LIAM MILBURN: Reflections on Seneca: Peace of Mind

 

Reflections on Seneca:

Peace of Mind

 

Liam Milburn

 

 

Introduction

 

I had long been drawn to Stoicism as a solution for so many of my problems, yet I would still find myself falling short, when it came to applying all of that wonderful theory to the grind of everyday practice. Even if I thought I understood what it was that I had to do to be happy, I was clearly not living up to the standard.

 

Where was the problem? Were the principles themselves somehow terribly mistaken, or was I somehow using them incorrectly?

 

I was often told that if I only put my mind to it, I would be able to make what I eventually came to call the Stoic Turn.

 

I would hopefully begin to no longer consider myself ruled by my circumstances, but I would begin to define myself by the content of my character.

 

I would hopefully no longer look to the world to satisfy me, but I would learn to be satisfied with myself, whatever may happen in the world.

 

I would hopefully stop demanding, and I would start giving.

 

I would hopefully measure my merit by what I did, not by what had been done to me.

 

I would hopefully no longer be a victim, but a source of what was right and good, however small and insignificant I was thought to be by others.

 

I would hopefully not think of the world as a place of random and uncaring events, with no one occurrence connected to another, but as all events created by Providence to be opportunities.

 

I was deeply disappointed when this did not suddenly happen overnight, and I was therefore also deeply discouraged. Surely, I thought, if my thinking is right, will my actions also not be immediately be right?

 

Maybe this was just another one of those clever intellectual scams, a way to make me follow a system that actually offered no actual results. I’d seen enough of that before, from deeply subtle superstitions to complex pseudo-scientific theories of human nature. Was I letting myself be duped again? Was someone going to creep out of the corner and suddenly demands various dues or fees to magically complete my training?

 

But see, it isn’t just about being a member of a club, or about the power of my will; it is about using my choice to make a genuine connection between my thinking and my doing.

 

First, my doing will only be as good as the certainty of my thinking, and there I can find much work to be done. I may say I know, but I know far too incompletely. What is hazy must become crystal clear.

 

Second, my doing will only be as good as the strength of the habits I gradually build up for myself, and there too I can find much work to be done. I may say I am doing, but I have not yet done nearly enough. I must learn to be patient not only with the world, but also with myself.

 

Third, I will still be drawn away from the truth each and every day, if I do not recommit myself each and every day. A promise made yesterday, or even a few moments ago, is sadly often a promise only for yesterday, or for a few moments ago. The only way keep myself from being diverted is to keep myself on track, at all times and in every way.

 

I learned the very same lesson from a variety of 12 Step Programs I have encountered over the years, on both the giving and receiving ends.

 

Let me say that I want to stop drinking, or using drugs, or gambling, or being promiscuous, or living like a glutton, or buying things I don’t really need. Wanting a change won’t be enough, since I must put my money where my mouth is. The words are pointless if I can’t commit to the program.

 

Seneca the Younger wrote very many texts on Stoic topics, far more of which have survived to the current day, I suspect, than those of any other Classical Stoic writer.

 

I have listened to him tell me, over and over again, what it is that most matters in this life. I am deeply grateful for that. He reminds me about what it means to be human, about how my humanity fits in with the rest of the Universe, and why I should bother to care about some things over other things.

 

Still, I always felt I needed quite a bit of help on following through, on making the concepts meaningful in my day-to-day living.

 

That is where this short and humble text comes in, hardly one of the most impressive or imposing pieces of his writings, though for me one of the most immediately useful.

 

On Peace of Mind helps me to engage in the task, instead of just being a pretender. It is full of practical advice on how to live like a good man, not just spend my time posturing as a good man.

 

The translation I use here is the classic version from Aubrey Stewart, with a few of my own minor alterations to make it more presentable to the modern reader. I offer my own thoughts on the text, not to tell the reader how to live, but to encourage the reader to learn to live for himself.

 

Peace of mind is not only in the abstraction, but is about the harmony of the mind with our own deeds. It means making a connection between theory and practice.

 

Seneca’s friend, Serenus, asks a most troubling question: why am I still struggling, discouraged, dissatisfied, and confused, even when I have a grasp of what is right and true? What is holding me back? I am still amazed and inspired by the responses that Seneca gives him.

 

 

 

Chapter 1

 

1.1

 

Serenus:

 

When I examine myself, Seneca, some vices appear on the surface, and so that I can lay my hands upon them, while others are less distinct and harder to reach, and some are not always present, but recur at intervals: and these I should call the most troublesome, being like a roving enemy that assails one when he sees his opportunity, and who will neither let one stand on one's guard as in war, nor yet take one's rest without fear as in peace.

 

My surface vices have usually been quite clear to me. I can see them for what they are, though I will sometimes foolishly choose to ignore them. If I have let my attention wane, my error quickly becomes apparent, sometimes even at the very moment I am acting, and I know exactly what I need to do to correct those habits. I will have to decide to apply that understanding, of course, and be more vigilant the next time, but I am aware, however shamefully, of both the ailment and the remedy.

 

If I have lost my temper, or told a lie to avoid an inconvenience, or looked away from the suffering of a neighbor, there is no question about how I was wrong, and what I must do to make it right.

 

Then there are the deeper vices, more subtle and nagging. I don’t see them coming, I can’t fully explain where they came from, and I can’t seem to put them in their place. This is surely because I find it so difficult to even identify them to begin with.

 

I can sense that there is something wrong in my thinking and doing, yet I can’t seem to look at it directly; it sits there in the corner of my vision, as if it were trying to hide from me.

 

I know that this is not about the things that happen to me, whether they are pleasant or unpleasant, but about how I am responding to those things, whether I am acting well or poorly. It is frustrating to not be as aware of myself as I think I am, and confusing when my intentions fall short. I then find myself discouraged, and my anxiety only compounds my sadness and uncertainty.

 

What am I getting wrong? What am I missing? How can I improve myself when I don’t know where the problem is?

 

I appreciate the image of trying to stand guard against a clever and unseen enemy. When I was a Scout, we would often play games of late-night capture the flag. The trick was always stealth in those games, of course, and the hardest job to be given was guarding your own flag.

 

All my other teammates would be well ahead in the woods, and I would crouch there in absolute silence, knowing full well that opposing players were all around me, but I could neither see nor hear them.

 

What was that? Did I hear the cracking of a branch? I look to my left, and I think I discern some motion in the blackness. Then there is a rushing to my right. The flag has been pulled from the tree, and there is the rapid sound of someone running away. I try to follow before he makes it to the line. If I stop to listen, he will make his escape, but if I don’t stop to listen, I don’t know in which direction to go.

 

So I am playing a sort of late-night capture the flag in my own head.

 

 

 

1.2

 

The position in which I find myself more especially (for why should I not tell you the truth as I would to a physician), is that of neither being thoroughly set free from the vices which I fear and hate, nor yet quite in bondage to them. My state of mind, though not the worst possible, is a particularly discontented and sulky one. I am neither ill nor well.

 

There are few things as difficult as being in-between. Give me pain that makes me want to end my very life, or give me pleasure that I never wish to end. But don’t give me that state of being neither here nor there, too weak to find any peace and contentment, too strong to give it all up.

 

Give me black, or give me white, but spare me the gray. It is one thing to be sick, another to be well, and yet another to be unable to tell the difference. It was somewhere in the 1990’s, I think, when people started saying “Meh”. It’s that sense of being numb and unimpressed. They tell me it defines a whole generation.

 

I suspect it goes far deeper than that, to the very core of the human condition. We surely all know the feeling, and it is about being so lost as to no longer care. The difference will be that some of us will be brave enough to admit it to ourselves, or perhaps even to others.

 

For many years, I assumed that the vast majority of people I knew were perfectly happy, and only a few pathetic losers were miserable. I thought this because most people looked content, and just a handful looked sad.

 

Well, I figured, there must be something deeply wrong with me. I both look and feel sad all of the time. It is not a sadness that will kill me, even as it is a sadness that makes me frown. It wears away at me without actually biting at me.

 

A very wise man once set me straight. He suggested I look deeper. See how that couple always smile and hold hands? Now watch them when they think no one is looking. See that successful fellow over there, the talk of the town? Now observe him when he is out of the spotlight.

 

No, he suggested, only a very few people are genuinely happy in this life, and only a very few people are in complete despair. All the rest are winging it, going through the motions, pretending for others that their lives are perfect, and then going home to face their numbness in solitude.

 

“So wait, my malaise doesn’t make me a freak?”

 

“Well, other things about you may well make you a freak, but it isn’t your malaise. You share that with nine out of the ten people you meet. You’re just not as clever at playing the game.”

 

Still, in one sense it seems even worse than being without any hopes or prospects at all. Take everything I love away, and I might find the courage to bear it. Leave everything indifferent, and I am screaming inside. There is no up, no down, just a vast expanse of flatlands.

 

The clock is ticking, the television is on, and the microwave tells me that my dinner is ready. I don’t like it one bit.

 

 

 

1.3

 

It is of no use for you to tell me that all virtues are weakly at the outset, and that they acquire strength and solidity by time, for I am well aware that even those that do but help our outward show, such as grandeur, a reputation for eloquence, and everything that appeals to others, gain power by time. Both those that afford us real strength and those that do but trick us out in a more attractive form, require long years before they gradually are adapted to us by time.

 

This is all taking me far too long!

 

Just learning to appear good requires years of practice, and actually learning to be good seems even further down the road. How can I ever expect to get there? I’ll have worked myself up for virtue, getting closer at a snail’s pace, but then I’ll be dead, and then it will hardly matter.

 

In the meantime, wouldn’t it be easier to acquire, consume, and find gratification in what I desire, and swallow my conscience just long enough? Like the hiccups, won’t my moral scruples eventually just go away? Lying, cheating, and stealing are probably easier to get used to than the burden of building character.

 

Put on a happy face. Cry only when you are alone. Suck it up, then go out and continue the charade. Perhaps I can manage that. They tell me that this is strength.

 

After all, didn’t they spend all of those years teaching me to conform, to follow the rules, to color inside of the lines? Primary school taught me to obey. Secondary school taught me to equate that obedience with my own success. College taught me to make it all look good, by smiling and mouthing the right words.

 

I watched as others learned the outward show, but for some reason I couldn’t follow along. I had a very brief moment where players took me under their wings, thinking they could make me a copy of themselves. I had a very brief moment where a girl paid attention to me, quite classy on the outside but also rather trashy on the inside. I lost them as soon as I became inconvenient.

 

The Roman norms, the ones Serenus must have faced, were obviously different in form, while surely quite the same in content. Places change, times change, and customs change, but the weakness of human nature always remains the same.

 

I had been raised differently than most. I wanted to do right, wherever I was, not become rich or famous, regardless of who had to pay. I saw that my goals did not conform to what was expected of me. I knew I had to choose one way or another, to follow my own path or that of another.

 

Yet becoming a good man would take me so much time. Wouldn’t pretending to be a good man take far less time?

 

This is all taking me far too long!

 

 

 

1.4

 

But I fear that custom, which confirms most things, implants this vice more and more deeply in me. Long acquaintance with both good and bad people leads one to esteem them all alike. What this state of weakness really is, when the mind halts between two opinions without any strong inclination towards either good or evil, I shall be better able to show you piecemeal than all at once. I will tell you what befalls me, you must find out the name of the disease.

 

The numbness, that sense of moral exhaustion, goes together with becoming too accepting of my own mediocrity. I see so much going on around me, some satisfying, some unsatisfying, but most of it is just mixed together, with one aspect no longer distinct from another. The familiarity leads me to no longer clearly distinguish between right and wrong, and I grow indifferent to caring one way or another.

 

It is like staring at something for too long, only to find that I am now unable focus my eyes. My attention is blurred, and I can’t make out the details.

 

It is like studying for hours on end, trying to cram more and more information into my memory, and then to discover that none of the words make sense anymore.

 

It is like consuming too much food and drink, feeling tired and bloated, and realizing that everything has come to taste the same, to taste like nothing at all.

 

At a low point in my life, I was sitting at a dive bar with a fellow who found life just as discouraging as I did. We had long lost track of how many beers we’d gone through.

 

After a time where we both stared into nothing, he suddenly turned to me, and asked, “Wait, am I drunk or sober? I can’t tell anymore.”

 

I hope you have never been to that place, but if you have, you know something about that sense of becoming accustomed to dullness. As an old friend once put it, “I feel like I have calluses on my conscience.”

 

I may be so worried about building up some new good habits, but I forget about the need to first break down those old bad habits; I am so used to them, grown gradually over time by constant association and repetition, that I hardly know they are there.

 

I have faced things poorly, pushing myself in the wrong direction, and now I am still moving with the momentum of my past actions. It isn’t that the world is uncaring, unfeeling, and worthless, but that I have unwittingly made my own attitude uncaring, unfeeling, and worthless.

 

I did it to myself so slowly that I barely noticed. After being overwhelmed by feeling so much, I have shut myself off from even feeling. This may seem like it makes me stronger, though it actually makes me weaker. My habits have separated me from my own humanity.

 

 

 

1.5

 

I have to confess the greatest possible love of thrift. I do not care for a bed with gorgeous hangings, or for clothes brought out of a chest, or pressed under weights and made glossy by frequent manglings, but for common and cheap ones, that require no care either to keep them or to put them on.

 

For food I do not want what needs whole troops of servants to prepare it and admire it, nor what is ordered many days before and served up by many hands, but something handy and easily come at, with nothing far-fetched or costly about it, to be had in every part of the world, burdensome neither to one's fortune nor one's body, not likely to go out of the body by the same path by which it came in.

 

I like a rough and unpolished homebred servant, I like my servant born in my house. I like my country-bred father's heavy silver plate stamped with no maker's name. I do not want a table that is beauteous with dappled spots, or known to all the town by the number of fashionable people to whom it has successively belonged, but one which stands merely for use, and which causes no guest's eye to dwell upon it with pleasure or to kindle at it with envy.

 

I try to embrace the Stoic principle that no circumstances are in and of themselves good or bad. Wealth or poverty, luxury or subsistence, health or sickness will not make me better or worse, because I can always find a way to practice a good life with any of them.

 

At the same time, I have slowly but surely come to appreciate how both wanting and having less can well be the easier path for me, and therefore a way of life I might prefer.

 

This may seem odd to some, on the assumption that having more means being able to do more. Perhaps that is true for them, and I wish them well, but I have increasingly found it is not true for me. My own particular dispositions, and my own personal weaknesses, tell me to avoid prosperity if I am at all free to do so.

 

Yes, an opulent life, like that followed by many of the folks I went to school with, would certainly be more gratifying, and more convenient, and would save me from all sorts of petty worries. Most lawyers, doctors, or bankers are probably not familiar with the struggle to put food on the table, or the frustration of having to choose paying one bill at the expense of another. Yet at the very few times I have had even the slightest bit more than I need, I discovered that it distracts me into even worse difficulties.

 

It becomes too easy for me to feel entitlement, to be tempted by greed, to become cold and distant from others, to start thinking that I am somehow special because of what fortune has given me. What I have, another may have not, and this easily leads to envy and resentment. That, to me, is a far greater burden. I would rather lose my property than lose my conscience, and I’m not sure I’d be very good at juggling them at the same time.

 

Serenus, of course, was from the Roman upper classes, and what he describes as thrifty may appear as downright extravagant to me. I will never have any servants at all, of any sort, and I will never eat with silver, whether fancy or plain. The ideal remains the same, however, in kind if not in degree. We are all coming from different places, and called to different things.

 

I will not choose to starve, or to be kicked out on the street, or to be dragged into court for failing to pay my debts, but I will choose to live on as little as I can, and to find pleasure in the most humble of pastimes.

 

An old but comfortable chair, by a cozy hearth, along with a simple but satisfying meal will do just fine. I do also enjoy a dusty old book, a good hat, a sturdy set of boots, a pipe with a bit of strong tobacco, and perhaps a quirky cat to keep me company.

 

Let me stop there, since I already sense I may get carried away. There can be a very thin line between having just enough and having too much, a line that can only be drawn by the ability of my character to bear the lure of vanity.

 

 

 

1.6

 

While I am well satisfied with this, I am reminded of the clothes of a certain schoolboy, dressed with no ordinary care and splendor, of slaves bedecked with gold and a whole regiment of glittering attendants.

 

I think of houses too, where one treads on precious stones, and where valuables lie about in every corner, where the very roof is brilliantly painted, and a whole nation attends and accompanies an inheritance on the road to ruin. What shall I say of waters, transparent to the very bottom, which flow round the guests, and banquets worthy of the theatre in which they take place?

 

Coming as I do from a long course of dull thrift, I find myself surrounded by the most brilliant luxury, which echoes around me on every side. My sight becomes a little dazzled by it. I can lift up my heart against it more easily than my eyes.

 

A life of temperance, of moderation, and of simplicity makes complete sense in my head. It has also, whenever I have found the discipline to practice it, been the most peaceful and satisfying kind of life I have ever known.

 

It’s hardly as if my intellect is in open war with my passions; I both know and feel the true and the good in it, deep downside inside of me. The mind and the heart both agree, giving me that firm and contented nod of approval.

 

So where is that itch coming from? Why do I find that itch so hard to scratch?

 

Something within me is still mightily impressed by grandeur, by luxury, and by showing off. I understand quite well that I should look away, but my eyes seem pulled back toward all of that, time and time again.

 

It’s much like those classic horror movies of my youth, where you know the foolish teenager will meet a terrible and bloody end in but a moment. You cover your eyes, but you still peek out through your fingers.

 

I know I should not want a life of decadence, and I remember how miserable I felt whenever I pursued any of that. Still, I read about the celebrities with their elaborate parties, their extravagant mansions, and their private jets. It still captivates me, and so it also gives me a sense of unease.

 

Perhaps it is the unconscious desire for mere gratification, in the face of all else that I value? Perhaps it is the pull of old habits, struggling against my more recent convictions? Perhaps it is really just the need to follow along with the popular crowd, to do things the way everyone else seems to do them?

 

It is certainly difficult to go one way, when the world around you goes another. Is that the tiny annoying flea causing the itch?

 

Whatever the case, I find it rather irritating. I’m not sure where it comes from, so I’m not sure where to find a cure.

 

 

 

1.7

 

When I return from seeing it I am a sadder, though not a worse man, I cannot walk amid my own paltry possessions with so lofty a step as before, and silently there steals over me a feeling of vexation, and a doubt whether that way of life may not be better than mine. None of these things alter my principles, yet all of them disturb me.

 

The other day, I made another one of my foolish mistakes, the kind that always comes back to bite me in the rear. In a sour mood, I decided to read through the alumni class notes from my old school. Then I stewed over it all, wondering if it was too late to get a bottle of whiskey down the street.

 

“Well, now I know for sure that you are deeply bitter and unhinged! How could that be a foolish thing? Are you so self-absorbed as to not care what your old friends are doing?”

 

Perhaps you are right, but I do care, perhaps too much, and also in entirely the wrong way. What others are up to isn’t the problem; how I choose to face it within myself is the problem.

 

Remember, for example, never to look up your lost love on the Internet. She may have done nothing wrong, but you are likely to take it all wrong. Just avoid the temptation to begin with.

 

As can so easily be the case, I allowed my thinking to get away from me, and my feelings quickly followed. Every single entry I read was about worldly successes. The jealousy and resentment began to creep in. They were clearly superior, and I was clearly inferior, or so my own doubts told me.

 

“Sandra and I are terribly busy. I’m always flying off to China to negotiate new deals for the firm, and she’s occupied with managing the art gallery. Still, even after running the Global Warming Awareness fundraiser, we find time to spend time with our two newly adopted children from Zaire, and we try to take a breather fixing up our vacation house on Martha’s Vineyard. Life is so good to us!”

 

Am I angry that they are happy? Not at all. I don’t even know if they are happy, just that they are telling us they are living the high life, and there is a part of the problem. Everything they describe is about the trappings. We are all so caught up in the appearances, in giving the right impression.

 

Am I jealous that I think they have more than I do? Yes, actually, that’s precisely the problem, as ashamed as I am to admit it. As usual, the problem comes right back to my own judgment. Why does any of that impress me? Do I really want to live that way? Am I that shallow?

 

Like Serenus, I try to hold to my principles, the ones about living with love and understanding above anything else, and yet I somehow let this frustrate me. I know exactly what it means to be a better man, and yet my worries are gnawing away at the edges.

 

 

 

1.8

 

At one time I would obey the maxims of our school and plunge into public life, I would obtain office and become consul, not because the purple robe and lictor's axes attract me, but in order that I may be able to be of use to my friends, my relatives, to all my countrymen, and indeed to all mankind. Ready and determined, I follow the advice of Zeno, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus, all of whom bid one take part in public affairs, though none of them ever did so himself.

 

And then, as soon as something disturbs my mind, which is not used to receiving shocks, as soon as something occurs which is either disgraceful, such as often occurs in all men's lives, or which does not proceed quite easily, or when subjects of very little importance require me to devote a great deal of time to them, I go back to my life of leisure, and, just as even tired cattle go faster when they are going home, I wish to retire and pass my life within the walls of my house.

 

People may think that philosophers in general are isolated from the real world, and that Stoics in particular have no care or concern for others. Yet the Stoicism I know insists that man must be a social animal, precisely because he is a rational animal, and that he is called to be in service to others, precisely because he is made to live with justice.

 

Any Stoic worth the name will always hold a bond of kinship with his neighbors, recognizing himself in them, and knowing that each person is an inseparable part of the whole. We are all agents of Providence.

 

Accordingly, the great Stoics stressed the importance of an active public life, and that we should participate and cooperate with our fellows. My values may be very different than those of the man who desires fame and fortune, but this does not mean I should shun him. I choose to define myself by the character inside of me, while he chooses to define himself by all the things outside of him, yet we share in the very same nature.

 

So I make a very conscious and deliberate effort, each and every day, to involve myself with others, to pass something good on to them, however paltry it may seem. I shouldn’t attempt this to gain power or influence over them, or to increase my station; I should do it to hopefully improve myself and to help them, in turn, improve themselves.

 

I try to seek out friends so I can do something for them, not so they can do something for me. I tell myself I should expect no other appreciation or reward, beyond the knowledge of having struggled to live with virtue.

 

That sounds all nice and well, but then I see once again how poorly other people can actually decide to behave. They will lie, they will steal, they will grovel to one and gossip about another. They will smile at you when you are convenient, and look away when you are no longer of any use. I can hardly tell whether I can trust a man, because I do not know what is really in his heart. Welcome to the seedy side of public life.

 

Now I suddenly question my values, and I allow myself to become deeply discouraged.

 

I can remember that I should not look to how others will live, but to how I can live, and I still feel like my efforts are wasted. I can consider that hardships and obstacles offer a necessary opportunity in life, yet I remain despondent. I can repeatedly tell myself not be resentful of anyone’s mistakes, even as they weigh down on me.

 

The worst part of it is that I know I should choose to love people, while I also find it so difficult to even like them. I know it is within my power to sincerely commit to my neighbors, and all I can think about is running away from them.

 

I get tired of all the pettiness and the malice. I sometimes just want to go home, and pretend the rest of the world doesn’t even exist. I find that the biggest hindrance to a good life isn’t some other conflicting grand theory, but the accumulation of many little annoyances.

 

 

 

1.9

 

"No one," I say, "that will give me no compensation worth such a loss shall ever rob me of a day. Let my mind be contained within itself and improve itself. Let it take no part with other men's affairs, and do nothing that depends on the approval of others. Let me enjoy a tranquility undisturbed by either public or private troubles."

 

But whenever my spirit is roused by reading some brave words, or some noble example spurs me into action, I want to rush into the law courts, to place my voice at one man's disposal, my services at another's, and to try to help him even though I may not succeed, or to quell the pride of some lawyer who is puffed up by ill-deserved success.

 

At one moment I want to crawl down into a little hole, and then at another I feel ready to charge out and fix all the ills of society. I may attribute this to being discouraged or encouraged by the changing circumstances around me, though I fear it has far more to do with the uncertain convictions within me.

 

If a single obstacle forces me to run away, or an inspiring appeal then has me protesting in the streets, that says far more about my own vagaries than those of the world. It isn’t this or that situation that is dragging me down or raising me up, it is my own unwillingness to make good of this or that situation.

 

I know, and I am sure Serenus knows, that the problem is somehow in our own thinking, even if we are not quite sure how to pinpoint the problem.

 

We say we know, but then we don’t do. We make commitments, and then we don’t keep them. Our circumstances toss us this way and that, such that we can no longer tell up from down. We alternate between crying, “I give up!” to yelling, “I’ll show you!”

 

I can hardly say there is anything stable in my life if my whole outlook changes whenever something is inconvenient or convenient, unpleasant or pleasant. I should see the warning signs when I violently flip from one extreme to another, from the lowest low to the highest high and then right back again, and I should be quite wary if this can even happen from one part of the day to another.

 

I do recognize a certain pattern here, and it is that this almost invariably happens when I have allowed my passions to run ahead of my understanding. I am doing quite a bit of feeling, as is quite natural, but I am not doing terribly much thinking, and that is quite unnatural.

 

There is a problem when the dog walks the man, instead of the man walking the dog.

 

It can be deeply troubling to find myself in such an uncertain state. I may blame the world, or I may blame myself, but blame alone achieves nothing. I was given the power of reason to learn to be accountable for myself, and that is where I need to slowly and carefully build my strength.

 

My very meaning and purpose should not be drawn into question by whether or not I happen to see my shadow, whenever I poke my head out of my burrow.

 

 

 

1.10

 

But I think, by Hercules, that in philosophical speculation it is better to view things as they are, and to speak of them on their own account, and as for words, to trust to things for them, and to let one's speech, simply follow where they lead.

 

"Why do you want to construct a fabric that will endure for ages? Do you not wish to do this in order that posterity may talk of you? Yet you were born to die, and a silent death is the least wretched. Write something therefore in a simple style, merely to pass the time, for your own use, and not for publication. Less labor is needed when one does not look beyond the present."

 

The world of academia is largely one of big words and hot air. This is especially true in the field of philosophy, which so easily becomes disconnected from the real needs of life. I say this not with a sense of accusation and resentment, but with a sense of shame and guilt, for having spent far too much of my life playing along with those very games.

 

At first, I assumed it was just the philosophers. Then I saw it with the sociologists, the political scientists, the historians, and the psychologists. Then I saw it in law, in medicine, in religion, and in finance. Then I saw it in the day-to-day world of business, of politics, of entertainment, and of social services. The rot ran so terribly deep.

 

What are so many of these people saying, and why are they saying it? They use fancy concepts, attuned to the shallow fashion of the day, to become self-appointed experts. They do this in order to give themselves a sense of superiority, of being important, and to build up a name.

 

The typical academic who might be reading this is gritting his teeth right now. He wants to refute such ridiculous claims, and assure us that all is well. He will ridicule the whistleblower, the fellow who points out that the Emperor has no clothes.

 

Yet inside of himself, he knows the claims to be quite true. He would prefer you not recognize that, as it might expose the vanity of all he has worked for. He has published articles, after all, with titles like “The Esotericism of Being Qua Being: Confronting the Pan-Sexuality of False Ontology” to gain the respect of his venerable peers.

 

What is so funny is that you have no idea if that is a real peer-reviewed journal article, do you?

 

Tell the truth in its most direct form, keep it simple, and care nothing for your legacy. We are all dust, and to dust we shall all return. In the meantime, we can try to live with character, and help others to do the same. We have done well if we have given love, and treated others with justice and kindness. All the rest is a wasted effort.

 

It is best to do good, regardless of whether you are remembered for your cleverness. It is best to speak your wisdom quietly, and to expect no recognition for it. It is best to practice compassion for all, instead of deliberately making ideological enemies of others. There is never any need to pick a fight.

 

Nature will be as she will be. Follow her, and speak of her with reverence and clarity. That is not only a much better life, but also a much easier life.

 

 

 

1.11

 

Then again, when the mind is elevated by the greatness of its thoughts, it becomes ostentatious in its use of words, the loftier its aspirations, the more loftily it desires to express them, and its speech rises to the dignity of its subject.

 

At such times I forget my mild and moderate determination and soar higher than is my wont, using a language that is not my own. Not to multiply examples, I am in all things attended by this weakness of a well-meaning mind, to whose level I fear that I shall be gradually brought down, or what is even more worrying, that I may always hang as though about to fall, and that there may be more the matter with me than I myself perceive.

 

When all else seems right with the world, it makes perfect sense that my thoughts, my words, and my actions should be simple, humble, and unassuming. I should say less, and I should mean what I say with a sincere concern that it is first and foremost true and helpful, regardless of how much attention it brings me. I tell myself that I know full well how pointless it is to puff myself up with pompous ideas and baroque language; let Nature temper my vanity.

 

But then I am suddenly not so sure of myself. Did I really need to use the term “baroque”, when a much more direct word would have worked just fine? Did I use it because it was best for the job, or was I somehow showing off? I am sure I don’t intend to be self-serving, but I worry I am doing it nonetheless. There is that nagging uncertainty again, knowing in one sense but being quite clueless in another.

 

Am I getting it wrong, or am I worrying too much, which is yet another way of getting it wrong?

 

The Stoics followed the thinking of Socrates, that virtue proceeds from wisdom, and that vice proceeds from ignorance. Hence if I have failed to do what is good, it is because I did not rightly understand what was good; the merit of my choice will be measured by the depth of my awareness.

 

What is happening, however, when I think I know, and I still find it so hard to follow through in what I do? The Peripatetics, the followers of Aristotle, suggested that something in our power of choice is still keeping us back. I may understand a universal concept in theory, but I am not making use of a particular application in practice. The comprehension is not complete, and I am not joining the grand principle to the actual situation.

 

Take, for example, my general knowledge that I should not eat or drink what is unhealthy. Yet put a whole pound of bacon, or an entire bottle of whiskey, in front of me, and I will still be tempted to consume it all, right then and there. The general fact that this is unhealthy is hidden, is overcome, by another specific perception, that it is quite pleasant. I am aware broadly, forgetful narrowly, and I am not really connecting the dots.

 

I have never taken the Aristotelian view to be in contradiction to the Platonic view, but rather as a complement or supplement to it.

 

Something similar, I think, happens to me when I try to be simple, humble, and unassuming, and yet I still struggle with the temptation of being embellished, vain, and lofty. The conscience remains only partly formed, because I have not fully built the habit of applying the rule to the instance. My struggle is not that I don’t know at all, but that I don’t know as fully and as clearly as I could.

 

As always, just thinking, mulling it over as a profound abstraction, will mean little if it is not exercised concretely in daily life. Like growing pains, my frustration can encourage me that I am on the right track, but I still have a ways to go.

 

 

 

1.12

 

For we take a friendly view of our own private affairs, and partiality always obscures our judgment. I fancy that many men would have arrived at wisdom had they not believed themselves to have arrived there already, had they not purposely deceived themselves as to some parts of their character, and passed by others with their eyes shut: for you have no grounds for supposing that other people's flattery is more ruinous to us than our own.

 

Who dares to tell himself the truth? Who is there, by however large a troop of caressing courtiers he may be surrounded, who in spite of them is not his own greatest flatterer?

 

The vanity begins within myself, and then it lashes out at whoever stands in my way. I am so full of myself that nothing else can enter. Worse yet, I am so full of myself that my bitterness overflows, and it burns others.

 

I complain that the world is always wrong, but it rarely occurs to me that I might be wrong. I am smug, self-satisfied, immediately ready to cast blame, and hardly willing to receive it.

 

Over the years I have done some odd things, and been to a few interesting places, but something common to all of them was that I overheard quite a bit of what other people had to say, far more than they may have thought. I don’t need to get involved, or say anything at all; I just need to listen.

 

Through it all, I sadly discern a common pattern. Put two or more people together, give them a certain problem, and they will almost always point fingers. The fault is out there, not in here. They cover for themselves, and they circle the wagons.

 

Others are the villains, and they are the suffering heroes. The more they talk it over, the stronger their indignation becomes. Sometimes even the facts start changing, as some aspects are grossly exaggerated, while others are ignored completely.

 

I suspect that when we are in groups, we are simply tempted to magnify the self-righteousness that is already simmering inside of us. Give me another to back me up, and I feel vindicated. I now have a further justification for not thinking clearly.

 

The more the heads nod in agreement, the more the thinking seems to get rattled. This must be why the most important people like having a crew of yes-men to follow them around.

 

By looking outside, it distracts me from looking inside. I am now free to judge everyone and everything besides myself. I don’t need to learn anything new, because I already know it all. I don’t need to become a better man, because I am already the best man there is. How ridiculous the self-deception can become!

 

Sometimes we are so adamant in telling a lie that we actually come to believe it, and at no time is this more apparent than when we lie to ourselves. The degree to which we express how deeply we are shocked, appalled, or offended can far too easily reflect the delusions about our own bloated sense of self.

 

The Stoic remembers that the biggest obstacle to wisdom and virtue is in our own hearts and minds, not in the way the rest of the world happens to unfold. How ironic that the thing closest to me, my very self, is the most difficult for me to look at fairly and honestly. My self-imposed ignorance of my own character is surely at the root of my doubt and uncertainty about a good life.

 

 

 

1.13

 

I beg you, therefore, if you have any remedy by which you could stop this vacillation of mine, to deem me worthy to owe my peace of mind to you.

 

I am well aware that these oscillations of mind are not perilous and that they threaten me with no serious disorder. To express what I complain of by an exact simile, I am not suffering from a storm, but from seasickness. Take from me, then, this evil, whatever it may be, and help one who is in distress within sight of land.

 

I have finally come to realize that most of those who say they will help, even when they promise it with the finest words, will not help at all. This is difficult for me, because I would like to think the best of human nature.

 

I still hope that people will find understanding and compassion within their souls, but I no longer expect it. My own failures at understanding and compassion, due to my own narrow sense of self, should be the first things to remind me that I cannot demand what I have failed to give. There’s nothing like knowing you have been a bastard for you to offer sympathy to all the other bastards.

 

I have asked people to give me assistance more often than I can count, and I have stood there abandoned more often than I can count. I have struggled to not become bitter, and to rather become more accepting and forgiving. The Golden Rule demands no less.

 

Yet I cringe when I read Serenus’ appeal. He is, as they say, putting himself “out there”, revealing a weakness within himself. How easy it would be to throw a tired platitude his way, and then to ignore him completely. That’s the pattern I’m most used to.

 

“Oh, don’t worry. It will be just fine.” “Have you prayed about it?” “Hey, we all have problems, right? What makes you so special?”

 

Serenus asks with urgency, even as he admits that he is not in an existential crisis. He suffers from a lingering malaise, not from some life-threatening danger. He will not necessarily lose his whole character, though he feels it being gnawed at constantly.

 

He is seasick, not drowning.

 

Nevertheless, his need is real. The death by a thousand cuts can be far more troubling than the executioner’s axe. Give me light, or give me darkness, but I can’t bear this constant grayness.

 

As he makes this appeal, I can only feel with him. I know exactly where he is coming from, being neither here nor there, with just enough spirit to live, and not enough spite to die. These are the folks we too often overlook, those who are in between. They cry out, and we look the other way.

 

Seneca was hardly a perfect man, caught in all sorts of silly political machinations back in his time, but he had the decency to give Serenus a thoughtful and caring reply. He wasn’t great because he wrote fine books, or rubbed shoulders with the rich and powerful, but because he chose to help his friends.

 

 

 

Chapter 2

 

2.1

 

Seneca:

 

I have long been silently asking myself, my friend Serenus, to what I should liken such a condition of mind, and I find that nothing more closely resembles it than the conduct of those who, after having recovered from a long and serious illness, occasionally experience slight touches and twinges, and, although they have passed through the final stages of the disease, yet have suspicions that it has not left them, and though in perfect health yet hold out their pulse to be felt by the physician, and whenever they feel warm suspect that the fever is returning.

 

Such men, Serenus, are not unhealthy, but they are not accustomed to being healthy; just as even a quiet sea or lake nevertheless displays a certain amount of ripple when its waters are subsiding after a storm.

 

I am hardly a strapping fellow, but I will not get sick often. Yet when I do, it will hit me like a ton of bricks, and it then takes me ages to return to form. I do wonder if the period of recovery can be worse than the actual disease, and I almost prefer the few days of sharp pain and delirious fever to the many weeks of dull aches and draining lethargy.

 

As is so often the case, the patterns of the mind reflect the patterns of the body. That moment where everything hangs in the balance, where a decision will be about far more than life or death, but about redemption or corruption? Yes, I will face that, and while I know that it will hurt, I also know that it will define my purpose. The meaning in it is clear.

 

But that moment where nothing stands out, where it hardly seems to matter if I turn right or I turn left, and all that is left is dullness and worry? No, I would rather not face that, and while the hurt doesn’t seem nearly as bad, I have no sense of its purpose. The meaning in it is not clear.

 

Yes, there is that sudden and critical time, both terrifying and glorious, when all else falls away, and I need to make my stand. Then there is the creeping silence that follows, when the mundane has returned, and I need to maintain my convictions. That second bit is not so easy.

 

There is the temptation to doubt again, where those little nagging concerns come back. Am I really any better? Wait, was that an old demon peeping around the corner? A noble commitment must now be built into a lasting habit. I am distracted by petty things, discouraged by every pang, convinced I am about to relapse. It becomes clear that the long-distance run requires something very different than the sprint.

 

It’s funny how so many powerful things in this life have no name at all, perhaps because we don’t actually wish to acknowledge them. This feeling is surely one of them, where the word “recovery” seems quite insufficient. Calling it the “long road of recovery” does it more justice.

