Zeus at Olympia

Wisdom from the Bhagavad Gita 12

33. Even a wise man acts in accordance with his own nature: beings follow nature. What can restraint do?

34. Attachment and aversion of the senses for their respective objects are natural. Let none come under their sway: they are his foes.

35. Better is one's own Dharma, though imperfect, than the Dharma of another well-performed. Better is death in one's own Dharma: the Dharma of another is fraught with fear. 

Arjuna said: 

36. But by what impelled does man commit sin, though against his wishes, O Vârshneya, constrained as it were, by force?

The Blessed Lord said:
  
37. It is desire—it is anger, born of the Rajo-Guna (Passion): of great craving, and of great sin; know this as the foe here in this world.

38. As fire is enveloped by smoke, as a mirror by dust, as an embryo by the secundine, so is it covered by that.

39. Knowledge is covered by this, the constant foe of the wise, O son of Kunti, the unappeasable fire of desire.

40. The senses, the mind and the intellect are said to be its abode: through these, it deludes the embodied by veiling his wisdom.

41. Therefore, O Bull of the Bharata race, controlling the senses at the outset, kill it—the sinful, the destroyer of knowledge and realization.

42. The senses are said to be superior to the body; the mind is superior to the senses; the intellect is superior to the mind; and that which is superior to the intellect is He, the Atman. 

43. Thus, knowing Him who is superior to the intellect, and restraining the self by the Self, destroy, O mighty-armed, that enemy, the unseizable foe, desire.

—Bhagavad Gita, 3:33-43

Seneca, On Peace of Mind 8.3

Are you not ashamed of yourself, you who gaze upon riches with astonished admiration? Look upon the Universe: you will see the gods quite bare of property, and possessing nothing, though they give everything.

Do you think that this man who has stripped himself of all fortuitous accessories is a pauper, or one like to the immortal gods?

Do you call Demetrius, Pompey's freedman, a happier man, he who was not ashamed to be richer than Pompey, who was daily furnished with a list of the number of his slaves, as a general is with that of his army, though he had long deserved that all his riches should consist of a pair of underlings, and a roomier cell than the other slaves?

If I look at it from the perspective of Nature, and not merely of Fortune, it seems quite ridiculous how we run about in a frenzy of acquisition, committing all of our efforts to buying more things, to increasing our reputation, to winning power over the lives of others. We think we are like gods when we possess more of what surrounds us.

Yet there is nothing divine about that at all. Whatever approaches to godliness will grow in the perfection of its own being, not through anything external. It becomes complete within itself, thrives from its self-sufficiency, builds a mastery over its own actions, and strives to depends upon nothing else. This is divine strength.

What we are accustomed to calling strength is actually a form of weakness, a reliance upon the worth of everything except itself. It takes on the form of a sickly dependence, even an addiction.

My property may be great, my house may be luxurious, my friends may be numerous, but that really says nothing about me. I am who I shape myself to be, within my own soul, and these things do not add or subtract anything to or from my character. Such things have the good of their own natures, not to be confused with the good of my own nature.

Can I make use of them, either by their presence or their absence? Yes, but they do not inform me—I inform them. To require more is to become less, and to require less is to become more. I should not be so quick to assume that the man who has nothing to his name is a failure; perhaps he has come to own himself. Maybe I am confusing what it really means to be rich or poor.

What made Pompey great? He commanded armies, won countless battles, built up power over the state, acquired tremendous wealth, and plotted and schemed with the other movers and shakers. He was consul three times, entered Rome in triumph three times, and was assassinated by those who feared him. Were those the things that made him great?

I find myself much more impressed by Demetrius, who had access to so much, but was satisfied with so very little.

Written in 9/2011

IMAGE: Gabriel de Saint-Aubin, The Triumph of Pompey (1765)

Pieter Bruegel, The Seven Deadly Sins: Sloth

Wisdom from the Early Stoics, Zeno of Citium 12

According to Hippobotus, he forgathered with Diodorus, with whom he worked hard at dialectic. And when he was already making progress, he would enter Polemo's school: so far from all self-conceit was he. 

In consequence Polemo is said to have addressed him thus: "You slip in, Zeno, by the garden door—I'm quite aware of it—you filch my doctrines and give them a Phoenician make-up." 

