Will you complain, “No man pays any attention to me, a man and a scholar”?
Of course, for you are bad and useless. Wasps might as well be indignant because no one heeds them, but all avoid them and anyone who can strikes and crushes them. Your sting is such that you cause pain and trouble to any one you strike with it. What would you have us do to you? There is no place to put you.
Of course, for you are bad and useless. Wasps might as well be indignant because no one heeds them, but all avoid them and anyone who can strikes and crushes them. Your sting is such that you cause pain and trouble to any one you strike with it. What would you have us do to you? There is no place to put you.
—from Epictetus, Discourses 2.4
I always know I am straying from the path when I start feeling the urge to complain about how poorly everyone else is treating me, and how the world is denying me what I believe to be rightfully mine. I suppose I think I will somehow feel better about myself if I can point to the wrongs of others.
This is one of the hardest habits to break, and I often catch myself in mid-sentence. I need to go all the way back to the source, to my confusion about where to find the goods of life. If only I choose to improve my own thoughts and deeds, there will be no grounds for grievances.
Why is a wicked man so worried about whether anyone bothers to pay attention to him? Is he not confident enough in his own merits? Does it not occur to him that if he stopped craving and demanding respect, he might actually begin receiving some respect, from the right sort of people?
Why does the so-called scholar expect his learning to give him any greater standing? If he were truly wise, would he not cease to confuse his outer status with his inner worth? When will he realize that becoming more learned would entail being at peace, both with himself and with others?
These are indeed uncomfortable questions, and while they are part of a story about a visitor to Epictetus, I am really directing them back at myself, as I imagine was intended. While I demand to be trusted, I am forgetting how I myself have failed to act in good faith, and my sense of isolation is a direct consequence of my own breaking of the social bonds.
If I no longer wish to be avoided or swatted like a wasp, I might begin by not behaving so much like a wasp. Such Stoic solutions appear so radical, yet they are so incredibly simple. I have no proper place precisely because I have chosen to neglect my proper place.
Whenever someone gives me a nasty verbal thrashing, I will still feel angry, but then I might consider whether the message, however severe, should be taken as an opportunity for self-improvement. If Epictetus is right to fume, then let me heed his advice. If I am sure he is wrong, I need not become enraged at his error.
I’m afraid I thrive on references others find rather obscure, so this passage brings to my mind a painting by Lucas Cranach, Cupid Complaining to Venus. Having taken a honeycomb out of a tree, he is then upset about being attacked by the bees. The story comes from the poet Theocritus:
As Cupid was stealing honey from the hive,
I always know I am straying from the path when I start feeling the urge to complain about how poorly everyone else is treating me, and how the world is denying me what I believe to be rightfully mine. I suppose I think I will somehow feel better about myself if I can point to the wrongs of others.
This is one of the hardest habits to break, and I often catch myself in mid-sentence. I need to go all the way back to the source, to my confusion about where to find the goods of life. If only I choose to improve my own thoughts and deeds, there will be no grounds for grievances.
Why is a wicked man so worried about whether anyone bothers to pay attention to him? Is he not confident enough in his own merits? Does it not occur to him that if he stopped craving and demanding respect, he might actually begin receiving some respect, from the right sort of people?
Why does the so-called scholar expect his learning to give him any greater standing? If he were truly wise, would he not cease to confuse his outer status with his inner worth? When will he realize that becoming more learned would entail being at peace, both with himself and with others?
These are indeed uncomfortable questions, and while they are part of a story about a visitor to Epictetus, I am really directing them back at myself, as I imagine was intended. While I demand to be trusted, I am forgetting how I myself have failed to act in good faith, and my sense of isolation is a direct consequence of my own breaking of the social bonds.
If I no longer wish to be avoided or swatted like a wasp, I might begin by not behaving so much like a wasp. Such Stoic solutions appear so radical, yet they are so incredibly simple. I have no proper place precisely because I have chosen to neglect my proper place.
Whenever someone gives me a nasty verbal thrashing, I will still feel angry, but then I might consider whether the message, however severe, should be taken as an opportunity for self-improvement. If Epictetus is right to fume, then let me heed his advice. If I am sure he is wrong, I need not become enraged at his error.
I’m afraid I thrive on references others find rather obscure, so this passage brings to my mind a painting by Lucas Cranach, Cupid Complaining to Venus. Having taken a honeycomb out of a tree, he is then upset about being attacked by the bees. The story comes from the poet Theocritus:
As Cupid was stealing honey from the hive,
That are mixed with sadness and bring us pain.
Like Cupid, I am busy shooting my arrows at everyone else, though I am indignant when I’m the one who gets hurt. My own desires produce my many losses.
—Reflection written in 6/2001
IMAGE: Lucas Cranach the Elder, Cupid Complaining to Venus (c. 1527)
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