 

 

 

2.2

 

What you need, therefore, is, not any of those harsher remedies to which allusion has been made, not that you should in some cases check yourself, in others be angry with yourself, in others sternly reproach yourself, but that you should adopt that which comes last in the list, have confidence in yourself, and believe that you are proceeding on the right path, without being led aside by the numerous divergent tracks of wanderers that cross it in every direction, some of them circling about the right path itself.

 

There are times when I need to be tough with myself, and then there are times when I need to give myself a bit more credit. I know how dangerous it can be to confuse the two, but when informed by honest understanding each method has its place.

 

To use Seneca’s analogy, sometimes I have completely lost my way, and I don’t know where the right path is, or even in which direction I am pointed. Great dangers call for radical measures, so I need to be as firm with myself as I can possibly be.

 

At other times, I am already on the right path, and my moral compass has steered me in the right direction. Still I am easily distracted, or weighed down by the pettiest things, or prone to lethargy. I stumble, I fall, I get confused. This may well be the time when I don’t need to give myself a stern lecture, but rather some calm and patient encouragement.

 

My own experience has been that this is like the difference between knowing nothing at all and at least knowing a bit of something, or also between a stubborn indignation and a sincere willingness to improve. It is a wilted conscience as distinct from a growing conscience. A firm hand has often helped me with the former, and a gentle touch with the latter.

 

I’m not sure if the analogies works entirely, but I picture it to myself as something like the contrast between the stick and the carrot, or between vinegar and honey.

 

I have some experience in working with self-help groups, and I have noticed we will sometimes foolishly apply a certain remedy at the time when it is least helpful.  Your mileage may vary, but a good hug is not the best solution when a member has stolen the cashbox to feed his vice of choice. Similarly, a raised voice is the worst response when a member is in tears because she has had a bad day.

 

There is a world of difference between “You lazy bum!” and “You’re doing great. Keep going!”

 

I have found this test to be useful: What is my current attitude toward my own responsibilities? If I am smugly looking down at them, I may need a thrashing to get myself back on track. If I am struggling to keep up with them, I probably need kind inspiration. Sometimes I need to be brought down, and sometimes I need to be raised up.

 

 

 

2.3

 

What you desire, to be undisturbed, is a great thing, no, the greatest thing of all, and one that raises a man almost to the level of a god. The Greeks call this calm steadiness of mind euthymia, and Democritus' treatise upon it is excellently written.

 

 I call it peace of mind, for there is no necessity for translating so exactly as to copy the words of the Greek idiom. The essential point is to mark the matter under discussion by a name that ought to have the same meaning as its Greek name, though perhaps not the same form.

 

What we are seeking, then, is how the mind may always pursue a steady, unruffled course, may be pleased with itself, and look with pleasure upon its surroundings, and experience no interruption of this joy, but abide in a peaceful condition without being ever either elated or depressed: this will be "peace of mind”.

 

We are convinced that we must always be busy, frantically running about here and there, occupied with not only one task after another, but with as many tasks at the same time as possible. Then, we actually go around bragging about how hectic our lives are, as if this were somehow a badge of success. Look at all that we are sacrificing in order to be happy! How noble our suffering!

 

This would seem, however, quite an odd way to become happy. Happiness will not come from making ourselves more miserable. There is no rest for the restless. We will hardly find peace if we are always at war.

 

What Seneca here calls euthymia, peace of mind, is a way to describe that goal we are all seeking. It is what Serenus longs for in the midst of his dreariness and doubt. It is what I have always desired, though I have not clearly known how to find it, or even precisely what it is. It is what any man occupied with all the petty diversions of life hopes to discover, somewhere beyond or behind all of those diversions. It is what even the most wicked man, wrapped up in his own selfishness and spite, truly craves.

 

“Sure,” someone might say, “you mean feeling good?”

 

Yes, it may include a feeling of pleasure, but it is far more than that, and the fact that we reduce it only to feeling is a part of our problem. The sorts of pleasures we usually pursue are often about gratification, about continually consuming and possessing, and this is more about a deeper contentment and satisfaction with all things. It is feeling at peace, not longing for more.

 

Furthermore, the value of that feeling must itself be an effect of a certain state of mind, of how we live and act, of the whole of our own self in relationship to the world around us. It includes the body, the passions, the mind and the will, and it means that I can, at any time or in any circumstance, look within myself, and look outside of myself, and say with all conviction, “Yes, this is good!”

 

It will not be hindered by unexpected obstacles, and it will not be interrupted by extreme highs and lows. I won’t be laughing out loud at one moment, and crying uncontrollably the next. There will no need for furiously working to acquire more, because I will already have within me everything I need.

 

I can’t improve on how Seneca describes it, but I can point to further aspects or images that help me to personally understand it. I think of this peace of mind as building a balance, where no one part outweighs the other, and where all the pieces are working together as a whole. That balance is in my own soul, and in my soul’s place in Nature.

 

I remember that sudden moment when I could ride my bicycle with no conscious effort, with no falling down, with no wobbling, with no frustrations. I remember that time I built my first house of cards, and it stayed standing. I remember when I finally sat next to another person on a park bench, and there was absolutely no need for anxiety or words. There is the balance, there is the harmony, there is the peace, there is the contentment.

 

 

 

2.4

 

Let us now consider in a general way how it may be attained: then you may apply as much as you choose of the universal remedy to your own case. Meanwhile we must drag to light the entire disease, and then each one will recognize his own part of it.

 

At the same time you will understand how much less you suffer by your self-depreciation than those who are bound by some showy declaration that they have made, and are oppressed by some grand title of honor, so that shame rather than their own free will forces them to keep up the pretense.

 

We will all approach it in our own way, and we will all express it in our own manner, but peace of mind is that fundamental need we all share. Everything else in our lives will depend upon the order and balance within us, as much as we may be drawn away by the lure of things outside us. There is absolutely nothing in this world that can offer me happiness, if I have not first and foremost come to peace with myself.

 

Some of us struggle with achieving this goal more than others, for we all possess different dispositions, and we all face different circumstances. Some may have a discouraging day, and need a bit of friendly encouragement. Others may confront pain that seems unbearable, and will receive no comfort at all when they are simply told to tough it out. Still, whatever the degree of our separation from happiness, we will all find ourselves at different places along the very same path.

 

I may worry that I am failing, and I may be tempted to give up hope, yet I must remember that my awareness of my own weakness is itself a sign of progress. At the very least, I know that something is missing, and I know that there is something I must do.

 

This is far better than having lied to others, and having lied to myself, over and over, to the point where I actually come to believe my own lies. I convince myself that I am always doing it right. In making myself appear grand, I have forgotten that an appearance is never a substitute for the reality. Faking it is not making it.

 

If I insist how decent and thoughtful I am, and I bask in the praise of others, and I graciously receive all the rewards that are supposed to come with success, I have now trapped myself in my own vanity. How can I possibly escape without looking bad, which is what I have come to fear the most?

 

No, I should be glad to admit to my faults and my doubts, both to others and to myself. I am not yet a good man, but I would like more than anything to become one. For all of my struggles, I can still have the advantage of honest self-reflection; from this can follow realization, improvement, and growth. No good will come from only pretending I am a good man, while being terrified that the whole illusion will somehow collapse.

 

In my teaching, I often notice how students doing their best can become quite worried that they could be doing better, while those doing their worst can remain rather proud of their failures. Doubt is not necessarily a bad thing, and confidence is not necessarily a good thing. That line between only seeming and actually being will make all the difference.

 

 

 

2.5

 

The same thing applies both to those who suffer from fickleness and continual changes of purpose, who always are fondest of what they have given up, and those who merely yawn and dawdle.

 

Add to these those who, like bad sleepers, turn from side to side, and settle themselves first in one manner and then in another, until at last they find rest through sheer weariness. In forming the habits of their lives they often end by adopting some to which they are not kept by any dislike of change, but in the practice of which old age, which is slow to alter, has caught them living.

 

Add also those who are by no means fickle, yet who must thank their dullness, not their consistency for being so, and who go on living not in the way they wish, but in the way they have begun to live.

 

I should not fret over the fact that I find it difficult to be good, and that I struggle to be happy. If I am facing obstacles, it can mean that I am doing more than merely going through the motions for the sake of appearances, and it can mean that I am still guided by a sense of purpose. The hardship at least reflects an effort and a commitment. Better to stay in the fight than to yield.

 

I have often wondered how people can so easily brush off their circumstances. For some, it may well show how they have truly mastered themselves, and these are the folks I need to learn from. Yet for many others, it reveals how quickly they change their tunes. Once they confront something inconvenient or uncomfortable, they simply drop their former interests, and move on to something completely new.

 

“I don’t like this anymore. Look! There is another situation to hold my attention. I am tired of worrying about this. Look! Let me follow a different path.”

 

The house is cluttered and dirty, and the ashtrays are all full. Time to buy a new house.

 

I was always deeply confused as to why I was given promises of unconditional love at one moment, and then treated like a complete stranger the next. Was I so boring and tedious that I was now disposable? It never occurred to me that there was nothing I could have done to win the affections of those who had decided to no longer care.

 

Flighty people never stay with one thing for too long, especially if it requires real work. Their seeming ease in life is not ease at all, but a running away from any genuine dedication.

 

Then there are also those who just accept the last thing to come their way, exhausted by the effort of trying anymore, caught in the humdrum of mediocre habits. They lie wherever they fall.

 

Finally, there are also those who never reflect to begin with, and so are pushed and pulled by anything that crosses their paths. They are hardly content, but resigned to let everything be what it will be, while never even thinking about what they could be.

 

Yes, there were times when I was far too stubborn, or was pigheadedly unwilling to settle for what I perceived as second best, or kicked and screamed when the world rolled over me. Still, at least there was some life left in me, and I was not content to surrender my need to find some peace of mind.

 

 

2.6

 

There are other special forms of this disease without number, but it has but one effect, that of making people dissatisfied with themselves. This arises from a distemperature of mind and from desires that one is afraid to express or unable to fulfill, when men either dare not attempt as much as they wish to do, or fail in their efforts and depend entirely upon hope.

 

Such people are always fickle and changeable, which is a necessary consequence of living in a state of suspense. They take any way to arrive at their ends, and teach and force themselves to use both dishonorable and difficult means to do so, so that when their toil has been in vain they are made wretched by the disgrace of failure, and do not regret having longed for what was wrong, but having longed for it in vain.

 

They then begin to feel sorry for what they have done, and afraid to begin again, and their mind falls by degrees into a state of endless vacillation, because they can neither command nor obey their passions, of hesitation, because their life cannot properly develop itself, and of decay, as the mind becomes stupefied by disappointments.

 

I have heard all sorts of philosophers, psychologists, priests, mystics, politicians, self-help gurus, and talk-show hosts telling us what it is that makes us so uneasy in this life. Still, I return to this brief account, time and time again, because it cuts through all the clutter, and it describes so accurately the anxiety that can eat away at us all.

 

I imagine there isn’t a single person on the face of this earth who has not, at some time and in some way, faced this sort of disappointment and restlessness. It may be more or less severe, and we may be better or worse at hiding it, but it always lurks under the surface. We become unhappy with ourselves, and unhappy with the world, by not quite knowing what we should want, or how to go about getting it.

 

We question ourselves, are dragged down by our doubts, and feel as if our efforts always fall short. What else could be left, if we have no idea where to turn? Is there some magic elixir, to be found just around the corner, which will take away all the uncertainty?

 

For lack of better term, I call it being fidgety inside. I grew up in a house that had a yard full of squirrels, regularly causing mischief by digging their little holes in my mother’s plantings. They were fascinating to watch, however, because they seemed the most nervous of creatures. They would dart about from one place to another, with no discernible pattern, and were spooked by the slightest motion or sound. They charged in one direction, stopped for a moment to look shocked and surprised, and then ran back the way they came. If the wind blew a certain way, their tails would twitch, and they started barking.

 

Have you felt that way about your own life on any given day, more often than you are willing to admit? Yes, I thought so.

 

When I find myself discouraged about my very purpose for living, I will behave very much like one of those squirrels. I will go this way and then that way, become distracted by bumps and shadows, and try absolutely anything to just make it through the day. Clueless about what will get the job done, I will follow any path at all, only to be frustrated when it leads me nowhere.

 

I choose all the wrong means to get me to where I think I need to go, and then I am disappointed when they don’t work out. I don’t feel bad, however, because I decided on the wrong things to begin with, but only because I didn’t get them the way I wanted them.

 

“Wait, lying, and stealing, and backbiting, and wallowing in indulgence haven’t made me happy? Maybe if I tried them in a different order?” Good grief!

 

Not even being sure of who I am, I surrender myself to my flighty desires and changing circumstances, afraid to admit this to myself, and afraid someone else might notice that I have no idea what I’m doing. A man wasn’t made to run a rat race, or be trapped on a hamster wheel, or live like a fidgety squirrel.

 

 

 

2.7

 

All these symptoms become aggravated when their dislike of a laborious misery has driven them to idleness and to secret studies, which are unendurable to a mind eager to take part in public affairs, desirous of action and naturally restless, because, of course, it finds too few resources within itself.

 

When therefore it loses the amusement which business itself affords to busy men, it cannot endure home, loneliness, or the walls of a room, and regards itself with dislike when left to itself.

 

Recognizing my restlessness, I then become painfully conscious of the emptiness inside me, and I dread having to face my own thoughts. Distracting myself is suddenly just an empty chore, even as it seems that everyone else is quite content with it.

 

I have, after all, been told that the best way to get ahead in life is to constantly be busy, continually occupied with one task after another, so that I may then have a feeling of accomplishment and worth. But I find no achievement in any of it, and I would laugh if it didn’t make me cringe. It is much like trying to sit patiently at a table and not knowing what to do with my hands.

 

Others will go on looking busy, yet I can only wonder if they are just putting on a show, because I am surely not the only one who doesn’t like gazing in the mirror. What am I afraid of? It can only be that I don’t like what I am going to see.

 

I really haven’t nurtured what is inside of me all that well, have I? Without the outside to occupy my attention, the silence is rather deafening. I know that it shouldn’t be that way, so I am ashamed in addition to being frustrated.

 

I think of Blaise Pascal, who tells us in the Pensées that all our miseries come from an inability to be alone with ourselves. I will make the reference quite often, since I sense how it goes straight to the cause of our deepest worries. People will thoughtfully nod in agreement, and then, after a brief silence, everyone starts changing the subject.

 

I push myself a bit further into the text, forcing myself to swallow more of the bitter medicine:

 

He who does not see the vanity of the world is himself very vain. Indeed who do not see it but youths who are absorbed in fame, diversion, and the thought of the future?

 

But take away diversion, and you will see them dried up with weariness. They feel then their nothingness without knowing it; for it is indeed to be unhappy to be in insufferable sadness as soon as we are reduced to thinking of self, and have no diversion.

 

If our condition were truly happy, we would not need diversion from thinking of it in order to make ourselves happy.

 

What is so terrible about being in my room, at home, alone? It can only be that I don’t particularly enjoy my own company. It only remains for me to ask whose job it is to do something about that.

 

 

 

2.8

 

Hence arises that weariness and dissatisfaction with oneself, that tossing to and fro of a mind which can nowhere find rest, that unhappy and unwilling endurance of enforced leisure. In all cases where one feels ashamed to confess the real cause of one's suffering, and where modesty leads one to drive one's sufferings inward, the desires pent up in a little space without any vent choke one another.

 

Hence comes melancholy and drooping of spirit, and a thousand waverings of the unsteadfast mind, which is held in suspense by unfulfilled hopes, and saddened by disappointed ones.

 

Hence comes the state of mind of those who loathe their idleness, complain that they have nothing to do, and view the progress of others with the bitterest jealousy. For an unhappy sloth favors the growth of envy, and men who cannot succeed themselves wish everyone else to be ruined.

 

This dislike of other men's progress and despair of one's own produces a mind angered against fortune, addicted to complaining of the age in which it lives to retiring into corners and brooding over its misery, until it becomes sick and weary of itself: for the human mind is naturally nimble and apt at movement.

 

How clear the whole progression now seems to me, when it is laid out in such a manner. The causes on the inside lead to the effects on the outside. I don’t see it, of course, when I am caught in the middle of it, because I haven’t bothered to step out of myself, and look at myself as I may look at another.

 

First, there is an absence within myself. My judgments are flawed, and so my very sense of self is flawed. I am restless precisely because I am failing to be human.

 

Then, I can feel nothing but sadness within myself. The sadness is itself not a consequence of anything that has happened, but flows directly from my poor judgments about what is right and wrong.

 

Finally, there can only be resentment and jealousy for those other than myself. Give me what you have, whatever it might be, since I have nothing at all of any worth within my own soul. Now I will hate you, and I will blame you, when you fail to give it to me.

 

I could never quite figure out why my conscience always told me not to care one bit for the worldly glory achieved by others, yet here I was, gritting my teeth and banging my fists on the table, consumed with envy whenever I saw them win even more pleasure, position, or power.

 

My first excuse, of course, was to blame them for being so petty and shallow, and to hide my frustration behind a self-righteous anger. No, it had nothing to do with them at all. It had everything to do with me, and the fact that my own moral failings made their possessions seem so enticing.

 

If I starve myself for a day, or a week, or a month, any morsel, however meager or unhealthy, will suddenly appear appetizing.

 

I may become convinced that they have something I lack, only because I lack something quite different that I should already have. If a man takes away his own character, he has nothing left but to crave external blessings, and when they don’t happen to come his way, he has nothing left but to begrudge others for having them.

 

Jealousy can have such an incredible power, but there is no great mystery to it. Those who believe that happiness is about pride, conquest, or gratification, the disciples of a Nietzsche or a Freud, will assume that jealousy can never truly be tamed. They are mistaken, however, because it is quite possible for a man to think beyond his belly, if he only decides to open his mind to Nature.

 

 

 

2.9

 

It delights in every opportunity of excitement and forgetfulness of itself, and the worse a man's disposition the more he delights in this, because he likes to wear himself out with busy action, just as some sores long for the hands that injure them and delight in being touched, and the foul itch enjoys anything that scratches it.

 

Similarly I assure you that these minds over which desires have spread like evil ulcers, take pleasure in toils and troubles, for there are some things which please our body while at the same time they give it a certain amount of pain, such as turning oneself over and changing one's side before it is wearied, or cooling oneself in one position after another.

 

Many of us will know that feeling of actually enjoying being miserable, of finding pleasure in our anger and complaints, not because there is any good in it at all, but because there is nothing else good in us at all. Piss and vinegar is all that we have left. So we snipe, and we bicker, and we gossip, and we run about, here and there, stirring the pot and poisoning the well.

 

I think of how many times I have come to work, or gone to church, or simply sat down with people for coffee or a beer, and this rather odd ritual begins. First, there is a sort of litany of suffering, where each person explains how difficult his day has been, and how much he has had to do, and how exhausted he is from his many activities.

 

This then transforms into a sort of litany of resentment, where each person proceeds to blame the failings of others for his suffering, insists that no one appreciates him, and bemoans the sorry state of the world.

 

There are perverse bragging rights involved, about who can win the trophy for being the busiest and most harried victim for the day. There is an unspoken rule that one never accuses those who are present at the moment, but they become fair game as soon as they leave the room.

 

How tempting it is to play along, what a guilty pleasure it can be to get caught up in all the griping, only because it lets us forget, if only for the moment, how directionless we are inside of our own souls.

 

I will try to catch myself and drag myself away from it, only to fail again, because I have forgotten that no good comes from wallowing in discomfort, and nothing is ever solved by pointing the finger.

 

Yes, it is very much like frantically scratching at an itch, only to irritate it more, or nervously picking at a scab, only to reopen the wound. We will often speak of anxiety as a nervous condition, and that it can most certainly be, but I suspect it can go much deeper than that, to a restlessness of the heart and of the mind. As a professor of mine once said, “It’s existential, not just environmental!”

 

A dog may constantly pace back and forth if he is kept locked up in the yard with nothing to do. One of my cats will claw and chew on pillows when she is being ignored. Children can easily get into all sorts of mischief when they become bored.

 

And I will start to occupy myself with more and more busywork, changing my focus of attention from one moment to the next, only to divert myself from facing myself. If I have nothing pointless to do, I become terrified that nothing has a point.

 

I never quite understood the meaning of that phrase, “running around like a chicken with his head cut off”, until I was told that being an adult required doing all sorts of insignificant things, so as to avoid coming to terms with all the things in life that are actually significant.

 

 

 

2.10

 

It is like Homer's Achilles lying first upon his face, then upon his back, placing himself in various attitudes, and, as sick people are wont, enduring none of them for long, and using changes as though they were remedies.

 

Hence men undertake aimless wanderings, travel along distant shores, and at one time at sea, at another by land, try to soothe that fickleness of disposition that always is dissatisfied with the present.

 

The story of Achilles is so very old, and yet it is also so very contemporary. For all of his skill and strength, he found it quite difficult to remain steadfast in his character.

 

He was once friends with Agamemnon, but then becomes his enemy. Here he wishes to have Brisies returned to him, and there he refuses to take her back. First he is quite willing to fight, and then he will not fight, and then he is willing to fight again, but for a rather different reason than before.

 

At one moment he desecrates the body of Hector, and then at another moment, moved by the words of Priam, he provides a proper burial.

 

Even when Achilles has avenged the death of Patroclus, he is still restless, uneasy, tossing back and forth. Does he even know who he truly is, or what he should rightly want? He is never quite happy with anything that happens, and his attention quickly turns to something else, though he is equally fiery and indignant in all of his moods. The great hero may master others on the field of battle, but he has very little mastery over himself.

 

Trying to teach the Iliad has long been one of my favorite endeavors, because there can sometimes come a wonderful moment where young people no longer think of it as dusty old book, but they see all of human greatness and folly, virtue and vice, condensed in its pages.

 

One student asked hesitantly, “Is it just me, or is Achilles sort of like a rich spoiled brat, and the only reason anyone puts up with him is that he’s also the star of the football team, and the girls think he’s awful cute?”

 

“How can one person’s vanity and pettiness cause so much grief?” wondered another.

 

“Do his thoughts and feelings ever become consistent? He’s all over the place!” bemoaned a third.

 

We all know people who live that way, and at one point or another we have probably all succumbed to such flightiness. It is here more than just an anxious personality, but proceeds from lacking any peace of mind within. We dismiss our friends, or cast aside our lovers, or make and break our promises with the changing of the wind. We have consumed everything we want here, so we move on to something new over there.

 

Nothing will ever be enough, since there can be no contentment in a soul that has refused to come to terms with itself. 

 

 

 

2.11

 

"Now let us make for Campania. Now I am sick of rich cultivation: let us see wild regions, let us thread the passes of Bruttii and Lucania.

 

“Yet amid this wilderness one wants some thing of beauty to relieve our pampered eyes after so long dwelling on savage wastes: let us seek Tarentum with its famous harbor, its mild winter climate, and its district, rich enough to support even the great hordes of ancient times.

 

 “Let us now return to town: our ears have too long missed its shouts and noise. It would be pleasant also to enjoy the sight of human bloodshed."

 

Thus one journey succeeds another, and one sight is changed for another. As Lucretius says:

 

"Thus every mortal from himself does flee."

 

How absolutely timeless!

 

If you have the means, change your location and pastimes whenever you can, because different places and different faces, a whole new set of excitements and titillations, might keep your mind occupied just enough, just long enough, to maintain the illusion of being happy.

 

Empty inside? No worries, as they say! There is so much else to fill that silence with noise. Go on a vacation, no expenses spared. Laugh at the quaint locals, blunder about the sights, and pose for photographs, smiling from ear to ear. Then post your delightful experiences to social media. Look at you now—you’re a rock star!

 

Your husband earns enough to support seven or eight families of “normal” people, yet he always seems to be away on business trips, and he always travels first class, because his company takes care of him that way.

 

What does he get up to in Beijing, or in Mumbai, or in Moscow? Don’t give it a second thought, because he will take you away to Maine in a few weeks, and you’ll have that lobster dinner you and the kids love so much. Remember, those kids you are too busy to raise yourself, and quite happy to pass off to someone else during the year?

 

I didn’t dream up any of the above, and it didn’t come from my morbid imagination.

 

I once sat down for coffee with a woman after a Twelve Step meeting, and that is exactly how she described the charade of her own life. I was probably of no help to her, because I was too busy wallowing in my own misery. I know now what I might have said, but all I could do then was nod and clench my teeth.

 

If you need something new for every day, then you aren’t living for the day. If you can’t find peace within yourself, you will find no peace. If you rely only on the changing things that are given to you, you have absolutely nothing to rely on.

 

But no, that is not what I should have said, as much as I might have done well to think it. Words of compassion are enough. Commitment to one thing, to love, is enough.

 

 

 

2.12

 

But what does he gain by so doing if he does not escape from himself? He follows himself and weighs himself down by his own most burdensome companionship. We must understand, therefore, that what we suffer from is not the fault of the places but of ourselves. We are weak when there is anything to be endured, and cannot support either labor or pleasure, either one's own business or anyone else's for long.

 

This has driven some men to death, because by frequently altering their purpose they were always brought back to the same point, and had left themselves no room for anything new. They had become sick of life and of the world itself, and as all indulgences palled upon them they began to ask themselves the question, "How long are we to go on doing the same thing?"

 

There have been times when a change of circumstance has done me a world of good, but only when it was first inspired by a change of attitude. Simply moving away, or finding new work, or seeking out new friends, in and of itself, was never a cure. Learning to love wherever I was, or whatever I happened to be doing, or whoever I found myself with was the only cure. Something new on the outside was only helpful after it followed something new on the inside.

 

Without a transformation in my own thinking, no other remedy is of any use. The measure of the man is not in what happens to him, but in what he does, regardless of what happens to him. This is the very ethical foundation of Stoicism.

 

Do the conditions of time, and space, and situation make a difference? Yes, though only in how they are employed. I must ask just one question here: will it help me grow into becoming a better man, or will it drag me down into becoming a worse man?

 

“I can no longer bear it!” Why do I think that? Do I still live and breathe? Do I still have the freedom of my own mind and will? If so, then I can bear it. My power to know and to love is still absolutely my own. If it actually becomes unbearable, I will either die, or I will lose the very awareness that informs my human life. Either way, I will find relief.

 

The constant desire to experience something new can all too easily be an excuse for running away. By all means, I can leave behind a broken heart, a social shame, or a professional disappointment. Yet when the appearance of all that is beyond my sight, I still have to gaze upon myself. No, the problem didn’t go away because I found some new diversions; the problem stayed right there, as much as I may have run.

 

“I’m in a new relationship now, and I have a new job, and I’m working out every day, and I feel so much better!”

 

Then why do you still cry, or drink, or pace up and down when you get home, when no one else is watching? No person can love another, and no person can do good work, and no person can be healthy at all, if he doesn’t first love himself, understand himself, or attend to the health of his soul.

 

What was always bothering me so much? It was the absence of a conscience, of a moral compass. Running away from that emptiness, I always ended up exactly where I started; it is impossible to run away from oneself.

 

 

 

Chapter 3

 

3.1

 

You ask me what I think we had better make use of to help us to support this ennui.

 

"The best thing," as Athenodorus says, "is to occupy oneself with business, with the management of affairs of state and the duties of a citizen: for as some pass the day in exercising themselves in the sun and in taking care of their bodily health, and athletes find it most useful to spend the greater part of their time in feeding up the muscles and strength to whose cultivation they have devoted their lives; so too for you who are training your mind to take part in the struggles of political life, it is far more honorable to be thus at work than to be idle.”

 

Begin by committing to action. What is it that I know I must do to be a good man? Let me actually start by living well, instead of merely thinking about it. Pondering will not be enough.

 

There is that powerful line from Marcus Aurelius:

 

Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.

 

As Aristotle said, we become good by doing what is good, and our excellence increases through habit. Just like the athlete who exercises his body to grow in strength, speed, agility, and stamina, so too the man of virtue will practice good works to grow in prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice.

 

The text Seneca cites in this chapter, which I assume comes from the now lost writings of Athenodorus Cananites, refers specifically to the political life. This is quite suitable for Serenus, a patrician, who was already born to be in public service.

 

Remember how at one moment he is quite eager to engage in his career, and yet then at another he only wishes to retire, to run away from it all? What Serenus needs so desperately is to find that balance, the way to be a part of the outside world, while still retaining his inner peace of mind.

 

Seneca and Athenodorus may be speaking to a certain type of person, but the principles apply to all types of people, whatever their callings may be.

 

Have you ever wished you were born to wealth, to power, to prestige, like Athenodorus, or Serenus, or Seneca? Of course you have, because these are the things that the brutal and the base value the most, and you can’t help but notice how loudly and insistently the entitled tell you about their superiority.

 

Yet notice how such conditions did not make them any better or happier. What some consider benefits, others may see as curses. Seneca is trying to help Serenus come to terms with his character, regardless of his position.

 

Having anything fine never made anyone happier, though being someone fine has made some blessed.

 

So don’t worry if you didn’t go to Harvard or Yale, or you don’t have a financial portfolio, or you aren’t invited to cocktail parties in Lower Manhattan. I, for one, was never even invited to the keggers in college. Stoic wisdom is still for you, as it is for all of us. Replace any references here about being in high office with whatever it is you might do, wherever you may find yourself. You will discover the principles to be just as sound and just as helpful.

 

Thank God, there can be no snobbery in genuine Stoicism.

 

But remember, nothing will make any difference at all if you don’t first start with the doing.

 

 

 

3.2

 

“He whose object is to be of service to his countrymen and to all mortals, exercises himself and does good at the same time when he is engrossed in business and is working to the best of his ability, both in the interests of the public and of private men.“

 

We may sometimes assume that our only options in life are between doing something and doing nothing, and so there is the temptation to either fully engage the world or to give up entirely.

 

What is so easily overlooked is the power to discern the quality of the things we do, to do them rightly, and to be aware of the value in the reasons we choose to do them. Work does not have to be a burden, or a diversion, or a way to overcome our restlessness; it can rather be an expression of all that is good in this life, finding joy in service both to ourselves and to others.

 

Remember that Serenus is sometimes motivated to get things done, and at other times wants nothing more than to isolate himself. Whenever I have felt this way, it has been because I have lost a sense of the very meaning of work.

 

I may commit myself to a task in the hopes of winning all sorts of external rewards, or in the expectation of being appreciated and admired. If this does not happen, and I find myself disappointed with the immediate results, or with the responses of others, I can only think of crawling into a hole. I foolishly tell myself that I have tried again, and that I have failed again.

 

Yet it was my very expectations that were the problem. Instead of asking whether or not I should care, I should rather be asking how and why I could go about caring. Where is the worth? It is not in the achievement of owning anything, or in the acquisition of praise. These circumstances are completely accidental to the dignity of action.

 

It would be as if I baked a cake, while then worrying if the Moon still circles the Earth. As my wife likes to say, “What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?”

 

Life itself is a principle of action, and the life of a rational animal is action ordered by free judgment. The worth in what I can do, whatever it might be, is using all that is within my power to live according to Nature. Have I acted with sincere understanding and love? Then I have acted well, and in doing so I have improved myself, and I have offered others a chance to improve themselves.

 

Did I get the raise or the promotion? Did I win the affections of the girl? Did I stand before a cheering crowd? None of that ultimately matters.

 

Did I show a bit of kindness, offer a moment of compassion, or do something caring that no one else would ever notice? Good. That is a beginning. That is the very foundation of a virtuous life. Whether in public or in private, in big things or in little things, the merit of the act is in how it transforms my own soul, and how it reaches out to the souls of others.

 

Can I do this? Yes, of course I can. No more is asked of me. That is a good day’s work.

 

 

 

3.3

 

“But,” he continues, "because innocence is hardly safe among such furious ambitions, and there are so many men who turn one aside from the right path, and it is always sure to meet with more hindrance than help, we ought to withdraw ourselves from the forum and from public life, and a great mind even in a private station can find room wherein to expand freely.”

 

I can work in the world, seeking to offer something good in my own way, however small, but I should be wary of letting desire for the things of the world consume me. I sometimes think of it as being quite willing to reach out my hand to others, while still keeping a firm mastery of my own head. Do not be run away from power, honor, or pleasure, even as such circumstances must never be sought for their own sake.

 

Finding that balance between engagement and withdrawal, between “going out” and “staying in”, doesn’t have to come from blindly stumbling about. I can already discern the proper mean by examining my own motives, by honestly asking myself what it is that I want to achieve from any action. Is it virtue, or is it glory? Is it about what I can give, or about what I wish to receive? Am I drawn to what is good, or only to what is gratifying?

 

Without having the private refuge of my own mind, the allure of public life will all too easily sweep me away. Without the principles on the inside, I will become a slave to the fortune on the outside. The greed, the malice, and the manipulations of others will then make me cold and bitter.

 

There will have to be moments when I must not hesitate to charge into the fray, and there will have to be moments when I must be certain to stand back. Judging the difference can only arise from a clear knowledge of right and wrong, and from a sincere awareness of self. Whatever is driving me at the time will tell me where I should turn.

 

Throughout it all, the passions must be guided by reason. If my hands have a hold of the reins, then I am ready to ride into battle. If the horse is leading the rider, it is time to make a retreat.

 

It applies to the little things and to the big things. Should I go out with friends? Should I ask for a raise? Should I apply to law school? Should I run for political office? Should I ask her to marry me?

 

If I know myself, I will know what to do. I will recognize when I am being genuine and when I am making excuses. Taking the time to reflect on what is happening in my own soul is the only thing that can make it possible to engage in the world.

 

There have been many times, far more than I can now count, where I have blundered into foolish actions, and then I have assumed that action itself was the problem. No, the foolishness of the action was the problem, and that only happened because my own mind was not safe and secure from desire, fear, or anger, from a dependence on the circumstances.

 

True freedom in things public first requires true freedom in things private.

 

 

 

3.4

 

“Confinement in dens restrains the springs of lions and wild creatures, but this does not apply to human beings, who often effect the most important works in retirement.

 

“Let a man, however, withdraw himself only in such a fashion that wherever he spends his leisure his wish may still be to benefit individual men and mankind alike, both with his intellect, his voice, and his advice.”

 

An animal is ruled by its instincts, so to hinder its impulses is to hinder its nature. A cat in a box will not be a happy cat. A dog kept away from other dogs will not be a happy dog. A bird unable to fly will not be a happy bird. People will sometimes wonder why a wild beast removed from its habitat or from its own kind will become so restless, or morose, or aggressive, yet they must only observe that by changing where it is, they have changed how it is.

 

A man also has instincts, and they act upon him with great force, though he also has something more. He has his own judgment, and by this he can rule over his circumstances, not be ruled by them. He can live well wherever he is, whatever he may have, whether he is in a crowd or completely alone. If he chooses, of course, to surrender only to his instincts, he may be consumed by feeling homesick, or bored, or lonely, but if he chooses with his understanding, he will improve himself, regardless of his environment.

 

Sometimes it is right and proper for a man to be alone, to turn his attention to what is within. By retiring from the world around him, this can allow him to build his peace of mind and his mastery over himself. By removing diversions, he then sees himself stripped of all attachments, to define himself by himself. Put a madman in a box, and he will only become madder; put a wise man in a box, and he will only become wiser.

 

Nevertheless, even as he may find the need to do this, his reason must always remind him that though he makes himself, he is not made only for himself. Even if it brings him no fortune or fame, his very mind allows him to know that he shares a common nature with others, and that his own good is completely tied to the good of others. An awareness of self involves recognition of that same self as present in all his fellows; his virtue is expressed in knowing and loving his neighbors.

 

Even if he is separated from others, he is never fully alone, because everything he thinks, and does, and says is still ordered toward a service to all of humanity. A good man reaches out, even when he finds himself in complete solitude.

 

Serenus is torn between running toward the world and running away from the world; what he must learn is that he can work with one and the same attitude, one of character and conviction, regardless of where he finds himself. In company or in isolation, his values can remain constant.

 

 

 

3.5

 

“The man who does good service to the state is not only he who brings forward candidates for public office, defends accused persons, and gives his vote on questions of peace and war, but he who encourages young men in well-doing, who supplies the present dearth of good teachers by instilling into their minds the principles of virtue, who seizes and holds back those who are rushing wildly in pursuit of riches and luxury, and, if he does nothing else, at least checks their course—such a man does service to the public though in a private station.”

 

However engrossed we are in the world, whether in the middle of the fray or looking on from the edges, our nature calls us to always work for the good of the whole. We may assume that only the person who does grand and imposing things will do his duty, but this need not be the case. Each contribution, however humble or unassuming, plays its part, and each part is necessary.

 

For something to be important does not mean that it must be the biggest, or the most visible, or the most admired element. If I look at the workings of an old mechanical clock, every little screw, gear, and spring on the inside is as essential to the workings as the beautiful face on the outside.

 

Many people will assume they have to be like the hands that everyone can see, or the chimes that everyone can hear, but this confuses the merit of worth with the mere appearance of glory.

 

Remember, for want of a nail the kingdom was lost. It makes no difference if the part is large or small, public or private, recognized or ignored; what matters is that it adds something of itself to the harmony.

 

When I feel discouraged about what I can do, or disappointed in the value of my efforts, as I am sure Serenus must have felt, I can turn to this truth. It will become more than just a platitude for me if I recognize the fundamental order of Nature itself, and if I can think beyond my own impressions to the purpose of the whole.

