Seneca, On the Happy Life 64: A Lofty Standpoint

This you do not understand, and you bear a countenance that does not befit your condition, like many men who sit in the circus or the theater without having learned that their home is already in mourning.

But I, looking forward from a lofty standpoint, can see what storms are either threatening you, and will burst in torrents upon you somewhat later, or are close upon you and on the point of sweeping away all that you possess.

Why, though you are hardly aware of it, is there not a whirling hurricane at this moment spinning round and confusing your minds, making them seek and avoid the very same things, now raising them aloft and now dashing them below?

—Seneca the Younger, On the happy life, Chapter 28 (tr Stewart)

The text of Seneca the Younger’s On the happy life abruptly ends here. I don’t know if the later sections were lost over the centuries, or if Seneca never finished them. I would certainly have liked to read more, but what has been given is already far more than enough. The philosopher has reminded me in so many ways to look at everything from a lofty standpoint, not with any sense of superiority, but with a broader perspective on how I should understand my own human condition in right relation to all other things.

If I view myself only narrowly, from the immediate confines of my fortune and amusements, I will never understand who I really am, why I am here, and what I have to live for. I will never grasp how much I have wasted, how I have harmed myself and done wrong to others, and how close I now am to having abandoned all of my blessings. I will be confused about what to love, and so I will pursue all the wrong things, and neglect all the right things. I will want what is bad for me, and therefore I will both crave it and curse it. I will just be throwing myself around blindly if I cannot distinguish between what is reliable and what is unreliable.

Yet if I seek the higher ground, and look at everything from above, what appeared jumbled and confounding will now reveal meaning and purpose. I will learn that I am not determined by my circumstances, but by the character of my own choices and actions. I will recognize that nothing external to me is good or bad unless I choose to make it so, and that every situation is an opportunity for becoming better. I will not replace a love for what is greater with a preference for what is lesser. I will embrace Nature as the measure of all that is good, and respect the place of all these things in the harmony of Providence.

I may have wanted to read more of Seneca’s book, but I don’t need to. So too in my own life, I may have wanted more time and more chances, but I don’t need them. What has been given is already far more than enough. I am very much mistaken if I think that living any longer, with more possessions, power, or recognition, will give me a better life. By all means, pass such things my way, but only my good use of them will make any difference at all. Even the briefest, simplest, most humble, and most unassuming life is sufficient to live with excellence. The good can die young, poor, and forgotten, because the good never need to become old, rich, and renowned.

I have been a teacher, a counselor, a bartender, a writer, and a quite reliable gofer, and sometimes I was even paid for it.

I have played music with an orchestra in a fancy concert hall, and with an Irish folk band behind chicken wire in the best dive bar in town.

I have paid for a new car in cash, and swept the house for loose change to buy lunch.

I bungled my way to a doctorate, and even became a questionably ordained minister. I display the diploma for the latter, but not for the former.

I wandered remote mountains in perfect contentment without seeing another soul for days, and I wandered the streets of big cities feeling completely alone surrounded by millions.

I have stood up to bullies and demagogues, and I have almost always lost the battles on their terms, but I have almost always won them on mine.

I have drunk the finest single malt from crystal, and rotgut from a paper bag. I learned that neither made me a better man, and often made me a worse one.

I briefly met Mother Teresa, and she spoke only a very few words to me that changed my life. I later met a murderer when I was working in prison ministry, who added a few more words that changed my life even more.

I have dug myself into the darkest holes, and grappled my way back up into warm sunlight. I have fallen down far too many times to count, but to this day I have always gotten back on my feet, however much the worse for wear.

Through it all, I became used to the Black Dog always nipping at my heels.

The most selfish person I ever knew broke my heart, and the most compassionate person I ever knew tried to help me mend it. 

I lost a child, and I tried to raise two more. I have no idea what will become of them, but I hope that they will always think for themselves, and that they will never lose their sense of what is good and beautiful.

Those were all quite wonderful, and sometimes even extraordinary, things to have. I am grateful for them, but I never needed them. I will welcome it if circumstance offers something else, but it would only be an encore. I don’t need more, I only need to make right of what I already am.

