—Michel de Montaigne, Essays 3.2
The Death of Marcus Aurelius
Friday, March 31, 2023
Sayings of Publilius Syrus 106
A god can hardly disturb a man truly happy.
IMAGE: Adriaen van Ostade, The Merry Peasant (c. 1650)
Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 3.2
To these we may add the poets; who, on account of the appearance they exhibit of learning and wisdom, are heard, read, and got by heart, and make a deep impression on our minds.
But when to these are added the people, who are, as it were, one great body of instructors, and the multitude, who declare unanimously for what is wrong, then are we altogether overwhelmed with bad opinions, and revolt entirely from nature.
So that they seem to deprive us of our best guide who have decided that there is nothing better for man, nothing more worthy of being desired by him, nothing more excellent, than honors and commands, and a high reputation with the people; which indeed every excellent man aims at, but while he pursues that only true honor which nature has in view above all other objects, he finds himself busied in arrant trifles, and in pursuit of no conspicuous form of virtue, but only some shadowy representation of glory.
For glory is a real and express substance, not a mere shadow. It consists in the united praise of good men, the free voice of those who form a true judgment of preeminent virtue; it is, as it were, the very echo of virtue, and being generally the attendant on laudable actions, should not be slighted by good men.
But popular fame, which would pretend to imitate it, is hasty and inconsiderate, and generally commends wicked and immoral actions, and throws discredit upon the appearance and beauty of honesty by assuming a resemblance of it.
And it is owing to their not being able to discover the difference between them that some men ignorant of real excellence, and in what it consists, have been the destruction of their country and of themselves. And thus the best men have erred, not so much in their intentions as by a mistaken conduct.
What? Is no cure to be attempted to be applied to those who are carried away by the love of money, or the lust of pleasures, by which they are rendered little short of madmen, which is the case of all weak people? Or is it because the disorders of the mind are less dangerous than those of the body? Or because the body will admit of a cure, while there is no medicine whatever for the mind?
But when to these are added the people, who are, as it were, one great body of instructors, and the multitude, who declare unanimously for what is wrong, then are we altogether overwhelmed with bad opinions, and revolt entirely from nature.
So that they seem to deprive us of our best guide who have decided that there is nothing better for man, nothing more worthy of being desired by him, nothing more excellent, than honors and commands, and a high reputation with the people; which indeed every excellent man aims at, but while he pursues that only true honor which nature has in view above all other objects, he finds himself busied in arrant trifles, and in pursuit of no conspicuous form of virtue, but only some shadowy representation of glory.
For glory is a real and express substance, not a mere shadow. It consists in the united praise of good men, the free voice of those who form a true judgment of preeminent virtue; it is, as it were, the very echo of virtue, and being generally the attendant on laudable actions, should not be slighted by good men.
But popular fame, which would pretend to imitate it, is hasty and inconsiderate, and generally commends wicked and immoral actions, and throws discredit upon the appearance and beauty of honesty by assuming a resemblance of it.
And it is owing to their not being able to discover the difference between them that some men ignorant of real excellence, and in what it consists, have been the destruction of their country and of themselves. And thus the best men have erred, not so much in their intentions as by a mistaken conduct.
What? Is no cure to be attempted to be applied to those who are carried away by the love of money, or the lust of pleasures, by which they are rendered little short of madmen, which is the case of all weak people? Or is it because the disorders of the mind are less dangerous than those of the body? Or because the body will admit of a cure, while there is no medicine whatever for the mind?
—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 3.2
I must not let the many hurdles to self-awareness discourage me, always remembering that they are a means to moving forward. A difficulty is not the same as an impossibility, and a hardship should be seen as an opportunity.
The circumstances around me will pull me this way and that, though I remain the authors of my own actions.
Do I question my capacity to reason soundly? The hindrance is only within my own judgments.
Am I under pressure from the fashions of the day? Let me focus on what actually is, not just on what other people say it is.
When Cicero criticizes the poets, I do not take that as a condemnations of the arts, but rather of the way we abuse art to manipulate shallow images, for the sake of cheap answers. I see it all the time in the seductive trickery of the media, the posturing of the celebrities, or the grandstanding of the politicians. Beware of being dazed by mere appearances.
Such efforts are aimed at playing the opinions of the many, as if quantity were more important than quality. While it is certainly possible for something popular to be true, it is hardly the case that something is true because it is popular. There is no elitism or snobbery in pointing out that we find it easier to conform to the majority than to think for ourselves.
In this way, a value in harmony with Nature can quickly be twisted into a perverse caricature. When I speak of honor or glory, what do I really have in mind?
Do I mean a genuine excellence of character, which will bind me into fellowship with all those who follow the virtues, or do I mean putting on the most contrived act, so as to win fame from those most vulnerable to trickery? I can squirm all I like, but I know the difference to be real.
When I am busy looking honest instead of being honest, there may be no malice in me at all, even as I have allowed myself to be duped into thinking that this is how everyone else does it, so this is therefore how I must do it.
As I find myself dealing in trivialities and consumed by petty bickering, I replace a love of righteousness with a lust for gratification. I just fall further in when my so-called friends pat me on the back and urge me on.
