Sunday, March 31, 2024
Saturday, March 30, 2024
Friday, March 29, 2024
Xenophon, Memorabilia of Socrates 31
Socrates had two ways of dealing with the difficulties of his friends: where ignorance was the cause, he tried to meet the trouble by a dose of common sense; or where want and poverty were to blame, by lessoning them that they should assist one another according to their ability.
And here I may mention certain incidents which occurred within my own knowledge. How, for instance, he chanced upon Aristarchus wearing the look of one who suffered from a fit of the "sullens," and thus accosted him.
Socrates: "You seem to have some trouble on your mind, Aristarchus; if so, you should share it with your friends. Perhaps together we might lighten the weight of it a little."
Aristarchus answered: "Yes, Socrates, I am in sore straits indeed. Ever since the party strife declared itself in the city, what with the rush of people to Piraeus, and the wholesale banishments, I have been fairly at the mercy of my poor deserted female relatives. Sisters, nieces, cousins, they have all come flocking to me for protection. I have fourteen freeborn souls, I tell you, under my single roof, and how are we to live?
"We can get nothing out of the soil—that is in the hands of the enemy; nothing from my house property, for there is scarcely a living soul left in the city; my furniture? no one will buy it; money? there is none to be borrowed—you would have a better chance to find it by looking for it on the road than to borrow it from a banker.
"Yes, Socrates, to stand by and see one's relatives die of hunger is hard indeed, and yet to feed so many at such a pinch impossible."
After he listened to the story, Socrates asked: "How comes it that Ceramon, with so many mouths to feed, not only contrives to furnish himself and them with the necessaries of life, but to realize a handsome surplus, whilst you being in like plight are afraid you will one and all perish of starvation for want of the necessaries of life?"
Aristarchus: "Why, bless your soul, do you not see he has only slaves and I have freeborn souls to feed?"
Socrates: "And which should you say were the better human beings, the freeborn members of your household or Ceramon's slaves?"
Aristarchus: "The free souls under my roof without a doubt."
Socrates: "Is it not a shame, then, that he with his baser folk to back him should be in easy circumstances, while you and your far superior household are in difficulties?"
Aristarchus: "To be sure it is, when he has only a set of handicraftsmen to feed, and I my liberally-educated household."
Socrates: "What is a handicraftsman? Does not the term apply to all who can make any sort of useful product or commodity?"
Aristarchus: "Certainly."
Socrates: "Barley meal is a useful product, is it not?"
Aristarchus: "Preeminently so."
Socrates: "And loaves of bread?"
Aristarchus: "No less."
Socrates: "Well, and what do you say to cloaks for men and for women—tunics, mantles, vests?"
Aristarchus: "Yes, they are all highly useful commodities."
Socrates: "Then your household do not know how to make any of these?"
Aristarchus: "On the contrary, I believe they can make them all."
Socrates: "Then you are not aware that by means of the manufacture of one of these alone—his barley meal store—Nausicydes not only maintains himself and his domestics, but many pigs and cattle besides, and realizes such large profits that he frequently contributes to the state benevolences; while there is Cyrebus, again, who, out of a bread factory, more than maintains the whole of his establishment, and lives in the lap of luxury; and Demeas of Collytus gets a livelihood out of a cloak business, and Menon as a mantua-maker, and so, again, more than half the Megarians by the making of vests."
Aristarchus: "Bless me, yes! They have got a set of barbarian fellows, whom they purchase and keep, to manufacture by forced labor whatever takes their fancy. My kinswomen, I need not tell you, are freeborn ladies."
Socrates: "Then, on the ground that they are freeborn and your kinswomen, you think that they ought to do nothing but eat and sleep? Or is it your opinion that people who live in this way—I speak of freeborn people in general—lead happier lives, and are more to be congratulated, than those who give their time and attention to such useful arts of life as they are skilled in?
"Is this what you see in the world, that for the purpose of learning what it is well to know, and of recollecting the lessons taught, or with a view to health and strength of body, or for the sake of acquiring and preserving all that gives life its charm, idleness and inattention are found to be helpful, whilst work and study are simply a dead loss?
"Pray, when those relatives of yours were taught what you tell me they know, did they learn it as barren information which they would never turn to practical account, or, on the contrary, as something with which they were to be seriously concerned some day, and from which they were to reap advantage? Do human beings in general attain to well-tempered manhood by a course of idling, or by carefully attending to what will be of use? Which will help a man the more to grow in justice and uprightness, to be up and doing, or to sit with folded hands revolving the ways and means of existence?
"As things now stand, if I am not mistaken, there is no love lost between you. You cannot help feeling that they are costly to you, and they must see that you find them a burden? This is a perilous state of affairs, in which hatred and bitterness have every prospect of increasing, whilst the preexisting bond of affection is likely to be snapped.
"But now, if only you allow them free scope for their energies, when you come to see how useful they can be, you will grow quite fond of them, and they, when they perceive that they can please you, will cling to their benefactor warmly.
"Thus, with the memory of former kindnesses made sweeter, you will increase the grace which flows from kindnesses tenfold; you will in consequence be knit in closer bonds of love and domesticity. If, indeed, they were called upon to do any shameful work, let them choose death rather than that; but now they know, it would seem, the very arts and accomplishments which are regarded as the loveliest and the most suitable for women; and the things which we know, any of us, are just those which we can best perform, that is to say, with ease and expedition; it is a joy to do them, and the result is beautiful.
