Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy 4.35

“Again, good fortune, unworthily improved, has flung some into ruin.

“To some the right of punishing is committed that they may use it for the exercise and trial of the good, and the punishment of evil men.

“And just as there is no league between good and bad men, so also the bad cannot either agree among themselves: no, with their vices tearing their own consciences asunder, they cannot agree with themselves, and do often perform acts which, when done, they perceive that they should not have done.”

—from Book 4, Prose 6

Providence will indeed dispense justice in an odd variety of ways, often the ones we least expect, and yet it always manages to get straight to the point. It only remains for me to embrace or run away from the opportunity I have been given to become better, to return what I have wrongly taken.

It doesn’t at first seem to make sense that good fortune can actually become a punishment, for example, though it only takes some hard experience to recognize that having something can be just as much of a curse as not having something. I should not assume that the rich, or powerful, or popular have it better, because those conditions, like all others, only become good or bad when accompanied by virtue or vice.

The most dissatisfied person I have ever known, constantly racked by anxiety, doubt, and unfulfilled longing, had also been provided with most every worldly blessing one could imagine.

I don’t think it ever occurred to her that her emptiness was a consequence of what she chose to value, not of what she may or not have received. As long as I knew her, she would seek out more pleasures, strive to achieve greater fame, and tirelessly work her way up the social ladder. It all ended up being salt rubbed into the wounds.

I am, so many years later, still moved to tears whenever I remember her own tears.

I will often forget yet another aspect of Providential justice, that while I am certainly subject to it in every aspect of my life, with all of the foolish and selfish things I have done, I will also, in however humble a way, myself become a means of distributing that justice, even when I am not fully aware of it.

I have rarely been put in a position of formal authority, and that is probably for the best. I have a difficult enough time managing myself, and so I can hardly be asked to manage anyone else. Nevertheless, on those few occasions where it fell on me to dish out rewards and punishments, I became acutely aware that the responsibility cannot be taken lightly.

My own superiors expected me to censure students and other faculty, or if they became too much trouble, to demand that they be expelled or fired. The basic premise was almost always the same, that when someone was stirring the pot, they needed to be silenced or terminated. It was rarely an exercise in pursuing the good, most often just a policy of saving face and tossing out the garbage.

I would try to think of ways to heal a wound, and this was seen as being too lenient. In a world where we think it best to right a wrong only by taking things away, it was probably precisely that. However naïve it may seem, I always thought there were better solutions.

All sorts of things can serve to punish, even things that may at first look like rewards. Have I helped others, in whatever form, to redeem themselves? That would weigh on my mind throughout my meager professional life, just as it did when I tried to raise my own children.

I must finally remember that the greatest penalty that comes from vice is in the vice itself, that the constant disagreement and conflict it engenders are a deeply torturous type of suffering.

Loving people will be hard-pressed to find common ground with hateful people, and yet hateful people can certainly find no common ground in their own circles. They are already at war with themselves to begin with, and then further at war with everyone else. Their malice inherently rejects the possibility of understanding and compassion.

Having been there, and done that, I can think of no greater suffering than such a nastiness in my own soul. Looking at it from the positive side, I can also think of no greater chance to make the wrong in me right. 

Written in 11/2015