I may not even recognize that there is something critically flawed in my feeling and my thinking, or even if I do have a hunch that I suffer from a disorder of the heart and the mind, I may assume that I can brush it aside. What cure could there be for the soul, when they tell me that only the body matters?
Don’t blindly follow the herd. This is why philosophy is the best remedy for any prejudice.
I must not let the many hurdles to self-awareness discourage me, always remembering that they are a means to moving forward. A difficulty is not the same as an impossibility, and a hardship should be seen as an opportunity.
The circumstances around me will pull me this way and that, though I remain the authors of my own actions.
Do I question my capacity to reason soundly? The hindrance is only within my own judgments.
Am I under pressure from the fashions of the day? Let me focus on what actually is, not just on what other people say it is.
When Cicero criticizes the poets, I do not take that as a condemnations of the arts, but rather of the way we abuse art to manipulate shallow images, for the sake of cheap answers. I see it all the time in the seductive trickery of the media, the posturing of the celebrities, or the grandstanding of the politicians. Beware of being dazed by mere appearances.
Such efforts are aimed at playing the opinions of the many, as if quantity were more important than quality. While it is certainly possible for something popular to be true, it is hardly the case that something is true because it is popular. There is no elitism or snobbery in pointing out that we find it easier to conform to the majority than to think for ourselves.
In this way, a value in harmony with Nature can quickly be twisted into a perverse caricature. When I speak of honor or glory, what do I really have in mind?
Do I mean a genuine excellence of character, which will bind me into fellowship with all those who follow the virtues, or do I mean putting on the most contrived act, so as to win fame from those most vulnerable to trickery? I can squirm all I like, but I know the difference to be real.
When I am busy looking honest instead of being honest, there may be no malice in me at all, even as I have allowed myself to be duped into thinking that this is how everyone else does it, so this is therefore how I must do it.
As I find myself dealing in trivialities and consumed by petty bickering, I replace a love of righteousness with a lust for gratification. I just fall further in when my so-called friends pat me on the back and urge me on.
I may not even recognize that there is something critically flawed in my feeling and my thinking, or even if I do have a hunch that I suffer from a disorder of the heart and the mind, I may assume that I can brush it aside. What cure could there be for the soul, when they tell me that only the body matters?
Don’t blindly follow the herd. This is why philosophy is the best remedy for any prejudice.
—Reflection written in 9/1996
IMAGE: James Drummond, The Porteous Mob (1855)
Thursday, March 30, 2023
Wednesday, March 29, 2023
Epictetus, Golden Sayings 166
Refuse altogether to take an oath if you can, if not, as far as may be.
IMAGE: Jacques-Louis David, sketch drawing for The Tennis Court Oath (1791)
Maxims of Goethe 4
Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 3.1
Book 3: On Grief of Mind
What reason shall I assign, O Brutus, why, as we consist of mind and body, the art of curing and preserving the body should be so much sought after, and the invention of it, as being so useful, should be ascribed to the immortal Gods; but the medicine of the mind should not have been so much the object of inquiry while it was unknown, nor so much attended to and cultivated after its discovery, nor so well received or approved of by some, and accounted actually disagreeable, and looked upon with an envious eye by many?
Is it because we, by means of the mind, judge of the pains and disorders of the body, but do not, by means of the body, arrive at any perception of the disorders of the mind? Hence it comes that the mind only judges of itself when that very faculty by which it is judged is in a bad state.
Had nature given us faculties for discerning and viewing herself, and could we go through life by keeping our eye on her—our best guide—there would be no reason certainly why anyone should be in want of philosophy or learning; but, as it is, she has furnished us only with some feeble rays of light, which we immediately extinguish so completely by evil habits and erroneous opinions that the light of nature is nowhere visible.
The seeds of virtues are natural to our constitutions, and, were they suffered to come to maturity, would naturally conduct us to a happy life; but now, as soon as we are born and received into the world, we are instantly familiarized with all kinds of depravity and perversity of opinions; so that we may be said almost to suck in error with our nurse’s milk. When we return to our parents, and are put into the hands of tutors and governors, we are imbued with so many errors that truth gives place to falsehood, and nature herself to established opinion.
What reason shall I assign, O Brutus, why, as we consist of mind and body, the art of curing and preserving the body should be so much sought after, and the invention of it, as being so useful, should be ascribed to the immortal Gods; but the medicine of the mind should not have been so much the object of inquiry while it was unknown, nor so much attended to and cultivated after its discovery, nor so well received or approved of by some, and accounted actually disagreeable, and looked upon with an envious eye by many?
Is it because we, by means of the mind, judge of the pains and disorders of the body, but do not, by means of the body, arrive at any perception of the disorders of the mind? Hence it comes that the mind only judges of itself when that very faculty by which it is judged is in a bad state.
Had nature given us faculties for discerning and viewing herself, and could we go through life by keeping our eye on her—our best guide—there would be no reason certainly why anyone should be in want of philosophy or learning; but, as it is, she has furnished us only with some feeble rays of light, which we immediately extinguish so completely by evil habits and erroneous opinions that the light of nature is nowhere visible.
