The mind which starts at words or at chance sounds is unstable and has not yet withdrawn into itself; it contains within itself an element of anxiety and rooted fear, and this makes one a prey to care, as our Vergil says:
“I, whom of yore no dart could cause to flee,
Nor Greeks, with crowded lines of infantry.
Now shake at every sound, and fear the air,
Both for my child and for the load I bear.”
This man in his first state is wise; he blenches neither at the brandished spear, nor at the clashing armor of the serried foe, nor at the din of the stricken city.
This man in his second state lacks knowledge fearing for his own concerns, he pales at every sound; any cry is taken for the battle-shout and overthrows him; the slightest disturbance renders him breathless with fear. It is the load that makes him afraid.
Select anyone you please from among your favorites of Fortune, trailing their many responsibilities, carrying their many burdens, and you will behold a picture of Vergil's hero, "fearing both for his child and for the load he bears."
“I, whom of yore no dart could cause to flee,
Nor Greeks, with crowded lines of infantry.
Now shake at every sound, and fear the air,
Both for my child and for the load I bear.”
This man in his first state is wise; he blenches neither at the brandished spear, nor at the clashing armor of the serried foe, nor at the din of the stricken city.
This man in his second state lacks knowledge fearing for his own concerns, he pales at every sound; any cry is taken for the battle-shout and overthrows him; the slightest disturbance renders him breathless with fear. It is the load that makes him afraid.
Select anyone you please from among your favorites of Fortune, trailing their many responsibilities, carrying their many burdens, and you will behold a picture of Vergil's hero, "fearing both for his child and for the load he bears."
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 56
I am grateful I do have an uncanny knack for facing a sudden crisis, and it has now served me well many times, at those critical moments when push comes to shove. If you don’t give me the chance to think about it too much, I am surprisingly capable of acting with absolute commitment.
Yet I do run into a problem if I have a moment to doubt myself, when there is an ominous pause, and then, as time seems to slow down, I begin to question all the values I claim to hold so dear. The fear is a consequence of my “backpedaling”, of my uncertainty about who I should be. It’s quite an ugly sight!
Once again, it’s not the thinking itself that is the obstacle, but rather the disordered thinking that gives me pause. It stems from deeply held assumptions about the relationship of right and wrong to pleasure and pain. I understand something to be virtuous, while in my gut I worry about all the hurt that will come with it.
When my hands start trembling, and my entire body grows cold and numb, I may attribute it to basic biology. No, most of the time it is because I am terrified of an idea, not because I am terrified of suffering. More properly, my flawed judgments about pain have made the prospect of pain, or of death, such a barrier.
It has taken me far longer to appreciate Aeneas as a hero than it has for me to admire Hector, or even Odysseus. That’s all on me, and it is no reflection on either Vergil or Homer.
The “first state” Seneca describes is that of any person who possesses an informed conscience. The “second state” is what happens when the worry about fortune, a dwelling upon the circumstances at the expense of character, rears its ugly head. I imagine even the best of folks are subject to such anxieties.
That my instincts will produce feelings of fear is not in question, and that is why any truly brave person knows that courage is hardly the absence of fear, but the mastery of fear. I must resist the current trend of reducing human nature to the passions alone—what I will consciously do with them is what matters.
The more I choose to care about what will become of me, the less I choose to care about what I can make of myself.
I am grateful I do have an uncanny knack for facing a sudden crisis, and it has now served me well many times, at those critical moments when push comes to shove. If you don’t give me the chance to think about it too much, I am surprisingly capable of acting with absolute commitment.
Yet I do run into a problem if I have a moment to doubt myself, when there is an ominous pause, and then, as time seems to slow down, I begin to question all the values I claim to hold so dear. The fear is a consequence of my “backpedaling”, of my uncertainty about who I should be. It’s quite an ugly sight!
Once again, it’s not the thinking itself that is the obstacle, but rather the disordered thinking that gives me pause. It stems from deeply held assumptions about the relationship of right and wrong to pleasure and pain. I understand something to be virtuous, while in my gut I worry about all the hurt that will come with it.
When my hands start trembling, and my entire body grows cold and numb, I may attribute it to basic biology. No, most of the time it is because I am terrified of an idea, not because I am terrified of suffering. More properly, my flawed judgments about pain have made the prospect of pain, or of death, such a barrier.
It has taken me far longer to appreciate Aeneas as a hero than it has for me to admire Hector, or even Odysseus. That’s all on me, and it is no reflection on either Vergil or Homer.
The “first state” Seneca describes is that of any person who possesses an informed conscience. The “second state” is what happens when the worry about fortune, a dwelling upon the circumstances at the expense of character, rears its ugly head. I imagine even the best of folks are subject to such anxieties.
That my instincts will produce feelings of fear is not in question, and that is why any truly brave person knows that courage is hardly the absence of fear, but the mastery of fear. I must resist the current trend of reducing human nature to the passions alone—what I will consciously do with them is what matters.
The more I choose to care about what will become of me, the less I choose to care about what I can make of myself.
—Reflection written in 5/2013
IMAGE: Federico Barocci, Aeneas Fleeing from Troy (1598)
No comments:
Post a Comment