Musonius Rufus, Lectures 17.1

 

Lecture 17: What is the best viaticum for old age?  

 

At another time when an old man asked him what was the best viaticum for old age, he said, the very one that is best for youth too, namely to live by method and in accord with Nature.

 

You would best understand what this means if you would realize that mankind was not created for pleasure. For that matter, neither was the horse or dog or cow created for pleasure, and all of these creatures are much less valuable than man.

 

Aging is one of those parts of life we are prone to neglect before its arrival, and then by the time we get around to thinking about it, it already seems to be too late.

 

Is this why they say that youth is wasted on the young? If only we had been smarter back then, and then we wouldn’t have gotten ourselves into the mess we’re in now. It is so easy to feel remorse for all the wasted opportunities, to punish ourselves for what we only wish we could have known.

 

Yet I can’t help but notice how often we don’t seem to have learned the right lessons at all. “I should have been taken more risks, and then I would have become richer! I should have spoken out more loudly, and then people would have taken notice! I should have insisted on what I wanted, and then I would have had so much more fun!”

 

Your mileage may vary, but those are exactly the attitudes I found I needed to unlearn. Whether young or old, nothing truly good will come from them. The old man who regrets not having been more selfish, or obnoxious, or lecherous when he was a young man is really only sorry for losing the vitality of his body, and is oblivious to the content of his character.

 

There doesn’t need to be any remedy specific to old age at all, because what any person needs is eminently suitable to any age. The young man is called to be happy by attending to the virtues within his soul, and the old man has the exact same vocation. As long as I am hard at work at just being human, it will make no difference how many wrinkles I have on my face.

 

Pleasure is one aspect of our humanity, but is not the ultimate measure of that humanity. As the name suggests, a passion is something that happens to us, and the worth of the feeling is only as good or bad as the choice and action from which it proceeds.

 

The purpose of any living creature is to fulfill itself in what it does, whether it be a horse, or a dog, or a man. If I remain convinced that gratification, and acquiring the sorts of things that can buy me gratification, should be my priorities, I’m afraid that just getting older is not going to make me any the wiser. I shouldn’t be surprised when I then equate my age with misery, having defined myself by consuming instead of loving. 

 

Written in 4/2000