The seeds of virtues are natural to our constitutions, and, were they suffered to come to maturity, would naturally conduct us to a happy life; but now, as soon as we are born and received into the world, we are instantly familiarized with all kinds of depravity and perversity of opinions; so that we may be said almost to suck in error with our nurse’s milk. When we return to our parents, and are put into the hands of tutors and governors, we are imbued with so many errors that truth gives place to falsehood, and nature herself to established opinion.
—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 3.1
I pay special attention to this third book of the Tusculan Disputations, because my most daunting task is the endurance of intense and persistent mental pain. Though I have always had a philosophical bent, the emergence of the “Black Dog” has made such reflection an absolute necessity.
In the relationship of the mind and the body, Nature has created the latter to be in the service of the former, though you’d hardly notice it by how we choose to direct our efforts.
How often have I now seen a doctor obsess about the health of the physical organs, while shrugging off any concerns about the thoughts and the emotions, or at best only prescribing chemicals to resolve matters that also demand a profound self-awareness?
I suppose I should find some comfort in hearing that the Romans were no better at getting their priorities straight. Perhaps it is a universal human weakness to confuse the exterior with the interior, the proximate with the ultimate, the flesh with the spirit.
Cicero wonders why this would be the case, and I am relieved that I am not the only one with such awful concerns. All consciousness is an act proceeding from the mind, and while it is one thing for thought to examine what is outside of itself, it is quite another for thought to consider its own inner workings, to turn back upon itself, so to speak.
A hand, for example, can grasp an object, but how is a hand supposed to grasp itself? It takes a certain practice in mental gymnastics to get the knack of discerning the operations of the intellect through its relations to the world around it, just as it is not immediately intuitive to recognize one’s own face in a mirror.
I can judge with some clarity about a disorder of my body, yet I must question that clarity when the very power of judgment is impaired. By analogy, I think of a doctor who has much experience in performing surgery on his patients, and is then faced with the need to take out his own gallbladder.
In other words, any judgments about our subjective states will easily have us losing our sense of up and down: I know how quick I am to mistake an imagination for a fact, a preference for a principle, the act of rationalizing for the act of reasoning. There is, at least initially, a vast difference between observing pain from a distance and feeling it within myself.
This becomes all the more difficult when I add layers upon layers of assumptions and habits to the mix. I have always been used to thinking this way about myself, so how dare you challenge me? They have been telling me for years to do it this way, and now I am suddenly supposed to toss out all of the instructions? It’s no wonder I sometimes worry that I’m going mad.
Yes, I was made to understand the true from the false, and to love the right instead of the wrong, for I am a creature of reason and will. The great obstacles in my way, however, are a disorientation in battling my ignorance and the accumulation of too many vices.
I can’t properly see myself in the mirror for all the filth and the grime. It’s finally time for some housecleaning.
I pay special attention to this third book of the Tusculan Disputations, because my most daunting task is the endurance of intense and persistent mental pain. Though I have always had a philosophical bent, the emergence of the “Black Dog” has made such reflection an absolute necessity.
In the relationship of the mind and the body, Nature has created the latter to be in the service of the former, though you’d hardly notice it by how we choose to direct our efforts.
How often have I now seen a doctor obsess about the health of the physical organs, while shrugging off any concerns about the thoughts and the emotions, or at best only prescribing chemicals to resolve matters that also demand a profound self-awareness?
I suppose I should find some comfort in hearing that the Romans were no better at getting their priorities straight. Perhaps it is a universal human weakness to confuse the exterior with the interior, the proximate with the ultimate, the flesh with the spirit.
Cicero wonders why this would be the case, and I am relieved that I am not the only one with such awful concerns. All consciousness is an act proceeding from the mind, and while it is one thing for thought to examine what is outside of itself, it is quite another for thought to consider its own inner workings, to turn back upon itself, so to speak.
A hand, for example, can grasp an object, but how is a hand supposed to grasp itself? It takes a certain practice in mental gymnastics to get the knack of discerning the operations of the intellect through its relations to the world around it, just as it is not immediately intuitive to recognize one’s own face in a mirror.
I can judge with some clarity about a disorder of my body, yet I must question that clarity when the very power of judgment is impaired. By analogy, I think of a doctor who has much experience in performing surgery on his patients, and is then faced with the need to take out his own gallbladder.
In other words, any judgments about our subjective states will easily have us losing our sense of up and down: I know how quick I am to mistake an imagination for a fact, a preference for a principle, the act of rationalizing for the act of reasoning. There is, at least initially, a vast difference between observing pain from a distance and feeling it within myself.
This becomes all the more difficult when I add layers upon layers of assumptions and habits to the mix. I have always been used to thinking this way about myself, so how dare you challenge me? They have been telling me for years to do it this way, and now I am suddenly supposed to toss out all of the instructions? It’s no wonder I sometimes worry that I’m going mad.
Yes, I was made to understand the true from the false, and to love the right instead of the wrong, for I am a creature of reason and will. The great obstacles in my way, however, are a disorientation in battling my ignorance and the accumulation of too many vices.
I can’t properly see myself in the mirror for all the filth and the grime. It’s finally time for some housecleaning.
