Epictetus, Discourses 1.11.4

For the present I can help you just so far as this in regard to what you wish: do you think family affection is natural and good? 

 

“Of course.”

 

Again, is it true that affection is natural and good, and reason not good?

 

“Certainly not.”

 

Is there a conflict then between reason and affection?

 

“I think not.”

 

If there were a conflict, then, as one of the two is natural, the other must needs be unnatural?

 

“Certainly,” he said.

 

It follows then that whenever we find reason and affection united in an action, we confidently affirm that it is right and good.

 

“Granted,” he said.

 

It may sound far too obvious to say, but conflict breeds such deep discontent. Now what am I to do about the conflict? I am usually advised, by those who consider themselves experts, to overwhelm the opposition. Where an obstacle stands in the way, force it out of the way. In the most direct of terms, if you don’t like it, destroy it. 

 

Perhaps I am too sentimental, and so I don’t have that instinct to stomp on my neighbor, yet what cuts closest to the bone is the deeper problem of fighting myself. If one part of me says this, and another part says that, am I to kill off the one part at the expense of the other? 

 

An old hippie friend of mine, now long missing in action, used to wonder if it was better to roll over it, or to roll with it. He nodded and grinned when I asked him if he’d stolen that from Lao Tzu, and he told me that no truth can ever be stolen. 

 

Wherever a contradiction is hastily assumed, it is best to take a step back, and to question whether that tension can be resolved into a harmony. I have learned, the hard way, that unclear terms are the first obstacles to understanding, and that false dichotomies follow closely behind. 

 

Let me look at my own inner workings. Must my thinking and my feelings be at war? After all, whole historical movements have been based on the friction between them. 

 

Do you like Classicism or Romanticism?”

 

“Um, both?”

 

“You’re funny! Seriously, which one?”

 

Whenever I believe that my appetites and my intellect are somehow in conflict, I am failing to grasp the nature of either. An emotion, in and of itself, has no meaning or value without the understanding. A thought, in and of itself, has no reference or context without the passions. 

 

The whole of Nature works together, and so it should come as no surprise that the bits of my own nature are made to work together. 

 

Yes, affection is good, though the goodness becomes apparent through the act of reason. Yes, reason is good, though it will hardly matter if it does not express itself in the act of affection. 

 

If my affection appears to contradict my reason, that is a result of a failure in my very reasoning. The feeling does indeed “say” something, but its significance is only possible through my comprehension.

Written in 12/2000