M. There is some difference between labor and pain; they border upon one another, but still there is a certain difference between them. Labor is a certain exercise of the mind or body, in some employment or undertaking of serious trouble and importance; but pain is a sharp motion in the body, disagreeable to our senses.
Both these feelings, the Greeks, whose language is more copious than ours, express by the common name of Πόνος: therefore they call industrious men painstaking, or, rather, fond of labor; we, more conveniently, call them laborious; for laboring is one thing, and enduring pain another.
You see, O Greece! your barrenness of words, sometimes, though you think you are always so rich in them. I say, then, that there is a difference between laboring and being in pain. When Caius Marius had an operation performed for a swelling in his thigh, he felt pain; when he headed his troops in a very hot season, he labored.
Yet these two feelings bear some resemblance to one another; for the accustoming ourselves to labor makes the endurance of pain more easy to us.
And it was because they were influenced by this reason that the founders of the Grecian form of government provided that the bodies of their youth should be strengthened by labor, which custom the Spartans transferred even to their women, who in other cities lived more delicately, keeping within the walls of their houses; but it was otherwise with the Spartans.
“The Spartan women, with a manly air,
Fatigues and dangers with their husbands share;
They in fantastic sports have no delight,
Partners with them in exercise and fight.”
And in these laborious exercises pain interferes sometimes. They are thrown down, receive blows, have bad falls, and are bruised, and the labor itself produces a sort of callousness to pain.
Both these feelings, the Greeks, whose language is more copious than ours, express by the common name of Πόνος: therefore they call industrious men painstaking, or, rather, fond of labor; we, more conveniently, call them laborious; for laboring is one thing, and enduring pain another.
You see, O Greece! your barrenness of words, sometimes, though you think you are always so rich in them. I say, then, that there is a difference between laboring and being in pain. When Caius Marius had an operation performed for a swelling in his thigh, he felt pain; when he headed his troops in a very hot season, he labored.
Yet these two feelings bear some resemblance to one another; for the accustoming ourselves to labor makes the endurance of pain more easy to us.
And it was because they were influenced by this reason that the founders of the Grecian form of government provided that the bodies of their youth should be strengthened by labor, which custom the Spartans transferred even to their women, who in other cities lived more delicately, keeping within the walls of their houses; but it was otherwise with the Spartans.
“The Spartan women, with a manly air,
Fatigues and dangers with their husbands share;
They in fantastic sports have no delight,
Partners with them in exercise and fight.”
And in these laborious exercises pain interferes sometimes. They are thrown down, receive blows, have bad falls, and are bruised, and the labor itself produces a sort of callousness to pain.
—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 2.15
I spent a good decade of my early years deeply worried that I had a disposition to laziness, because I found myself struggling with many of the tiresome tasks I was regularly being asked to perform.
Why must I suffer these tedious chores? It seems such meager rewards come from such strenuous efforts. Why is the fancy prep school telling me to do five hours of homework after I have already spent eight hours in class? This feels like more busywork. Why should I run for another mile? I was exhausted and sore enough after the first two.
Now I had still been raised well enough to doubt my own complaints, yet if I had actually considered the very phrasing of my own questions, I would have avoided much unnecessary handwringing.
It wasn’t that I had some allergy to hard work—it was that I failed to form any sound judgments about the purpose of the work. I felt the pain in the labor, while not embracing the meaning in the labor, and so I assumed that the pain and the labor were one and the same thing.
It didn’t occur to me that the latter usually includes the former, and that the former should never be viewed in isolation from the latter. The price to pay is in proportion to the prize; a man works as hard as the degree to which he cares.
I imagine Cicero is having a bit of fun here with the Greek and Latin terms, and by extension with the endless rivalry between east and west, between old and new.
Nevertheless, a subtlety in language can do a world of good for getting our priorities in order. Once I know the context of the hurt, so much of the weight is lifted; there are even those times when the hurt is transformed into something like a blessed honor.
In Cicero’s terms, the trouble must be relative to the importance.
