You may therefore be sure that you are at peace with yourself, when no noise reaches you, when no word shakes you out of yourself, whether it be of flattery or of threat, or merely an empty sound buzzing about you with unmeaning din.
"What then?" you say, "is it not sometimes a simpler matter just to avoid the uproar?"
I admit this. Accordingly, I shall change from my present quarters. I merely wished to test myself and to give myself practice. Why need I be tormented any longer, when Ulysses found so simple a cure for his comrades even against the songs of the Sirens? Farewell.
"What then?" you say, "is it not sometimes a simpler matter just to avoid the uproar?"
I admit this. Accordingly, I shall change from my present quarters. I merely wished to test myself and to give myself practice. Why need I be tormented any longer, when Ulysses found so simple a cure for his comrades even against the songs of the Sirens? Farewell.
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 56
So the next time I insist that some noise is too much to bear, or that I can no longer put up with the constant chatter of vacuous conversations going on around me, let me be careful to understand my true meaning.
The sound is a completely natural effect of events unfolding as they should, and any discomfort that comes from it is all about my unwillingness to accept things as they are. The empty talk is a consequence of how other people have chosen to think, and my frustration with their choices is really about my own failure to let them be as they wish.
Before I complain, what can I do about my own attitude? I will usually discover that there are then no grounds for finding fault. I have now learned to hear something beautiful in the cawing and croaking of a crow, and I have been working on listening to anything my fellows have to say as an exercise in compassion.
It will only be when I have come to terms with myself, and established a serenity within my judgments, that I will become capable of coming to terms with the commotions out there in the wide world. It stops being a noise when my mind holds a mastery over my ears. It is no longer wasted speech when I embrace that someone is trying to say something of meaning, however confused.
A few years back, I started to develop an occasional ringing in my left ear, which then gradually became louder and louder. It is now also constant, and while I initially thought I would not be able to live with such an intrusion, I have made my peace with it. On one day, it can remind me not to play my music too loudly. On the next day, it can be a timely warning about how more and more bits of me are going to fall apart, and why that is perfectly fitting and suitable in the order of things.
Yes of course, if it I within my power, I can always decide to move myself to a calmer environment, if that will indeed assist me at being calmer on the inside. Nevertheless, I must remember that no amount of fussing with the circumstances can take of the place of taming my own passions.
I think of my first summer in Texas, when I drove myself to the edge of insanity about the sweltering heat and humidity. By the second summer, I knew to tell myself, over and over again: “Rise above it. It does not need to break you. You are more than the number on a thermometer.”
Quieter quarters are good. A quieter soul is better.
So the next time I insist that some noise is too much to bear, or that I can no longer put up with the constant chatter of vacuous conversations going on around me, let me be careful to understand my true meaning.
The sound is a completely natural effect of events unfolding as they should, and any discomfort that comes from it is all about my unwillingness to accept things as they are. The empty talk is a consequence of how other people have chosen to think, and my frustration with their choices is really about my own failure to let them be as they wish.
Before I complain, what can I do about my own attitude? I will usually discover that there are then no grounds for finding fault. I have now learned to hear something beautiful in the cawing and croaking of a crow, and I have been working on listening to anything my fellows have to say as an exercise in compassion.
It will only be when I have come to terms with myself, and established a serenity within my judgments, that I will become capable of coming to terms with the commotions out there in the wide world. It stops being a noise when my mind holds a mastery over my ears. It is no longer wasted speech when I embrace that someone is trying to say something of meaning, however confused.
A few years back, I started to develop an occasional ringing in my left ear, which then gradually became louder and louder. It is now also constant, and while I initially thought I would not be able to live with such an intrusion, I have made my peace with it. On one day, it can remind me not to play my music too loudly. On the next day, it can be a timely warning about how more and more bits of me are going to fall apart, and why that is perfectly fitting and suitable in the order of things.
Yes of course, if it I within my power, I can always decide to move myself to a calmer environment, if that will indeed assist me at being calmer on the inside. Nevertheless, I must remember that no amount of fussing with the circumstances can take of the place of taming my own passions.
I think of my first summer in Texas, when I drove myself to the edge of insanity about the sweltering heat and humidity. By the second summer, I knew to tell myself, over and over again: “Rise above it. It does not need to break you. You are more than the number on a thermometer.”
Quieter quarters are good. A quieter soul is better.
—Reflection written in 5/2013
IMAGE: Joseph Ducreux, The Silence (c. 1799)
_-_NM_7495_-_Nationalmuseum.jpg)
No comments:
Post a Comment