Fear will grow to greater proportions, if that which causes the terror is seen to be of greater magnitude or in closer proximity; and desire will grow keener in proportion as the hope of a greater gain has summoned it to action.
If the existence of the passions is not in our own control, neither is the extent of their power; for if you once permit them to get a start, they will increase along with their causes, and they will be of whatever extent they shall grow to be.
Moreover, no matter how small these vices are, they grow greater. That which is harmful never keeps within bounds. No matter how trifling diseases are at the beginning, they creep on apace; and sometimes the slightest augmentation of disease lays low the enfeebled body!
But what folly it is, when the beginnings of certain things are situated outside our control, to believe that their endings are within our control! How have I the power to bring something to a close, when I have not had the power to check it at the beginning? For it is easier to keep a thing out than to keep it under after you have let it in.
If the existence of the passions is not in our own control, neither is the extent of their power; for if you once permit them to get a start, they will increase along with their causes, and they will be of whatever extent they shall grow to be.
Moreover, no matter how small these vices are, they grow greater. That which is harmful never keeps within bounds. No matter how trifling diseases are at the beginning, they creep on apace; and sometimes the slightest augmentation of disease lays low the enfeebled body!
But what folly it is, when the beginnings of certain things are situated outside our control, to believe that their endings are within our control! How have I the power to bring something to a close, when I have not had the power to check it at the beginning? For it is easier to keep a thing out than to keep it under after you have let it in.
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 85
The passions, and by extension the vices, can grow beyond our control, not because they are greater in strength than our reason, but rather because we have freely surrendered to them, from the very moment we choose to make our judgments dependent upon our impulses. The fortress has fallen once the gates are unlocked from the inside, not when the walls are breached from the outside.
If I am confronted with a feeling of fear or of desire, is it necessary for me to submit? When the instincts of the flesh are speaking to me, of their own accord, let reason consider the meaning of these impressions, and thereby order them to their proper purpose. And when the passion stems from my own estimation of what is good and evil, it remains within my power to correct my understanding, and to thereby remove the obstacle.
If my conscious mind does not take the responsibility for shaping my habits, then they have been abandoned to the workings of my unconscious appetites. Where I believe there to be harm, I will experience fear, and where I believe there to be benefit, I will experience desire. Carefully modify the perception, and then you will gradually inform the corresponding emotion: my feeling will only be as good as my thinking.
It will be much harder to evict the passions after I have already invited them in, than to refuse them entry from the very beginning. Let me be mindful of keeping my balance, because very little can be done once I have already tumbled over the edge.
When I was a boy, my mother, an avid gardener, gave me the task of regularly weeding our lawn. She explained that if I simply removed a few of the newly sprouting dandelions or fresh tufts of crabgrass whenever I happened to be walking on by, this would be an easy task.
I did not listen, of course, and before too long the invaders had taken over, forcing me on my hands and knees for many hours, and leaving huge divots wherever I had to pull out the stubborn roots. Instead of cursing his mother for her good advice, the child must eventually learn to curse himself for his sloth.
I have now spent many years battling against a cluster of vices, and I now understand how all the trouble started by being careless about a few wayward passions. I might claim I couldn’t possibly have known, and yet a part of me always knew, from a very early age, that there could be no shortcuts to happiness. As soon as I permit despair, or terror, or indulgence, or lust to make my decisions for me, I have then made myself a slave to circumstances, instead of the master of my fate.
The passions, and by extension the vices, can grow beyond our control, not because they are greater in strength than our reason, but rather because we have freely surrendered to them, from the very moment we choose to make our judgments dependent upon our impulses. The fortress has fallen once the gates are unlocked from the inside, not when the walls are breached from the outside.
If I am confronted with a feeling of fear or of desire, is it necessary for me to submit? When the instincts of the flesh are speaking to me, of their own accord, let reason consider the meaning of these impressions, and thereby order them to their proper purpose. And when the passion stems from my own estimation of what is good and evil, it remains within my power to correct my understanding, and to thereby remove the obstacle.
If my conscious mind does not take the responsibility for shaping my habits, then they have been abandoned to the workings of my unconscious appetites. Where I believe there to be harm, I will experience fear, and where I believe there to be benefit, I will experience desire. Carefully modify the perception, and then you will gradually inform the corresponding emotion: my feeling will only be as good as my thinking.
It will be much harder to evict the passions after I have already invited them in, than to refuse them entry from the very beginning. Let me be mindful of keeping my balance, because very little can be done once I have already tumbled over the edge.
When I was a boy, my mother, an avid gardener, gave me the task of regularly weeding our lawn. She explained that if I simply removed a few of the newly sprouting dandelions or fresh tufts of crabgrass whenever I happened to be walking on by, this would be an easy task.
I did not listen, of course, and before too long the invaders had taken over, forcing me on my hands and knees for many hours, and leaving huge divots wherever I had to pull out the stubborn roots. Instead of cursing his mother for her good advice, the child must eventually learn to curse himself for his sloth.
I have now spent many years battling against a cluster of vices, and I now understand how all the trouble started by being careless about a few wayward passions. I might claim I couldn’t possibly have known, and yet a part of me always knew, from a very early age, that there could be no shortcuts to happiness. As soon as I permit despair, or terror, or indulgence, or lust to make my decisions for me, I have then made myself a slave to circumstances, instead of the master of my fate.
—Reflection written in 1/2014
IMAGE: Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Fear (c. 1780)
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