LIAM MILBURN: Stoic Reflections on Friendship

Stoic Reflections on Friendship

Liam Milburn

Few things in this life can bring as much joy as the rightful art of friendship, and few things in this life can bring as much pain as our twisted abuse of friendship. I have found that this may well be because friendship is something we desire by our very human nature, yet we all too often do not understand that very human nature, or what it truly asks of us.

If it is right and good for me to be a friend to others, I should do nothing less than understand what this means.  I believe that the profound insights of the Stoics, and their great suitability in the life of daily practice, can offer real meaning and comfort in this matter.

Like all the brief collections in the Stoic Reflections series, this book brings together primary passages from some of the great Stoic philosophers, and then also presents some of the musings, observations, and experiences of the author.

In this case, Epictetus is represented from Book 2, Chapter 22 of his Discourses, and Seneca the Younger is represented from Moral Letters to Lucilius 3, 9, and 35.

The Stoics have always helped me to remain constant in my conviction that how a man treats his friends is a direct reflection of what is truly in his heart. It is my understanding of the good that will inform whether I can show my fellows the dignity and respect due to them, or whether I will simply see others as tools for my own greed.

Epictetus on friendship 1

What a man applies himself to earnestly, that he naturally loves. Do men then apply themselves earnestly to the things which are bad? By no means. 

Well, do they apply themselves to things which in no way concern themselves? Not to these either. 

It remains, then, that they employ themselves earnestly only about things which are good; and if they are earnestly employed about things, they love such things also. Whoever, then, understands what is good, can also know how to love; but he who cannot distinguish good from bad, and things which are neither good nor bad from both, can he possess the power of loving? To love, then, is only in the power of the wise. . . .

--Epictetus, Discourses 2.22, tr Long

A first principle of Stoicism is that we desire what we think is good, and we shun what we think is bad. Even when we seek what may in itself be harmful or evil, we remain under the impression that such a thing will somehow do us good. It is only our ignorance of the good, in whatever form, for whatever cause, or to whatever degree, that is at the root of vice.

This model may indeed seem odd for some of us. Surely, the thief, or the liar, or the murderer knows full well that what they are doing is wrong? Surely they have a conscience? One must distinguish. They may perhaps only understand principles of what is morally right in a very vague and imprecise way. They may be thinking in one abstract realm, and living in a very different practical one. They may even only fear the shame in the discovery of their acts, and not shun the acts themselves. Or they may, in fact, be fully misguided and misled on the difference between right and wrong.

I have pursued the wrong things often enough to recognize that, as I was choosing them and acting upon them, I really thought that they were best.

We hesitate, and I think rightly, to label people as being without a conscience, or of being 'bad' people. We need not become angry, vindictive, or dismissive of others ourselves, for then we become just like those people we too quickly condemn. Perhaps we can, in genuine justice, concern, and charity, recognize why we all sometimes live poorly, and recognize that the only solution to changing the way we live is to freely change how we think and what we desire.

The grasping, dishonest, or violent man still shares in the same human nature that all of us share. The only difference is that he has a very different sense of the identity of the good than does the virtuous man. So I can practice virtue in return, and I can help him, in whatever way I am able, to see that true good.

Here, then, is the core of Epictetus' argument. If we only desire what is good for us, it is our judgment of the good that will determine whether we live well, or we live poorly. If I cannot rightly distinguish right from wrong to begin with, I can hardly live with decency. This is why wisdom is necessary to love, because I can hardly love rightly if I don not know what to love, and why to love it.

Don't confuse the wise man, the philosopher, simply with someone who is well read or educated. Sometimes those two go together well, and sometimes they don't. Consider the philosopher, the lover of wisdom, as the man who understands who he is, why he is here, and therefore how he should go about living.

Stoicism always stresses the direct and immediate link between judgment and action. Show me someone who treats his neighbors poorly, and I can fairly tell that we have someone who thinks poorly about himself and others. Conversely, show me someone who judges wrongly of all the wrong things, and I am inclined to predict that he is not yet able to practice true justice and friendship.

The Stoic will say that a man's good is measured by his own thoughts, decisions, and actions, by what is within his power. Accordingly, such a person will act in a way that shows virtue, or moral excellence, to be the highest human good. The traditional Cardinal Virtues of the Ancients were wisdom, justice, temperance, and fortitude. He will treat both himself and his fellows with love and respect, because he recognizes that we all share in that very same nature and purpose.

Now imagine if we were to replace such goods with other apparent goods. If I desire pleasure, or power, or wealth, or fame, the Stoic would say that I have replaced the internal, of something that is within my power, with what is external, of that which outside of my power. My own actions toward others will now become measured by how effectively they give me access to the externals I desire. Such a man will now appear to be honest, fair, or peaceful with his neighbor if these actions bring him the worldly success he craves, but he will just as readily be dishonest, unfair, and violent if he thinks these actions will bring him what he desires.

What I truly love, whether it be the internal or the external, virtue or position, will determine most everything about my character. It will also determine who and what I love, and how I treat all those people we all call our 'friends'.

Epictetus on friendship 2

. . . “How is this?” a man may say; I am foolish, and yet love my child.

 I am surprised indeed that you have begun by making the admission that you are foolish. For what are you deficient in? Can you not make use of your senses? Do you not distinguish appearances? Do you not use food which is suitable for your body, and clothing and habitation? Why then do you admit that you are foolish?

It is in truth because you are often disturbed by appearances and perplexed, and their power of persuasion often conquers you; and sometimes you think these things to be good, and then the same things to be bad, and lastly neither good nor bad; and in short you grieve, fear, envy, are disturbed, you are changed.

This is the reason why you confess that you are foolish. And are you not changeable in love? But wealth, and pleasure and, in a word, things themselves, do you sometimes think them to he good and sometimes bad? And do you not think the same men at one time to be good, at another time bad? And have you not at one time a friendly feeling toward them and at another time the feeling of an enemy? And do you not at one time praise them and at another time blame them?

“Yes; I have these feelings also.” Well then, do you think that he who has been deceived about a man is his friend? 'Certainly not.'

And he who has selected a man as his friend and is of a changeable disposition, has he good will toward him? 'He has not.'

And he who now abuses a man, and afterward admires him? “This man also has no good will to the other.” . . .

—Epictetus, Discourses 2.22, tr Long

We may not always like admitting that we are fools, but we like it even less if we are asked to think that our foolishness hinders our capacity to love. Surely I may love my family and friends, even when my thinking is off?

I hardly think that Epictetus is assuming any malice, but he still insists that our ability to express and act with any true good will is directly related to our awareness of what is right.

How many times has our power to do good for our friends depended upon a good or bad decision? Again, we may somehow want what is good, but we can hardly do it when we don’t first understand it.

I can begin with something not nearly as personally uncomfortable. It was once my intention to help my family by personally fixing a quirky appliance that had been causing us problems for months. I thought it best to surprise them with a newly restored device, and I was certain this would save us the repair costs, make everyone’s life easier, and spread joy throughout the land.

Everything seemed to be going well at first, but in the end my attempt at doing right went horribly wrong. I didn’t quite understand the inner workings of the beast, and my efforts simply caused us more problems, more money, and more frustrations. I was fortunate to be forgiven, but I certainly learned my lesson.

I will only quickly gloss over a similar fiasco, where we thought we could easily manage grooming a longhaired cat.

I can now morally dig a little deeper. Even when I have convinced myself that I acted with a desire to do right, I have often caused great grief and pain for others through lazy or selfish judgment. I allowed a false appearance of the good to overcome the real apprehension of the good.

How often have I told that little lie to supposedly save myself an inconvenience, only to find I have hurt someone more than if I had spoken with honesty and kindness? How often have I treated one person with grave disrespect in order to win the respect of another? How often have I laughed in ridicule, while pretending it was all in good fun?

Even with the appearance of the best of intentions, we allow our impressions, our changeable instincts and feelings, to get the better of us. And we do this out of a foolish ignorance. I need only think how surrendering to my frustration or anger has led me to hate instead of love.

Changing my standard of love as feelings or circumstances change can hardly be considered friendship. It can’t even really be ‘good’ will, if I’m not grasping what is good to begin with.

In the end, I don’t think I’ve ever managed to love someone by deceiving, defrauding, or rejecting.

Epictetus on friendship 3

. . . Well then, did you never see little dogs caressing and playing with one another, so that you might say there is nothing more friendly? But, that you may know what friendship is, throw a bit of flesh among them, and you will learn.

Throw between yourself and your son a little estate, and you will know how soon he will wish to bury you and how soon you wish your son to die. Then you will change your tone and say, “What a son I have brought up! He has long been wishing to bury me.”

Throw a smart girl between you; and do you, the old man, love her, and the young one will love her too, If a little fame intervene, or dangers, it will be just the same. . . .

—Epictetus, Discourses 2.22, tr Long

We must be careful, at this point in the text, not to become distressed or discouraged. Epictetus will now offer a number of examples of the fickle and unreliable varieties of love and friendship, and he will show how base and cruel we can all truly be. Think of these, perhaps, as viewing the symptoms before we can consider a cure. Understanding all the abuses of our nature can help us to understand how to live with it rightly.

I also need to remind myself that, for all of his skill at presenting an argument directly and clearly, Epictetus hardly has the best bedside manner of all the Stoic philosophers.

The analogy of animals can be of assistance, for few things seem as affectionate as the playfulness and tenderness of animals. But place some different desire in the way of the affection, and we will be overcome by their viciousness.

Yet there are immediate limits to such an analogy. The animal is ruled by feeling and instinct alone, and will act based upon such appearances alone. Now man also possesses such feelings and instincts, but surely his judgment of the good can direct his awareness of the good? Hence the good will only be what is pleasing to the animal, but it can be what is virtuous for a man.

It certainly should be what is virtuous for a man, but observe how often this is not the case. It is right and good for an animal to be just an animal, but not for a man to be just an animal. We nevertheless act just like animals all the time, because we surrender our reason by choosing to be ruled only by our passions.

The desire for money, or pleasure, or fame all too readily breaks the bonds of friendship that reason asks of us. If I choose to judge beyond the external appearances, I will understand that there should be unity and fellowship between men. We were all made for the same purpose, to act with wisdom and with virtue, and there needs to be absolutely no conflict or competition for all of us to share in those same goods.

But as soon as I say I want wealth, or sex, or reputation more than I want character, I have chosen to flip the order of human priorities. I will now sell out the good of my friend, a good clear to sound thinking, for the good of my passions, a false appearance of the human good.