—Reflection written in 9/1996
Tuesday, March 28, 2023
The Labors of Hercules 8
Antonio Tempesta, Hercules and the Mare of Diomedes (1608)
Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre, Diomedes King of Thrace Killed by Heracles and Devoured by His Own Horses (1752)
Gustave Moreau, Diomedes Devoured by His Horses (1865)
Epictetus, Discourses 1.29.12
“Should I then proclaim this to all men?”
No! One should study the weakness of the uninstructed and say to them, “This man advises me what he thinks good for himself, and I excuse him.”
For Socrates too excused the jailer who wept when he was going to drink the poison, and said, “How nobly he has wept for us!”
Does he say to the jailer, “That is why we dismissed the women”?
No, he says that to his intimate friends, who were fit to hear it, but the jailer he treats considerately like a child.
No! One should study the weakness of the uninstructed and say to them, “This man advises me what he thinks good for himself, and I excuse him.”
For Socrates too excused the jailer who wept when he was going to drink the poison, and said, “How nobly he has wept for us!”
Does he say to the jailer, “That is why we dismissed the women”?
No, he says that to his intimate friends, who were fit to hear it, but the jailer he treats considerately like a child.
—from Epictetus, Discourses 1.29
I am especially wary of succumbing to the extremes of either absolutism or relativism, both of which are equally signs that I am being lazy of mind and arrogant of will.
I wish to serve the truth, and yet I must never claim to possess the truth. I know I must do what is right, and yet I must never insist upon being right.
There is quite a haughtiness in saying I know everything without question, just as there is in questioning everything to say that nothing can be known. The philosophical life can only be poisoned by dogmatism or cynicism.
As I try to strike a balance, to carefully find that middle path, the way I go about treating others will reflect whether there is any integrity to my thinking.
I may feel certain that I understand, but am I brave enough to also understand how and why another may be struggling with doubt?
For the little that I think I know, can I make the effort to patiently help my neighbor to learn, however long that might take?
If I am finally grasping this or that bit correctly, shouldn’t I respond to an error with love instead of hatred?
Plato’s Phaedo, which describes the last moments of Socrates, contains some rather difficult philosophical theory, while it also opens and closes with two of the most personal moments in the dialogues.
At the beginning, Socrates says goodbye to his family, and at the end, he sends away his jailer, whose job has not spared him from being overcome with grief.
In both cases, Socrates does not scold them for their feelings, or berate them for their ignorance, but instead speaks to them with kindness and compassion. He chooses not to talk down at them, and he relates to wherever they happen to be.
In much the same manner, Socrates did not curse the jury that convicted him, because he was aware that they had acted as they thought best.
Such a power to accept, and to forgive, is a mark of the greatest constancy, to stand on principles that do not depend on anyone else being knocked down.
I am especially wary of succumbing to the extremes of either absolutism or relativism, both of which are equally signs that I am being lazy of mind and arrogant of will.
I wish to serve the truth, and yet I must never claim to possess the truth. I know I must do what is right, and yet I must never insist upon being right.
There is quite a haughtiness in saying I know everything without question, just as there is in questioning everything to say that nothing can be known. The philosophical life can only be poisoned by dogmatism or cynicism.
As I try to strike a balance, to carefully find that middle path, the way I go about treating others will reflect whether there is any integrity to my thinking.
I may feel certain that I understand, but am I brave enough to also understand how and why another may be struggling with doubt?
For the little that I think I know, can I make the effort to patiently help my neighbor to learn, however long that might take?
If I am finally grasping this or that bit correctly, shouldn’t I respond to an error with love instead of hatred?
Plato’s Phaedo, which describes the last moments of Socrates, contains some rather difficult philosophical theory, while it also opens and closes with two of the most personal moments in the dialogues.
At the beginning, Socrates says goodbye to his family, and at the end, he sends away his jailer, whose job has not spared him from being overcome with grief.
In both cases, Socrates does not scold them for their feelings, or berate them for their ignorance, but instead speaks to them with kindness and compassion. He chooses not to talk down at them, and he relates to wherever they happen to be.
In much the same manner, Socrates did not curse the jury that convicted him, because he was aware that they had acted as they thought best.
Such a power to accept, and to forgive, is a mark of the greatest constancy, to stand on principles that do not depend on anyone else being knocked down.
—Reflection written in 5/2001
IMAGE: Antonio Canova, Socrates Taking Leave of His Family (c. 1790)
Monday, March 27, 2023
Aesop's Fables 64
The Fox and the Mosquitoes
A Fox after crossing a river got its tail entangled in a bush, and could not move. A number of Mosquitoes seeing its plight settled upon it and enjoyed a good meal undisturbed by its tail.
A hedgehog strolling by took pity upon the Fox and went up to him: "You are in a bad way, neighbor," said the hedgehog; "shall I relieve you by driving off those Mosquitoes who are sucking your blood?"
"Thank you, Master Hedgehog," said the Fox, "but I would rather not."
"Why, how is that?" asked the hedgehog.
"Well, you see," was the answer, "these Mosquitoes have had their fill; if you drive these away, others will come with fresh appetite and bleed me to death."
