Therefore, when your enemy threatens, listen unconcernedly. Although your conscience makes you confident, yet, since many things have weight which are outside your case, both hope for that which is utterly just, and prepare yourself against that which is utterly unjust.
Remember, however, before all else, to strip things of all that disturbs and confuses, and to see what each is at bottom; you will then comprehend that they contain nothing fearful except the actual fear.
What you see happening to boys happens also to ourselves, who are only slightly bigger boys: when those whom they love, with whom they daily associate, with whom they play, appear with masks on, the boys are frightened out of their wits.
An ending is just as natural as a beginning, so why do I see any harm in finality? To be reminded that there must be a last page is of no detriment to the story, and can, for that matter, be a testament to its beauty. When I feel the need to cling to something for longer, I can only wonder if I was valuing it properly to begin with.
If I can manage to overcome my fear of death, I can then also overcome my fear of anything else, as it becomes easy to tackle the minions when I have already mastered the boss.
Were my thoughts and deeds in accord with Nature? Dying stops the clock, yet it cannot take my character away from me. Once I get that, every other peril seems rather trivial; I should be grateful to death for giving me a richer perspective.
I will not fret over the things to which I do not attach significance. This is a bane when I neglect kindness or compassion, but a boon when I pass over the urge to live an affluent life or a long life.
It isn’t that the Stoic doesn’t care, like the egotist who believes in ignoring an inconvenience to make it go away, but rather that the Stoic learns to care for everything within the context of a whole, where the pursuit of virtue is always his highest good.
It doesn’t need to trouble me if I won’t let it, and the frustrating obstacle is not in the conditions I face, but in the way I go about facing them. I can most certainly prefer certain consequences, as long as I do not confuse these with needs. I can work and wish for the external results to be agreeable, as long as the external results themselves are not the goal.
Even as I make progress at a snail’s pace, I increasingly recognize how the trick is in peeling away all those layers of perceptions, impressions I have imposed upon the object. Many of them have been caked on for years, such that the original shape is now hidden under thick detritus.
Foolish judgments I made back then make me confused about what I see right now. A patient commitment is required. Sometimes I must swing with a hammer, other times I must dab with a brush—the reality beneath the appearances slowly reveals itself.
It is no longer so hideous when it shows itself for what it is, a necessary part in a harmony, not as what I fear it to be, some sort of obstacle to my peace of mind.
The analogy of being scared by a mask is fitting—I can look behind it to recognize another human being just like me.
The comparison between children and adults is insightful—while the former cry and tremble in the open, the latter are more practiced at putting on airs.
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