Lucas Cranach the Elder, Melancholy

Lucas Cranach the Elder, An Allegory of Melancholy (1528)

Lucas Cranach the Elder, Melancholy (1532)

Capriccio of Classical Ruins

 

Hubert Robert, Capriccio of Classical Ruins with Boats (c. 1760)

Sayings of Publilius Syrus 24

Friendship either finds or makes equals. 

Xenophon, Memorabilia of Socrates 1

I have often wondered by what arguments those who indicted Socrates could have persuaded the Athenians that his life was justly forfeit to the state. The indictment was to this effect: "Socrates is guilty of crime in refusing to recognize the gods acknowledged by the state, and importing strange divinities of his own; he is further guilty of corrupting the young."

In the first place, what evidence did they produce that Socrates refused to recognise the gods acknowledged by the state? Was it that he did not sacrifice? Or that he dispensed with divination? 

On the contrary, he was often to be seen engaged in sacrifice, at home or at the common altars of the state. Nor was his dependence on divination less manifest. 

Indeed that saying of his, "A divinity gives me a sign," was on everybody's lips. So much so that, if I am not mistaken, it lay at the root of the imputation that he imported novel divinities; though there was no greater novelty in his case than in that of other believers in oracular help, who commonly rely on omens of all sorts: the flight or cry of birds, the utterances of man, chance meetings, or a victim's entrails. 

Even according to the popular conception, it is not the mere fowl, it is not the chance individual one meets, who knows what things are profitable for a man, but it is the gods who vouchsafe by such instruments to signify the same. This was also the tenet of Socrates. 

Only, whereas men ordinarily speak of being turned aside, or urged onwards by birds, or other creatures encountered on the path, Socrates suited his language to his conviction. "The divinity," said he, "gives me a sign." 

Further, he would constantly advise his associates to do this, or beware of doing that, upon the authority of this same divine voice; and, as a matter of fact, those who listened to his warnings prospered, whilst he who turned a deaf ear to them repented afterwards. 

Yet, it will be readily conceded, he would hardly desire to present himself to his everyday companions in the character of either knave or fool. Whereas he would have appeared to be both, supposing the God-given revelations had but revealed his own proneness to deception. 

It is plain he would not have ventured on forecast at all, but for his belief that the words he spoke would in fact be verified. Then on whom, or what, was the assurance rooted, if not upon God? And if he had faith in the gods, how could he fail to recognize them?

—from Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.1 

all entries in this series are taken from the translation of H.G. Dakyns (1897)

Epictetus, Discourses 1.12.7

“Alas, but look what a father and mother I have got!”

 

Why? Was it given you on entering life to choose and say, “Let such a one marry such a one at this hour, that I may be born?” 

 

No such choice was given you: your parents had to be in existence first, and your birth had to follow. 

 

Of what parents? Of such as they were.

 

I suppose all children will have times when they resent their parents; I imagine this has less to do with the vices of the parents than the painful, yet necessary, growth of the children. 

 

I don’t recall that I ever wanted to have different parents, though I do recall wishing they would be more amenable to doing whatever I happened to prefer at that moment. 

 

I have quite often, however, dreamed about how wonderful my life would be, if only this or that event had not occurred, or if I had been saved from crossing paths with one or another person. 

 

Yes, but it wasn’t really the event that troubled me, was it? It all hinges upon how I reacted to it then, and how I continue reacting to it now. If I have no objection within myself to a rainy day, I will not find myself being angry about rainy days whenever they come around. 

 

It is quite the same with certain people. That they lived, or where or when or how they lived, did not have to be so terrible for me, if only I had not formed my unhealthy attachments as I did. Nor is there any need for regret, since I can still modify those attachments, if only I put my mind to it. 

 

Besides, the very fact that I now know something more about what is good or bad for me, that I have struggled to become better through those circumstances, would itself become impossible without having lived through such experiences. If I pray it had not happened, then the self who does the praying would no longer exist. 