 

There isn’t even a “me” beyond that unity, and there is ultimately no unity without me. That perspective in my judgment will shape everything else about the motivation in my practice.

 

Yes, a few people will be involved in epic political decisions, or argue monumental cases in the courts of law, or fight as heroes in noble wars. They will play their parts. Some other people, all the rest of us, will help a friend stand up during a hardship, commit to wisdom in the midst of ignorance, or keep ours heads on straight when others are consumed by passion. They will also play their parts.

 

“But I’m not getting anywhere! I’m treading water! It’s not making any difference!” Are you sure you aren’t just looking for the results in all the wrong places?  At the very least, your efforts are improving your own character, and that is a worthy achievement indeed.

 

Now think also of all the people who have been essential to helping you improve your life in the tiniest of ways, and how they were probably never even aware of that fact. You can have that very same effect on others, just by sticking to what you know is right and good, and not worrying about anything else. That is your part, and it is just as important as any other part.

 

Are the big folks with their big deeds any happier or better than the little folks with their little deeds? The grass is always greener on the other side, because the rich man will struggle with his doubts just as much as the poor man. To even think of “big” and “little” in this way is terribly misleading. Considered from the proper human measure of virtue and vice alone, every person is significant, for good or for ill, regardless of all the accessories and trappings.

 

 

 

3.6

 

“Which does the most good, he who decides between foreigners and citizens as praetor peregrinus, or, as praetor urbanus, pronounces sentence to the suitors in his court at his assistant's dictation, or he who shows them what is meant by justice, filial feeling, endurance, courage, contempt of death and knowledge of the gods, and how much a man is helped by a good conscience?

 

“If then you transfer to philosophy the time that you take away from the public service, you will not be a deserter or have refused to perform your proper task.”

 

We may no longer have a list of praetors, high magistrates holding different powers in the running of the Roman state, but we have our own modern web of officials, all of them with equally formal titles, all of them with equally impressive job descriptions. Everywhere we will see a hierarchy of positions, and the assumption will be that those higher up in the chain are doing the more important things. Their pronouncements are observed by more people, their judgments are thought to affect us more deeply, and their authority is therefore given far more reverence.

 

Indeed, some will be gifted with the skill of leadership, and some will be thrust into the public eye by the whims of fortune. That in any society there must be people in such places, and that there are certainly those who do such work with excellence, will be a part of the way things unfold.

 

Yet I still wonder, why do we think of them as being somehow greater, or better, or nobler?

 

A senator, or a judge, or a general may possess the deepest virtues, but how is this different from the deepest virtues of a farmer, or a plumber, or an office clerk? The politician may give his speeches from granite steps, yet there were also the men who built those steps he stands on. Is one any more because I can see him, and are the others any less because I cannot see them?

 

I might say that those in power simply do more in scale, that their actions have more force, because they make their mark the world around them more profoundly; is their greatness in the scope of their impact?

 

That would be true if I measured human worth by a control over circumstances, but the Stoic will consider the measure of human worth rather differently. We do well by the content of the character inside of us, not by a dominance over the conditions outside of us. Fame is drawn to appearances, while Nature is satisfied by righteousness. The quality of virtue is greater than the quantity of possessions.

 

I can seek comfort in knowing that I can always do good, both for myself and for others, regardless of where I find myself, or who sees me as being one thing or another. To whatever degree I might have influence over things around me, I always retain power over myself: a public office will only be as worthy as the private conscience behind it.

 

Let me first be ruled by philosophy, rightly understood, as the discipline that distinguishes between true and false, between right and wrong. It is greater, better, and nobler to live with wisdom and virtue than to hold any office or position.

 

 

 

3.7

 

“A soldier is not merely one who stands in the ranks and defends the right or the left wing of the army, but he also who guards the gates—a service which, though less dangerous, is no sinecure—who keeps watch, and takes charge of the arsenal: though all these are bloodless duties, yet they count as military service.”

 

I may be tempted to think that my particular contribution to any shared effort must be the most essential, the one that everyone else will depend on the most. It all comes from my vanity, from the mistaken assumption that I can only become more when others become less.

 

Instead of being content with having done my part of the good, I wish my good to be seen as being the greatest part. It is really fame that I then seek, not virtue.

 

There can be no such posturing in Stoicism, where a sense of the unity of Nature can only lead us also to a sense of the unity of mankind. Each piece is essential and necessary, for the whole proceeds from all of the parts, and all of the parts receive the benefits from the whole. Absolutely no one needs to be better or worse, as long as they have chosen to do their best in their own place.

 

I have always admired a certain unspoken rule among most veterans, that however much they may reminisce about their past struggles, they will avoid boasting and bragging about their heroism.

 

They understand that the whole battle, the whole campaign, and the whole war itself were something they did together, the men who cooked the meals and dug the ditches as much as the men who fixed their bayonets and charged the guns.

 

You will still find the loud ones, of course, who insist on telling their tales, and the others will usually sit in silent shame while gritting their teeth, embarrassed that one of their own is only thinking of himself. I have always found inspiration in that sort of noble solidarity.

 

I was always confused when a sports team claimed victory after a close match, and all the credit for winning the game was given to the fellow who managed the most impressive play, or the fellow who scored the last winning point with only seconds to spare.

 

Yet was not every point earned, or every point for the opponent denied, or every inch of ground held equally important? The game would have been lost without the first score as much as without the last, and the mundane work was just as critical as the spectacular.

 

Perhaps those who deserve credit are precisely those who do not insist upon it, because they do not insist upon themselves. The unknown soldier can possess glory as much as the decorated hero.

 

 

 

3.8

 

“As soon as you have devoted yourself to philosophy, you will have overcome all disgust at life: you will not wish for darkness because you are weary of the light, nor will you be a trouble to yourself and useless to others. You will acquire many friends, and all the best men will be attracted towards you, for virtue, in however obscure a position, cannot be hidden, but gives signs of its presence; anyone who is worthy will trace it out by its footsteps.”

 

I must read these words from a Stoic perspective, because otherwise following them might bring me a load of hurt. I need to know what it means to be philosophical, I need to know what it means to be useful, I need to know what it means to be a friend, and I need to know who the best people really are.

 

I will find light and joy in my life not by following philosophy merely as an academic discipline, but by pursuing wisdom so I can practice virtue from day to day, in the simplest and most immediate manner. The fulfillment will then come from the knowledge that my own power to do what is good, in even the smallest of circumstances, is all that I need. I am then finally myself, stripped of all the accessories, what Nature intended me to be.

 

I will become useful in this life not by making anyone rich, or by becoming famous, or by magically fixing all of the world’s problems, but by being committed to fixing myself. Once I can attend to that, the rest will take care of itself, because whatever happens is now measured by character instead of gratification. The greatest utility is in the exercise of humanity, not in the acquisition of things.

 

I will win friends not by convincing many people to adore me, but by finding the right people to offer my love, to give me the opportunity to live with compassion and concern. I once thought that I needed friends for what they gave to me, but I now see that I need friends for what I can give to them. All the greatest loss and pain I have felt in my life came from misunderstanding who my friends truly were.

 

I will surround myself with the best people not by sucking up to the movers and the shakers, but by only showing kindness, and treating others fairly. Like is drawn to like. I must be careful about who I consider the “best”, because the definition I should give is not the same as the one we are all too familiar with. The best people stick with you, they love you for your own sake, and they don’t let you down. If I bother to care, I will find that other people who care will notice; it is as if we had a secret language.

 

What disgusts me about life, as it turns out, isn’t what other people do at all. What disgusts me about life is my own unwillingness to come to peace with what other people do, since I have been unable to come to peace with myself.

 

Yes, it hurts quite a bit to learn that; how dare the blame come back to me! Yet once I act with sincere love, I can then respect others, and I can finally respect myself. Treat another person as a second self, and there will be no greed, no lust, and no conflict. Now I can be a philosopher, now I can be useful, now I can be a friend, now I can find the best people.

 

 

 

3.9

 

 “But if we give up all society, turn our backs upon the whole human race, and live communing with ourselves alone, this solitude without any interesting occupation will lead to a want of something to do: we shall begin to build up and to pull down, to dam out the sea, to cause waters to flow through natural obstacles, and generally to make a bad disposal of the time which Nature has given us to spend.

 

“Some of us use it grudgingly, others wastefully; some of us spend it so that we can show a profit and loss account, others so that they have no assets remaining, than which nothing can be more shameful. Often a man who is very old in years has nothing beyond his age by which he can prove that he has lived a long time."

 

It should never be a question of being “in” society or “out” of society; this is the excuse of the one in despair, the one who sees only the extremes instead of the mean, a state in which I have often found myself. That mean doesn’t come from nervously balancing my fiery instincts, but rather comes from having the proper aim.

 

There are times to engage, and there are times to retire. Through it all, philosophy, as a sense of the true and the false, of the right and the wrong, will be my only guide. Through it all, whatever the circumstances may be, I can know why I am here.

 

What will happen if I only run away from all of it, from the fact that it sometimes hurts, that it sometimes hurts mightily? It isn’t just that I will feel bored by my isolation, as that is a function of my passions. No, what will strike at my being is that I am no longer a creature of action.

 

I was made to act, and I was made to act in cooperation with my neighbors, who are simply other expressions of the very same nature I possess. They may be right next to me, or they may be a thousand miles away, but I was made for them, and they were made for me.

 

If I fail to act at all, I fail to be human at all. Life is itself a principle of action, and the life of a man is a principle of action through judgment. I will always be driven to do something, and the trick is in learning what it is that I should do.

 

I if deprive myself of right action, I will find myself seeking out other things to do, simply for the sake of doing them, only to give myself a sense of purpose, however misguided it may be. I will occupy myself with busywork, not with meaningful work. Here we have the misery of those who slave at their work, but have no idea why they do what they do.

 

Here we have the lives that are wasted away, constantly occupied, while still achieving nothing at all. People will look to the supposed results on the outside, forgetting that the true rewards are on the inside. They tear this down, and then they build something else in its place, and then what they have built is torn down in turn. It doesn’t seem to end.

 

Back during my last days living in Boston, the whole city was in turmoil because of what they called the “Big Dig”. I can no longer even remember all the gory details, but it involved rebuilding all the major highways, and bridges, and tunnels that were supposed to keep traffic flowing in the city.

 

So for many years the traffic got far worse, since thousands of people were busy spending billions of dollars working to make it all better, tearing up everything that was already there.

 

By the time they were done, it was all obsolete, and it would now take thousands more people, and billions more dollars, to update it again. That, my friends, is the very definition of busywork.

 

Now imagine if we had spent all that time, and money, and effort in learning to care for one another, instead of yelling at one another while stuck in traffic.

 

Yes, many politicians, corporations, contractors, and lawyers made it big from the Big Dig. They used their time, as so many fools do, to spend, and to waste, and to borrow when they are broke, and to spend and waste again. When they die, they are thought successful, because of how much they spent, wasted, and borrowed.

 

I must never confuse doing anything at all with doing something well. If I deprive myself of moral merit, I deprive myself of my own worth.

 

 

 

Chapter 4

 

4.1

 

To me, my dearest Serenus, Athenodorus seems to have yielded too completely to the times, to have fled too soon: I will not deny that sometimes one must retire, but one ought to retire slowly, at a foot's pace, without losing one's ensigns or one's honor as a soldier: those who make terms with arms in their hands are more respected by their enemies and more safe in their hands.

 

I find it interesting how Seneca thought that Athenodorus was a bit too willing to withdraw from the world. I have obviously never met Seneca, but I feel that I have come to know something about him over the many years of reading his works.

 

He seems a man of great courage, and he seems a man dedicated unconditionally to public service. In this, he was a great Roman, and he was doubly so for following his chosen path with character and integrity.

 

Still, some modern readers will criticize him, suggesting that he was a failure in his attempts to educate the young Nero, and that his commitment only led him to his own death. He played the game of politics, and he lost.

 

Yes, he did fail at trying to turn that spoiled brat into an actual man. Yes, he did fail at restoring the values of the Republic in an Imperial age. Yes, he did die, by his own hand, at the order of his twisted Emperor.

 

And yet I see none of that as a failure at all, because I see a man who did his duty, not to his pride, or to his country, or to his legacy, but to Nature Herself, and to Nature’s God.

 

He knew who he was, he knew where he was at, and he knew what he had to do. He was a political player, but he was, far more often than not, an honest player.

 

He saw his worth in the merit of his character, not in the accumulation of his profit or fame. And that will kill you. Socrates proved as much.

 

I could never be a Seneca, of course. I have no inherited wealth or position, I am awkward and ungainly, I am a poor speaker, and, most importantly, I do not have the gift of playing that game. I suspect I am a bit more like an Athenodorus than I am like a Seneca. In modern terms, Seneca was the total extrovert, while I am the total introvert.

 

For a man like Seneca, a complete engagement in the political life was what fulfilled his personal calling. Your calling, or my calling, may be somewhat different, but it is still ordered toward the same end.

 

Live as a senator, or live as a hermit; through it all, above all else, live with love and a sense of service for your fellow man. Respect your own nature. Revere God. Stand your ground, surrendering nothing of yourself, if you really know it to be right. Die with the dignity of your conscience, especially when you have nothing else left.

 

All the rest is dispensable. Keep your hand tightly on that standard, and hold it high with your last strength.

 

 

 

4.2

 

This is what I think ought to be done by virtue and by one who practices virtue: if Fortune gets the upper hand and deprives him of the power of action, let him not straightway turn his back to the enemy, throw away his arms, and run away seeking for a hiding-place, as if there were any place where Fortune could not pursue him, but let him be more sparing in his acceptance of public office, and after due deliberation discover some means by which he can be of use to the state.

 

I think I see why Seneca has concerns about what Athenodorus has said, and how this might keep Serenus from becoming his best. Even the slightest hint of hesitation can be a terrible temptation. Running away is so easy, and sticking to your guns is so hard. I sadly know how many times I have made excuses to retreat instead of engage.

 

What Seneca says seems quite mundane at first glance, but it reveals itself as quite radical when I look more closely. Of course I will try, and try again and again, if the public life doesn’t go my way at first.

 

Did I make an unpopular choice? Then all I must do is gradually alter my platform to meet with the current trends.

 

Did I offer a promise I never kept? Then all I must do is to redefine the terms, and make it appear that I did exactly what I said I would do.

 

Did I get myself caught up in a scandal? Then all I must do is to give a tearful confession, and swear my newfound loyalty to the platitudes of the day.

 

But no, that is not what Seneca means at all when it comes to living a good public life. He wants me to do what is right, not what is expedient. He actually has the nerve to ask me to attend to my control over myself, not to seeking control over others.

 

The man is an outright revolutionary, because you will notice that he first asks you to be a good man. How frustrating it is to be called out in that way! He has no interest in how rich you are, or how much influence you have, or how many votes you can buy. He actually demands virtue.

 

I can turn my back on the supposed friends who betray me, and I can tell all sorts of fancy lies to make myself look better. That’s all smoke and mirrors.

 

The Stoic believes that virtue is the highest human good, and so his way of managing the vice that opposes him is only to increase his virtue. No, he doesn’t turn away from obstacles; he makes himself better through the obstacles.

 

Feelings are powerful, while thoughts can rise above feelings, and have the greatest power of all. Did he throw you to the wolves? Then tame yourself. Did she break your heart? Then love her all the more.

 

To find opposition is never a reason to give up. It doesn’t matter if I can or cannot change the world, because that is not within my power. It does matter if I can change myself, because that is always within my power.

 

 

 

4.3

 

He is not able to serve in the army? Then let him become a candidate for civic honors.

 

Must he live in a private station? Then let him be an advocate.

 

Is he condemned to keep silence? Then let him help his countrymen with silent counsel.

 

Is it dangerous for him even to enter the forum? Then let him prove himself a good comrade, a faithful friend, a sober guest in people's houses, at public shows, and at wine-parties.

 

You see, I was never any good at doing what most people think of as important. I never had the knack for it, and I never had the will for it. I am not cut from the right cloth for any of that. There were times when I was impressed by the consequences of fame and power, but I am now grateful, in hindsight, that I never had to carry that burden.

 

I will repeatedly say that Stoicism was not something that I just liked; it was rather something that I needed. I needed it precisely to learn the true measure of happiness, to look to the character within me instead of the circumstances outside me. If I had been given all the gifts of a sharp mind, or a chiseled chin, or a sweet tongue, I would most likely have become a scoundrel, having never been challenged to find any deeper meaning.

 

I am not quite a scoundrel, though I am still often a rather foolish fellow. I will still fall for so many of the old tricks. I will still be tempted, against my better judgment, to desire some special place in the order of things.

 

Special? In what way? There’s the rub. Know what can make you special, and that will be your salvation. Perhaps you were not made to be a soldier. Perhaps you were not made to be a politician. Perhaps you were not even made to be anyone with a name, or a title, or a position of importance.

 

Maybe you were just made to be a thoughtful and loving person. The world has too few of those people. You are now better than any king.

 

I am at first discouraged by Seneca’s insistence on being someone in public life, and then I realize what he actually means by being someone in public life. He tells me I should not retreat from a sense of service, and I frown at him, having tried so hard to be of service.

 

But what does it mean to be of service? I need to stop running away from other people, just because I haven’t had my way. Service is giving, even when nothing is offered in return. Service is caring, even when no one notices you. Service is love, even when you find that you are not loved one bit.

 

And service remains my completion. A man is the sum of what he is willing to give, whatever he may receive from others. Be kind, be caring, be a friend. I have now done my work.

 

As I now grow older, and the vain dreams of my youth fade away, I will punch the clock, I will play along with the game, and I will break my back to make someone else rich. I have learned, in the hard way, to no longer worry about any of that. There is only one thing I have left, but it is no small thing. It is the dignity of my character.

 

On most any day, I am treated like a fool, and perhaps I deserve it. On most any day, I am either mocked or neglected, and I don’t know which is preferable. On most any day, I am a nobody, and nobody would notice if I was suddenly gone.

 

Yet on any day, on every day, I can still act with wisdom and virtue. Even in the smallest way, I can offer love. Did you not notice it? No matter. It was still given.

 

There, my friends, is true public service. This is how I can prove myself.

 

 

 

4.4

 

Suppose that he has lost the status of a citizen; then let him exercise that of a man.

 

Our reason for magnanimously refusing to confine ourselves within the walls of one city, for having gone forth to enjoy intercourse with all lands and for professing ourselves to be citizens of the world, is that we may thus obtain a wider theater in which to display our virtue.

 

Is the bench of judges closed to you, are you forbidden to address the people from the hustings, or to be a candidate at elections? Then turn your eyes away from Rome, and see what a wide extent of territory, what a number of nations present themselves before you.

 

Yes, imagine that they have taken away our property, our right to vote, our freedom to associate with whomever we please, or the chance to speak our minds. Many people would now tell me that we have been denied our very humanity.

 

I fear that some, the ones who measure themselves by what they receive, may see this as offensive, but our humanity remains completely intact. Only how people treat us has changed, not who we are, or what we decide to do.

 

And, for that matter, the way they may treat us gives us all the chance to be even more human. Turn the tables on the bullies and the bureaucrats, the petty tyrants and the smug ideologues. Live in precisely the opposite way they ask you to, and you are still as free as you ever were, perhaps better than you ever were.

 

Stoic Lesson 101 redux: Your dignity is not in what they do to you. It is in what you do.

 

I have seen the arbitrary, thoughtless, and uncaring ways a system, most any system at all, may try to make someone a slave. There is no mystery about confronting that, because I can actually choose not to be a slave. My mind and will can remain free. I may be hindered in body by chains, or by bleeding for the taxman, or by being shunned in my church, but that doesn’t actually hurt me.

 

The problem with any system built upon force and threats is that it looks to obeying rules, not to loving people. It looks to an obedience divorced from Nature. It glories in the ideal instead of facing the real. It kills some for the sake of others.

 

So the Stoic must be cosmopolitan. He treats all with respect, wherever they came from, or whatever they might have. He looks beyond tribes, and he thinks beyond borders. He recognizes what is human in everyone, and denies it to no one.

 

Unlike what some privileged folks might tell you, you don’t need to move to another country in protest. You don’t need to bask in the glory of your self-righteousness. Have they kicked you out? Then quietly be virtuous in your new home. Have they kept you where you are? Then quietly be virtuous in your old home. It makes no difference. Be kind, loving, and decent, wherever you are, in whatever state you find yourself.

 

That will only seem ridiculous to me if I have no clue about what constitutes a good life. If I want to be happy, I won’t let the circumstances rule me. Be a man if they won’t let you be a citizen.

 

 

 

4.5

 

Thus, it is never possible for so many outlets to be closed against your ambition that more will not remain open to it: but see whether the whole prohibition does not arise from your own fault.

 

You do not choose to direct the affairs of the state except as consul, or prytanis, or meddix, or sufes: what should we say if you refused to serve in the army save as general or military tribune?

 

How accustomed I have become to thinking of success and failure by my circumstances. I will define my worth by the things I possess, the position I am given, or the satisfaction I receive. And if these don’t come my way as I demand, I wonder who I might blame for my misery, or why the stars weren’t aligned, or if I just wasn’t clever or forceful enough in winning the conditions I wanted.

 

“This has happened, or that was taken away, so now I can never be happy!” What an odd way for me to understanding winning or losing, where everything I am depends on everything other than myself.

 

“But what can I possibly do now, without any opportunities?” That will all hinge upon what I consider worth doing. Many people will measure success and failure by wealth, influence, and luxury, but I do not need to see it that way at all. If I reflect upon my own nature, I can do much better.

 

There will always be opportunities for me to live well and to be of service. I can always know success, if only I so decide, whenever I take the time and effort to act according to Nature. Has my action been a just one? Then, whatever the context or whatever the scale, it has been a good one, and a successful one.

 

All that stands in my way is my own stubborn insistence that the world should give me rewards beyond the virtue of my own actions, or that others should give me only the opportunities I prefer. It suddenly starts sounding quite vain when I put it that way.

 

Some will commit to unconditional love, and then promptly add conditions. Others will beg for the chance to get ahead in life, and then promptly reject the options they are given. This is because they do not know what love is, and they do not know what getting ahead in life really entails.

 

I can’t say that I want to help society by being a teacher, but then complain about the low pay, the grueling hours of grading, the crippling politics, or the ungrateful students.

 

I can’t say I want to be a lawyer to defend people’s rights, but then complain about not getting into the right law school, or being hired by the wrong firm, or losing that plum promotion.

 

In much the same way, I can’t say that I want to be a good man, but then complain about all the available ways I could go about being a good man.

 

Where is the obstacle? I am the obstacle. I can’t control what life gives me, even as I can control what I give to life. It won’t be actual service if I insist on being served.

 

 

 

4.6

 

Even though others may form the first line, and your lot may have placed you among the veterans of the third, do your duty there with your voice, encouragement, example, and spirit: even though a man's hands be cut off, he may find means to help his side in a battle, if he stands his ground and cheers on his comrades.

 

Do something of that sort yourself: if Fortune removes you from the front rank, stand your ground nevertheless and cheer on your comrades, and if somebody stops your mouth, stand nevertheless and help your side in silence.

 

The services of a good citizen are never thrown away: he does good by being heard and seen, by his expression, his gestures, his silent determination, and his very walk.

 

However limiting the circumstances may seem, however meager the means may appear, there is always something good to be done. Every action, every contribution, every effort is necessary, and will play its own part in the unfolding of Providence.

 

Only my pride, my desire for recognition in the eyes of others, can keep me from finding peace in every situation. It does not have to be glorious to be noble. I have, in fact, often found that the noblest efforts are precisely those where there is no lure of any other gain, where a purity of intention can assist with a purity of deed. The greatness is not always where we first look to find it.

 

Now a man is hardly a dog, but a dog can still help me to learn many things. I have sometimes felt annoyed when Lucky, a dog who seems to have adopted us, rushes about my feet excitedly whenever I try to get anything done around the house.

 

“He’s just the trying to help,” the wife will remind me.

 

“How is he helping?” I ask. “He’s getting his nose in the way.”

 

“Don’t be silly. He’s encouraging you!”

 

I have to admit that she is completely right. The time passes more quickly, and the task becomes easier, whenever he is around. Yes, in his own way, he most certainly does help. It doesn’t matter that he won’t really follow directions, or doesn’t have any hands to hold tools.

 

They tell us that as we get older, our power over the world ought to increase, as a result of all our hard work. I have rather found that mine has quite decreased, though perhaps it is just that I have learned how little control over circumstances I ever had to begin with.

 

Instead, I now dedicate myself first and foremost to gaining power over myself, day by day, bit by tiny bit. That is already a full-time job. On most days, the most decent thing I can manage is to give someone a simple courtesy, or perhaps to offer an encouraging word. Yes, sometimes a word will do just fine, over even a gesture, or just being there for the moment.

 

Some people may insist that this is hardly enough, that far more must be done. But more of what? Any action, however humble, can be performed with a great degree of love, whether there is more or less at stake in terms of money, or fame, or influence over external conditions. I should not let myself be misled about where the greatness lies.

 

Observe any business, or school, even a group of friends, and you will quickly learn who likes to be in front, and who is content to stand back. Some will draw attention to themselves, and others find it all awkward. Some never stop talking, and others just listen.

 

You will know right away who the important people are, the ones who make the most noise, but you will not know right away who the most virtuous people are, the ones who do the most good. You will have to get to know them, because the biggest job does not necessarily bring with it the biggest character.

 

 

 

4.7

 

As some remedies benefit us by their smell as well as by their taste and touch, so virtue even when concealed and at a distance sheds usefulness around. Whether she moves at her ease and enjoys her just rights, or can only appear abroad on sufferance and is forced to shorten sail to the tempest, whether it be unemployed, silent, and pent up in a narrow lodging, or openly displayed, in whatever guise she may appear, she always does good.

 

What? Do you think that the example of one who can rest nobly has no value? It is by far the best plan, therefore, to mingle leisure with business, whenever chance impediments or the state of public affairs forbid one's leading an active life: for one is never so cut off from all pursuits as to find no room left for honorable action.

 

I will sometimes assume that nothing I do will make any difference, that there is no way I can make the world better. Like Serenus, once again, I want to crawl into a hole. No one listens. No one cares. I am pissing into the wind.

 

Just the other day, I sat down with a fellow who was going through a rough patch in his marriage. He felt that his wife wasn’t paying enough attention to him, that she demanded too much from him, that there was no longer even a marriage bed. And he was sorely tempted to go off and have a sordid fling with a woman we both know.

 

She was quite easy on the eyes, and she had a certain charm, but she would be nothing but trouble for him. He knew it quite well, but he still wished to proceed. So I did my best, and I said what I usually do, whether it be to a friend, or a student, or even to someone I have just met.

 

“What will you gain from this? And what will you lose? I’m not talking about money, or a quick fix for your pecker, or your manly sense of feeling respected. I’m talking about your conscience.

 

“Will you be a better man or a worse man tomorrow? It’s not my place to tell you what to do, but it is my place to tell you something of what I’ve learned. I do know never to trade love for lust. It has destroyed me before.”

 

“Yeah, I get it. Thanks for being there for me. I’m going to walk away from all that.”

 

And you know what? The next morning his wife called me. “Where is he? Why didn’t he come home last night?”

 

I knew exactly where he was, and I knew exactly what he ended up doing. I felt useless, because I felt that my efforts had been wasted. He heard me, and he said that he understood, and yet he still did the exact opposite of what he said he would do, of what he should have done.

 

Why do I waste my breath? Everyone I know looks at me like a freak, the fellow who gives all that profound advice they never end up following. They listen, and they nod their heads in agreement, and then they still go the other way. They feel good about the discussion, and then they obey the little head instead of the big head.

 

But let me turn it around, and try to see it from the other side. Let me think of the many times, all the many times I can no longer count, when the simplest words or actions of others ultimately helped me to be better. It was not always immediate, and it was rarely something they ever saw. The effects often came quietly, slowly, and with subtlety.

 

Sometimes I thanked them after the fact, but usually I failed to do so. I became a better man so often because of the example of others, and I’m sure they had no clue how deeply they had touched my life.

 

It matters nothing at all for me to know that I have made a difference; the difference is already made by my struggle to live well.  How may it affect others? I will probably never know, and I probably don’t even need to know.

 

Maybe there is someone out there, right now, who somehow changed his life for the better because of something I said or did. Maybe there is someone out there, right now, who cherishes some silly and random kindness I managed to commit. Love always flows outward, and never stays in one place.

 

It is a rather weary platitude, but I think of ripples on the water. Any action leads to a reaction. The good I do will lead to other good. The evil I do will lead to other evil.

 

Do I want to make the world better? Let me make myself better. What little good there is within me will seep out, and it will work in ways I can never expect. Once I have managed to do something right, there is always another who will benefit from that right.

 

What am I doing? Is it work or is it play? Is it serious or is it casual? Is it about critical decisions in business or is it a matter of leisure? It makes no difference. Virtue always does what is good. It works in mysterious ways. It changes everything it touches.

 

Do circumstances hinder me? They may hinder how loud I can be. But they do not hinder virtue in any form. There is no barrier to love. Once I can manage to be kind, just, and compassionate, I have already changed the entire world. That tiny bit makes a difference.

 

Even in rest, even when I have no power over others, even when no one thinks I am worth anything at all, my thoughts, words, and actions will matter. It may not be in the dramatic way that I prefer, but it will be in the way that Nature intends.

 

 

 

Chapter 5

 

5.1

 

Could you anywhere find a more miserable city than that of Athens when it was being torn to pieces by the Thirty Tyrants? They slew thirteen hundred citizens, all the best men, and did not leave off because they had done so, but their cruelty became stimulated by exercise.

 

In the city that possessed that most reverend tribunal, the Court of the Areopagus, which possessed a Senate, and a popular assembly which was like a Senate, there met daily a wretched crew of butchers, and the unhappy Senate House was crowded with tyrants.

 

A state, in which there were so many tyrants that they would have been enough to form a bodyguard for one, might surely have rested from the struggle; it seemed impossible for men's minds even to conceive hopes of recovering their liberty, nor could they see any room for a remedy for such a mass of evil: for whence could the unhappy state obtain all the Harmodiuses it would need to slay so many tyrants?

 

Seneca next turns to a bit of history, so that we might consider an example of the way a good man might live well, and be of service to others, even in the most difficult of conditions.

 

Most teachers will now never tell their students about the Thirty Tyrants, and, for that matter, they will rarely discuss anything at all about ancient Athens. If it is not considered relevant to whatever is politically convenient at the moment, or in accord with the fashions of the hour, you can expect it to be overlooked.

 

I recall a conversation with a colleague, who was complaining about the horrors of the political party in power at the time. “I need the kids to see how evil these people are, and warn them about tyranny! I need to convince them that they need to change things!”

 

“I’m not sure it needs to be so partisan,” I replied, “but there are so many cases you can talk about: the Terror during the French Revolution, the purges by Stalin, the repression in Spain by Franco, the Killing Fields in Cambodia, the Cultural Revolution in China, the fall of the Roman Republic, the rule of the Thirty in Athens.”

 

“The thirty who? What the hell is that? Maybe I’ll just do another sequence about the Nazis and the Holocaust.”

 

This gentleman had a degree in history from an Ivy League. The thirty who? I kid you not. Since it was not applicable to the class, or race, or gender struggles currently in vogue, he had somehow forgotten about it.

 

So we look to the here and now, and we assume that whatever was back then is outdated, old, and stale. We may sometimes turn to the past when it supports our immediate preferences, or to show how much we hate it, but we ignore it when it doesn’t fit into our narrow perspective.

 

“How the heck is history going to help me make my way in life? Those folks are all dead! Why dwell on the past? Live in the now!”

 

No one has demanded dwelling on the past, or not living in the now. What some of us might suggest, however, is that we can learn from the triumphs and disasters of others. The scenery changes, but what makes people tick is still the same.

 

I may complain that I cannot live in this terrible world, that it is all too much to bear, that the powers I must face can never be overcome. I can’t seem to find a decent job. They’re killing me with all the taxes. I’m not allowed to speak my mind. If I’m not part of the in-crowd, I suppose I need to die out in the cold, alone.

 

Hardly. Harmodius and Aristogeiton had freed Athens from tyranny once before, and then Thrasybulus did it again when he stood up against the Thirty. Now those men employed force, but that is not the only path to follow. There as so many ways to practice virtue in the face of vice, with no need at all for the assassin’s dagger or an army at your command. There are so many ways to do good for others, even when most everyone else will do nothing good for you.

 

Your own actions, with no other means available at all, will make their mark.

 

You don’t need to be like a Thrasybulus to fight the tyrants of any time or place. You could also be like another sort of man. He was called Socrates. . . .

 

 

 

5.2

 

Yet Socrates was in the midst of the city, and consoled its mourning Fathers, encouraged those who despaired of the republic, by his reproaches brought rich men, who feared that their wealth would be their ruin, to a tardy repentance of their avarice, and moved about as a great example to those who wished to imitate him, because he walked a free man in the midst of thirty masters.

 

“I’m not rich, and I don’t really have any talents I can sell. I’m not good looking, and no one ever seems to throw me a bone. How am I supposed to make a difference?”

 

Socrates had no money at all, and he never sold anything. Most people said he was rather ugly, and they ended up killing him. But he did make a difference.

 

Socrates is always a wonderful example of what we can all do, and of what we can all fail to do.

 

How often have I heard him described as a hero by those who never learned anything from him, and described as a villain by those who should be closest to him?

 

“I’m so glad you’re teaching our son about Socrates. It will really help him so much when he has to write his application essay for law school.”

 

“I want to live my life, and I don’t need a dead, white, filthy rich man, some tool named Socrates, telling me how to think! Nietzsche was right, dude, Socrates is crap!”

 

From what I know of him, Socrates would be aghast to think that his name might help your child win admission to any fancy institution.

 

From what I know of him, Socrates would be surprised to see his mission confused with conformity and politics.

 

The man asked us to do only two things, as I recall: to think with clarity for ourselves, and to have the moral courage to stand up for the truth we discover.

 

This gets in the way of the greedy, since it means they can no longer play without being revealed as thieves.

 

This gets in the way of the ideologues, since it means they can no longer pontificate without being revealed as charlatans.

 

Socrates was, in a sense of the history of philosophy, the proto-Stoic. There had always been decent men like him, of course, and there always will be. The labels will ultimately not matter; the character behind it all will matter.

 

An agreement with Nature will matter. A willingness to seek wisdom and virtue above all else will matter.

 

“But wait, if you buy my book now, at this special discount, or give me so many ‘likes’ on social media, you will feel so much better!”

 

Please, stop it with your diversions. Inspire others to act with justice, and challenge those who worship wealth and power. Then stare in the face of those who diminish you, not with the force of arms, but with the power of reason and love:

 

I shall obey God rather than you, and while I have life and strength I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting any one whom I meet and saying to him after my manner:

 

You, my friend—a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens—are you not ashamed of heaping up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and caring so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all?

 

And if the person with whom I am arguing, says: Yes, but I do care; then I do not leave him or let him go at once, but I proceed to interrogate and examine and cross-examine him, and if I think that he has no virtue in him, but only says that he has, I reproach him with undervaluing the greater, and overvaluing the less.

 

And I shall repeat the same words to every one whom I meet, young and old, citizen and alien, but especially to the citizens, inasmuch as they are my brethren. For know that this is the command of God; and I believe that no greater good has ever happened in the state than my service to the God.

 

For I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but first and chiefly to care about the greatest improvement of the soul.

 

I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every other good of man, public as well as private.

 

This is my teaching, and if this is the doctrine that corrupts the youth, I am a mischievous person.

 

Do any of us need high office, or some position of power, to do exactly what Socrates did? Any of us can do this, from any status, or in any circumstance. Then we have lived well, and then we have served the whole.

 

 

 

5.3

 

However, Athens herself put him to death in prison, and Freedom herself could not endure the freedom of one who had treated a whole band of tyrants with scorn.

 

You may know, therefore, that even in an oppressed state a wise man can find an opportunity for bringing himself to the front, and that in a prosperous and flourishing one wanton insolence, jealousy, and a thousand other cowardly vices bear sway.

 

I am deeply wary of deifying any man, and I have no interest in turning my heroes into saints. I will leave it to God to decide who the real saints are.

 

I have no illusions that Socrates was somehow perfect, and I am sure he had as many weaknesses as the rest of us. I imagine that he could be an annoying man; in the language of our day and age, he was probably quite offensive and inappropriate. I know that feeling, when someone has asked me to think for myself, to move beyond popular assumptions and shallow platitudes, and how deeply that can damage my vanity and the illusion of my power. There was a reason Socrates was like a gadfly.

 

The frustrations ran so deep that the Athenians put him to death. This ends the discussion for most, because death is perceived as one the greatest evils. So we neglect one of the most important lessons Socrates tried to teach, the necessity of thinking critically about what we really mean by “good” and “bad”. Show me what you will sacrifice anything else for, and I will see what you truly love, and who you really are.

 

When I look at Socrates, I see a man who not only understood that living well required thinking well, but also a man who was brave enough to then put into practice all he had learned about wisdom and virtue as the highest goods. In this, he is more than just some imposing historical figure, and becomes rather a model for anyone, anyone at all, who wishes to become genuinely human.

 

And yes, I do really mean for any of us, regardless of whatever fortune may have thrown our way. It requires only the humility and honesty to reflect upon our own nature, and then the courage and commitment to follow an informed conscience. What Socrates did, all people can do. No special powers are required, only a love of character. Any person who does this has now been of service.

