No
man can rob us of our free will.
—Marcus
Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.36 (tr
Long)
“Yes,
but they can rob me of everything else! What use is my free will, if I can’t
eat, or clothe myself, or have a place to live? If no one loves me, if I am in
pain, what is the point? What’s the purpose in choosing, if I have nothing good
to choose?”
Referencing
Epictetus here once again, Marcus Aurelius does me a great favor. He reminds me
of what a spoiled brat I am. As the wife likes to say: “First World problems!”
Notice
the premise behind all of my whining. I think I have nothing, because nothing
comes to me that I might prefer. I completely overlook the fact that my value
as a person has nothing at all to do with that, and everything to do with my
own virtue.
“Idiot!
How can you have virtue when you’re alone, or poor, or homeless, or sick, or even
dead?”
Quite
readily, as the obstacles give me so many more chances to live well. All
circumstances are an opportunity to do something right, and to find peace in it.
Dying? Well, that will happen in any event; how about those bits that happen to
go on before the actual dying?
Change
the attitude, and I change the measure. I will no longer want what I do not
need, and I will no longer fear losing what cannot be taken from me.
“What
good is your freedom then, when you have nothing else?”
No, I
still have everything, everything that is really mine, the only thing I ever
really had. Even then, it was just lent to me for a moment by Providence. Let
me use it well while I have power over it, for whatever time is given to me.
“They
can still break your body, and then they will take your will as well!”
No, they
can just break my body. When the will can no longer act, then my own life is not
present. That is no longer a “me” at all. That is a husk, a discarded shell.
“Please
yourself. I refuse to live in chains.”
As do I.
We only differ on which chains actually matter the most. You worry more about
the ones other people place on your hands, and I worry more about the ones I place
on my own judgment.
Written in 7/2009
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