 

It was not made for me to decide where I came from, or how the world around me will unfold. That is not a limitation at all, but a liberation of the finest sort, where I can learn to be fully myself in a harmony with Nature, to finally be responsible for my relationships with others. I am not disposable, and neither are they. 

 

Did an attempt at love, for example, meet with feeling abandoned, cast aside in favor of the next convenient conquest? That can be a good thing, because it means I can now have a deeper sense of what true friendship entails, and this will, in turn, help me to never again confuse love with lust. 

 

“But she broke me. I can’t get beyond it.”

 

The proof that this is not true is how there are thousands more just like her out there, and not a single one of them broke you. Admit that you broke yourself, by making your happiness dependent on the whims of someone else, and now admit that you have the power to fix yourself. 

 

She is what she is; now you be what you must be. 

Written in 12/2000

The Wisdom of Solomon 11:1-14

[1] Wisdom prospered their works by the hand of a holy prophet.
[2] They journeyed through an uninhabited wilderness,
and pitched their tents in untrodden places.
[3] They withstood their enemies and fought off their foes.
[4] When they thirsted they called upon you,
and water was given them out of flinty rock,
and slaking of thirst from hard stone.
[5] For through the very things by which their
enemies were punished,
they themselves received benefit in their need.
[6] Instead of the fountain of an ever-flowing river,
stirred up and defiled with blood
[7] in rebuke for the decree to slay the infants,
you gave them abundant water unexpectedly,
[8] showing by their thirst at that time
how you did punish their enemies.
[9] For when they were tried, though they were
being disciplined in mercy,
they learned how the ungodly were tormented
when judged in wrath.
[10] For you did test them as a father does in warning,
but you did examine the ungodly as a stern
king does in condemnation.
[11] Whether absent or present, they were equally distressed,
[12] for a twofold grief possessed them,
and a groaning at the memory of what had occurred.
[13] For when they heard that through their own punishments
the righteous had received benefit, they perceived
it was the Lord's doing.
[14] For though they had mockingly rejected him
who long before had been cast out and exposed,
at the end of the events they marveled at him,
for their thirst was not like that of the righteous.

IMAGES:

David Roberts, Departure of the Israelites (1830)

Francois Perrier, Moses Draws Water from the Rock (1642)

Sayings of Ramakrishna 120

When it was argued that a family man (Grihastha) may remain in the family, but may have no concern with it, and consequently may remain uncontaminated by the world, an illustration was cited to refute such an argument, which is as follows: 

A poor Brâhmana once came to one of those family men, who are unconcerned with family affairs, to beg some money. When the beggar asked of him some money, he replied, "Sir, I never touch money. Why are you wasting your time in begging of me?"

The Brâhmana, however, would not go away. Tired with his importunate entreaties the man at last resolved in his mind to give him a rupee, and told him, "Well, sir, come tomorrow, I shall see what I can do for you."

Then going in, this typical family man told his wife, who was the manager of all his affairs, he being unconcerned, "Look here, dear, a poor Brâhmana is in great difficulty, and wants something of me. I have made up my mind to give him a rupee. What is your opinion about it?"

"Aha! what a generous fellow you are!" she replied, in great excitement at the name of a rupee. "Rupees are not, like leaves or stones, to be thrown away without any thought." 

"Well, dear," replied the husband, in an apologizing tone, "the man is very poor and we should not give him less than a rupee." 

"No!" replied the wife, "I cannot spare that much; here is a two anna bit and you can give him that, if you like." 

The man of course had no other alternative, being himself unconcerned in all such worldly matters, and he took what his wife gave him. 

Next day the beggar came, and received only a two anna bit. Such uncontaminated family men are really henpecked persons who are solely guided by their wives, and as such are very poor specimens of humanity. 

Epictetus, Discourses 1.12.6

“Am I then to have a maimed leg?”

 

Slave, do you mean to arraign the Universe for one wretched leg? Will you not make a gift of it to the sum of things? Will you not resign it? Will you not joyfully yield it up to Him who gave it? Will you be vexed and discontented with the ordinances of Zeus, laid down and ordained by Him with the Fates who were present at your birth and span your thread of life? 

