Suppose you did not get what you wanted? Surely that was his business and not yours. Why then do you claim what is another's? If you always remember what is yours and what is not yours, you will never be put to confusion.
Therefore, Chrysippus well says, “As long as the consequences are unknown to me, I always hold fast to what is better adapted to secure what is natural, for God Himself created me with the faculty of choosing what is natural.”
Nay, if I really knew that it was ordained for me now to be ill, I should wish to be ill; for the foot too, if it had a mind, would wish to get muddy.
For instance, why do ears of corn grow? Is it not that they may ripen in the sun? And if they are ripened, is it not that they may be reaped, for they are not things apart? If they had feelings then, ought they to pray never to be reaped at any time? But this is a curse upon corn—to pray that it should never be reaped.
In like manner know that you are cursing men when you pray for them not to die: it is like a prayer not to be ripened, not to be reaped.
But we men, being creatures whose fate it is to be reaped, are also made aware of this very fact, that we are destined for reaping, and so we are angry; for we do not know who we are, nor have we studied human things as those who are skilled in horses study the concerns of horses.
—from Epictetus, Discourses 2.6
In finding myself awkwardly out of place in this world, and in also having a melancholic disposition, I often feel inclined to gripe and moan. If I then foolishly choose to surround myself with those who have a perverse pride in their many dissatisfactions, I merely compound the matter. Do I not see how my misery is entirely of my own making?
I perceive this section of the text to be achingly beautiful, though whenever I share it with others, they usually just see doom and gloom. The way Epictetus writes, and the whole context of what I call the Stoic Turn, can only be uplifting when I have joyfully embraced a whole new set of values. All of those crippling diversions out there? They are as nothing. Instead, look within to the invincible dignity of this little soul.
Just as the world was made to be as it is for a perfectly good reason, so my own intellect and will were given to me so that I might come to know and to love my place within the whole. My particular nature is completed by working in harmony with the Universal Nature, and I am gifted with awareness so that I can arrive at this insight through my own free choice.
Now this all sounds perfectly nice, one could say, as long as the circumstances of Nature are pleasant, but I will surely change my tune once the world starts to scratch and bite. If that is indeed how I respond, I have hardly learned the lesson, because I still remain attached to outside conditions, valuing convenience over character. No, once I discover the source of my happiness in what is rightly my own, I do not need to depend upon what rightly belongs to another.
Epictetus is not trying to one-up Chrysippus, and he is instead clarifying how radical and transformative such a true commitment to Nature must be. If it has happened, what good will come from any rage or despair? Let me rather ask myself how I can modify my own thoughts and deeds to cooperate with Providence; every purpose is joined to every other, and my part is defined by what I decide to do, not by what is done to me.
Whatever is sown is meant to be reaped, so the crop does not feel the need to complain. Opening my mind to the inner worth of every creature is what makes it possible for me to love both myself and others, whatever the accidents may be. Pleasure or pain, riches or poverty, health or sickness are all on the table—accepting this is the first step to serenity.
If I knew myself morally even half as well as I am expected to know my worldly trade, this would not be such a difficult task.
—Reflection written in 6/2001
IMAGE: Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Harvesters (1565)
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