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Sayings of Ramakrishna 202
The faith healers of India order their patients to repeat with full conviction the words, "There is no illness in me, there is no illness at all."
The patient repeats it, and, thus mentally denying, the illness goes off.
So if you think yourself to be morally weak and without goodness, you will really find yourself to be so in no time.
Know and believe that you are of immense power, and the power will come to you at last.
IMAGE: Sculpture of Dhanvantari, Chennakeshava Temple, Somanathapura
Epictetus, Discourses 1.29.11
Whose business then is it to take cognizance of these questions? It is for him that has studied at school; for man is a creature with a faculty of taking cognizance, but it is shameful for him to exercise it in the spirit of runaway slaves.
No: one must sit undistracted and listen in turn to tragic actor or harp player, and not do as the runaways do. At the very moment one of them is attending and praising the actor, he gives a glance all round, and then if someone utters the word “master” he is fluttered and confounded in a moment.
It is shameful that philosophers should take cognizance of the works of Nature in this spirit. For what does “master” mean? No man is master of another man; his masters are only death and life, pleasure and pain. For, apart from them, you may bring me face to face with Caesar and you shall see what constancy I show.
But when he comes in thunder and lightning with these in his train, and I show fear of them, I am only recognizing my master as the runaway does.
But so long as I have respite from them I am just like the runaway watching in the theater; I wash, drink, sing, but do everything in fear and misery.
But if I once free myself from my masters, that is from those feelings which make masters formidable, my trouble is past, and I have a master no more.
No: one must sit undistracted and listen in turn to tragic actor or harp player, and not do as the runaways do. At the very moment one of them is attending and praising the actor, he gives a glance all round, and then if someone utters the word “master” he is fluttered and confounded in a moment.
It is shameful that philosophers should take cognizance of the works of Nature in this spirit. For what does “master” mean? No man is master of another man; his masters are only death and life, pleasure and pain. For, apart from them, you may bring me face to face with Caesar and you shall see what constancy I show.
But when he comes in thunder and lightning with these in his train, and I show fear of them, I am only recognizing my master as the runaway does.
But so long as I have respite from them I am just like the runaway watching in the theater; I wash, drink, sing, but do everything in fear and misery.
But if I once free myself from my masters, that is from those feelings which make masters formidable, my trouble is past, and I have a master no more.
—from Epictetus, Discourses 1.29
For most people I know, an education serves as a vehicle for employment or an increase in social status. As such, our contemporary model of learning revolves almost entirely around what the Ancients and the Medievals called the Servile or Mechanical Arts, the skills useful for producing and selling goods and services.
When a man is primarily defined by his professional standing, it will follow that any schooling is geared toward his financial profit.
For some, however, there is still a sense that an education has a deeper purpose, that understanding is noble and worthy for its own sake, and assists us not merely with making more money, but more importantly with strengthening our virtues. What the Ancients and the Medievals called the Liberal Arts were designed to inspire us to rule ourselves by a knowledge of the true and a love of the good.
When a man is primarily defined by his moral standing, it will follow that any schooling is geared toward improving his character.
Only a very few will be willing to follow through on the promise of the Liberal Arts, since they demand a total commitment to a way of life that flies in the face of blind obedience. As the name suggests, such a genuine education offers the only freedom that counts, the liberty to be our own masters, made possible by discovering all human benefits in the excellence of the reason and of the will.
The fanciest lessons will bring me nothing at all if I remain bound to the lure of wealth, pleasure, power, or image. As long as my impressions drag me along, I continue as a slave, owned by the objects that feed my lust, rage, or fear. The true Stoic is a true philosopher, because he rises above the limitations of his circumstances.
This section leads me to reflect on how I am inclined to look over my shoulder, anxious about whether “the boss”, whoever or whatever that may be, will approve or disapprove of me. Yet once I begin to judge for myself, and inform my own conscience, I no longer need to shudder at the approach of a tyrant, or cower in the presence of a wayward passion.
Observe how the shifty players are desperately worried about who might be watching or listening, and so they are oblivious to the fact that they are actually the ones being played. Self-control is the only control that amounts to anything.
For most people I know, an education serves as a vehicle for employment or an increase in social status. As such, our contemporary model of learning revolves almost entirely around what the Ancients and the Medievals called the Servile or Mechanical Arts, the skills useful for producing and selling goods and services.
When a man is primarily defined by his professional standing, it will follow that any schooling is geared toward his financial profit.
For some, however, there is still a sense that an education has a deeper purpose, that understanding is noble and worthy for its own sake, and assists us not merely with making more money, but more importantly with strengthening our virtues. What the Ancients and the Medievals called the Liberal Arts were designed to inspire us to rule ourselves by a knowledge of the true and a love of the good.
When a man is primarily defined by his moral standing, it will follow that any schooling is geared toward improving his character.
Only a very few will be willing to follow through on the promise of the Liberal Arts, since they demand a total commitment to a way of life that flies in the face of blind obedience. As the name suggests, such a genuine education offers the only freedom that counts, the liberty to be our own masters, made possible by discovering all human benefits in the excellence of the reason and of the will.