 

Do you not know, what a little part you are, compared with the Universe? I say this of your body, for in reason you are not inferior to the gods nor less than they; for the greatness of reason is judged not by length or height but by its judgements.

 

Will you not then set your good in that region where you are equal to the gods?

 

I have never lost the use of a limb, as Epictetus did, but I have found all other sorts of obstacles, whether real or imagined, to complain about, and to set up as excuses for not living well. Heaven knows, it is easy enough to succumb to despair, and it becomes even easier when I commit that cardinal Stoic sin of defining my life by its circumstances. 

 

It took me some time to recognize all the misleading assumptions I was making. I asked why the situation was so bad, instead of wondering why my attitude was so bad. Since I looked to the appearances on the outside for rewards, I neglected to attend to the merits on the inside for peace. 

 

I am not a failure if the world doesn’t go my way; I am a failure if I don’t choose to do my best with the way of world. 

 

The ignorant and the grasping will say you must, by the force of your will, take whatever you want. The wise and the compassionate, however, will rather encourage you to remember that you already have everything you need. 

 

It might frustrate me to hear it, and I may try to laugh it off as a platitude, but finding my way calls for a sense of priority and proportion. 

 

The health of my body, the weight of my wallet, and the number of my admirers are relative things, and ultimately quite insignificant things, compared to the worth of my character. In and of themselves, these conditions should be indifferent to me, where their quantity is only given any meaning and purpose by the quality of my virtues. 

 

Epictetus had his maimed leg, and he did not view it as a hindrance to his happiness, for he understood it was merely something that had come to him, and it did not interfere with what he decided to make of himself. 

 

Did not God, or Providence, or Fate, or Nature bring it about? Then it was meant to be for a good reason, and he could find a way to put it to its best use. 

 

What can be made of a misfortune? To begin with, knowing why it doesn’t have to be a misfortune, how it can be transformed into an opportunity. It is the power of the mind, the divine piece that rises above the weakness of the flesh by having an awareness and a mastery over it, that makes this possible. 

 

I will worry that my Black Dog, the crippling melancholy that follows me around wherever I go, is an unbearable burden to me. Then why is it that most anything good about me has arisen precisely because of my willingness to come to terms with it? 

 

So perhaps I will have to stumble along on my crutches, holding out my empty hat for alms. What of it? Riding in a carriage while dressed in the finest clothes will not make me a better or a happier man. I should not take being made in the image and likeness of God so lightly. 

Written in 12/2000

Stoic Snippets 108

It is in our power to have no opinion about a thing, and not to be disturbed in our soul; for things themselves have no natural power to form our judgments.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 6.52

 

Death of the Reprobate

Hieronymus Bosch, Death of the Reprobate (c. 1500)

The Art of Peace 77

At the instant

A warrior 

Confronts a foe, 

All things

Come into focus.

Dhammapada 162

He whose wickedness is very great brings himself down to that state where his enemy wishes him to be, as a creeper does with the tree which it surrounds.

Epictetus, Discourses 1.12.5

What punishment is there, you ask, for those who do not accept things in this spirit? 

 

Their punishment is to be as they are. 

 

Is one discontented with being alone? Let him be deserted. Is one discontented with his parents? Let him be a bad son, and mourn his lot. Is one discontented with his children? Let him be a bad father.

 

“Cast him into prison.”

 

What do you mean by prison? He is in prison already; for a man's prison is the place that he is in against his will, just as, conversely, Socrates was not in prison, for he chose to be there.

 

I recently sat through an uncomfortable meeting with some fellow faculty, where an art professor, who usually comes across as a kind old hippie, was possessed by the spirit of vengeance. She apparently felt slighted by the words of a colleague, and so she had summoned us to help her spill his blood. 

 

“He needs to pay! Who’s going to make him pay? We all need to make sure he pays!” Variations on this theme went on for some time. 

