Seneca, Moral Letters 29.6

If you had any shame, you would have let me off from paying the last instalment. Still, I shall not be niggardly either, but shall discharge my debts to the last penny and force upon you what I still owe: 

 

"I have never wished to cater to the crowd; for what I know, they do not approve, and what they approve, I do not know."

 

"Who said this?" you ask, as if you were ignorant whom I am pressing into service; it is Epicurus. But this same watchword rings in your ears from every sect—Peripatetic, Academic, Stoic, Cynic. 

 

For who that is pleased by virtue can please the crowd? It takes trickery to win popular approval; and you must needs make yourself like unto them; they will withhold their approval if they do not recognize you as one of themselves. 

 

However, what you think of yourself is much more to the point than what others think of you. The favor of ignoble men can be won only by ignoble means. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 29 

 

I do my best to avoid dwelling upon regrets, and so I try to take those mistakes by my past self and put them to use in shaping a slightly improved present self. This becomes quite the chore, however, because I cannot help but shrink in disgrace at many of my blunders—what could I possibly have been thinking? 

 

In so many instances, of course, the problem lay in a very refusal to think for myself at all, and instead conforming my judgments to the expectations of others. Surely, listen with great care to what they have to offer, while still retaining the final say over your own choices. It is indeed cringeworthy to freely surrender the one thing that no one else can ever take by force. 

 

People sometimes roll their eyes at such claims, protesting that Stoicism is demanding far too much of us, and yet a stress on the autonomy of conscience is hardly unique to any one school. In every time or place, whatever the cultural circumstances, those of common sense and good will tend to arrive at much the same conclusion, and I suspect this is not the result of blind chance. 

 

Wisdom always manages to see its way around the blinders of fashion. 

 

I find the words of Epicurus very helpful here, because the danger lies precisely in the granting of assent without any genuine understanding. I feel a pressure from the outside to follow the whims of the crowd, afraid that I will be shunned by the tribe if I dare to raise any questions. 

 

The awareness on the inside capitulates to a fear of being perceived as different, inevitably leading to the mind becoming a slave to the longing for approval. 

 

They might warn me how the nail that sticks out gets hammered down, though that should only challenge me even more to consider where to find a true measure of victory and defeat. 

 

If I have rigorously and humbly reflected on the source of the good, is the possible loss of my property or my status going to be so unbearable? It may well be the pesky inconvenience I need to finally take the plunge into being unabashedly human. 

 

I do not think that the “many” are inherently ignorant or lazy, but rather that it is usually the path of least resistance to avoid thinking or acting for oneself, to prefer rolling over to standing up. I must remember that being swept along by a current is hardly the same as straining every muscle to swim toward the most magnificent shore. 

 

An immediate aid in getting this right involves asking myself if it will be necessary to embrace certain vices in order to satisfy my desires. As much as I can tell myself there is no other way, I know deep down that lying, cheating, and stealing can never be steps on the path to happiness. 

 

Where I begin with a goal of glory, I have myself turned around. I must begin with the goal of integrity, and let the glory fall where it may. 

—Reflection written in 11/2012