All I ever need to be happy is to make a decision, at any given moment, to depend upon the virtue of what I do, not upon what is done to me. Any kind of moment will suffice to do well. 

Written in 3/2017

Seneca, On the Happy Life 63: Pimples and Ulcers

. . . But have you leisure to peer into other men's evil deeds and to sit in judgment upon anybody? To ask how it is that this philosopher has so roomy a house, or that one has so good a dinner? Do you look at other people's pimples while yon yourselves are covered with countless ulcers? This is as though one who was eaten up by the mange were to point with scorn at the moles and warts on the bodies of the handsomest men.

Reproach Plato with having sought for money, reproach Aristotle with having obtained it, Democritus with having disregarded it, Epicurus with having spent it. Cast Phaedrus and Alcibiades in my own teeth, you who reach the height of enjoyment whenever you get an opportunity of imitating our vices!

Why do you not rather cast your eyes around yourselves at the ills that tear you to pieces on every side, some attacking you from without, some burning in your own chests? However little you know your own place, mankind has not yet come to such a place that you can have leisure to wag your tongues to the reproach of your betters.

—Seneca the Younger, On the happy life, Chapter 27 (tr Stewart)

It often seems so easy to diminish others and to elevate ourselves, perhaps because we think the diminishing is the very means for the elevating. I know this not simply from observing others, but from being brutally honest about myself.

We rarely recognize our own hypocrisy, because we ignorantly but genuinely work from the premise that there are indeed different rules for ourselves and for others. We might feel ashamed to say this to others, but we hardly feel guilty about thinking it to ourselves.

If I have already begun by thinking that my own satisfaction is the measure of all things, I will never recognize myself in others, or be called to serve them, but I will rather see them only as a means to my own end. You must make yourself better,  but I was already good to begin with. The pimple on your face is obviously an outrage, even as the ulcer on my own is actually quite handsome, thank you.

I can only overcome such a contradiction of character if I grasp the role of human nature within all of Nature. My own humanity, as a being made to know the truth and to love what is good, is never inherently in conflict with the humanity of others, which, for all of our different circumstances, is essentially the same as mine.

I will only cure myself when I look at another, and I see myself. I can only love when I am willing to humbly give of myself for others. I can only be just if I am able to offer respect no differently than I ask it to be given.

We often hear that we should not judge, but I suggest that we must rightly distinguish. To make a judgment is to determine the true from the false, and to more specifically make a judgment about morals is to determine the right from the wrong. Remove these, and you remove the very guides that inform all human actions. Relativism is an unintelligible excuse for neglecting objective accountability.

Instead, we abuse judgment when we pursue it with a double standard, and when we pursue it with malice. By all means, judge the good from the bad, but do not judge others any differently than you judge yourself. By all means, separate right from wrong, but do not correct others to make them look worse, but so that you might help them to become better. There is a world of difference between the man who judges with condemnation and the man who judges with compassion.

Above all else, I must never consider my responsibility for another before I have mastered my responsibility for myself. Specks in the eye or the temptations of adultery can certainly be harmful things, but they are hardly as harmful as when I expect others to do what I won’t do for myself.

Written in 4/2010

Image: Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery (1565)

Seneca, On the Happy Life 62: A Trial of Strength

Behold! From that prison of his, which by entering he cleansed from shame and rendered more honorable than any senate house, Socrates addresses you, saying:

“What is this madness of yours? What is this disposition, at war alike with gods and men, which leads you to defame virtue and to outrage holiness with malicious accusations? Praise good men, if you are able. If not, pass them by in silence. If indeed you take pleasure in this offensive abusiveness, fall foul of one another, for when you rave against Heaven, I do not say that you commit sacrilege, but you waste your time.

“I once afforded Aristophanes with the subject of a jest, and since then all the crew of comic poets have made me a mark for their venomous wit. My virtue has been made to shine more brightly by the very blows which have been aimed at it, for it is to its advantage to be brought before the public and exposed to temptation, nor do any people understand its greatness more than those who by their assaults have made trial of its strength.