A dialectician once showed him seven logical forms concerned with the sophism known as "The Reaper," and Zeno asked him how much he wanted for them. Being told a hundred drachmas, he promptly paid two hundred: to such lengths would he go in his love of learning. 

They say too that he first introduced the word Duty and wrote a treatise on the subject. It is said, moreover, that he corrected Hesiod's lines thus:  

He is best of all men who follows good advice; good too is he who finds out all things for himself. 

[Zeno has reversed Hesiod's order]

—Diogenes Laërtius, 7.25

IMAGE: Polemon, or Polemo, one of Zeno's teachers, as depicted in a Renaissance manuscript

 

Musonius Rufus, Lectures 9.2

Tell me, is not the Universe the common fatherland of all men, as Socrates held? Well, then, you must not consider it really being banished from your fatherland if you go from where you were born and reared, but only being exiled from a certain city, that is if you claim to be a reasonable person.

For such a man does not value or despise any place as the cause of his happiness or unhappiness, but he makes the whole matter depend upon himself and considers himself a citizen of the city of God which is made up of men and gods. Euripides speaks in harmony with this thought when he says:

"As all the heavens are open to the eagle's flight

So all the earth is for a noble man his fatherland."

Therefore, just as a man who was living in his own country but in a different house from the one where he was born would be thought silly and an object of laughter if he should weep and wail because of this, so whoever considers it a misfortune because he is living in another city, and not the one where he happens to have been born, would rightly be considered foolish and stupid.

I am disposed to having a vivid memory, to becoming attached to certain places, and to a romantic sense of nostalgia. Once this is combined with a brooding melancholy, I will find myself longing for exactly the places where I am not, surrounded by the people who are absent, at a time that can most certainly not be right now.

You can see why Stoicism has been so helpful to me, always reminding me that the whole world is my home, that all people are my brothers and sisters, and that the only time to live is in this very moment.

Such lessons may once have sounded rather grand and abstract to me, until I actually fell into the trap of defining myself by everything and everywhere that I wasn’t. This was one of the primary ways I began to see that my feelings and actions will fall into place, however slowly and painfully, with the good habits of thinking I manage to develop.

What I now understand to be more important, and what I now understand to be less important, will allow me to face obstacles in new ways. They may, in fact, cease to obstacles entirely, and take on the form of opportunities.

Where is home? Not just where I was born, or where I was raised, or where all my memories come from, but simply wherever I am. This is not some empty sentiment, because it derives from the judgment that anywhere in the Universe is where I was meant to be. I was made for all things, not just for some things, for all places, not just for some places, for all people, not just for some people.

Politicians, whatever their platforms, like to draw maps defining their borders, and tribes, whatever their ideologies, like to distinguish themselves from those who are different. The Stoic, however, will always view Nature as one whole, ruled by one Providence, and so he will look to unity instead of division in everything he does.

Who are my friends? By extension, my friends are not just the people I prefer, or the people who are most similar to me, or the people who are most convenient, but simply those for whom I have the chance to do some good. That means anyone and everyone can be a friend. Love is universal, and it ceases to be love when it attaches terms and conditions.

I no longer believe those who tell me that I must only associate with my own creed, with my own race, with my own class. Humanity, in its full breadth and depth, is the company I was made for, since our shared human nature is what binds us all together within all of Nature.

What do I need to be at peace? I must stop thinking that who I am depends upon what happens to come my way, and instead start thinking in terms of making my own way. No, that doesn’t mean making the world conform to my will, but rather making my will come into harmony with the world.

Where, when, who, or what are all relative to the content of character. Saying the words will not be enough, however often I repeat them, though deeply reordering my whole priority of values will indeed make it real for me.

Why will I care for a place, if I know that a place is not what brings me happiness? Why will I cry for the past, if I know that what has been is only completed in what I do now? Why will I mourn the friends who are lost, while there are so many friends to be found? Why will I worry about what I do, when I only need to do anything at all with understanding and love?

If I think of it that way, my problems suddenly seem quite foolish.

Written in 11/2016

Sayings of Ramakrishna 25

As fishes playing in a pond covered over with reeds and scum cannot be seen from outside, so God plays in the heart of a man invisibly, being screened by Mâyâ from human view.

Seneca, On Peace of Mind 8.2

Yet it is more endurable, as I have said, and easier not to gain property than to lose it, and therefore you will find that those upon whom Fortune has never smiled are more cheerful than those whom she has deserted. Diogenes, a man of infinite spirit, perceived this, and made it impossible that anything should be taken from him.

