You have buried one whom you loved; look about for someone to love. It is better to replace your friend than to weep for him.
What I am about to add is, I know, a very hackneyed remark, but I shall not omit it simply because it is a common phrase: A man ends his grief by the mere passing of time, even if he has not ended it of his own accord. But the most shameful cure for sorrow, in the case of a sensible man, is to grow weary of sorrowing. I should prefer you to abandon grief, rather than have grief abandon you; and you should stop grieving as soon as possible, since, even if you wish to do so, it is impossible to keep it up for a long time.
Our forefathers have enacted that, in the case of women, a year should be the limit for mourning; not that they needed to mourn for so long, but that they should mourn no longer. In the case of men, no rules are laid down, because to mourn at all is not regarded as honorable.
For all that, what woman can you show me, of all the pathetic females that could scarcely be dragged away from the funeral-pile or torn from the corpse, whose tears have lasted a whole month? Nothing becomes offensive so quickly as grief; when fresh, it finds someone to console it and attracts one or another to itself; but after becoming chronic, it is ridiculed, and rightly. For it is either assumed or foolish.
What I am about to add is, I know, a very hackneyed remark, but I shall not omit it simply because it is a common phrase: A man ends his grief by the mere passing of time, even if he has not ended it of his own accord. But the most shameful cure for sorrow, in the case of a sensible man, is to grow weary of sorrowing. I should prefer you to abandon grief, rather than have grief abandon you; and you should stop grieving as soon as possible, since, even if you wish to do so, it is impossible to keep it up for a long time.
Our forefathers have enacted that, in the case of women, a year should be the limit for mourning; not that they needed to mourn for so long, but that they should mourn no longer. In the case of men, no rules are laid down, because to mourn at all is not regarded as honorable.
For all that, what woman can you show me, of all the pathetic females that could scarcely be dragged away from the funeral-pile or torn from the corpse, whose tears have lasted a whole month? Nothing becomes offensive so quickly as grief; when fresh, it finds someone to console it and attracts one or another to itself; but after becoming chronic, it is ridiculed, and rightly. For it is either assumed or foolish.
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 63
It is not that a friend is somehow disposable, but rather that if a friend must pass, as all things ultimately must do, then this is not a reason to despair of love. I have an unfortunate tendency to give up on others, and to give up on myself, when I face a setback, and I must remember that friendship is never to be rejected simply because a moment has gone. I am now called to lift myself up, and to give of myself for the next moment—in that case, nothing can be said to have been lost at all.
Seneca addresses the problem of lasting grief far more closely in his three Consolations, which I must admit I can find very difficult to read, precisely because they go straight to the heart of my own sort of sorrow.
I initially feel misunderstood when he stresses the necessity of “moving on”, because it sounds too much like a heartless criticism, and yet what I am missing is the fact that I am the only hindrance to my own recovery, and that I urgently need to take control of myself instead of allowing myself to be tossed and turned by circumstances.
No, Seneca is absolutely right to put the ball back in my court. That he is taking the time to offer comfort is itself proof of his sympathy, and he wishes for us, whatever the specifics of our heartache, to finally find peace of mind. The passage of time can certainly remove, or at least diminish, grief, though that avoids the central problem, my unwillingness to become my own master.
If the sadness is to drag on and on, and I then only become tired of carrying it, I haven’t gotten to the root of the matter, and the next upset in my life will be just as severe. While I should not seek to deny my emotions, I should take them by the horns. Le them say what the must say, and then let me make my judgment about them, with firmness and finality.
I don’t know if a woman should mourn for no more than a year, or if a man should not be seen to be mourning at all, yet I do know that choosing to dwell on a loss is a betrayal of my responsibility to myself. Don’t ignore it, don’t deny it, but be sure to let it know who’s the boss. My own thinking ends up being my own worst enemy.
It is not that a friend is somehow disposable, but rather that if a friend must pass, as all things ultimately must do, then this is not a reason to despair of love. I have an unfortunate tendency to give up on others, and to give up on myself, when I face a setback, and I must remember that friendship is never to be rejected simply because a moment has gone. I am now called to lift myself up, and to give of myself for the next moment—in that case, nothing can be said to have been lost at all.
Seneca addresses the problem of lasting grief far more closely in his three Consolations, which I must admit I can find very difficult to read, precisely because they go straight to the heart of my own sort of sorrow.
I initially feel misunderstood when he stresses the necessity of “moving on”, because it sounds too much like a heartless criticism, and yet what I am missing is the fact that I am the only hindrance to my own recovery, and that I urgently need to take control of myself instead of allowing myself to be tossed and turned by circumstances.
No, Seneca is absolutely right to put the ball back in my court. That he is taking the time to offer comfort is itself proof of his sympathy, and he wishes for us, whatever the specifics of our heartache, to finally find peace of mind. The passage of time can certainly remove, or at least diminish, grief, though that avoids the central problem, my unwillingness to become my own master.
If the sadness is to drag on and on, and I then only become tired of carrying it, I haven’t gotten to the root of the matter, and the next upset in my life will be just as severe. While I should not seek to deny my emotions, I should take them by the horns. Le them say what the must say, and then let me make my judgment about them, with firmness and finality.
I don’t know if a woman should mourn for no more than a year, or if a man should not be seen to be mourning at all, yet I do know that choosing to dwell on a loss is a betrayal of my responsibility to myself. Don’t ignore it, don’t deny it, but be sure to let it know who’s the boss. My own thinking ends up being my own worst enemy.
—Reflection written in 6/2013
IMAGE: Bertha Wegmann, Despair (c. 1900)
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