Storm on the Sea 3

Claude Joseph Vernet, The Shipwreck (1772) 

Vanitas 64

Jan Davidszoon de Heem, Vanitas (1629) 

Chuang Tzu 3.2

His cook was cutting up an ox for the ruler Wan-hui. 

Whenever he applied his hand, leaned forward with his shoulder, planted his foot, and employed the pressure of his knee, in the audible ripping off of the skin, and slicing operation of the knife, the sounds were all in regular cadence. Movements and sounds proceeded as in the dance of "the Mulberry Forest" and the blended notes of "the King Shâu." 

The ruler said, "Ah! Admirable! That your art should have become so perfect!" 

Having finished his operation, the cook laid down his knife, and replied to the remark, "What your servant loves is the method of the Tâo, something in advance of any art. When I first began to cut up an ox, I saw nothing but the entire carcass. After three years I ceased to see it as a whole. 

"Now I deal with it in a spirit-like manner, and do not look at it with my eyes. The use of my senses is discarded, and my spirit acts as it wills. Observing the natural lines, my knife slips through the great crevices and slides through the great cavities, taking advantage of the facilities thus presented. My art avoids the membranous ligatures, and much more the great bones.

"A good cook changes his knife every year—it may have been injured in cutting; an ordinary cook changes his every month—it may have been broken. Now my knife has been in use for nineteen years; it has cut up several thousand oxen, and yet its edge is as sharp as if it had newly come from the whetstone. 

"There are the interstices of the joints, and the edge of the knife has no appreciable thickness; when that which is so thin enters where the interstice is, how easily it moves along! The blade has more than room enough. 

"Nevertheless, whenever I come to a complicated joint, and see that there will be some difficulty, I proceed anxiously and with caution, not allowing my eyes to wander from the place, and moving my hand slowly. 

"Then by a very slight movement of the knife, the part is quickly separated, and drops like a clod of earth to the ground. 

"Then standing up with the knife in my hand, I look all round, and in a leisurely manner, with an air of satisfaction, wipe it clean, and put it in its sheath." 

The ruler Wan-hui said, "Excellent! I have heard the words of my cook, and learned from them the nourishment of our life." 

IMAGE: Annibale Carracci, The Butcher's Shop (c. 1580) 

Stoic Snippets 171

As the Nature of the Universal has given to every rational being all the other powers that it has, so we have received from it this power also. 

For as the Universal Nature converts and fixes in its predestined place everything which stands in the way and opposes it, and makes such things a part of itself, so also the rational animal is able to make every hindrance its own material, and to use it for such purposes as it may have designed. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.35 

IMAGE: Allegory of Wisdom, from the Basilica of Notre-Dame de Fourvière, Lyon 

"Hear, for I am speaking of great things, having wisdom in counsel."

Dhammapada 262, 263

An envious greedy, dishonest man does not become respectable by means of much talking only, or by the beauty of his complexion. 

He in whom all this is destroyed, and taken out with the very root, he, when freed from hatred and wise, is called respectable. 

Wisdom from the Bhagavad Gita 53

The Blessed Lord said: 

1. They speak of an eternal Ashvattha rooted above and branching below, whose leaves are the Vedas; he who knows it, is a Veda-knower. 

2. Below and above spread its branches, nourished by the Gunas; sense-objects are its buds; and below in the world of man stretch forth the roots, originating action. 

3-4. Its form is not here perceived as such, neither its end, nor its origin, nor its existence. Having cut asunder this firm-rooted Ashvattha with the strong axe of non-attachment—then that Goal is to be sought for, going whither they, the wise, do not return again. I seek refuge in that Primeval Purusha whence streamed forth the Eternal Activity. 

5. Free from pride and delusion, with the evil of attachment conquered, ever dwelling in the Self, with desires completely receded, liberated from the pairs of opposites known as pleasure and pain, the undeluded reach that Goal Eternal. 

