Epictetus, Discourses 1.24.3

“What am I to do then?” 

 

What do you do, when you disembark from a ship? Do you take the helm and the oars with you? What do you take then? You take what is yours, oil-flask and wallet. So now if you remember what is yours, you will never claim what is another's. 

 

The emperor says to you, “Lay aside your purple hem.” 

 

See, I wear the narrow one. 

 

“Lay aside this also.” 

 

See, I wear the toga only. 

 

“Lay aside the toga.” 

 

See, I take that off too. 

 

“Ay, but you still rouse my envy.” 

 

Then take my poor body, every bit of it. The man to whom I can throw away my body has no fears for me. 

—from Epictetus, Discourses 1.24 

 

Here is the challenge no spoiled intellectual or entitled aristocrat can ever face. Indeed, any who wrap themselves up in their trappings and titles have no chance against it. 

 

Strip all of it away, and now consider who you are. What is left after the job, the house, the car, and the wardrobe are removed? Even this body is revealed to be a feeble bag of bones, hidden behind a fantasy of cosmetics and coiffures. 

 

Only bare character remains, and far too many of us will have to blush in shame at out moral nakedness. 

 

Must you kill another man in the service of your country in order to be brave? Sometimes it is a sad necessity, though I see no purpose in bragging about it. 

 

Might you consider slaying your own pride in order to be brave? I don’t recall the last time they held a parade for the humble and the kind-hearted.

 

What Epictetus asks of us here is the work of a lifetime, the rejection of looking good for the sake of being good. If we’re not up to the task of fully discarding the accessories, we are best advised to at least stop pretending we are ruled by decency. 

 

Don’t think that the bully wants your property—he wants you to submit your will to him, and he will hate you as long as you remain yourself. By denying him you affirm yourself, as well as clearly but gently showing him a better way. 

 

Back in the age of the steamships, the first-class passengers would surely have looked down their noses at the proles in steerage. Some had trunks full of luxuries, and others had only the clothes on their backs. They all departed the ship as complete equals in their humanity, however, and it was simply the illusion of privilege that got in the way. 

 

A person is a who, not a what. 

Leave behind everything else—take hold of yourself. Now you are a hero. 

—Reflection written in 3/2001 

IMAGE: Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage (1907)