Epictetus on friendship 4

. . . You will utter the words of the father of Admetus!

“Life gives you pleasure; and why not your father?”

Do you think that Admetus did not love his own child when he was little? That he was not in agony when the child had a fever? That he did not often say, "I wish I had the fever instead of the child?" Then when the test came and was near, see what words they utter.

Were not Eteocles and Polynices from the same mother and from the same father? Were they not brought up together, had they not lived together, drunk together, slept together, and often kissed one another? So that, if any man, I think, had seen them, he would have ridiculed the philosophers for the paradoxes which they utter about friendship. But when a quarrel rose between them about the royal power, as between dogs about a bit of meat, see what they say.

Polynices: Where will you take your station before the towers?

Eteocles: Why do you ask me this?

Polynices:  I place myself opposite and try to kill you!

Eteocles: I also wish to do the same!

Such are the wishes that they utter. . . .

—Epictetus, Discourses 2.22, tr Long

History and myth are full of examples of those who were willing to sell friendship for their own narrow gain. These can serve as healthy warnings in our own lives, where it is so easy to ‘love’ another when they are convenient to us, and dispose of them when they are no longer so. We are seeing instances where we mistakenly think that the increase of our own good requires a decrease in the good of another.

Apollo, in return for the favor of hospitality, had granted Admetus, King of Pherae, the right to live many years beyond his normal lifespan. The gift, however, came with a price, as do so many such gifts. Admetus would have to find someone else to take his place when Death came calling for him.

I am reminded of the tragic story of Bhishma in Hindu lore, whom the Gods granted the power to choose the time of his own death.

Admetus asked his own father, Pheres, the very man who had raised him, to take his place. Admetus insists on his own continued survival at the expense of his father, and Pheres insists on his own continued survival at the expense of his son. Thereby, the proper bond of family and friendship is broken. Each opposed the good of the self with the good of the other.

Polynices and Eteolces were the sons of King Oedipus. Having learned nothing from the vanity and pride of their father, who sought to outwit Fate for his own greed, these brothers could not agree on how to rule the kingdom upon his death. They killed each other in the battle to control Thebes. Each opposed the good of the self with the good of the other.

We might think that our own daily lives are hardly the same, but they usually differ only in being slightly less epic in their scale.

A friend and I were once very angry at one another, and in a heated argument he asked why I was being so hateful. Now I loved this fellow, but out of simple vindictiveness, thinking that the satisfaction of my anger was greater than love, I said that there was not a drop of hate in me, only complete indifference. Both of us walked away far poorer people, and I was never able to recover his trust.

What comes around goes around. Someone once expressed undying love and friendship to me, whatever the circumstances. One day, I discovered a deception and a betrayal. To this day, decades later, she will still pass me on the street and look the other way, and I can hardly throw stones.

When another has hurt me, and I respond with resentment, friendship has not just been violated once, but twice. We compound the hurt. As soon as I add conditions to love, I am now the one guilty of betraying love. I have opposed the good of the self with the good of the other.

Epictetus on friendship 5

For universally, be not deceived, every animal is attached to nothing so much as to its own interest.

Whatever then appears to it an impediment to this interest, whether this be a brother, or a father, or a child, or beloved, or lover, it hates, spurns, curses: for its nature is to love nothing so much as its own interest; this is father, and brother and kinsman, and country, and God.

When, then, the gods appear to us to be an impediment to this, we abuse them and throw down their statues and burn their temples, as Alexander ordered the temples of Asclepius to be burned when his dear friend died.

—Epictetus, Discourses 2.22, tr Long

Don’t worry, because our consideration on the darker side of false friendship is soon over.

The nature of desire is to be drawn to whatever seems desirable. All of this depends, of course, upon what it is that we actually consider to be desirable. What is it that we want? Surely we desire what is best for us, for our own interests?

I have spent many years, both as a teacher, and simply trying to be a personal friend to others, hearing people tell me that politics, economics, or ethics should really just be about one thing: how we can get ourselves what we really want. Self-interest rules the land, and we should just admit this openly.

I do give such people credit. They are willing to honestly admit that what matters to them is themselves, and they have no qualms about playing it any other way. And I believe that Epictetus would say that they are entirely right.

This would seem a slap in the face to all things Stoic, to the love of wisdom, of justice, of temperance, or of fortitude. How could Epictetus say such a thing?

As always, distinguish. What exactly is it that fulfills my interest in myself? My answer will depend entirely upon what I consider to be good for my nature as a human being.

I might assume that the good resides in what I receive, and in what is given to me. Or I might think that the good resides in what I myself do, and in what I give. Therein rests all the difference, and that is the Stoic distinction between what is external, and what is internal. Self-interest will only be genuinely selfish if it depends upon the former, and self-interest will only be genuinely selfless if it depends upon the latter.

Most of us, however, will assume that we require the trappings of life to make us happy. We need pleasure, money, power, and reputation to make this life worthwhile. This is why most of us will sell out our friends, use and betray them, for our apparent benefit. If only we understood that we have sought the wrong good, and in entirely the wrong direction. We think too much about the taking, and rarely about the giving.

“But I give all the time! I support worthy causes, attend fundraising events, and express my love for my neighbor!” Yes, but have you done this for others, or just for yourself? Have you acted only in order to receive? The virtuous man acts because it is right to love his friends, but the vicious man only acts because he believes it is right for his friends to serve him.

When Socrates, that man of moral power, was sentenced to death, he told his friends that they must offer a sacrifice to Asclepius, the god of healing. He meant this to show gratitude for the life he had been gifted to live, as well as a thanks for the escape from the pain and suffering of that life. Yet when Alexander, that man or worldly power, also lost a friend to death, he ordered the temples of Asclepius to be destroyed.

The actions of these two men tell us everything we need to know about this struggle of values. One gave without question, while the other received with conditions. It remains only for us to decide if we shall be a Socrates, or an Alexander.

Epictetus on friendship 6

For this reason if a man put in the same place his interest, sanctity, goodness, and country, and parents, and friends, all these are secured: but if he puts in one place his interest, in another his friends, and his country and his kinsmen and justice itself, all these give way being borne down by the weight of interest.

 For where the ‘I’ and the ‘Mine’ are placed, to that place of necessity the animal inclines: if in the flesh, there is the ruling power: if in the will, it is there: and if it is in externals, it is there.

If then I am there where my will is, then only shall I be a friend such as I ought to be, and son, and father; for this will he my interest, to maintain the character of fidelity, of modesty, of patience, of abstinence, of active cooperation, of observing my relations.

But if I put myself in one place, and honesty in another, then the doctrine of Epicurus becomes strong, which asserts either that there is no honesty or it is that which opinion holds to be honest.

—Epictetus, Discourses 2.22, tr Long

Self-interest can easily be misunderstood. We have already seen Epictetus say that it is natural for human beings, as it is for all living things, to desire what is good for themselves. Now only a certain type of person will immediately assume that what is good for himself is at odds with what is good for others, but self-interest is not the same thing as selfishness.

The Stoic looks at human nature, and sees that we are creatures of mind and will, which means that the perfection of that nature is to know what is true and to love what is good. We are ordered toward the purpose of living and acting in accordance with wisdom and virtue.

To act according to wisdom and virtue is to see that one’s own good is in harmony with the good of others, and the good of all of the order of Nature. My own good is not in conflict with the good of any of other thing, but rather is a very part of the good of the whole of each and every thing.

It is a false dichotomy, therefore, to believe that my good and the good of another are ever in opposition. I help myself to live well precisely by helping others to live well. This is why Epictetus says that self-interest combines together sanctity, goodness, country, parents, and friends. It is only when I start separating one of these from the other that self-interest becomes selfishness.

Where will I place what defines me? Where I place my very identity will determine what I consider to rule above all else in my life. Will I place it in the body? Then I will make pleasure and gratification my goal. Will I place it in externals? Then I will make wealth and reputation my goal.

In either of those cases, I will make all other things relative to those goals. I will, like Epicurus, make right and wrong relative to my pleasure, or I will, like Thrasymachus, make right and wrong relative to my worldly power. Down this path lies the struggle between self and others, and either one will make true friendship impossible.

But if place my very identity in the goodness of my own will, then the good of all things, combined and united together as a whole, will be my goal. I can practice faithfulness, modesty, self-control, cooperation with others, and good relations. Now I can start to be a true friend.

Epictetus on friendship 7

. . . It was through this ignorance that the Athenians and the Spartans quarreled, and the Thebans with both; and the Great King quarreled with the Greeks, and the Macedonians with both; and the Romans with the Thracians. And still earlier the Trojan War happened for these reasons.

Paris was the guest of Menelaus; and if any man had seen their friendly disposition, he would not have believed anyone who said that they were not friends. But there was cast between them a bit of meat, a handsome woman, and about her war arose.

And now when you see brothers to be friends appearing to have one mind, do not conclude from this anything about their friendship, not even if they say it and swear that it is impossible for them to be separated from one another.

For the ruling principle of a bad man cannot be trusted, it is insecure, has no certain rule by which it is directed, and is overpowered at different times by different appearances. . . .

—Epictetus, Discourses 2.22, tr Long

I always loved the study of history, and I still do, but I learned I was not cut out to be a scholar of history long before I learned I was not cut out to be a scholar of philosophy. This was because I always questioned the accepted causes. Philosophers can get away with that for a little bit longer, at least until they are trying to find work.

I was once told, for example, that there were six causes for the American Civil War. I also recall five causes for the English Civil War, three for the Thirty Years War, and a whopping nine for World War II.

Now such an account of the conditions for war is indeed worthy, but here we are perhaps confusing material and final causes. Wars are started by all sorts of people, and under all different sorts of circumstances, but in the end they happen because of the end or purpose, the final cause, that people have in mind. They believe that their own good is opposed to the good of others.

I remember not being terribly impressed with the Iliad or the story of the Trojan War when it was first presented to me. It all seemed like an overly complex soap opera. And then I began to think about why the players acted as they did, and the narrative became one that informs not only my thinking, but also my daily life. It’s all about the triumph of selfishness over friendship.

Three goddesses bicker over their vanity. Paris betrays his friend for lust. Agamemnon and Menelaus retaliate in anger. Hector and Achilles both fight for their own versions of pride. All of it ended with deception, and no one is the victor.

Change the names, and we have the blueprint for all of human conflict, from the smallest to the largest scale. At the root lies the most simple, yet most destructive, of judgments. What is good for me is not what is good for you.