 

I didn’t particularly take to the fellow in question either, yet I couldn’t help but think that what I happened to dislike should never be a measure of retribution. If he was indeed in the wrong, his actions were already his undoing, and there was no need for me to add any more fuel to the fire. 

 

Most people find my attitude ridiculous, perhaps even offensive, though I will still insist that it isn’t my place to hurt someone else, simply because he has caused hurt. Besides the fact that two wrongs don’t make a right, where one evil merely compounds another, I am also working from the principles that virtue is its own reward, and vice is its own punishment. 

 

If I am to understand the Stoic Turn in all its aspects, I must never confuse justice with revenge. It can certainly be right to correct an imbalance, to ask that what was selfishly taken must be fairly restored, and to find a way for compensation to lead to reconciliation. Once I demand to see the pain of another to erase my pain, however, I am driven by an anger against my enemy instead of a love for my neighbor. 

 

Review the basics of Stoic morality, and you will see why. Where is human good? Only in our own virtues. Where is human evil? Only in our own vices. The only benefit and harm that come to us, therefore, are the result of our own thoughts and deeds. What greater reward could there be than living well? What greater punishment could there be than living poorly?

 

We get what we deserve, and Nature does all the paperwork for us. Whenever I am unhappy with myself, with my situation, or with other people, my very judgements are themselves the source of my discontent. 

 

The worldly man does not understand this, since he determines everything by what happens to him, not by his character. Don’t lash out at him for believing as he does, as he is already suffering enough from his delusions. 

 

It isn’t just a matter of fine theory; my life has shown me, in its many ups and downs, that I am a miserable wretch when I do wrong, precisely because all the twisted ideas and bitter resentments are nothing but excuses to escape my responsibility for myself. 

 

In contrast, my most peaceful and joyous moments have followed from an informed conscience and a selfless heart. Yes, it’s that simple. Once you attempt it, with sincerity and humility, the difference is immediately apparent. 

 

I spent some time working in prison ministry during my Wilderness Years, and I saw with my own eyes what happens when we try so hard to make others suffer. They become no better, and we become no better, because the deepest suffering is from the inside, not from the outside. 

 

Socrates wasn’t really in prison, because his soul was free. The wheelers and the dealers, living in their McMansions, are most certainly in prison, because their souls are in bondage. 

Written in 12/2000

In Flight

Beautiful photographs of common British birds in flight, by Mark Harvey:

Sayings of Publilius Syrus 23

When you fall short in what is due to yourself, you are lacking towards your friends. 

Epictetus, Discourses 1.12.4

I ask you, is it possible to avoid men? How can we? Can we change their nature by our society? Who gives us that power? What is left for us then, or what means do we discover to deal with them? We must so act as to leave them to do as seems good to them, while we remain in accord with Nature.

 
But you are impatient and discontented; if you are alone you call it a wilderness, and if you are with men you describe them as plotters and robbers, and you find fault even with your own parents and children and brothers and neighbors.
 
Why, when you are alone you ought to call it peace and freedom and consider yourself the equal of the gods; when you are in a large company you should not call it a crowd or a mob or a nuisance, but a high-day and a festival, and so accept all things in a spirit of content.
 
I often wonder if all the nasty problems that come with politics are really a deeply Stoic lesson in disguise. 
 
I may know it is right for me to do something, and I may believe it is also right for others to do the same, and that is a fine start for good living. We get tied up in knots, however, when we fail to mind our own business. 
 
If I should act in certain way, let me attend to that. If I wish to share it with another, let me speak to him, reason with him, encourage him. Yet where did this idea suddenly come from that I must force him to do my will, and that I must destroy him if he resists? No single person was ever, I am fairly sure, improved by insulting, bullying, or shunning. 
 
To hate and dismiss are quite easy, to love and respect are quite difficult. The one is a surrender to the passions, the other a commitment to the understanding. By all means, work for the common good, though be certain that you are not twisting it into a game of power and self-gratification. 
 
