Seneca, Moral Letters 23.2

Do you think that I am now robbing you of many pleasures when I try to do away with the gifts of chance, when I counsel the avoidance of hope, the sweetest thing that gladdens our hearts? 

 

Quite the contrary; I do not wish you ever to be deprived of gladness. I would have it born in your house; and it is born there, if only it be inside of you. 

 

Other objects of cheer do not fill a man's bosom; they merely smooth his brow and are inconstant—unless perhaps you believe that he who laughs has joy. The very soul must be happy and confident, lifted above every circumstance. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 23

The very word “stoic” has taken on many unfortunate connotations, and while it is sometimes employed to express a constancy and toughness of character, the same way we once used the term “philosophical” to mean principled and resilient, it is far more often associated with a cold, distant, and unemotional personality. 

 

From such popular usage, the assumption is made that the Stoic represses his feelings; for those, however, who have actually read the writings of the Stoics, it is immediately apparent that this is a terrible misrepresentation. 

 

The Stoic may feel as intensely as any poet, but he learns not to let his feelings take control of him. He understands how the value of his emotions is to be measured by the soundness of his mind. 

 

I suspect that a Stoic calm, which arises from a focus on the goods of the soul over the goods of the body, is easily confused with being heartless; a Stoic indifference to circumstances, which judges external conditions to be neither good nor bad in themselves, is readily mistaken for being unconcerned. 

 

I smile when people tell me that Mr. Spock’s defining characteristic is his dispassionate nature, since most any episode of Star Trek will reveal how deeply he feels. No, what is so notable about him, given the context of his Vulcan half, is the rigorous training he has undergone to master his powerful appetites. He has most certainly not excised them, as some of the best stories make abundantly clear. 

 

I have made a number of foolish attempts at denying my affections, or at quenching my desires, and they all ended in miserable failure; I had failed to see that I only needed to gently move them in a better direction. 

 

Pleasure is not a problem, as long as pleasures do not enslave us—they must be tempered by judgment. Joy is to be cherished, as long as we seek joy in the right things—it must be guided by wisdom. Simply put, passions acquire their worth through the exercise of conscience. 

 

A reliance upon external conditions, which are inherently unreliable, brings disquiet instead of joy. A confidence in our own virtues, which are our own to cultivate, is the key to being happy, and so to feeling contentment.

 —Reflection written in 9/2012