M. But the kind of affliction of which I have treated is that which is the greatest; in order that when we have once got rid of that, it may appear a business of less consequence to look after remedies for the others.
For there are certain things which are usually said about poverty; and also certain statements ordinarily applied to retired and undistinguished life. There are particular treatises on banishment, on the ruin of one’s country, on slavery, on weakness, on blindness, and on every incident that can come under the name of an evil. The Greeks divide these into different treatises and distinct books; but they do it for the sake of employment: not but that all such discussions are full of entertainment.
And yet, as physicians, in curing the whole body, attend to even the most insignificant part of the body which is at all disordered, so does philosophy act, after it has removed grief in general; still, if any other deficiency exists—should poverty bite, should ignominy sting, should banishment bring a dark cloud over us, or should any of those things which I have just mentioned appear, there is for each its appropriate consolation, which you shall hear whenever you please.
But we must have recourse again to the same original principle, that a wise man is free from all sorrow, because it is vain, because it answers no purpose, because it is not founded in nature, but on opinion and prejudice, and is engendered by a kind of invitation to grieve, when once men have imagined that it is their duty to do so.
When, then, we have subtracted what is altogether voluntary, that mournful uneasiness will be removed; yet some little anxiety, some slight pricking, will still remain. They may indeed call this natural, provided they give it not that horrid, solemn, melancholy name of grief, which can by no means consist with wisdom.
But how various and how bitter are the roots of grief! Whatever they are, I propose, after having felled the trunk, to destroy them all; even if it should be necessary, by allotting a separate dissertation to each, for I have leisure enough to do so, whatever time it may take up.
But the principle of every uneasiness is the same, though they may appear under different names. For envy is an uneasiness; so are emulation, detraction, anguish, sorrow, sadness, tribulation, lamentation, vexation, grief, trouble, affliction, and despair.
The Stoics define all these different feelings; and all those words which I have mentioned belong to different things, and do not, as they seem, express the same ideas; but they are to a certain extent distinct, as I shall make appear perhaps in another place. These are those fibers of the roots which, as I said at first, must be traced back and cut off and destroyed, so that not one shall remain.
You say it is a great and difficult undertaking: who denies it? But what is there of any excellency which has not its difficulty? Yet philosophy undertakes to effect it, provided we admit its superintendence. But enough of this. The other books, whenever you please, shall be ready for you here or anywhere else.
And yet, as physicians, in curing the whole body, attend to even the most insignificant part of the body which is at all disordered, so does philosophy act, after it has removed grief in general; still, if any other deficiency exists—should poverty bite, should ignominy sting, should banishment bring a dark cloud over us, or should any of those things which I have just mentioned appear, there is for each its appropriate consolation, which you shall hear whenever you please.
But we must have recourse again to the same original principle, that a wise man is free from all sorrow, because it is vain, because it answers no purpose, because it is not founded in nature, but on opinion and prejudice, and is engendered by a kind of invitation to grieve, when once men have imagined that it is their duty to do so.
When, then, we have subtracted what is altogether voluntary, that mournful uneasiness will be removed; yet some little anxiety, some slight pricking, will still remain. They may indeed call this natural, provided they give it not that horrid, solemn, melancholy name of grief, which can by no means consist with wisdom.
But how various and how bitter are the roots of grief! Whatever they are, I propose, after having felled the trunk, to destroy them all; even if it should be necessary, by allotting a separate dissertation to each, for I have leisure enough to do so, whatever time it may take up.
But the principle of every uneasiness is the same, though they may appear under different names. For envy is an uneasiness; so are emulation, detraction, anguish, sorrow, sadness, tribulation, lamentation, vexation, grief, trouble, affliction, and despair.
The Stoics define all these different feelings; and all those words which I have mentioned belong to different things, and do not, as they seem, express the same ideas; but they are to a certain extent distinct, as I shall make appear perhaps in another place. These are those fibers of the roots which, as I said at first, must be traced back and cut off and destroyed, so that not one shall remain.
You say it is a great and difficult undertaking: who denies it? But what is there of any excellency which has not its difficulty? Yet philosophy undertakes to effect it, provided we admit its superintendence. But enough of this. The other books, whenever you please, shall be ready for you here or anywhere else.
—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 3.34
As I consider all the qualities that I perceive to be either good or bad in me, I may be confused about their relationships to one another. Yet once I carefully reflect upon my various thoughts and feelings, I begin to discern a certain order, or in too many cases a disorder, where this judgment leads to that judgment, and one emotion feeds into the next.
Where there was anger, there was first jealousy. Where there was jealousy, there was first lust. Where there was lust, there was first a decision to define my worth by how much I possessed, by how much I had consumed. The more I made of myself, the less I made of others, and I saw how pride was my fatal flaw.