The fanciest lessons will bring me nothing at all if I remain bound to the lure of wealth, pleasure, power, or image. As long as my impressions drag me along, I continue as a slave, owned by the objects that feed my lust, rage, or fear. The true Stoic is a true philosopher, because he rises above the limitations of his circumstances.
This section leads me to reflect on how I am inclined to look over my shoulder, anxious about whether “the boss”, whoever or whatever that may be, will approve or disapprove of me. Yet once I begin to judge for myself, and inform my own conscience, I no longer need to shudder at the approach of a tyrant, or cower in the presence of a wayward passion.
Observe how the shifty players are desperately worried about who might be watching or listening, and so they are oblivious to the fact that they are actually the ones being played. Self-control is the only control that amounts to anything.
—Reflection written in 5/2001
Sunday, March 26, 2023
Dust
Wendell Berry
The dust motes float
and swerve in the sunbeam,
as lively as worlds,
and I remember my brother
saying, when we were boys,
"We may be living on an atom
in somebody's wallpaper."
and swerve in the sunbeam,
as lively as worlds,
and I remember my brother
saying, when we were boys,
"We may be living on an atom
in somebody's wallpaper."
Saturday, March 25, 2023
Stoic Snippets 190
For since the Universal Nature has made rational animals for the sake of one another, to help one another according to their deserts, but in no way to injure one another, he who transgresses Her will is clearly guilty of impiety towards the Highest Divinity.
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.1
IMAGE: Jean-Marc Nattier, Allegory of Justice Punishing Injustice (1737)
Epictetus, Discourses 1.29.10
Leave other people, persons of no endurance, to argue on these matters to little purpose.
Let them sit in a corner and take their paltry fees, or murmur that no one offers them anything, and come forward yourself and practice what you have learned.
For it is not arguments that are wanting nowadays: no, the books of the Stoics are full of them.
What then is the one thing wanting? We want the man who will apply his arguments, and bear witness to them by action.
This is the character I would have you take up, that we may no longer make use of old examples in the school, but may be able to show an example from our own day.
Let them sit in a corner and take their paltry fees, or murmur that no one offers them anything, and come forward yourself and practice what you have learned.
For it is not arguments that are wanting nowadays: no, the books of the Stoics are full of them.
What then is the one thing wanting? We want the man who will apply his arguments, and bear witness to them by action.
This is the character I would have you take up, that we may no longer make use of old examples in the school, but may be able to show an example from our own day.
—from Epictetus, Discourses 1.29
There is a perfectly good reason why people dismiss our current generation of professional philosophers: we move our mouths, while doing absolutely nothing.
I seem to have fallen into a career full of big heads with no spines, where being clever is more important than being wise, and a decadent leisure takes the place of any vigorous constancy.
It doesn’t surprise me when a corporate lawyer acts this way, though a scholar, supposedly a lover of the truth, ought to know better.
I once believed that a life of formal study was ideal for someone who wished to improve his character, but I am now no longer under such an illusion. If anything, the bickering over footnotes has only made it far too easy for me to be cynical and bitter.
What use is the reading and arguing, when at the end of the day I have not managed to become a more understanding and loving human being?
Let me take what good there is from the theory, and now move forward to engaging in the practice. I must harbor no ill will toward the sophists, but I need to be on my way. Perhaps I can look forward to a time when they choose to join me?
It really doesn’t matter what kind of trade I pursue to put food on the table or a roof over my head, as long as I am willing to do so with prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice.
I am most impressed with a man who is simply decent, one of the greatest compliments we now sadly overlook. An old friend of mine liked to use the Yiddish word mensch to describe such a fellow, and I find it to be a wonderful term.
Now I know a number of people who reject philosophy entirely, believing it to be useless in life, and so they suggest learning welding, carpentry, or plumbing instead, yet I strongly resist any such anti-intellectualism.
By all means, pursue a hardy and honest trade, while always remembering that philosophy, rightly understood, is necessary as the basic measure of right and wrong in all walks of life.
If I can’t understand why I ought to act with virtue first and foremost, no amount of technical skill can save me. The art of “making a living” requires the wisdom to find meaning and purpose to the living.
We certainly do need philosophy, just not an emasculated variety that does nothing except pose and prance about. Once I have studied the best route, it is time to hit the road.
I turn to one of my favorite lines from the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius:
Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.
There is a perfectly good reason why people dismiss our current generation of professional philosophers: we move our mouths, while doing absolutely nothing.
I seem to have fallen into a career full of big heads with no spines, where being clever is more important than being wise, and a decadent leisure takes the place of any vigorous constancy.
It doesn’t surprise me when a corporate lawyer acts this way, though a scholar, supposedly a lover of the truth, ought to know better.
I once believed that a life of formal study was ideal for someone who wished to improve his character, but I am now no longer under such an illusion. If anything, the bickering over footnotes has only made it far too easy for me to be cynical and bitter.
What use is the reading and arguing, when at the end of the day I have not managed to become a more understanding and loving human being?
Let me take what good there is from the theory, and now move forward to engaging in the practice. I must harbor no ill will toward the sophists, but I need to be on my way. Perhaps I can look forward to a time when they choose to join me?