6. That the sun illumines not, nor the moon, nor fire; that is My Supreme Abode, going whither they return not. 

7. An eternal portion of Myself having become a living soul in the world of life, draws to itself the five senses with mind for the sixth, abiding in Prakriti. 

8. When the Lord obtains a body and when He leaves it, He takes these and goes, as the wind takes the scents from their seats, the flowers. 

9. Presiding over the ear, the eye, the touch, the taste and the smell, as also the mind, He experiences objects. 

10. Him while transmigrating from one body to another, or residing in the same or experiencing, or when united with the Gunas—the deluded do not see; but those who have the eye of wisdom behold Him. 

—Bhagavad Gita, 15:1-10 

Seneca, Moral Letters 32.1

Letter 32: On progress 
 
I have been asking about you, and inquiring of everyone who comes from your part of the country, what you are doing, and where you are spending your time, and with whom. You cannot deceive me; for I am with you. 
 
Live just as if I were sure to get news of your doings, nay, as if I were sure to behold them. And if you wonder what particularly pleases me that I hear concerning you, it is that I hear nothing, that most of those whom I ask do not know what you are doing. 
 
This is sound practice—to refrain from associating with men of different stamp and different aims. And I am indeed confident that you cannot be warped, that you will stick to your purpose, even though the crowd may surround and seek to distract you. 
 
What, then, is on my mind? I am not afraid lest they work a change in you; but I am afraid lest they may hinder your progress. And much harm is done even by one who holds you back, especially since life is so short; and we make it still shorter by our unsteadiness, by making ever fresh beginnings at life, now one and immediately another. We break up life into little bits, and fritter it away. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 32 
 
They tell us to make the best possible impression on others, and then they wonder why everyone ends up being so fake. Where posturing takes precedence over principle, we are teaching only the clever skills of affectation, neglecting the fact that seeming good is quite secondary to being good. 
 
Where I conform myself to Nature, I can be confident that the right people will take notice of their own accord; the opinions of the others do not need to play a part in my own judgments. 
 
And so it is a relief when Seneca explains how happy he is to hear nothing on the grapevine about Lucilius. Most mentors would be worried that the man isn’t making his mark, that he remains unnoticed by all the most important wheelers and dealers, but Seneca is working from a radically different set of premises about the good life. 
 
Sometimes it really is true that “no news is good news.”
 
The genuine friend, however far away he may be, still knows what is best for those he loves, and he cares about the progress in their souls far more than any advancement in fame and fortune. He wants to hear the news about inner happiness, not bragging about worldly vanities. 
 
As a rational animal, I am also made to be a social animal, and while I owe the utmost concern and respect to any of my neighbors, I must be careful about those I choose as partners in my endeavors. 
 
For any of our shared preferences or accidental interests, are we on the same page about the very purpose of our lives? If we cannot assist one another regarding our ends, then such a division about meaning and value will become an obstacle instead of a mutual support. 
 
No man can ever make another man fail in his life, yet I should never underestimate the power of example in providing encouragement or discouragement, and so I must be very careful about the company I keep. No good can come from rubbing shoulders with those who are petty and grasping. 
 
Though I was sure I knew better at the time, my socializing with people of poor character always slowed me down in improving my own character. I still wish them all well, and I will gladly act for their benefit at any time, but it is unwise for us to hitch our horses together. 
 
Time is precious, and it cannot be wasted on false starts and foolish diversions. Be glad when the man who occupies himself with mere appearances pays you no heed. 

—Reflection written in 12/2012 

Wisdom from the Early Cynics, Diogenes 13

There Xeniades once asked Diogenes how he wished to be buried. 

To which he replied, "On my face." 

"Why?" inquired the other. 

"Because," said he, "after a little time down will be converted into up." 

This because the Macedonians had now got the supremacy, that is, had risen high from a humble position. 

Someone took him into a magnificent house and warned him not to expectorate, whereupon having cleared his throat he discharged the phlegm into the man's face, being unable, he said, to find a meaner receptacle. Others father this upon Aristippus. 

