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
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