It took me a long time to learn that the appearance of agreement is not a necessary indicator of friendship. As soon as the circumstances change, and the appearances alter desire, that agreement often dissolves into opposition. It took me even longer not to be cynical about this fact. I finally realized that the cure was in the cause, in the recognition that a true friend sees the other as a second self, and therefore cannot conceive of there being a difference between mine and yours.

Epictetus on friendship 8

. . . But examine, not what other men examine, if they are born of the same parents and brought up together, and under the same teacher; but examine this only, wherein they place their interest, whether in externals or in the will.

If in externals, do not name them friends, no more than name them trustworthy or constant, or brave or free: do not name them even men, if you have any judgment.

For that is not a principle of human nature which makes them bite one another, and abuse one another, and occupy deserted places or public places, as if they were mountains, and in the courts of justice display the acts of robbers; nor yet that which makes them intemperate and adulterers and corrupters, nor that which makes them do whatever else men do against one another through this one opinion only, that of placing themselves and their interests in the things which are not within the power of their will.

But if you hear that in truth these men think the good to be only there, where will is, and where there is a right use of appearances, no longer trouble yourself whether they are father or son, or brothers, or have associated a long time and are companions, but when you have ascertained this only, confidently declare that they are friends, as you declare that they are faithful, that they are just.

For where else is friendship than where there is fidelity, and modesty, where there is a communion of honest things and of nothing else?. . .

—Epictetus, Discourses 2.22, tr Long

I recall a very brief period in my childhood when my teachers told that we should always look past accidental differences, and consider the essential unity of the human condition. It did not matter, I was told, if I was black or white, man or woman, old or young, rich or poor. I was, at heart, a human being. That was what mattered.

My romanticism will often bleed into an embarrassing sentimentality, so you will forgive me when I fondly remember watching one of those old film reels in the third grade, the kind it took the teacher half an hour to set up, where the picture wobbled and the rattle of the projector was louder than the actual audio track. It was of the classic “I Have a Dream” speech of 1963. Even at that tender age, I was very deeply moved to be told that what mattered was not the color of my skin, but the content of my character.

But as the years passed, and I passed into higher education, I experienced something different. I began to see that model of the essential divided and fractured. I saw an ever-increasing separation of race, gender, creed, and class. It once again seemed to be all about black versus white, man versus woman, the old versus the young, the rich versus the poor. I was once shouted down in a graduate class by a peer who insisted I had no right to speak about justice because I was a white male. There was an eerie silence when I said I thought that interesting, since a hundred years ago someone may have said that I had no right to speak about justice because I was black female.

Will I choose to define myself by the good of my will, or by my external conditions? The good man and the bad man hardly differ because of their lineage, upbringing, or social circles. The good man and the bad differ only in what they truly love. Understand that only someone who cares first for his character, and not for his position, can ever truly be a friend.

Epictetus on friendship 9

. . . "But," you may say, "such a one treated me with regard so long; and did he not love me?"

How do you know, slave, if he did not regard you in the same way as he wipes his shoes with a sponge, or as he takes care of his beast? How do you know, when you have ceased to be useful as a vessel, he will not throw you away like a broken platter?

"But this woman is my wife, and we have lived together so long." And how long did Eriphyle live with Amphiaraus, and was the mother of children and of many? But a necklace came between them.

"And what is this necklace?" It is the opinion about such things. That was the bestial principle, that was the thing which broke asunder the friendship between husband and wife, that which did not allow the woman to be a wife nor the mother to be a mother. . . .

—Epictetus, Discourses 2.22, tr Long

I still laugh out loud every single time I read this passage, because I recognize precisely what Epictetus means about people who use you to wipe their shoes.

I am hardly a clever man, and those who know me quickly recognize that I am reducible to a few catch phrases. One of them is this: “no one is disposable.” There may certainly be someone else who can do your job, just as well or even better than you can, but that is not about you, but only about how you are useful to someone else. There is really only one you, and that is never to be repeated. It is precious and priceless. Your friends are not just those who show you regard when you are useful to them, but still show you regard when you are completely useless to them.

Few things in this life are more tragic and painful than the betrayal of husband and wife, like that of Eriphyle and Amphiarus, precisely because of the very bond of unconditional love they had pledged to share.

In my Wilderness Years, I was once sitting in a jazz club, and a woman who was a complete stranger walked up to me to buy me a drink. This was memorable, because it has happened so rarely. She seemed quite overjoyed, so I asked what she was celebrating. “My divorce,” She answered.

Never one to let sleeping dogs lie, usually to my detriment, I couldn’t resist asking about the circumstances. I had nowhere else to take an awkward conversation.

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, he was always a nice guy, but I needed to move on. I didn’t feel the same way about him anymore, and it all just got old and the same.”

I think she scuttled off when I asked how she would have felt if the roles had been reversed. You can see why I get myself in too much trouble in this life.

I can hardly be the one who judges others, because I still grimace in shame to think of the times I have treated people conditionally. Though it paid next to nothing, the best job I ever had was a run working in social services. It ended only because the outfit folded, and sadly with much animosity and resentment between everyone in charge.

I can still recall the moment, a late September night, when I walked out of those doors for the last time, knowing that all of the assurances that our clients would be cared for were lies.

A few years later, my old boss sent me a very brief, but very kind letter. This was still in the day when people wrote letters. He had nothing to gain from it, and I could offer nothing for his benefit, but he showed me friendship, as he had always done over the years.

What did I do? I didn’t answer the letter, because I was still angry about everything. I have never been able to make that right, because I have never been able to locate him again. I have now made that crucial mistake twice in my life.

Whenever I get too high on my horse, I remind myself how someone once showed me friendship, and I turned it away, out of my own imaginings. That puts me right back where I belong.

Epictetus on friendship 10

. . . And let every man among you who has seriously resolved either to be a friend himself or to have another for his friend, cut out these opinions, hate them, drive them from his soul.

And thus, first of all, he will not reproach himself, he will not be at variance with himself, will not change his mind, he will not torture himself.

In the next place, to another also, who is like himself, he will be altogether and completely a friend.

But he will bear with the man who is unlike himself, he will be kind to him, gentle, ready to pardon on account of his ignorance, on account of his being mistaken in things of the greatest importance; but he will be harsh to no man, being well convinced of Plato's doctrine that every mind is deprived of truth unwillingly.

 If you cannot do this, yet you can do in all other respects as friends do, drink together, and lodge together, and sail together, and you may be born of the same parents, for snakes also are: but neither will they be friends nor you, so long as you retain these bestial and cursed opinions.

—Epictetus, Discourses 2.22, tr Long

Those bestial and cursed opinions are nothing else than the assumption that we measure ourselves, and others, by the externals. As soon as I add my own conditions and requirements to friendship, then I am no longer a friend.

I will love you, but only if you are kind to me. I will love you, but only if you make me laugh or are still attractive. I will love you, but only if it does not conflict with my career, or with what I want, or with what is useful to me.

The only thing ’useful’ to any of us, of course, is really just the excellence of our own character. No other person needs to be merely employed or discarded in order to achieve this.

Perhaps some of us may nod in agreement, but I find that few of us will follow through in practice. It might now be quite easy for me to reject and cast aside all of those who live and act differently. After all, their very values, which depend upon circumstances and not upon the content, make it impossible for them to know or practice true friendship.

And if I were to do such a thing, I would be absolutely no better. Only an honest, loving, and virtuous man can be a friend. But I must still show justice, charity and understanding even to the man that cannot be a friend. If I were to do otherwise, I am hardly practicing virtue myself.

One of the most difficult things in life, I have found, is to show love to those who will not love us in return. This is one of the greatest tests of character, because as soon as I meet hate with hate, I have become the very opposite of what I intend to be. I will have become the very thing that I condemn.

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.”

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Love and friendship are never in the receiving, but in the giving. This conforms with the Stoic ideal that a man is measured by what he does, and never by what is done to him.

Seneca on true and false friendship 1

You have sent a letter to me through the hand of a "friend" of yours, as you call him.  And in your very next sentence you warn me not to discuss with him all the matters that concern you, saying that even you yourself are not accustomed to do this; in other words, you have in the same letter affirmed and denied that he is your friend.

Now if you used this word of ours in the popular sense, and called him "friend" in the same way in which we speak of all candidates for election as "honorable gentlemen," and as we greet all men whom we meet casually, if their names slip us for the moment, with the salutation "my dear sir," —so be it. 

But if you consider any man a friend whom you do not trust as you trust yourself, you are mightily mistaken and you do not sufficiently understand what true friendship means. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 3, tr Gummere

Words have genuine meaning, and the clarity of our expression is in a direct relationship to the clarity of our thinking. I will often claim that the word “love” is the most abused of all, for we use it too broadly, too vaguely, and often intend it in very different a manner than others understand it. “I love ice cream” and “I love you” are hardly the same, and these aren’t just obscure questions of semantics. We do others and ourselves an injustice when we confuse meaning, and the confusion between the passion of affection and the promise of commitment can be the most destructive of all.

The word “friend” comes a very close second. We might use it to mean anything from a casual acquaintance to a soul mate. A few years back, the term “BFF”, standing for “best friends forever”, became popular among youngsters, and I was startled to see how many best friends people referred to having, and how often these lists changed as social tides changed.

Seneca’s reminder is a case in point. We may use the term “friend” rather casually, but if we are to truly mean what we say, speaking of a friend who I can’t really trust is a contradiction in terms. Perhaps I trust him at some times, and not at others, but note how this makes the nature of the relationship conditional, and therefore cannot involve the fullness of commitment that real trust entails.

It may be because I can be rather shy and awkward, or because I can be very unfashionable, or just because I can be very stubborn, but I have never made many friends. I know that I have spoken of many dozens of people as friends at various times, though in the end the true friends, the ones in the most specific sense of people I can trust and rely upon without question, have numbered fewer than can be counted on a hand.

Now this is not necessarily a bad thing, because I find that we tend to spread ourselves too thin, and we often confuse quantity with quality. The rise of social media introduced a whole new level of comparing and bragging about our social worth. In the end, however, I would always prefer one friend to rely upon than the dozens who will make excuses when the bad times arrive. No good will ever come from confusing these two.

Seneca on true and false friendship 2

. . . Indeed, I would have you discuss everything with a friend; but first of all discuss the man himself.  When friendship is settled, you must trust; before friendship is formed, you must pass judgment. 

Those persons indeed put last first and confound their duties, who, violating the rules of Theophrastus, judge a man after they have made him their friend, instead of making him their friend after they have judged him. 