One day Diogenes shouted out for men, and when people collected, hit out at them with his stick, saying, "It was men I called for, not scoundrels." This is told by Hecato in the first book of his Anecdotes. 

Alexander is reported to have said, "Had I not been Alexander, I should have liked to be Diogenes." 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 6.32 

Wisdom from the Early Stoics, Zeno of Citium 53

The ethical branch of philosophy the Stoics divide as follows: 

1) the topic of impulse 

2) the topic of things good and evil 

3) that of the passions 

4) that of virtue

5) that of the end

6) that of primary value and of actions 

7) that of duties or the befitting 

8) that of inducements to act or refrain from acting. 

The foregoing is the subdivision adopted by Chrysippus, Archedemus, Zeno of Tarsus, Apollodorus, Diogenes, Antipater, and Posidonius, and their disciples. 

Zeno of Citium and Cleanthes treated the subject somewhat less elaborately, as might be expected in an older generation. They, however, did subdivide Logic and Physics as well as Ethics. 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 7.84 

Sayings of Publilius Syrus 86

He keeps furthest from danger who looks out while he is safe. 

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 2.14

M. You know very well that, even though part of your Corinthian furniture were gone, the remainder might be safe without that; but if you lose one virtue (though virtue in reality cannot be lost), still if, I say, you should acknowledge that you were deficient in one, you would be stripped of all. 
 
Can you, then, call yourself a brave man, of a great soul, endued with patience and steadiness above the frowns of fortune? Or Philoctetes? For I choose to instance him, rather than yourself, for he certainly was not a brave man, who lay in his bed, which was watered with his tears, 
 
“Whose groans, bewailings, and whose bitter cries, 
With grief incessant rent the very skies.”
 
I do not deny pain to be pain—for were that the case, in what would courage consist?—but I say it should be assuaged by patience, if there be such a thing as patience: if there be no such thing, why do we speak so in praise of philosophy? Or why do we glory in its name? 
 
Does pain annoy us? Let it sting us to the heart: if you are without defensive armor, bare your throat to it; but if you are secured by Vulcanian armor, that is to say by resolution, resist it. Should you fail to do so, that guardian of your honor, your courage, will forsake and leave you. 
 
By the laws of Lycurgus, and by those which were given to the Cretans by Jupiter, or which Minos established under the direction of Jupiter, as the poets say, the youths of the State are trained by the practice of hunting, running, enduring hunger and thirst, cold and heat. 
 
The boys at Sparta are scourged so at the altars that blood follows the lash in abundance; nay, sometimes, as I used to hear when I was there, they are whipped even to death; and yet not one of them was ever heard to cry out, or so much as groan. 
 
What, then? Shall men not be able to bear what boys do? And shall custom have such great force, and reason none at all? 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 2.14 
 
Out of a desire to have it both ways, we may be confusing a compromise as a balance with a compromise as a surrender. Where all things are equal, it can be quite reasonable to pick and choose, but where the higher is being sold out for the lower, bargaining now becomes a rationalization for the tepid soul. 
 
It can be helpful for me to give up some of my money for the sake of a pleasure, or to deny myself a luxury to save for a rainy day, but it is never right for me to sacrifice even one bit of virtue in favor of any convenience. 
 
This is because the formation of character is the highest human good, the absolute to which all other aspects of life are relative. It is, by definition, an expression of integrity and constancy, and is thus denied on all levels when it is hindered on only one level. 
 
Since the capacity for virtue always remains within my nature, it can always be revived, though I know all too well what happens to the strength of my convictions when I chip away one little piece at a time. 
 
Over the years, I have learned how myths and legends contain so much of what I need to know about the endeavor for a good life. The characters can indeed be ambiguous, showing different tendencies toward right or wrong, and yet I now see this more as an aid than as a hindrance, reflecting the freedom that exists within all of us. 
 