"Do not hesitate, then, to initiate your friends in what will bring advantage to them and you alike; probably they will gladly respond to your summons."
"Well, upon my word," Aristarchus answered, "I like so well what you say, Socrates, that though hitherto I have not been disposed to borrow, knowing that when I had spent what I got I should not be in a condition to repay, I think I can now bring myself to do so in order to raise a fund for these works."
Thereupon a capital was provided; wools were purchased; the good man's relatives set to work, and even whilst they breakfasted they worked, and on and on till work was ended and they supped.
Smiles took the place of frowns; they no longer looked askance with suspicion, but full into each other's eyes with happiness. They loved their kinsman for his kindness to them. He became attached to them as helpmates; and the end of it all was, he came to Socrates and told him with delight how matters fared; "and now," he added, "they tax me with being the only drone in the house, who sit and eat the bread of idleness."
To which Socrates: "Why do not you tell them the fable of the dog? Once on a time, so goes the story, when beasts could speak, the sheep said to her master, 'What a marvel is this, master, that to us, your own sheep, who provide you with fleeces and lambs and cheese, you give nothing, save only what we may nibble off earth's bosom; but with this dog of yours, who provides you with nothing of the sort, you share the very meat out of your mouth.'
"When the dog heard these words, he answered promptly, 'Ay, in good sooth, for is it not I who keep you safe and sound, you sheep, so that you are not stolen by man nor harried by wolves; since, if I did not keep watch over you, you would not be able so much as to graze afield, fearing to be destroyed.'
"And so, says the tale, the sheep had to admit that the dog was rightly preferred to themselves in honor. And so do you tell your flock yonder that like the dog in the fable you are their guardian and overseer, and it is thanks to you that they are protected from evil and evildoers, so that they work their work and live their lives in blissful security."
—from Xenophon, Memorabilia 2.7
IMAGE: Anton Mauve, Shepherd and Sheep (c. 1880)
Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 3.29
M. It may be said, on the other side, “Who is so mad as to grieve of his own accord?” Pain proceeds from nature, which you must submit to, say they, agreeably to what even your own Crantor teaches, for it presses and gains upon you unavoidably, and cannot possibly be resisted.
So that the very same Oileus, in Sophocles, who had before comforted Telamon on the death of Ajax, on hearing of the death of his own son, is broken-hearted. On this alteration of his mind we have these lines:
“Show me the man so well by wisdom taught
That what he charges to another’s fault,
When like affliction doth himself betide,
True to his own wise counsel will abide.”
Now, when they urge these things, their endeavor is to prove that nature is absolutely and wholly irresistible; and yet the same people allow that we take greater grief on ourselves than nature requires. What madness is it, then, in us to require the same from others? But there are many reasons for our taking grief on us.
The first is from the opinion of some evil, on the discovery and certainty of which grief comes of course.
Besides, many people are persuaded that they are doing something very acceptable to the dead when they lament bitterly over them.
To these may be added a kind of womanish superstition, in imagining that when they have been stricken by the afflictions sent by the Gods, to acknowledge themselves afflicted and humbled by them is the readiest way of appeasing them.
But most men appear to be unaware what contradictions these things are full of. They commend those who die calmly, but they blame those who can bear the loss of another with the same calmness, as if it were possible that it should be true, as is occasionally said in love speeches, that anyone can love another more than himself.
There is, indeed, something excellent in this, and, if you examine it, something no less just than true, that we love those who ought to be most dear to us as well as we love ourselves; but to love them more than ourselves is absolutely impossible; nor is it desirable in friendship that I should love my friend more than myself, or that he should love me so; for this would occasion much confusion in life, and break in upon all the duties of it.
So that the very same Oileus, in Sophocles, who had before comforted Telamon on the death of Ajax, on hearing of the death of his own son, is broken-hearted. On this alteration of his mind we have these lines:
“Show me the man so well by wisdom taught
That what he charges to another’s fault,
When like affliction doth himself betide,
True to his own wise counsel will abide.”
Now, when they urge these things, their endeavor is to prove that nature is absolutely and wholly irresistible; and yet the same people allow that we take greater grief on ourselves than nature requires. What madness is it, then, in us to require the same from others? But there are many reasons for our taking grief on us.
The first is from the opinion of some evil, on the discovery and certainty of which grief comes of course.
Besides, many people are persuaded that they are doing something very acceptable to the dead when they lament bitterly over them.
To these may be added a kind of womanish superstition, in imagining that when they have been stricken by the afflictions sent by the Gods, to acknowledge themselves afflicted and humbled by them is the readiest way of appeasing them.
But most men appear to be unaware what contradictions these things are full of. They commend those who die calmly, but they blame those who can bear the loss of another with the same calmness, as if it were possible that it should be true, as is occasionally said in love speeches, that anyone can love another more than himself.
There is, indeed, something excellent in this, and, if you examine it, something no less just than true, that we love those who ought to be most dear to us as well as we love ourselves; but to love them more than ourselves is absolutely impossible; nor is it desirable in friendship that I should love my friend more than myself, or that he should love me so; for this would occasion much confusion in life, and break in upon all the duties of it.