I once derided the very concept of a sin, and then the bitter reality of poor living taught me otherwise. While some just reduce a sin to an affront against God, those of us who know better also see how it is thereby an affront against ourselves. I now appreciate why they told me in Sunday school that pride is at the root of all evil.
There is a similar pattern when I examine my range of negative emotions, for while they initially appear to be a jumbled mass of scattered impulses, they actually proceed in a structured manner, and inevitably spring forth from a common source. Whatever the conditions I may be facing, my sense of dissatisfaction and frustration is about my loss of something to which I believe I am entitled, and so a feeling of grief is really the core of my misery.
If I can remove the impression of loss, I can tame the grief, and if I can tame the grief, I will not be as subject to envy, or rage, or greed, or melancholy. Even fear, which differs from grief in focusing on the expectation of a future loss, is tempered by reexamining what I think I require to be happy. Even death ceases to be terrifying when I now place the exercise of virtue above a struggle for survival.
In other words, I will not bemoan being deprived of something I no longer esteem as worthy in itself, and so I have put sorrow in its place. If my character is within my power, nothing can be taken from me which I do not first freely surrender. Socrates, the Stoics, and Cicero understood this rearrangement of moral priorities as a remedy for any sort of anxiety about feeling the victim.
This does not mean that I must become cold and insensitive, but only that I recognize why my passions were made to be guided by my intellect, and while a feeling cannot simply be turned on and off with a switch, it can be guided by our conscious judgments. If an instinct kicks in, will I choose to feed it?
Of course there is a wide spectrum of emotions, and each must be dealt with in its peculiar manner, just as the varying circumstances from which they arose must be taken into account, and yet a part of categorizing these many moods is recognizing their common origin in our responses about what is present or absent. The grief that stands behind all discontent is best remedied through a fuller awareness of what is truly necessary for a good life, as distinct from what is merely preferred.
As I consider all the qualities that I perceive to be either good or bad in me, I may be confused about their relationships to one another. Yet once I carefully reflect upon my various thoughts and feelings, I begin to discern a certain order, or in too many cases a disorder, where this judgment leads to that judgment, and one emotion feeds into the next.
Where there was anger, there was first jealousy. Where there was jealousy, there was first lust. Where there was lust, there was first a decision to define my worth by how much I possessed, by how much I had consumed. The more I made of myself, the less I made of others, and I saw how pride was my fatal flaw.
I once derided the very concept of a sin, and then the bitter reality of poor living taught me otherwise. While some just reduce a sin to an affront against God, those of us who know better also see how it is thereby an affront against ourselves. I now appreciate why they told me in Sunday school that pride is at the root of all evil.
There is a similar pattern when I examine my range of negative emotions, for while they initially appear to be a jumbled mass of scattered impulses, they actually proceed in a structured manner, and inevitably spring forth from a common source. Whatever the conditions I may be facing, my sense of dissatisfaction and frustration is about my loss of something to which I believe I am entitled, and so a feeling of grief is really the core of my misery.
If I can remove the impression of loss, I can tame the grief, and if I can tame the grief, I will not be as subject to envy, or rage, or greed, or melancholy. Even fear, which differs from grief in focusing on the expectation of a future loss, is tempered by reexamining what I think I require to be happy. Even death ceases to be terrifying when I now place the exercise of virtue above a struggle for survival.
In other words, I will not bemoan being deprived of something I no longer esteem as worthy in itself, and so I have put sorrow in its place. If my character is within my power, nothing can be taken from me which I do not first freely surrender. Socrates, the Stoics, and Cicero understood this rearrangement of moral priorities as a remedy for any sort of anxiety about feeling the victim.
This does not mean that I must become cold and insensitive, but only that I recognize why my passions were made to be guided by my intellect, and while a feeling cannot simply be turned on and off with a switch, it can be guided by our conscious judgments. If an instinct kicks in, will I choose to feed it?
Of course there is a wide spectrum of emotions, and each must be dealt with in its peculiar manner, just as the varying circumstances from which they arose must be taken into account, and yet a part of categorizing these many moods is recognizing their common origin in our responses about what is present or absent. The grief that stands behind all discontent is best remedied through a fuller awareness of what is truly necessary for a good life, as distinct from what is merely preferred.
In daily practice, I have found that managing my own grief has been my greatest task, and this, in turn, makes coping with all my other passions, as reactions to diverse situations, far more bearable. I can tackle them one by one, after I have taken down their leader. I should not expect this to be easy, since the best things in life are usually the most difficult to achieve. One day at a time.
—Reflection written in 12/1998
IMAGE: Gerhard von Kügelgen, Allegory of Grief (1815)
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