Vanitas 55

Roelant Savery, Memento Mori (c. 1612) 

Sayings of Publilius Syrus 50

It is well to yield up a pleasure, when a pain goes with it. 

Sayings of Heraclitus 57

It is the thunderbolt that steers the course of all things. 

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.39

M. Away, then, with those follies, which are little better than the old women’s dreams, such as that it is miserable to die before our time. What time do you mean? That of nature? But she has only lent you life, as she might lend you money, without fixing any certain time for its repayment. 

 

Have you any grounds of complaint, then, that she recalls it at her pleasure? For you received it on these terms. They that complain thus allow that if a young child dies, the survivors ought to bear his loss with equanimity; that if an infant in the cradle dies, they ought not even to utter a complaint; and yet nature has been more severe with them in demanding back what she gave. 

 

They answer by saying that such have not tasted the sweets of life; while the other had begun to conceive hopes of great happiness, and, indeed, had begun to realize them. 

 

Men judge better in other things, and allow a part to be preferable to none. Why do they not admit the same estimate in life? Though Callimachus does not speak amiss in saying that more tears had flowed from Priam than his son; yet they are thought happier who die after they have reached old age. 

 

It would be hard to say why; for I do not apprehend that anyone, if a longer life were granted to him, would find it happier. There is nothing more agreeable to a man than prudence, which old age most certainly bestows on a man, though it may strip him of everything else. But what age is long, or what is there at all long to a man? Does not

 

“Old age, though unregarded, still attend

On childhood’s pastimes, as the cares of men?”

 

But because there is nothing beyond old age, we call that long: all these things are said to be long or short, according to the proportion of time they were given us for. 

 

Aristotle says there is a kind of insect near the river Hypanis, which runs from a certain part of Europe into the Pontus, whose life consists but of one day; those that die at the eighth hour die in full age; those who die when the sun sets are very old, especially when the days are at the longest. Compare our longest life with eternity, and we shall be found almost as short-lived as those little animals. 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.39

 

The anxiety that comes from wanting to live longer, like all of life’s troubles, is only resolved by working in harmony with human nature. The varieties of politics, economics, or psychology I encounter will always take for granted certain philosophical points of view, and it is my responsibility to be certain that these principles are sound for me. 

 

Mock philosophy as much as you wish, but understand that there can never be meaningful action without a solid grasp of ultimate purpose. 

 

If living longer is my priority, I am failing to discern that more is not always better, and that Nature has clearly marked us with an expiration date. I will trust that she has done so for a perfectly good reason, instead of insisting on my own thoughtless demands. 

 

The Stoics knows how life, and all its circumstances, are merely borrowed, and we can be called to return them at any moment. Keeping this in mind, I will not be disappointed or caught unawares. 

 

To live is then not a right, but a privilege; no one owes me an existence, even as I have an obligation to make the most of what is given, whatever the context or the duration. 

 

Now it is easy to say this to others, and far more difficult to embrace it for myself, so the proof will be in my practice, not in my preaching. When I can manage it, I find that a stubborn sense of entitlement gives way to a peaceful sense of gratitude; the glass is now half full, no longer half empty. 

 

Nevertheless, I can grow angry about how unfair it seems, how cruel it feels that an innocent child should die before he has a chance to most fully be himself, while a selfish and bitter man outlives us all. 

 

I temper that passion, and I redirect its force: there is no room for resentment to begin with, so transform it into pity for the old miser, not for the child, and transform it into admiration for the child, not for the old miser. One did more with less, the other did less with more. A year of awareness with innocence is greater than a century of brooding with malice. 

 

Youth and old age, however far apart they may appear, are merely blips in the bigger picture. We are not all given the same conditions, though we are all given the same opportunities to experience and act as best we can, given those conditions. There are so many cases when dying young can become a blessing, and so many cases when dying old can become a curse. 

 

The recent fashion for moral relativism is nonsense, since the relative must be relative to something constant. It will pass away, as every shallow fad must pass away. Still, a broader perspective recognizes how concepts like the long and the short, the big and the small, or the strong and the weak are flexible. The branches sway, the trunk stands firm. 