What am I to make of King Solomon, the wise and just king who was also an idolater and had a poor choice in wives? How am I to judge Odysseus, a man of great intelligence and bravery who also succumbed to pride and duplicity? I only need examine myself to find echoes of such conflicts. 
 
I am not fluent enough in Greek and Roman mythology to form any conclusions about Philoctetes; I admire his devotion to Hercules, and my own reading of the Iliad has always given me the sense that he acquitted himself admirably in the face of such extreme hardship. It seems, however, that later accounts considered him to be something of an effete bellyacher. 
 
I suppose such a contrast is another instance of the complexity to our thoughts and deeds. Having suffered a festering wound that refused to heal, and therefore abandoned by his companions on the island of Lemnos for ten years, I can sympathize with any crying and moaning he may have done. To what degree did he succumb, to what degree did he endure? 
 
What does his struggles tell me about my own? As Cicero says, the pain is real—what remains is how I am choosing to face it, to bear it, to transform it into something of benefit. Yes, it must be a form of patience, while never devolving into a grumbling resentment. Yes, it must be a form of toughness, while never allowing a love of principle to degrade into a heartless inflexibility. 
 
I was usually taught how the Spartans were brutal, and yet I didn’t properly ask myself about the goal of their rigor and discipline. Join such a resolve to justice, and you have heroism. Join such a resolve to arrogance, and you have villainy. 
 
The courage to love is never to be mistaken for the recklessness to hate. Philosophy steers the right course. 

—Reflection written in 7/1996 

IMAGE: Jean-Charles-Joseph Remond, Philoctetes Wounded on the Island of Lemnos (1818) 

Fractals 33

Howard Jones, Human's Lib 5

"Hunt the Self" was only an album track, so it's harder to find people who still remember it. I am always pleased when someone else takes a liking to it, though I do tend to cringe a bit when it is treated merely as another one of those trite "self-motivation" songs, where we are told that we can be anything we want to be, do anything we want to do. 

Perhaps it is possible to become a pop star or to make it big on Wall Street, but is that really where my attention should be directed? Why am I looking to changing my circumstances, when the real work is in changing my mindset? Whether or not I "win the girl", what matters first and foremost is being a kind and decent man. 

Oh, the years wasted on messing around with affectations, as if how I seemed mattered more than who I was! How easy it is to say it happens to be right and good when the crowd nod their heads; how challenging it is to finally think for oneself! 

When this song came out, I thankfully had no idea what it meant to get drunk on cheap wine. Once I did indeed suffer through such an ordeal, I knew how Mr. Jones was perfectly describing the selling of one's soul. Besides the splitting headache, there was only shame and regret. I am always learning to do better next time. Courage! 

I was impressed by the drums near the end of this song, and I was told that Rupert Hine, the album's producer, had added them in. This began my long appreciation for Mr. Hine, as I listened to his other fine work for The Fixx, Saga, Camel, Chris De Burgh, Thompson Twins, and Rush. 

Yes, I even made a point of staying through the end credits for Better off Dead in 1985 to hear the full version of "With One Look" by Cy Curnin and Rupert Hine. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DE0tzCzvC6Q 

Your real friends never leave you when you choose to become better. Remember that. 

—4/2007 

A few words of commentary from Howard Jones: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwMcocjir8w&list=OLAK5uy_lFedI4jW6TKDjvu-C8M34duwjnJ3RlL3M&index=9

And the song itself: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cqBXo3SBGY&list=OLAK5uy_lFedI4jW6TKDjvu-C8M34duwjnJ3RlL3M&index=10 

Howard Jones, "Hunt the Self" from Human's Lib (1984) 

Messing around I've wasted my time for years
Listening to friends who keep filling me up with ideas
Having deep talks with scholars who sound so fine
Hearing this sham is like getting drunk on cheap wine

Well it's time for a change
I've got to move on
There's got to be more than this
The feeling is strong