It really doesn’t matter what kind of trade I pursue to put food on the table or a roof over my head, as long as I am willing to do so with prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice.
I am most impressed with a man who is simply decent, one of the greatest compliments we now sadly overlook. An old friend of mine liked to use the Yiddish word mensch to describe such a fellow, and I find it to be a wonderful term.
Now I know a number of people who reject philosophy entirely, believing it to be useless in life, and so they suggest learning welding, carpentry, or plumbing instead, yet I strongly resist any such anti-intellectualism.
By all means, pursue a hardy and honest trade, while always remembering that philosophy, rightly understood, is necessary as the basic measure of right and wrong in all walks of life.
If I can’t understand why I ought to act with virtue first and foremost, no amount of technical skill can save me. The art of “making a living” requires the wisdom to find meaning and purpose to the living.
We certainly do need philosophy, just not an emasculated variety that does nothing except pose and prance about. Once I have studied the best route, it is time to hit the road.
I turn to one of my favorite lines from the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius:
Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.
—Reflection written in 5/2001
Friday, March 24, 2023
Stockdale on Stoicism 32
Stoics belittle physical harm, but this is not braggadocio. They are speaking of it in comparison to the devastating agony of shame they fancied good men generating when they knew in their hearts that they had failed to do their duty vis-a-vis their fellow men or God.
Though pagan, the Stoics had a monotheistic natural religion and were great contributors to Christian thought. The fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man were Stoic concepts prior to Christianity.
In fact, Chrysippus, one of their early theoreticians, made the analogy of what might be called the Soul of the Universe to the breath of a human (pneuma, in Greek).
Saint Paul, a Hellenized Jew brought up in Tarsus, a Stoic town in Asia Minor, always used the Greek work pneuma, or breath, for soul.
—from James B. Stockdale, Master of My Fate: A Stoic Philosopher in a Hanoi Prison
IMAGES: Chrysippus and Saint Paul
Dhammapada 304
Epictetus, Discourses 1.29.9
But suppose that he who has authority pronounces, “I judge you to be godless and unholy”, how does this affect you?
“I am judged to be godless and unholy.”
Nothing more?
“Nothing.”
If he had been giving judgement on a hypothetical proposition and had declared, “I judge the proposition ‘if it be day, there is light’ to be false”, how would it have affected the proposition?
Who is judged here? Who is condemned? The proposition or the man who is deluded about it?
Who in the world then is this who has authority to pronounce upon you? Does he know what godliness or ungodliness is? Has he made a study of it? Has he learned it? Where and with what master?
If a musician pays no heed to him when he pronounces that the lowest note is the highest, nor a geometrician when he decides that the lines from the center of a circle to the circumference are not equal, shall he who is educated in true philosophy pay any heed to an uneducated man when he gives judgement on what is holy and unholy, just and unjust?
What a great wrong for philosophers to be guilty of! Is this what you have learned by coming to school?
—from Epictetus, Discourses 1.29
I won’t lie, I do feel hurt when someone denies a value I hold dear.
Why am I offended? The first question should really be whether I am right or wrong in my assertion, not whether I am better or worse in the eyes of another.
My feelings about approval and disapproval are once again getting in the way of my judgments about the true and the false. You’d think I would have picked up on this pattern earlier; few things are peskier than a stubborn habit.
We regularly try to hurt one another by various forms of rejection, censure, mockery, or exclusion, which only goes to show how quickly we allow human worth to be reduced to a popularity contest. It ties back to our obsession with appearance over reality, to being seen as good instead of simply being good.
While man was made to be a social animal, he is at his worst when he blindly surrenders his conscience to the conventions of the tribe. Be prepared to face some fierce resistance if you wish to think for yourself—the herd enforces a variety of shallow platitudes, and it will be outraged when you fail to comply.
Modernity has its own secular gods, of course, but I have also experienced the old-school recriminations about impiety and heresy among those holy rollers I can’t seem to shake off.
They say I am an apostate, and I find myself shunned around town. I may alternate between feeling guilty and resentful, and then I remember how I am confusing what they claim to know about me with what I actually know about myself.
So I may be condemned as godless and unholy by someone else, and however important he believes himself to be, that is ultimately about him. The true state of my soul is between myself and my Maker.
To get over the initial shock of being dammed to Hell, I can replace the harsh spiritual disapproval with some far more innocuous content. What if he shakes his finger in my face and insists that water is not wet? Or that dogs are just the same as cats? Or that day is night and night is day?
Even as I still desire the good for him, I would shrug off his claims without hesitation. Why should it be any different when he pontificates about anything he does not understand?
Last week a child at the grocery store pointed at me and called me an “ugly faggot.” I smiled at him and went about my business, quite aware that both his sense of aesthetics and morality were not yet properly formed.
It should be no different when the demagogues or the bullies are spouting their nonsense. I choose to be different from them by distinguishing between loving my neighbor and being intimidated by my neighbor.
I won’t lie, I do feel hurt when someone denies a value I hold dear.
Why am I offended? The first question should really be whether I am right or wrong in my assertion, not whether I am better or worse in the eyes of another.