 

So what can the life of Socrates ultimately teach Serenus? First, that a good man, under all circumstances, can always find the opportunity to live well. Second, by extension, don’t be fooled by the false idols of status and wealth, because the love of such things will so easily turn us into charlatans and hypocrites. Adding anything glorious on the outside can never cover up a rot on the inside.

 

I don’t know if Socrates had to die the way he did, but I do know that he had to live the way he did, and that he was willing to face misfortune and death for the sake of a good life.

 

“Oh, if only I could live like a Socrates!”

 

“What’s stopping you?”

 

 

 

5.4

 

We ought therefore, to expand or contract ourselves according as the state presents itself to us, or as Fortune offers us opportunities: but in any case we ought to move and not to become frozen still by fear.

 

No, he is the best man who, though peril menaces him on every side and arms and chains beset his path, nevertheless neither impairs nor conceals his virtue: for to keep oneself safe does not mean to bury oneself.

 

There will always be opportunities to live well, even as the particular content of these opportunities will change as the world around us changes. It will not always be within our power to modify the circumstances outside of us, but it will always be within our power to modify our own thought and actions in response to these circumstances.

 

If I don’t like what I see, I am tempted to thrash about desperately, trying to fix all the situations I dislike, or working to make other people behave in a manner that I prefer.

 

Like some bull in a china shop, I trample and smash mindlessly, even as I somehow convince myself I am being so very productive. It does not occur to me that I should stick to mastering what is my own, and learn to gladly accept that certain things will be as they will be.

 

Others have made their choices; what will my choices now be? This is one of the most immediate and practical aspects of the Stoic Turn.

 

I don’t need to run away and hide if I feel discouraged. I don’t need to give up all hope, just because I am not fond of the scenery. I can always possess myself, and no one can ever take that away from me, even in suffering, exile, or death. There will be no gain from smashing up all the dishes.

 

“He treated me unfairly! He lied, and cheated, and stole from me!” Yes, indeed he did, and that is on him. Will my own rage make me any better, or will it make him any better?

 

“She doesn’t love me!” No, she doesn’t, and there is something very important I can learn from that. I will decide how I will love, but it is never up to me to decide that for anyone else.

 

“They never gave me a chance!” Was it their job to serve at my convenience? They may not have intended it, but whatever they may have done still ended up being a chance for me, though it may not have been what I expected.

 

I can adapt myself to whatever may happen, and still remain thoughtful and compassionate. Perhaps it will make me richer or poorer, bring me pleasure or pain, let me live a little longer or kill me right now. It makes no difference to virtue.

 

Love gives of itself and asks for nothing else, in any time or place. There is the simple beauty, quite unconquerable, of the Stoic Turn.

 

 

 

5.5

 

I think that Curius Dentatus spoke truly when he said that he would rather be dead than alive: the worst evil of all is to leave the ranks of the living before one dies.

 

Yet it is your duty, if you happen to live in an age when it is not easy to serve the state, to devote more time to leisure and to literature.

 

Thus, just as though you were making a perilous voyage, you may from time to time put into harbor, and set yourself free from public business without waiting for it to do so.

 

I have a special fondness for the tales about Manius Curius Dentatus, a consul from the old Roman Republic. The man even had the nerve to be a plebeian, and not a patrician.

 

He apparently lived a simple life, preferring, as he said, to rule over those who possessed gold to possessing any gold for himself. It would be as if we now somehow elected a congressman who wasn’t already a wealthy lawyer, or doctor, or business mogul.

 

A story has it that some foreign ambassadors came to visit him, offering elaborate gifts to win his favor. Dentatus, it is said, would have none of it, and sat by the fire, roasting some turnips instead.

 

“Report and remember,” he told them, “that I can neither be defeated in battle, nor be corrupted with money.”

 

Now that’s my kind of man. Turnips over gold! What possible point could there be to remaining alive in the body, while already being dead in the soul?

 

Sometimes Fortune will permit a man like Dentatus to hold high office, but far more often she will deny him such a position. If it must be this way, it is still no obstacle to a good life. Will they not let you follow your calling, or pay you for what you have done, or give you any respect? No matter. Your dignity remains your own.

 

I have worked in the trenches of education for quite a few years, and in that time I have come across many directors, headmasters, deans, provosts, and presidents. I have known only one who truly maintained his character while in such a position. What was his secret?

 

There was no secret at all. He was still a teacher at heart, and he was interested only in helping other people learn, one student at a time. He kept roasting his turnips, and he did it very well. When they finally ousted him from office, it seemed so unfair, but he was quite content.

 

“I’ve spent twenty years dodging the bureaucrats, and the whole time they completely missed what I was doing. All I did was read dusty old books with people, but it was a good run.”

 

Leisure is not laziness, but rather taking the time to reflect. Literature is not a waste of life, but rather a magnification of all the meaning that can be found in life.

 

 

 

Chapter 6

 

6.1

 

We ought, however, first to examine our own selves, next the business that we propose to transact, next those for whose sake or in whose company we transact it.

 

This would seem to be such a perfectly healthy way to proceed with any endeavor in life, laying out the proper order of concerns before undertaking any task. I ought to be working from the inside out, with my own judgments discovering meaning in my circumstances.

 

Let me begin by reflecting upon myself, coming to know who I am, why I am here, and what is properly within my power.

 

Let me then consider what it is I might do, and whether this action will increase my character or diminish it.

 

Let me finally examine the people I intend to do it with, and whether by our association we will help each other to become better or worse.

 

Then why is it that I so often do the exact opposite? I work instead from the outside in, letting the circumstances determine my judgments. I allow what other people do and say to rule over my thoughts and deeds, and so I become a slave instead of a free man. I perversely end up reversing the natural order, turning myself into an object instead of a subject.

 

The cart is leading the horse. It is the impression that has become dominant, and quite regularly my actions are impulsive and immediate, following from the influence of this or that passion.

 

I may do what other people tell me to do when I am afraid. I may try to flatter them when I am greedy. I may lash out at them when I am angry. I may run away from them when I am sad.

 

What I am doing is being dragged about by how I feel, and my mind, my awareness of the true and the good, has not even entered into the fray. It sits back and waits until it is too late, and then it no longer reasons but rationalizes, making excuses after the fact instead of leading the way.

 

A perfect example of this is when I have insisted that I love someone, but what I have called love is my own response to the perception that this person loves me. If I suspect I am no longer loved, then I am drawn to resentment. Love actually doesn’t come into it, because I am only reacting to the conditions I receive instead of giving from my own free choice. It twists something absolute into something relative.

 

I do this whenever I forget who I am, when I lose sight of my purpose in this life, when I confuse lesser things with greater things.

 

 

 

6.2

 

It is above all things necessary to form a true estimate of oneself, because as a rule we think that we can do more than we are able: one man is led too far through confidence in his eloquence, another demands more from his estate than it can produce, another burdens a weakly body with some toilsome duty.

 

Some men are too shamefaced for the conduct of public affairs, which require an unblushing front; some men's obstinate pride renders them unfit for courts; some cannot control their anger, and break into unguarded language on the slightest provocation; some cannot rein in their wit or resist making risky jokes.

 

For all these men leisure is better than employment: a bold, haughty and impatient nature ought to avoid anything that may lead it to use a freedom of speech that will bring it to ruin.

 

I have noticed that some people are drawn to Stoicism because of its stress on self-reliance, yet they can run into difficulty when they must confront the limits of what that self can do. They grow frustrated when they see that not everything is within their power, and such a lesson may not come easily.

 

Instead of recognizing our own boundaries, we vainly expand them to confuse our own nature with all of Nature. Rather than being content to be our own masters, we lust for a mastery over everything else. We do not find peace by being in harmony with the whole, but go to war so that we might conquer the whole. And then we wonder at the pain, the loss, and the tears.

 

I remind myself that there is no weakness in me when I do not rule over the nature of another, only when I do not take responsibility for my own nature. A mouse is no less because he is not an elephant, and I am no less if I do not possess anything or everything I see around me.

 

Do I wish to rule over a kingdom, to grow into a colossus, to turn everything I touch into gold? Even if any of that were somehow within my power, it could never replace the worth of having power over my own character.

 

If I follow the Delphic advice to know myself, I will be glad to accept both my strengths and my weaknesses. That my influence may not be cast wide does not mean it cannot run deep. My greed and vanity might tickle my desire to have more, but it will be sufficient to simply be better.

 

An awareness of my own particular dispositions and habits is a necessary part of this process. I am not nearly as clever, or as charming, or as beloved as I might like to think, and so I can learn to be quite content with improving my own soul whenever, wherever, and however I might be able.

 

There are many endeavors I am hardly suited for, because I do not have the gifts to be of benefit, only the flaws to cause more harm. My melancholy only gets in the way of inspiring hope, and my stubbornness only gets in the way of being a leader, and my concupiscence only gets in the way of distributing justice.

 

Until I can finally tame such inclinations, I am best served by first working on my private virtues, instead of taking on all sorts of public tasks. I will do neither myself nor anyone else any good by trying to be a teacher who lacks wisdom, or a judge who lacks mercy, or a commander who lacks courage. Let me attend to what is inside of me before I seek to influence what is outside of me.

 

The leisure of philosophy is not something that should come after I have pursued a worldly career, but needs to come well before I take on any responsibility of high office. Confusing that priority will never end well.

 

“I know I have what it takes to be a lawyer! I’m smart, I’m confident, and I know how to make people listen to me.”

 

“Yes, you most certainly have those qualities. Do you also have humility, integrity, and compassion?”

 

“Are you saying you don’t think I have them?”

 

“What I think doesn’t matter. Do you know if you have them?”

 

 

 

6.3

 

Next we must form an estimate of the matter that we mean to deal with, and compare our strength with the deed we are about to attempt: for the bearer ought always to be more powerful than his load.

 

Indeed, loads that are too heavy for their bearer must of necessity crush him. Some affairs also are not so important in themselves as they are prolific and lead to much more business, for which employments, as they involve us in new and various forms of work, ought to be refused.

 

Neither should you engage in anything from which you are not free to retreat: apply yourself to something that you can finish, or at any rate can hope to finish. You had better not meddle with those operations that grow in importance, while they are being transacted, and that will not stop where you intended them to stop.

 

“Oh dear, what have I gotten myself into?” Yes, we all know that moment.

 

That thought may well come with a sense of surprise, helplessness, and regret. It would have been better if I had not engaged at all, than struggling to extricate myself now that I am committed to an impossible task.

 

Again, the temptation is to run away, while the wisdom should be to engage with restraint from the beginning. I have not made a mistake in taking a bite, though I have made a mistake in biting off more than I could chew. As the sign says at my favorite Chinese buffet, “Take what you want, but eat what you take.”

 

I should know my own limits first; then I should also know the scope of what I am trying to achieve. These two levels of awareness go together like a hand in a glove.

 

Or, to put it in another way, few things are more annoying than a shoe that is too small, or a shoe that is too large. Sure, it might look good at the shop, while the salesman is working me up for his commission, but walk in it for a few miles, and the pain will teach me quite the lesson about the difference between appearance and reality.

 

There is no longer any question in my mind that I am made to love without condition, as much as my selfishness may resist that calling, complete with all the stubborn kicking and screaming. The trick is in learning how to love, in deciding where I can do my best, in measuring what I am able to do, in knowing when to hang on, and when to let go.

 

If you are a bigwig, like Seneca or Serenus, born to the purple, as they say, I can’t help you with that part of the dilemma. But I suspect that such a difference in degree makes no real difference in kind. We will all go through exactly the same challenges, though we will do so in our own ways, and in our own time. The breadth of it all does not alter the depth of it all.

 

It is quite humbling to learn that I am not the Master of the Universe; it is also deeply fulfilling and liberating. The world was not made for me, but I was made as one piece the world. How might I give, instead of asking to receive? How might I serve, as opposed to demanding to be served? Let me discern the weight I am able to carry.

 

Baby steps. Little bits. Tiny bites. One day at a time. Do what you can, and ask for no more. I used to laugh at such silly claims, and then I finally started growing up. I became bigger as I became smaller.

 

He must increase, as I must decrease.

 

I knew there must be some serendipity, perhaps even Providence, in my parents naming me after St. John the Baptist.

 

The greatest dreams mean absolutely nothing without a sincere sense of proportion. Run with life, but don’t let life run away with you.

 

 

 

Chapter 7

 

7.1

 

In all cases one should be careful in one's choice of men, and see whether they are worthy of our bestowing a part of our life upon them, or whether we shall waste our own time and theirs also: for some even consider us to be in their debt because of our services to them.

 

Athenodorus said that "he would not so much as dine with a man who would not be grateful to him for doing so”; meaning, I imagine, that much less would he go to dinner with those who recompense the services of their friends by their table, and regard courses of dishes as donatives, as if they overate themselves to do honor to others.

 

Take away from these men their witnesses and spectators: they will take no pleasure in solitary gluttony.

 

This all sounds like something my mother would have told me: “Know who you are, know what you’re doing, and know who you’re doing it with.” I’m hearing it in German in my head right now.

 

Ultimately, the only real obstacles I have ever faced were the ones I put in my own way. There was always something good to be found in any circumstance that was ever given to me, but I got myself into trouble when my own thoughts and actions failed to make the right use of those options.

 

These problems inevitably arose when I made poor judgments about the quality of my own character, about the tasks I chose to take on, and about the friends I decided to surround myself with. Of these, my pursuit of poor company has had the deepest and longest-lasting consequences.

 

Far too often, the act of trusting and following people with a very different sense of right and wrong than my own would encourage me to doubt my convictions. It becomes easier to stray from a path when you see others doing it ahead of you; what is outside the soul can slowly but surely color what inside is the soul, and you may not even notice it happening.

 

The temptation, of course, is to think that other people make us good or bad, when that is hardly the case. We make ourselves good or bad, though the environment we place ourselves in will make that much easier or much harder. To borrow a technical term from the Peripatetics, I remain the efficient cause of my judgments, the agent of action, even as my circumstances serve as material causes, the opportunity for action.

 

It is not that I should hate, or dismiss, or ignore people who live poorly, since I am called to seek what is good for them, just as I am for anyone; yes, I am even called to love them. Rather, I need to consider what sort of relationship I am forming with them, and how this will in turn relate to my own values. Even though I am the one steering the ship, the winds and currents will still be pushing at me from different sides.

 

Am I helping others if I condone their vices, whether explicitly or implicitly? Am I helping myself if I surround myself with vices? How can I be going in the right direction, if I am in the middle of a herd going in the wrong direction?

 

Consider the example, as Seneca does, of what the people we call our friends might expect from us. Do they give only when they receive? Are they more interested in what we can do for them than what they can do for us? Will their interest come and go with the degrees of their utility and pleasure?

 

A selfish heart will reveal itself in its constant need to be praised and compensated, to use others as a means to glorify itself. I think of a loud fellow I know, always wanting to be the center of attention, who will show up at parties with the finest food and drink, and then tells everyone that he was the one who provided them. He cares nothing for the gift, and is only waiting for the thanks.

 

I am not doing someone like that any favors by spending my time with him; in fact, I am doing him a disservice, because I am feeding his vanity. Let me respect him, by all means, but let me avoid traveling in his circles and living as he lives.

 

Nor am I doing myself any favors by spending my time with him; in fact, I am doing myself a disservice, because I am surrounding myself with the very things I need to avoid. Let me have a care for his welfare, but let me not care for what he cares about.

 

Remove a man’s opportunities for vice, and you may well help him choose to be less vicious. Don’t feed the trolls.

 

Remove a man from your own private affairs, and you may well help yourself to become more virtuous. Don’t blindly follow any herd.

 

 

 

7.2

 

You must decide whether your disposition is better suited for vigorous action or for tranquil speculation and contemplation, and you must adopt whichever the bent of your genius inclines you for.

 

Isocrates laid hands upon Ephorus and led him away from the forum, thinking that he would be more usefully employed in compiling chronicles; for no good is done by forcing one's mind to engage in uncongenial work: it is vain to struggle against Nature.

 

The rhetorician Isocrates, sometimes called the “Good Sophist”, convinced Ephorus that he would make a better writer than a speaker, not because the pay and the benefits would be better, but because it was what best suited his particular gifts and strengths.

 

Some might do their best in the public square, while others might do their best in their private rooms, and all can play their specific parts, different in calling but equal in significance.

 

Remember that Serenus has been worried that he will have to withdraw from the political life, left only to waste away in his own studies. Seneca has reminded him that we must always be in service to others, though we may find ourselves fulfilling that mission in varying ways.

 

No action that serves Nature, however obscure it may seem, is ever meaningless.

 

My own journey has been marked by the expectation that I could be somebody by going out into the world, and was then tempered by the realization that I was never cut for that sort of work.

 

At first I wanted to be a popular musician, but I didn’t have the knack. Then I wanted to be a best-selling writer, but my words were never the ones anyone wanted to read. Then I ended up being a teacher, but the way I taught rocked the boat far too much. These were all dead ends for me.

 

There finally came a point where I put a few things together. The folks with the most impressive appearances always told me to worry most about my appearances, but were those the only folks to listen to? Those who were silent, unnoticed, and behind the scenes had just as much to say.

 

As always, it came down to considering what was really best in life: was it in the seeming or in the doing? Did it matter if the doing didn’t result in any seeming?

 

The Stoic Turn, as I like to call it, requires a reshuffling of priorities. Have you acted with wisdom and love? Then you have succeeded. Have you been paid or praised for it? It doesn’t matter one bit.

 

Isocrates understood that each person is made, raised, and grows in a certain way. He was a true master in the art of speaking, yet he insisted that the power of rhetoric be joined to philosophy, to the love of truth. If he had not been given that ability, I am certain he would have found another way to serve the truth.

 

In school, they like to give us aptitude tests, intended to determine how we might manage to make the most money and win the most fame.

 

In life, Nature has already given us an answer, because it is Providence that has made us, with beauty and with glory in our own special way.

 

Will you make executive decisions to change the course of history? Perhaps you may then do some good. Will you show love to your friends while you clean up the trash? You have then certainly done some good.

 

 

 

7.3

 

Yet nothing delights the mind so much as faithful and pleasant friendship: what a blessing it is when there is one whose breast is ready to receive all your secrets with safety, whose knowledge of your actions you fear less than your own conscience, whose conversation removes your anxieties, whose advice assists your plans, whose cheerfulness dispels your gloom, whose very sight delights you!

 

We should choose for our friends men who are, as far as possible, free from strong desires: for vices are contagious, and pass from a man to his neighbor, and injure those who touch them.

 

I have found that two closely related values, love and friendship, are very frequently spoken of but far too rarely practiced. Saying “I love you” should not be meant lightly; to call someone a friend is a deep promise and commitment, not just some passing expression of convenience.

 

Now I might complain and despair that others do it wrong, or I might turn it all around and choose to do it right. My own thoughts and actions are within my power. Where I find abuse, let me correct myself, and let me see what I might improve from the inside out, in however humble a manner.

 

Being treated like a true friend, having someone who loves you for your own sake and without any further conditions, is one of the greatest of supports and joys in life. We sometimes say that friends will make us happy, though I qualify that slightly by saying that friends will help us to make ourselves happy.

 

I also remind myself, however, that as much as we may appreciate what friends do for us, we are best served by remembering what we can do for them. They will provide us with comfort, but most importantly they give us the opportunity to offer of our love, to do what is right for them. In this way, friends mutually assist one another to grow in their own character.

 

For each one, the giving is itself the receiving, looking truly at the other as a second self.

 

How beautiful it is, and how much the more it should be treasured when it is hard to find.

 

What will be difficult is not finding people to be around, or even finding people who actually wish to be around us, but finding people who will wish to join with us for the right reasons, and in the right ways. This is why love will be precious.

 

Some may say all the right things, but their interest is purely mercenary; in case the words seem enticing, the actions will still reveal what lies underneath. Whenever we treat other people as means to an end, rather than as ends in themselves, there is no trust, no friendship, and no love.

 

False friends will bring us harm, not because they have forced themselves upon us, but because we have freely chosen to allow their vices to enter into our souls. True friends will bring us benefit, not because they provide us with pleasure or power, but because we have been given the gift of sharing in their virtues.

 

 

 

7.4

 

As, therefore, in times of pestilence we have to be careful not to sit near people who are infected and in whom the disease is raging, because by so doing, we shall run into danger and catch the plague from their very breath, so, too, in choosing our friends' dispositions, we must take care to select those who are as far as may be unspotted by the world; for the way to breed disease is to mix what is sound with what is rotten.

 

The imagery here may seem a bit dramatic, and there is the danger of taking it too literally, but the fact remains that bad company breeds bad character. From a Stoic perspective, of course, it isn’t the evil that is forcing itself into me, but rather that I am then so easily inclined to freely welcome it into my soul.

 

Or put another way, I have no problem with letting a virus be a virus, but I do have a problem with my own immunity to it. Keeping it at a safe distance helps me to help myself.

 

My own stubbornness and pride will tell me that I can fight off any disease, that I can walk through fire and not get burned, or that I can surround myself with sinners and still remain a saint.

 

What I fail to see is that my own poor judgments about the people I choose to have present in my life already reflect my weaknesses. The only thing that draws me to their vices is my own disposition to vice.

 

If you had the blessing of decent parents, you will remember arguing with them over whom you called your friends. They warned you about getting into trouble, about being around bad influences, and you rolled your eyes, and you were sure you knew better. Now occasionally they were wrong, but usually they were right, weren’t they? You realized it just a moment too late.

 

When you fell deeply in love with someone dishonest, and those who cared about you looked on in concern, did you insist that she was just confused, that you could change her, and that your commitment would overcome all obstacles? Then, when you were reduced to a sobbing mass nursing a broken heart, did you finally learn what happens when you trust the untrustworthy?

 

Did your wife beg you not to take that job with those leeches, and did you promise that you could make all the good money with them, but that it wouldn’t change who you were on the inside? It was just work, and nothing more. Was there a certain moment when you saw what had become of your soul, or did that terrifying insight only come to you gradually?

 

“Well, if I’m being a Stoic, I can choose not to let the actions of others affect me. I can rise above all of that, and be a better person, right?”

 

Yes, you most certainly can, because your character is within your power. But did you notice that by deciding to enjoy yourself with them, to cooperate with them, to trust in them, you were already making a critical choice about what you really cared about?

 

 

 

7.5

 

Yet I do not advise you to follow after or draw to yourself no one except a wise man: for where will you find him whom for so many centuries we have sought in vain? In the place of the best possible man take him who is least bad.

 

You would hardly find any time that would have enabled you to make a happier choice than if you could have sought for a good man from among the Platos and Xenophons and the rest of the produce of the brood of Socrates, or if you had been permitted to choose one from the age of Cato: an age which bore many men worthy to be born in Cato's time (just as it also bore many men worse than were ever known before, planners of the blackest crimes; for it needed both classes in order to make Cato understood: it wanted both good men, that he might win their approbation, and bad men, against whom he could prove his strength).

 

But at the present day, when there is such a dearth of good men, you must be less squeamish in your choice.

 

My parents first taught me about finding the mean between extremes, and then I read about it in Aristotle, and then the reality of daily living finally showed me how important it was to seek a realistic balance in all things. To follow Goldilocks, it is important to not have one’s porridge too hot, or too cold, but just right.

 

The principle applies to choosing friends as much as it does to most anything else in life. Find companions who can help you to be good, and who you can help to be good, and do not settle for too little, or hold out in your expectations for too much.

 

To bind myself to people lacking in a conscience will only bring me grief, though I will also hinder myself by demanding that my company be absolutely flawless. Only a very few of us can utterly perfect our virtues, and I will likely find myself quite alone if I only dream of friends such as these. Let me follow such a person if I might find him, but let me not shun the fellowship of those who might aspire to be like him.

 

Not everyone can be a sage or a saint right away, and so many of us will come together, despite all of our flaws, in trying to become better, to perhaps one day be like those sages or saints. A human being is, as long as he lives, going to be a work in progress, with nothing settled for certain while he still has something left to make of himself.

 

Good friends need to be good people, because otherwise they will be unwilling to both give and receive the gifts of friendship. But I should not be too narrow in who I consider a good person, always recognizing that those who are still struggling in their journey practice virtue in their own ways, as much as those who have come close to its completion.

 

It is one thing to make a mistake, quite another to insist on not improving from a mistake. It is one thing to be ignorant, quite another to refuse to learn. It is one thing to fall down, quite another to not get up again. Friends will work on these lessons together. The good proceeds through an attitude of support and encouragement, not demanding that others be without blemish from the very beginning. We grow in our perfection, one tiny bit at a time.

 

If there is no Plato, or Xenophon, or Cato around to lift us up, then those of us with lesser gifts can help life one another up. I don’t know if those were really better times, but, as Seneca says, Providence will make it so that the best of folks will always stand in contrast to the worst of folks. Surely the hope can be that the worst still have it within their power to become the best.

 

Where circumstances have made it so that I am surrounded by others just as weak as myself, fighting with the same sort of demons, then we will still have the opportunity to practice a friendship of mutual assistance. The good can be in the purity of our intentions, even as we work on the strengths of our habits.

 

 

 

7.6

 

Above all, however, avoid dismal men who grumble at whatever happens, and find something to complain of in everything. Though he may continue loyal and friendly towards you, still one's peace of mind is destroyed by a comrade whose mind is soured and who meets every incident with a groan.

 

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and sometimes complaining to our friends is just a way to help relieve our immediate frustrations. Share the burden with someone you trust and care for, and the weight will suddenly not seem so bad.

 

Yet I am painfully aware of my own tendency to cross a certain line, where I am no longer seeking comfort and support, but I am rather spouting resentment and vengeance. That line is drawn by my intentions, and expresses itself in the tone of my concerns. Have I merely noted that something is bringing me grief, or am I now demanding that the world live up to my expectations?

 

The distinction may seem subtle, yet whether I go one way or another makes a world of difference for my moral health. Do I wish to improve my own character, and make myself better and stronger, or am I wallowing in my dislike of my circumstances, consumed by my vanity? The one still comes from love, while the other comes from hatred.

 

I will shamefully catch myself, on each and every day, thinking or even saying something condescending and dismissive about other people. It comes so readily, because it is so easy to blame the world for my misery, and expect it to fix itself in order to make me happy. I will even grow angry when other people are angry, somehow foolishly thinking that they have no right to burden me with their problems, that they have no right to trample on my sacred privileges.

 

I cannot be a good friend to others if my thoughts, words, and actions are grounded in any sort of disdain for any of my neighbors. Others cannot be good friends to me if they only encourage me in my arrogance and bitterness. The poison will flow both ways if all we do is use one another as mirrors for our own sense of entitlement.

 

The vice of complaining calls for a Stoic cure, because it speaks to one of the most fundamental Stoic principles: we are all responsible for ourselves, and for our own happiness. The world will be as it will be, as Providence made it, and the people around me will act as they will act, according to their own sense of right and wrong.

 

I have no power over Nature, and I have no power over my neighbor’s conscience. I do have power over myself, and if I do wish to affect the world in a good way, let me start by giving of my own love, the only worthy thing I have to give. My requirement to receive should be replaced by my willingness to give.

 

Whining about the flaws of others is the refuge of someone who is not accountable to himself; I no longer wish to be that sort of person.

 

 

 

Chapter 8

 

8.1

 

Let us now pass on to the consideration of property, that most fertile source of human sorrows: for if you compare all the other ills from which we suffer—deaths, sicknesses, fears, regrets, endurance of pains and labors—with those miseries which our money inflicts upon us, the latter will far outweigh all the others.

 

Reflect, then, how much less a grief it is never to have had any money than to have lost it: we shall thus understand that the less poverty has to lose, the less torment it has with which to afflict us. For you are mistaken if you suppose that the rich bear their losses with greater spirit than the poor: a wound causes the same amount of pain to the greatest and the smallest body.

 

It was a neat saying of Bion's, "that it hurts bald men as much as hairy men to have their hairs pulled out.” You may be assured that the same thing is true of rich and poor people, that their suffering is equal for their money clings to both classes, and cannot be torn away without their feeling it.

 

My first instinct is to say that troubles arising from romantic love are just as prevalent as troubles arising from our possessions, but then I remember that so many problems of the heart actually reduce to problems about money; too many of the relationships I have seen are ultimately nothing more than means for social and financial status. Matters of the heart can devolve into matters of the wallet.

 

I discovered very quickly that if I was going to follow Stoicism in my life, I was going to be considered rather strange, and I would often find myself feeling quite lonely. Most people assume by default, many without ever reflecting on it, that money is what makes the world go around, that happiness or misery depend on the security of what we own.

 

Yet for Stoicism, at least in its classical sense, it is Providence that makes the world go around, and it is more than just figurative to say that Providence acts through love, the will to achieve the good in all things. Yes, love is the law, not money.

 

I am not a psychologist, of course, so I may be spouting complete nonsense, but I have long wondered what makes people want to be rich. Is it that possessions help us to better feel pleasure? Is the desire for pleasure, then, the false god we worship?

 

 Is it that wealth gives us a sense of importance? Is it vanity, then, that moves us to acquire more and more?

 

Is it that property gives us a feeling of power and security? I know that I, for one, long for money whenever I feel threatened by others. Is it comfort, then, that drives us to acquire more and more?

 

I offer another possibility, only because I have noticed it within myself, whenever I have the courage to stare into my own soul with honesty. Perhaps it is all wrapped up with the other models. Whenever I feel empty on the inside, I will habitually look to what I might acquire on the outside. Discerning my own weakness, I hope that strength can come from elsewhere.

 

For the Stoic, however, property is neither a good thing, nor a bad thing; it is, like all circumstances, indifferent. The worth of property depends upon the merit of character. Give a man more, or give him less, but what will matter the most is what he does with what is given to him.

 

At the same time, consider how much easier it will be to resist that temptation to be greedy, if there is nothing at all to desire. We might assume that the rich have no worries about their property, but the fact is that they most certainly do, with bells on. They have more, and they want more, and they have to fight all the harder to keep more from the rest of us.

 

If you have ever had much, you will know that having much leads to wanting more. If you have ever been rich, you will know that your sense of compassion will so easily shrivel, as your sense of entitlement will so easily grow.

 

The rich man is no more immune to greed than the poor man.

 

Better, then, to own little or no property; it might finally be an aid to owning ourselves.

 

Bion of Borysthenes surely had it right: it hurts to lose money, and it makes little difference whether we are rich or poor; the pain is much the same.

 

Take the pain, and then redirect it into something of real benefit. Give all of yourself, asking for nothing else. Make virtue your currency, not money.

 

 

 

8.2

 

Yet it is more endurable, as I have said, and easier not to gain property than to lose it, and therefore you will find that those upon whom Fortune has never smiled are more cheerful than those whom she has deserted. Diogenes, a man of infinite spirit, perceived this, and made it impossible that anything should be taken from him.

 

Call this security from loss poverty, want, necessity, or any contemptuous name you please. I shall consider such a man to be happy, unless you find me another who can lose nothing. If I am not mistaken, it is a royal attribute among so many misers, sharpers, and robbers, to be the one man who cannot be injured.

 

If anyone doubts the happiness of Diogenes, he would doubt whether the position of the immortal gods was one of sufficient happiness, because they have no farms or gardens, no valuable estates let to strange tenants, and no large loans in the money market.

 

A virtuous man will learn to live well, whether he is rich or poor, and a vicious man will only be consumed by his desires, whether he is rich or poor. It isn’t that the presence or absence of wealth will determine the quality of character, but that the presence or absence of character will determine the quality of wealth.

 

“Wonderful! So I can be good and rich at the same time! That’s what I wanted to hear!”

 

Be careful. You can be both, but you cannot pursue both equally, as one will have to be in the service of the other. This is why the Stoics, always treating property as something indifferent, will advise us to never long for property. It is precisely because such things are indifferent that they are unable to take the place of virtue as the highest human good.

 

Once my heart is first set on acquiring things outside of me, I am neglecting to nurture the things inside of me. It is better to not be tempted by riches at all, just as it is better to never be tempted by pleasure, or honor, or influence.

 

If I have committed my life to winning such prizes, my contentment will slowly but surely depend upon them, and then their loss will only tear me apart, revealing my self-made vulnerability.

 

What should I want most in this world? To increase my moral worth, the excellence of my actions, not to increase my financial worth, the accidents of my circumstances. Once I know what to care for, it will make little difference to me whether Fortune has given me this or taken away that. My estimation changes everything, because I will not lust after what has no appeal, and I will not cry over the loss of what I do not love.

 

Diogenes may appear quite insane to those who run about in pursuit of money and reputation, yet he can serve as something of a hero for the Stoic. His radical, and sometimes shameless, displays will make sense only in the context of his commitment to the simplicity of Nature. He knew he already possessed everything he needed within himself, so there was nothing you could entice him with, and nothing you could take away from him.

 

What does it really mean to be perfectly happy? It would be the most complete end, that which leaves nothing else to be desired, a life no longer tortured by need and longing. If I can understand that virtue is enough, I can take or leave all the rest.

 

Diogenes didn’t really care about what he wore, or where he slept, or what he ate. These things were all petty and insignificant compared to the very reason he was alive. In this sense he was far more divine than the richest man in Athens, because he was his own master, utterly self-sufficient.

 

Diogenes would ask for alms from statues, to grow accustomed to being refused. Many laughed at him for this, but he had the last laugh. He didn’t need the money to begin with, though the lovers of money needed their prosperity to feel that they were important.

 

 

 

8.3

 

Are you not ashamed of yourself, you who gaze upon riches with astonished admiration? Look upon the Universe: you will see the gods quite bare of property, and possessing nothing, though they give everything.

 

Do you think that this man who has stripped himself of all fortuitous accessories is a pauper, or one like to the immortal gods?

 

Do you call Demetrius, Pompey's freedman, a happier man, he who was not ashamed to be richer than Pompey, who was daily furnished with a list of the number of his slaves, as a general is with that of his army, though he had long deserved that all his riches should consist of a pair of underlings, and a roomier cell than the other slaves?

 

If I look at it from the perspective of Nature, and not merely of Fortune, it seems quite ridiculous how we run about in a frenzy of acquisition, committing all of our efforts to buying more things, to increasing our reputation, to winning power over the lives of others. We think we are like gods when we possess more of what surrounds us.

 

Yet there is nothing divine about that at all. Whatever approaches to godliness will grow in the perfection of its own being, not through anything external. It becomes complete within itself, thrives from its self-sufficiency, builds a mastery over its own actions, and strives to depends upon nothing else. This is divine strength.

 

What we are accustomed to calling strength is actually a form of weakness, a reliance upon the worth of everything except itself. It takes on the form of a sickly dependence, even an addiction.

 

My property may be great, my house may be luxurious, my friends may be numerous, but that really says nothing about me. I am who I shape myself to be, within my own soul, and these things do not add or subtract anything to or from my character. Such things have the good of their own natures, not to be confused with the good of my own nature.

 

Can I make use of them, either by their presence or their absence? Yes, but they do not inform me—I inform them. To require more is to become less, and to require less is to become more. I should not be so quick to assume that the man who has nothing to his name is a failure; perhaps he has come to own himself. Maybe I am confusing what it really means to be rich or poor.

 

What made Pompey great? He commanded armies, won countless battles, built up power over the state, acquired tremendous wealth, and plotted and schemed with the other movers and shakers. He was consul three times, entered Rome in triumph three times, and was assassinated by those who feared him. Were those the things that made him great?

 

I find myself much more impressed by Demetrius, who had access to so much, but was satisfied with so very little.

 

 

 

8.4

 

But Diogenes's only slave ran away from him, and when he was pointed out to Diogenes, he did not think him worth fetching back.

 

"It is a shame," he said, "that Manes should be able to live without Diogenes, and that Diogenes should not be able to live without Manes."

 

He seems to me to have said, "Fortune, mind your own business: Diogenes has nothing left that belongs to you. Did my slave run away? No, he went away from me as a free man."

 

I have so often heard, far too often heard, that a mark of enlightened modernity is our freedom to live as we may see fit, under no one else’s rule or ownership.

 

Folks in the past, I was told, were so ignorant, with their institutions like slavery or feudalism, but we’re finally getting it right. I apparently now have the power to make of myself whatever I wish.

 

In one sense, in a Stoic sense, this is certainly true, but then again that has always been true, regardless of the time or place. In another sense, however, I’m not sure the world has changed that much at all. It all depends upon what we mean by the fullest human freedom.

 

Does any man ever really have a mastery over what he calls his own property, over his right to express himself in public, or even over his very body? They can change with the wind, from one day to the next, because it really depends upon what other people are willing to allow us. All it takes for us to lose these things is a greater external force.

 

Can a man rule over his own character, over how he chooses to think and act, over the dignity of his very soul? They always remain in his domain, because it really depends upon his own understanding and choice. Being internal, they cannot be lost, whatever else might be added or taken away.

 

Perhaps we are seeking after the wrong sort of freedom, grasping for the one that we can never possess, while neglecting the one that we can always possess. We may insist we have abolished chattel slavery, while we now replace it with wage slavery.

 

How much wiser it would be if we loved the greater over the lesser, and cared more for a liberty of the soul before a liberty of the body.

 

But if I define myself by my money, its limit is all by which I will ever measure myself. If I define myself by my virtues, however, I can live without any restraint.

 

Why should I insist that another person be at my command? Let me be my own king, and let him be his own king, and then can we meet as equals. This will only be possible when we respect people for who they are, not merely for what they can do for us.