Look in better places gonna look inside
Gonna get higher something is pulling me on
Breaking down the old ways feeling no regret
Gone are the shaky sands I've been building on

Well it's time for a change
Well I've lost lots of friends
I've got to move on
By sticking to my ground
There's got to be more than this
I don't give a damn
The feeling is strong
Just look what I've found

Here I come now got no time to frown
Nothing in my way now nothing can bring me down
Feel that surge open the doors around
Higher and higher the world is my hunting ground

Well it's time for a change
I've got to move on
There's got to be more than this
The feeling is strong 

Xenophon, Memorabilia of Socrates 15

"But for all that," the accuser insists, "Socrates taught sons to pour contumely upon their fathers by persuading his young friends that he could make them wiser than their sires, or by pointing out that the law allowed a son to sue his father for aberration of mind, and to imprison him, which legal ordinance he put in evidence to prove that it might be well for the wiser to imprison the more ignorant." 

Now what Socrates held was, that if a man may with justice incarcerate another for no better cause than a form of folly or ignorance, this same person could not justly complain if he in his turn were kept in bonds by his superiors in knowledge; and to come to the bottom of such questions, to discover the difference between madness and ignorance was a problem which he was perpetually working at. 

His opinion came to this: If a madman may, as a matter of expediency to himself and his friends, be kept in prison, surely, as a matter of justice, the man who knows not what he ought to know should be content to sit at the feet of those who know, and be taught. 

But it was the rest of their kith and kin, not fathers only, according to the accuser, whom Socrates dishonored in the eyes of his circle of followers, when he said that "the sick man or the litigant does not derive assistance from his relatives, but from his doctor in the one case, and his legal adviser in the other." 

"Listen further to his language about friends," says the accuser: "'What is the good of their being kindly disposed, unless they can be of some practical use to you? Mere goodness of disposition is nothing; those only are worthy of honor who combine with the knowledge of what is right the faculty of expounding it.' 

"And so by bringing the young to look upon himself as a superlatively wise person gifted with an extraordinary capacity for making others wise also, he so worked on the dispositions of those who consorted with him that in their esteem the rest of the world counted for nothing by comparison with Socrates." 

Now I admit the language about fathers and the rest of a man's relations. I can go further, and add some other sayings of his, that "when the soul, which is alone the indwelling center of intelligence, is gone out of a man, be he our nearest and dearest friend, we carry the body forth and bury it out of sight." 

"Even in life," he used to say, "each of us is ready to part with any portion of his best possession—to wit, his own body—if it be useless and unprofitable. He will remove it himself, or suffer another to do so in his stead. Thus men cut off their own nails, hair, or corns; they allow surgeons to cut and cauterise them, not without pains and aches, and are so grateful to the doctor for his services that they further give him a fee. Or again, a man ejects the spittle from his mouth as far as possible. Why? Because it is of no use while it stays within the system, but is detrimental rather." 

Now by these instances his object was not to inculcate the duty of burying one's father alive or of cutting oneself to bits, but to show that lack of intelligence means lack of worth; and so he called upon his hearers to be as sensible and useful as they could be, so that, be it father or brother or any one else whose esteem he would deserve, a man should not hug himself in careless self-interest, trusting to mere relationship, but strive to be useful to those whose esteem he coveted. 

—from Xenophon, Memorabilia 1.2 

IMAGE: Mary Cassatt, Portrait of Alexander J. Cassatt and His Son, Robert Kelso Cassatt (1884) 

Michael Leunig 42

 