If something doesn’t feel right, or if my preferences have not been met, I am tempted to blame everyone and everything else. So I may swing back and forth between wanting to run away from the world on one day, and itching to beat it into submission on the next. Even if it were possible to achieve total isolation or complete mastery, neither would bring me any happiness, since they have nothing to do with the improvement of my own virtues. 
 
No, it won’t go away or change just because I want it to. The solitude makes me crave company, and the company makes me crave solitude, and the whole while the answer was never in manipulating any of these circumstances. Let me make all of it acceptable to me by modifying my attitude, and then there will no need for complaints. 
 
“But he has offended me! He has taken what is rightly mine!”
 
No, he has only offended you if you decide to make it so. No, unless he has snatched up your virtue, he has taken nothing that needed to be yours. Let the angry people bicker across the aisle, and find your contentment, whether you are in public or in private.

 
Written in 12/2000

Sayings of Heraclitus 51

Men allow themselves to be deceived as Homer was, who yet was wiser than all the Greeks; for some boys killing lice deceived him saying, "What we see and catch we leave behind; what we neither see nor catch we take with us."

IMAGE: Adriaen Brouwer, The Delousing (c. 1630)

Tidbits from Montaigne 33

The souls of emperors and cobblers are cast in the same mold. . . . 

The same reason that makes us wrangle with a neighbor creates a war between princes.

—Michel de Montaigne, Essays 2.12

Epictetus, Discourses 1.12.3

Are we to say then that in this sphere alone, the greatest and most momentous of all, the sphere of freedom, it is permitted me to indulge chance desires? 

 

By no means: education is just this—learning to frame one's will in accord with events. 

 

How do events happen? They happen as the Disposer of events has ordained them. He ordained summer and winter, fruitful and barren seasons, virtue and vice and all such opposites for the sake of the harmony of the Universe, and gave to each one of us a body and bodily parts and property and men to associate with. 

 

Remembering then that things are thus ordained we ought to approach education, not that we may change the conditions of life, that is not given to us, nor is it good for us—but that, our circumstances being as they are and as Nature makes them, we may conform our mind to events.

 

“I want this! Give me that! Hear my demands!”

 

And so I may believe that my freedom is only working correctly when everything else goes my way. It has apparently not occurred to me that my way does not exist in isolation, that I am a piece of a bigger picture, one thread in a vast tapestry. 

 

Yes, it is about me, but I am not all that there is. I totally retain my power to judge and to choose, though my foolishness arises from an insistence that my judging and choosing should determine everything around me. 

 

As a wise mentor once told me: “Be free in things, not from things.”

 

A pure subjectivism, which is nothing but the greatest egoism, is much like a spoiled toddler’s temper tantrum. We try to teach the child to change himself through his own choices, and yet he is only satisfied when the rest of the world conforms to his own choices. How odd that we frown upon it on the playground, and we still praise it in the boardroom. 

 

I can indeed desire anything I want, though I forget to first ask whether it is right and good to want it; will must be tempered by conscience. Again, a proper education helps me to become accountable instead of feeling entitled. 

 

Reasoned decisions bear abundant fruit, arbitrary decisions are more like pissing into the wind. 

 

If it was made as it was, there is a perfectly good reason why it was made that way, even if I don’t initially understand it. What can I do to make the situation helpful, to employ it prudently? No good will come from just asking the situation to alter upon my whim. 

 

Freedom begs us, first and foremost, to control ourselves; leave it to the higher wisdom of Providence to manage what is beyond our control. Reverse the presumption of conformity, from a will that rages against the real to a will that can find meaning in the real. 

Written in 12/2000

Epictetus, Golden Sayings 147

These things have you from yourself and from the Gods: only remember who it is that gives them—to whom and for what purpose they were given. 

Feeding your soul on thoughts like these, do you debate in what place happiness awaits you? In what place you shall do God's pleasure? Are not the Gods nigh unto all places alike; see they not alike what everywhere comes to pass?

Sayings of Ramakrishna 119

Flies sit at times on the sweets kept exposed for sale in the shop of a confectioner; but no sooner does a sweeper pass by with a basket full of filth than the flies leave the sweets and sit upon the filth basket. 