—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 3.29
From my own struggles, I know full well how the assumption that grief is an irresistible force becomes the very cause of my capitulation; once I tell myself it can’t be done, I have already doomed myself to failure.
Behind it all, I am working from the false premise that man is essentially a creature ruled by his passions, not a being also endowed with reason and will, which permit him to order his feelings according to his understanding of meaning and purpose.
Such a reduction of human nature to the merely appetitive, as expressed in the popular sentiment of “If it feels good, do it!”, reveals itself in many other aspects of life. For its many technical advancements, our society is quite adept at treating people more like beasts than men, and so it comes as little surprise that we end up acting more like devils than angels.
Long after the befuddlement of adolescence, for example, I remain amazed at how many adults still take it for granted that people must inevitably be sexually promiscuous, regardless of their judgments, because the desire is somehow invincible. The best we can do, they say, is to suppress the consequences.
We end up doing much the same when it comes to sadness, supposing that the emotion must make the call, and can only be numbed by medications or the diversion of other powerful emotions. There is, tragically, no other solution when defining a man by his circumstances means that any loss is viewed as a negation of his worth,
The confusion gets us into many contradictions, including the way we hypocritically scold others for being depressed, while still refusing to “get over it” when our own hearts are broken, or the tendency to praise one kind of constancy while condemning another, depending on how it fits our own conveniences and moods. Since the theory was never coherent, it immediately falls apart when applied in practice.
While the specific cause may not always be readily apparent, there are always reasons for our particular emotional states. To despair of an answer is to abandon the power of judgment itself, and to accept grief without question, as with the existential dread of our time, is to lay down our arms before the battle has even begun.
Sometimes we are desolate because we are mistaken about the source of the true good, or because we feel that we have a duty to mourn, or because we believe that expressing grief will win us Divine favor. Usually, however, we bemoan our fates because we have simply chosen not to reflect on who we are and why we are here—we are asleep on the watch.
Having subjected myself to the agony of lost love, I can further attest how it is a noble and wonderful thing to love another without condition, and yet it is a degraded and terrible thing to believe that a love for another demands hating oneself. Despite the clinging habit of wallowing in defeat, I recognize why my own choices, and no one else’s, are the root of my melancholy. Such growth is a proof of how the pain of loss doesn’t have to be terminal.
From my own struggles, I know full well how the assumption that grief is an irresistible force becomes the very cause of my capitulation; once I tell myself it can’t be done, I have already doomed myself to failure.
Behind it all, I am working from the false premise that man is essentially a creature ruled by his passions, not a being also endowed with reason and will, which permit him to order his feelings according to his understanding of meaning and purpose.
Such a reduction of human nature to the merely appetitive, as expressed in the popular sentiment of “If it feels good, do it!”, reveals itself in many other aspects of life. For its many technical advancements, our society is quite adept at treating people more like beasts than men, and so it comes as little surprise that we end up acting more like devils than angels.
Long after the befuddlement of adolescence, for example, I remain amazed at how many adults still take it for granted that people must inevitably be sexually promiscuous, regardless of their judgments, because the desire is somehow invincible. The best we can do, they say, is to suppress the consequences.
We end up doing much the same when it comes to sadness, supposing that the emotion must make the call, and can only be numbed by medications or the diversion of other powerful emotions. There is, tragically, no other solution when defining a man by his circumstances means that any loss is viewed as a negation of his worth,
The confusion gets us into many contradictions, including the way we hypocritically scold others for being depressed, while still refusing to “get over it” when our own hearts are broken, or the tendency to praise one kind of constancy while condemning another, depending on how it fits our own conveniences and moods. Since the theory was never coherent, it immediately falls apart when applied in practice.
While the specific cause may not always be readily apparent, there are always reasons for our particular emotional states. To despair of an answer is to abandon the power of judgment itself, and to accept grief without question, as with the existential dread of our time, is to lay down our arms before the battle has even begun.
Sometimes we are desolate because we are mistaken about the source of the true good, or because we feel that we have a duty to mourn, or because we believe that expressing grief will win us Divine favor. Usually, however, we bemoan our fates because we have simply chosen not to reflect on who we are and why we are here—we are asleep on the watch.
Having subjected myself to the agony of lost love, I can further attest how it is a noble and wonderful thing to love another without condition, and yet it is a degraded and terrible thing to believe that a love for another demands hating oneself. Despite the clinging habit of wallowing in defeat, I recognize why my own choices, and no one else’s, are the root of my melancholy. Such growth is a proof of how the pain of loss doesn’t have to be terminal.
—Reflection written in 12/1998
IMAGE: Gustave Moreau, The Death of Sappho (c. 1875)
Thursday, March 28, 2024
Elements and Time
Jan van den Hoecke, Allegory of the Four Elements (c. 1640)
Jan van den Hoecke, The Elements and Time (c. 1640)
Jan van den Hoecke, The Triumph of Time (c. 1640)
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Providence and Generosity
Jan van den Hoecke, The Providence of the King ( c. 1635)
Jan van den Hoecke, The Generosity of the King ( c. 1635)
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Monday, March 25, 2024
Man's Search for Meaning 7
Cold curiosity predominated even in Auschwitz, somehow detaching the mind from its surroundings, which came to be regarded with a kind of objectivity. At that time one cultivated this state of mind as a means of protection. We were anxious to know what would happen next; and what would be the consequence, for example, of our standing in the open air, in the chill of late autumn, stark naked, and still wet from the showers. In the next few days our curiosity evolved into surprise; surprise that we did not catch cold.