Ponder for a long time whether you shall admit a given person to your friendship; but when you have decided to admit him, welcome him with all your heart and soul. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 3, tr Gummere

I have caused myself much unnecessary grief because I have sometimes flipped the crucial order of this rule. Instead of choosing a friend carefully, and then committing myself fully, I have committed myself far too hastily and carelessly. I then foolishly sat in the ruins, confused about what had gone wrong.

The problem always lay in my own ability to decide upon a measure for friendship. At first, it was nothing but the appearance of beauty. I was that shallow. Then it was charm or intelligence. Then it was the illusion of being learned or educated.

I finally, after too many years, realized that there was really just one thing that mattered as the measure for friendship. You and I can have the most diverse of interests, tastes, preferences, or backgrounds. These things are all about externals. We can, and will, only be friends when we share a common sense of what is right and wrong, of the internals, guided by a moral compass.

To judge others does not mean to condemn them; it means simply to understand them for who they are. I must reflect upon how and why this person acts as he does, and I must make my trust and friendship flow in harmony with those values he employs to live.

Others will be as they are. Blame will never change that. The Stoic grasps that blame has no place in a sound moral universe, and the only solution is to take upon myself a full moral responsibility for myself. I should worry about what I do, and never what is done to me.

I could write whole volumes blaming others for being poor friends, but it would neither help me, nor would it help them. To do so would be the very antithesis of friendship.

To avoid grief, guilt, or resentment is to do nothing more than to be accountable for oneself. If and when I choose to love someone, and to be a friend, there will quite simply be no conditions, no requirements, and no contracts. Love and friendship do not admit of such limitations.

Seneca on true and false friendship 3

. . . Speak as boldly with him as with yourself. As to yourself, although you should live in such a way that you trust your own self with nothing which you could not entrust even to your enemy, yet, since certain matters occur which convention keeps secret, you should share with a friend at least all your worries and reflections.

 Regard him as loyal, and you will make him loyal. Some, for example, fearing to be deceived, have taught men to deceive; by their suspicions they have given their friend the right to do wrong. Why need I keep back any words in the presence of my friend?  Why should I not regard myself as alone when in his company? . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 3, tr Gummere

The joy of friendship should rightly rest in the unity that comes from trust and commitment. It is for this reason that the Ancients often spoke of the friend as a “second self”, the person with whom we can share what is closest to us, both the good and the bad.

It is perhaps because we so desire the comfort of such a bond that we become discouraged when we see it neglected and abused. We wish to practice honesty and concern, but we find that others act only with deception and selfishness.

We have already seen Seneca’s advice that we choose our friends wisely and carefully, seeking first and foremost the same sense of wisdom and virtue to which we aspire. We will all stumble and fall in our attempts at living well, but the friend will help us to do good and to avoid evil; he will not meet a wrong with another wrong.

This is a variation of the “Golden Rule”. If I wish a friend to be loyal, just, considerate, or merciful, I myself must treat him with loyalty, justice, consideration, or mercy. It seems so odd that we would say that the friend is a second self, and then harm him, as if we were somehow trying to harm ourselves.

We can perhaps understand why we would act in such a contradictory way. I may have been hurt by the rejection or neglect of another, and so I now defend myself by becoming untrusting and inconsiderate. It may seem safer to withdraw from commitment when others have failed to commit.

But then we merely compound the problem. We feel anger or sadness when we experience vice in others, and by allowing ourselves to be ruled by those feelings, we ourselves embrace vice, and thereby merely encourage it in others. The vicious cycle continues.

The Stoic need never fear the grief or resentment of loss, because he knows that his happiness rests in how well he lives, in what he gives, and not simply in what he receives. He breaks the cycle of broken friendship simply by practicing being a friend himself.

Seneca on true and false friendship 4

. . . There is a class of men who communicate, to anyone whom they meet, matters which should be revealed to friends alone, and unload upon the chance listener whatever irks them. 

Others, again, fear to confide in their closest intimates; and if it were possible, they would not trust even themselves, burying their secrets deep in their hearts. But we should do neither. It is equally faulty to trust everyone and to trust no one. 

Yet the former fault is, I should say, the more ingenuous, the latter the more safe. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 3, tr Gummere

Swinging between trusting too much and not trusting at all will quite often speed past the middle ground, where we learn who we should trust and why we should trust them. I may have attempted friendship, and I may have practiced it poorly, or allowed myself to be seduced by the externals. Perhaps the solution is now never to have any friends at all? Trust was broken, so shouldn’t trust be thrown away?

Our mistake is to assume that we should discard the things that don’t work, and replace them with entirely different things. We overlook the true solution, which is to make the broken things work again. It is entirely possible, and advisable, to find the right balance.

Though I may not understand why, I desire friendship, so I begin sharing my thoughts and feelings with anyone and everyone. I may also think that friends will benefit me by what they will do for me. I am that first sort of man that Seneca describes, confident, ambitious, and outgoing. I will very quickly be disappointed. I have discovered that I loved and trusted all the wrong people, and they, in turn, did absolutely nothing for me.

I may still not understand why, but I will begin to reject the very possibility of love and trust altogether. In a typical fight or flight fashion, I oppose or reject what has seemingly hurt. And I have now become the second sort of man that Seneca describes, who can no longer even trust himself.

And all that time, while going from one extreme to another, I have been neglecting a healthy sense of love and trust.

Instead of being everyone’s friend, or no one’s at all, I can recognize that the person worthy of friendship is someone who shares my own commitment to living with excellence. Only with that common goal can our thoughts and actions be ordered in harmony toward the same end.

Instead of expecting the benefit of friendship to be what I may receive, I can recognize that its true merit lies in our capacity to give, and through shared giving there is a double benefit. Only when I expect nothing from externals, seeing my own dignity and that of others in our internal character, will friendship become a blessing.

Seneca on true and false friendship 5

. . . In like manner you should rebuke these two kinds of men—both those who always lack repose, and those who are always in repose. For love of bustle is not industry—it is only the restlessness of a hunted mind. 

And true repose does not consist in condemning all motion as merely vexation; that kind of repose is slackness and inertia.  Therefore, you should note the following saying, taken from my reading in Pomponius: "Some men shrink into dark corners, to such a degree that they see darkly by day."

 No, men should combine these tendencies, and he who reposes should act and be who acts should take repose.  Discuss the problem with Nature; she will tell you that she has created both day and night.  Farewell.

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 3, tr Gummere

Similarly, we have the sort of people who feel the need to be in constant action, always busy doing and achieving, as well as the sort of people who don’t ever do much of anything at all. Much as we are tempted to do with trust, so we are also tempted to do with action, pursuing far too much or far too little.

I note that neither sort of person is capable of being a true friend, because we have lost a sense of the balance between ourselves and others.

My own temptation has usually tended toward the latter, though I wonder if that is because I am reacting to my experiences of the former.

I have a vivid memory from childhood. I was attending a new school, and I felt the urge to find friendship and companionship. A fellow who seemed very bright and charming didn’t seem to mind me tagging along after him, so that’s exactly what I did. He shared many of his own thoughts with me, and seemed to encourage me to express my own.

Something frightening happened one day, and I can never claim to have really understood why. Perhaps he was making himself feel better by putting me in my place. He was telling one of his jokes, and I laughed with him. Suddenly, his expression became very serious, and he insulted the way I laughed. He then went on to give a long litany of all the many ways I was, as he called it, a loser.

Needless to say, that hurt me very deeply. I crawled into myself, interested neither in doing anything nor in trusting anyone. In different way and at different times, similar things have happened, and I have always had the same instinct to hide away. I felt, over and over again, that I had, as they say, put myself out there, only then to be cut down.

It took thought, and not just feeling, to begin to recognize what I was doing to myself over the years. It seemed that I wanted to love and to live well, but the world also appeared to be telling me that I couldn’t do that.

It is deeply terrifying and disturbing, for example, when someone has said that you will be a best friend for all of time, and now will not acknowledge you or give you the time of day. Then you recognize there was no love there at all.

Nature was rather asking me to learn to distinguish about what it meant to love, and what it meant to live well. She had been telling me all along that what mattered was who I loved, and why I acted. I can only be a friend when I have figured that out.

Seneca on philosophy and friendship 1

You desire to know whether Epicurus is right when, in one of his letters, he rebukes those who hold that the wise man is self-sufficient and for that reason does not stand in need of friendships. This is the objection raised by Epicurus against Stilpo and those who believed that the Supreme Good is a soul which is insensible to feeling.

We are bound to meet with a double meaning if we try to express the Greek term "lack of feeling" summarily, in a single word, rendering it by the Latin word “impanentia”. For it may be understood in the meaning the opposite to that which we wish it to have. 

What we mean to express is, a soul which rejects any sensation of evil; but people will interpret the idea as that of a soul which can endure no evil.  Consider, therefore, whether it is not better to say "a soul that cannot be harmed”, or "a soul entirety beyond the realm of suffering”. There is this difference between ourselves and the other school: our ideal wise man feels his troubles, but overcomes them; their wise man does not even feel them. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 9, tr Gummere

The concept of self-sufficiency in Stoicism can be a difficult one to embrace, because at face value it might seem to say that a man needs nothing beyond himself to live well. He would therefore seem not to need family, friends, or any love for another person.

This is tempting for those of us who are bitten by the Black Dog, or who have been hurt one time too many. But it confuses self-sufficiency with isolation. They are hardly the same thing.

Though we need not dwell upon the details here, Epicurus was the founder of a rival school to Stoicism. In the simplest sense, while the Stoics said that the highest measure of a man was the pursuit of virtue, Epicurus argued that the highest measure of a man was the pursuit of pleasure. Now Epicurus was hardly a hedonist, because he understood that we could never live in perfect pleasure. He therefore suggested that the proper balance was seeking moderate pleasure, and minimum pain.

Epicurus was also critical of Stilpo, a philosopher of the Megarian school. We sadly have none of Stilpo’s writings, but he seemed to encourage being “insensitive” to the world in order to practice true virtue. This seemed ridiculous to Epicurus, and perhaps rightly so. Lucilius is confused about the difference between the Stoics, the Epicureans, and the Megarians, and perhaps rightly so.

Here is one reason why I have always admired Seneca. His ability to distinguish and clarify cuts like a knife. I think only St. Thomas Aquinas can outdo him in this regard.

What do we truly mean by being “insensitive” or “lacking feeling”? Different words, and in different languages, can sometimes tie us in knots. I once recall a heated debate that revolved around the difference between the terms “know” and “believe” in English and in German. The words weren’t the problem, but our own ability and willingness to find a common meaning was indeed a problem.