The Wisdom of Solomon 15:7-13

[7] For when a potter kneads the soft earth
and laboriously molds each vessel for our service,
he fashions out of the same clay
both the vessels that serve clean uses
and those for contrary uses, making all in like manner;
but which shall be the use of each of these
the worker in clay decides.
[8] With misspent toil, he forms a futile god from the same clay—  

this man who was made of earth a short time before
and after a little while goes to the earth
from which he was taken,
when he is required to return the soul that was lent him.
[9] But he is not concerned that he is destined to die
or that his life is brief,
but he competes with workers in gold and silver,
and imitates workers in copper;
and he counts it his glory that he molds counterfeit gods.
[10] His heart is ashes, his hope is cheaper than dirt,
and his life is of less worth than clay,
[11] because he failed to know the one who formed him
and inspired him with an active soul
and breathed into him a living spirit.
[12] But he considered our existence an idle game,
and life a festival held for profit,
for he says one must get money however one
can, even by base means.
[13] For this man, more than all others, knows that he sins
when he makes from earthy matter fragile vessels
and graven images. 

IMAGE: Jacob Hogers, The Idolatry of King Solomon (c. 1650) 

Sayings of Ramakrishna 182

You should sacrifice your body, mind, and riches to find God. 

IMAGE: Jubair Bin Iqbal, A Hindu Monk Walking in a Mango Garden, Dinajpur, Bangladesh (2012) 

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 2.13

M. Here are many words to express that by so many different forms which we call by the single word evil. 
 
You are defining pain, instead of removing it, when you say, it is disagreeable, unnatural, scarcely possible to be endured or borne, nor are you wrong in saying so: but the man who vaunts himself in such a manner should not give way in his conduct, if it be true that nothing is good but what is honest, and nothing evil but what is disgraceful. This would be wishing, not proving. 
 
This argument is a better one, and has more truth in it—that all things which Nature abhors are to be looked upon as evil; that those which she approves of are to be considered as good. 
 
For when this is admitted, and the dispute about words removed, that which they with reason embrace, and which we call honest, right, becoming, and sometimes include under the general name of virtue, appears so far superior to everything else that all other things which are looked upon as the gifts of fortune, or the good things of the body, seem trifling and insignificant; and no evil whatever, nor all the collective body of evils together, appears to be compared to the evil of infamy. 
 
Wherefore, if, as you granted in the beginning, infamy is worse than pain, pain is certainly nothing; for while it appears to you base and unmanly to groan, cry out, lament, or faint under pain; while you cherish notions of probity, dignity, honor, and, keeping your eye on them, refrain yourself, pain will certainly yield to virtue, and, by the influence of imagination, will lose its whole force—for you must either admit that there is no such thing as virtue, or you must despise every kind of pain. 
 
Will you allow of such a virtue as prudence, without which no virtue whatever can even be conceived? What, then? Will that suffer you to labor and take pains to no purpose? Will temperance permit you to do anything to excess? Will it be possible for justice to be maintained by one who through the force of pain discovers secrets, or betrays his confederates, or deserts many duties of life? Will you act in a manner consistently with courage, and its attendants, greatness of soul, resolution, patience, and contempt for all worldly things? 
 
Can you hear yourself called a great man when you lie groveling, dejected, and deploring your condition with a lamentable voice; no one would call you even a man while in such a condition. You must therefore either abandon all pretensions to courage, or else pain must be put out of the question. 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 2.13
 
I do my best to present my words as precisely as I can, and yet I also know how readily my pride can drag me into pointless debates about petty technicalities. What use is the letter without the spirit? 
 
Should I be calling something good or evil in a narrow sense, as Zeno would, so as to reserve genuine benefit or harm only to what is essential for our human nature? Or should I be calling something good or evil in a broader sense, as Cicero would, so as to affirm the real effect events have upon the passions? I do wonder to what extent these two views are merely talking past one another. 
 
To avoid going on for pages and pages right now, I limit myself to focusing on a possible distinction between hurt and harm. The former is unpleasant, often deeply so, and I do not prefer it. The latter is of damage to my very identity, and I avoid it above all else. The lesser is relative to the greater, the goods of the body given meaning by the goods of the soul. 
 
Despite any theoretical subtleties about the scope of evil, Cicero offers a markedly practical solution. Admit, at the very least, that pain is an irksome burden, but now also view it within the context of far more fulfilling achievements. When I truly understand how little is lost through the one, and how much is gained from the others, I will hardly give any thought to avoiding pain at the expense of virtue. 
 