There were many similar surprises in store for new arrivals. The medical men among us learned first of all: "Textbooks tell lies!" Somewhere it is said that man cannot exist without sleep for more than a stated number of hours. Quite wrong! I had been convinced that there were certain things I just could not do: I could not sleep without this or I could not live with that or the other. The first night in Auschwitz we slept in beds which were constructed in tiers. On each tier (measuring about six-and-a- half to eight feet) slept nine men, directly on the boards. Two blankets were shared by each nine men. We could, of course, lie only on our sides, crowded and huddled against each other, which had some advantages because of the bitter cold. Though it was forbidden to take shoes up to the bunks, some people did use them secretly as pillows in spite of the fact that they were caked with mud. Otherwise one's head had to rest on the crook of an almost dislocated arm. And yet sleep came and brought oblivion and relief from pain for a few hours.
I would like to mention a few similar surprises on how much we could endure: we were unable to clean our teeth, and yet, in spite of that and a severe vitamin deficiency, we had healthier gums than ever before. We had to wear the same shirts for half a year, until they had lost all appearance of being shirts. For days we were unable to wash, even partially, because of frozen water-pipes, and yet the sores and abrasions on hands which were dirty from work in the soil did not suppurate (that is, unless there was frostbite). Or for instance, a light sleeper, who used to be disturbed by the slightest noise in the next room, now found himself lying pressed against a comrade who snored loudly a few inches from his ear and yet slept quite soundly through the noise.
If someone now asked of us the truth of Dostoevsky’s statement that flatly defines man as a being who can get used to anything, we would reply, "Yes, a man can get used to anything, but do not ask us how." But our psychological investigations have not taken us that far yet; neither had we prisoners reached that point. We were still in the first phase of our psychological reactions.
—from Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Maxims of Goethe 39
Before the storm breaks, the dust rises violently for the last time—the dust that is soon to be laid forever.
IMAGE: Pierre Auguste Cot, The Storm (1880)
Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 3.28
M. But what is there more effectual to dispel grief than the discovery that it answers no purpose, and has been undergone to no account? Therefore, if we can get rid of it, we need never have been subject to it.
It must be acknowledged, then, that men take up grief wilfully and knowingly; and this appears from the patience of those who, after they have been exercised in afflictions and are better able to bear whatever befalls them, suppose themselves hardened against fortune; as that person in Euripides,
“Had this the first essay of fortune been,
And I no storms thro’ all my life had seen,
Wild as a colt I’d broke from reason’s sway;
But frequent griefs have taught me to obey.”
As, then, the frequent bearing of misery makes grief the lighter, we must necessarily perceive that the cause and original of it does not lie in the calamity itself. Your principal philosophers, or lovers of wisdom, though they have not yet arrived at perfect wisdom, are not they sensible that they are in the greatest evil? For they are foolish, and foolishness is the greatest of all evils, and yet they lament not.
How shall we account for this? Because opinion is not fixed upon that kind of evil, it is not our opinion that it is right, meet, and our duty to be uneasy because we are not all wise men. Whereas this opinion is strongly affixed to that uneasiness where mourning is concerned, which is the greatest of all grief.
Therefore Aristotle, when he blames some ancient philosophers for imagining that by their genius they had brought philosophy to the highest perfection, says, they must be either extremely foolish or extremely vain; but that he himself could see that great improvements had been made therein in a few years, and that philosophy would in a little time arrive at perfection.
And Theophrastus is reported to have reproached nature at his death for giving to stags and crows so long a life, which was of no use to them, but allowing only so short a span to men, to whom length of days would have been of the greatest use; for if the life of man could have been lengthened, it would have been able to provide itself with all kinds of learning, and with arts in the greatest perfection. He lamented, therefore, that he was dying just when he had begun to discover these.
What! Does not every grave and distinguished philosopher acknowledge himself ignorant of many things, and confess that there are many things which he must learn over and over again? And yet, though these men are sensible that they are standing still in the very midway of folly, than which nothing can be worse, they are under no great affliction, because no opinion that it is their duty to lament is ever mingled with this knowledge.
What shall we say of those who think it unbecoming in a man to grieve? Among whom we may reckon Q. Maximus, when he buried his son that had been consul, and L. Paulus, who lost two sons within a few days of one another. Of the same opinion was M. Cato, who lost his son just after he had been elected praetor, and many others, whose names I have collected in my book On Consolation.
Now what made these men so easy, but their persuasion that grief and lamentation was not becoming in a man? Therefore, as some give themselves up to grief from an opinion that it is right so to do, they refrained themselves, from an opinion that it was discreditable; from which we may infer that grief is owing more to opinion than nature.
It must be acknowledged, then, that men take up grief wilfully and knowingly; and this appears from the patience of those who, after they have been exercised in afflictions and are better able to bear whatever befalls them, suppose themselves hardened against fortune; as that person in Euripides,
“Had this the first essay of fortune been,
And I no storms thro’ all my life had seen,
Wild as a colt I’d broke from reason’s sway;
But frequent griefs have taught me to obey.”