That doesn’t excuse a parent from overburdening a child, or a teacher from assigning too many exercises, or a coach from satisfying his sadism, but it does mean that I can choose to take any challenge offered as an instrument for the improvement of my character. However he intended it, I am the one who can make something of it.
Indeed, when the conditions are laid out properly, the endurance of hardship becomes an opportunity for the increase of the virtues. Question me vigorously, and I am more inclined to prudence. Threaten me with consequences, and I am inspired to fortitude. Deny me my desires, and I am strengthened in temperance. Confront me on my rights, and I am charged with justice.
You certainly didn’t do it for me, though you did play a huge part in helping me to do it for myself.
Pain has both a frustrating and a wonderful way of assisting us in becoming better, and thereby in becoming happier. This can, of course, only make sense in the Classical model of happiness as an active excellence, not happiness as a passive gratification. There was a sound reason behind the ancient method of toughening the muscles to invigorate the soul.
I cannot speak on the customs of the Spartans, as I find it impossible to distinguish the fact from the fiction, what truly happened back then from what has now passed on into legend. I only know from my own life, far less severe, how the slightest obstacle has become a chance to prove my mettle. I don’t need to be heartless to be tough where it counts.
In this sense, the pain was good.
I spent a good decade of my early years deeply worried that I had a disposition to laziness, because I found myself struggling with many of the tiresome tasks I was regularly being asked to perform.
Why must I suffer these tedious chores? It seems such meager rewards come from such strenuous efforts. Why is the fancy prep school telling me to do five hours of homework after I have already spent eight hours in class? This feels like more busywork. Why should I run for another mile? I was exhausted and sore enough after the first two.
Now I had still been raised well enough to doubt my own complaints, yet if I had actually considered the very phrasing of my own questions, I would have avoided much unnecessary handwringing.
It wasn’t that I had some allergy to hard work—it was that I failed to form any sound judgments about the purpose of the work. I felt the pain in the labor, while not embracing the meaning in the labor, and so I assumed that the pain and the labor were one and the same thing.
It didn’t occur to me that the latter usually includes the former, and that the former should never be viewed in isolation from the latter. The price to pay is in proportion to the prize; a man works as hard as the degree to which he cares.
I imagine Cicero is having a bit of fun here with the Greek and Latin terms, and by extension with the endless rivalry between east and west, between old and new.
Nevertheless, a subtlety in language can do a world of good for getting our priorities in order. Once I know the context of the hurt, so much of the weight is lifted; there are even those times when the hurt is transformed into something like a blessed honor.
In Cicero’s terms, the trouble must be relative to the importance.
That doesn’t excuse a parent from overburdening a child, or a teacher from assigning too many exercises, or a coach from satisfying his sadism, but it does mean that I can choose to take any challenge offered as an instrument for the improvement of my character. However he intended it, I am the one who can make something of it.
Indeed, when the conditions are laid out properly, the endurance of hardship becomes an opportunity for the increase of the virtues. Question me vigorously, and I am more inclined to prudence. Threaten me with consequences, and I am inspired to fortitude. Deny me my desires, and I am strengthened in temperance. Confront me on my rights, and I am charged with justice.
You certainly didn’t do it for me, though you did play a huge part in helping me to do it for myself.
Pain has both a frustrating and a wonderful way of assisting us in becoming better, and thereby in becoming happier. This can, of course, only make sense in the Classical model of happiness as an active excellence, not happiness as a passive gratification. There was a sound reason behind the ancient method of toughening the muscles to invigorate the soul.
I cannot speak on the customs of the Spartans, as I find it impossible to distinguish the fact from the fiction, what truly happened back then from what has now passed on into legend. I only know from my own life, far less severe, how the slightest obstacle has become a chance to prove my mettle. I don’t need to be heartless to be tough where it counts.
In this sense, the pain was good.
—Reflection written in 8/1996
IMAGE: Edgar Degas, Young Spartans Exercising (c. 1860)
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