It is not true, moreover, that
exiles lack the very necessities of life.
To be sure men who are idle and
unresourceful and unable to play the part of a man are generally in want and
without resources even when they are in their own country, but energetic and hardworking
and intelligent men, no matter where they go, fare well and live without want.
We do not feel the lack of many
things unless we wish to live luxuriously:
"For what do mortals need
beside two things only,
The bread of Demeter and a drink
of the Water-carrier,
Which are at hand and have been
made to nourish us?"
I am immediately suspicious when people tell me
that if I am just smart enough, dedicated enough, and work hard enough, life
will give me everything I could ever want.
I question this not because I am lazy, or because I
don’t think Nature provides in full, but because I wish to make certain that
what I choose to want is actually in harmony with what I truly need.
It is an all-too-familiar image, the fellow who says
that he started a company from his mother’s garage, and now his logo sits on
top of a New York skyscraper. He wishes to assure his disciples that success is
within their grasp, that diligence and innovation will produce riches, respect,
and power. The forces of the marketplace gave him what he wanted, he insists,
because he wanted it badly enough.
I also notice an oddly equivalent spiritual version
of this claim, where a supposed purity of faith will surely express itself in a
worldly prosperity. God will make us happy if we love Him enough, the preacher
says, and that is why God will shower us with good fortune. The preacher’s own
comforts and luxuries must be the proof of it all.
I do not wish to diminish the commitment and
achievements of either the businessman or the preacherman, and life may well
have unfolded with such concurrences for them, but hard experience will tell us
that it will not always work out that way for everyone else.
You know as well as I do that Fortune does not follow
from merit, and that the richest of people are not necessarily the best of people,
just as the poorest of people are not necessarily the worst of people.
The problems all arise when we misunderstand the measure
of life’s rewards, because we misunderstand the very calling of human nature.
Musonius isn’t saying that we will be swimming in money as soon as we put our
minds to it, but that Nature gives us all we require if we are rightly
resourceful. These are not the same things at all, despite what popular opinion
might say.
Everything here depends on what we would consider to
be necessary for a good life. I will tend to want far more than I need, and I
will tend to look to what I have received over what I have done. The Stoic Turn
makes it possible to be happy with fewer things, since I can find peace and
contentment in what comes from inside of me.
Success is in human excellence, not in accumulating
luxuries. My sense of entitlement will resist, but bread and water are enough
for the body. For all of my complaining, I have never been without them for too
long.
What is sufficient for the soul? My vanity will
resist, but understanding and love are enough for the soul.
“Well, what if, despite all of your resourcefulness,
they deny you your bread and water in exile? Then you will go thirsty and
starve! Where will your success be then?”
I would not prefer it, and I imagine I would be
quite insufferable for a time because of it, but dying, when the time must
come, can also offer the opportunity for understanding and love, just as much
as living can.
Nature always gives me what I need, as long as I
know to pursue the right wants.
Written in 12/2016
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