Seneca explains that Stilpo and the Stoics are really using the term “insensitive” very differently. Stilpo means that that we should not be moved or affected by feelings at all, while the Stoic means that we should not allow our feelings to rule us. In other words, the Megarian removes passion from the equation, while the Stoic puts it in its rightful place. Stilpo’s view is actually what most people assume defines Stoicism, though, as Seneca clarifies, that is hardly the case. People will misunderstand the meaning of terms.

These are really two different solutions to the problem of pain and suffering. Either you excise feeling and thereby excise pain, or you manage and order your feelings, and then you transform pain.

They are also two very different approaches to the question of friendship. I am self-sufficient, therefore I do not need friends, or I am self-sufficient, therefore I must learn to love my friends rightly.

Epicurus might be right to criticize Stilpo for denying his feelings, though this same criticism would hardly apply to Stoicism. Nevertheless, both the Megarian and the Stoic would have to disagree with the Epicurean claim that feeling is the primary thing that defines us. I feel a triangular chart of the relationship between the three views coming on, but you can picture that in your own imagination!

Seneca on philosophy and friendship 2

. . . But we and they alike hold this idea, that the wise man is self-sufficient. Nevertheless, he desires friends, neighbors, and associates, no matter how much he is sufficient unto himself. 

And mark how self-sufficient he is; for on occasion he can be content with a part of himself. If he lose a hand through disease or war, or if some accident puts out one or both of his eyes, he will be satisfied with what is left, taking as much pleasure in his impaired and maimed body as he took when it was sound. 

But while he does not pine for these parts if they are missing, he prefers not to lose them. In this sense the wise man is self-sufficient, that he can do without friends, not that he desires to do without them. When I say "can", I mean this: he endures the loss of a friend with equanimity. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 9, tr Gummere

In seeking to understand the Stoic model of self-sufficiency, I have found it helpful to think of myself from the outside in, and from the inside out. I remind myself that being able to flip this perception is a part of what I have often called the Stoic Turn. To be self-sufficient is not to exist in separation from the world, but rather to properly understand my relationship to other persons and things.

We are primarily used to thinking of ourselves from the outside in. Things affect us, we respond by changing ourselves to fit these new externals, and we then easily allow those things to measure our value and merit. This is an essentially passive view of the self, because I permit my wealth, position, or reputation to determine me.

In contrast, we can think of ourselves from the inside out. We can look first and foremost to the value and merit of how we think and live, and not allow ourselves to be ruled by our conditions. This is an essentially active view of the self, because I do not see my fortune as something that controls me, but as something I can always use to improve my own action.

The first sort of life can never be truly self-sufficient, while the second most certainly can be self-sufficient. I can remain fully engaged with my world, I can love my neighbor and seek the good for him, and I can always choose to act for what is right. But I should never allow the circumstances of that world to be my master.

This connects nicely with the Stoic ideal of indifference. Life is going to throw many things at us, some pleasant and some painful, some easy and some hard, and, all other things being equal, it is only natural to prefer convenient things to inconvenient things.

Yet as soon as I desire and choose my fortune over my own virtue, I’ve sadly flipped the priorities. By all means, I can desire pleasure, money, fame, health, and many friends, but if seeking them destroys my moral character, I am no longer self-sufficient, because I am no longer indifferent to those externals. In the simplest of terms, we should always seek in our lives what will help us in living well, and avoid what will encourage us in living poorly.

So it is with friends. I would very much like to live in the company of others I can love and trust, and for all of our differences in personality, we are all sociable creatures. But if I must lose friends, and therefore perhaps even be completely alone, in order to be a good man, then I can learn to bear that with acceptance and dignity. I simply can’t sell higher things for lower things, like selling my own soul in order to be liked or respected.

Seneca on philosophy and friendship 3

. . . But he need never lack friends, for it lies in his own control how soon he shall make good a loss. Just as Phidias, if he lose a statue, can straightway carve another, even so our master in the art of making friendships can fill the place of a friend he has lost. 

If you ask how one can make oneself a friend quickly, I will tell you, provided we are agreed that I may pay my debt at once and square the account, so far as this letter is concerned. Hecato says: "I can show you a potion, compounded without drugs, herbs, or any witch's incantation: 'If you would be loved, love.'"

Now there is great pleasure, not only in maintaining old and established friendships, but also in beginning and acquiring new ones. There is the same difference between winning a new friend and having already won him, as there is between the farmer who sows and the farmer who reaps. 

The philosopher Attalus used to say: “It is more pleasant to make than to keep a friend, as it is more pleasant to the artist to paint than to have finished painting.”

When one is busy and absorbed in one's work, the very absorption affords great delight; but when one has withdrawn one's hand from the completed masterpiece, the pleasure is not so keen. Henceforth it is the fruits of his art that he enjoys; it was the art itself that he enjoyed while he was painting. In the case of our children, their young manhood yields the more abundant fruits, but their infancy was sweeter. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 9, tr Gummere

We are perhaps tempted to think of ‘having’ friends like having a well-stocked pantry of goods available for our use and convenience. I have noted for many years how the Christmas tradition of sending and receiving as many cards as possible can too easily fall into this trap. Seneca rather explains that the joy of friendship is less in the possession, and more in the formation itself.

We will most certainly lose people we care for in our lives, sometimes through mere circumstance, and sometimes through our own sins. Such a loss can be a great burden, and should not be dismissed lightly. If, however, we once again turn our thinking from what is done to us to what we do, friendship can be seen in a different light. For the self-sufficient man the value of his life is not just in what he receives, but in what he gives, and with Hecato, we can understand that friendship is perfected by our own willingness to love.

Do I wish to be loved? Of course, and what better way to inspire love from another than by giving it first? But whether or not I am loved is hardly the point, because that is not within my power. Whether I offer love is most certainly within my power. Many times in life the greatest joy is not in beholding the finished product, but in the making.

Only a very few of my close family and loved ones have been long-term friends, and the support that has often given me is immeasurable. But I will still bemoan the loss of other friends, and the only remedy for that sadness is to make certain of one thing, and of one thing only: Did I give with all of myself for another, and if I did not, what can I do to make it right, asking for nothing further in return?

In my later years I have made it a point to seek out new friends, not for the purpose of adding them to my list, but simply in order to learn to better practice kindness, respect, and trust. I try not to worry if they will stay or go, but I do concern myself with whether I have acted in a way that is in turn worthy of kindness, respect, and trust. The pain of loss is not tempered by rejection or resentment, but by continuing to act as a true friend would, regardless of the conditions.

Seneca on philosophy and friendship 4

. . . Let us now return to the question. The wise man, I say, self-sufficient though he be, nevertheless desires friends if only for the purpose of practicing friendship, in order that his noble qualities may not lie dormant.

Not, however, for the purpose mentioned by Epicurus in the letter quoted above: "That there may be someone to sit by him when he is ill, to help him when he is in prison or in want”, but that he may have someone by whose sick-bed he himself may sit, someone a prisoner in hostile hands whom he himself may set free. 

He who regards himself only, and enters upon friendships for this reason, reckons wrongly. The end will be like the beginning: he has made friends with one who might assist him out of bondage; at the first rattle of the chain such a friend will desert him. These are the so-called "fair-weather" friendships; one who is chosen for the sake of utility will be satisfactory only so long as he is useful.

Hence prosperous men are blockaded by troops of friends; but those who have failed stand amid vast loneliness, their friends fleeing from the very crisis which is to test their worth. Hence, also, we notice those many shameful cases of persons who, through fear, desert or betray.

The beginning and the end cannot but harmonize. He who begins to be your friend because it pays will also cease because it pays. A man will be attracted by some reward offered in exchange for his friendship, if he is attracted by anything in friendship other than friendship itself. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 9, tr Gummere

It is only within this context of self-sufficiency and indifference to externals that we can understand the Stoic nature of friendship. I should seek friends so that I may do good for them, and not so that they will do good for me. I often think of it as the importance of being a friend over having a friend.

The differing views on friendship of the Epicurean and the Stoic become apparent from their respective first principles. If I measure my life by pleasure, then I will choose friends by how they make me feel. If I measure my life by virtue, I will choose friends by what I can do for them. It is simply the difference between desiring a friend when I am in need, and desiring to be a friend when another is in need.

I notice how many people who may never even have heard of these terms are nevertheless Epicurean or Stoic in their daily lives. We all know the folks who will walk away when things are no longer as they desire them, and we all know the folks who will bear the hardship because they love you. Some ask you to suffer for them, while others offer to share your suffering.

It may seem that the pleasure-seekers of this life are those people with the most friends, and it doesn’t make it any easier when they show this off. They do indeed have many acquaintances while fortune smiles on them, much like musicians have their groupies, but whenever the winds change, the crowds will move on. Compare the opening party to the end of the tour in This is Spinal Tap. What appeared to be many friends were neither many, nor were they friends.

There are few things more satisfying than a meeting of genuine fellowship between those who care for one another. I do not confuse this, however, with the social practice of trying to impress others in order to gain their admiration. One is a self-giving joy, the other a self-serving burden.

A sign of our weakness is the prevalence of rejection and betrayal among those who once pledged friendship. This is an outer sign of an inner disorder, for the “fair-weather” friend has now simply found someone or something else more profitable. He will have no qualms about dropping you, because it was always about using you to begin with.

There is a better way, one where I can still look at myself in the mirror every morning. It is love for the sake of love. In my own Roman Catholic tradition, I was raised with the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy, all the ways I can try to relieve the suffering, whether in body or in soul, of others. I believe that Seneca would also have approved:

The corporal works of mercy

—To feed the hungry.

—To give water to the thirsty.

—To clothe the naked.

—To shelter the homeless.

—To visit the sick.

—To visit the imprisoned or ransom the captive.

—To bury the dead

The spiritual works of mercy

—To instruct the ignorant.

—To counsel the doubtful.

—To admonish the sinners.

—To bear patiently those who wrong us.

—To forgive the offense.

—To comfort the afflicted.

—To pray for the living and the dead.

Seneca on philosophy and friendship 5

. . . For what purpose, then, do I make a man my friend? In order to have someone for whom I may die, whom I may follow into exile, against whose death I may stake my own life, and pay the pledge, too.

The friendship which you portray is a bargain and not a friendship; it regards convenience only, and looks to the results. Beyond question the feeling of a lover has in it something akin to friendship; one might call it friendship run mad. But, though this is true, does anyone love for the sake of gain, or promotion, or renown? Pure love, careless of all other things, kindles the soul with desire for the beautiful object, not without the hope of a return of the affection. What then? Can a cause which is more honorable produce a passion that is base?