 

If we see our neighbors as consumers and producers, then we will inevitably seek to own one another, like any commodity. If we see our neighbors as kindred souls, we may yet learn to love them.

 

Diogenes learned an important lesson from Manes. The freer man is always the better man, and the better man is happy to only own himself.

 

 

 

8.5

 

A household of slaves requires food and clothing; the bellies of so many hungry creatures have to be filled.

 

We must buy raiment for them, we must watch their most thievish hands, and we must make use of the services of people who weep and execrate us.

 

How far happier is he who is indebted to no man for anything, except for what he can deprive himself of with the greatest ease!

 

My mother would always tell me that the rich have their own set of problems, though at first I didn’t believe her. Surely the people who owned more could do so much more, could be free from all those petty concerns, could ease their way into anything, or out of anything, they wanted?

 

I suppose I had to admit that money couldn’t buy happiness, but it certainly seemed that money made it quite a bit easier.

 

I spent many years thinking I was rubbing shoulders with some well-to-do folks, though it was really more like licking their boots. Initially I was quite impressed by their sense of class and confidence, by the way they seemed to breeze through life, by the thrill of all eyes being upon them. I fell head over heels for a girl from big money, not old money, but big money nonetheless, and I basked in her power to acquire anything she wanted, if she just asked the right people.

 

Yet beneath all those vivid impressions, I began to uncover a far less glamorous reality. These people were hardly any happier than the rest of us, and certainly not any better. They also had doubts, and fears, and were consumed by desire or rage. They also lied, and cheated, and stole. Why would they feel this way if their wealth made them content? Why would they do such things if their possessions made them superior?

 

Beyond that, I also noticed that they faced a whole new set of stumbling blocks, ones I could hardly relate to. Instead of having to work less because of their prosperity, they had to work all the harder to maintain it. Instead of having fewer worries, they accumulated more troubles. Instead of feeling more secure, they were always looking over their shoulders, uncertain about who they could trust.

 

Most of all, so many of them battled with temptations far beyond my simpler experiences. With so much attention focused on what was outside of them, they were drawn to neglecting what was inside of them. With so much time spent on ruling others, they easily forgot to rule themselves. With so much effort expended in managing their estates, they were prone to mismanage their souls.

 

If you buy fancy homes, you must maintain them. If you accumulate great riches, you must protect them. If you employ many servants, you must watch over them. If you build up a noble appearance, you can never let down your guard.

 

It is hard enough for me to struggle with putting myself in order, and the last thing I would need is to have to struggle with putting everyone and everything else in order. I should remember my mother’s advice, and I should heed the words of G.K. Chesterton:

 

There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.

 

A wonderful passage from Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy will also get me right back on track:

 

My contention is that no good thing harms its owner, a thing which you won’t gainsay. But wealth very often does harm its owners, for all the most criminal elements of the population who are thereby all the more covetous of other people’s property are convinced that they alone are worthy to possess all the gold and precious stones there are.

 

You are shuddering now at the thought of club and knife, but if you had set out on the path of this life with empty pockets, you would whistle your way past any highwayman.

 

How splendid, then, the blessing of mortal riches is! Once won, they never leave you carefree again.

 

 

 

8.6

 

Since we, however, have not such strength of mind as this, we ought at any rate to diminish the extent of our property, in order to be less exposed to the assaults of fortune.

 

Those men whose bodies can be within the shelter of their armor, are more fitted for war than those whose huge size everywhere extends beyond it, and exposes them to wounds.

 

The best amount of property to have is that which is enough to keep us from poverty, and which yet is not far removed from it.

 

The dark and cynical side of me (not the bright and Cynic side, mind you) snorts when I hear the rich and powerful telling us how they just can’t help being rich and powerful, and that we should have a deep sympathy for their plight.

 

Yet I am questioning their motives, when I should really be questioning my own. Are their intentions pure, when they say that they are playing the cards that Fate dealt them, or are my intentions pure, when I am secretly jealous that I didn’t get those same cards?

 

Perhaps some of them do indeed possess the sincerity and character to see their lives as guided by responsibility, not by entitlement. I would be well advised to follow such an example.

 

Both Seneca and Serenus are men whom Providence gave the circumstances of great wealth, and I take them at their word, that they did not take this state of affairs lightly. Others are instead given the circumstances of poverty. Neither are to a man’s blame or credit, though what he chooses to make of those conditions will most certainly be to his blame or credit. Stoicism, I must remember, does not measure a man by what he has, but by what he does.

 

Even if I were to be given worldly prosperity, however, I would have to be very careful about how much I would decide to take. How much is enough? The general Stoic answer, of course, is to accept whatever may help me be the best man I can be, whether I have more or less, but there is also the inherent danger of overreaching. I have very rarely asked too little for myself, but I have quite often asked for far too much.

 

Enough, in such a case where I might have my preference, is to have what meets my immediate needs, whatever they may be, and nothing beyond that. Give me anything additional, and the temptation will be to expand the scope of my body’s reach, at the expense of my soul’s integrity.

 

I enjoy Seneca’s image of becoming too fat for one’s armor, and I imagine a chubby legionnaire who has consumed too much bread and wine vainly trying to hunker down behind the protection of his scutum. The danger of being injured or killed comes from having made too much of oneself, of inflating a sense of self-importance beyond what is natural.

 

Want for little, and little can be taken. Ask for an excess, and everything can too easily be lost. Once security depends upon anything outside the circle of the soul’s virtues, I am at the mercy of all those slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.

 

 

 

Chapter 9

 

9.1

 

We shall be pleased with this measure of wealth if we have previously taken pleasure in thrift, without which no riches are sufficient, and with which none are insufficient, especially as the remedy is always at hand, and poverty itself by calling in the aid of thrift can convert itself into riches.

 

Let us accustom ourselves to set aside mere outward show, and to measure things by their uses, not by their ornamental trappings.

 

Let our hunger be tamed by food, our thirst quenched by drinking, our lust confined within needful bounds.

 

Let us learn to use our limbs, and to arrange our dress and way of life according to what was approved of by our ancestors, not in imitation of new-fangled models.

 

Let us learn to increase our continence, to repress luxury, to set bounds to our pride, to assuage our anger, to look upon poverty without prejudice, to practice thrift, albeit many are ashamed to do so, to apply cheap remedies to the wants of nature, to keep all undisciplined hopes and aspirations as it were under lock and key, and to make it our business to get our riches from ourselves and not from Fortune.

 

To rule over something else, I must first manage to rule myself; to be a master over much, I must first learn to be totally content with little.

 

Even as the common wisdom, which really shows itself to be a common ignorance, would have it that a man becomes more by having more, I should consider rather that a man becomes more by being more. If I look at the alternatives clearly, it becomes apparent that I will always find benefit if I first nurture my own character, and I will always do harm whenever I neglect it.

 

If I am nothing in myself, then you could take away anything else, and I would be quite miserable. You could give also me everything else, and I would still be miserable.

 

If I am something in myself, then you could give me anything else, and I would be quite happy. You could also take away everything else, and I would still be happy.

 

The best training for happiness may well be to receive fewer windfalls from Fortune, since by these means I can become at peace with being self-reliant. After that, the rest can take care of itself.

 

Could it be done in reverse, from the outside in? A better man than me might manage to resist the lure of making his life contingent upon conditions, but I know I would likely botch it up. The cure for dependency sometimes begins with some cold turkey.

 

Of all the classical virtues, we will still praise a sort of wisdom, at least in the sense that we think it good to figure out how things work.

 

We will still praise a sort of justice, at least in the sense of raising our fists to get what we think we deserve.

 

We will still praise a sort of fortitude, at least in the sense of puffing up our chests against our enemies.

 

But when was the last time you saw something approximating temperance? I don’t mean in the sense of dieting to look attractive, or being picky about sex to avoid a disease, or adjusting our incomes to save on taxes. These aren’t even approximations; they are just mockeries, ordered to giving up one pleasure for the sake of another.

 

No, I mean someone who says, and actually means, something like this:

 

“I will surrender all that stuff out there, so that I can try to become stronger in here.”

 

No more mouthing off. Remain silent and be at peace.

 

No more pigging out. Fuel the body, do not feed gratification.

 

No more lusting. Only loving.

 

No more appearances. Only content.

 

Replace being moved with moving. Let the head guide the gut, not the gut enslave the head. Expect less, and then give more. Discover beauty in the dignity of the person, instead of reducing the person to a tool.

 

Become rich in the soul by gently but firmly reminding the body to stay poor in its rightful place.

 

 

 

9.2

 

We never can so thoroughly defeat the vast diversity and malignity of misfortune with which we are threatened as not to feel the weight of many gusts, if we offer a large spread of canvas to the wind.

 

We must draw our affairs into a small compass, to make the darts of Fortune of no avail.

 

 For this reason, sometimes slight mishaps have turned into remedies, and more serious disorders have been healed by slighter ones.

 

When the mind pays no attention to good advice, and cannot be brought to its senses by milder measures, why should we not think that its interests are being served by poverty, disgrace, or financial ruin being applied to it? One evil is balanced by another.

 

Most everyone will talk about extending his reach, but very few will be content with simply having a firmer grip. We admire a tree that grows so very tall, while we rarely pay attention to the depth of its roots. A man will constantly be praised for what he has on the outside, and yet the content of his heart and mind are passed over.

 

An uncomfortable side effect of learning to think in a more Stoic manner can be a sense of alienation from popular culture, though I must remember that this inconvenience is far outweighed by the benefit of becoming more familiar with my own nature. Taking a Stoic Turn is far more than merely cosmetic.

 

People will speak of finding happiness in their jobs, their homes, their families, or their luxuries. As pleasing as these things will surely be, I can only think that I do not truly possess any of them at all, for how they come and go is often quite beyond my power. As satisfying as their presence certainly feels, I can only return to the fact that being happy can only be in my merit, not in the merit of anything else.

 

So, I attend to my own soul, while so many others attend to the impressions they make on the souls of others. I cultivate a little plot of dirt at my feet, while my neighbors buy up vast fields and orchards as far as the eye can see. I feel out of place in their eyes, even as I know I am working to find my place in Nature.

 

I bring to mind this image of Seneca’s, that the bigger the sail, the more the vessel will be at the mercy of the storm.

 

I can learn to focus on my own virtues through calm reflection, and by listening to what timeless wisdom, whatever its source, has to tell me. This is what I was made for.

 

Too often, however, I will become distracted by all the bright lights and loud noises, and then there is another means for me to be get back on the right path. Nature herself will correct me, by throwing misfortunes in my way, telling me that I have strayed too far from what is rightly my own.

 

Sometimes they are small frustrations, but if I do not heed them, there will inevitably be much greater dangers coming my way. When I start caring for what is beyond me, the new objects of my affection and concern will remind me that they are not mine to possess.

 

Yes, this will hurt, a bit at first, more and more if I insist on being stubborn, and yet the pain is little compared to the prospect of losing myself. Just as the lesser suffering of the cure is required to dispel the greater suffering of the disease, so a loss of circumstance can be necessary to save my soul. When I start nibbling at Fortune, Fortune bites back. I am well advised to heed the warning, and to be grateful for the lesson.

 

Nature never acts in vain, and for every action there will be a reaction. If I won’t heed the call of my own reason on the inside, then perhaps I will heed the warnings from the forces on the outside. To be robbed, to be mocked, to be shamed can do me good.

 

 

 

9.3

 

 Let us then teach ourselves to be able to dine without all Rome to look on, to be the slaves of fewer slaves, to get clothes that fulfill their original purpose, and to live in a smaller house.

 

The inner curve is the one to take, not only in running races and in the contests of the circus, but also in the race of life; even literary pursuits, the most becoming thing for a gentleman to spend money upon, are only justifiable as long as they are kept within bounds.

 

To take the most direct path, to make do with just what is needed, to be bound by very little, and to be content with Nature alone will be the surest aids in living the happiest life possible.

 

It is not necessary to complicate, to ornament and accessorize, to carry the weight of luxuries, or to seek to be seen and admired. We think we become stronger by tying ourselves to external diversions, only to find that they are dragging us along after them.

 

Someone once told me that my interest in Stoicism rested on the false premise that the circumstances of my life were largely outside of my control. He prodded me to expand the scope of my outside influence, not merely to settle for being myself. I was willing to listen, because surely a man dies inside when he is no longer open to learning something new.

 

“Look, it isn’t that you can’t have all those things, it’s just that you haven’t figured out how to go about getting them. You need to be smarter in working your way up the ladder, you need to suck up a little more over here, and impose your will more over there. Stop being so damned principled, and be more flexible, otherwise you won’t get what you want!”

 

For a time, those words made me feel rather confused. Perhaps I was just too weak, or not clever enough, or unwilling to look the other way? It took me a while to get my priorities back in order. This wasn’t a question of being strong enough to get what I wanted; it was a question of being wise enough to know what I wanted.

 

Let me, for the moment, assume that I could have the power to shape the world according to my own will. This would require, of course, the most remarkable concurrence of events, but even given such a possibility, is that something I should pursue?

 

Make me ever so mighty, far-seeing, and charming! Would it make any difference in what constitutes a good life?

 

None of the other possessions will matter, if I did not first possess myself, and once I possess myself, I will in turn require very little else in any event. The temptation to becoming a manipulator comes only from having nothing of one’s own to begin with. What else do I have if I don’t have the principles of my conscience?

 

I was glad to respect this fellow’s right to think and live as he chose, and I meant him no ill will, but it threw me for a loop that he wasn’t a banker, or a lawyer, or an investor, but rather a college professor. Here was an academic, a man who was supposed to value wisdom above all else, and yet he spoke of compromising his soul for worldly profit.

 

It is interesting that Seneca will now finish this chapter with a consideration of the vanity, ostentation, and greed of certain types of “scholars”. The lust for acquisition is hardly limited to a desire for money.

 

 

 

9.4

 

What is the use of possessing numberless books and libraries, whose titles their owner can hardly read through in a lifetime? A student is overwhelmed by such a mass, not instructed, and it is much better to devote yourself to a few writers than to skim through many.

 

Forty thousand books were burned at Alexandria: some would have praised this library as a most noble memorial of royal wealth, like Titus Livius, who says that it was "a splendid result of the taste and attentive care of the kings."

 

It had nothing to do with taste or care, but was a piece of learned luxury, no, not even learned, since they amassed it, not for the sake of learning, but to make a show, like many men who know less about letters than a slave is expected to know, and who uses his books not to help him in his studies but to ornament his dining room.

 

Many people are under the impression that the academic world is a profound and lofty place, inspired by the noble love of truth and a selfless commitment to service. This is sadly not the case. You will indeed find some truly decent folks in what they call higher learning, just as you will also find decent folks most anywhere else, but in the end, it is shamefully reduced to a business like all the others.

 

The driving force is still profit, and while it isn’t merely a matter of getting rich, there is much squabbling, scheming, and backstabbing going on in order to win the greatest status and fame. In this sense, “scholars” must become masters of promoting an image if they wish to survive in their field.

 

What matters most is not what you know, but having the confidence and the cleverness to give the appearance that you know. One forges alliances of convenience in order to be considered an authority and pays out favors in order to be revered as an expert. The most effective tool is ultimately to denigrate others, politely and dryly in public, viciously and passionately in private. Through it all, a refined smugness is an absolute requirement.

 

They really don’t like it when you point this out, just like politicians get deeply offended when you question their honesty.

 

I can only blame myself for having fallen for this, lock, stock, and barrel. I was especially taken with the idea of being “well read”, of presenting the illusion that I was fluent in all the most important works of philosophy and literature, hoping that I could drop the most insightful quotes and relevant references with barely an effort.

 

I still cringe when I think of that ever-growing list I had throughout high school and college, of all the books I was sure others expected me to be familiar with. I was convinced I had it made when my peers looked on in envy, while my professors pretended to be impressed. What a waste, what a foolish game, what a pack of lies. The issue was never about learning at all, but about making a show of learning, of turning it into a circus act.

 

As with all things shallow and vain, there was a great love of breadth at the expense of depth, of believing that more was better. I read very little, but glanced over very much, such that I saw it as a weakness instead of a strength to admit that I didn’t know something. Piles and piles of books, strategically strewn across shelves and desks, became like substitutes for actual understanding.

 

My alma mater would brag about the scope of their library, while still being quite jealous that the Ivy League school down the street had four times as many volumes. One fiery professor, who was never afraid to speak his mind, and so never received tenure, described it quite well: “What does it matter how many books we have? When was the last time you saw any of our students actually reading them, except to extract a reference for a bibliography?”

 

I learned the hard way that if I even felt the need to tell people that I had read it, I probably hadn’t read it at all, or at least not for any of the right reasons.

 

I have no doubt that many great books were lost when the library at Alexandria fell into ruin; I have often dreamed about reading some of those texts that never survived into the modern era, like Aristotle’s dialogues, or the writings of the early Stoics and Cynics, and I wonder if they might still be here if history had unfolded just a little bit differently.

 

Yet Seneca is quite right. It was never the gathering together of books, at any time or in any place, that made anyone decent. A commitment needs to be made, one soul at a time, to the act of living well, with eyes wide open.

 

I once met a fellow, with virtually no formal schooling, who had built a system of life values around a worn and tattered copy of the Handbook by Epictetus, given to him by his mother. He knew nothing about who wrote it, or when it was written, or why it mattered in the grand scale of intellectual history.

 

When I spoke to him of Stoicism, or of other authors, he simply shrugged. All he knew was that his mother read it, and because he loved her, he read it too. There was a man who was far better than I could ever be.

 

The world doesn’t become a better place because we stockpile knowledge; the world becomes a better place when individual people choose to live with wisdom, however humble its scale. A single book read with love is far more important than many books displayed out of pride.

 

 

 

9.5

 

Let a man, then, obtain as many books as he wants, but none for show.

 

"It is more respectable," say you, "to spend one's money on such books than on vases of Corinthian brass and paintings."

 

Not so: everything that is carried to excess is wrong. What excuses can you find for a man who is eager to buy bookcases of ivory and citrus wood, to collect the works of unknown or discredited authors, and who sits yawning amid so many thousands of books, whose backs and titles please him more than any other part of them?

 

As I grow older, I become ever more conscious of the confusion between appearance and reality. As we place greater value on externals over internals, we also focus our attention on the impressions of things instead of the nature of things. We settle only for how it feels, failing to look through at what it is. Passion ceases to be tempered by reason.

 

It saddens me when I see the disconnect in others, and it shames me when I see it within myself. The temptation runs deep, if for no other reason than how the inaction of conformity seems so much more comfortable than the action of reflection.

 

I detect even the odd contradiction of following a certain image that vainly insists upon following no image at all, of buying and selling masks of manufactured individuality, of caring that others take notice of how we pretend not to care what they think of us.

 

It would be easy to blame a love of wealth for all this, but I suspect it goes far deeper than just giving everything a dollar value. Money can itself be yet another convenient veneer to cover up any natural worth. No, I wonder if the root cause is a fear of genuinely being ourselves, sheepishly expressed in becoming whatever we believe the fashion of the hour tells us we must be.

 

Such posing and posturing can be found in all aspects of life, even as I have personally experienced it most closely in the field of education. Some people promote their images through the lure of sex, and others through the intoxication of power, and yet others through the illusion of insight. For those who are impressed by the trappings of culture and refinement, clever phrases can be as seductive as pouty lips.

 

If I wish to only appear as thoughtful and profound, books can become the perfect accessory. I need not read them, of course, only display them, and I have then presented a package of how I would like to be perceived. It can be as simple as having a collection of poems casually peeking out of my bag, or as grand as filling an entire room with trophies of intellectual status.

 

The next time I open a book, let me be certain I am not intent on being admired. The next time I add a volume to my library, let my concern be for how understanding its contents might improve my soul, not for how showing it off will increase my reputation.

 

 

 

9.6

 

Thus in the houses of the laziest of men you will see the works of all the orators and historians stacked upon bookshelves reaching right up to the ceiling. At the present day a library has become as necessary an appendage to a house as a hot and cold bath.

 

I would excuse them straightway if they really were carried away by an excessive zeal for literature; but as it is, these costly works of sacred genius, with all the illustrations that adorn them, are merely bought for display and to serve as wall furniture.

 

Is it bad for me to love my books? Not at all. What matters is why I love them, and toward what end I will put them to use. It will be similar with most every other thing I come across in this world, in that I must decide where I will find its meaning and value, and how I will go about respecting what is good within it.

 

Some people treat a job as a way to increase their influence, and other people treat it as a way to be of service. Some people consider possessions to be ends, and other people consider them to be means. Some people will look at their friends and ask what they can receive, and other people will look at their friends and ask what they can give.

 

So it also is with learning in general, and with books in particular. The inner life of a man will become clearer by observing how he relates to the power of understanding, whether he employs it to glorify himself, or to glorify the truth.

 

I seem to notice more and more how certain people are engrossed in playing a grand role in life; what is important to them is not who they are or what they are doing, but how they are perceived and what they are seen to be doing.

 

It is common not just in the world of entertainment, but in business, politics, and academics as well, where acting skills are thought of as more profitable than living skills.

 

I have become so conscious of the tendency that I will often go out of my way not to deliberately promote or advertise myself. As much as I enjoy being admired and recognized, I think it more important to first practice integrity; I should be in the business of working on my merits, not the selling of impressions. Perhaps I am too weak, but it is too easy for me to get these things confused, to flip necessity with preference.

 

If a man is a liar in his trade, I think it likely that he will also be a liar in the other aspects of his life, and so I am hesitant to trust him. It is the danger of what my daughter calls being “such a fake”, of failing to be true to others because one can’t even be true to oneself.

 

My own library is hardly extensive, and I am at the point where a volume must be passed on to someone else before a new one might be added, but there are still times when someone will look at my shelves and ask, “Have you read all of these books?”

 

That is what the books are for, I tell myself, and I suppose I could take offense at the question, but I need to remember that books, like framed diplomas, are decorations for most people, sometimes even symbols of vanity.

 

They will really only matter to me if I read them, not in public but in private, and if they help me to improve myself, not in my appearance but in my character.

 

“If you see any with a layer of dust on them, you are free to take them. I ask only that you not sell them, and that you not let them stay dusty.”

 

 

 

Chapter 10

 

10.1

 

Suppose, however, that your life has become full of trouble, and that without knowing what you were doing you have fallen into some snare that either public or private Fortune has set for you, and that you can neither untie it nor break it.

 

Then remember that fettered men suffer much at first from the burdens and clogs upon their legs: afterwards, when they have made up their minds not to fret themselves about them, but to endure them, necessity teaches them to bear them bravely, and habit to bear them easily.

 

When there are troubles, people will often tell you to hang in there, to wait it out, to hope for something better. “It will pass,” they say. “Everything will work out in the end.”

 

I hate to be the one to point this out, but that is not always the case. For many of us, the situation is not going to improve; it is just as likely to become more painful as it is to become more pleasant. Though it might offer a temporary comfort, the promise of better conditions just around the corner is still the kind of thinking that makes a life dependent on the whims of Fortune.

 

Sometimes, I will be dealt a hand that offers me no chance of winning that game we all like to play. I can bluff all I want and try to delay the inevitable, but I am going to walk away from the table with empty pockets. There will be no wishing it away.

 

We surely all know that moment, where we are so vividly aware that this is not going to end the way that we would like. It will be irrevocable. Some of us are going to lose all we possess in the world, to suffer long and hard, to be cast aside and forgotten, to be crippled in body or in spirit, to face the certainty of an inglorious death.

 

It will also be a moment that offers the opportunity for complete self-realization. The illusions fall away. There remains only the awareness that the circumstances are entirely beyond my control, even as my own judgments are still completely within my power. The world will act as it will, but I can also act as I will. I can think of this as a limitation, or I can think of it as a liberation.

 

I am reduced to what is purely myself, and if I only so choose, I can firmly hold onto this for whatever time is given me, in whatever surroundings I may find myself. There is never a need to surrender what is absolutely my own. The hardship can now become a vehicle for courage and conviction, and the act of standing firm now builds a strength of habit.

 

I no longer tell people that everything will get better, but rather that they have been given a chance to become better. I think this a kindness and not a cruelty, because it encourages them to uncover the beautiful dignity that is within them. It replaces a reliance upon what is done to us with a reliance on what we do with ourselves.

 

 

 

10.2

 

In every station of life you will find amusements, relaxations, and enjoyments; that is, provided you be willing to make light of evils rather than to hate them.

 

Knowing to what sorrows we were born, there is nothing for which Nature more deserves our thanks than for having invented habit as an alleviation of misfortune, which soon accustoms us to the severest evils. No one could hold out against misfortune if it permanently exercised the same force as at its first onset.

 

I will regularly hear people tell me how certain things in this world are boring, or offensive, or frustrating. In response to an unpleasant state of affairs, the solution will often be to hammer away at the circumstances until they are more gratifying, or, if all possible convenience has been extracted from them, to discard things entirely and replace them with new diversions.

 

This only seems reasonable as long as we are under the illusion that the world will bend to our wills. As soon as it becomes clear, as it must inevitably, that this is hardly the case, all that remains is our own dissatisfaction. We grow accustomed to having our happiness given to us by Fortune, and so we are then quite helpless in providing it for ourselves from Nature.

 

I will look quite the fool when I insist that nothing is boring but our own disinterest, that nothing is offensive but our own irritability, and that nothing is frustrating but our own resentment; if I allow that to annoy me, then I am just failing to follow my own advice. When I discover value in whatever has come my way, I can be at peace, but if I impose my demands and conditions upon events, I will forever be restless.

 

Such a shift of attitude, from working with Nature instead of against Nature, does not come easily, and it does not come quickly. It will be the deliberate strengthening of habit that brings order to impressions that are at first so overwhelming, and this may take some time. Old inclinations and routines must be broken down, and new ones built up in their place.

 

Once again, it will be up to me whether I think of the effort as worthy or wasted, if I take joy in the progress or find fault with the obstacles. What makes good habits so uplifting, and bad habits such a heavy burden, is the force of repetition, that the many small actions work together with an ever-increasing momentum. Have I taken too many steps in the wrong direction? I can always start by taking just one step back in the right direction, and the improvement has already begun.

 

How many times have I thought a task impossible, only later to laugh at my own doubts? Nature gave me this power, by granting me my own reason and choice, and making me able to give firm direction to my own purpose.

 

I may once have said it was unbearable, but I needed only a bit of fortitude and practice, and now I can actually navigate my way through the hardship, tame the trouble, and harness the aggravation. The world doesn’t change for me, but I change myself. It isn’t magic, but the forging of my own character.

 

 

 

10.3

 

We are all chained to Fortune. Some men's chain is loose and made of gold, that of others is tight and of meaner metal; but what difference does this make?

 

We are all included in the same captivity, and even those who have bound us are bound themselves, unless you think that a chain on the left side is lighter to bear.

 

One man may be bound by public office, another by wealth.

 

Some have to bear the weight of illustrious birth, some of humble birth.

 

Some are subject to the commands of others, some only to their own.

 

Some are kept in one place by being banished there, others by being elected to the priesthood.

 

There is a common assumption, that since we are all dealt different hands in life, we are all therefore given different degrees of freedom and happiness. The second statement does not follow from the first, however, and it rests only on the false premise that having more or having less means being more or being less.

 

All external circumstances, in whatever form they take, will act as limitations on our liberty. It is fittingly ironic that the more we try to bend them to our wills, the more tightly they take a hold on us. We think we are so close to having mastered our situations, and then we only find that the master has unwittingly made himself the slave.

 

Perhaps I am painfully aware of the chains that bind me, while I look to my neighbor, and I think I see no chains on him at all. I grow resentful and jealous, and I direct my efforts to becoming more like him, to becoming the idealized self-made man. I desire as much wealth as he has, all the seeming power he possesses, the smiling friends who always surround him, the leisure and luxury that appear to make his life so carefree.

 

Some people have developed entire philosophies, whole systems of social progress, on the struggle between the “haves” and the “have-nots”, working from the theory that fighting one’s way from the latter group to the former will bring satisfaction.

 

A particular version of the American Dream, for example, would have it that we can become happy by having the freedom to acquire our own private wealth. The Socialist will insist that the dream can only be achieved when all property is shared in common. Both models, however, define the worth of a man by what he has.

 

I have not thought through what it means for me to live well, and I have not looked carefully enough to see that all of us, regardless of our class or position, carry the weight of chains. If I suddenly had everything my neighbor has, I would still find myself filled with fear and anxiety.

 

Poverty may be the burden I must bear, and yet wealth is also a burden for the man who receives it. I become obsessed with wanting more, and he becomes obsessed with keeping a hold on what he owns.

 

I may feel insignificant because no one pays attention to me, and he feels smothered because everyone pays attention to him.

 

I am sure I am powerless because he controls every aspect of my life, by slowly selling me my house or granting me the trickle of my wages, and he is also sure that he is powerless, by being tied to all his many obligations and paying back all the favors that got him to where he is now.

 

Prosperity, or high office, or influence do not buy freedom; they are only different sorts of shackles.

 

 

 

10.4

 

All life is slavery: let each man therefore reconcile himself to his lot, complain of it as little as possible, and lay hold of whatever good lies within his reach.

 

No condition can be so wretched that an impartial mind can find no compensations in it. Small sites, if ingeniously divided, may be made use of for many different purposes, and arrangement will render ever so narrow a room habitable.

 

Call good sense to your aid against difficulties: it is possible to soften what is harsh, to widen what is too narrow, and to make heavy burdens press less severely upon one who bears them skillfully.

 

I did not realize how intensely I complained about things until I started taking a regular Stoic inventory of my thoughts and actions. When I made broad and sweeping generalizations about my state of mind, I could tell myself that all was well, but once I paid more conscious attention to the little words and deeds during my day, it became quite apparent that so much of my time and effort was spent on grumbling and protesting.

 

My intentions were not usually malicious, though it did sometimes come to that, but I can only describe my attitude as one thoroughly permeated with an extreme dissatisfaction. Instead of doing something with myself, the only option I was willing to entertain involved finding fault with my circumstances. A certain dry, cynical dismissiveness crept it, and it didn’t help that I felt drawn to other people of a similar disposition.

 

I will become no better by constantly being insulted by the world, and I won’t even feel any better by listing my grievances. Picking sides, following this tribe or that, or stewing in resentment works from a place of restlessness and conflict, so no peace can be found there.

 

By all means, I can observe how others choose to live, understand what moves them, discern what is good and bad in their thoughts and actions, and be willing to learn from it. But I should certainly not define myself in opposition to them. It isn’t judgment that’s the problem, but how I go about making the judgement.

 

If it is, there is something good within it, and it remains my responsibility to find this for myself. I regularly remind myself that nothing is useless, or offensive, or boring, unless I have decided to make it so. The problem is in here, not out there.

 

If it is necessary, and if only I so choose, the most meager resources can be made abundantly fruitful, much like a tiny room can be made livable and comfortable with a bit of care and ingenuity. How foolish of me to expect that things should be made bearable for me, when all I have to do is make them bearable for myself.

 

I complain that there’s nothing on television, and I forget that I have myself, and I live in a whole wide world.

 

 

 

10.5

 

Moreover, we ought not to allow our desires to wander far afield, but we must make them confine themselves to our immediate neighborhood, since they will not endure to be altogether locked up.

 

We must leave alone things which either cannot come to pass or can only be effected with difficulty, and follow after such things as are near at hand and within reach of our hopes, always remembering that all things are equally unimportant, and that though they have a different outward appearance, they are all alike empty within.

 

People will sometimes tell me I can have everything I want, though I find I must consider such a statement closely. Can I really have everything? Should I even want everything?

 

It is certainly noble to dream big, to make grand plans, to take daring risks, to face every endeavor with courage. We say such things to inspire greatness and to instill confidence, and we wish to make certain that no one becomes any less than he is capable of being.

 

Let every man follow his own best judgment, and let him then achieve whatever might be within his power. I constantly restrain my vain urges to tell other people how to live, oftentimes in mid-sentence. I would only ask them kindly to work from an informed conscience.

 

Is it within your power? Far more importantly, is it right to do it? If the former conflicts with the latter, will you choose power over principle?

 

For myself, I know that it is not possible for me to be made of gold, or stand a thousand feet tall, or turn water into wine, or walk on water, even if I am just pretending to do so by stepping on other people’s heads.

 

I can speak only for myself, but I know precisely when I have gone well beyond my bounds. I am rightly shamed by it. I vainly demand more than I need, and I arrogantly think myself more than I am.

 

What is necessary for a good life? There are limits to what I can have outside of me, and the recognition of those limits can hit like a ton of bricks. But there is no limit to what I can be inside of me. By knowing anything at all, by appreciating it, by loving it, I have no bounds to the scope of my soul.

 

I only run into the same problems, again and again, when I want to make something mine that isn’t mine to begin with. Let it be what it is. Show it respect, even if it is what will end me. It has done its part, and I have done my part.

 

Distinguo. The breadth may be narrow, while the depth is still limitless.

 

 

 

10.6

 

Neither let us envy those who are in high places: the heights that look lofty to us are steep and rugged.

 

Again, those whom unkind fate has placed in critical situations will be safer if they show as little pride in their proud position as may be, and do all they are able to bring down their fortunes to the level of other men's.

 

Some insist that being rich is the problem, while others insist that being poor is the problem, but the Stoic will point out that, whatever the situation we find ourselves in, being too proud is the problem. What we have or do not have is only as good or bad as our attitudes.

 

Some look up with jealousy at those who have, and some look down with disdain at those who have not, and through it all we are forgetting that people are made to look at one another face to face.

 

Sadly, there is a certain condescension that can too readily accompany wealth and social status, and it is easy to be tricked by it, wherever we stand in the pecking order. We all know that look of smug contempt, the one that pays just enough attention to be hurtful, but not enough attention to make you think that you matter. It stems from a sense of entitlement, and it expresses itself to others as a careless indifference.

 

I once met the Republican governor of my state, and at another time I met a Democratic candidate for the Presidency, and they both had that same look. Most of the abbots, bishops, and archbishops I have crossed paths with were much the same. I was surprised by how easily I felt intimidated by them.

 

But being all the way up there is not all it’s cracked up to be. I have occasionally gotten to know so-called privileged folks, and beneath the shiny surface they end up being no different than the rest of us. They are capable of both great good and great evil, and it will ultimately be their moral sense that determines their true human standing.

 

It is the content of character that is the great social equalizer.

 

What seems a privilege actually ends up being a responsibility, even a burden. Much is given to such people, but they must see their gifts as a call to service, and they must not lose a common bond with all their fellows. They will be tempted to make themselves as big as they can be, but they will only follow Nature by making themselves as small as they can be.

 

If I were ever to become rich and powerful, I would hope I could still be happy to look someone in the eye, and not expect him to kiss my ring.

 

 

 

10.7

 

There are many who need to cling to their high pinnacle of power, because they cannot descend from it save by falling headlong.

 

 Yet they assure us that their greatest burden is being obliged to be burdensome to others, and that they are nailed to their lofty post rather than raised to it.

 

Let them then, by dispensing justice, clemency, and kindness with an open and liberal hand, provide themselves with assistance to break their fall, and looking forward to this maintain their position more hopefully.

 

Give me more than I need to be happy, and I will be prone to growing dependent on my supposed acquisitions, thinking they are mine when they are not mine at all, and trading a self-reliance for a reliance on luxuries, badges of honor, and playthings.

 

I have known it within myself on a smaller scale, and I have observed it in others on a larger scale. The necessary is confused with the extraneous. I once thought I could never survive without a steady supply of whiskey and cigarettes, but I am now doing just fine. I had a student who told me her life would be over if she didn’t get into one of her top three picks for law school. She attended her last pick, and is no worse off as a result.

 

It is no different in kind with the bigwigs, though the risks are far greater in degree. You can sense their dread when the possibility arises that they won’t win the next election, or they fail to secure a lucrative contract, or some dirt about them has found its way into the papers. They have built up their high thrones, and now they are afraid they will fall all the way back down. Yes, it will hurt.

 

If they had worked with Nature, and not allied themselves with Fortune, they would have no fear of falling to begin with. They are right to be worried, but not for the reasons they tell us. They are not victims, and wealth or influence have done nothing at all to them; they have taken these conditions and sold themselves to them.

 

No man is good or bad because he is rich, just as no man is good or bad because he is poor. What he loves, what he wants, what he thinks he needs, and what he acts for will be the critical factors. If he is put into a position of authority, now is the moment to seek the guidance of his conscience all the more.

 

Can he employ his power to live with virtue himself, and to assist others in living with virtue? Will he resist the temptation to throw his weight around, and instead carry the weight of those in need? Is he perhaps willing to give everything for the sake of others, rather than asking others to give everything for his sake?

 

Compassion and mercy are always required for a good life, but they become all the more important when the stakes are higher. Our lives will now touch the lives of others more deeply than we can imagine.

 

Keep your neighbor from falling, and you will also manage to keep yourself from falling. We are made for one another.

 

 

 

10.8

 

Yet nothing sets us free from these alternations of hope and fear so well as always fixing some limit to our successes, and not allowing Fortune to choose when to stop our career, but to halt of our own accord long before we apparently need do so.

 

By acting thus certain desires will rouse up our spirits, and yet being confined within bounds, will not lead us to embark on vast and vague enterprises.

 

A regularly offered piece of advice is that “thinking big” is the key to success. As is so often the case, what that might mean will depend upon our measures of value. Is it big to have vast possessions, or is it big to have a vast soul? Is it big to seek great power over others, or is it big to seek great power over oneself?