As, then, the frequent bearing of misery makes grief the lighter, we must necessarily perceive that the cause and original of it does not lie in the calamity itself. Your principal philosophers, or lovers of wisdom, though they have not yet arrived at perfect wisdom, are not they sensible that they are in the greatest evil? For they are foolish, and foolishness is the greatest of all evils, and yet they lament not.
How shall we account for this? Because opinion is not fixed upon that kind of evil, it is not our opinion that it is right, meet, and our duty to be uneasy because we are not all wise men. Whereas this opinion is strongly affixed to that uneasiness where mourning is concerned, which is the greatest of all grief.
Therefore Aristotle, when he blames some ancient philosophers for imagining that by their genius they had brought philosophy to the highest perfection, says, they must be either extremely foolish or extremely vain; but that he himself could see that great improvements had been made therein in a few years, and that philosophy would in a little time arrive at perfection.
And Theophrastus is reported to have reproached nature at his death for giving to stags and crows so long a life, which was of no use to them, but allowing only so short a span to men, to whom length of days would have been of the greatest use; for if the life of man could have been lengthened, it would have been able to provide itself with all kinds of learning, and with arts in the greatest perfection. He lamented, therefore, that he was dying just when he had begun to discover these.
What! Does not every grave and distinguished philosopher acknowledge himself ignorant of many things, and confess that there are many things which he must learn over and over again? And yet, though these men are sensible that they are standing still in the very midway of folly, than which nothing can be worse, they are under no great affliction, because no opinion that it is their duty to lament is ever mingled with this knowledge.
What shall we say of those who think it unbecoming in a man to grieve? Among whom we may reckon Q. Maximus, when he buried his son that had been consul, and L. Paulus, who lost two sons within a few days of one another. Of the same opinion was M. Cato, who lost his son just after he had been elected praetor, and many others, whose names I have collected in my book On Consolation.
Now what made these men so easy, but their persuasion that grief and lamentation was not becoming in a man? Therefore, as some give themselves up to grief from an opinion that it is right so to do, they refrained themselves, from an opinion that it was discreditable; from which we may infer that grief is owing more to opinion than nature.
—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 3.28
If I ask for concrete evidence that grief can be overcome, I need only look at those who, in the face of the harshest of circumstances, choose not to let themselves be overcome. It isn’t that they are insensitive, for they most certainly do feel pain, or that they are somehow endowed with superhuman strength, for they are exercising exactly the same powers of reason and will that I possess. No, they differ from me only in their convictions, which proceed from their understanding of the true measures of right and wrong.
As the Stoics always taught, if I do not judge myself to have been harmed, then I have not been harmed. Cicero also embraces this lesson, as does any seeker of wisdom. And I do not have to be fully enlightened in order to grasp why what is good for me rests in the activity of my judgment, not in the events that happen to me, which were never within my power to begin with. The grief is removed when I discover that the loss has not actually injured my nature—it may even have given me the opportunity to improve my character.
Looking back at my own struggles, I can honestly say that the greater the hardships, the greater the occasions to steel my resolve and fortify my habits. I have become better by being repeatedly tested to ever-increasing degrees. I may not have enjoyed it at the time, but the experience was good for me; what seemed unbearable once has now become a walk in the park, and I am, most importantly, a happier man for it.
It is enough to merely be on the path, even at the very beginning of the journey, and I do not need to have arrived at the final destination; nor do I need to be a philosopher to know how the absence of what I desire should not be an excuse to despair, and it is rather an impetus to increase my resolve. I am not a wise man, I am someone who desperately wishes to be wise, and that is a matter of hope, not of grief.
For many years, I assumed I would have to become callous and merciless if I wanted to avoid sorrow, and while I was mistaken about how I needed to change, I at least saw how the solution had to come from inside me. The trick, as it turns out, is in clinging to the virtues all the harder, and then also in realizing why maintaining my integrity is the key to transforming suffering into growth.
If the examples of learned philosophers and noble statesmen seem too distant, I can always look closer to home. I think of a student who took her learning disability as a challenge to become a writer. I think of my elementary school principal who wrote us funny notes in calligraphy when cancer took the use of his voice. I think of a priest who became ever kinder and more patient as he spent many years fighting a false accusation of abuse. They did not stumble with the weight of afflictions—they stood taller.
And what struck me the most about all of these people was the vigor of their joy. They were not resentful or begrudging, and they saw the duty to act with excellence as a privilege. If they could do it, what is stopping me? Only my own opinions. Change the attitude, and you then change the situation; it will not happen instantly, yet there will be steady progress.
As a child, I didn’t much like grand appeals to duty or honor, and that was sadly because I did not yet understand why a responsibility can be taken as an expression of freedom, not as a stifling imposition. Now, when I read a passage like this in Cicero, I have a profound respect for the liberty of a stalwart spirit.
If I ask for concrete evidence that grief can be overcome, I need only look at those who, in the face of the harshest of circumstances, choose not to let themselves be overcome. It isn’t that they are insensitive, for they most certainly do feel pain, or that they are somehow endowed with superhuman strength, for they are exercising exactly the same powers of reason and will that I possess. No, they differ from me only in their convictions, which proceed from their understanding of the true measures of right and wrong.