Call this security from loss poverty, want, necessity, or any contemptuous name you please. I shall consider such a man to be happy, unless you find me another who can lose nothing. If I am not mistaken, it is a royal attribute among so many misers, sharpers, and robbers, to be the one man who cannot be injured.

If anyone doubts the happiness of Diogenes, he would doubt whether the position of the immortal gods was one of sufficient happiness, because they have no farms or gardens, no valuable estates let to strange tenants, and no large loans in the money market.

A virtuous man will learn to live well, whether he is rich or poor, and a vicious man will only be consumed by his desires, whether he is rich or poor. It isn’t that the presence or absence of wealth will determine the quality of character, but that the presence or absence of character will determine the quality of wealth.

“Wonderful! So I can be good and rich at the same time! That’s what I wanted to hear!”

Be careful. You can be both, but you cannot pursue both equally, as one will have to be in the service of the other. This is why the Stoics, always treating property as something indifferent, will advise us to never long for property. It is precisely because such things are indifferent that they are unable to take the place of virtue as the highest human good.

Once my heart is first set on acquiring things outside of me, I am neglecting to nurture the things inside of me. It is better to not be tempted by riches at all, just as it is better to never be tempted by pleasure, or honor, or influence.

If I have committed my life to winning such prizes, my contentment will slowly but surely depend upon them, and then their loss will only tear me apart, revealing my self-made vulnerability.

What should I want most in this world? To increase my moral worth, the excellence of my actions, not to increase my financial worth, the accidents of my circumstances. Once I know what to care for, it will make little difference to me whether Fortune has given me this or taken away that. My estimation changes everything, because I will not lust after what has no appeal, and I will not cry over the loss of what I do not love.

Diogenes may appear quite insane to those who run about in pursuit of money and reputation, yet he can serve as something of a hero for the Stoic. His radical, and sometimes shameless, displays will make sense only in the context of his commitment to the simplicity of Nature. He knew he already possessed everything he needed within himself, so there was nothing you could entice him with, and nothing you could take away from him.

What does it really mean to be perfectly happy? It would be the most complete end, that which leaves nothing else to be desired, a life no longer tortured by need and longing. If I can understand that virtue is enough, I can take or leave all the rest.

Diogenes didn’t really care about what he wore, or where he slept, or what he ate. These things were all petty and insignificant compared to the very reason he was alive. In this sense he was far more divine than the richest man in Athens, because he was his own master, utterly self-sufficient.

Diogenes would ask for alms from statues, to grow accustomed to being refused. Many laughed at him for this, but he had the last laugh. He didn’t need the money to begin with, though the lovers of money needed their prosperity to feel that they were important.

Written in 9/2011

IMAGE: Jean-Bernard Restout, Diogenes Asking for Alms (1767)

Sayings of Socrates 34

I prefer nothing, unless it is true. 

—Plato, Euthyphro 14e

Musonius Rufus, Lectures 9.1

Lecture 9: That exile is not an evil.

Hearing an exile lament because he was living in banishment, Musonius consoled him in somewhat the following way.

Why, he asked, should anyone who was not devoid of understanding be oppressed by exile? It does not in any way deprive us of water, earth, air, or the sun and the other planets, or indeed, even of the society of men, for everywhere and in every way, there is opportunity for association with them.

What if we are kept from a certain part of the earth and from association with certain men, what is so dreadful about that?

Why, when we were at home, we did not enjoy the whole earth, nor did we have contact with all men; but even now in exile we may associate with our friends, that is to say the true ones and those deserving of the name, for they would never betray or abandon us; but if some prove to be sham and not true friends, we are better off separated from them than being with them.

Over the years, I managed to scribble down a number of different reflections on this lecture, their content differing based upon my changing thoughts and feelings at different times.

The earlier ones tended more toward theoretical musings, while the later ones were loaded with rather practical concerns. There was a noble calm at first, and more of an austere urgency further down the line. What made the difference was my own experience of leaving behind a home, of feeling like something of an exile myself.

I am now getting long in the tooth, so I suppose this will be the last run at making some sense of losing a place, and how that doesn’t mean I need to lose myself.

How it all occurred hardly matters anymore, except that my initial desire to blame others slowly evolved into an acceptance of the way the world was going to work itself out, and that I was being called to become accountable for my own happiness.

