Accordingly, as I said, I experienced a certain transformation, though it could not be called confusion.
Then at the first glimpse of restored daylight my good spirits returned without forethought or command. And I began to muse and think how foolish we are to fear certain objects to a greater or less degree, since all of them end in the same way.
For what difference does it make whether a watchtower or a mountain crashes down upon us? No difference at all, you will find.
Nevertheless, there will be some men who fear the latter mishap to a greater degree, though both accidents are equally deadly; so true it is that fear looks not to the effect, but to the cause of the effect.
Then at the first glimpse of restored daylight my good spirits returned without forethought or command. And I began to muse and think how foolish we are to fear certain objects to a greater or less degree, since all of them end in the same way.
For what difference does it make whether a watchtower or a mountain crashes down upon us? No difference at all, you will find.
Nevertheless, there will be some men who fear the latter mishap to a greater degree, though both accidents are equally deadly; so true it is that fear looks not to the effect, but to the cause of the effect.
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 57
Now when a Stoic admits he is powerless over certain aspects of his own nature, you know something is up! Yet there is no getting around the fact that there are movements on the inside that are quite involuntary, what we now like to call “subconscious”.
This hardly negates the Stoic model, but rather allows us to draw a clearer line between what is within our power and what is beyond our power, a line that ends up being far closer to home than we might have wished. The trick will be to accept what we cannot control, and to then make the best deliberate use of those circumstances to increase the content of character.
My mood will often change in ways I do not intend or cannot predict, at least not at that particular moment, as old habits are slow to be replaced by new ones. Of all the emotions that may “roll over” me, a careless comfort is the most seductive, but a frantic fear is the most crippling. Though it might not make much sense in my head, my heart is still pounding, as if the very object of my terror were taking hold of me.
When it comes to that greatest of fears, the fear of death itself, I have long been ordering my mind to understand why death is not an evil, though there is still something that makes my hands tremble and my mouth go dry when I face the prospect of my destruction. What am I missing? Is it simply a biological instinct at work?
Let me examine my impressions more carefully. I discover that what terrifies me the most isn’t in the dying itself, but rather in how I could go about dying. I am dwelling on the pain that will go along with it, and the disturbing images of whether the process will be long or short. As Seneca says, the worry is then about the means, not about the end.
Watching one too many horror films has perhaps fired up my imagination, though gazing at the nightly news for all those years probably didn’t help. My mind can come to terms with such obstacles if only I place the details into the bigger picture. In the most practical of ways, I learn to manage my fear by not confusing the lesser with the greater.
If I have lived my life well, be it long or short, it makes no difference whether I am crushed by a falling piano or nibbled to death by rats—the result will still be the same, and that outcome need do me no harm.
Now when a Stoic admits he is powerless over certain aspects of his own nature, you know something is up! Yet there is no getting around the fact that there are movements on the inside that are quite involuntary, what we now like to call “subconscious”.
This hardly negates the Stoic model, but rather allows us to draw a clearer line between what is within our power and what is beyond our power, a line that ends up being far closer to home than we might have wished. The trick will be to accept what we cannot control, and to then make the best deliberate use of those circumstances to increase the content of character.
My mood will often change in ways I do not intend or cannot predict, at least not at that particular moment, as old habits are slow to be replaced by new ones. Of all the emotions that may “roll over” me, a careless comfort is the most seductive, but a frantic fear is the most crippling. Though it might not make much sense in my head, my heart is still pounding, as if the very object of my terror were taking hold of me.
When it comes to that greatest of fears, the fear of death itself, I have long been ordering my mind to understand why death is not an evil, though there is still something that makes my hands tremble and my mouth go dry when I face the prospect of my destruction. What am I missing? Is it simply a biological instinct at work?
Let me examine my impressions more carefully. I discover that what terrifies me the most isn’t in the dying itself, but rather in how I could go about dying. I am dwelling on the pain that will go along with it, and the disturbing images of whether the process will be long or short. As Seneca says, the worry is then about the means, not about the end.
Watching one too many horror films has perhaps fired up my imagination, though gazing at the nightly news for all those years probably didn’t help. My mind can come to terms with such obstacles if only I place the details into the bigger picture. In the most practical of ways, I learn to manage my fear by not confusing the lesser with the greater.
If I have lived my life well, be it long or short, it makes no difference whether I am crushed by a falling piano or nibbled to death by rats—the result will still be the same, and that outcome need do me no harm.
—Reflection written in 5/2013
IMAGE: Paul Cézanne, Young Man and Skull (1898)
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