 

Do I think my life too short? Consider the mayfly, whose adult life is about a day. Mayflies do what they must do in their time, and I must do what I can in mine. More is not always better. 

—Reflection written in 5/1996

Tidbits from Montaigne 39

We are no nearer Heaven on the top of Mont Cenis than at the bottom of the sea; take the distance with your astrolabe. 

They debase God even to the carnal knowledge of women, to so many times, and so many generations. 

—Michel de Montaigne, Essays 2.12 

Evening and Sorrow

Gustave Moreau, Evening and Sorrow (1882)

Epictetus, Golden Sayings 153

But what says Socrates? 

"One man finds pleasure in improving his land, another his horses. 

My pleasure lies in seeing that I myself grow better day by day." 

Sayings of Ramakrishna 146

As when going to a strange country, one must abide by the directions of him who knows the way, while taking the advice of many may lead to confusion, so in trying to reach God one should follow implicitly the advice of one single Guru who knows the way to God. 

IMAGE: Raja Ravi Varma, Adi Shankara with Disciples (c. 1904)

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.38

M. Why, then, should Camillus be affected with the thoughts of these things happening three hundred and fifty years after his time? And why should I be uneasy it I were to expect that some nation might possess itself of this city ten thousand years hence? Because so great is our regard for our country, as not to be measured by our own feeling, but by its own actual safety.

 

Death, then, which threatens us daily from a thousand accidents, and which, by reason of the shortness of life, can never be far off, does not deter a wise man from making such provision for his country and his family as he hopes may last forever; and from regarding posterity, of which he can never have any real perception, as belonging to himself. 

 

Wherefore a man may act for eternity, even though he be persuaded that his soul is mortal; not, indeed, from a desire of glory, which he will be insensible of, but from a principle of virtue, which glory will inevitably attend, though that is not his object. 

 

The process, indeed, of nature is this: that just in the same manner as our birth was the beginning of things with us, so death will be the end; and as we were in no ways concerned with anything before we were born, so neither shall we be after we are dead. 

 

And in this state of things where can the evil be, since death has no connection with either the living or the dead? The one have no existence at all, the other are not yet affected by it. 

 

They who make the least of death consider it as having a great resemblance to sleep; as if anyone would choose to live ninety years on condition that, at the expiration of sixty, he should sleep out the remainder. The very swine would not accept of life on those terms, much less I. 

 

Endymion, indeed, if you listen to fables, slept once on a time on Latmus, a mountain of Caria, and for such a length of time that I imagine he is not as yet awake. Do you think that he is concerned at the Moon’s being in difficulties, though it was by her that he was thrown into that sleep, in order that she might kiss him while sleeping. 

 

For what should he be concerned for who has not even any sensation? You look on sleep as an image of death, and you take that on you daily; and have you, then, any doubt that there is no sensation in death, when you see there is none in sleep, which is its near resemblance? 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.38

 

I am delighted by this wonderful twist to the arguments about life and death, a subtle yet critical distinction between what I may still directly experience, and what I may purposely work toward for after I am gone. The power of understanding makes it possible to prepare for outcomes I will no longer be around to appreciate, where the good in the deeds does not require any future gratification for me. 

 

Camillus may not feel anything about the Rome of Cicero’s day, though he was the sort of fellow who acted out of a care for her long-term welfare. Cicero may not feel anything about the Rome of the present day, though he was the sort of fellow who ultimately offered up his life so that Rome’s descendants could have the chance to be free. 

 

While the vicious look only to their immediate pleasure, the virtuous look more broadly to the improvement of the whole. What the wicked call love always demands further compensation, even as what the righteous call love is pleased by the giving alone. Where I dwell upon the dignity of the act itself, it will stand on its own merits, and I do not need to ask for reward or recognition. 

 

If the soul does indeed die with the body, this proves the point even more, for it makes no difference to the decent man whether there will be any forthcoming luxuries or accolades. He does not fear death, since the quantity of his living does not change anything about the quality of his living. 

 

What the Stoics grasp, and what so many of us gloss over, is how the course of our lives depends entirely upon the most fundamental judgments we make about meaning and value. 

 

When I choose to be ruled by my appetites, I will dread the prospect of no longer winning what I desire and destroying what I despise; my nature is reduced to an endless hunger of the concupiscible and the irascible. Death will deny me such cravings. 

