“But when women are carried off, and children are made captive, and men themselves are slaughtered—are not these things evil?”
Where do you get this idea from? If it is true, teach it me too.
“No, I cannot: but how can you say that they are not evil?”
Let us turn to our standards, let us look to our primary notions. For I cannot be sufficiently astonished at what men do. When we want to judge weights, we do not judge at random. When we judge things straight and crooked, it is not at random. In a word, when it is important to us to know the truth on any subject, no one of us will ever do anything at random.
Yet when we are dealing with the primary and sole cause of right or wrong action, of prosperity or adversity, of good or bad fortune, there alone we are random and headlong: we nowhere have anything like a scale, nowhere anything like a standard: some impression strikes me, and straightway I act on it.
Where do you get this idea from? If it is true, teach it me too.
“No, I cannot: but how can you say that they are not evil?”
Let us turn to our standards, let us look to our primary notions. For I cannot be sufficiently astonished at what men do. When we want to judge weights, we do not judge at random. When we judge things straight and crooked, it is not at random. In a word, when it is important to us to know the truth on any subject, no one of us will ever do anything at random.
Yet when we are dealing with the primary and sole cause of right or wrong action, of prosperity or adversity, of good or bad fortune, there alone we are random and headlong: we nowhere have anything like a scale, nowhere anything like a standard: some impression strikes me, and straightway I act on it.
—from Epictetus, Discourses 1.28
Pain is, by its definition, something markedly unpleasant, and so our instinct cries out in favor of fight or flight. Yet as a creature of reason, it is also possible for me to ask myself why I am feeling a pain, and to consider how I can go about finding some meaning to its presence.
Perhaps I must bear the hurt, but must I necessarily dwell upon the suffering? I can surrender to pain, or I can transform that pain into purpose.
To believe that pain is always an evil goes hand in hand with the assumption that pleasure is always a good. We are so accustomed to this model that we find it almost impossible to think otherwise, and so the Stoic will stand out like a sore thumb.
All other things being equal, the Stoic will prefer to avoid pain and embrace pleasure, though he also understands that the value of the feeling is relative to the merit of the action; a feeling becomes good or bad within the context of what we make of it.
Simply put, pain and pleasure must be interpreted through the lens of the virtues. For all his stress on moderation, the Epicurean still fails to grasp this critical point; for all his obsession with excess, the restless glutton is proof that man is made to find his peace in living well, not in receiving gratification.
To claim that any sort of pain or worldly loss is in itself an evil is a reduction of the human to the brutal, just as demanding pleasure at any cost is a betrayal of our calling to conscience. The true fulfillment of life is the serenity of the heart and the mind, not the filling of the gut.
I have not, as of yet, been a prisoner in body, and so I can’t speak directly to such an experience. I have, however, spent most my adult life enduring what I call the Black Dog, and such emotional agony has taught me much about finding happiness under the most grueling conditions.
I survive, and yes, on the good days I even thrive, due to my bracketing of circumstances and my deliberate focus on forging my character. I may only take tiny baby steps, but each one of them is a glorious victory over the only real enemy I have—myself.
How can I say that pain is not evil? Each day, I am learning a little bit more about who I am, and why Providence has put me here. I do not expect to work out all the details before I die, though I know just enough to be at peace with the dignity of the task.
It becomes possible by looking backwards to my first principles, what Epictetus here calls the primary notions. When I get them right, the rest falls into place, almost as if by magic.
Indeed, isn’t it odd, almost morbidly comical, how we demand the most precise measurements when it comes to manufacturing widgets, or making money, or winning an election, while we are so terribly sloppy about reading a moral compass?
It takes a thorough training in physics and exacting efforts in mathematics to send a man to the moon; should not my love for my neighbor call for a similar diligence?
Once I let myself be overwhelmed by the first impressions that hit me, succumbing to envy, rage, lust, or despair, I make myself a puppet instead of a man. A random life is a life at the mercy of whatever comes my way; a life with genuine standards is a commitment to being far more painstaking with my conscience than I am with my bank account.
Measure twice, cut once.
Pain is, by its definition, something markedly unpleasant, and so our instinct cries out in favor of fight or flight. Yet as a creature of reason, it is also possible for me to ask myself why I am feeling a pain, and to consider how I can go about finding some meaning to its presence.
Perhaps I must bear the hurt, but must I necessarily dwell upon the suffering? I can surrender to pain, or I can transform that pain into purpose.
To believe that pain is always an evil goes hand in hand with the assumption that pleasure is always a good. We are so accustomed to this model that we find it almost impossible to think otherwise, and so the Stoic will stand out like a sore thumb.
All other things being equal, the Stoic will prefer to avoid pain and embrace pleasure, though he also understands that the value of the feeling is relative to the merit of the action; a feeling becomes good or bad within the context of what we make of it.
Simply put, pain and pleasure must be interpreted through the lens of the virtues. For all his stress on moderation, the Epicurean still fails to grasp this critical point; for all his obsession with excess, the restless glutton is proof that man is made to find his peace in living well, not in receiving gratification.
To claim that any sort of pain or worldly loss is in itself an evil is a reduction of the human to the brutal, just as demanding pleasure at any cost is a betrayal of our calling to conscience. The true fulfillment of life is the serenity of the heart and the mind, not the filling of the gut.
I have not, as of yet, been a prisoner in body, and so I can’t speak directly to such an experience. I have, however, spent most my adult life enduring what I call the Black Dog, and such emotional agony has taught me much about finding happiness under the most grueling conditions.
I survive, and yes, on the good days I even thrive, due to my bracketing of circumstances and my deliberate focus on forging my character. I may only take tiny baby steps, but each one of them is a glorious victory over the only real enemy I have—myself.
How can I say that pain is not evil? Each day, I am learning a little bit more about who I am, and why Providence has put me here. I do not expect to work out all the details before I die, though I know just enough to be at peace with the dignity of the task.
It becomes possible by looking backwards to my first principles, what Epictetus here calls the primary notions. When I get them right, the rest falls into place, almost as if by magic.
Indeed, isn’t it odd, almost morbidly comical, how we demand the most precise measurements when it comes to manufacturing widgets, or making money, or winning an election, while we are so terribly sloppy about reading a moral compass?
It takes a thorough training in physics and exacting efforts in mathematics to send a man to the moon; should not my love for my neighbor call for a similar diligence?
Once I let myself be overwhelmed by the first impressions that hit me, succumbing to envy, rage, lust, or despair, I make myself a puppet instead of a man. A random life is a life at the mercy of whatever comes my way; a life with genuine standards is a commitment to being far more painstaking with my conscience than I am with my bank account.
Measure twice, cut once.
—Reflection written in 4/2001
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