My feelings about approval and disapproval are once again getting in the way of my judgments about the true and the false. You’d think I would have picked up on this pattern earlier; few things are peskier than a stubborn habit.
We regularly try to hurt one another by various forms of rejection, censure, mockery, or exclusion, which only goes to show how quickly we allow human worth to be reduced to a popularity contest. It ties back to our obsession with appearance over reality, to being seen as good instead of simply being good.
While man was made to be a social animal, he is at his worst when he blindly surrenders his conscience to the conventions of the tribe. Be prepared to face some fierce resistance if you wish to think for yourself—the herd enforces a variety of shallow platitudes, and it will be outraged when you fail to comply.
Modernity has its own secular gods, of course, but I have also experienced the old-school recriminations about impiety and heresy among those holy rollers I can’t seem to shake off.
They say I am an apostate, and I find myself shunned around town. I may alternate between feeling guilty and resentful, and then I remember how I am confusing what they claim to know about me with what I actually know about myself.
So I may be condemned as godless and unholy by someone else, and however important he believes himself to be, that is ultimately about him. The true state of my soul is between myself and my Maker.
To get over the initial shock of being dammed to Hell, I can replace the harsh spiritual disapproval with some far more innocuous content. What if he shakes his finger in my face and insists that water is not wet? Or that dogs are just the same as cats? Or that day is night and night is day?
Even as I still desire the good for him, I would shrug off his claims without hesitation. Why should it be any different when he pontificates about anything he does not understand?
Last week a child at the grocery store pointed at me and called me an “ugly faggot.” I smiled at him and went about my business, quite aware that both his sense of aesthetics and morality were not yet properly formed.
It should be no different when the demagogues or the bullies are spouting their nonsense. I choose to be different from them by distinguishing between loving my neighbor and being intimidated by my neighbor.
—Reflection written in 5/2001
IMAGE: Jean-Paul Laurens, The Excommunication of Robert the Pious (1875)
Thursday, March 23, 2023
Sayings of Publilius Syrus 105
Wisdom had rather be buffeted than not be listened to.
Folly had rather be unheard than be buffeted.
Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ 3.56
That we ought to deny ourselves, and to imitate Christ by means of the Cross
1. My Son, so far as you are able to go out of yourself, so far shall you be able to enter into Me. As to desire, no outward thing works internal peace, so the forsaking of self inwardly joins unto God. I will that you learn perfect self-denial, living in My will without contradiction or complaint. Follow Me: I am the way, the truth, and the life. Without the way you cannot go, without the truth you cannot know, without the life you cannot live. I am the Way which you ought to follow; the Truth which you ought to believe; the Life which you ought to hope for. I am the Way unchangeable; the Truth infallible; the Life everlasting. I am the Way altogether straight, the Truth supreme, the true Life, the blessed Life, the uncreated Life. If you remain in My way you shall know the Truth, and the truth shall make you free, and you shall lay hold on eternal life.
2. “If you will enter into life, keep the commandments. If you will know the truth, believe in Me. If you will be perfect, sell all that you have. If you will be My disciple, deny yourself. If you would possess the blessed life, despise the life which now is. If you will be exalted in heaven, humble yourself in the world. If you will reign with Me, bear the cross with Me; for only the servants of the cross find the way of blessedness and of true light.”
3. O Lord Jesus, forasmuch as Your life was straitened and despised by the world, grant unto me to imitate You in despising the world, for the servant is not greater than his lord, nor the disciple above his master. Let Your servant be exercised in Your life, because there is my salvation and true holiness. Whatsoever I read or hear besides it, it refreshes me not, nor gives me delight.
4. “My son, because you know these things and have read them all, blessed shall you be if you do them. He who has My commandments and keeps them, he it is that loves Me, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him, and I will make him to sit down with Me in My Father’s Kingdom.”
5. O Lord Jesus, as You have said and promised, even so let it be unto me, and grant me to prove worthy. I have received the cross at Your hand; I have carried it, and will carry it even unto death, as You have laid it upon me. Truly the life of a truly devoted servant is a cross, but it leads to paradise. I have begun; I may not return back nor leave it.
6. Come, my brothers, let us together go forward. Jesus shall be with us. For Jesus’ sake have we taken up this cross, for Jesus’ sake let us persevere in the cross. He will be our helper, who was our Captain and Forerunner. Behold our King enters in before us, and He will fight for us. Let us follow bravely, let no man fear terrors; let us be prepared to die bravely in battle, and let us not so stain our honor, as to fly from the cross.
IMAGES: The Stations of the Cross from the Church of Notre-Dame-des-Champs, Avranches, Normandy
2. Jesus takes up his Cross
3. Jesus falls the first time
4. Jesus meets his Mother
5. Simon of Cyrene helps Jesus carry the Cross
6. Veronica wipes the face of Jesus
7. Jesus falls for the second time
8. Jesus meets the women of Jerusalem
9. Jesus falls for the third time
10. Jesus is stripped of his garments
11. Jesus is nailed to the Cross
12. Jesus dies upon the Cross
13. Jesus is taken down from the Cross
14. Jesus is laid in the tomb
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