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
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