Stockdale on Stoicism 6

Now I'm talking like a preacher here for a bit. Please understand that I'm not trying to sell anything; it's just the most efficient way to explain it. Stoicism is one of those things that, when described analytically, sounds horrible to some modem people. Stoic scholars agree that to describe it effectively, the teacher must "become, for the time being at least," a Stoic.

For instance, to give you a better feel for why "your own good and your own evil" are on the list, I want to quote Alexander Solzhenitsyn from his book Gulag Archipelago, when he talks about that point in prison when he gets his act together, realizes his residual powers, and starts what I know as "ascending," riding the updrafts of occasional euphoria as you realize you are getting to know yourself and the world for the first time.

"It was only when I lay there on the rotting prison straw that I sensed
within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not between states nor between social classes nor between political parties, but right through every human heart, through all human hearts. And that is why I turn back to the years of my imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me, bless you, prison, for having been a part of my life."

I understand that. He learned, as I and many others have learned, that
good and evil are not just abstractions that you kick around and give lectures about, and attribute to this person and that. The only good or evil that mean anything are right in your own heart: within your will, within your power, where it's up to you. What the Stoics say is: "You take care of that, and you'll have your hands full."

—from James B. Stockdale, The Stoic Warrior's Triad