Like the merchant who sold everything else he owned when he came across the pearl of great price, the prudent man perceives a hierarchy of goods, and he does not hesitate to act upon that insight. 
 
If I were the sort of man who loved riches, I would never grab at a penny if I could get my hands on the Great Star of Africa. 

If I were the sort of man who sought fame, I would quickly cancel a gig at the local pub for the chance to play Wembley Stadium. 

If I were the sort of man who wallowed in luxury, I would pass over a large pot of porridge for a tiny jar of Beluga caviar. 
 
And if I were wise enough to really know what life is about, I would shrug at any of those silly things to have a single chance at acting with an integrity of character. The contest wouldn’t even be close. 
 
The contrast would be so obvious, the divide so vast, that it would be something like the awe we feel when they compare the scale of distances on our earth to those in our solar system, and then in turn compare the scale of distances in our solar system to those in our galaxy. 
 
In other words, a pain placed next to a vice would be so small that it would appear as if it were nothing at all. 
 
Yes, some people will laugh at such claims, but it will only be those people who have never taken the time to engage in careful judgment, and so they remain slaves to gratification. 
 
Where I follow prudence, no effort will be too taxing. Where I give myself to temperance, I won’t foolishly assume that more is better. Where I seek justice, disposing of my neighbor is not an option. Where I embrace courage, fears may rise up, though they will not overwhelm me. 
 
How funny, and how marvelous, that Zeno and Cicero honor the same qualities of living, despite the disagreements in the finer points of their thinking. 

—Reflection written in 7/1996 

IMAGE: Domenico Fetti, Parable of the Pearl of Great Price (c. 1620) 

Nobility

Stoic Snippets 170

If you did ever see a hand cut off, or a foot, or a head, lying anywhere apart from the rest of the body, such does a man make himself, as far as he can, who is not content with what happens, and separates himself from others, or does anything unsocial. 

Suppose that you have detached yourself from the natural unity—for you were made by nature a part, but now you have cut yourself off—yet here there is this beautiful provision, that it is in your power again to unite yourself. 

God has allowed this to no other part, after it has been separated and cut asunder, to come together again. But consider the kindness by which he has distinguished man, for he has put it in his power not to be separated at all from the universal; and when he has been separated, he has allowed him to return and to be united and to resume his place as a part. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8.34 

Dhammapada 260, 261

A man is not an elder because his head is grey; his age may be ripe, but he is called "Old-in-vain." 

He in whom there is truth, virtue, love, restraint, moderation, he who is free from impurity and is wise, he is called an elder. 

IMAGE: Anonymous, Portrait of an Elderly Couple (19th century) 

The Art of Peace 91

The real Art of Peace is not to sacrifice a single one of your warriors to defeat an enemy. 

Vanquish your foes by always keeping yourself in a safe and unassailable position; then no one will suffer any losses. 

The Way of a Warrior, the Art of Politics, is to stop trouble before it starts. It consists in defeating your adversaries spiritually by making them realize the folly of their actions. 

The Way of a Warrior is to establish harmony. 

IMAGE: Felice Beato, Samurai, Yokohama (c. 1865) 

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 2.12

M. But why are we angry with the poets? We may find some philosophers, those masters of virtue, who have taught that pain was the greatest of evils. 

 

But you, young man, when you said but just now that it appeared so to you, upon being asked by me what appeared greater than infamy, gave up that opinion at a word. 

 

Suppose I ask Epicurus the same question. He will answer that a trifling degree of pain is a greater evil than the greatest infamy; for that there is no evil in infamy itself, unless attended with pain. 

 

What pain, then, attends Epicurus, when he says that very thing, that pain is the greatest evil! And yet nothing can be a greater disgrace to a philosopher than to talk thus. 