As the Stoics always taught, if I do not judge myself to have been harmed, then I have not been harmed. Cicero also embraces this lesson, as does any seeker of wisdom. And I do not have to be fully enlightened in order to grasp why what is good for me rests in the activity of my judgment, not in the events that happen to me, which were never within my power to begin with. The grief is removed when I discover that the loss has not actually injured my nature—it may even have given me the opportunity to improve my character.
Looking back at my own struggles, I can honestly say that the greater the hardships, the greater the occasions to steel my resolve and fortify my habits. I have become better by being repeatedly tested to ever-increasing degrees. I may not have enjoyed it at the time, but the experience was good for me; what seemed unbearable once has now become a walk in the park, and I am, most importantly, a happier man for it.
It is enough to merely be on the path, even at the very beginning of the journey, and I do not need to have arrived at the final destination; nor do I need to be a philosopher to know how the absence of what I desire should not be an excuse to despair, and it is rather an impetus to increase my resolve. I am not a wise man, I am someone who desperately wishes to be wise, and that is a matter of hope, not of grief.
For many years, I assumed I would have to become callous and merciless if I wanted to avoid sorrow, and while I was mistaken about how I needed to change, I at least saw how the solution had to come from inside me. The trick, as it turns out, is in clinging to the virtues all the harder, and then also in realizing why maintaining my integrity is the key to transforming suffering into growth.
If the examples of learned philosophers and noble statesmen seem too distant, I can always look closer to home. I think of a student who took her learning disability as a challenge to become a writer. I think of my elementary school principal who wrote us funny notes in calligraphy when cancer took the use of his voice. I think of a priest who became ever kinder and more patient as he spent many years fighting a false accusation of abuse. They did not stumble with the weight of afflictions—they stood taller.
And what struck me the most about all of these people was the vigor of their joy. They were not resentful or begrudging, and they saw the duty to act with excellence as a privilege. If they could do it, what is stopping me? Only my own opinions. Change the attitude, and you then change the situation; it will not happen instantly, yet there will be steady progress.
As a child, I didn’t much like grand appeals to duty or honor, and that was sadly because I did not yet understand why a responsibility can be taken as an expression of freedom, not as a stifling imposition. Now, when I read a passage like this in Cicero, I have a profound respect for the liberty of a stalwart spirit.
—Reflection written in 12/1998
IMAGE: Benjamin West, The Pilgrim Mourning His Dead Ass (c. 1775)
Sunday, March 24, 2024
Delphic Maxims 50
Act when you understand
IMAGE: Bartholomeus Spranger, Minerva Victorious over Ignorance (c. 1591)
Howard Jones, Dream into Action 10
While Human's Lib had appeared in the US with few changes, there was probably more hope that custom-fitting Dream into Action to American tastes would increase sales. The sequencing was altered, and then two songs on the UK version were completely removed, to be replaced by two "safer" tracks, one that had already scored big in Europe as a single the previous year ("Like to Get to Know You Well"), and another that flirted with some elements of the new craze in rap music ("Bounce Right Back").
It's a shame US audiences couldn't hear "Specialty" or "Why Look for the Key?" without buying imports or listening to alternative radio stations, since both tunes are wonderful examples of Jones' unique skill for combining catchy new wave synth-pop with sincere and genuinely meaningful lyrics. Both were eventually tacked on to the end of the CD release in later years, when time limitations were less of a problem.
The musical contrast between the frantic verse and the more soothing chorus admittedly made the song "undanceable" for most, yet it reflects how we fuss so much over fitting in, when the solution lies in finding peace through inner self-acceptance. The cynics may say the message is trite, while I would humbly suggest that it only becomes vapid in the hands of those who don't really mean it, because they are desperately afraid to simply be themselves, on their own terms.
I can't tell you how often the words from the chorus have given me a remarkable, almost superhuman, strength, and made it possible for me to respond with love when I am so tempted to lash out with jealousy and resentment. The message is hardly complex, though it really needs to sink in to the core of the soul to become truly effective.
—5/2007
A few words of commentary from Howard Jones:
And the song itself:
Howard Jones, "Specialty" from Dream into Action (1985)
Don't chop off his head
To make yourself look tall
Don't tear a strip off
To make yourself feel wonderful
Who wants to compare
As if this was a competition?
Leave that to teachers at school
Must preserve their tradition
To make yourself look tall
Don't tear a strip off
To make yourself feel wonderful
Who wants to compare
As if this was a competition?
Leave that to teachers at school
Must preserve their tradition
'Bout time you realised
You are a specialty
There is no one like you
Spend your life worrying
'Bout what you could have been
Can't you like being you?
Don't need a scalp
Don't need to be a juror
Take care of yourself
No need to feel so insecure
Waste of energy
To prove a holier than him
Waste of energy
To find out who commits what sin
'Bout time you realised
You are a specialty
There is no one like you
Spend your life worrying
'Bout what you could have been
Can't you like being you? . . .
Saturday, March 23, 2024
Friday, March 22, 2024
Stobaeus on Stoic Ethics 7
They differ from each other in their topics.
For the topics of prudence are, in the first instance, considering and doing what is to be done and, in the second instance, considering what one should distribute and what one should choose and what one should endure, for the sake of doing what is to be done without error.