You may retort: "We are now discussing the question whether friendship is to be cultivated for its own sake.” On the contrary, nothing more urgently requires demonstration; for if friendship is to be sought for its own sake, he may seek it who is self-sufficient.

"How, then,” you ask, "does he seek it?" Precisely as he seeks an object of great beauty, not attracted to it by desire for gain, nor yet frightened by the instability of Fortune. One who seeks friendship for favorable occasions, strips it of all its nobility. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 9, tr Gummere

The Stoic stands in solidarity with the Works of Mercy, and with the shared values of all people of good will, when he proclaims that the friend is always one who will gladly give of himself, even his own life, for the sake of others. He cannot help but help himself by helping others, because he recognizes that his own dignity and worth rest in his practice of virtue.

I only began to see the difference between true and false friendship gradually, because I was often confused about its proper goal. I might simply make use of another, and wonder why I still felt empty, or I would be used by another, and wonder why I felt so lost. I learned that this was because I still had my wires crossed.

I have long found Seneca’s distinction between friendship and a bargain very helpful. What many of us call ‘friendship’ is usually a contract, conditional upon certain mutual benefits. As with any contract, if one or both parties default on their obligations, the agreement is now broken. It may now be renegotiated or abandoned. The measure of value to be traded in such a bargain may be pleasure, wealth, position, or emotional comfort, and once the gain of one or both ‘friends’ disappears, the relationship disappears.

I have known many people who appeared to reach out the hand of friendship, but I have then seen that hand withdrawn when the situation has changed. I have hurt myself by assuming an integrity and commitment that simply wasn’t there. Though I have always been very sensitive to fair-weather friendship, I have found myself also pursuing the model on occasion, and those instances have long been of great shame to me. I have often tried to right the wrong, though not always successfully.

My own living only began to become better when my mind cleared of all the clauses and conditions of the friendship contract. Friendship isn’t a bargain, but a commitment, and that commitment can really be expressed in three words: I love you. Nothing need be signed initialized, or notarized, because our actions themselves must be the fulfillment of the promise. Indeed, the words need not even be said at all, since what we do matters far more than what we say. I have sometimes found that powerfully expressed signs of affection can reveal very empty hearts, like a fancy exterior on a crumbling house.

Fair-weather friendships can be long or short, or more or less involved, but what they all share in common is that it isn’t the friend that is desired for his own sake, but an entirely different benefit that accompanies the friend. Remove the benefit and remove the friend. That isn’t love or friendship at all.

Seneca on philosophy and friendship 6

. . . "The wise man is self-sufficient." This phrase, my dear Lucilius, is incorrectly explained by many; for they withdraw the wise man from the world, and force him to dwell within his own skin.

But we must mark with care what this sentence signifies and how far it applies; the wise man is sufficient unto himself for a happy existence, but not for mere existence. For he needs many helps towards mere existence; but for a happy existence he needs only a sound and upright soul, one that despises Fortune. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 9, tr Gummere

Once again, self-sufficiency is not a separation from things, but rather the manner in which we relate to things. Instead of removing ourselves from the world, we are called to recognize that we are, through our own judgments and decisions, the masters of our own actions. How I think and how I choose depends upon nothing other than myself, and it is in this sense man, as a rational animal, is self-sufficient.

The captain of a ship would hardly be a good captain if he locked himself in his cabin, or the commander of an army would hardly be a good commander if he lazed about at headquarters. He must always be engaged in his mission and the welfare of his men, and he takes full responsibility for those around him. Yet for all of his involvement, he remains self-sufficient, because his own decision is final. He will survey the circumstances, he will seek advice, but his judgment remains his alone. “The buck stops here.”

We will judge about many things outside of us, but those judgments will be exclusively our own, and our actions flow only from our own thinking and willing. This should hardly be seen as a burden, but the greatest of all human freedoms. You can take anything else from me, but you can’t take that.

None of this means that man is entirely complete unto himself, needing absolutely nothing. I have always been inspired by Seneca’s distinction about the things we need. We need many things external to ourselves simply in order to survive, but survival isn’t the highest measure of a man. He may live a long or short life, in pleasure or in pain, in wealth or in poverty, but what determines his merit is whether he lives well. To live well requires only wisdom and virtue, a good soul, depending upon nothing else.

I have heard protests against such radical claims. “But I need a good job, money, security, and position to make it in life. It would seem silly to talk about virtue, but be living in the gutter! I need to provide myself with worldly success, and then I can have the luxury of being virtuous.”

Being virtuous isn’t a luxury, however. It is the defining and highest function of the human person. While I may prefer certain benefits of fortune, I can choose to live happily, as a good man, in any and every circumstance. I may be in prison, or I may be a giant of industry, I may be healthy or sick, but that really makes little difference. Each and every situation I am faced with offers equal opportunity to live with justice and conviction.

To “despise Fortune” is precisely to be indifferent to all of the externals, and again, think of this not as a weakness, but as a great strength. How beautiful and wonderful that you can tempt a man with luxury, or try to starve him into submission. But whether he says “yes” or “no” is always entirely up to him.

Seneca on philosophy and friendship 7

. . . I should like also to state to you one of the distinctions of Chrysippus, who declares that the wise man is in want of nothing, and yet needs many things. "On the other hand," he says, "nothing is needed by the fool, for he does not understand how to use anything, but he is in want of everything."

The wise man needs hands, eyes, and many things that are necessary for his daily use; but he is in want of nothing. For want implies a necessity, and nothing is necessary to the wise man.

Therefore, although he is self-sufficient, yet he has need of friends. He craves as many friends as possible, not, however, that he may live happily; for he will live happily even without friends. The Supreme Good calls for no practical aids from outside; it is developed at home, and arises entirely within itself. If the good seeks any portion of itself from without, it begins to be subject to the play of Fortune. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 9, tr Gummere

What do I need from outside of myself to live well? I need nothing but opportunities, and every experience offered by fortune is an opportunity.

What do I want from outside of myself to live well? I have learned that I should want nothing at all. I need only to be grateful for anything offered.

Chrysippus, the third leader of the Stoic school, said it rightly. It’s all about the distinction between wanting and needing.

The grasping man wants many things, because he depends upon fortune to feed his desires. He needs nothing at all, because the gifts of his nature are lost to him.

The good man wants nothing, because he knows his life does not revolve around fortune. He needs many things, because everything in his life is an occasion to live according to his nature.

The need for friends is not a necessity that comes from depending on what others may do for my happiness, but simply depends upon the opportunity I am given to love them.

It is only when we falsely reverse the order of life, by confusing the internal and the external, that we think of our need for friends in the wrong way. Some might say that they need friends because they need help, or because they are lonely. Though hardly desirable, the self-sufficient man can live well without help, and he can live well even if he is alone. The need for others is only in what comes from within him.

This can be a hard path to follow, and it must be understood rightly, especially since we are so accustomed to defining ourselves socially. It is hardly that the Stoic is not a social animal, but rather that he is a social animal for a different set of reasons.

I have learned to distinguish the difference between what I call being alone and being lonely. I have spent much of my life alone, sometimes by choice, because I appreciate the peace of solitude, and sometimes by circumstance, because I am hardly a social magnet. This is not necessarily a bad thing, and it has become a means to help me practice self-sufficiency.

But I have also had times where I have terrible lonely, and this isn’t quite the same thing. I can be alone and still be happy, but the sadness of being lonely comes only from my own estimation, because I am feeling the desire to be recognized or appreciated. Knowing that the solution to this feeling is in my own thinking has been a great help.

There is an important distinction, therefore, between needing friends to love, and wanting friends to be loved. To recognize it is to have taken an important step in the Stoic Turn, where we reorder our lives from what comes to us to what we do.

Seneca on philosophy and friendship 8

. . . People may say: "But what sort of existence will the wise man have, if he be left friendless when thrown into prison, or when stranded in some foreign nation, or when delayed on a long voyage, or when out upon a lonely shore?”

His life will be like that of Jupiter, who, amid the dissolution of the world, when the gods are confounded together and Nature rests for a space from her work, can retire into himself and give himself over to his own thoughts.

In some such way as this the sage will act; he will retreat into himself, and live with himself. As long as he is allowed to order his affairs according to his judgment, he is self-sufficient—and marries a wife; he is self-sufficient—and brings up children; he is self-sufficient—and yet could not live if he had to live without the society of man. Natural promptings, and not his own selfish needs, draw him into Friendships. For just as other things have for us an inherent attractiveness, so has friendship. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 9, tr Gummere

It is difficult for us to imagine contentment in solitude, ingrained as we are with the habit of seeing and being seen, of the hustle and bustle, of craving popularity and recognition. This difficulty, however, is not at all about being sociable, but rather in allowing the value of our lives to rest not on us, but on everything around us.

I once knew a woman, a very talented artist and writer, who had a wonderful vision for an illustrated children’s book. She was, like so many other artists, frustrated with being unable to find a publisher to pay for and promote the work. I suggested she simply paint and write the work in any event, because the true beauty of art was in the making, not in the praise or the profit. Let fortune take care of itself.

She seemed puzzled. “Well what use will it be writing the thing if no one recognizes it?” I hope she one day was able to finish her project, either with or without worldly success, but I often remember that moment as indicative of the very different ways we relate to how we live to how the world perceives us.

Being alone, unrecognized, or unwanted can be such a heavy burden, but I have found, with hard work and the inspiration of those far wiser than myself, that there is a real solution. I need not scrape and bow, battle or defeat, to get what I want, because I really already have everything I want within myself.

To appeal to such an inner strength may seem silly, but only if we are trying to conquer the world. I really only have to conquer myself, and all the rest will take its rightful place. I know this, because it will be my own estimation that determines how I make use of whatever fortune brings my way.

There is indeed, as Seneca says, something Divine within each and every one of us. It was reading Plato, Aristotle, Boethius, and Aquinas over the years that helped me to understand that things are more perfect the more self-sufficient they are, and the less they depend for their being upon other things. God, accordingly, would be the most perfect being, because he requires only Himself to be complete.

Now a man is hardly God. We come into being, we make mistakes, we are frail, and we will die. Despite all these limitations, the little spark of the Divine within us is our power to be masters over our own thinking and choosing. This is why the truly self-sufficient man, as far as is permitted to man by Nature, can live like Jupiter. He can be content with himself, and find joy simply in his own being.