 

When, however, I choose to find joy in the exercise of character, I find contentment in something complete and self-sufficient; my nature can rest in simplicity at any moment. Death can take nothing from me. 

 

Some will speak of death as an endless sleep, as if to make it sound more agreeable, but as Cicero points out, it would seem foolish to find any benefit in somehow “living” without awareness. 

 

I find it difficult to relate to the analogy, since I always dream very vividly, so I assume that the reference is to a dreamless sleep. In that case, there is nothing to gain, and nothing to lose, in a state where nothing remains of perception. The noble soul is not troubled by this, though the base soul is filled with horror. One has already finished the job, and the other has left it undone. 

—Reflection written in 5/1996 

IMAGE: Anne-Louis Girodet, The Sleep of Endymion (1791)

Stoic Snippets 134

This is a fine saying of Plato: 

That he who is discoursing about men should look also at earthly things as if he viewed them from some higher place; should look at them in their assemblies, armies, agricultural labors, marriages, treaties, births, deaths, noise of the courts of justice, desert places, various nations of barbarians, feasts, lamentations, markets, a mixture of all things and an orderly combination of contraries. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.48

Grace

"Grace"

Wendell Berry

The woods is shining this morning.
Red, gold and green, the leaves
lie on the ground, or fall,
or hang full of light in the air still.
Perfect in its rise and in its fall, it takes
the place it has been coming to forever.
It has not hastened here, or lagged.
See how surely it has sought itself,
its roots passing lordly through the earth.
See how without confusion it is
all that it is, and how flawless
its grace is. Running or walking, the way
is the same. Be still. Be still.
“He moves your bones, and the way is clear.” 

Woods

"Woods"

Wendell Berry

I part the out thrusting branches
and come in beneath
the blessed and the blessing trees.
Though I am silent
there is singing around me.
Though I am dark
there is vision around me.
Though I am heavy
there is flight around me. 

The Choice of Hercules 19

School of Bernardino Pinturicchio, Hercules at the Crossroads (c. 1505)  

Dhammapada 190-192

He who takes refuge with Buddha, the Law, and the Church; he who, with clear understanding, sees the four holy truths—

Namely, pain, the origin of pain, the destruction of pain, and the eightfold holy path that leads to the quieting of pain—

That is the safe refuge, that is the best refuge; having gone to that refuge, a man is delivered from all pain. 

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.37

M. But what occasion is there to philosophize here in a matter with which we see that philosophy is but little concerned? 

 

How often have not only our generals but whole armies, rushed on certain death! But if it had been a thing to be feared, Lucius Brutus would never have fallen in fight, to prevent the return of that tyrant whom he had expelled; nor would Decius the father have been slain in fighting with the Latins; nor would his son, when engaged with the Etruscans, nor his grandson with Pyrrhus have exposed themselves to the enemy’s darts. 

 

Spain would never have seen, in one campaign, the Scipios fall fighting for their country; nor would the plains of Cannae have witnessed the death of Paulus and Geminus, or Venusia that of Marcellus; nor would the Latins have beheld the death of Albinus, nor the Leucanians that of Gracchus. 

 

But are any of these miserable now? No, they were not so even at the first moment after they had breathed their last; nor can anyone be miserable after he has lost all sensation. 

 

“Oh, but the mere circumstance of being without sensation is miserable!”

 

It might be so if being without sensation were the same thing as wanting it; but as it is evident there can be nothing of any kind in that which has no existence, what can there be afflicting to that which can neither feel want nor be sensible of anything? 

 

We might be said to have repeated this over too often, only that here lies all that the soul shudders at from the fear of death. For whoever can clearly apprehend that which is as manifest as the light—that when both soul and body are consumed, and there is a total destruction, then that which was an animal becomes nothing—will clearly see that there is no difference between a Hippocentaur, which never had existence, and King Agamemnon, and that Marcus Camillus is no more concerned about this present civil war than I was at the sacking of Rome, when he was living. 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.37

 

There will be no use, of course, in considering this question merely as an armchair philosopher, and it is necessary to observe how people, and especially the best of people, go about approaching the challenge in their daily living. It isn’t that theory is somehow in opposition to practice, but rather that any theory can only be confirmed in practice. 