But the honey bee never sits on filthy objects, and always drinks nectar from the flowers. 

The worldly men are like flies. At times they get a momentary taste of Divine sweetness, but their natural tendency for filth soon brings them back to the dunghill of the world. 

The good man, on the other hand, is always absorbed in the beatific contemplation of Divine Beauty.

Epictetus, Discourses 1.12.2

The man who is under education ought to approach education with this purpose in his mind:

 

“How can I follow the gods in everything, and how can I be content with the divine governance, and how can I become free?” 

 

For he is free, for whom all things happen according to his will and whom no one can hinder.

 

“What then? Is freedom the same as madness?”

 

Heaven forbid! frenzy and freedom have nothing in common.

 

“But, you say, ‘I want everything to happen as I think good, whatever that may be.’”

 

Then you are in a state of madness, you are out of your mind. Do you not know that freedom is a noble thing, and worthy of regard? But merely to want one's chance thoughts to be realized, is not a noble thing; it comes perilously near being the most shameful of all things. 

 

How do we act in matters of grammar? Do I want to write Dion's name as I will? No, I am taught to will the right way of writing. How is it in music? Just the same. So it is universally, in every region of art or science.

 

Otherwise, it would not be worthwhile to know anything, if everything conformed itself to each man's will.

 

I have long been told that an education serves to provide me with a career, and to make a name for myself, and to help me win nice things. Some would add that it also supports the common good by training me to be productive and obedient. 

 

Now what could learning possibly have to so with serving the Divine, or with practicing acceptance, or with perfecting my freedom? It all depends on our conception of the good to begin with, and where we establish our measure. 

 

For some people, fame, property, and pleasure are all they see, and so they determine their lives by such worldly standards. For others, there is a calling to nurture a deeper sense of humanity, and so they live their lives according to the riches of wisdom instead of the riches of money. 

 

What am I treating as being absolute in my judgments? Do I bow down out of fear or out of love? Is my profit in gratification or in virtue? Everything else in life hinges on such questions, and so the philosopher seeks out the answers, rather than just assuming them. There is the merit of a fundamental and a radical education. 

 

When Epictetus sets out the goals of true learning, I notice not only how countercultural they are, but also how they would seem to contradict our usual ideas about freedom. He says here that I can both submit to Divine Providence at the very same time as I fully express my liberty, and to some that would sound quite ridiculous. If the world must unfold as it does, what place is there for my own choices? 

 

He leaves no doubt about meaning freedom without any limitations, for he then defines it as the power to have events be in complete accordance with our wishes. Yes, I crunched up my face when I reread that, and perhaps you did too. How odd to say that it is possible to get whatever we want! 

 

Aren’t those the words of someone who is as the very least deeply selfish, or maybe a bit delusional? That would only be true if freedom required forcing the world to our wills, not if freedom involves adapting our wills to the world. Either way, the decision is entirely my own, though the difference is in working with events or working against them, where each will lead to starkly contrasting consequences. 

 

A human education requires the acquisition of an ability to come to terms with circumstances, and to act of my own accord at the same as other things act according to their specific ends. 

 

If I want to speak or write, must I not learn to come across in a clear and eloquent manner? If I wish to play music, must I not perform by skillful means? It is much the same with the autonomy of will, not to use it in any old way, but to use it rightly. 

 

I am in no doubt that Providence rules absolutely, and I am also in no doubt that I am given my own part to play, possessing a mastery over my contributions. I can only properly fulfill my free will, however, if I apply it in harmony, and not in opposition, to other conditions, to think of it as engaging in a responsibility, not in demanding a right. 

 

Maybe only someone raised in the Catholic faith will appreciate the connection, yet I immediately think of Mary at the Annunciation: “Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” Her “yes” came from a joyful affirmation of what God had intended for her, and for all of creation. If that rubs you the wrong way, you will surely find a more fitting example from your own experience. 

Written in 12/2000

IMAGE: Fra Angelico, The Annunciation (c. 1450)