Seneca, Moral Letters 13.11

But I am ashamed either to admonish you sternly or to try to beguile you with such mild remedies. 

 

Let another say: "Perhaps the worst will not happen." 

 

You yourself must say: "Well, what if it does happen? Let us see who wins! Perhaps it happens for my best interests; it may be that such a death will shed credit upon my life." 

 

Socrates was ennobled by the hemlock draught. Wrench from Cato's hand his sword, the vindicator of liberty, and you deprive him of the greatest share of his glory.

 

I am exhorting you far too long, since you need reminding rather than exhortation. The path on which I am leading you is not different from that on which your nature leads you; you were born to such conduct as I describe. Hence there is all the more reason why you should increase and beautify the good that is in you.

 

Scolding will usually incline me to become more stubborn, and stroking the ego with platitudes makes me too comfortable with where I am, instead of eager to go where I should be. I have lived best when I know that the path to follow is in a free harmony with my own nature, where I do not merely get swept up in external forces, or turn sentiments into excuses. 

 

So, if someone yells at me to “Man up!” I am tempted to dismiss him as a bully, and if someone assures me that “It will all work itself out!” I suspect that he is being lazy. Brute strength offers no assurance of victory over the world, and a twinkling optimism easily descends into a tired delusion. 

 

The common error is in thinking that “things” must improve, whether by willpower or by happenstance. The circumstances will be just as they are, however, and the Stoic discerns that the only reliable improvement lies in the disposition of our own hearts and minds. The “winning” is not found in lining things up as we would prefer, but in a formation of character that uncovers the good in anything that comes our way. 

 

Yes, and this will also apply to dying, one of the things we fear the most. 

 

When Socrates was sentenced to death for corruption and impiety, he accepted the will of his fellow Athenians, and he turned it all around for himself by viewing his passing as another opportunity to seek the truth. 

 

When Cato the Younger took his own life after Julius Caesar’s victory, there was no malice or despair in him, only a final expression of the Roman liberties he had committed his entire life to defending. He would not permit his own dignity to be at the mercy of a tyrant. 

 

Both aspired to excellence by what they did, not by what was done to them. There is what distinguishes the hero who serves his nature from the mercenary who follows after his convenience. None of us need to do any more than to show reverence for what is already within. 

Written in 6/2012

IMAGES: 

Giambettino Cignaroli

The Death of Socrates (1762)

The Death of Cato (1762)