The topic of temperance is, in the first instance, to make the impulses stable and to consider them and, in the second instance, to consider the topics of the other virtues for the sake of behaving without error in one’s impulses.
And similarly courage, in the first instance considers everything which one should endure and, in the second instance, the topics of the other virtues.
And justice, in the first instance, looks to what is due to each person and, in the second instance, the other topics too.
For all the virtues consider the topics of all the virtues and those which are subordinate to each other.
For Panaetius used to say that what happened in the case of the virtues was like what would happen if there were one target set up for many archers, and this target had on it lines that differed in color; and then each were to aim at hitting the target—one by striking the white line, it might be, another by striking the black, and another by striking another colored line.
For just as these archers make their highest goal the hitting of the target, but each sets before himself a different manner of hitting it, in the same way too all the virtues make being happy their goal, and this lies in living in agreement with nature, but each virtue achieves this in a different manner.
Sayings of Ramakrishna 238
So the smallest fault of a holy man becomes painfully prominent by his surrounding purity.
Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 3.27
M. Now all these things are done in grief, from a persuasion of their truth and propriety and necessity; and it is plain that those who behave thus do so from a conviction of its being their duty; for should these mourners by chance drop their grief, and either act or speak for a moment in a more calm or cheerful manner, they presently check themselves and return to their lamentations again, and blame themselves for having been guilty of any intermissions from their grief.
And parents and masters generally correct children not by words only, but by blows, if they show any levity by either word or deed when the family is under affliction, and, as it were, oblige them to be sorrowful.
What! Does it not appear, when you have ceased to mourn, and have discovered that your grief has been ineffectual, that the whole of that mourning was voluntary on your part?
What does that man say in Terence who punishes himself, the Self-tormentor?
“I think I do my son less harm, O Chremes,
As long as I myself am miserable.”
He determines to be miserable: and can anyone determine on anything against his will?
“I well might think that I deserved all evil.”
He would think he deserved any misfortune were he otherwise than miserable!
Therefore, you see, the evil is in opinion, not in nature. How is it when some things do of themselves prevent your grieving at them? As in Homer, so many died and were buried daily that they had not leisure to grieve: where you find these lines,
“The great, the bold, by thousands daily fall,
And endless were the grief to weep for all.
Eternal sorrows what avails to shed?
Greece honors not with solemn fasts the dead:
Enough when death demands the brave to pay
The tribute of a melancholy day.
One chief with patience to the grave resign’d,
Our care devolves on others left behind.”
Therefore, it is in our own power to lay aside grief upon occasion; and is there any opportunity (seeing the thing is in our own power) that we should let slip of getting rid of care and grief?
It was plain that the friends of Gnaeus Pompeius, when they saw him fainting under his wounds, at the very moment of that most miserable and bitter sight were under great uneasiness how they themselves, surrounded by the enemy as they were, should escape, and were employed in nothing but encouraging the rowers and aiding their escape; but when they reached Tyre, they began to grieve and lament over him.
Therefore, as fear with them, prevailed over grief, cannot reason and true philosophy have the same effect with a wise man?
And parents and masters generally correct children not by words only, but by blows, if they show any levity by either word or deed when the family is under affliction, and, as it were, oblige them to be sorrowful.
What! Does it not appear, when you have ceased to mourn, and have discovered that your grief has been ineffectual, that the whole of that mourning was voluntary on your part?
What does that man say in Terence who punishes himself, the Self-tormentor?
“I think I do my son less harm, O Chremes,
As long as I myself am miserable.”
He determines to be miserable: and can anyone determine on anything against his will?
“I well might think that I deserved all evil.”
He would think he deserved any misfortune were he otherwise than miserable!
Therefore, you see, the evil is in opinion, not in nature. How is it when some things do of themselves prevent your grieving at them? As in Homer, so many died and were buried daily that they had not leisure to grieve: where you find these lines,
“The great, the bold, by thousands daily fall,
And endless were the grief to weep for all.
Eternal sorrows what avails to shed?
Greece honors not with solemn fasts the dead:
Enough when death demands the brave to pay
The tribute of a melancholy day.
One chief with patience to the grave resign’d,
Our care devolves on others left behind.”
Therefore, it is in our own power to lay aside grief upon occasion; and is there any opportunity (seeing the thing is in our own power) that we should let slip of getting rid of care and grief?
It was plain that the friends of Gnaeus Pompeius, when they saw him fainting under his wounds, at the very moment of that most miserable and bitter sight were under great uneasiness how they themselves, surrounded by the enemy as they were, should escape, and were employed in nothing but encouraging the rowers and aiding their escape; but when they reached Tyre, they began to grieve and lament over him.
Therefore, as fear with them, prevailed over grief, cannot reason and true philosophy have the same effect with a wise man?
—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 3.27
If I still believe that I am helpless against the mighty force of grief, and if I feel like all this theory is of no help in practice, let me remember how my concrete response to my loss is my own, and why it is within my power to decide how and when I will mourn, depending upon my estimation of where I place my true good.
However complex or subtle my motives may be, I will choose to do something because I think I ought to do so. Perhaps that judgment is rightly informed, or perhaps it is grounded in ignorance, but I submit to sorrow when it seems to be the best option. In many cases, I will feel it is my responsibility to be in anguish, for my fellows expect me to behave in such a manner.