 

The scale of our actions will be in proportion to the scale of what we cherish the most, and whether what we cherish is in harmony with Nature.

 

Many people will think that a “big” life must be broad in its scope. They wish to leave their mark in as many places as possible, wrap their arms around as much property as possible, and have their names heard as widely as possible.

 

It barely occurs to them that a “big” life can be defined by its depth, not by the quantity of what is out there, but by the quality of what is in here. There does not need to be so much wanting, getting, and having as there needs to be understanding, appreciating, and loving.

 

The further I attempt to reach out and possess, the more I will face the limits and restrictions of Fortune on my life. This will never satisfy me, because there will never be enough to fulfill my appetites, and this will always frustrate me, because things will follow their own paths, however much I try to force them to follow mine.

 

When this happens, it is not the world being unfair and unkind; it is Nature reminding me to mind my business, to nurture and cherish what is rightly my own.

 

It is far wiser, and far more supportive of peace of mind, to want very little from Fortune, to be completely satisfied with the humblest circumstances possible. I should take only what I need to build the virtues inside me, and then be glad to let the rest be.

 

This not laziness, or defeatism, or settling for what is second best, but rather discovering what is truly best in a place where many people won’t even bother to look.

 

It is a life in accord with Nature, precisely because it respects the boundaries of my own nature in relationship to the nature of other people and things. Let me commit myself to what is rightly mine to have and hold, and not seek my own happiness in anything that is extraneous to my own judgments and actions.

 

Less can be more, in the sense that a simplicity of circumstances encourages a greatness of character. There is never any need to feel limited by the world if I am willing to be content with a mastery of myself.

 

 

 

Chapter 11

 

11.1

 

These remarks of mine apply only to imperfect, commonplace, and unsound natures, not to the wise man, who needs not to walk with timid and cautious gait: for he has such confidence in himself that he does not hesitate to go directly in the teeth of Fortune, and never will give way to her.

 

Nor indeed has he any reason for fearing her, for he counts not only chattels, property, and high office, but even his body, his eyes, his hands, and everything whose use makes life dearer to us, no, even his very self, to be things whose possession is uncertain; he lives as though he had borrowed them, and is ready to return them cheerfully whenever they are claimed.

 

Confidence? By all means. Weakness? Quite unacceptable.

 

Most people would gladly insist on such principles, especially those folks caught up in the world of earning money, of winning status, and of acquiring influence. Think of all those inspirational phrases you will hear about the attitude of the winner, about never being second best, or about taking what you know you deserve.

 

And the meaning in all of that depends on our standards of winning and losing. It is admirable to be confident, but in what should I have confidence? It is shameful to be weak, but what actually makes me weak?

 

There is a vast difference between two different models of success, between being more and getting more. What we mean by confidence or weakness hinges upon which model we choose.

 

The Stoic attitude is quite natural, in that it derives from who we essentially are as human beings, but it is also quite radical, in that it asks us to go against the grain of all the artificial habits we have acquired.

 

Is it reasonable to expect that the world will give us external rewards in proportion to what we do, that we will be fulfilled by the acquisition of things as a consequence of our efforts?

 

I have been told that for all of my life, and I do not wish to be crude, but I call bullshit. For each hard-working man who gets rich, another one remains poor. For each lazy man who rots in the gutter, another one hits the jackpot. In this sense, life is hardly fair at all.

 

Now consider it from a different perspective. Why should those circumstances, which are ultimately quite outside of our control, define who we are? There is another option, and it is completely within our control. Let our own thoughts and deeds define who we are, entirely for their own sake. In this sense, life is totally fair.

 

Hence the wise man is confident when he relies on his own actions, and he is weak when he relies on the actions of others. In contrast, the fool thinks he is confident when he worries about what he receives, and he thinks he is weak when he worries about what he might give.

 

To be confident in myself is not to make myself the center of the Universe; it is simply to make me a center for myself. I take what I have been offered, and I nurture it, and I make it grow. I can still be humble, since I know that my own worth fits within the worth of the whole.

 

When I fall into weakness, it has nothing to do with being worse than anyone else; it has everything to do with being worse than what I alone am able to be. My weakness comes from my requirement to define myself by everything except myself.

 

If I can remember that, and not just conceive it but actually live it, Fortune has no control over my happiness. I am the one who decides whether I will take it or leave it. I can be confident in that.

 

Why should Fortune hurt me, when everything she lends me was never mine to begin with? If I am truly myself, then I will care little for the rest. To lose property, or gratification, or reputation only causes such deep pain when I claim them as my own, and they cease to be such a burden when I no longer think of them as something to which I am entitled.

 

Was Dives happier than Lazarus? The only way to answer that question is to further ask who the better man was, the one who relied upon his own virtues or the one who relied on his situation. Who was really strong or weak? Who was really living on table scraps?

 

 

 

11.2

 

Yet he does not hold himself cheap, because he knows that he is not his own, but performs all his duties as carefully and prudently as a pious and scrupulous man would take care of property left in his charge as trustee.

 

When he is bidden to give them up, he will not complain of Fortune, but will say, "I thank you for what I have had possession of: I have managed your property so as largely to increase it, but since you order me, I give it back to you and return it willingly and thankfully. If you still wish me to own anything of yours, I will keep it for you. If you have other views, I restore into your hands and make restitution of all my wrought and coined silver, my house and my household.

 

“Should Nature recall what she previously entrusted us with, let us say to her also: 'Take back my spirit, which is better than when you gave it me: I do not shuffle or hang back. Of my own free will I am ready to return what you gave me before I could think: take me away.'"

 

What hardship can there be in returning to the place from where one came? a man cannot live well if he knows not how to die well. We must, therefore, take away from this commodity its original value, and count the breath of life as a cheap matter.

 

Does this mean I have nothing? Not at all, I have myself, right here and now. Why do I give so little value to the most precious thing I possess? Let me qualify that statement, since I am not just the most precious thing I possess, but I am actually the only thing I possess, however temporary it may be.

 

Being a fellow with an unfortunately melancholic bent, always struggling with the bad habit of finding what is worst, I might claim that owning myself isn’t worth very much at all. Look at what others have thought of me, have said of me, have done to me.

 

The fellow who replaced me for the affections of the lost love of my life once sent me a letter, back when we would still write letters, and he made it entirely clear what he thought of me, and what his new beloved thought of me. I’m not sure why I ever saved that old letter, but I suspect the darker side of me was still trying to come to terms with it.

 

“Do you even know how ridiculous you are? You’re a waste of human life, a total failure, and we laugh about you all the time. Did you really think you could do anything to make her happy? I do things for her you could never do. You need to have the decency to fuck off and die.”

 

I took that to heart, as I did so many other perceived slights, and I wasted many years trying to do exactly that, just going off and dying.

 

How mistaken I was in taking that path.

 

Did she care? Did he care? Clearly not at all. Did any of that matter? Clearly not at all, if only I’d had my wits about me.

 

My deepest affection, my most profound caring, came from a mistaken assumption, that I am what others say I am.

 

I am not what others say I am. I am not the sum total of how I am perceived. I am not ridiculous, or wasted, or a failure because someone else has said so.

 

As insignificant as I may feel, I am worth something. I am worth something just by being human, yet I can also add to that. I can act with understanding and love, whatever else may come my way, and so I can then make something better of myself.

 

I am not cheap. I may cringe to say it, but yes, I can actually be priceless.

 

It all boils down to a simple concept: anything I have ever had, or felt, or loved has never been “mine” at all. It was lent to me for a time. The pretty girl was never mine, the proper job was never mine, and the fancy house was never mine. I was offered a sort of care over them for a brief moment, but they were never mine.

 

I still recall a phrase my family constantly used, and I hated it so much then, but I get it so much now:

 

The Good Lord giveth, and the Good Lord taketh away. Blessed be the Name of the Lord!

 

Instead of my constant whining and complaining, here is a better way for me to live:

 

Thank you for this chance to be responsible for what happened to be in my custody. It has been a privilege, and not a right.

 

Thank you for taking any of it away at the proper time. I tried to manage it well, and I will pass it on gladly.

 

Thank you for the time I have been provided, however long or short, whatever the circumstances. I recognize that my very existence was a gift. I did my best with all of it.

 

I might say I hope it was enough, but that has depended entirely on me.

 

 

 

11.3

 

"We dislike gladiators," says Cicero, "if they are eager to save their lives by any means whatever: but we look favorably upon them if they are openly reckless of them." You may be sure that the same thing occurs with us: we often die because we are afraid of death.

 

Fortune, which regards our lives as a show in the arena for her own enjoyment, says, "Why should I spare you, base and cowardly creature that you are? you will be pierced and hacked with all the more wounds because you know not how to offer your throat to the knife. Whereas you, who receive the stroke without drawing away your neck or putting up your hands to stop it, shall both live longer and die more quickly."

 

He who fears death will never act as becomes a living man, but he who knows that this fate was laid upon him as soon as he was conceived will live according to it, and by this strength of mind will gain this further advantage, that nothing can befall him unexpectedly.

 

Even as I have a power over my own judgments, my very life had to be given to me, and it will most certainly be taken away. It too, in this sense, is on loan, and it is not for me to decide when it will come and when it will go.

 

Keeping in mind that the duration of my existence is temporary, I can now treat it like any of the other things I have borrowed, here for a certain time, and due to be returned at a moment’s notice. Just as I should not be clinging to money, or to pleasures, or to fame, I should not insist on clinging to my life.

 

This seems quite contrary to our usual assumption, that the instinct for survival is our most basic drive. A Stoic model, however, looking more deeply into human nature, suggests that it is not living alone that is good, but living well. The issue is not about the quantity of our time, but the quality of what we do with our time.

 

This is why the brave man thinks first of the dignity of his actions, and cares far less about the duration of his years. He is more afraid of falling into wickedness than succumbing to death. He understands where his true worth lies.

 

All those things I think are somehow good in themselves are not good in themselves, but they rather become good for me when informed by virtue. I may prefer them one way or another, but I do not at all need them to be one way or another. This includes not only the amount of my property, or the degree of my reputation, but also the length of my very life.

 

I am the steward of all that comes my way, never the proprietor. I always remind myself that this is not a limitation, but a liberation. I can now commit myself to what is mine, the dignity of my own thoughts and actions, while I still have them available to me.

 

Fortune has an uncanny way of hitting back whenever we try to fight her. She is quite likely to make it harder for us when we want it to be easier, and she will give us less when we stubbornly demand more. This isn’t because the Universe is some chaotic mess, or due to Nature being vindictive. It is a wonderful, and frustrating, way of putting us back on track.

 

“None of this is who you are. Look back within yourself, and rediscover what you were made for.”

 

I am not a violent man, and I have never found any satisfaction in blood sports. Yet what Cicero says isn’t just about gladiators fighting in the ring, but about all of us.

 

I don’t save my life by merely preserving it. I save my life by spending it in the best way, in doing what my conscience informs me to be right. I am going to die, one way or another, and the only remaining concern is whether I go about doing it standing up, willing to take the blows, or on my knees, begging for another chance.

 

I don’t need another chance; the first one was perfectly good to begin with, and I have now wasted it by surrendering and demanding to go again. There is a contradiction here: I’m ready to be a good man, but I’m not yet ready enough to actually be one.

 

I will only fear death when I expect that life must still give me something else. If, on the other hand, I look only to what I am able to give, death will not be so frightful.

 

Once I expect to immediately give everything back, whenever it is necessary, I will not fret over anything coming to an end. It’s what goes in between the beginnings and endings that makes the difference.

 

 

 

11.4

 

For by looking forward to everything that can happen as though it would happen to him, he takes the sting out of all evils, which can make no difference to those who expect it and are prepared to meet it. Evil only comes hard upon those who have lived without giving it a thought and whose attention has been exclusively directed to happiness.

 

Disease, captivity, disaster, conflagration, are none of them unexpected: I always knew with what disorderly company Nature had associated me.

 

The dead have often been wailed for in my neighborhood. The torch and taper have often been borne past my door before the bier of one who has died before his time. The crash of falling buildings has often resounded by my side. Night has snatched away many of those with whom I have become intimate in the forum, the Senate-house, and in society, and has sundered the hands which were joined in friendship.

 

People like to argue about nature vs nurture, as if who we are is made by either what we were born with or what others do to us. It is a false dichotomy to begin with, as both will equally influence us.

 

It is also beside the point, since such conditions are only material causes. Our own free choices, informed by our own judgments, are the efficient causes.

 

In a similar manner, people like to argue whether the glass is half full or half empty. They say that some people expect the best, and that other people expect the worst, and that our initial attitudes will determine how we interpret things.

 

They are quite right in one sense. The glass is, of course, just a glass, and it so happens to have within it some water. Whether that glass, however, contains more than I want or less than I want depends on my estimation. If it is filled to the half, it filled to the half; anything else speaks to my own desires.

 

They are quite wrong in another sense. Is it not possible to simply say that being filled to the half is neither better nor worse? Can I not be indifferent to the glass and to the water? It is what it is, and I am what I am. It is a mistake to confuse the two.

 

So it also is when folks try to tell me that Stoics are too negative, and they always expect the worst. No, a Stoic is open to expecting anything at all, and he won’t call it “worse” or “better” until he has had the chance to make something of it.

 

Does he accept that he could, like Job, lose all his property, and his health, and his loved ones, within a single moment? Yes, he does, but not because he is a pessimist. He knows that it may come, and so he is prepared for it to come.

 

Does he accept that he could, like Job once again, win back all of his property, and his health, and his loved ones, within a single moment? Yes, he does, but not because he is an optimist. He knows that it may come, and so he is prepared for it to come.

 

“Good” or “bad” are not determined by the scope of our conditions, and that is the root of our misunderstanding. Expect neither good nor bad, because the conditions are in themselves never good or bad; we are either good or bad.

 

I am quite ready, of course, to be open to the possibility of wealth and fame. My problem is that I crave such things because I think they will make me happy. I am not at all ready to be open to the possibility of poverty and disrepute. My problem is that I avoid such things because I think they will make me unhappy.

 

It never seems to occur to me that it has nothing to do with what I was born with, or what has happened to me. It never seems to occur to me that the only thing “full” or “empty” is the quality of my own soul.

 

With apologies to Roy Batty, I have seen things you wouldn’t believe. Some have lifted me up to the highest highs, and some have dragged me down to the lowest lows. I am learning to become accustomed to them all, knowing that I should expect them all. They should neither elevate me nor lower me, since they do not make me.

 

Seneca speaks here of what we consider to be the lows, I suspect, because we fear them so very much. There is no need to fear what we know must be.

 

 

 

11.5

 

Ought I to be surprised if the dangers that have always been circling around me at last assail me? How large a part of mankind never think of storms when about to set sail?

 

I shall never be ashamed to quote a good saying because it comes from a bad author. Publilius, who was a more powerful writer than any of our other playwrights, whether comic or tragic, whenever he chose to rise above farcical absurdities and speeches addressed to the gallery, among many other verses too noble even for tragedy, let alone for comedy, has this one :

 

“What one hath suffered may befall us all."

 

I grew up with a certain myth, and though it is far less popular now with the younger generations, there are still many who believe every word of it.

 

It tells the story of those who were smart, dedicated, and industrious, and how they won security and prosperity for themselves through all their hard work. The dull, timid, and lazy, in contrast, all faded into obscurity and insignificance. All’s well that ends well.

 

It’s a fine tale on one level, since it encourages so many excellent qualities, and discourages so many harmful ones. Still, I can’t help but think how misleading it might also be, since it not only points to all the wrong goals, but it also makes promises it most certainly can’t keep.

 

Should becoming rich and popular really be what I want? Am I so sure that my diligence will even provide me with such supposed rewards?

 

For every case of someone who has found worldly success by keeping his nose to the grindstone, there is another case of someone who has dared to try and lost everything. We will hear the former stories because they make for good copy, but not so much the latter because they burst the bubble. What seemed like a sure investment turned out to be more like playing the lottery.

 

Quite sadly, this makes people cynical and resentful, as if happiness is quite impossible, when the better path may have been not to seek satisfaction in unreliable things to begin with.

 

Why, when I look at the misfortune of my neighbor, who has struggled just as much as I have, do I somehow assume that his suffering could never possibly fall on me? Do I actually think that I am more worthy, or am I failing to connect the variability of his circumstances with my own?

 

I have now seen enough recessions, wars, and natural disasters to recognize the same speeches they give us, that if we only put our minds to it, we will all come out stronger than we ever were. Then I wonder about those who we’ve already lost, and those who will still be lost in the process.

 

Did they really mean all of us, or just some of us?

 

Why would I think that Providence will treat me differently from anyone else?

 

 

 

11.6

 

If a man takes this into his inmost heart and looks upon all the misfortunes of other men, of which there is always a great plenty, in this spirit, remembering that there is nothing to prevent their coming upon him also, he will arm himself against them long before they attack him.

 

It is too late to school the mind to endurance of peril after peril has done. "I did not think this would happen," and "Would you ever have believed that this would have happened?" say you.

 

But why should it not? Where are the riches after which want, hunger, and beggary do not follow?

 

What office is there whose purple robe, augur's staff, and patrician reins have not as their accompaniment rags and banishment, the brand of infamy, a thousand disgraces, and utter reprobation?

 

What kingdom is there for which ruin, trampling under foot, a tyrant, and a butcher are not ready at hand?

 

Some people think it will never happen to them, because they are part of a certain tribe.

 

“Other countries will fall, but ours is timeless.”

 

Some people think it will never happen to them, because they have won their status.

 

“People are poor because they’re lazy. I earned everything I own.”

 

Some people think it will never happen to them, because they are so excellent in their appearances.

 

“Mark my words, you treat a man like he’s a king, and you’ll become a king.”

 

Some people think it will never happen to them, because they are chosen by Providence.

 

“God gave us this land.”

 

I have heard each of those phrases, and while I can respect the convictions, I’m afraid I can’t respect the principles behind them.

 

All nations fade away. Circumstances are quite arbitrary. Giving never guarantees any other receiving. God loves all of us, not just you.

 

It takes only the slightest adjustment in life, the tiniest change in our conditions, to teach us that nothing is as certain as we think it is.

 

We take our fineries and luxuries for granted. It never occurs to us that people in much of the rest of the world take their poverty for granted. We assume that our country, or our hard work, or our impeccable posturing, or the grace of the Almighty gave us our McMansions.

 

We are sorely mistaken. Fortune gave them to us, and Fortune will just as easily take them away.

 

We sweep the losers under the carpet, of course, since we say that they are the statistical aberrations. No. No they are not. They are the half that lived just like you, but just so happened to lose their toss in the game. You think you have won the game, but the game isn’t over.

 

The trick is to stop playing the game, and to start living a human life.

 

Nothing, absolutely nothing, the rich or famous man depends upon is at all reliable. It will all come and go at any moment. He would be wiser to rely on his own character, and to think nothing about what else it might bring him.

 

How can I say that I didn’t expect it? It fell upon so many other folks. Was I special?

 

How can I say that it would never happen to me? Didn’t it just happen to that other fellow?

 

Julius Caesar surely understood this when he saw his life flashing before his eyes.

 

It is far too late to accept it after the fact, because I have already chosen the wrong values. I have set myself in my ways, and I will have to bear the bitter consequences. Let me begin by not caring for these vanities at all, and then I couldn’t care less if I lose them.

 

 

 

11.7

 

Nor are these matters divided by long periods of time, but there is but the space of an hour between sitting on the throne ourselves and clasping the knees of someone else as suppliants.

 

Know then that every station of life is transitory, and that what has ever happened to anybody may happen to you also.

 

As a child, I was deeply affected by an old newspaper photograph I came across, showing the bodies of a group of mobsters who had been gunned down by their enemies.

 

While I was troubled by the violence, the brutality, and the senselessness of it, the bit that stuck with me the most was how immaculately dressed they all were. I kept wondering if they had any idea at all that this day was going to be their last, as they were putting on their tailored suits, silk ties, and shiny shoes.

 

The image still comes to me many years later, and the thoughts associated with it runs through my mind whenever I remember how suddenly and unexpectedly the circumstances of life can change.

 

Sometimes it will pop into my head right after some momentous shift has taken place, and I will ask myself if there was any way I could have known this was going to happen when I had gotten up in the morning.

 

Sometimes it will pop into my head for no apparent reason at all, and I will ask myself what sort of surprises might still await me before I lay down my head.

 

The setup may be long in the making, and it can take quite some time for all the pieces to fall into place, but we are usually quite oblivious to what is creeping up around the corner, and so the moment of realization for us makes it seem like it arrived out of nowhere.

 

I remember what I thought would be one the happiest days of my life turning into one of the most miserable days of my life, and what kept me barely sane for that critical moment was the ability to laugh at myself.

 

“Don’t you look the fool now? To think you even wore your favorite shirt today, all smug and confident! Sure, you can say you saw it coming, but of course you didn’t, because you’re too caught up in the moment. You really need to frame that picture with the Chicago gangsters, and hang it somewhere where you can see it whenever you wake up!”

 

There’s only one thing for it, to expect anything at any time, however crazy it may seem, and to thereby live in such a way that I can still be at peace with myself, whichever way it turns.

 

Be prepared to be admired one day and then mocked the next. Be ready to sit on the throne in the morning and then beg at the throne in the evening. Be content to treat this hour as the only one you have, because it could very possible be just that.

 

 

 

11.8

 

You are wealthy; are you wealthier than Pompeius? Yet when Gaius, his old relative and new host, opened Caesar's house to him in order that he might close his own, he lacked both bread and water.

 

Though he owned so many rivers which both rose and discharged themselves within his dominions, yet he had to beg for drops of water. He perished of hunger and thirst in the palace of his relative, while his heir was contracting for a public funeral for one who was in want of food.

 

I have never had a fancy life, though that doesn’t stop me from sometimes thinking that I am special, that the rules of Nature somehow don’t apply to me. Yes, others are subject to the whims of Fortune, but I’m surely different because I have a foolproof plan. Just watch, I say, you’ll see me going through this life with everything at my command.

 

Now I may manage to get myself in order, but I will have no success in herding my circumstances; like my cats, they will go wherever they please.

 

Expanding the breadth of my awareness can help me to rid myself of my delusions, and since I have always had a weakness for tales from the past, few things are more humbling for me than a good historical narrative. It will remind me that the more things change, the more they remain the same, and that the lessons learned the hard way by others can make it so much easier for me.

 

The Pompeius mentioned here is not Pompey the Great, but a later relative, though it is also worth noting that the older Pompey went from being part of the First Triumvirate to being assassinated.

 

In this case, Sextus Pompeius had been both a senator as well as a rather wealthy man, a combination one can hardly avoid noticing to be quite common in most times and places.

 

He seems to have successfully served in government under both Augustus and Tiberius, though things went poorly under Gaius Julius Caesar, known as Caligula. I have never found any further details about the story mentioned here, but Caligula relieved Pompeius of all his wealth and power, imprisoned him in the Imperial palace, and starved the poor fellow to death.

 

It is certainly tragic, and quite grand in its scale, though it is not so different from all the other sorts of greed, betrayal, or violence we will see around us most every day. The context does not need to be so dramatic to know that something similar could happen to any one of us.

 

People leave this life alone, abandoned, impoverished, or starving all the time, though many of us don’t think such people are important enough to take any notice of.

 

I suppose that is, in a way, Seneca’s whole point: if I choose to make the whole worth of my life dependent on what others might give to me, then I will also have to accept my worthlessness when they take it away.

 

 

 

11.9

 

You have filled public offices: were they either as important, as unlooked for, or as all-embracing as those of Sejanus? Yet on the day on which the Senate disgraced him, the people tore him to pieces. The executioner could find no part left large enough to drag to the Tiber, of one upon whom gods and men had showered all that could be given to man.

 

Now I might say that I’m not really after the money, knowing full well how tricky the world of business can be, and that what I’m really working on is building up my reputation and winning people’s respect.

 

This might seem to be something that is more fully within my power, because I’m the one who decides how I will treat other people, whether I am going to be useful to them, and when I pay up on my promises. A flattering word here, a favor offered there, and alliances forged wherever I can will put me in a comfortable place. Before I know it, people will come to depend on me.

 

Or is it possible they might also come to resent me, precisely because I now have something that they don’t? My status does not come from what I do, but from how others will react to what I do.

 

I’m afraid I didn’t know much about Lucius Aelius Sejanus before coming across this mention of him by Seneca, and it turns out there’s a very good reason for that. He acquired great influence as the prefect of the Praetorian Guard under Tiberius, and he seemed to have had a knack for making deals, winning friends, and disposing of his enemies. He even managed to have himself made consul, but then the sweet turned to sour.

 

As with Pompeius, I’m not sure what finally brought on his unpleasant end, and I suppose all the particulars hardly matter. It surely didn’t help that Sejanus had seduced the wife of Drusus, the emperor’s son, and then secretly plotted with her to poison Drusus. Sejanus was eventually arrested and executed, and the angry crowd, as always needing something to be angry at, ripped his body apart.

 

There was rioting, and looting, and his friends and family were hunted down to join his fate. His statues were toppled, and his name was removed from all public records. His mistress took her own life before they could get to her, and his daughter was apparently raped before she was killed, because it was against custom to execute a virgin.

 

One of my students was quite terrified by this whole account, and she wanted to refer to it as a morality tale in a project for her government class. She came to me when she couldn’t find any images of Sejanus for her PowerPoint presentation.

 

I couldn’t find any either, but that’s what tends to happen to people who have been erased from history because they ended up on the wrong side of public opinion. Sometimes the difference between a hero and villain is just a matter of which way the mood of the mob happens to turn.

 

I did, however, come across a photograph of a coin that had been minted with his name on it, even as the inscription had been appropriately scratched out.

 

 

 

11.10

 

You are a king: I will not bid you go to Croesus for an example, he who while yet alive saw his funeral pile both lighted and extinguished, being made to outlive not only his kingdom but even his own death, nor to Jugurtha, whom the people of Rome beheld as a captive within the year in which they had feared him.

 

Some people would like to claim that we don’t have kings anymore, but I will suggest that they are sadly mistaken.

 

We may have different titles and different trappings, but the human temptation to reign over others is far too strong, and no amount of egalitarian posturing can hide the fact that there will always be those folks who wish to define themselves by how they can push other people around. They don’t want to admit it, but they’re especially fond of all the kowtowing they can get.

 

In every single office, or school, or social club I have ever been in, there was always at least one self-appointed king or queen. Sometimes there were several, and their rival claims to the throne made for miniature versions of historical dramas.

 

And when they fall, how mightily they do indeed fall, having based everything on their superiority over others, and then losing everything that gave them a false purpose.

 

The story of King Croesus of Lydia, as told by Herodotus, is an ideal example of all this, a man known first for his incredible wealth and power, and then for his ultimate insight that it was all as nothing.

 

Croesus, bragging about his status, is said to have challenged the Athenian statesman Solon to find a man happier than himself. Solon reminded Croesus that fortune is unreliable, and that one can never really judge the value of a man’s whole life until after his death.

 

Solon pointed out that Tellus, who had died heroically in battle, or Kiebos and Biton, two pious and virtuous sons who were granted a peaceful death in their sleep after their mother asked the gods to bless them, were surely happier.

 

Croesus learned that this was all too true, with the tragic loss of his own son, and when his whole kingdom fell to the Persian King Cyrus.

 

In deciding whether to go to war with Cyrus, Croesus apparently asked the Oracle at Delphi if he would be victorious. “You will destroy a great empire,” came the reply. You just can’t make this stuff up.

 

Cyrus ordered Croesus, the man who had everything and lost everything, to be burned to death on a pyre. As the fire was lit, Croesus called out the name of Solon three times, and Cyrus asked what this could possibly mean. He was told about Solon’s earlier advice, and Cyrus suddenly also saw himself in his defeated foe, two men who were both seduced by the fickle nature of circumstances.

 

Cyrus quickly ordered the fire put out, but it seemed to be too late. It was only Croesus’ prayer to Apollo that brought rain and drenched the flames. So it is that Croesus was, as Seneca says, a man who lived through both the passing of his rule as well as the moment of his appointed death.

 

The name of Jugurtha, the King of Numidia, would have been more immediate in the memory of the Romans. He struggled against the Republic with both political cunning and military prowess, and for a time it seemed like he might be another Hannibal in the making. Yet soon he was defeated, paraded through the streets of Rome, and died of starvation in prison.

 

Can you please remind me what I thought was so good about being the king?

 

 

 

11.11

 

We have seen Ptolemaeus, King of Africa, and Mithridates, King of Armenia, under the charge of Gaius's guards: the former was sent into exile, the latter chose it in order to make his exile more honorable.

 

Among such continual topsy-turvy changes, unless you expect that whatever can happen will happen to you, you give adversity power against you, a power which can be destroyed by anyone who looks at it beforehand.

 

The Romans were quite skilled at managing the business of other people around them, and they were masters at making or breaking the kings of their vassal states.

 

Egypt, the breadbasket of the Empire, had to be kept firmly under control, and when the nominal rule of the Ptolemaic dynasty became too inconvenient, the formality was abolished entirely.

 

The Armenians were always a problem, lying right on the border with the hated Persians.

 

Was this or that king useful for the moment? Then he was allowed to keep his titles and honors for the moment. Was he suddenly inconvenient? Then he would find himself deposed, exiled, or murdered.

 

There is the very problem with a politics divorced from a sense of ethics, where justice is subservient to the lust for power.

 

Through all of it, the Romans were hardly immune to suffering from their own vices. As always, the deepest harm will strike inward, not outward. There were always good people, committed to living with character, and yet around them there was also intrigue, corruption, and violence.

 

For all of its greatness in some ways, Rome, whether in the Republic or the Empire, was already doomed in other ways. Ambitious men, grasping men, interested in profit over principle, encouraged the rot from within. It is no different in any other time or place.

 

Knowing that all of our circumstances are subject to the whims of despots, how can we possibly expect our lives to become good or bad by the money, honor, or power we might win or lose?

 

Can we fight them? Yes, of course, but once we fight on their terms, we become them, and so the whole effort was wasted by transforming ourselves into the very people we find so disagreeable.

 

How rarely it even occurs to us that a success in life will have nothing to do with the externals that are given or taken away. Perhaps we could look to owning ourselves, instead of trying to own others?

 

There is no admission of defeat in saying that others will act as they will act; there is only an admission of defeat in refusing to act as we should act.

 

I am seeing more clearly, day by day, that no one else has ever really done me any harm at all, at least not in a way that counts; I do myself harm.

 

If I am willing to accept any situation whatsoever, depending only upon my own judgments and actions, what could I possibly have to fear but myself?

 

 

 

Chapter 12

 

12.1

 

The next point to these will be to take care that we do not labor for what is vain, or labor in vain: that is to say, neither to desire what we are not able to obtain, nor yet, having obtained our desire too late, and after much toil, to discover the folly of our wishes.

 

In other words, that our labor may not be without result, and that the result may not be unworthy of our labor: for as a rule sadness arises from one of these two things, either from want of success or from being ashamed of having succeeded.

 

If I look at all my efforts over the years, I’m afraid I have to cringe at my many failures. In almost every case, I did not fail because I was lazy, but because I pursued the wrong goals. Either I desired things that were impossible to acquire, or I fell into a deep disappointment when I found that they were not at all what they were cracked up to be.

 

I could claim that I had been tricked, but I had really only deceived myself. The very act of pointing fingers at others became just another misguided passion, somehow thinking that running after resentment would satisfy me.

 

Allowing impressions to lead me by the nose, I surrendered my judgments. My work was hardly productive, focused on objects that were beyond my mastery, or on objects that yielded no worthy benefits.

 

How much time and effort did I spend on trying to win the affections of another person? The ultimate lesson I had to learn, of course, was that I held no immediate power over how other people thought and felt, and yet for far too long I plodded away at “making” people love me. I did have control over what I did, and whether I chose to love, but not over what they did, and whether they chose to love.

 

Instead, I can completely commit myself to changing my own mind and heart on my own terms, and then let others make their decisions on their own terms.

 

How much time and effort did I spend on trying to acquire possessions? I never thought I could realistically get a hold of immense wealth, knowing that this came to only the very few, and even then only with the cooperation of Fortune. Yet I still clamored after less grand things, imagining that this trinket or that luxury might bring me greater happiness. How foolish I felt when they did no such thing.

 

Instead, I can completely commit myself to building up my own habits of expectation, being content with receiving little for myself while striving to give the most of myself.

 

How much time and effort did I spend on trying to build up the most impressive professional life? I was indeed able to jump though the hoops that were held out for me, or run on that hamster wheel to prove my work ethic, and once I had exhausted myself with all of that, I was absolutely no better on the inside; quite often I had made myself much worse.

 

Instead, I can completely commit myself to working on who I am, not on how I appear to others, measuring my life by the rewards that so many other folks are sadly willing to abandon.

 

I can direct my efforts to improving my character. That is never beyond my reach, because it requires only what I already have. That will never let me down, because it fulfills everything that I am.

 

 

 

12.2

 

We must limit the running to and fro which most men practice, rambling about houses, theaters, and marketplaces. They mind other men's business, and always seem as though they themselves had something to do.

 

If you ask one of them as he comes out of his own door, "Where are you going?" he will answer, "By Hercules, I do not know: but I shall see some people and do something."

 

They wander purposelessly seeking for something to do, and do, not what they have made up their minds to do, but what has casually fallen in their way.

 

They move uselessly and without any plan, just like ants crawling over bushes, which creep up to the top and then down to the bottom again without gaining anything. Many men spend their lives in exactly the same fashion, which one may call a state of restless indolence.

 

“Oh Karen, get me another cup of coffee, will you? I can’t possibly manage the rest of the day without one.”

 

I noticed from a very early age how “busy” all the aspiring middle-class adults said they were. They would sigh, and wave their arms about, and insist that they needed nothing more than some peace and quiet, a chance to get away from the hustle and bustle, a break from all the noise.

 

And even at such a very early age, I wondered why they didn’t just do precisely that, and stop being so pained by their efforts. What were they actually doing, I asked, that was so necessary to make their lives so miserable? They appeared to fill out forms, and drive from here to there, and sit in meetings.

 

“You’re too young, you couldn’t possibly understand!”

 

I indeed did not understand their worries back then, but perhaps in my innocence I saw something that they, in turn, did not understand. Is all of that something you need to do in order to be happy?

 

As I grew older, my concern still stayed with me. I myself was now asked, by increasing degrees, to live as I had seen them live. I must constantly be occupied with matters that should take on the highest importance in my life.

 

What kind of things? Appearing better, winning the battle of wills over others, making more money so that I can then spend more money, feeling important because I was never without an external task, without something to conquer.

 

Why should I worry about how I look? Is it required for me to defeat anyone at all? Why have more stuff? Is my value to be found in running some sort of hectic rat race?

 

“That’s how it’s done.”

 

But why?

 

“Oh, grow up!”

 

Please bear with me, because I really am trying to grow up. I’m still trying to do precisely that.

 

Once I started to ask myself what I truly needed to live well, I ran into an interesting problem. I observed that my entitled generation had more conveniences and luxuries than any other before it, and yet they still said they had to work harder.

 

I could grasp the toil of working for food, or for shelter, or for safety, and yet very few of my peers were ever without such things by default. Most of them were working for something else.

 

In fact, when I got to know more people of lesser means through a job in social services, I saw that the other half were certainly busy, but they were certainly not busy with that kind of busywork.

 

When I first came across this passage by Seneca, I had to go back a few times to make sure that I was reading it right. That phrase, “restless indolence”, wouldn’t leave my head, since I knew that this was exactly what I was being told to do.

 

Always be active, while acting for nothing of worth. Always run around, but have no meaningful direction. Always look to the next level of achievement, without having a clue about what is worth achieving.

 

Be busy with everyone else’s business; never ask what it means to be in the business of being human.

 

Yes, it involves being in a state of constant motion, even as it spirals in upon itself, and it finally collapses in upon itself. It is doing everything and still doing nothing. It is treading on water.

 

As odd as it seems, it is actually a form of laziness, of always expecting genuine rewards without expending genuine efforts.

 

“Oh, but I’m so busy!”

 

Busy with what? My ass grows fatter, and my virtues becomes smaller.

 

 

 

12.3

 

You would pity some of them when you see them running as if their house was on fire. They actually jostle all whom they meet, and hurry along themselves and others with them, though all the while they are going to salute someone who will not return their greeting, or to attend the funeral of someone whom they did not know.

 

They are going to hear the verdict on one who often goes to the law, or to see the wedding of one who often gets married.

 

They will follow a man's litter, and in some places will even carry it. Afterwards returning home, weary with idleness, they swear that they themselves do not know why they went out, or where they have been, and on the following day they will wander through the same round again.

 

Surely no one follows, or carries, another man’s litter anymore? Isn’t that all from a past and barbaric age?

 

No, not really. The accidents change, while the act remains much the same.

 

Have you ever been the boss? Then you know how tempting it is to let others bear you along, to pamper you, to wait upon you hand and foot.

 

Have you ever been at the whim of the boss, which is far more likely? Then you know how tempting it is to flatter him, to coddle him, to do all of his dirty work for him.

 

I still laugh out loud when I return to this text, not to mock it, but as a nervous response to its timeless truth. I’m not even worried about casting blame on anyone else, since I find it ridiculous enough to see myself fall for the bait.

 

Did he notice me vigorously nodding my head and wildly applauding his brilliance while he gave his speech? Oh, how I wish he had!

