Seneca, On Peace of Mind 8.4

But Diogenes's only slave ran away from him, and when he was pointed out to Diogenes, he did not think him worth fetching back.

"It is a shame," he said, "that Manes should be able to live without Diogenes, and that Diogenes should not be able to live without Manes."

He seems to me to have said, "Fortune, mind your own business: Diogenes has nothing left that belongs to you. Did my slave run away? No, he went away from me as a free man."

I have so often heard, far too often heard, that a mark of enlightened modernity is our freedom to live as we may see fit, under no one else’s rule or ownership.

Folks in the past, I was told, were so ignorant, with their institutions like slavery or feudalism, but we’re finally getting it right. I apparently now have the power to make of myself whatever I wish.

In one sense, in a Stoic sense, this is certainly true, but then again that has always been true, regardless of the time or place. In another sense, however, I’m not sure the world has changed that much at all. It all depends upon what we mean by the fullest human freedom.

Does any man ever really have a mastery over what he calls his own property, over his right to express himself in public, or even over his very body? They can change with the wind, from one day to the next, because it really depends upon what other people are willing to allow us. All it takes for us to lose these things is a greater external force.

Can a man rule over his own character, over how he chooses to think and act, over the dignity of his very soul? They always remain in his domain, because it really depends upon his own understanding and choice. Being internal, they cannot be lost, whatever else might be added or taken away.

Perhaps we are seeking after the wrong sort of freedom, grasping for the one that we can never possess, while neglecting the one that we can always possess. We may insist we have abolished chattel slavery, while we now replace it with wage slavery.

How much wiser it would be if we loved the greater over the lesser, and cared more for a liberty of the soul before a liberty of the body.

But if I define myself by my money, its limit is all by which I will ever measure myself. If I define myself by my virtues, however, I can live without any restraint.

Why should I insist that another person be at my command? Let me be my own king, and let him be his own king, and then can we meet as equals. This will only be possible when we respect people for who they are, not merely for what they can do for us.

If we see our neighbors as consumers and producers, then we will inevitably seek to own one another, like any commodity. If we see our neighbors as kindred souls, we may yet learn to love them.

Diogenes learned an important lesson from Manes. The freer man is always the better man, and the better man is happy to only own himself. 

Written in 9/2011