This power to rule over our own judgments can be present in any and every circumstance, from being entirely alone to being among a crowd of friends, from being unmarried to having a wife and children, from being poor to being rich, from being sick to being healthy.

Yet at no point does this ever mean that we are no longer in the world. Self-sufficiency means simply that we can do good under any conditions, and it most certainly does not exclude our need for acting in friendship.

The self-sufficient man is the best of friends to others because he does not merely wish to receive, but to give freely of himself, and does not become a friend because he depends upon what others give him, but because of his own Divine strength.

Seneca on philosophy and friendship 9

. . . As we hate solitude and crave society, as nature draws men to each other, so in this matter also there is an attraction which makes us desirous of friendship.

Nevertheless, though the sage may love his friends dearly, often comparing them with himself, and putting them ahead of himself, yet all the good will be limited to his own being, and he will speak the words which were spoken by the very Stilpo whom Epicurus criticizes in his letter.

For Stilpo, after his country was captured and his children and his wife lost, as he emerged from the general desolation alone and yet happy, spoke as follows to Demetrius, called Sacker of Cities because of the destruction he brought upon them, in answer to the question whether he had lost anything: "I have all my goods with me!"

There is a brave and stouthearted man for you! The enemy conquered, but Stilpo conquered his conqueror. "I have lost nothing!”

Yes, he forced Demetrius to wonder whether he himself had conquered after all. "My goods are all with me! " In other words, he deemed nothing that might be taken from him to be a good. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 9, tr Gummere

Seneca’s letter began with a question from Lucilius about Stilpo and Epicurus. Though Seneca explained how the views of the Megarians, Epicureans, and Stoics differ, he now seeks out a common bond with Stilpo, and he will soon even find a common bond with Epicurus.

I have always thought it a sign of a noble soul to not only point out a disagreement, but also to stress where there is an agreement. This helps bind us in solidarity, not fracture us in division.

Seneca is deeply impressed by the conviction and fortitude of Stilpo after Demetrius destroyed his possessions, his home, his country, and his family. Most of us, I imagine, would be consumed by sadness, hopelessness, or rage. It even sounds like the beginning of a classic revenge epic. But Stilpo insists he has lost nothing, because he still has himself, and what is implicit here is a value he shared with the Stoics: the only complete goods are those within me, and what is within my own power.

We are often so certain that we can rule the world around us. Dedication, patience, and hard work, we are told, will bring success. There may perhaps, it is added, also be just a bit of luck involved. Many of us build our whole lives around this ideal.

It only takes the experience of powerlessness in the face of Fortune to see that there is far more than a bit of “luck” involved; most everything we depend upon has absolutely nothing to do with us, and most everything to do with things outside of our control.

This does not make man powerless, or a victim of fate. It simply means we must commit to those things that are most fully our own, and find our fullest joy there. Nothing else really has anything to do with us. This isn’t a message of despair, but of real hope.

I am always saddened to see the news reports from the scene following a natural disaster, and it is exactly such events, however large or small in scale, that can weaken my resolve. “I’ve lost everything!” People’s businesses, homes, all their possessions, their years and years of effort, are suddenly gone. Only a heartless man could not feel sympathy and understanding, but I do not think it is to belittle the pain to point to its cure. It is to honestly redefine possession and loss. It is the example of Stilpo.

I see such things on a personal level, almost daily. Back at one of those times when I was struggling heartily myself with the ways of the world, more so than usual, I crossed paths with a fellow I had known early on in graduate school. He had dropped out because there were simply no opportunities in academia to support his family, so he moved into the world of business.

As can so often happen, and as happens far more than many of us may think, the circumstances of the world, ones that had nothing to do with his own efforts, lost him his job. The market had changed and he could find nothing new. His wife, who had seemed so committed a few years earlier, had now left him, and was threatening to use the Courts to take their children for herself.

He was close to tears when he told me that her last words to him were, “You’re no good.”

Now I know full well that preaching any kind of philosophy or religion isn’t going to be of any help at a time like this. It may only make things worse. Only the support of friendship is required. All I could think of awkwardly saying was, “You are good.”

He rebuilt himself from the ground up, not because of anyone’s befuddled advice, but by reworking his own values. A few years later, we laughed heartily together about how our conversation uncannily resembled that therapy scene with Matt Damon and Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting: “It’s not your fault.” Yet quite seriously, he was good, and it wasn’t his fault.

I have hardly always managed it myself, but I’ve come to see, slowly but surely, that only the man who rules himself can be a friend to another, just as only a man who can laugh at himself can have a sense of humor. That is because only someone who owns himself can give you himself, something absolutely reliable. Anything else can, and will, fail us.

Seneca on philosophy and friendship 10

. . . We marvel at certain animals because they can pass through fire and suffer no bodily harm; but how much more marvelous is a man who has marched forth unhurt and unscathed through fire and sword and devastation!

Do you understand now how much easier it is to conquer a whole tribe than to conquer one man? This saying of Stilpo makes common ground with Stoicism; the Stoic also can carry his goods unimpaired through cities that have been burned to ashes; for he is self-sufficient. Such are the bounds which he sets to his own happiness. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 9, tr Gummere

I have often known that feeling of pain that seems unbearable, both in body and in mind, but mainly through the emotional suffering that comes with the Black Dog. I would stand in awe at people who seemed to walk right through similar obstacles, and I would wonder whether there was some special secret behind their fortitude.

I began to understand that some people simply had the brute strength to repress and deny, and that, with time, those forces would erupt elsewhere.

Other people numbed their pain in one form or another, though the pain was hardly dormant. Those conflicts would rest for a time, and feed slowly. It grew unseen, and came back far more powerful than ever before.

Other people have chosen to develop no conscience at all. Let them be. They already have their reward.

In other words, distracting myself with the busywork of a shallow career, or drowning myself in a bottle of whiskey, or refusing to care, isn’t going to cut it.

I have learned not to confuse either repression, or numbing, or denial with any sort of resolution. I have attempted all of them, and ended up far worse than I was before. Unfortunately, this still left me without an answer. What was the secret ingredient?

It is hardly a secret, nor is it an ingredient. It is about an attitude, a perspective about the true source of the human good within our nature. It isn’t hidden, or obscure, or reserved for the elect. It’s there for all of us.

Stilpo, like the Stoic with whom he shared a respect for self-sufficiency, saw that the things we thought mattered don’t really matter at all. I can quite easily not worry about something so terribly much if it’s something I know that I don’t require, and then I can pass through the pain with much greater ease.

My judgment will make all the difference, and it will make the difference between a pain that is manageable and a pain that will kill me. Why did I want that wife, or that job, or that reward? I thought those things were worthwhile because I thought that they would make be better and happier. If I only remember that nothing outside of myself will make me better or happier, but that only I can make myself better and happier, I’ve taken the first step.

We’ve all walked past garbage on the street. In the last few years, I find myself picking it up to rightly dispose of it. My inner hippie is showing. But I certainly see nothing valuable about it worthy to possess. I don’t want it, because I don’t need it.

Now imagine walking along, and spotting a hundred dollar bill in the grass, or even a full wallet on the sidewalk, bulging with cash. What will most of us do? We will pocket the money, because it is something we wish to possess.

Finally, imagine a situation where you don’t even care to possess the money. Will you walk past, just like you walked past the trash? You won’t even crave for something you don’t care for.

Does the Stoic, then, just move along, oblivious and without concern? No. He puts things right where they belong, and asks nothing more for himself. That is why he can be a friend. He owns himself, and is a friend because he gives of himself.

I’ve often done this poorly, but I do recall two times I managed to do it right. In college, I found a wallet below my chair in the cafeteria. I lost count at eight one hundred dollar bills. I thought of everything I could do with it. But there was also a student ID, and my conscience began to attack. I ended up taking it to the young lady’s dorm, only to find her angry with me. “When did you steal it?” It was one of those few moments I could walk away content, and realize that I had done what was right, from my own action, regardless of what she may have thought.

Years later, I hadn’t received my paycheck, and my employer just ran the paperwork again. I ended up with two paychecks, because the first had simply been caught up in the mail. Struggling against my greed, I returned the second one. This caused great administrative confusion, since we rarely assume honesty when it comes to money.

If I don’t care for the money, the profit, the position, or the glamor I see around me, I won’t bother to stoop and pick it up for myself. I will give it back to the people who deserve it, for their good or for ill, as only they can decide. I can learn to truly recognize what is mine, and what is actually worth living for.

Seneca on philosophy and friendship 11

. . . But you must not think that our school alone can utter noble words; Epicurus himself, the reviler of Stilpo, spoke similar language; put it down to my credit, though I have already wiped out my debt for the present day. He says: "Whoever does not regard what he has as most ample wealth, is unhappy, though he be master of the whole world."

Or, if the following seems to you a more suitable phrase—for we must try to render the meaning and not the mere words: “A man may rule the world and still be unhappy, if he does not feel that he is supremely happy."

In order, however, that you may know that these sentiments are universal, suggested, of course, by Nature, you will find in one of the comic poets this verse: “Unblessed is he who thinks himself unblessed.” Or, what does your condition matter, if it is bad in your own eyes?. . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 9, tr Gummere

No one person or group can claim to have a private monopoly on the truth. The truth is not merely the assertion of an idea, but the openness and ability to understand reality as it is in itself. Though we are so often tempted to reduce life to philosophical, ideological, or political schools and platforms, dwelling on merely the differences is a denial of our shared nature and world.

Seneca has already found common ground with Stilpo, and now he even finds it with Epicurus. Though the Epicureans held pleasure, and not virtue, to be the highest human good, they too seemed to understand something of the principle of self-sufficiency.

I sometimes summarize this principle to myself in short form: I can only be as happy as I consider myself to be. This hardly means that my happiness is whatever I desire, but rather that how I go about estimating my own nature will determine whether I can be happy with who I am and with what I have.

This returns, of course, to a shared theme of the entire letter, that how we think and what we do is more important than what we receive or what happens to us. So it is with happiness, for it is only my own judgment of what is good about who I am that will determine whether I can be happy with who I am. So it is also with friendship, for it is only my judgment of the nature of friendship that will determine if I am able to be a friend.

Consider how two people could be in virtually identical situations, yet one could be happy, and be a friend, while another could not. The difference rests entirely in the things that are valued. Some people care for their status and possessions, and then wonder why they are miserable when these things are not exactly as they wish them to be. Some people, however, care for their virtue, and can therefore be content whichever way the wind blows.

