Learn, then, since we both agree that riches
are desirable, what my reason is for counting them among good things, and in
what respects I should behave differently to you if I possessed them.
Place me as master in the house of a
very rich man. Place me where gold and silver plate is used for the commonest
purposes. I shall not think more of myself because of things, which even though
they are in my house, they are yet not a part of me.
Take me away to the wooden bridge and
put me down there among the beggars. I shall not despise myself because I am
sitting among those who hold out their hands for alms. For what can the lack of
a piece of bread matter to one who does not lack the power of dying?
Well, then? I prefer the magnificent
house to the beggar's bridge. Place me among magnificent furniture and all the
appliances of luxury. I shall not think myself any happier because my cloak is
soft, because my guests rest upon purple.
Change the scene. I shall be no more
miserable if my weary head rests upon a bundle of hay, or if I lie upon a
cushion from the circus, with all the stuffing on the point of coming out
through its patches of threadbare cloth.
Well, then? I prefer, as far as my feelings
go, to show myself in public dressed in woolen and in robes of office, rather
than with naked or half-covered shoulders. I should like every day's business
to turn out just as I wish it to do, and new congratulations to be constantly
following upon the former ones.
Yet I will not pride myself upon this.
Change all this good fortune for its opposite, let my spirit be distracted by
losses, grief, various kinds of attacks. Let no hour pass without some dispute.
I shall not on this account, though beset by the greatest miseries, call myself
the most miserable of beings, nor shall I curse any particular day, for I have
taken care to have no unlucky days. . . .
—Seneca
the Younger, On the happy life,
Chapter 25 (tr Stewart)
I must
admit that I sometimes feel baffled by Seneca on virtue and fortune. I know
that I must be indifferent to wealth, but I also know that I may prefer it, and
it seems strange that I can both despise and desire one and the same thing. It
isn’t just the terminology that can get in the way, but a sense that the entire
process of moral judgment is a precarious balancing act between conscience and
convenience.
I then
recognize, however, that this appearance of tension arises only because I am
still confused about the nature of what is valuable. Virtue and fortune do not
differ in their degree, but they are rather completely different in kind, and
if I think that I’m doing well by caring a bit more about my character, and bit
less about my possessions, I’m actually well off the mark. I should rather care
only for my character, and nothing at all for my possessions. Now my
circumstances will become useful or
preferable only if they can assist my practice of virtue, and it is my proper use
of them that will give them any value. The means must be totally subservient to
the end.
My
feelings may prefer wealth to poverty, or ease to difficulty, but this should
in no way affect my happiness, which relies exclusively upon my own actions. If
I believe I am slightly happier because I have a good job, or slightly more
miserable because I am sick, then I misunderstand what it means to be happy,
and I am mixing up preference and principle.
My
happiness will depend upon whether I care about the right things. This revolves
around understanding that my nature is defined by what I do, not by what
happens to me. As soon as I can grasp this, I will no longer worry about my
fortune for its own sake, and I will no longer try balancing conscience and
convenience. I will hardly be miserable if I lose something that doesn’t matter
to me.
For most
of us, trying to give value to both virtue and circumstance results in an
unfitting compromise, and quite often means the surrender of the former to the
latter. There no can be no half measures. Stoic self-reliance will only seem
heartless if our hearts are in the wrong place, and continue to love the wrong
things.
I can
then begin to realize that no circumstance is in itself good or bad, unless I
make it so, and that no day is lucky or unlucky, because luck does not
determine me, but rather I determine what I will do with luck. The Universe is
hardly random, of course, since everything in Nature is in its place for a
purpose, and what we call luck is really only in our perception. I will learn
to see that any luck, any circumstance, whether or not I may prefer it, is
always an opportunity for benefit. Not all luck will increase my fortune, but
it can always be a means to improve my character.
Written in 6/2004
Image: Fortune and Her Wheel, Illustration from Boccaccio’s On the Fates of Famous Men (1467)
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