 

When push comes to shove, what will the conscientious man live for? Indeed, what will he die for? Here is an important clue, for while those who take their duties seriously may not deliberately seek out death, they will gladly surrender life for something far greater. 

 

Living well is about spending what we possess honorably, not about clinging to survival greedily. 

 

Here Cicero refers to several Roman heroes who feared vice far more than they feared death, and who stood for principle before they aimed at longevity. Each culture will have its own versions, and I need look no further than the local veteran’s memorial down the street to find similar examples. 

 

Nor must the instances be limited to martial courage, since the most ordinary and humble circumstances will still reveal how people can be deeply committed to offering their lives for the sake of giving purpose to their lives. 

 

When I read through a list like Cicero’s, I don’t just see a catalogue of distant historical figures; I relate to them as personal role models. A student of mine recently wondered how I could manage to remember the stories behind so many ancient characters, and he speculated that I must have spent years and years memorizing history books. 

 

I felt flattered for a moment, but the fact is that my classical knowledge is far weaker than that of my father’s or my grandfather’s generations. What little I do know is also not due to any diligent study, and instead arises from moral associations. If I reflect upon a certain excellence of temperament in a king, a poet, or a sage, and I imprint that particular significance on my mind, then the names, the places, and the dates follow without effort. 

 

And what almost all such paragons share is a sense of being servants to the true, the good, and the beautiful. To use a popular expression, they would happily “take a bullet” for the boss. 

 

They were satisfied to have done right, and they did not complain about how little time they were given. If, furthermore, we grant the Auditor’s doubts about any form of an afterlife, they are also feeling no grief now, because there can be no sensation where there is no longer any life. 

 

Yes, the text has belabored the point, yet I can think of many instances where I had to have something explained to me over and over before the concepts finally settled in. Simply put, if the soul disappears along with body, then a dead person is no more real than a mythical beast, and the awareness of those who departed in the past does not continue into the present. 

—Reflection written in 5/1996 

IMAGE: Battle of Centaurs and Wild Beasts, from Hadrian's Villa (c. 120-130 A.D.)

The Consequences of War

Peter Paul Rubens, The Consequences of War (c. 1638)

Peace and War

Peter Paul Rubens, Minerva Protects Peace from Mars (c. 1630)

Aesop's Fables 51

The Two Pots 

Two Pots had been left on the bank of a river, one of brass, and one of earthenware. When the tide rose they both floated off down the stream. 

Now the earthenware pot tried its best to keep aloof from the brass one, which cried out: "Fear nothing, friend, I will not strike you." 

"But I may come in contact with you," said the other, "if I come too close; and whether I hit you, or you hit me, I shall suffer for it." 

The strong and the weak cannot keep company.  

Sayings of Publilius Syrus 49

A well-planned project often turns out ill. 

Epictetus, Discourses 1.18.6

Put confidence in these thoughts for the future and walk erect and free, not relying on bulk of body like an athlete. For you do not need to be invincible by brute force like an ass. 

 

Who then is the man who is invincible? He whom nothing beyond his will can dismay. So I go on observing him in each set of circumstances as if he were an athlete. He has overcome the first round. What will he do in the second? What if it be a hot sun, and the struggle is in Olympia? 

 

So it is in life. If you offer a man a trifle of silver, he will scorn it. What will happen if you offer him a young. maid? What if you do it in the dark? What happens if you ply him with reputation, or abuse, or praise, or death? All these he can conquer. 

 

What will he do if he is wrestling in the hot sun, I mean, if he has drunk too much? What if he is in a frenzy, or in sleep? The man who can overcome in all these circumstances is what I mean by the invincible athlete. 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 1.18

 

A Stoic power is not one of flesh and bone, for while the body assists the man in living, it does not make the man live well. A Stoic courage is not defined by brawn, for while running faster, jumping higher, or lifting stronger might bring fortune and fame, only wisdom and virtue can bring peace of mind. 

 

A rigorous training in moral endurance is required, whatever physical gifts may be brought to bear. 

