“He who has calmly reconciled his life
to fate,
and set proud death beneath his feet,
can look fortune in the face,
unbending both to good and bad:
His countenance he can show unconquered.
The rage and threatening of the sea
will not move him,
though they stir from its depths the
upheaving swell.
Vesuvius' furnaces may never so often
burst forth,
and he may send rolling upwards smoke
and fire.
The lightning, whose wont it is to
smite down lofty towers,
may flash upon its way,
but such men they shall never move.
Why then do they stand wretched and
aghast
when fierce tyrants rage in impotence?
Fear nothing, and hope nothing.
Thus shall you have a weak man's rage
disarmed.
But whoever fears with trembling,
or desires anything from them,
he stands not firmly rooted, but
dependent.
Thus has he thrown away his shield.
He can be rooted up,
and he links for himself the very chain
whereby he may be dragged.”
—from
Book 1, Poem 4
On the
one hand, I am encouraged by the idea that it is possible to both live well and
live happily in the face of suffering. On the other hand, some of these
obstacles still seem too overwhelming.
Reconciling
myself to fate may sound ominous and defeatist, and setting death beneath my
feet may seem rash and careless. Perhaps I can begin with an aspect that is
more manageable for my wounded sensibilities? What does it mean to say that I
can face fortune, and be unbending in the face of whatever is good or bad?
At
first, even this may also feel like too much. Surely I want too pursue good
things, and I want to avoid bad things? If I do not bend in the face of either,
one way or the other, is that not a foolish thing to do? It hardly seems strong
or brave to neglect the difference between things that are beneficial or
harmful.
But Lady
Philosophy is not telling me to be indifferent to anything and everything, but
to be firm particularly in the face of fortune. Fortune, of course, is about
the things that happen to me, the events in the world around me that can affect
me one way or another. I will usually assume that these external circumstances
are what make me happy or miserable, and very many people will likely agree.
But is that necessarily the case?
I need
to ask myself what kind of life it will really be if I make fortune my master. Things
will occur, some pleasing and some disturbing, and everything about my own
existence will now depend on those things. Very often, we have absolutely no
control over these occurrences.
This
suddenly appears as quite a weak life, quite a directionless life, and quite a
dependent life. An infant can provide virtually nothing for himself, and
requires most everything for his well-being to come from outside of himself,
but this doesn’t seem to be the same for a full-grown man, who can think,
choose, and act for himself.
If I
could learn to rely on myself, instead of what happens to me, I could also
learn to be stronger in the face of what opposes me. I could find ways to not
let fortune bend me as much as it does. I wouldn’t need to fear certain events,
or hope for certain events, if I could make my own value less contingent on
those events. I would discern good and bad in a different way.
Fate and
death suddenly don’t feel so intimidating when seen in this sort of a light.
Fate is what is going to happen, and death is one of those things that are
going to happen, in some manner or form. These conditions won’t disturb me if
what is good in my life isn’t shaped by them. It isn’t defeatism or
carelessness if I only recognize that they aren’t what matters in life.
The
images of the forces of nature, of the seas, the earth, and the skies lashing
out at us, are surely grand, but they can point me to a very practical truth.
If a captain confident in his seamanship can ride through a raging storm, why
can’t I ride through the raging of a tyrant?
I can
try to make a shield for myself, or I can resign myself to forging the links of
the very chains that enslave me.
Written in 5/2015
Image: Jan Porcellis, Ships in a Storm on a Rocky Coast (c. 1614)
No comments:
Post a Comment