“The hardness of flint is known to none so well as to those who strike it. I offer myself to all attacks, like some lonely rock in a shallow sea, which the waves never cease to beat upon from whatever quarter they may come, but which they cannot thereby move from its place, nor yet wear away, for however many years they may unceasingly dash against it.

“Leap upon me, rush upon me, I will overcome you by enduring your onset. Whatever strikes against that which is firm and unconquerable merely injures itself by its own violence. Therefore, seek some soft and yielding object to pierce with your darts.” . . .

—Seneca the Younger, On the happy life, Chapter 27 (tr Stewart)

I have often felt very weak, because I have never been terribly good at defeating others, either in mind or in body. I am quite wrong to think this, however, since having power over others is hardly strength at all. Strength is actually in having power over oneself.

I once read a newspaper article about someone I had known in my younger days, who was quoted as saying: “I pursue every opportunity, and I take what I want.” This saddened me, because I expected better. Success is not in taking what I want, but in wanting to give so I can be better. Conquest is hardly the pursuit of a noble opportunity.

My feelings have always bruised far too easily, so I also thought I would not even be any good at ruling myself. My mistake was that I assumed being strong required hardening my emotions, or disposing of them entirely. I have seen many people I cared for do precisely that, and they became convinced they were strong because they were now cold and heartless.

No, it isn’t about not feeling, or not caring. It isn’t about stifling my emotions, but rather about allowing my reason to make the best use of those emotions. Socrates was attacked and abused over and over, and I have no doubt that he must have felt pain. What he managed to do was to take the offense, and to transform the attempt to harm him into a means for building his virtue.

I will only succumb to the feelings of being rejected or dismissed if I allow them to rule me. Throw an obstacle in the way of my judgment and choice, and yes, it will cause be pain, but it need not cause me harm. Like a muscle that is strengthened through repeated exercise, you only give me the chance to become stronger in my convictions. By doing wrong, you give me more opportunity to do right. If you must tempt me to be angry, or to strike back in return, I can decide all the more to love instead of hate. You have made yourself weaker, and helped me to be stronger, by foolishly trying to destroy me.

Can a bully steal my lunch money, can a friend abandon me, can a lawyer leave me penniless, and can a tyrant take my life? Of course, but those aren’t the things that matter. Socrates was not weak in prison because he lost his case, but rather he was strong in prison because his spirit was unconquerable. 

Written in 4/2010

Image: a site in Athens traditionally known as "The Prison of Socrates"

Seneca, On the Happy Life 61: Silence over Show

. . . But although this conduct of yours does not hurt me, yet, for your own sake, I advise you, respect virtue. Believe those who having long followed her call, that what they follow is a thing of might, and daily appears mightier.

Reverence her as you would the gods, and reverence her followers as you would the priests of the gods, and whenever any mention of sacred writings is made, favor us with your tongues. Favor is not derived, as most people imagine, from applause, but commands silence, so that divine service may be performed without being interrupted by any words of evil omen. It is much more necessary that you should be ordered to do this so that whenever utterance is made by that oracle, you may listen to it with attention and in silence.

Whenever anyone beats a sistrum, pretending to do so by divine command, anyone proficient in grazing his own skin covers his arms and shoulders with blood from light cuts, anyone crawls on his knees howling along the street, or any old man clad in linen comes forth in daylight with a lamp and laurel branch and cries out that one of the gods is angry, you crowd round him and listen to his words, and each increases the other's dumb amazement by declaring him to be divinely inspired!

—Seneca the Younger, On the happy life, Chapter 26 (tr Stewart)

There are times for making a joyful sound, but I have always thought that respect is best practiced in silence. This is not just a question of good manners, but rather an expression of humility in the face of what we hold dear. If I am full of sound and fury, I hear only my own words, and I draw attention only to my own spectacle. I am hardly pointing to what is greater than myself, and I am only trying to make myself greater. I am unable to listen over my own noise.

Virtue is worthy of reverence, because it is the path to our happiness. Virtue is also divine, not only in a poetic sense, but by participating in the unity of all that is good. Man improves himself through his own judgment and action, by so doing he plays his special part in the perfection of the whole of Nature, and thereby he shows his reverence to Providence.