 

A man has died, and I utter words of honor about him in public, even though I never paid any attention to him in private while he was still alive. Can everyone else see how mournful I am?

 

I hover about the courtrooms and the halls of power, and I feel important rubbing shoulders with those who are involved in making momentous decisions. Men are carried up and cast down in an instant, while I gaze at the reflection of my own glory.

 

I know that another person is nothing but a disposable commodity to him, and yet I raise my glass to praise everlasting love as he poses for the photographs with his new bride. The previous one had clearly not been invited to the festivities.

 

Now why would I ever think to do such things? Only because I am being a sycophant and a fraud. This, they say, is how I can win, and I willingly submit to all of that nonsense.

 

At the end of the day, I will wonder why I am so tired, even as it does not occur to me that it isn’t my body that is worn out by all my constant business. It is my soul that is drained, sucked dry of any integrity or conviction.

 

I may even mumble something about not even being sure why I bother, or reflect for a moment about a simpler and more peaceful life, but the fact that I will get up the next morning to do it once more is proof enough that I was just mouthing the words.

 

If my house is on fire, might it not be better to actually try putting out the flames, instead of running around in circles and pulling my hair out?

 

 

 

12.4

 

Let all your work, therefore, have some purpose, and keep some object in view.

 

These restless people are not made restless by labor, but are driven out of their minds by mistaken ideas, for even they do not put themselves in motion without any hope: they are excited by the outward appearance of something, and their crazy minds cannot see its futility.

 

An action is quite literally pointless without direction; my values are completely meaningless without a reverent sense of the whole.

 

The chicken runs about, even as it has no head. I grasp for so many things, even as I have no clue about whether they are good or bad for me.

 

I am sometimes told that I should just follow my feelings in all of my decisions, and yet any or every decision at all, by definition, must first follow from judgment, not from the rule of any or every passion.

 

It isn’t that the emotions are right or wrong in themselves; it is rather that the value of those emotions only becomes clear through understanding.

 

It isn’t work that is bringing me down; it is rather that the work is wasted on frivolous things.

 

It isn’t that I don’t have a goal; it is rather that I am enamored of deceptively incomplete and false goals.

 

So when I complain about how busy I am, or when I am intimidated by how busy other people are, my thinking is rather off the mark. If I reflect back upon all the highs and lows of my life, I will recognize that I will spare no effort for what I perceive to be priceless, and I will waste no effort on what I perceive to be worthless.

 

Work isn’t the problem at all, as much as I may gripe about it. My agony proceeds from working for peanuts instead of principles. Where am I placing my priorities?

 

It looks pretty, and so I want it. It feels appealing, and so I pursue it. I think that pleasure, or fame, or money, will fulfill me, and I cry alone at home when they do nothing for me. Has it occurred to me that most everyone else is crying too, but happens to be better at putting on a pretty face?

 

Even the most foolish people have an end in mind, a truth I can very easily confirm from my own experience. They rush here and there, just as I have done, reaching for shadows.

 

Labor is a joy when it produces what is necessary for a happy life, and there is never any regret in spending all of myself for what is right. Labor is a form of torture when it is misdirected toward what is extraneous.

 

The more I grumble, the more I despair, and the more I surrender, the more I should have a hint that I am on the wrong path. Where is my nature within Nature?

 

 

 

12.5

 

In this same way every one of those who walks out to swell the crowd in the streets is led around the city by worthless and empty reasons.

 

The dawn drives him forth, although he has nothing to do, and after he has pushed his way into many men's doors, and saluted their nomenclators one after the other, and been turned away from many others, he finds that the most difficult person of all to find at home is himself.

 

From this evil habit comes that worst of all vices, tale-bearing and prying into public and private secrets, and the knowledge of many things which it is neither safe to tell nor safe to listen to.

 

I still think with dread of all the years I spent getting up in the morning, putting on the clothes someone else told me I needed to wear, and getting myself onto a small metal tube to go where I was told to go. It was packed with hundreds of folks who were on the same mission.

 

Once I got to where I had been told me to go, I then spent the rest of the day bothering other people. Sometimes I was asked to beg from them, and at other times I was told to yell at them, and, on a few occasions, I was supposed to sign a form or punch a button, and this apparently made everyone happy.

 

I had to be very careful. If I yelled at the person I should be begging from, or begged from the person I should be yelling at, there would be trouble. There were reprimands, and probations, and double-secret probations. There was an HR person who delivered little multi-colored slips every morning, to tell us how we had all failed.

 

Through it all, I had to smile and play nice with an important fat fellow in the office down the hall. If his mood was poor, I had to cheer him up, or he would erase my existence. If his mood was good, I was still cheerful, in the hope that a few extra numbers would show up in my bank account at the end of the week.

 

Then I got back on the small metal tube, which usually broke down around this time, and when I finally made it to my tiny wooden box, barely paid for by those numbers in my bank account, I would sigh and complain to the wife. She had gone through much the same as me, though she drove the smaller metal box that her owners were generous enough to barely help her pay for.

 

We sighed and complained together, and we fell asleep, and our chirping alarms woke us again the next morning to repeat the cycle.

 

I know that I am a hopeless romantic, but this is not a way to live, not even for the most thoughtless or insensitive person. It is a living hell.

 

What was the job, you may ask? It was most every job I ever had, whether as a pencil pusher, or as a programmer, or even as a fancy teacher. It is also most every job you have ever had.

 

Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

 

The waste was never in the effort, or in the striving, or in the sacrifice. The waste was in the action without purpose. Let there, by all means, be small metal tubes and even smaller metal boxes. Let there be tiny wooden boxes. Let there be struggle, but please Lord, let there actually be some meaning to it. The numbers come into the bank account, and then they leave more quickly, and often there is a negative sign before the numbers. Then there is death.

 

It all keeps what we call the “economy” going. It is all for the best, apparently, so we can all be sad together, owing money for our little metal boxes and tiny wooden boxes.

 

Again, not a way to live.

 

With no human purpose, and all labor involved in busywork, it’s no wonder we die on the inside.

 

What else is left but to poke our noses into the lives of others, to gossip, to slander, to condemn? There is much planning, quite a bit of managing, and hardly any doing. Ask yourself how few fine people actually produce anything, and then compare that number to the dazed people who spend their entire lives bossing other people around.

 

Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

 

 

 

Chapter 13

 

13.1

 

It was, I imagine, following out this principle that Democritus taught that "he who would live at peace must not do much business either public or private," referring of course to unnecessary business: for if there be any necessity for it we ought to transact not only much but endless business, both public and private.

 

In cases, however, where no solemn duty invites us to act, we had better keep ourselves quiet: for he who does many things often puts himself in Fortune's power, and it is safest not to tempt her often, but always to remember her existence, and never to promise oneself anything on her security.

 

I find it quite helpful to regularly run a bit of a personal inventory, where I try to work out the difference between what I truly need to do and what I only believe I need to do. If I am brutally honest with myself, I find that I get involved in all sorts of endeavors, and yet almost all of them are not required for my happiness.

 

In fact, all of that busywork is more of a diversion, and it easily keeps me from attending to what matters the most. I neglect the essential, which actually demands very little of me, at the expense of the trivial, which spreads my efforts too thin.

 

What is good in life is itself not that difficult, because it is simple, but what is difficult in life is worrying about all the wrong things, because we make them so complex for ourselves.

 

I may need years and years of higher education and professional experience to learn how to write an impressive report or sell the latest project to the investors, and yet it only takes a bit of thoughtfulness and a touch of kindness to do right by my neighbor. The thoughtfulness and the kindness only come hard, in my experience, due to my own poorly built habits.

 

It isn’t just that the life of the busybody is hectic, and grasping, and grueling; it is indeed all of that, which is especially frustrating when we finally learn how meager the rewards will be. No, what is most harmful is how it becomes a surrender of our own lives, a dependence upon getting all of those circumstances lined up just right. In the process, the world we are so eager to master takes a mastery over us.

 

I struggle to gain a control over the unfolding of events and the judgments of other people, and I may deceive myself into thinking that I have gained it. All that has happened, however, is that the way other things work on their own terms has managed, for the moment, to be in agreement with how I would wish them to be. I am really just following them around.

 

Once they go off in a different direction from what I had planned, I wonder what didn’t “work out”, or where my cleverness and power were most lacking, and it simply doesn’t occur to me that I was betting on matters that were far beyond my power to begin with.

 

Why enslave myself to Fortune? Keep it simple, keep it reliable.

 

 

 

13.2

 

I will set sail unless anything happens to prevent me, I shall be praetor, if nothing hinders me, my financial operations will succeed, unless anything goes wrong with them.

 

This is why we say that nothing befalls the wise man that he did not expect—we do not make him exempt from the chances of human life, but from its mistakes, nor does everything happen to him as he wished it would, but as he thought it would.

 

Now his first thought was that his purpose might meet with some resistance, and the pain of disappointed wishes must affect a man's mind less severely if he has not been at all events confident of success.

 

I firmly intend to make something of myself, and even as I could well do quite a bit to improve myself, what I really mean is that I intend to make my lasting mark on other things.

 

And it never really works out like that at all, does it?

 

I may nudge this and tug at that, and I will find glorious satisfaction in the slightest movement that follows my will. Then, there is suddenly the deluge, or the avalanche, or the fire that takes it all away. “The best-laid schemes of mice and men go often awry”, indeed!

 

I may well go wherever I want to go, or win the high office I so desperately crave, or become as rich as my heart’s desire, but only if Fortune lets me pass. If she refuses me, there will be no recourse or appeal. It will be done according to her word.

 

So, where I cannot alter the course of things, let me alter my thinking about the course of things.

 

Once I do not make demands of Fortune to reward me, then I will learn to find peace in everything she offers, however pleasant or unpleasant it may at first appear.

 

Once I am open to the possibility of any and all circumstances, however convenient or inconvenient to my worldly preferences, then absolutely nothing will surprise me.

 

Did I win the lottery, or invest in a stock that went through the roof, or impress my boss with some profitable turn? Yes, I thought that something like that might happen.

 

Did my house fall down, or did I contract some terrible disease, or was I fired from my job at the most needful time? Yes, I also thought that something like that might happen.

 

I was ready for it, not because I expected the best or the worst, but rather because I was ready for anything.

 

I wasn’t ready by having some secret plan of world domination waiting in the wings, complete with a hidden underground base and killer robot army, but rather by forming my judgments and values in such a way that I could live well, and so be happy, regardless of the situation.

 

In redefining the terms of my success in this life, I am actually able to be successful if I die now or later, in riches or in poverty, surrounded by friends or lying alone in a ditch.

 

As always, if I don’t require all of “it”, either its presence or absence, it does not need to phase me.

 

 

 

Chapter 14

 

14.1

 

Moreover, we ought to cultivate an easy temper, and not become overly fond of the lot which fate has assigned to us, but transfer ourselves to whatever other condition chance may lead us to, and fear no alteration, either in our purposes or our position in life, provided that we do not become subject to caprice, which of all vices is the most hostile to repose.

 

For obstinacy, from which Fortune often wrings some concession, must needs be anxious and unhappy, but caprice, which can never restrain itself, must be more so.

 

My own temperament has long been quite the mess. I spend most of my time sitting there quietly, going about doing whatever I am told to do. I justify this on the grounds that I am letting the world be as it will be, and yet I am somehow hardly content. That last part is the root of my imbalance.

 

Then, from time to time, I will explode with self-righteousness. I’ve had enough, and I feel the need to put the bullies, the petty tyrants, and the abusers in their place.

 

They are suddenly quite shocked, having expected me to be their perfect little bitch. I do my job well, and then they can’t understand why I would revolt against their grand schemes.

 

They aren’t the problem at all; I am the root of my evil. If I am really happy with my work, I will demand nothing from them, and I will let them play their games. Yet I secretly want to be like them, a sucker for vanity.

 

There is the source of my caprice, of my uneven temper. I did indeed force myself to not want to be the king of the hill, but I suppressed the desire so much that it seeped out in other ways. This is now something I work on, from day to day.

 

Rage, fueled by my resentment, will never serve me well. Does that Vice President need to be knocked down a notch or two? Yes, but it isn’t my place. Does that Director require a swift kick in the ass? Yes, but my boot is not the one to do it.

 

Let them wallow in their glory. They already have their own reward. The Gospels are far more Stoic than you might think.

 

I am so busy trying to fix other people, and those other people are so busy trying to fix me. Imagine a world where we only try to fix ourselves, minding our own business, instead of condemning everyone else.

 

The Stoics taught me to be my own master. Jesus told me not to be the judge, lest I be judged. We all share that same commandment in common.

 

 

 

14.2

 

Both of these qualities, both that of altering nothing, and that of being dissatisfied with everything, are enemies to repose. The mind ought in all cases to be called away from the contemplation of external things to that of itself.

 

Let it confide in itself, rejoice in itself, admire its own works; avoid as far as may be those of others, and devote itself to itself ; let it not feel losses, and put a good construction even upon misfortunes.

 

Sometimes I just let the world roll over me, and then sometimes I insist on criticizing every little bit of it. On some days I refuse to change anything about by own stubborn attitude, and then on other days I am thinking or feeling something completely new at each separate moment.

 

These extremes will never give me peace, and the mean between them will only come from recognizing that the “things” in my life are not the problem. I don’t need to merely suffer them with frustration, and I don’t need to frantically try to go about fixing them. My attention is misdirected when I wallow in pain, and my attention is misdirected when I insist on shaping everyone and everything else to my will.

 

Let me attend to myself. Where I should be constant, as informed by wisdom, let me remain constant. Where I should work to improve, as informed by wisdom, let me improve.

 

At no time is it necessary for me to be obstinate, and at no time is it necessary for me to be flighty. It will be as it will be; now how will I choose to be?

 

Having been brought into this world as quite an odd fellow, I would struggle a bit more than most to be accepted or to be liked. I spent many years working toward something even grander, the hope of being loved for who I was, not from bonds of blood, or race, or creed.

 

I knew my own family loved me, of course, but I somehow felt they had to do that, not understanding how many sons or daughters were never even given that gift. No, I was waiting, always waiting, for a time when someone else was willing to say: “I need you.”

 

That’s really rather selfish, isn’t it? Take the good circumstances for granted, and then expect a completely new set of them? When I broke down completely at one point, when my fancy expectations were shattered, I started to learn the hard way, to see things a bit differently.

 

I can’t expect the love of another, and I can’t demand it, and I can’t claim any right to it. What I can do, however, is to decide about giving my own love, ask myself to provide respect, and offer others what I know they rightly deserve.

 

Am I any worse off from managing my own choices? Quite the contrary, now I am far better off. Any more will be a privilege, something I cherish, but it will not be a requirement for my happiness.

 

The “things” will come and go. The affections of others will come and go. I arrived here some time ago, and I will be gone before I know it. While I am still here, I have it within my power to think and act with decency.

 

No loss and no misfortune can deny me that opportunity. There is that elusive peace of mind, hardly, as it turns out, so elusive at all.

 

 

 

14.3

 

Zeno, the chief of our school, when he heard the news of a shipwreck, in which all his property had been lost, remarked, "Fortune bids me follow philosophy in lighter marching order."

 

A tyrant threatened Theodorus with death, and even with want of burial. "You are able to please yourself," he answered, "my half pint of blood is in your power: for, as for burial, what a fool you must be if you suppose that I care whether I rot above the ground or under it."

 

“I have taken all of your possessions!” How wonderful that might actually end up being!

 

Good, now I have less stuff to carry around with me. You may have inadvertently done me a great favor. I can learn to become more while having less, and you will become less while having more.

 

“I will kill you, and I will make certain that your body has no final resting place!” How much better that might actually end up being!

 

Good, since that will not be any of my concern. You and yours will have to bear the stink, and I will still be free. I can learn to become better through my death, and you will become worse by bringing it about.

 

People often laugh at me when I extol the virtues of Stoicism. They tell me that I am foolish for claiming that wealth, or power, or pleasure don’t matter.

 

I never say that, however; I don’t say that they don’t matter, but I do say that there are other aspects of life that matter far more. I only suggest not confusing preferences with principles, accidents with essence, that which is desirable with that which is necessary. The former can only be measured by the latter.

 

I know many Holy Rollers, the folks who have houses full of pictures, and quilted pillows, and little knickknacks extolling how much God loves them.

 

“Look, here’s a picture of me kissing the ring of John Paul II!” Yes indeed, good times.

 

I also know many Social Justice Crusaders, the folks who have houses full of multicultural and politically correct mementos to show much they hate all of those ignorant folks they disagree with.

 

“Look, here’s a picture of me throwing my hot coffee in the face of a fascist cop!” Yes indeed, good times.

 

I would very much like to meet more people who are not interested in strutting about and putting on a show.

 

I would very much like more friends who look to what is within their souls, before they exclude others from their special group.

 

I would very much like to share my life with people who care more about me, instead of just caring about what I can do for them.

 

You know what? I would like to find all of that. I would deeply appreciate it, but I do not expect it. With my apologies to Colonel Frank Slade, I’ve been around, you know? I’ve seen things.

 

I will be no better or worse by how many times I have paid the local priest to say a Mass for me. I will be no better or worse by how many times I have been arrested for chaining myself to a tree.

 

I will certainly be far worse by spitting my venom on others, or somehow expecting the world to do as I command it.

 

I will only be far better when I take responsibility for myself, and for nothing else. Do you want to take away my stuff? Fine, it’s yours now, here it is.

 

Do you want to even destroy my very life? Have at it, since your taking of it is more important to you than my own living of it.

 

“But you’re a sinner! Your behavior is socially unacceptable!”

 

Whenever I am tempted to say such a hateful thing, I first try to look in the mirror. I don’t make you, and you don’t make me; we make ourselves.

 

 

 

14.4

 

Julius Canius, a man of peculiar greatness, whom even the fact of his having been born in this century does not prevent our admiring, had a long dispute with Gaius, and when as he was going away that Phalaris of a man said to him, "That you may not delude yourself with any foolish hopes, I have ordered you to be executed."

 

He answered, "I thank you, most excellent prince."

 

I am not sure what he meant, for many ways of explaining his conduct occur to me. Did he wish to be reproachful, and to show him how great his cruelty must be if death became a kindness?

 

Or did he upbraid him with his accustomed insanity? for even those whose children were put to. death, and whose goods were confiscated, used to thank him.

 

Or was it that he willingly received death, regarding it as freedom?

 

I wish I could learn more about Julius Canius, or Kanus, than the little snippets I have managed to come across from time to time. Boethius mentions him in the Consolation of Philosophy, one of my favorite texts, and Seneca’s account here is the most thorough I have found.

 

I need more examples like Canius in my life, because one of my greatest struggles is still about coming to terms with so much of the heartlessness I see around me.

 

Sometimes it takes on the form of horrible violence and brutality, and sometimes it takes on the form of cunning manipulation and deception, and sometimes it takes on the form of cold indifference and rejection.

 

What it all shares in common is a willingness to treat others as mere things, as objects to be moved about for profit or gratification, to be used and then discarded.

 

If Canius could face it with such calm conviction, and also with such good cheer, then it is hardly beyond human means to confront injustice without resentment. If he could do it, it is still possible that I can learn to do it. Perhaps I can manage to do the right thing, and not end up being all bent out of shape by it?

 

Both a statesman and a Stoic, Julius Canius was just one of many others who found himself on the wrong side of Gaius Caesar Augustus, otherwise known as Caligula, or “Little Boots”. The new emperor was no longer that cute boy running about the army camp, and he quickly became a sadistic tyrant. He saw plots against him everywhere, and it was probably inevitable that Canius would be accused of scheming to overthrow him.

 

We have all known people like that, who consider themselves the center of the Universe, who take any difference as a personal offense, and who will find the greatest pleasure in watching you suffer. Some are emperors, but others just manage the local office. Some decide the fate of nations, but others just break your heart.

 

Now I have never had anyone seriously threaten to kill me yet, but I have been told that my career would now be over, that I would lose all of my friends, and that I would soon be begging on the street.

 

In each case, I always did my best to maintain my own character above all else, and yet I still grumbled, and complained, and protested. Not once, at least not to this point, have I been able to say: “Thank you for treating me like your trash; you have only made yourself worse, and you have given me the opportunity to become better.”

 

I have thought it, I have even believed it, but I have still not been able to say it with all sincerity, without a glimmer of malice accompanying all of it.

 

Canius did it, and what a wonderful model that can be. Socrates did much the same many years earlier, when his last words to his friends were that he owed a sacrifice to Asclepius, a god of healing. They claim something similar about the martyr St. Lawrence, who was roasted alive, and still asked his tormentors to turn him over, as he was already well done on one side.

 

I think of what the legend of Phalaris says, that he had a bronze bull made, in which he cooked his enemies over a fire, and was satisfied by hearing the screams of his victims like the roar of the great beast. My problem is that I still boil with a rage like that of Phalaris.

 

How is my anger and hatred any different than his? If I am full of spite, what will keep me from doing the same to my enemies one day, if only I have the power to do so? It is too easy a line to cross.

 

Remove the will for revenge by removing the judgment that anyone needs to be hurt at all. It is easy to say “I love you” when everything is coming up roses, but it tests my worth when I am being crammed into a bronze bull, either literally or figuratively.

 

Still, if love is the law, and truth applies across the board, then I must treat my enemy with the same respect as I treat my friend. No, I should correct myself: more properly, I must treat no one as an enemy at all, and everyone as my friend.

 

Was Canius just trying to shame Caligula, or to call him out for his perversions? Perhaps that was a perfectly reasonable part of it, but on a deeper level he could only have acted as he did if he already understood something far more profound.

 

He knew where the real value of his own life lay, and so he was not troubled by death. He knew what mattered the most, and so he could not be bothered by less. He knew that he was not the victim at all, but that Caligula had made himself the victim.

 

 

 

14.5

 

Whatever he meant, it was a magnanimous answer. Someone may say, "After this Gaius might have let him live."

 

Canius had no fear of this: the good faith with which Gaius carried out such orders as these was well known. Will you believe that he passed the ten intervening days before his execution without the slightest despondency?

 

We now condemn people to death, and they wait for many years, even decades, to be given a release from their torture. At least Canius only had to wait for ten days.

 

Might Caligula have shown mercy? Perhaps, but it wouldn’t have been mercy at all, would it? It would have been yet another posturing of power, an expression of his dominance.

 

“Watch me take your life, and then watch me give it back. Now worship me!”

 

Does that seem too dramatic? Well, you’ve seen that when it comes to the boss at your job, or the manager about your bank loan, or that judge who lords over you concerning some late parking tickets.

 

My grandmother once described to me how it was in Austria, after the Anschluss of 1938. The most vicious of people now stopped gossiping and pointing fingers, and they started having you mangled for being whatever they disliked.

 

Many lost their livelihoods, and many more were shunned in proper society. A few, the most annoying, were hauled away, a hint of what would soon come.

 

The easy way out, my grandmother said, was to beg for forgiveness, and to give the holy salute. Then you might be graciously spared, kissing the feet of your new masters.

 

Then you would eventually die on the Eastern Front, by the hands of yet another authoritarian regime.

 

Do you still think I am exaggerating? It all comes around again.

 

Canius saw through it all, recognizing that there is no place for playing power games. Only one power matters, the power over our own choices; nothing ever trumps a healthy conscience.

 

Did you think you were better because you could oppress me? Did you think it would hurt me? Canius knew better.

 

The greatest enemy to such people, the fancy folks with their money and influence, is not a massive and violent social revolution; that will only lead to another set of bullies.

 

No, the only solution is an individual revolution of the heart and mind, where I myself, and only myself, choose to define myself. Choose to hate me, and I will still choose to love you. Try to give me grief, and I will still find a way to joy.

 

 

14.6

 

It is marvelous how that man spoke and acted, and how peaceful he was. He was playing at draughts when the centurion in charge of a number of those who were going to be executed bade him to join them.

 

On the summons he counted his men and said to his companion, "Mind you do not tell a lie after my death, and say that you won."

 

Then, turning to the centurion, he said "You will bear me witness that I am one man ahead of him."

 

The first thing I notice is how Canius is playing checkers, what my old Irish family used to call draughts, as he knows that his execution is approaching.

 

Is he in denial? Is he just being facetious? Is this some form of clever and angry protest? I may think such things whenever I no longer have faith in the goodness of a human soul. Many people I know are dark and cynical about life, always seeing the worst, and always using this as a means to complain about how unfairly they are being treated.

 

Maybe, just maybe, a good game of checkers is all I need? There I can have a laugh, and quicken my mind, and enjoy the fellowship of a friend.

 

I have a sneaking suspicion that the man actually meant it, that he spent some of the last bit of time he had left to enjoy a humble amusement.

 

I am not the sharpest tool in the shed, and it took me a few readings of this simple text to appreciate another aspect of its meaning.

 

Taken away from his game, he asks his opponent to be honest.

 

Then, facing the guard whose job it is to push him this way and that, he asks the bully to be honest as well.

 

Death is near, and he is encouraging others to practice virtue, however firmly his tongue is planted in his cheek.

 

In so many ways, sincerity is at the core of virtue. Know yourself, and be honest with yourself. Know right from wrong, and make no excuses. Know that others deserve to be given that truth, instead of any lies that might be more convenient.

 

How much does it really matter if I win this game of checkers, or if I get that promotion at work, or if I acquire more fame than my neighbor? All of that might be nice and well, but it will be of no use to me if I am not honest and caring from the get-go.

 

How many years have I now wasted in being bigger, while others become smaller? How much effort have I now expended in being a fraud?

 

Integrity may not win me any games, but it will allow me to die with a sense of genuine worth.

 

 

 

14.7

 

Do you think that Canius played upon that draught-board? No, he played with it. His friends were sad at being about to lose so great a man.

 

"Why," asked he, "are you sorrowful? You are enquiring whether our souls are immortal, but I shall presently know."

 

Nor did he, up to the very end cease his search after truth, and raised arguments upon the subject of his own death. His own teacher of philosophy accompanied him, and they were not far from the hill on which the daily sacrifice to Caesar our god was offered, when he said, "What are you thinking of now, Canius? Or what are your ideas?"

 

"I have decided," answered Canius, "at that most swiftly-passing moment of all to watch whether the spirit will be conscious of the act of leaving the body."

 

What is the difference between playing with the board or playing on the board? There’s the rub!

 

Some people make the game all of who they are, defining themselves by their wins and losses. When they win, they shout it out from the mountaintops; when they lose, they say it was all a part of a clever restructuring plan.

 

Others will play, and they care nothing for the actual outcome of the game; they care if they played it well. Their satisfaction is in what we used to call sportsmanship, a crusty old value, concerned with the building of character.

 

Like Socrates, Canius had his many friends, who were devastated by the prospect of losing him. I don’t know what that feels like, as I have rarely had any true friends beyond my own family. I have my parents, and I have my wife, and I have my young children. They are the circle of my world. They are the only people who would ever notice if I was gone.

 

Well, let me work with that. If they asked me about dying, what would I say? Exactly what Canius said, with exactly the same sense of dry humor.

 

“Will there be anything left of me? I have no idea! It will be fascinating, however, to find out how all of that works out!”

 

I was raised as a Catholic, and I will certainly die as a Catholic. I know that there is a God, and I know that He loves me. I know that I am made for something, and I do my best to follow that calling. My love of Stoicism is not in contradiction to my love of God, but rather a complement to it.

 

Now what will happen to me when I die? I used to think in terms of a paradise for me, and a hell for my enemies. Then I started growing up.

 

I will not fight with the theologians, and I will not bicker with those who claim to know the will of the Almighty. I will judge no one, and I will never condemn anyone to the fires of Gehenna.

 

I will do one thing, and one thing only: I will do my best to live with virtue, and I will open myself to any grace that is sent my way.

 

What will God do with me when I die? I honestly don’t know, and it really isn’t my business. It’s His business.

 

Perhaps He will erase me completely, though my faith tells me that I am immortal. But how will I be immortal? There are many ways I might continue in this Universe, and most of them are not at all what I might expect. God’s ways are bigger than my ways.

 

Perhaps He will send me to Heaven or to Hell. I actually don’t know what that means anymore, at least not in the way that the simplistic ideologues mean it.

 

I do grasp that the greatest happiness would be to know and to love the greatest good, and so Heaven would be knowing and loving God, the presence of all Being. By extension, Hell would be the lack of God, the absence of all Being.

 

And none of that is within my power. Let God express His power. He is not merely above all things; He is the very measure of all things. He is Being, and I am a being. He is perfect existence, and perfect awareness, and perfect love. I am a creature who is nothing without my Creator.

 

Sorry, most Modern Stoics, the trendy secularists, hate talk like that. They like the power over self part, but not how the power over self is a part of a greater Providence. That’s not Stoicism as a whole, as I understand it, but they have their own paths.

 

I love what Canius says here. I will die, and I will treat it all like any other experience. I will soon find out how it works. Will I still have a conscious spirit after the body dies? I can’t say. It will be fun to learn about that one last thing!

 

And seriously, should I live my life any differently, whether or not there is an afterlife? A good life is a good life. If all you want is some reward after the fact, then it wasn’t really a good life, was it?

 

Are you playing now to get your booty later? We used to have a name for you, but good manners tell me to not throw stones. Be what you must be. I will be who I must be. God will sort us out.

 

 

 

14.8

 

He promised, too, that if he made any discoveries, he would come around to his friends and tell them what the condition of the souls of the departed might be.

 

Here was peace in the very midst of the storm; here was a soul worthy of eternal life, which used its own fate as a proof of truth, which when at the last step of life experimented upon his fleeting breath, and did not merely continue to learn until he died, but learned something even from death itself.

 

No man has carried the life of a philosopher further. I will not hastily leave the subject of a great man, and one who deserves to be spoken of with respect. I will hand you down to all posterity, you most noble heart, chief among the many victims of Gaius.

 

If people do somehow continue on after death, I might wonder why we have never heard back from them, or why they don’t tell us all about what they have found.

 

Then it occurs to me that we may no longer recognize them for what they are when we do come across them, precisely because they are something quite different than what they once were.

 

The cynical and skeptical side of me wants to say that Canius had nothing more to say, since there clearly was no more of Canius.

 

Oh no, there is certainly something left of Canius, since all things are constantly being transformed in Nature. What was then is something else now, and what is now will all too soon be something new. Nothing comes from nothing, and everything is reborn and rebuilt.

 

What Canius made completely clear, while we were able to understand him, is all about how any one of us is able to find a peace of mind and a contentment of spirit. No secret wisdom is necessary, no inhuman strength is required.

 

Enough is given, right here and now, to make sense of any hardship. It only asks for an honest appreciation of what is truly good in life, and then so much that seemed unbearable can now become a means for happiness.

 

Is the force thrown at my body too great, or is the pain more than my mind can face without being destroyed? Then it will kill me, as it killed Canius.

 

Caligula would soon die himself, at the hands of his own Praetorian Guard, and so, at least in one sense, both the victim and the oppressor ended up in exactly the same place.

 

In another sense, however, how they chose to live before that end was completely different. Canius learned to love the world as it was, and he learned to find joy in everything that he did.

 

Caligula was always ill at ease, worried about winning this or losing that, and he saw threats around every corner.

 

Canius even used the act of dying itself to learn something new, and he lifted the spirits of his friends.

 

I can only imagine what was going through Caligula’s head as they stabbed him to death, though Suetonius claims he cried out “I live!” before the final blows came.

 

Canius was the happier man, because he was the better man. Caligula was the miserable man, because he was never satisfied with anything that Nature had already given him.

 

I sincerely hope I will use my terrible stubbornness rightly when the time comes, and that I will insist on my character instead of my vanity.

 

Live better, or live longer? Be more, or have more?

 

 

 

Chapter 15

 

15.1

 

Yet we gain nothing by getting rid of all personal causes of sadness, for sometimes we are possessed by hatred of the human race.

 

When you reflect how rare simplicity is, how unknown innocence, how seldom faith is kept, unless it be to our advantage, when you remember such numbers of successful crimes, so many equally hateful losses and gains of lust, and ambition so impatient even of its own natural limits that it is willing to purchase distinction by baseness, the mind seems as it were cast into darkness, and shadows rise before it as though the virtues were all overthrown and we were no longer allowed to hope to possess them or benefited by their possession.

 

Canius learned to master himself, to rely upon the merit that was within him, and so he lived and died happy. He thereby won an absolute victory, as Nature had intended for him, as is intended for us all.

 

There have been many times when I have thought I could take a shortcut to happiness, to follow a cheap emulation of his approach, by just distancing myself from all the things that hurt me. After all, if I remove the causes, then won’t I also be removing the effects?

 

Not only is that no decent way to live, it is also an impossible way to live, in stubborn isolation from the rest of the world.

 

The circumstances were never the cause of my pain to begin with; I was the cause, by failing to manage my circumstances.

 

Other people did not make me any worse; I made myself worse, by reversing my order of priorities.

 

Has he deprived me of my livelihood? Look more closely. He has taken nothing from me that was ever my own, and so my suffering is in my estimation. Getting rid of him won’t change a thing.

 

Has she broken my heart? Look more closely. She did what she chose to do, and yet all of my grief comes from my own choices, not her choices. Pretending she never existed won’t change a thing.

 

Running away solves nothing, precisely because I can never run away from facing life itself.

 

What will life bring me? I always look for the best, and yet long experience has taught me that most conditions will hardly be pleasant or convenient.

 

I always want people to do what is right, and yet long experience has taught me that they will usually do what is wrong.

 

It is vain, not optimistic, to think that the world will do as I say. It is naïve, not hopeful, to believe that creatures of reason and choice, working from their own designs, will hit the mark more often than they will miss it.

 

I have spent most of my life in simply being ignored. That brought with it feelings of gnawing hurt.

 

There were also times when I was given some attention, and it perked me up, but I soon realized that the attention faded when my usefulness faded. I was disposable as soon as I had nothing else to give. That brought with it sharper feelings of hurt.

 

Then there were a few moments, however few and far between, when I became the deliberate focus of malice, where something about me was so deeply offensive to another that I had to be destroyed. That brought with it gutting feelings of hurt.

 

If I choose to let my life only be measured by how I am treated, what will become of me? A noose around the neck, or a .45 in the mouth, are all that I can think of. It might seem like a blessed relief.

 

I recognize the darkness Seneca describes, that sense of being so deeply saddened by my surroundings, so terribly disappointed by the people I thought might be my friends. There seems to be only suffering, and hence a complete absence of hope.

 

I affectionately call it the Black Dog, present now for over half of my life.

 

Old philosophy and literature called it melancholy, an imbalanced disposition of the soul.

 

Modern psychology calls it clinical depression, a mental illness.

 

For all of the best wishes, the devout prayers, the fancy theories, the clever therapies, or the numbing drugs, only one thing has helped me grapple with the Black Dog. Only my own thinking has helped me, by moving me to stop confusing the false with the true, and the bad with the good.

 

Does it hurt? Yes, sometimes so much that I want to die. The only way around that it is to reconsider what I should truly want, and to find something worth living for.

 

The impressions might not leave me, but my judgment of the impressions has within it the power to save me. Let the impressions say what they want me to be, and let me tame them by being who I know I should be.

 

 

 

15.2

 

We ought therefore to bring ourselves into such a state of mind that all the vices of the vulgar may not appear hateful to us, but merely ridiculous, and we should imitate Democritus rather than Heraclitus.

 

The latter of these, whenever he appeared in public, used to weep, the former to laugh: the one thought all human doings to be follies, the other thought them to be miseries.

 

We must take a higher view of all things, and bear with them more easily: it better becomes a man to scoff at life than to lament over it.

 

Tradition has long referred to Democritus as the “laughing philosopher”, and to Heraclitus as the “weeping philosopher”. This wonderful image is quite prevalent, for example, in the history of art. I suspect that it has less to do with the content of their teachings than it does with anecdotes about the dispositions of their particular personalities.

 

I struggle greatly to laugh at the world, and I find it far too easy to frown at the world. I should take Seneca’s advice to heart. When confronted with pain, let me meet it with my own joy, with a sense of lightness. What good will come of it if I wallow and mope?

 

I am more inclined to the melancholic tendencies of Heraclitus than the sanguine tendencies of Democritus. Once I understand where my feelings and instincts are taking me, I can then make conscious decisions to adjust my own judgments.

 

Should I laugh in the sense of carelessness, or of ridicule? Not at all. I should laugh in the sense of recognizing that what I think to be so terrible, so crushing, is hardly a threat. I can smile, and I can look beyond it, and I can walk right by it, knowing that I do not need to be ruled by my impressions, that who I am is far greater than such trivial things.

 

I often think of an ideal from Boethius, that if I care nothing for what is in my pockets, I can whistle my way past any robber. What can he take from me that truly matters? The money will come and go, and the fame will come and go, and even the health of my body will come and go. Yes, in the end, my very life will come and go. I can laugh when all of those things matter so much to him, and not so much to me.

 

I can laugh if I can attend to the bigger picture. I would laugh if I saw two dogs bickering over an old bone, and so I should laugh when I see people fighting over the shallow spoils of life. In the vanity and silliness of it is the very humor of it.

 

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.

 

It will only bring me sadness when I think of it as a loss. It can only bring me contentment when I see how insignificant it is, when compared the to the genuine happiness of life.

 

Then I can smile, and then I can laugh.

 

 

 

15.3

 

Add to this that he who laughs at the human race deserves better of it than he who mourns for it, for the former leaves it some good hopes of improvement, while the latter stupidly weeps over what he has given up all hopes of mending.