I would hardly prefer to go through all the torture again, but I have to admit that it played a necessary role in taking a Stoic Turn. By being challenged to rise above a dependence on the things that happen, it helped me to make just a bit more of myself.

My initial confusion came from a naïve assumption that a Stoic mastery of thinking would automatically translate into a mastery of feelings, and that I would somehow be able to turn emotions on and off as I saw fit. Now that might be true for the Stoic sage, but it has never been true for me. As much as I might direct them and give them order, some passions don’t just go away.

So many circumstances in life will remain as they are, even as I can change my estimation of them. Certain feelings can well be the same, so that it not within my power to remove them, while it is within my power to manage them well, or to transform them into something of benefit.

I have found this especially true of suffering. Perhaps it is my own condition, the one I call the Black Dog, that has made pain stick to me like glue, but I imagine many people know what it means to face emotions that won’t leave you be. They seem to take on a sort of life of their own, precariously subject to some patient and careful taming, as long as I am always taking care to keep a watchful eye on them.

I think of a physical wound that may have healed over on the outside, while it is still causing agony on the inside. I didn’t ask for it, but there it is, and what remains for me is to find a way to turn it to good use. What can it teach me? How can it make me stronger? How can I employ it to increase my sense of compassion for others?

The loss of trust I felt, and the eventual loss of a home that came with it, have played that role for me. Trying to come back home is like trying to force my hand into a fire. Could I do it if I had to? Perhaps. But what good could come from just torturing myself? It is better to embrace the exile.

How can I accept this, without doing so begrudgingly, without resentment, without a constant sense of loss? Here is where the Stoics offer advice that is both profound and effective: if I modify my judgements, I will also modify what things mean to me, and the ways in which I allow them to affect me.

If I rightly understand that only my virtues will be to my benefit, and that only my vices will do me harm, I can then begin to reconsider all the external things I once looked at as somehow being good or bad in themselves.

Am I really losing anything when they are gone? Might their absence even offer the opportunity to gain something new?

Wherever I may live, am I being denied the necessities of life? I should leave aside any preference for receiving privileges and luxuries, and remember that all I need in life is whatever can help me to think and act with character.

Is it that I am being kept from good company? I will find people most anywhere I go, and whether or not they are good company will depend on how I respect and value their worth, not on where I may find them.

But won’t I lose my friends? If they were my true friends to begin with, then the circumstances of place will not alter our commitment and affection, and if circumstances of place do alter our commitment and affection, then they were not my true friends to begin with.

Happiness does not require having everything, or possessing only a certain selection of things; it can be found in any of the circumstances life may give us, as long as we keep our priorities in order.

It is never the place; it is what one does with the place. If my outlook is about what can be done for me, I will be unhappy either at home or in exile. If my outlook is about what I can do, it will hardly matter where I find myself.

Written in 11/2016

Tao Te Ching 59

For regulating the human in our constitution and rendering the proper service to the heavenly, there is nothing like moderation.  

It is only by this moderation that there is effected an early return to man's normal state. That early return is what I call the repeated accumulation of the attributes of the Tao. 

With that repeated accumulation of those attributes, there comes the subjugation of every obstacle to such return. Of this subjugation we know not what shall be the limit; and when one knows not what the limit shall be, he may be the ruler of a state.  

He who possesses the mother of the state may continue long. His case is like that of the plant of which we say that its roots are deep and its flower stalks firm: this is the way to secure that its enduring life shall long be seen.

Stoic Snippets 19

Never esteem anything as of advantage to you that will make you break your word or lose your self-respect.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 3.7

The Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9

[1] But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
and no torment will ever touch them.
[2] In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died,
and their departure was thought to be an affliction,
[3] and their going from us to be their destruction;
but they are at peace.
[4] For though in the sight of men they were punished,
their hope is full of immortality.
[5] Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good,
because God tested them and found them worthy of himself;
[6] like gold in the furnace he tried them,
and like a sacrificial burnt offering he accepted them.
[7] In the time of their visitation they will shine forth,
and will run like sparks through the stubble.
[8] They will govern nations and rule over peoples,
and the Lord will reign over them for ever.
[9] Those who trust in him will understand truth,
and the faithful will abide with him in love,
because grace and mercy are upon his elect,
and he watches over his holy ones.

Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy 4.27

“Whether, therefore, Fate works by the aid of the divine spirits that serve Providence, or whether it works by the aid of the soul, or of all nature, or the motions of the stars in heaven, or the powers of angels, or the manifold skill of other spirits, whether the course of Fate is bound together by any or all of these, one thing is certain, namely that Providence is the one unchangeable direct power that gives form to all things which are to come to pass, while Fate is the changing bond, the temporal order of those things which are arranged to come to pass by the direct disposition of God.”

—from Book 4, Prose 6

Because Providence is what gives meaning and order to all things, Fate will unfold through the medium of all things. Every creature, in its own particular way, participates in a unified whole, and everything that happens does indeed always happen for a reason. I may not know all the inner workings of precisely how or why events come to pass as they do, but I can know that they are exactly as they were meant to be.

Sometimes, perhaps even very often, I will look at the ways of the world, and I will be quite confused, discouraged, disappointed, or angry at the state of affairs. Surely, this can’t be right? Was there a mistake or an oversight? Is it possible that God has overlooked this suffering? It is quite a big deal for me, but maybe it isn’t significant enough for Him to worry about?

That path of thinking will only lead me to my own ruin. It neglects the fact that where there is action, there is purpose, and where there is purpose, there is Intelligence. It ignores the necessity that all things must reduce to Absolute Being. It confuses my own finite imperfection with the rule of Infinite Perfection. Nothing is too small for that which has no limits and is bound by no distinctions.

It all works together, all the parts following their own natures while being joined to one Nature. This hardly negates the dignity of created things, but rather gives weight to their individual roles, in all their glorious diversity. Providence works its way in them and with them, not over them or against them.

A dear friend once told me that he didn’t think he could manage the faith in Providence I seemed to have. I was taken aback by this, because he clearly thought more of me than I could of myself, but also because my convictions, when I do manage to live up to them, are not only matters of faith.

Some people have told me, for all my life, that everything will work out right, to let go and to let God, to accept what I cannot, and should not, try to change. I was grateful for the advice, but I could not get beyond the sense that this was just an act of blind surrender. What reasons, beyond wishful thinking, might you have to support this?

It takes a certain humble openness to reason itself to uncover the reasons, to get over my own negativity. I don’t just believe in Providence; I know there is Providence, active in everything I do, in everything that comes to me. I know this by the effects I observe around me, and then thinking backwards to the cause. My trust is not unfounded. It is all of a One. 

Written in 11/2015

The Art of Peace 50

The Art of Peace is the principle of nonresistance. 

Because it is nonresistant, it is victorious from the beginning.

Those with evil intentions or contentious thoughts are instantly vanquished. 

The Art of Peace is invincible because it contends with nothing. 

Seneca, On Peace of Mind 8.1

Chapter 8

Let us now pass on to the consideration of property, that most fertile source of human sorrows: for if you compare all the other ills from which we suffer—deaths, sicknesses, fears, regrets, endurance of pains and labors—with those miseries which our money inflicts upon us, the latter will far outweigh all the others.

Reflect, then, how much less a grief it is never to have had any money than to have lost it: we shall thus understand that the less poverty has to lose, the less torment it has with which to afflict us. For you are mistaken if you suppose that the rich bear their losses with greater spirit than the poor: a wound causes the same amount of pain to the greatest and the smallest body.

It was a neat saying of Bion's, "that it hurts bald men as much as hairy men to have their hairs pulled out.” You may be assured that the same thing is true of rich and poor people, that their suffering is equal for their money clings to both classes, and cannot be torn away without their feeling it.

My first instinct is to say that troubles arising from romantic love are just as prevalent as troubles arising from our possessions, but then I remember that so many problems of the heart actually reduce to problems about money; too many of the relationships I have seen are ultimately nothing more than means for social and financial status. Matters of the heart can devolve into matters of the wallet.

I discovered very quickly that if I was going to follow Stoicism in my life, I was going to be considered rather strange, and I would often find myself feeling quite lonely. Most people assume by default, many without ever reflecting on it, that money is what makes the world go around, that happiness or misery depend on the security of what we own.

Yet for Stoicism, at least in its classical sense, it is Providence that makes the world go around, and it is more than just figurative to say that Providence acts through love, the will to achieve the good in all things. Yes, love is the law, not money.

I am not a psychologist, of course, so I may be spouting complete nonsense, but I have long wondered what makes people want to be rich. Is it that possessions help us to better feel pleasure? Is the desire for pleasure, then, the false god we worship?