We will recognize those who seek virtue by the way they empty themselves of all diversion, just as we will recognize those who shun virtue by the way they fill themselves with vanity. Part of my daily struggle is to listen more than I speak, to give more than I receive, and to show respect instead of demanding it.

Making a show of things can so easily become an act of arrogance. When I was in college, I remember that far too many of the students in the Honors Program were less interested in learning, and more interested in constantly speaking about how much they already knew. When I went to work, I saw the domination of those gifted at glorifying themselves. When I have tried to worship, I see far more performance than I do piety.

I have already wasted too much of my life deluded by appearances, and neglecting the improvement of my own heart and mind. I thought for too long that beautiful things, things worthy of admiration, had to be exciting to the senses and enticing to the passions. I was ignoring that a person is beautiful because of character, not because of display.

Practicing the art of silent reverence can be quite demanding in a world so full of flashy images, constantly telling us to pose and consume, but I find more and more that I can’t love virtue if I am distracted by mere impressions. 

Written in 1/2002

Image: Eugene Delacroix, Lycurgus Consulting the Pythia (c. 1840) 

Seneca, On the Happy Life 60: Principles and Prejudices

. . . The great Socrates, or anyone else who had the same superiority to and power to withstand the things of this life, would say, “I have no more fixed principle than that of not altering the course of my life to suit your prejudices. You may pour your accustomed talk upon me from all sides. I shall not think that you are abusing me, but that you are merely wailing like poor little infants.”

This is what the man will say who possesses wisdom, whose mind, being free from vices, bids him to reproach others, not because he hates them, but in order to improve them.

And to this he will add, "Your opinion of me affects me with pain, not for my own sake but for yours, because to hate perfection and to assail virtue is in itself a resignation of all hope of doing well. You do me no harm; neither do men harm the gods when they overthrow their altars. But it is clear that your intention is an evil one and that you will wish to do harm even where you are not able.

“I bear with your prating in the same spirit in which Jupiter, best and greatest, bears with the idle tales of the poets, one of whom represents him with wings, another with horns, another as an adulterer staying out all night, another as dealing harshly with the gods, another as unjust to men, another as the seducer of noble youths whom he carries off by force, and those, too, his own relatives, another as a parricide and the conqueror of another's kingdom, and that of his father's.”

The only result of such tales is that men feel less shame at committing sin if they believe the gods to be guilty of such actions. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, On the happy life, Chapter 26 (tr Stewart)

A life dedicated to pleasure and position, which is of necessity a life that is also subservient to what is outside of us, will be a life of conformity. Once I begin, in even the most cursory manner, to think in terms of Nature instead of Fortune, it becomes apparent how often principle gives way to prejudice. Instead of asking how to do something in a way that is right, we assume something is right because of the way it is already done. The surrender to fashion means the surrender of reason, and it will immediately dismiss what is uncommon and unpopular.

To borrow a modern phrase, don’t take it personally. Some people will try to ridicule anything that is different from their established orthodoxy, and degrading others is the only way they know to make themselves feel better. Their ignorance and malice does not have to become my ignorance and malice.

For some, a correction or a rebuke can only be an insult. I, however, can choose to help, not to harm, and to allow myself to be helped in turn, not to feel resentment. I can let an argument be weighed by what is sound, not by what is preferred.

I know I am starting down the right path when the pain I feel no longer comes from my own loss, but from the loss of others. Socrates once said that a better man can not be harmed by a worse man, because even as the worse man increases his own vice, he can never take away the virtue of a better man. I should worry less about how others are vainly trying to hurt me, and far more about helping them not to hurt themselves.

Some will try to blame what is Divine, however it may be understood, for their own weaknesses. If they only reflected upon this clearly for a moment, they would understand that the Divine is, by its very definition, that which is perfect and lacking in nothing, the source by which all other things become good. God cannot be hurt by insult or abuse, and whenever we reject God to excuse ourselves from accountability we only insult or abuse ourselves.

In like manner, the man who seeks to be god-like, for all of his flaws, does not need to fear the malice of others. He should continually improve himself, and wish to see others transform their own hatred into love.

