Seneca, On Peace of Mind 15.1

Chapter 15

Yet we gain nothing by getting rid of all personal causes of sadness, for sometimes we are possessed by hatred of the human race.

When you reflect how rare simplicity is, how unknown innocence, how seldom faith is kept, unless it be to our advantage, when you remember such numbers of successful crimes, so many equally hateful losses and gains of lust, and ambition so impatient even of its own natural limits that it is willing to purchase distinction by baseness, the mind seems as it were cast into darkness, and shadows rise before it as though the virtues were all overthrown and we were no longer allowed to hope to possess them or benefited by their possession.

Canius learned to master himself, to rely upon the merit that was within him, and so he lived and died happy. He thereby won an absolute victory, as Nature had intended for him, as is intended for us all.

There have been many times when I have thought I could take a shortcut to happiness, to follow a cheap emulation of his approach, by just distancing myself from all the things that hurt me. After all, if I remove the causes, then won’t I also be removing the effects?

Not only is that no decent way to live, it is also an impossible way to live, in stubborn isolation from the rest of the world.

The circumstances were never the cause of my pain to begin with; I was the cause, by failing to manage my circumstances.

Other people did not make me any worse; I made myself worse, by reversing my order of priorities.

Has he deprived me of my livelihood? Look more closely. He has taken nothing from me that was ever my own, and so my suffering is in my estimation. Getting rid of him won’t change a thing.

Has she broken my heart? Look more closely. She did what she chose to do, and yet all of my grief comes from my own choices, not her choices. Pretending she never existed won’t change a thing.

Running away solves nothing, precisely because I can never run away from facing life itself.

What will life bring me? I always look for the best, and yet long experience has taught me that most conditions will hardly be pleasant or convenient.

I always want people to do what is right, and yet long experience has taught me that they will usually do what is wrong.

It is vain, not optimistic, to think that the world will do as I say. It is naïve, not hopeful, to believe that creatures of reason and choice, working from their own designs, will hit the mark more often than they will miss it.

I have spent most of my life in simply being ignored. That brought with it feelings of gnawing hurt.

There were also times when I was given some attention, and it perked me up, but I soon realized that the attention faded when my usefulness faded. I was disposable as soon as I had nothing else to give. That brought with it sharper feelings of hurt.

Then there were a few moments, however few and far between, when I became the deliberate focus of malice, where something about me was so deeply offensive to another that I had to be destroyed. That brought with it gutting feelings of hurt.

If I choose to let my life only be measured by how I am treated, what will become of me? A noose around the neck, or a .45 in the mouth, are all that I can think of. It might seem like a blessed relief.

I recognize the darkness Seneca describes, that sense of being so deeply saddened by my surroundings, so terribly disappointed by the people I thought might be my friends. There seems to be only suffering, and hence a complete absence of hope.

I affectionately call it the Black Dog, present now for over half of my life.

Old philosophy and literature called it melancholy, an imbalanced disposition of the soul.

Modern psychology calls it clinical depression, a mental illness.

For all of the best wishes, the devout prayers, the fancy theories, the clever therapies, or the numbing drugs, only one thing has helped me grapple with the Black Dog. Only my own thinking has helped me, by moving me to stop confusing the false with the true, and the bad with the good.

Does it hurt? Yes, sometimes so much that I want to die. The only way around that it is to reconsider what I should truly want, and to find something worth living for.

The impressions might not leave me, but my judgment of the impressions has within it the power to save me. Let the impressions say what they want me to be, and let me tame them by being who I know I should be.

Written 12/2011

IMAGE:  Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, Melancholia (c. 1640)