 Is it that wealth gives us a sense of importance? Is it vanity, then, that moves us to acquire more and more?

Is it that property gives us a feeling of power and security? I know that I, for one, long for money whenever I feel threatened by others. Is it comfort, then, that drives us to acquire more and more?

I offer another possibility, only because I have noticed it within myself, whenever I have the courage to stare into my own soul with honesty. Perhaps it is all wrapped up with the other models. Whenever I feel empty on the inside, I will habitually look to what I might acquire on the outside. Discerning my own weakness, I hope that strength can come from elsewhere.

For the Stoic, however, property is neither a good thing, nor a bad thing; it is, like all circumstances, indifferent. The worth of property depends upon the merit of character. Give a man more, or give him less, but what will matter the most is what he does with what is given to him.

At the same time, consider how much easier it will be to resist that temptation to be greedy, if there is nothing at all to desire. We might assume that the rich have no worries about their property, but the fact is that they most certainly do, with bells on. They have more, and they want more, and they have to fight all the harder to keep more from the rest of us.

If you have ever had much, you will know that having much leads to wanting more. If you have ever been rich, you will know that your sense of compassion will so easily shrivel, as your sense of entitlement will so easily grow.

The rich man is no more immune to greed than the poor man.

Better, then, to own little or no property; it might finally be an aid to owning ourselves.

Bion of Borysthenes surely had it right: it hurts to lose money, and it makes little difference whether we are rich or poor; the pain is much the same.

Take the pain, and then redirect it into something of real benefit. Give all of yourself, asking for nothing else. Make virtue your currency, not money.

Written in 9/2011

IMAGE: Bion of Borysthenes

 

Fragments of Parmenides 5

. . . The Way of Truth

Look steadfastly with your mind at things far away as if they were at hand. You cannot cut off what is from holding fast to what is, neither scattering itself abroad in order, nor coming together.

Musonius Rufus, Lectures 8.12

When Musonius said these things, the king was glad at his words and told him that he was grateful for what he said and added, "In return for this, ask of me whatever you wish for I shall refuse you nothing."

Then Musonius said, "The only favor I ask of you is to remain faithful to this teaching, since you find it commendable, for in this way and no other will you best please me and benefit yourself."

See, here’s the thing: they think it’s about a balance sheet of one product traded for another product. The players always expect that they have to give something whenever they have received something. They will then ask you for further favors later, of course, and then the game is in full play.

If a rich and powerful man told you he would provide you with anything you wanted in return for your advice, what would you say?

“Yeah, man, give me a million dollars! No wait, ten million dollars! Dude, make it a hundred million dollars! You said whatever I wanted, right?”

Yes, whatever you want. Are you sure that is what you want?

“With that kind of money, I could buy anything!”

No. You couldn’t buy your virtue.

“Who gives a fuck about that?”

Exactly.

Musonius isn’t just being polite here; I think that crazy fellow actually means it. What does your usual bigwig have to give? Money. What does a real philosopher have to give? Wisdom.

Here, once again, is Stoicism at its best. The king assumes he owes something, but the philosopher asks only for the king to be a good king. Where’s the trick?

There is no trick. The model of the wicked man is that he gives so that he might receive; the model of the decent man is that his act of giving is its own receiving.

Some will tell you that there is only self-interest in this world, and that everything is about deals made for profit.

Indeed, every fellow wants what is best for him. Yes, every fellow wants to come out ahead.

Now define the terms of what it means to be the best, and what it means to be coming out ahead.

I’m sorry, was that too much to ask, while you were busy making money and buying your fame? Did you somehow forget the essentials? Did you put the cart before the horse?

Does it offend you when I question your values of making yourself more important, instead of making yourself better?

Good. That can be of use. It can serve as a wake-up call.

Any person, of any background, becomes better by living well, filled with love, in even the smallest ways. Those who choose to love will understand that love expects nothing in return beyond itself, that a loving person gives to make himself better through helping others to be better.

There is no either/or in what is right for you and me; there is only a both/and.

King, whoever you may be, the best thing you can give me is to recognize that we are all made for one another. Give love, and then ask for nothing more. 

Written in 9/1999

Sayings of Heraclitus 24

Gods and men honor those who are slain in battle. 

IMAGE: Peter Paul Rubens, Achilles Slaying Hector (1630)