Seneca, Moral Letters 18.2

I am sure that, if I know you aright, playing the part of an umpire you would have wished that we should be neither like the liberty-capped throng in all ways, nor in all ways unlike them; unless, perhaps, this is just the season when we ought to lay down the law to the soul, and bid it be alone in refraining from pleasures just when the whole mob has let itself go in pleasures; for this is the surest proof which a man can get of his own constancy, if he neither seeks the things which are seductive and allure him to luxury, nor is led into them.

 

It shows much more courage to remain dry and sober when the mob is drunk and vomiting; but it shows greater self-control to refuse to withdraw oneself and to do what the crowd does, but in a different way—thus neither making oneself conspicuous nor becoming one of the crowd. For one may keep holiday without extravagance.

 

It is encouraging to see how Seneca thinks the young Lucilius will try to seek a middle ground, because I was hardly competent at pursuing the mean in my earlier years. While I had been properly taught about moderation and balance, I would still too often let my frantic passions lead me astray. It was usually all or nothing for me, eagerly running along with a crowd or desperately running away from it. 

 

But let me not confuse the mean with mediocrity, or let compromise become a form of cowardice. In that a temperate attitude will meet with opposition from both extremes, it can do me a world of good to put up a decent fight for the sake of character. After all, there is a time to draw the line, and the occasion of a holy season can be a fitting opportunity to improve through a worthy struggle. In the end, I am really just fighting my own worst inclinations, and no one else. 

 

Surely, what better moment is there to increase piety, gratitude, and self-mastery, when most everyone around me is busy with profit, gratification, and self-abandon? As Chesterton put it, “A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it.” Just as a muscle does not become stronger without meeting a resistance, so the soul does not become better without facing an obstacle. 

 

To find that pesky mean, therefore, first requires the fortitude not to quiver in fear and hide myself from temptations, and then further calls for the restraint to be surrounded by vices while remaining secure in my own virtues. Be in the world, but not of it. It is not always an easy thing, but it is a necessary thing. 

 

In trying not to become the drunken and lecherous Santa at the office party, I need to be careful not to end up like a resentful and joyless Ebenezer Scrooge. A celebration is a wonderful thing, and is always most satisfying in company, so there is no reason not to join the festivities; there is a very good reason, however, to do so in a way that does not make me a beast or a slave. 

 

Does my neighbor wish to celebrate his Christmas like a boisterous and gluttonous lout? I should raise a glass or two with him, yet I should keep my temper and consumption at my own proper measure. It would be just as harmful for me to make a prudish fuss, arrogantly snubbing him to satisfy my bitter self-righteousness, as it would for me to pass out with him in the gutter. 

Written in 8/2012