 

He who after surveying the Universe cannot control his laughter shows, too, a greater mind than he who cannot restrain his tears, because his mind is only affected in the slightest possible degree, and he does not think that any part of all this apparatus is either important, or serious, or unhappy.

 

A willingness to laugh at the world can certainly go hand in hand with the Stoic value of indifference, in the sense that I should not think too highly of either fortune or misfortune. I can take them, or I can leave them, with the full understanding that they will neither make me nor break me.

 

My cheerfulness arises from being aware that the world does not need to trouble me so much, in contrast to the tears that come from letting myself be overwhelmed. If I take the burden to be light, I will smile as I trot along, and I will only feel dread if I allow it to weigh me down.

 

Most importantly, if I remember that I can always transform any and all circumstances into something good for me, I will not find them so intimidating; it will only lead to despair if I surrender to the circumstances.

 

I might be tempted to smile when I receive pleasure, and to frown when I receive pain, but I can choose to go much deeper than that. What is often called a “positive attitude” does not have to mean the I only expect good things to happen to me, since I am conscious of the fact that whatever happens is only as good as what I make of it.

 

My own virtue or vice will decide the worth of the situation, and so it is within my power to achieve a far more profound form of joy.

 

The point is never to deny or to repress my feelings, but to form my judgments in such a way that I build up a mastery over those feelings. How I think about myself and my world will, in turn, affect my passions, such that I will naturally find contentment whenever I consciously discover the good in something.

 

And so, when I work to perceive that there is always a benefit to be found in every state of affairs, I will be far more inclined to laugh instead of cry.

 

It has never helped me to force a smile, though it is so much easier to smile when I have the priorities of my thinking in order. The Stoic will, therefore, hardly be a sourpuss.

 

 

 

15.4

 

As for the several causes which render us happy or sorrowful, let everyone describe them for himself, and learn the truth of Bion's saying, "That all the doings of men were very like what he began with, and that there is nothing in their lives which is more holy or decent than their conception."

 

It is so easy for me to feel shocked, offended, or outraged at the way of the world, and yet that response comes from my own thoughtlessness, and merely strengthens my resentment.

 

If only I observe carefully, and reflect calmly, I will recognize that all these things are there for a reason, exist as a part of Nature, and I should hardly expect them to be otherwise. Once I can accept this, I will not be so easily swept one way or another.

 

I may not prefer them, and they not make my life any easier to live, and the people who do such things may well be acting quite unjustly. Can I somehow magically change them, by yelling, and protesting, and pushing them around? That would simply be another exercise in force, a pointless clash of wills.

 

Yet I can change myself, and there could still be a ghost of a chance that my own actions, in however small a manner, will assist others in changing themselves. That is a very part of the order of things, where creatures of reason and choice will follow their own ways.

 

Bion of Borysthenes, in my mind second only to Diogenes of Sinope, or perhaps Mark Twain, for his cutting insights on human nature, once again puts me in my place. Did I really think that people would alter their living to fit my convenience?

 

We all came from the same place, and were made with the same dignity, and yet we so often abuse the identity of who we should be. Sometimes keeping the noble source in mind is the only way to make any sense of all the insanity.

 

On all the busy streets, in any of the big cities, you will see thousands upon thousands of people rushing this way and that, all occupied with their very particular business, even as they are all from the same seed.

 

Some will act with conscience and integrity. Others will act with greed and deception. Their paths are joined far more deeply than they can imagine, and they all play their own part in the whole.

 

Will there be loss, and suffering, and evil? Yes, and it can be no other way, given how we were made. Now how will I take responsibility for my part, before I throw stones at my neighbors?

 

If there is any hatred in my heart, I am not solving the problem; I am the problem.

 

 

 

15.5

 

Yet it is better to accept public morals and human vices calmly without bursting into either laughter or tears; for to be hurt by the sufferings of others is to be forever miserable, while to enjoy the sufferings of others is an inhuman pleasure, just as it is a useless piece of humanity to weep and pull a long face because someone is burying his son.

 

There is a great danger, however, in laughing or crying for all the wrong reasons.

 

Sometimes my smiling is not from cheerfulness, but from condescension.

 

Sometimes my frown is not from sympathy, but from despair.

 

The intentions behind the expressions are far more important than just the expressions themselves.

 

It is best, in the end, not to let any extreme emotion lead me about by the nose, but to find a constant and peaceful center.

 

I am an admittedly odd fellow, and I am often told that I think far too much, yet I still can’t help but notice how both laughter and tears can arise from either healthy or unhealthy motives.

 

I may assume, for example, that laughing is all about fellowship and joviality, or that crying is all about compassion and understanding. That is, sadly, not always the case.

 

Now my evidence is only anecdotal, but when I look back at my life, I find that most of the laughter I saw was about a sense of power that came from mocking and dismissing others, and most of the tears I saw were signs of the deepest self-pity, the stroking of a sense of wounded vanity.

 

In either case, people too often laugh out of pride, and they too often cry out of pride. I am fairly certain we can do better than that.

 

I unfortunately have a very vivid memory, and so past events will often seem more vivid to me than those right here in the present. I have been laughed at more often than I can count, and I have cried for myself more often than I can count. It was no good when others chose to degrade me, and it was no good when I chose to degrade myself.

 

It is easier for me to understand how ridicule is a reflection of my arrogance, while it is more difficult for me to understand how wallowing is a reflection of my arrogance. Nevertheless, when I care only for a most glorious me, they are both much the same, two sides of the same coin.

 

Do I make myself bigger by making others smaller? My misguided anger or my misguided grief will do precisely that on the inside, even as they may look quite attractive on the outside.

 

 

 

15.6

 

In one's own misfortunes, also, one ought so to conduct oneself as to bestow upon them just as much sorrow as reason, not as much as custom, requires: for many shed tears in order to show them, and whenever no one is looking at them their eyes are dry, but they think it disgraceful not to weep when everyone does so.

 

So deeply has this evil of being guided by the opinion of others taken root in us, that even grief, the simplest of all emotions, begins to be counterfeited.

 

Though they will rarely admit it, many people will express an emotion, whether of joy or of sadness, for the sake of appearances. They can become quite adept at manipulating impressions, to the point where it almost looks sincere.

 

If I dwell on this in others, however, it will only breed resentment within me, so, as always, it is best for me to work on my own integrity. I should certainly be wary of another’s crocodile tears, yet I should be most concerned about never fabricating any lies of my own.

 

I do wonder how I should present myself to others, whether I feel elated or despondent, and then I remember that it is more important for me to be good than to seem good. Who I am on the outside should mirror who I am on the inside, and I will only get myself into trouble when the two are at odds with one another.

 

It can a bit more difficult when it comes to responding to the joy or pain of others, but most especially if they are suffering. I know that I am expected to say all sorts of things, whether or not I actually mean them, and I will then struggle with choosing my words.

 

What is the best way to say that I am sorry, that I am mourning with you, that I am there for you?

 

A few simple rules have always been helpful for me:

 

I should think before I speak, being sure that I am coming from genuine love and understanding. Just winging it won’t do. Better to be completely silent that spout nonsense.

 

Less is often more. A single gesture from the heart is far greater than many fancy lines copied from a playbook. Instead of writing a flowery eulogy for the crowd, spend a moment of absolute commitment.

 

Whatever I should say, it should be said in private, where no one else is around to see or to hear, to ensure that it serves one purpose and one purpose only, that of fulfilling my compassion for a friend.

 

Perhaps most important of all, it will mean nothing if actions do no follow from the words. If necessary, drop the words entirely, and go straight to the actions. A helping hand is far more powerful than the promise of a helping hand.

 

When I offer comfort, am I just stroking my own ego, or do I really mean it? As we said in the 1980’s, “where’s the beef?”

 

Moaning, wailing, or wallowing only make matters worse. Fancy speeches are just window dressing. How am I assisting other human beings to strengthen their happiness, instead of only encouraging further pain?

 

Grief is not a game to be played. Grief does not have to be the end of it all. Grief is deeply painful, but it is still an opportunity to know and to love all the more. Saying that isn’t enough; transforming the suffering into joy is necessary.

 

No more crocodile tears.

 

 

 

Chapter 16

 

16.1

 

There comes now a part of our subject which is wont, with good cause, to make one sad and anxious.

 

I mean when good men come to bad ends: when Socrates is forced to die in prison, Rutilius to live in exile, Pompeius and Cicero to offer their necks to the swords of their own followers, when the great Cato, that living image of virtue, falls upon his sword and rips up both himself and the republic, one cannot help being grieved that Fortune should bestow her gifts so unjustly.

 

What, too, can a good man hope to obtain when he sees the best of men meeting with the worst fates?

 

It was the problem of suffering, especially the fact that bad things happened to good people, that made Stoicism a necessity for me, not just some convenience or luxury.

 

There are times when it hardly seems fair that Rutilius was cast out from his home for defending the poor from tax collectors, or that Socrates was asked to drink the hemlock for asking inconvenient questions. Pompeius and Cicero were killed simply because they tried to do right. Cato, finally knowing that Caesar would now rule Rome, took his own life. Where is the justice in any of that, when the virtuous must suffer persecution from the vicious?

 

The scale hardly needs to be so grand and dramatic. Perhaps I travel in all the wrong circles, but I have found that it is all too easy for those with a conscience to be cast aside, while those who look only for their own power and gratification are given most everything they desire. Honesty is punished, and lies are rewarded. Charity is trampled down, and greed is raised up. The world seems upside down.

 

Well yes, the world is upside down, but not as I might expect. It isn’t that the righteous are destroyed and the wicked are glorified, but rather that I myself am misunderstanding what constitutes genuine benefit or harm.

 

Only the sinners think they deserve to be rich; only the saints understand that character is itself the greatest blessing. My own expectations need to be flipped, to grasp that what I thought was up is down and what was down is up.

 

Let me look at the words of the problem more carefully:

 

Do good men really come to bad ends? I would only think that if I did not understand the meaning and purpose of my life.

 

Do the best of men meet with the worst of fates? The circumstances don’t make for a dignified life, even as a dignified life thrives through any circumstances.

 

 

 

16.2

 

Well, but see how each of them endured his fate, and if they endured it bravely, long in your heart for courage as great as theirs; if they died in a womanish and cowardly manner, nothing was lost.

 

Either they deserved that you should admire their courage, or else they did not deserve that you should wish to imitate their cowardice: for what can be more shameful than that the greatest men should die so bravely as to make people cowards?

 

I attach ever more importance to bravery, though I find that the way I understand it is very different from the way many others describe it. I do not mean a toughness that is uncaring, or the application of a brute force of will, or a glorification of my power to take what I want. I think rather of the strength of conviction, the willingness to surrender lesser things for the sake of greater things, a foundation of character.

 

A brave man does not to be ten feet tall, or have muscles made of steel, or be required to repress his feelings. No, he must only commit to doing right instead of wrong. The battle he fights is in his own heart and mind, not against any external threat. If I can’t build up such habits of courage, no other quality I possess will be of any use to me.

 

Will this be easy? Hardly, at least at first. I will still feel fear, and I will still have nagging doubts, and sometimes my legs will buckle, and my hands will shake. I still find myself quivering or flinching at the silliest of obstacles, yet I manage by remembering that my judgment rules me, not my flesh. If I can be firm in my awareness of the good, I have it within me to take control of myself.

 

Odd things may go on in my head, where I may know that death should not be feared, and yet I fear the pain that will most likely accompany death. Another estimation is necessary then, perhaps a more difficult one for me, that my worth is deeper than pleasure and pain. I can then more easily bear the absence of one or the presence of the other. I begin to see that I must be wise to be brave, not some growling beast.

 

And perhaps something is going right in my thinking, when I am deeply moved by the moral courage of my betters, and I wish to become more like them. Their suffering was in itself neither here nor there, because everyone suffers, but what they chose to do with it, how they transformed it, is what makes them close to the gods.

 

The bravery was itself the victory, regardless of any other consequences. They made themselves better, and thereby happier, so let me pay homage to them by following their example. How foolish it would be of me if I watched decent folks face death for the sake of justice, and then I myself only ran away in cowardice.

 

When the henchmen of Mark Antony finally caught up with Cicero, Plutarch says that the old man not only died for his principles, but he held his chin and stretched out his own neck to show that he would die willingly, even as his followers covered their faces. Cassius Dio records his last words as “There is nothing proper about what you are doing, soldier, but do try to kill me properly.”

 

In the movies, there would surely have a been a lengthy battle scene filmed with fancy wire work, but that is not necessary for there to be bravery.

 

 

 

16.3

 

Let us praise one who deserves such constant praises, and say, "The braver you are the happier you are! You have escaped from all accidents, jealousies, diseases; you have escaped from prison; the gods have not thought you worthy of ill-fortune, but have thought that fortune no longer deserved to have any power over you."

 

I must stop thinking only of what has been given, and instead start thinking of what I can give. Life is an active, not a passive, affair.

 

“Well, that’s clearly a load of nonsense. I told the truth the other day, and everyone laughed at me. I spoke kind words to a friend, and he said I was a loser. I called out the boss, and then I lost my job.”

 

Yes, of course all of that will happen. Happenings aren’t the measure of a life; life is about doing. Did I first care for my own character? If I only love the convenience found in things, there is no real love.

 

Fortitude will be necessary to find peace in virtue for its own sake, and thereby to rise above the vagaries of fortune. Once I see that my conscience can be secure, all the rest can fall into place. With that kind of judgment, happiness is now able to rely upon what is inside instead of what is outside.

 

This passage speaks to me on two levels, and thereby addresses to the full range of circumstances I might face.

 

Whatever may take place, whatever others may decide to do, bravery of conscience will always be fundamentally liberating. I can leave the events beyond my power right where they are, and so focus on nurturing and grooming what is my own.

 

When I have managed to stay the course, I am amazed at the strength that comes from such conviction. I am then no longer a slave to things of the world, precisely because I have chosen to understand that they do not define me.

 

First, this will happen while I still live, in that my ability to stand for myself allows me to become ever more impervious to the actions of fortune. This is freedom.

 

Second, this will likewise happen if I must die, in that all the worry about pleasure and pain will now be completely behind me. This is also freedom.

 

Either way, I have both lived and died with some dignity. The person who can do this right, the sage or the saint, remains totally unconquerable. It is possible by casting off the chains of impressions and desires.

 

The man I thought the victim can now appear quite differently to me, as one who has received the greatest reward. In life and in death, he has the blessing of liberty. He should be admired instead of pitied.

 

 

 

16.4

 

But when anyone shrinks back in the hour of death and looks longingly at life, we must lay hands upon him. I will never weep for a man who dies cheerfully, nor for one who dies weeping: the former wipes away my tears, the latter by his tears makes himself unworthy that any should be shed for him.

 

Shall I weep for Hercules because he was burned alive, or for Regulus because he was pierced by so many nails, or for Cato because he tore open his wounds a second time? All these men discovered how at the cost of a small portion of time they might obtain immortality, and by their deaths gained eternal life.

 

It may sound a bit harsh to our modern sensitivities, but it is never necessary to despair about loss or death. This is not because I shouldn’t care, but rather because I can learn to better distinguish what is worth caring for.

 

Misfortune is not an evil, and death is not an evil. Give me more or give me less, but the merit of my character is what will determine the value of the circumstances. It is natural for things to change, and it is natural for them to come and go; what will provide my life with any dignity is what I choose to do with what is given, for whatever time that I may have.

 

Why mourn the loss of a good man? It was his time, and he distinguished himself in wisdom and virtue. His courage in facing fear and pain is an example of greatness.

 

Why mourn the loss of a bad man? When push came to shove, he chose to live poorly, to compromise the greater for the sake of the lesser. I can have the deepest compassion for him, but I should not admire him.

 

I remind myself that how I go about dying will be the final measure of how I went about living. I will choose what becomes of it all.

 

Hercules was terribly mutilated from putting on a poisoned cloak, a victim of trickery, and was only relieved of his suffering when his body was consumed on his funeral pyre.

 

It is said that Regulus kept his word to freely return to Carthage as a prisoner, only to then be tortured to death by being locked in a barrel pierced with spikes.

 

Cato wished to deny Caesar the pleasure of having power over his life, and so he stabbed himself with his own sword. The wound was not fatal, however, and when he saw how his friends and attendants rushed to save his life, he pushed them aside and tore out his own bowels to make sure the job was done.

 

I shrink in horror when I think of these gruesome stories, yet I also think of how behind each is someone fighting to live, and to die, in conviction, integrity, and justice. Hercules, Regulus, and Cato all had fortitude when the end came.

 

 

 

Chapter 17

 

17.1

 

It also proves a fertile source of troubles if you take pains to conceal your feelings and never show yourself to anyone undisguised, but, as many men do, live an artificial life, in order to impose upon others.

 

For the constant watching of himself becomes a torment to a man, and he dreads being caught doing something at variance with his usual habits, and, indeed, we never can be at our ease if we imagine that everyone who looks at us is weighing our real value.

 

For many things occur which strip people of their disguise, however reluctantly they may part with it, and even if all this trouble about oneself is successful, still life is neither happy nor safe when one always has to wear a mask.

 

It will require deliberate commitment, and it may take some time, but I learn that my happiness cannot be won at the price of constant conflict and anxiety. Peace of mind is found in balance rather than in extremes, working with things instead of against them, and a simple mastery over self in contrast to attempting an entangled mastery over others.

 

Nor is any of it possible without sincerity, without honestly and humbly being one and the same person through and through. There can be no trickery and no deception, no disguising a coldness and frustration on the inside with a show of alluring impressions on the outside. So many of my troubles come from thinking that life must be like playing some sort of clever game.

 

I have seen far more wickedness than I would like, sometimes far more than I thought I could bear, and I can’t help but notice how so much of it is tied together with a priority of appearances. The concern is not with being good but with seeming good, not with earning merit but with winning praise. There is a discord between the inner self and the outer impression, and it should then come as no surprise that we can’t be fair and honest with others when we can’t first be fair and honest with ourselves.

 

I might at first think that such people are winning, yet I only need to look more closely to see how much they are losing. They say that one of the problems with being a liar is that it’s so hard to keep your story straight, to keep tabs on all the different distortions you have cast about. If life requires constructing and maintaining an elaborate artifice, the greatest fear will be that it will suddenly all fall down. There can be no peace of mind in the middle of that kind of unease.

 

I recall one painful conversation with an academic administrator, where he lectured me at length on how maintaining the “branding” of the university often required overlooking the particular needs of individual faculty or students. “We won’t make any money by being the nice guys. Like with any product, it’s all in the spin.”

 

I couldn’t resist a mischievous joke. “So if I sent copies of our chat, which I have just recorded, to donors and parents, would that help or hinder the promotion of our brand?”

 

I had done nothing of the sort, of course, but the look of complete horror on his face for a moment was priceless. They say that our lives flash before our eyes before we die, and I can only imagine how his entire professional career, so full of false advertising and broken promises, now flashed before his. What would become of him if all the lies were exposed?

 

How much simpler it would be to simply be. How much purer it would be to build character instead of reputation, where the former is completely my own and the latter is always reliant on the whims of others.

 

Fakery is no substitute for integrity, and merely mouthing certain words doesn’t change the reality.

 

 

 

17.2

 

But what pleasure there is in that honest straightforwardness which is its own ornament, and which conceals no part of its character? Yet even this life, which hides nothing from anyone runs some risk of being despised; for there are people who disdain whatever they come close to.

 

But there is no danger of virtue's becoming contemptible when she is brought near our eyes, and it is better to be scorned for one's simplicity than to bear the burden of unceasing hypocrisy.

 

Still, we must observe moderation in this matter, for there is a great difference between living simply and living slovenly.

 

The direct approach of attending to my own moral worth leads to serenity, since it asks for nothing beyond itself, and it is not weighed down by any of the anxiety that comes with manipulation.

 

Is it possible that others will think poorly of us for doing so? Most certainly, and my own experience suggests that it is not only possible, but it is also quite likely.

 

Those who reduce the world to a game for their own amusement don’t much appreciate it when you choose not to play their game.

 

There are also those who will feel insulted by your exposure of their own machinations and deceptions, even if you have not challenged them at all, but have simply chosen not to be anything like them.

 

Still others will become deeply uncomfortable in the face of integrity or compassion of any sort. It hits a sensitive nerve, exposing a part of themselves they have ignored and numbed for far too long; it painfully reminds them of who they really are.

 

I must then remember that the only good I can do for them is to continue on my path, not to ignore them, but to offer them an alternative to their own scheming. If I start throwing stones back at them, I have abandoned the very dignity of the simple and virtuous life.

 

I would rather be thought an idiot than to indulge in the false pride of posturing.

 

I must be careful, of course, not to let my sense of being carefree become its own form of false pride, where acceptance is confused with laziness, or indifference is twisted into thoughtlessness. It is one thing to keep my conscience free of diversions, and quite another thing to abandon my responsibilities. I’ve lost too many friends who started with a desire for a pure heart, only to end up doing little else than smoking pot and listening to Pink Floyd.

 

I will know the difference only by looking at myself with a brutal honesty, and not making cheap excuses. I can let others be as they will be, while still holding firmly onto myself.

 

 

 

17.3

 

Moreover, we ought to retire a great deal into ourselves: for association with persons unlike ourselves upsets all that we had arranged, rouses the passions which were at rest, and rubs into a sore any weak or imperfectly healed place in our minds.

 

Nevertheless, we ought to mix up these two things, and to pass our lives alternately in solitude and among throngs of people; for the former will make us long for the society of mankind, the latter for that of ourselves, and the one will counteract the other.

 

Solitude will cure us when we are sick of crowds, and crowds will cure us when we are sick of solitude.

 

Only prudence can be my guide in finding a balance, in discovering the mean between too much and too little of anything. In order to avoid a downward spiral of relativism, where I frantically swing from one side to another based merely on the immediate feelings of the moment, I need a stable point of reference.

 

That measure must be the measure of my own nature, as an expression of the whole of Nature. Given a mind, I am made to be aware. Given a will, I am made to love; all the rest revolves around that. If I fulfill those callings from within myself, I am also doing my part in the service of all things. That is being at peace, and that is happiness.

 

By relying upon my own inner character, I can also view all external circumstances in their proper place, and I can consider them to be good or bad only by the standard of virtue.

 

Should I, for example, spend more time alone or with other people? I will know the answer to that question if I begin with the state of my own soul.

 

Will being in the presence of greedy and shifty folks encourage me to be a better or a worse man? Will being in the presence of caring and honest folks encourage me to be a better or a worse man?

 

Now the point isn’t whether the company I choose will make me richer, or more gratified, or more recognized. The simplicity of moral serenity is that it avoids all these distractions, and it does not confuse principles with preferences.

 

Wherever I can do my best, and however I can most fully exercise understanding, conviction, self-control, and justice, is what should guide me in exactly what I need to pursue.

 

Sometimes I will be called to be alone, and sometimes I will be called into the crowd. Each will serve its rightful purpose. The nurturing of a caring and healthy soul will be the constant.

 

 

 

17.4

 

Neither ought we always to keep the mind strained to the same pitch, but it ought sometimes to be relaxed by amusement.

 

Socrates did not blush to play with little boys, Cato used to refresh his mind with wine after he had wearied it with application to affairs of state, and Scipio would move his triumphal and soldierly limbs to the sound of music, not with a feeble and halting gait, as is the fashion nowadays, when we sway in our very walk with more than womanly weakness, but dancing as men were wont in the days of old on sportive and festal occasions, with manly bounds, thinking it no harm to be seen so doing even by their enemies.

 

Men's minds ought to have relaxation: they rise up better and more vigorous after rest. We must not force crops from rich fields, for an unbroken course of heavy crops will soon exhaust their fertility, and so also the liveliness of our minds will be destroyed by unceasing labor, but they will recover their strength after a short period of rest and relief: for continuous toil produces a sort of numbness and sluggishness.

 

Men would not be so eager for this, if play and amusement did not possess natural attractions for them, although constant indulgence in them takes away all gravity and all strength from the mind: for sleep, also, is necessary for our refreshment, yet if you prolong it for days and nights together it will become death.

 

Should I work harder, or should I play harder? Once again, we assume a false dichotomy here, and once again, we too often fail to consider such activities within the context of their proper ends.

 

Usually, when I am busy with a task, people will remind me to take a break, and yet when I am cooling off, they are telling me to put the nose back to the grindstone. I suppose the general idea is that we value productivity and efficiency above all else, shorthand for producing as little stuff as possible in order to consume as much stuff as possible, and so we need just enough leisure to inspire us to just enough labor.

 

The problem is that this reduces our human identity to that of little more than a economic machine, defined exclusively by external factors. And here I thought I was a homo sapiens, not a homo habilis.

 

Return back to the order of Nature, where happiness is not in the quantity of commodities but in the quality of character, and the picture changes. The balance between labor and rest then follows from what will best help me to live well, instead of what will make me the most profitable resource. The very measure of benefit and harm is transformed.

 

That same Stoic pattern expresses itself: any circumstances, and any sort of actions we choose in this life, are only as good as how fully they are in service to the good of the person.

 

What is this good of the person? It is hardly mysterious or elusive: let me attend to the dignity of my wisdom and virtue, and then let that inform every other aspect of my life. There I will find my happiness.

 

If my goal is limited to doing more just for the sake of doing more, I am caught in a frustrating, even agonizing, sort of rut. No wonder I will feel like Sisyphus.

 

If, on the other hand, I am doing for the sake of improving the content of my soul, I am beginning to catch a glimpse of liberation. The end is not somewhere out there, in the haze or over the horizon, but to be found right in here.

 

So, work or play? Yes. Both. Each will be necessary at certain times, and each will in turn invigorate the other. Each offers a means for improvement, and each will only make sense when it is aimed at a peace of mind.

 

At those moments when I have managed to do this right, I have also discovered something rather remarkable: I will no longer really distinguish between work and play, between effort and relaxation, because I find that I am joyful from simply doing the right things, satisfied from following nothing more than the calling of my nature.

 

Even the mightiest worldly achievements get tedious, and even the greatest pleasures get boring, but the fullness of my humanity is never exhausted. It can give and give of itself over and over, and it only becomes more bountiful. My awareness and love are greater than any other currency.

 

 

 

17.5

 

There is a great difference between slackening your hold of a thing and letting it go. The founders of our laws appointed festivals, in order that men might be publicly encouraged to be cheerful, and they thought it necessary to vary our labors with amusements, and, as I said before, some great men have been wont to give themselves a certain number of holidays in every month, and some divided every day into play-time and work-time.

 

Thus, I remember that great orator Asinius Pollio would not attend to any business after the tenth hour: he would not even read letters after that time for fear some new trouble should arise, but in those two hours used to get rid of the weariness which he had contracted during the whole day. Some rest in the middle of the day, and reserve some light occupation for the afternoon.

 

Our ancestors, too, forbade any new motion to be made in the Senate after the tenth hour. Soldiers divide their watches, and those who have just returned from active service are allowed to sleep the whole night undisturbed. We must humor our minds and grant them rest from time to time, which acts upon them like food, and restores their strength.

 

Some people tell me that if everyone lived as I suggest, then nothing would ever get done. I can only say that much would still get done, but it might not be quite the same balance of tasks we tend to do now, and we might not be as rushed and frantic as we are now.

 

There would probably be far less time and effort spent on things, and there would be far more time and effort spent on people. There might be fewer luxuries, but there would also be a greater appreciation of what constitutes an actual necessity.

 

These are usually the same people who laugh at me for having been a Boy Scout. “What the hell did any of that ever get you?” I usually offer them the Scout’s Law, still deeply ingrained in my memory:

 

A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.

 

“So it makes you a nice guy. Great. What use is that?”

 

I try to calmly point out that it has absolutely no “use” beyond itself, that it is itself its own end, the formation of moral worth. Being that way is precisely what life is about.

 

They look at me with either confusion or disgust.

 

The Stoics list their cardinal virtues a bit differently, but the content is ultimately the same, and so it should come as little surprise that Stoic values are also met with confusion or disgust.

 

Perhaps we worry so much about constantly being busy in trade and industry because we are overlooking the proper business of life.

 

To do anything at all in a relaxed and leisurely way does not mean we are being lazy; it all depends on what we think is more or less important. I suppose if I wanted to acquire as much wealth and fame as possible, I probably would need to spend fifteen hours a day at the office, but if I wanted to work on primarily being a decent human being, would all of that tedium really be required?

 

In all the corners of this world I have stumbled into, the happiest people I have ever met are invariably the same people who manage to keep their priorities in order, with the externals in service to the internals.

 

They are glad to break a sweat, but they will not break their own backs lugging around useless weight. By understanding that life is to be lived instead of bought and sold, they are able to distinguish between what actually needs to be done and what can easily be let go. They know their professional “jobs” are a part of who they are, but not even close to all of who they are.

 

If my work is somehow in conflict with my leisure, I’m fairly certain I’m in the wrong line of work.

 

 

 

17.6

 

It does good also to take walks out of doors, that our spirits may be raised and refreshed by the open air and fresh breeze: sometimes we gain strength by driving in a carriage, by travel, by change of air, or by social meals and a more generous allowance of wine: at times we ought to drink even to intoxication, not so as to drown, but merely to dip ourselves in wine: for wine washes away troubles and dislodges them from the depths of the mind, and acts as a remedy to sorrow as it does to some diseases.

 

The inventor of wine is called Liber, not from the license which he gives to our tongues, but because he liberates the mind from the bondage of cares, and emancipates it, animates it, and renders it more daring in all that it attempts.

 

Yet moderation is wholesome both in freedom and in wine. It is believed that Solon and Arcesilaus used to drink deep. Cato is reproached with drunkenness, but whoever casts this in his teeth will find it easier to turn his reproach into a commendation than to prove that Cato did anything wrong.

 

However, we ought not to do it often, for fear the mind should contract evil habits, though it ought sometimes to be forced into frolic and frankness, and to cast off dull sobriety for a while. If we believe the Greek poet, "it is sometimes pleasant to be mad”.

 

Again, Plato always knocked in vain at the door of poetry when he was sober; or, if we trust Aristotle, no great genius has ever been without a touch of insanity.

 

Stoicism has an unfortunate reputation for repressing emotion, and the Stoic is often perceived as a fellow incapable of enjoying himself. I can only think that such a misapprehension comes from people who enslave everything else to their passions, and who do not think that gratification should ever be moderated. They perhaps assume that if good judgment should rule, this must somehow negate feeling.

 

I, for one, have found myself grateful for Stoic thought during times of great struggle, and yet I have appreciated it just as much during times of quiet repose. Stoicism has not only helped me to give order to my thinking, but also to become profoundly grateful for the deepest of joys.

 

It seems to have this powerful effect on all aspects of my experience, where a change of estimation in my own mind also allows me to feel at ease with everything else around me. The balance in my emotions proceeds from the dignity of my thoughts; I feel better because I understand better.

 

This is especially difficult for someone who walks with the Black Dog, subject to a regular burden of doubt and despair, and yet I can still manage to appreciate the simplest of pleasures, and find beauty in the most mundane of things, when I consciously choose to recognize the meaning in Nature. It may only require taking a deep breath, or enjoying a good view, or going for a leisurely walk, or savoring a humble meal.

 

As someone who has desperately needed to heal his heart, I have found no better remedy than the Stoic prescription to clear up the inside of my own head. I’m not sure how I could ever feel any genuine pleasure at all, or be invigorated by rest and relaxation, if my thinking was still burdened with greed, resentment, or anxiety. By learning to let such things go, I also learn to take life at a serene and leisurely pace.

 

I am probably not the right person to talk about the healthy enjoyment of drink. If my head is screwed on right, and my mood happens to be amenable, there are few things I enjoy as much as a libation with a friend; I will actually find it helping me to be a better man.

 

But get those mental screws all misthreaded, and put some sourness into that mood, and then the booze, or any drug of any sort, will drag me into the pits of hell. Given my dispositions, it is usually best for me to abstain. I know exactly how terrible I am prone to become.

 

I suppose, however, that this makes perfect sense. Whatever is added from the outside will encourage and magnify whatever is already on the inside. Long story short, I recommend that a melancholic soul is best advised to avoid Liber, Bacchus, or Dionysius as close friends.

 

I misused too many of my critical years hanging about with nasty people, and I got myself hooked on all the habits that stifled my soul. Why did I assume that having fun required getting wasted? Just look at the language. No denial or escape is ever a cure for the burdens of life.

 

Instead, it is possible to just enjoy most every occasion, and drink deeply of anything that is given. Observe a star flickering or a bird singing. Watch a leaf fall or a trickle of water flowing. Cry because you see a new lamb being born or because you see an old ewe die.

 

Take the booze if it works for you, but who needs the booze when you have the buzz of Nature right at your doorstep?

 

There are all sorts of beautiful intoxicants in this life, and the best of them first require peace of mind to make them right.

 

 

 

17.7

 

The mind cannot use lofty language, above that of the common herd, unless it be excited. When it has spurned aside the commonplace environments of custom, and rises sublime, instinct with sacred fire, then alone can it chant a song too grand for mortal lips: as long as it continues to dwell within itself it cannot rise to any pitch of splendor: it must break away from the beaten track, and lash itself to frenzy, till it gnaws the curb and rushes away bearing up its rider to heights whither it would fear to climb when alone.

 

I suppose Plato was on to something, when he recognized the need for a sort of intoxication to bring forth insight, and Aristotle wasn’t far from the mark, when he said that a great mind flirts with a kind of madness.

 

I need not assume that intense passions must be in conflict with reason; when the fires of the heart are in harmony with wisdom, they can surely inspire us to ascend to the loftiest of heights. It isn’t that I shouldn’t be feeling, but rather that my feeling shouldn’t be without the sight of awareness.

 

It is perhaps that very need to rise above the humdrum conformity of everyday life, which is itself an expression of narrow thoughtlessness, that will make the poet appear as if he is drunk, or the philosopher come across as a lunatic.

 

Words of beauty will sound like the chattering of animals to someone who won’t really listen, and words of truth will sound like the mumbling of a fool to someone who won’t really think. Always there is this dull sense that if it is unfamiliar or uncommon, it must be the result of insanity, perhaps even something deeply dangerous. Stray just a bit from the acceptable norms, and they will look at you with profound worry.

 

If I say to someone that the voice of a Muse is speaking to me, what are the chances that they will eventually lock me away? What if I said I was struggling to hear God?

 

I think of the enlightened man who has escaped from the confines of Plato’s Cave, who has ripped himself not only from the shadows but also from the very objects that cast those shadows, upward and onward to a world above ground, illuminated by the sun itself. He would only wish to return back into the darkness to liberate his friends, even though they will look at him as a man possessed.

 

Yet if I am ever to make any sense of myself, I can only do so when I see myself within the context of the whole, and for this I will need to be swept away, to be lifted up.

 

I have rarely had the blessing of being consumed by such a rapture, though I will never forget a day when I was chatting with a grubby street musician back in Boston. I’m not sure what came over me, but for a brief moment he seemed like the only person in the whole city who was sane, and all the yuppies rushing around him, desperately trying to avoid meeting his eyes, were the ones who were deranged.

 

Sometimes the veil is torn apart, and that means either I have finally lost my marbles, or I have possibly been gifted the glimmer of a higher point of view. Maybe it’s a bit of both.

 

 

 

17.8

 

I have now, my beloved Serenus, given you an account of what things can preserve peace of mind, what things can restore it to us, what can arrest the vices which secretly undermine it: yet be assured, that none of these is strong enough to enable us to retain so fleeting a blessing, unless we watch over our vacillating mind with intense and unremitting care.

 

I can be offered all the most profound insights, and be armed with quivers full of clever trick arrows, and read all the most esteemed books, the ones the talking heads said were life-changing, and none of it will do me any good at all if I won’t take responsibility for myself.

 

I might think it easier and more gratifying to embrace a way of thinking that casts blame far and wide, wallows in self-righteous indignance, and demands constant recognition and compensation. Yet none of that addresses who I am, or what I choose to do, and it merely passes the buck. I become morally lazy, a man who makes excuses instead of owning himself.

 

I like owls not just because they are viewed as symbols of wisdom, but also because they are ever watchful, surely itself a property of acute awareness. I once slept in a barn where an owl gazed at me constantly from the rafters, and instead of feeling weirded out, I felt oddly safe. He looked out for me far better than I could look out for myself.

 

My calling to a watchfulness over myself does not require worry, or anxiety, or constant struggle. It can be calm, and restful, and secure, safe in the knowledge that nothing can harm me on the inside if I don’t let the fretting or the fear enter into my own estimation.

 

It won’t be enough to speak of it in theory, because on any given day, at every possible moment, I need to maintain a conscious commitment to my character. Activity, and not mere passivity, are suitable for any creature that has life, and a life of action that follows from deliberate judgment is most suitable for a creature endowed with reason and choice.

 

The peace of mind will not come to me of its own accord, but is rather something I must take a hold of for myself. It will not follow from accumulating things, or winning praises, or wallowing in brutish pleasures; those are hardly achievements in any way, because they have very little to do with me. No, the transformation comes from a mastery of my own thoughts.

 

With time, that attentiveness and watchfulness take on the form of a habit, and yet even if it becomes easier, it must still remain conscious at all times. Doubt creeps in when I’m not looking, and my convictions become weak when I’ve let down my guard. If I know what life is about, I will be just as willing to be dedicated to my own wisdom and virtue as I was once dedicated to running after vanities.

 

“Why am I not happy, at peace with myself and my world?” There is no secret formula to be discovered somewhere out there; if I am honest, I will know that it is because I haven’t been taking care of myself.