 

Therefore, you allowed enough when you admitted that infamy appeared to you to be a greater evil than pain. And if you abide by this admission, you will see how far pain should be resisted; and that our inquiry should be not so much whether pain be an evil, as how the mind may be fortified for resisting it. 

 

The Stoics infer from some petty quibbling arguments that it is no evil, as if the dispute were about a word, and not about the thing itself. Why do you impose upon me, Zeno? For when you deny what appears very dreadful to me to be an evil, I am deceived, and am at a loss to know why that which appears to me to be a most miserable thing should be no evil. 

 

The answer is, that nothing is an evil but what is base and vicious. You return to your trifling, for you do not remove what made me uneasy. I know that pain is not vice—you need not inform me of that: but show me that it makes no difference to me whether I am in pain or not. 

 

It has never anything to do, say you, with a happy life, for that depends upon virtue alone; but yet pain is to be avoided. If I ask, why? It is disagreeable, against nature, hard to bear, woeful and afflicting. 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 2.12

 

We shouldn’t be too hard on the poets: they only magnify what is already good or bad within us. It’s the philosophers, so caught up in their abstractions, who too easily confuse our priorities. 

 

The professional academics long ago discarded their authority to tell us about right and wrong; we are now left with celebrities and politicians to show the way. This is not a good thing. 

 

These next few chapters have given me so much to think about, and I must resist the temptation to turn a brief and informal reflection into a massive tome on the proper definition of evil. 

 

Here is the simplest version of what I am learning: be careful how you categorize anything, for the slightest ambiguity will make a world of difference. I regularly tell my poor students that unclear definitions account for the vast majority of logical problems, and this part of the text only confirms the point for me. 

 

Cicero rightly objects to the Epicurean claims that pleasure is the greatest good and pain is the greatest evil. Even the Auditor understands how this is mistaken, for he has enough of a conscience to quickly recognize how a moral corruption within us is far worse than any suffering we might have to endure. Instead of looking to what stands behind the pleasure or the pain, Epicurus is wrapped up in the effects instead of the causes. 

 

But just in case I thought that Cicero was going to toe the Stoic party line, he also expresses a frustration with their claim that pain isn’t an evil at all. Just as Epicurus must bumble his way through the reduction of all value to feelings, so Zeno must cling to an awkward insistence that there is nothing negative to suffering. 

 

The philosophers can build up their elaborate theories as much as they like, but in practice we all know that pain should neither be treated as the gravest of ills, nor should it be casually dismissed as harmless. 

 

The simple fact is that when something hurts, we say that it feels bad. No, pain is not a moral evil, though it is most certainly distressing, and even the Stoic will seek to avoid the discomfort of pain, as long as he must not violate his character to do so. 

 

I understand why Cicero wishes to define evil more broadly, as anything that is disagreeable or offensive, for that is why we regularly speak about struggles or obstacles that hinder us as “bad” things. 

 

Nevertheless I also understand why the Stoics wish to define evil more narrowly, as the absence of virtue and the presence of vice, for otherwise we will be deceiving ourselves about the true nature of the human good. 

 

I am not sure if Cicero is right to accuse Zeno of being unsympathetic about the reality of pain; at worst they are appealing to different scales of good and evil, and at best they need to work out precisely how they are employing certain terms. 

 

In my own thinking, I make use of the distinction by Thomas Aquinas between evil as suffering and evil as fault, with the clear awareness that there is a fundamental difference of kind here, not just of degree, which reflects the contrast between what happens to us and what we choose to do. 

 

In the next chapter, however, such concerns may appear purely academic, as Cicero ends up arriving at a rather Stoic sort of conclusion, even as he come to it by a different set of definitions and premises. 

 

I am grateful to Cicero for keeping me from falling into a blind conformity to Stoic teachings, and reminding me why my philosophy should always be eclectic, taking the true and the good wherever I may find it. 

—Reflection written in 7/1996 

IMAGES: Epicurus of Samos and Zeno of Citium