. . . Whoever on the other hand forms
an alliance, and that, too, a one-sided one, between virtue and pleasure, clogs
whatever strength the one may possess by the weakness of the other, and sends
liberty under the yoke, for liberty can only remain unconquered as long as she
knows nothing more valuable than herself.
For he begins to need the help of
Fortune, which is the most utter slavery. His life becomes anxious, full of
suspicion, timorous, fearful of accidents, waiting in agony for critical
moments of time. You do not afford virtue a solid immovable base if you bid it
stand on what is unsteady, and what can be so unsteady as dependence on mere
chance, and the vicissitudes of the body and of those things that act on the
body?
How can such a man obey God and receive
everything which comes to pass in a cheerful spirit, never complaining of fate,
and putting a good construction upon everything that befalls him, if he be
agitated by the petty pin-pricks of pleasures and pains?
A man cannot be a good protector of his
country, a good avenger of her wrongs, or a good defender of his friends, if he
is inclined to pleasures. . . .
—Seneca
the Younger, On the happy life,
Chapter 15 (tr Stewart)
The
liberty Seneca speaks of is the power to rule oneself, that foundation upon
which the whole structure of Stoic happiness is built. To be genuinely free is
not to assert the power of the will over
the world, but to take complete responsibility for our choices in the world.
The
happy man should not expect to shape things in his own image, and Fortune will
have her own way with what is under her authority. The happy man will rather
improve himself regarding what is under his own authority, in the way that he
judges, chooses, and acts. To permit my own happiness to depend upon my
circumstances is to make those circumstances more valuable than myself, whether
it is in the pursuit of pleasure, or of fame, or of power. These things are not
mine, they do not concern me, and I enslave myself to them whenever I choose to
pursue them. My weakness is then in the willful surrender of my self-reliance.
If I
wish to build upon something unmoving, I need only look to Nature, and how she
asks me to live within her order. I often notice how our frustration and
complaints at the unfair ways of the world seem to become more exaggerated as
we become more spoiled and entitled. This should be a clear sign that the
things we think are gifts to our freedom are actually only burdens to our
happiness. I need to change the focus of my attention.
Growing
up in New England, I was baffled by the many luxurious vacation houses built on
beaches that would soon be washed away by the elements. When I moved west, I
noticed how greedy developers built family homes that soon succumbed to
flooding or plunged into sinkholes. There is then often outrage and blame, even
though people of common sense had known for centuries not to build on such poor
land.
As one
of my old philosophy professors, known for his especially painful sense of
humor, would often say, “The yokes on you.”
Written in 1/2012
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