Epictetus, Discourses 1.9.2

When a man therefore has learned to understand the government of the Universe and has realized that there is nothing so great or sovereign or all-inclusive as this frame of things wherein men and God are united, and that from it come the seeds from which are sprung not only my own father or grandfather, but all things that are begotten and that grow upon earth, and rational creatures in particular —for these alone are by nature fitted to share in the society of God, being connected with Him by the bond of reason—why should he not call himself a citizen of the Universe and a son of God? 

 

Why should he fear anything that can happen to him among men? When kinship with Caesar or any other of those who are powerful in Rome is sufficient to make men live in security, above all scorn and free from every fear, shall not the fact that we have God as maker and father and kinsman relieve us from pains and fears?

 

I am instinctively drawn to what seems similar to myself, and I will feel a sense of satisfaction from belonging to something common, in pursuing a closeness to those around me. 

 

Now let me be careful that I am discerning the greatest similarity, the deepest commonality, and the most binding closeness. These are not always what I might assume they are. 

 

The accidental is confused with the essential. How I look, or how I sound, or what I claim as my possessions for the moment are not who or what I am. It will be necessary to dig deeper. 

 

An identity is mistaken for a hatred of the other. To define something by what it isn’t is about partition instead of union, and so seeks to make it special by means of exclusion. It will be necessary to dig deeper. 

 

What at first appears the nearest may actually be the furthest, and what at first appears the furthest may actually be the nearest. The narrower categories isolate just this or that part, while the broader categories encompass the whole. It will be necessary to dig deeper. 

 

When we were younger, we nervously huddled together under the protection of dress and music. It was about style. 

 

When we got a bit older, we thought that the politics of race, class, or religion might give us strength. It was about ideology. 

 

After we jumped through many hoops, we became confident enough to claim that we held some privileged status, through our money, or our titles, or just our smug cleverness. It was finally about power. 

 

None of it really brought people together, because all of it was about the trivial, the divisive, and the combative. 

 

A complete Stoic attitude, not one that merely picks and chooses certain convenient aspects of the philosophy, can only embrace an understanding of the self within the total model of Providence. All things share simply in existence, which flows from the unity of all Existence. All things further participate in a profound order, which expresses the purpose of Perfect Mind. As creatures of reason and will, we are called to a special and free cooperation in that order, being in the image and likeness of what is Divine. 

 

If the very word “God” is troubling me here, it is because I am still thinking too small, concerned more with breaking down than building up. 

 

A true sense of what is common requires looking to the fullest measure, to what is absolute instead of relative. All the lower groupings are meaningless without the context of the highest. As much as I may prefer my own family, country, or creed, I owe everything to what is Supreme. 

 

I can only smile a bit here, given how I used to snicker at people who spoke of being citizens of the Universe or children of God. I begin to see it now, and it was my own bloated sense of self that insisted on mocking my own kin. 

Written in 11/2000

IMAGE: William Blake, The Ancient of Days (1794)