Seneca, Moral Letters 14.6

We should therefore look about us, and see how we may protect ourselves from the mob. And first of all, we should have no cravings like theirs; for rivalry results in strife. 

 

Again, let us possess nothing that can be snatched from us to the great profit of a plotting foe. Let there be as little booty as possible on your person. 

 

No one sets out to shed the blood of his fellow men for the sake of bloodshed—at any rate very few. More murderers speculate on their profits than give vent to hatred. If you are empty-handed, the highwayman passes you by; even along an infested road, the poor may travel in peace. 

 

When others do me wrong, my first instinct may be to respond in kind. My hope is that I can defeat them by returning more of the same, and that by being stronger than them, I will somehow become better than them. 

 

If I take a moment for understanding, instead of just for feeling, I will realize that I have been completely defeated, because by allowing myself to act unjustly, I myself have now become one of the unjust. I would have saved myself much grief by remembering an expression I was taught as a child: two wrongs don’t make a right. 

 

If I don’t want to be a wicked man, I will hardly achieve this by thinking wicked thoughts and committing wicked deeds. The better way, as Marcus Aurelius said, is to be unlike the offender. Don’t follow that same path, as it must lead to the very same ruin. 

 

Unreflective people, who are easily drawn into herds, pursue pleasure, money, and fame, and the sense that I no longer “belong” to them might take some getting used to. Nevertheless, in standing for myself, and hence belonging to Nature, I will desire very different things. Parting ways about our values, we are not in competition, and so there is no need to fight with them. 

 

I must continue to offer them my hand, but our wants have ceased to be aligned. What does the one have that the other could covet? They have worked to accumulate more, while I have worked to be content with little, and they are likely to overlook my meager possessions. If they do happen to pay attention to my trinkets, I am still far better prepared for losing them than they are for gaining them. 

 

Yes, this can only be possible if I have made a full Stoic Turn, not one of half measures, and yes, there will still be critical times when I must stand up for my need in the face of their greed. Through it all, however, I have made myself so small in their eyes that I am hardly worth their scrutiny or efforts, and in this I can find some peace of mind. 

 

By far the most common kinds of injustice are committed by grasping men who can’t bear to see someone else with something that they crave. I could always try to stop them, or I could also try to stop myself from playing their game to begin with. 

 

What about those who are simply gratified by violence for its own sake? They are much more difficult to avoid, and thus far more terrifying, but even their barbarity does not justify becoming barbaric. 

Written in 6/2012