pursues virtue as his end, will certainly
appear to be bland, cold and unfeeling. He will certainly appear this way to
the sensualist. I imagine that, seen from the outside in, this is why Stoicism
is considered a philosophy without any emotion.
I must
always remember, however, that the Stoic does not reject pleasure. He will
receive it, he will enjoy it with calm and with moderation, but he will not
make it his purpose or pursue it for its own sake. It is an addition to the
value of his living, not the measure of his living. He will seem dull and
boring because he is at peace with what is within himself, never frantic for
acquiring what is outside of himself.
The wise
man will hardly care if he is found amusing or interesting, and certainly not
by the sort of people who follow a slavishness to externals. He will be happy
to be himself, in the peace of his own nature, and he will immediately
recognize and welcome any who are one the same path.
Happiness
is not a frenzied rat race, not the struggle to gain more and more. It is the
peace of living well, with however much or little Fortune may have given us.
Written in 2/2006
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