 

I know far too many who sculpt their muscles and pose with a square jaw, even as their sort of toughness excludes any forms of kindness and compassion. I know far too few who put more time into exercising decency and respect than they do exercising at the gym. We look for bravery and perseverance in all the wrong places. 

 

The mind and the will are tested by a multitude of trials, and if I still find myself drawn to the imagery of athletic victory, I can always imagine that my struggles of character are as romantic and grand as competing in the Olympics. In reality, of course, my inner contests are far more worthy than any sport. 

 

In one round, I am tempted by money. Will I lose my conscience in order to win a prize? In another round, lust is the obstacle to overcome. Will I succumb to cheating if no one else is looking? 

 

At this turn, I could be distracted by the cheering, and at the next I could be discouraged by the jeering. What if the effort might even kill me? What if I allow myself to be consumed by intoxication or by rage? 

 

Yes, that rage, the very same anger that makes us want to condemn and destroy those who offend us, is a mighty foe. If I can only defeat an opponent like that, I will gladly come in last for the footrace. 

 —Reflection written in 1/2001 

Abandoned Places 30

Romain Veillon, Nobody Knows

Nature 32

Sayings of Ramakrishna 145

If you are in right earnest to be good and perfect, God will send the true and proper Master, a Satguru, to you. 

Earnestness is the only thing necessary. 

Epictetus, Discourses 1.18.5

“But the tyrant will chain me.” 

 

Yes, your leg. 

 

“But he will cut off.” 

 

What? Your neck. But what will he fail to bind or cut off? Your will. 

 

That is why the men of old enjoined “Know yourself.” 

 

What follows? You ought to practice in small things and go on from them to greater. 

 

“I have a headache.” 

 

Then do not say, “Ah me!” 

 

“I have an earache.” 

 

Do not say, “Ah me!” 

 

And I do not mean that you may not groan, but do not groan in spirit. 

 

And if the boy brings you your leg bands slowly, do not cry out loud and pull a long face and say, “Everyone hates me.”

 

 Who is not likely to hate such a one? 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 1.18

 

I may be swept up in a panic, desperately worried that I must now surrender all the things that give me pleasure, cornered in by the constant stress of resigning myself to less. I tremble at the thought of tedious self-denial. How can this be happiness? 

 

No, I am approaching it from the wrong angle. A perception of gains and losses depends upon the ultimate measure of what is good and bad for human nature. Do I believe that acquisitions on the outside or a formation on the inside ought to have priority? Am I to be ruled by things or to master myself? This is the judgment that determines everything else. 

 

Where I care first for external appearances, of course it will seem as if self-reliance is a terrible burden. Where I care first for internal character, however, I will recognize that an indifference to circumstances is a genuine liberation. What looked like far less is actually far more. 

 

As Franz Jägerstätter said, it is better for my hands to be in chains than for my will to be in chains. I don’t necessarily control the former, while I do control the latter. 

 

Indeed, how can another man, or any worldly event, damage what is exclusively my own? Not even death can do that, if I face my end with conviction and integrity. If I were to make a list of all the things I fear, which could be a massive book in its own right, how many of them are about my actions, and how many of them are about the actions of others? 

 

Am I drawing that critical line between what others might do and what I should do? 

 

“They could put me in irons, or even chop off various bits of me! I might have an agonizing pain in my head, or in my ear, or in any number of places!” 

 

Yes, to whatever degree, we will all face such hardships. Now which parts can be affected, and which parts can remain immune? I will feel pain, and I am likely to cry out, though I am not required to abandon my conscience; the core of me can, in fact, become stronger as the lesser pieces are made weaker. 

 

To truly know myself is to find the greatest joy in simply being understanding and loving. The only surrender is to the greater harmony of Providence. There is no resignation, just affirmation. The self is not to be denied, it is to be celebrated. 

 

Suffering is inevitable, but bellyaching is preventable. 

—Reflection written in 1/2001

Stoic Snippets 133

Look round at the courses of the stars, as if you were going along with them. 

And constantly consider the changes of the elements into one another, for such thoughts purge away the filth of the terrene life. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.47

Stockdale on Stoicism 19

In a crucible like a torture prison, you reflect, you silently study what makes those about you tick. Once I had taken the measure of my torture guard, watched his eyes as he worked, watched him move, felt him move as he stood on my slumped-over back and cinched up the ropes pulling my shoulders together, I came to know that there was good in him. 