Note how I have already decided to let others make my decisions for me, though it remains within my control to reclaim that authority at any moment. If I am working from the assumption that my merit lies in popular approval, I will feel ashamed when I am met with censure, and so I return to a state of conformity. Yet could I not go my own way, a way in harmony with nature, not a surrender to opinion?
I am grateful to Cicero for reminding me of all those times when I found myself experiencing joy, and nevertheless forced myself back into the misery that was demanded of me. The proof of my self-sufficiency, and the abuse of that capacity, is right there in the way I commit, but then second-guess myself. It is as if I have realized I don’t need to be sad, and then I revert to the gloom by doubting my own convictions.
In my early teenage years, a whole string of close relatives died within a very few years. Of course I felt their absence deeply, though I still had it within me to find happiness in remembering them fondly, and I was confused by how some people though this wasn’t how it “should be done”.
Certain morbid phrases had to be repeated, certain formal gestures of hand-wringing were required, and certain formalities of trading condolences became the norm. A distant cousin I barely knew complained to my father about how I mentioned my Nana’s love of shortbread cookies after her funeral. It was as if any shred of happiness had to be violently excised.
The fact was that I still had the sense to look for the good, while I felt pressured to dwell upon the bad. It did reveal something, however, about the way melancholy is so often a self-inflicted suffering, and why I need only be more confident in my own conscience to break out of the vicious cycle.
Contrary to the attitude of the naysayers, pain may be a necessity, but continued suffering is never a requirement. I don’t have to be desolate if I choose not to be, and if I understand my duties correctly. Pompey’s companions held off their grief until after they had escaped from danger, just as soldiers in any time or place recognize how the calling of the moment overrides the urge to capitulate to despair.
Though fear of any sort is a potent motivator to snap myself out of grief, the deliberate use of reason is an even more powerful tool to conquer sadness.
If I still believe that I am helpless against the mighty force of grief, and if I feel like all this theory is of no help in practice, let me remember how my concrete response to my loss is my own, and why it is within my power to decide how and when I will mourn, depending upon my estimation of where I place my true good.
However complex or subtle my motives may be, I will choose to do something because I think I ought to do so. Perhaps that judgment is rightly informed, or perhaps it is grounded in ignorance, but I submit to sorrow when it seems to be the best option. In many cases, I will feel it is my responsibility to be in anguish, for my fellows expect me to behave in such a manner.
Note how I have already decided to let others make my decisions for me, though it remains within my control to reclaim that authority at any moment. If I am working from the assumption that my merit lies in popular approval, I will feel ashamed when I am met with censure, and so I return to a state of conformity. Yet could I not go my own way, a way in harmony with nature, not a surrender to opinion?
I am grateful to Cicero for reminding me of all those times when I found myself experiencing joy, and nevertheless forced myself back into the misery that was demanded of me. The proof of my self-sufficiency, and the abuse of that capacity, is right there in the way I commit, but then second-guess myself. It is as if I have realized I don’t need to be sad, and then I revert to the gloom by doubting my own convictions.
In my early teenage years, a whole string of close relatives died within a very few years. Of course I felt their absence deeply, though I still had it within me to find happiness in remembering them fondly, and I was confused by how some people though this wasn’t how it “should be done”.
Certain morbid phrases had to be repeated, certain formal gestures of hand-wringing were required, and certain formalities of trading condolences became the norm. A distant cousin I barely knew complained to my father about how I mentioned my Nana’s love of shortbread cookies after her funeral. It was as if any shred of happiness had to be violently excised.
The fact was that I still had the sense to look for the good, while I felt pressured to dwell upon the bad. It did reveal something, however, about the way melancholy is so often a self-inflicted suffering, and why I need only be more confident in my own conscience to break out of the vicious cycle.
Contrary to the attitude of the naysayers, pain may be a necessity, but continued suffering is never a requirement. I don’t have to be desolate if I choose not to be, and if I understand my duties correctly. Pompey’s companions held off their grief until after they had escaped from danger, just as soldiers in any time or place recognize how the calling of the moment overrides the urge to capitulate to despair.
Though fear of any sort is a potent motivator to snap myself out of grief, the deliberate use of reason is an even more powerful tool to conquer sadness.
—Reflection written in 12/1998
IMAGE: Hans Larwin, Soldier and Death (1917)
Thursday, March 21, 2024
Stoic Snippets 233
What is my ruling faculty now to me?
And of what nature am I now making it?
And for what purpose am I now using it?
Is it void of understanding?
Is it loosed and rent asunder from social life?
Is it melted into and mixed with the poor flesh so as to move together with it?
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 10.24
IMAGE: M.C. Escher, Hand with Reflecting Sphere (1935)
Proverbs 1:1-6
[1] The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel:
[2] That men may know wisdom and instruction,
understand words of insight, [3] receive instruction in wise dealing,
righteousness, justice, and equity;
[4] that prudence may be given to the simple,
knowledge and discretion to the youth—
[5] the wise man also may hear and increase in learning,
and the man of understanding acquire skill,
[6] to understand a proverb and a figure,
the words of the wise and their riddles.
IMAGE: Pedro Berruguete, Solomon (c. 1500)
