Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.13

Suppose any man shall despise me. Let him look to that himself. But I will look to this, that I be not discovered doing or saying anything deserving of contempt.

Shall any man hate me? Let him look to it. But I will be mild and benevolent towards every man, and ready to show even him his mistake, not reproachfully, nor yet as making a display of my endurance, but nobly and honestly, like the great Phocion, unless indeed he only assumed it.

For the interior parts ought to be such, and a man ought to be seen by the gods neither dissatisfied with anything nor complaining.

For what evil is it to you, if you are now doing what is agreeable to your own nature, and are satisfied with that which at this moment is suitable to the Nature of the Universe, since you are a human being placed at your post in order that what is for the common advantage may be done in some way?

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.13 (tr Long)

I have suffered shattered limbs, had my teeth knocked out, cracked my skull open, and I still have nightmares about squashing my thumb, flattened out as thin as a pancake, after a foolish childhood prank. I woke up one night with a pain in my gut I thought I could not bear, and all I could do was pray for a quick death as I was rushed to the hospital.

All those things hurt, most mightily, especially the pancake thumb thing; I’m surprised that thumb is still there. The cracked skull still gives me sudden agony at awkward and random times, decades later, and it only makes it worse when people ask me as I’m rolling about, “Are you okay?”

And none of that, absolutely none of that, was ever as terrible as the pain I have felt from being hated, betrayed, rejected, or dismissed. They will take you to the emergency room for a broken arm, but if you complain about a broken heart, they roll their eyes, and they tell you to just get over it.

Though it only became clear to me well after the fact, a turning point in my meager attempt at a life came just I had been hit by a pickup truck while I was walking home one night. The truck sped off, and I lay there quite alone, with a leg that wouldn’t work, and a face that felt like putty. I couldn’t see a thing, except for some little shiny stars, until I realized that my eyes were filled with blood from a wound to my head.

Shock and adrenaline can do wonderful things for you. I just started crawling. At one point, I managed to pull myself up and hop on the one leg, holding on the walls and fences along the way.

I got quite dizzy, and I was suddenly excited to see someone ahead of me in my narrow vision. I’m not sure what I said, but I know I called for help. The man looked straight at me from across the road, turned, and kept going on his way.

Right there, I gave up. Forget the twisted leg, forget the head wound, and forget the toothless mouth. A neighbor just decided I wasn’t worth his time. It was all the worse because I knew the fellow. He was the new husband of the lost love of my life.

You see, I could somehow bear my body being broken. My feelings, on the other hand, that I was sure I could not bear.

This is precisely why all of us need to learn concern and kindness. No, though I hated that man more than my other wounds at first, it was never about demanding that he be concerned and kind. That was my mistake. I needed to learn to be concerned and kind for myself.

It was my own resentment that ate away at me, long after my leg had healed, and long after I was given new teeth, and long after I could present my scarred face in public. My anger and despair were my biggest suffering, and I had only brought them on myself.

Don’t just think in abstractions. Think not only of those people who have treated you poorly, but also of those who have taken all you care for in this world, and have brushed you aside while doing so. Look how smug they appear, praising themselves, and pretending that you never existed. Does this hurt? Yes, of course it does, far more than you are probably willing to admit. And it makes you quite angry.

This was a turning point for me. Does he hate me? Well, then let me love him in return. I can only do this if I understand that my life is measured by my virtue and vice, not the virtue and vice of another.

What good will come for me, or for him, by my whining and complaining? I will become more bitter, and he will become more indignant. I will destroy myself, while I will only encourage his own contempt. By giving myself reasons for hating, I give others reasons for hating.

It will only make sense from a Stoic perspective, and from the perspective of all great wisdom, when the value of any life is in what a man does, and not in what is done to him. I must move from a passive view of life to an active view of life.

I honestly don’t prefer the post I have been assigned to by Providence; I dearly wish it were a different one entirely. Nevertheless, it is the one I am given, and the one I am meant to face. When my whole family reached out to that other family to heal our differences, we were quite rudely turned away. But this time we tried from charity, not from any opposition. Our actions, and our responses, were informed very differently than they had been before.

Why am I allowing evil in the heart of another to harden my own heart? Perhaps because I love another, I tell myself, and because I feel so desperately hurt. So be it. Must I also cause hurt in return? Never. Love rejected is no less an expression of love; perhaps it is even more so.

I only make sense of “turning the other cheek” with this wisdom in mind. 

Written in 4/2017