Serenus:
When
I examine myself, Seneca, some vices appear on the surface, and so that I can
lay my hands upon them, while others are less distinct and harder to reach, and
some are not always present, but recur at intervals: and these I should call
the most troublesome, being like a roving enemy that assails one when he sees
his opportunity, and who will neither let one stand on one's guard as in war,
nor yet take one's rest without fear as in peace.
My surface vices have usually been
quite clear to me. I can see them for what they are, though I will sometimes
foolishly choose to ignore them. If I have let my attention wane, my error quickly
becomes apparent, sometimes even at the very moment I am acting, and I know
exactly what I need to do to correct those habits. I will have to decide to
apply that understanding, of course, and be more vigilant the next time, but I
am aware, however shamefully, of both the ailment and the remedy.
If I have lost my temper, or told a
lie to avoid an inconvenience, or looked away from the suffering of a neighbor,
there is no question about how I was wrong, and what I must do to make it
right.
Then there are the deeper vices,
more subtle and nagging. I don’t see them coming, I can’t fully explain where
they came from, and I can’t seem to put them in their place. This is surely
because I find it so difficult to even identify them to begin with.
I can sense that there is something
wrong in my thinking and doing, yet I can’t seem to look at it directly; it
sits there in the corner of my vision, as if it were trying to hide from me.
I know that this is not about the
things that happen to me, whether they are pleasant or unpleasant, but about
how I am responding to those things, whether I am acting well or poorly. It is
frustrating to not be as aware of myself as I think I am, and confusing when my
intentions fall short. I then find myself discouraged, and my anxiety only
compounds my sadness and uncertainty.
What am I getting wrong? What am I
missing? How can I improve myself when I don’t know where the problem is?
I appreciate the image of trying to
stand guard against a clever and unseen enemy. When I was a Scout, we would
often play games of late-night capture the flag. The trick was always stealth
in those games, of course, and the hardest job to be given was guarding your
own flag.
All my other teammates would be well
ahead in the woods, and I would crouch there in absolute silence, knowing full
well that opposing players were all around me, but I could neither see nor hear
them.
What was that? Did I hear the
cracking of a branch? I look to my left, and I think I discern some motion in
the blackness. Then there is a rushing to my right. The flag has been pulled
from the tree, and there is the rapid sound of someone running away. I try to
follow before he makes it to the line. If I stop to listen, he will make his
escape, but if I don’t stop to listen, I don’t know in which direction to go.
So I am playing a sort of late-night
capture the flag in my own head.
Written in 4/2011
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