Likewise, some people care for friends because they are useful to them, and then wonder why they are so lonely, even surrounded by a crowd. Some people, however, care for friends out of what they can give to them, and this is why they need never feel lonely. It is the attitude that will shape what we make of our situation, and will swing us between misery and bliss.

Seneca on philosophy and friendship 12

. . . You may say; "What then?  If that man, rich by base means, and that man, lord of many but slave of more, shall call themselves happy, will their own opinion make them happy?"

It matters not what one says, but what one feels; also, not how one feels on one particular day, but how one feels at all times. 

There is no reason, however, why you should fear that this great privilege will fall into unworthy hands; only the wise man is pleased with his own. Folly is ever troubled with weariness of itself. 

Farewell.

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 9, tr Gummere

We have too readily relativized happiness, thinking it is whatever we wish it to be. So we see the vain, the greedy, the deceitful, or the violent insisting that the things they value and the way they live make them perfectly content. If I say I am happy, then surely I am happy.

Now the Stoic can appeal to a universal understanding of the human person, of the order of Nature, or of the moral purpose of our lives to explain why this is sadly mistaken. But the Stoic, however profound his thinking, is committed first and foremost to living. We need only look at the reality of the way people live, day to day. As they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

As much as I may observe this in others, it is best to judge only myself. Not only may I be prone to deceive both others and myself with false words, I am even more likely to do so when I am in a state of denial. I will protest too much. The worse I feel, the more I may try to tell myself that everything is grand. The words and appearances are irrelevant if they do not reflect the reality.

I may also confuse the feeling of pleasure, which will come and go, with the state of happiness, which is about the way I think and act, and is something constant. As much as I may call something happiness, it is hardly that if it changes with the circumstances.

However much I may mouth the words, or however much I may replace it with an imposter, happiness is never something shallow or fickle. My own experience has always told me that my happiness or my misery are always in direct proportion to my virtue or my vice. My contentment, without exception, is tied to the way I choose to live.

Seneca on the friendship of kindred minds 1

When I urge you so strongly to your studies, it is my own interest which I am consulting; I want your friendship, and it cannot fall to my lot unless you proceed, as you have begun, with the task of developing yourself. 

For now, although you love me, you are not yet my friend. "But," you reply, "are these words of different meaning?" No, more, they are totally unlike in meaning. A friend loves you, of course; but one who loves you is not in every case your friend. Friendship, accordingly, is always helpful, but love sometimes even does harm. Try to perfect yourself, if for no other reason, in order that you may learn how to love well. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 35, tr Gummere

Seneca begins with the claim that a man must “develop” himself in order to be a friend. This may seem terribly snobbish, as if Seneca wishes Lucilius to be well educated so they can both travel in the same social circles. Now we’ve all met people like that, but Seneca is not one of them. If we are familiar with his views on the highest purpose of education, it is not to make men rich, powerful, or popular.  It is rather to aid them in becoming better, in practicing a life of wisdom and virtue.

The qualification for being a friend is not to be an important man, but to be a good man. This is because it is only when we are guided by a sense of right and wrong, and the dignity of both ourselves and others, that we can have genuine concern for others.

Seneca may sound like a snob again when he says that Lucilius is not yet his friend. Yet perhaps this is because we use the word so loosely. We speak of even the most distant acquaintances as “friends”, and we would be hurt and offended if anyone we knew said that we weren’t friends. Seneca understands, however, that friendship is a commitment not to be taken lightly, and it requires the right wisdom to be able to care so deeply for another person.

There is distinction between loving someone and being a friend. Much like all dogs are dogs are mammals but not all mammals are dogs, so too all friendship is love but not all love is friendship. Friendship is not just love, but loving well, and only someone with a moral compass can do that.

In the spirit of the J. Geils Band, love can stink, precisely because we may care, but we simply don’t know how to care, and in the spirit of the Mills Brothers, this is why we can so easily hurt the ones we love. In one sense, the “friend zone” is so much greater than just falling in love. One is a promise, the other a feeling.

I remember a moment in my life when someone told me I would not only be loved, but also loved right, and I knew this was someone who thought just like me, a kindred mind.

Seneca on the friendship of kindred minds 2

. . . Hasten, therefore, in order that, while thus perfecting yourself for my benefit, you may not have earned perfection for the benefit of another. 

To be sure, I am already deriving some profit by imagining that we two shall be of one mind, and that whatever portion of my strength has yielded to age will return to me from your strength, although there is not so very much difference in our ages. But yet I wish to rejoice in the accomplished fact. 

We feel a joy over those whom we love, even when separated from them, but such a joy is light and fleeting; the sight of a man, and his presence, and communion with him, afford something of living pleasure; this is true, at any rate, if one not only sees the man one desires, but the sort of man one desires. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 35, tr Gummere

It is hardly selfish to say that I must make myself good for my sake. It is only then that I can be good for others.  I can only give of myself if I already possess myself.

I have long been an admirer of the great Hindu epic, the Mahabharata. The Pandava prince, Yudhishthira, is a great man, but he has a fatal flaw. He is addicted to gambling, and even worse, he cannot gamble well. The rival Kauravas lure him into a game of dice, in which he loses all his possessions, and even gambles away himself. In one last attempt to win everything back, he wagers his wife, Draupadi. She immediately asks him how he could offer her when he had already lost himself.

Likewise, to be of one mind with another first requires the mastery of one’s own mind. Such a sharing of minds is far more than just mutual affection, interests, or utility, but a commitment to a second self. It is through this commitment that friends strengthen one another, for a burden shared is a burden that is halved, and a joy shared is joy that is doubled. In aiming and preparing for friendship, Seneca and Lucilius are already helping one another. The vitality of youth enlivens Seneca, and the wisdom of age informs Lucilius.

I am often surprised, and saddened, to see so many people engaging in what they believe to be friendship, but not sharing fully of themselves. To be of one mind does not allow for secrets, deceptions, or manipulations. We wonder why so many marriages fail, but it is largely because we do not begin them as true friends.

The contentment that comes from friendship cannot be a mere passing thing, and this is because we do not choose any person as a friend, but a certain type of person. It is not appearance, or charm, or position that should draw us, but the presence of character that should inspire us. I can be a friend with any good man, and with no wicked man.

Seneca on the friendship of kindred minds 3

. . . Give yourself to me, therefore, as a gift of great price, and, that you may strive the more, reflect that you yourself are mortal, and that I am old. Hasten to find me, but hasten to find yourself first.

Make progress, and, before all else, endeavor to be consistent with yourself. And when you would find out whether you have accomplished anything, consider whether you desire the same things today that you desired yesterday. 

A shifting of the will indicates that the mind is at sea, heading in various directions, according to the course of the wind. But that which is settled and solid does not wander from its place. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 35, tr Gummere

The gift of friendship is the most precious thing that anyone can ever give. At the risk of being a curmudgeon, I have wept at the new trend in the last decade of simply giving presents of cash. Money is nothing in the grand scheme of things. It is entirely impersonal and lifeless. Thinking and living like a Stoic, I should not even desire “things” at all, and even less so an artificial construct used to acquire things. I should desire to love. I should care for the things people give me not because they are things, but because of the love that was in the giving of those things.

Give of yourself. Some of us will surely understand that the greatest gifts are those that come simply from thought and concern. I was once handed a bunch of dandelions plucked from a backyard by a friend’s young daughter, and it was one of the kindest gifts I ever received.

Remember that we are all only here for a brief time, and we must never waste that time. The Stoic must think always as if this is his last day, even his last minute, on this earth, not as an exercise in morbidity, but as an exercise in constancy. If you care for another, tell that person right now, and act upon it, and don’t wait until tomorrow. To know that I am mortal, and that I must die, is hardly a downer. It’s a call to action.

To be constant in life, to keep one’s eye on the same goal however tossed and turned we may be by our circumstances, is the sign of a good man, and of a good friend. A good man does not change his tune when things go poorly, and a good friend does not simply move on out of utility.

I no longer believe people who say that they used to love someone, but now no longer do so. If love, in the sense of genuine friendship and not merely affection or desire, is to have any meaning, the second part of the statement already disproves the first. A friend who cannot be constant in loyalty was never even a friend to begin with.

I must always remind myself to stay the course. Anything less is a betrayal of myself, for whom I am exclusively responsible, and of others, to whom I am asked by Nature to offer my care, concern, and commitment.

Seneca on the friendship of kindred minds 4

. . . This is the blessed lot of the completely wise man, and also, to a certain extent, of him who is progressing and has made some headway. 

Now what is the difference between these two classes of men?  The one is in motion, to be sure, but does not change its position; it merely tosses up and down where it is; the other is not in motion at all. 

Farewell.

—Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius 35, tr Gummere

To be constant in character, and therefore also in friendship, is not to be unchanging in time or place, nor is it just being inactive. It is rather to be unmoving in commitment to a life that builds itself entirely according to Nature. The mind and the will are always aimed at that same goal, and they do not allow themselves to be tossed and turned by circumstance, or distracted by fleeting passions or petty diversions.

The Stoic peace and calm, which some falsely confuse with being emotionless, follows from this fairly simple dedication. Such tranquility understands that everything needed to be a good man, and to be a friend, and therefore to be happy, is already there within us.

Now the truly wise man has, through right estimation and good habit, made himself not physically immovable, but mentally and emotionally immovable. He will be quite content with whatever life throws at him, because he has learned to be content with himself and to be his own master.

Those of us who are still learning and struggling will recognize and center upon the right state of life, but we will still find ourselves buckled by our conditions. This is not ground for despair, but for hope. I have my eye firmly on the target, and now I must simply steady my hands to follow through.

I think of the fond memories, and also the many bumps and bruises, when I learned to ride a bicycle. At first I couldn’t even balance myself at all. Then, as I was learning, I wobbled around in comic fashion, always gripping the handlebars tightly as I muddled my way forward. Then, one day, it all came together. I could maintain that balance with no conscious effort, and I could stay the course with confidence. At that young age it seemed like the most joyous freedom. And so, in a sense, it is with Stoic practice.

I certainly still stumble, and sometimes fall, but I remain immovable in knowing who I must be, and what sort of friends I must seek out. I have learned to recognize that I have always chosen and lived poorly when I seek the companionship of the sort of people who are morally never in one place, and I have always chosen and lived well when I commit to friends who know who are they are and where they are at.

The friends we choose, and the reasons why we choose them, will be a direct reflection of our own inner values, for good or for ill.

He that walks with wise men shall be wise, but a companion of fools shall be destroyed.

—Proverbs 13:20