That was ironic because when he first came in with the new commissar when torture was instigated after I got there, I had nicknamed him "Pigeye" because of the total vacancy of the stare of the one eye he presented as he peeked through cell door peepholes. He was my age, balding and wiry, quick, lithe and strong, like an athletic trainer. He was totally emotionless, thus his emotionless eyes. He had almost no English-language capability, just motions and grunts. 

Under orders, he put me through the ropes 15 times over the years, and rebroke my bad leg once, I feel sure inadvertently. 

It was a court martial scene and he was having to give me the ropes before a board of North Vietnamese officers. The officers sat at a long table before Pigeye and me, and behind us was a semi-circle of soldiers bearing rifles with fixed bayonets at a kind of "dangle" position, the bayonet pointing at the cement floor ahead of them. 

This was in the "knobby" torture room of "New Guy Village" at Hoa Lo prison in August 1967—so-called because the walls had been crudely speckled with blobs of cement the size of an ice cream scoop in a "soundproofing" attempt. 

I could tell Pigeye was nervous because of these officers whom I had never seen before, and I don't think he had, and he pressed me flat over my bad leg instead of the good one he had always put the tension on before. 

The healing knee cartilage gave way with a loud "pop," and the officers looked at each other and then got up and left. I couldn't get off that floor and onto my feet for nearly two months. 

—from James B. Stockdale, The Stoic Warrior's Triad 

Epictetus, Discourses 1.18.4

For my part, yesterday I had an iron lamp beside my household gods, and hearing a noise I rushed to the window. I found the lamp had been carried off. 

 

I reasoned with myself, that the man who took it yielded to some plausible feeling. What do I conclude? Tomorrow, I say, you will find one of earthenware. 

 

The truth is, a man loses only what he has. 

 

“I have lost my cloak.” Yes, for you had one. 

 

“I have got a headache.” Have you a horn ache too? Why then are you vexed? Your losses and your pains are concerned only with what you possess. 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 1.18

 

People, places, and things will constantly come and go, and when I have appreciated them for what they are, respecting them on their own terms, I can always think of them fondly, even long after they have passed. 

 

But when I begin to think of them as “mine”, and I dwell upon my dominion over anything beyond my own mind and will, I inevitably get myself into trouble. Acceptance is replaced by resentment, and gratitude gives way to envy. 

 

Most people I know will wrap themselves up in the prestige of their careers, the prominence of their friends, or the pomp of their property, such that the dignity of their lives is determined by the splendor of their situation. It does not occur to them how little this has to do with their own merits, and how much the whole affair is a reliance upon the whims of others. The mansion is built like a house of cards. 

 

Someone has stolen my lamp? It was just a thing, and another will come along in due course. It won’t need to be fancy, it will just need to cast some light for the time it remains within my reach. 

 

It is no different with cars, houses, and bank accounts. They might be helpful tools, but only as long as I do not grow attached to them. Recalling that they are briefly lent, I will not have to fret when they are taken away. I still retain myself, and so there is no need for outrage and despair. 

 

I repeat to myself: “It wasn’t mine.”

 

Back in the second grade, I found a creepy-looking toy spider on our sidewalk, which I promptly brought to school with me to show off to my classmates. From this silly beginning grew an elaborate and winding tale, where friendships were strained, confidences were broken, and the offending piece of rubber was repeatedly snatched by stealth from desk drawers and bookbags. I could document the drama for pages and pages. 

 

A whole group of us ended up in the principal’s office, because everyone wanted to be the proud “owner” of the little spider. It was eventually handed back to me, though I was hardly innocent in the matter, since I now strutted about like a peacock with my precious property, and all I had done to deserve it was to pick it up off the ground, where surely some other child had lost it, and was probably upset by its absence. 

 

Many years later, I came across that pesky arachnid in an old box, and I found no joy in it at all, knowing how it represented the anger that accompanies greed. I threw it to my cat, who plays with it to this day, and has now bitten off most of the legs. 

 

Renounce a claim to avoid the pain. Where it has nothing to do with living in virtue, I can take it or leave it. 

—Reflection written in 1/2001