The thought for today is one which I discovered in Epicurus; for I am wont to cross over even into the enemy's camp—not as a deserter, but as a scout. He says: "Contented poverty is an honorable estate."
Indeed, if it be contented, it is not poverty at all. It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor. What does it matter how much a man has laid up in his safe, or in his warehouse, how large are his flocks and how fat his dividends, if he covets his neighbor’s property, and reckons, not his past gains, but his hopes of gains to come?
Do you ask what is the proper limit to wealth? It is, first, to have what is necessary, and, second, to have what is enough. Farewell.
If it happens to be true, it shouldn’t matter one bit who said it, or where you found it. Seneca repeatedly shows a respect for thinkers from different schools or traditions, and he does so because he loves truth, not tribalism. Let us find what is shared before we bicker, complete with footnotes, about our accidental differences.
Epicurus was, of course, in so many ways, an antithesis to the values of the Stoics. The Epicureans said that pleasure was the highest good, while the Stoics said that virtue was the highest good. The Epicureans believed in a godless universe, where randomness ruled, while the Stoics believed in Providence, where order ruled.
And yet Seneca found some common ground here, all about being happy with what you have, and about never wanting more than what you need. Being better is always superior to having more, whether the end is an increase of character or an increase of satisfaction.
I will only think I am poor if I am lacking in something that I think I need, and so if I am happy with simply possessing myself, I will hardly be poor at all. I will be rich in my own soul, regardless of how many accessories and trinkets I am surrounded with. If I consider myself from the standpoint of Nature, and not of circumstances, there is really nothing that can be added to or taken away from the completeness of living well.
What good will it do me if I am given riches or fame, but I am empty in character? My greed for more will then define me more clearly than any badge of worldly prosperity. If I am completely honest with myself, I will find that I need very little on the outside to become greater on the inside; most of my “stuff” is quite extraneous.
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?
So it also is with books, or with any of the marks and trophies of being educated or well-read. A text that is not revered, that has not become a very part of me, serves me no purpose. I am better off with a handful of old and battered pages, to be read in peace on a park bench, than I am staring at the spines of neglected volumes in the most extensive and ornate library.
Wisdom and virtue are not increased by a higher page count.
Written in 2/2012
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