Written in 1/2002

Image: Josef Abel, Socrates Teaching His Disciples (c. 1801)

Seneca, On the Happy Life 59: Prepared for the Siege

"What difference, then, is there between me, who is a fool, and you, who are a wise man?"

"All the difference in the world: for riches are slaves in the house of a wise man, but masters in that of a fool. You accustom yourself to them and cling to them as if somebody had promised that they should be yours forever, but a wise man never thinks so much about poverty as when he is surrounded by riches.

No general ever trusts so implicitly in the maintenance of peace as not to make himself ready for a war, which, though it may not actually be waged, has nevertheless been declared. You are rendered over-proud by a fine house, as though it could never be burned or fall down, and your heads are turned by riches as though they were beyond the reach of all dangers and were so great that Fortune has not sufficient strength to swallow them up.

You sit idly playing with your wealth and do not foresee the perils in store for it, as savages generally do when besieged, for, not understanding the use of siege artillery, they look on idly at the labors of the besiegers and do not understand the object of the machines which they are putting together at a distance.

And this is exactly what happens to you. You go to sleep over your property, and never reflect how many misfortunes loom menacingly around you on all sides, and soon will plunder you of costly spoils, but if one takes away riches from the wise man, one leaves him still in possession of all that is his: for he lives happy in the present, and without fear for the future. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, On the happy life, Chapter 26 (tr Stewart)

Seneca has explained that fortune, which expands to include our money, power, and fame, will hardly define who we are, though our attitude toward fortune will make all the difference. The wise man never lets himself be entrapped by his surroundings, but depends only on the merits of his own thoughts and actions. It is when we attach ourselves to things, when we desire to form ourselves by what is outside of us, that we become fools.

The wise man has long prepared himself for the loss of any of his fortune, because its absence will make him no different than he already is. The fool thinks of nothing else, and so cannot even imagine himself separated from his position and his belongings.

I have known many people who are the fools Seneca describes, and at times I have been one of them myself. Having dedicated everything they are to their worldly achievements, there is nothing left underneath the layers of acquisitions, no self-reliance, no convictions, and no integrity. I have often thought of it like people who cannot conceive of their own appearance without cosmetics or fine clothes, and who would never leave home without such vain trappings.

The military analogy is an appropriate one, for the fool does not even recognize the enemy at all, and he has no idea what power is arrayed against him. He is weak and unprepared, because he will not know how to confront his emptiness when fortune, the foe he once assumed was always a friend, turns on him.

The lover of fortune may tell himself that he is secure, since he will make certain to always keep a hold of what he says he possesses. He cannot assure this, of course, because he is already a slave to his circumstances, and he has never really acquired anything at all, but let us, for the sake of argument, say that he manages to be rich, powerful, and praised for his whole life. Has he not now come out on top? As we used to say in the 1980’s, he who dies with the most toys wins.

What he does not understand is that the damage will not be done after he loses his fortune, but it was done long before, when he entered into her bondage. It may only become clear to him much later that he surrendered responsibility for himself the moment he sold his virtue for riches. Like any Faustian bargain, the true cost was tragically overlooked.

The outcome of the siege was decided well before it began, by whether I was prepared or unprepared to defend the content of my character. 

Written in 1/2002

Image: Frans Geffels,  Relief of the Siege of Vienna, 1683

Seneca, On the Happy Life 58: Spurs and Curbs

. . . I shall make whatever befalls me become a good thing, but I prefer that what befalls me should be comfortable and pleasant, and unlikely to cause me annoyance. For you need not suppose that any virtue exists without labor, but some virtues need spurs, while others need the curb.

As we have to check our body on a downward path, and to urge it to climb a steep one, so also the path of some virtues leads downhill, that of others uphill.

Can we doubt that patience, courage, constancy, and all the other virtues that have to meet strong opposition, and to trample Fortune under their feet, are climbing, struggling, and winning their way up a steep ascent?

Why! Is it not equally evident that generosity, moderation, and gentleness glide easily downhill? With the latter we must hold in our spirit, lest it run away with us, with the former we must urge and spur it on.

We ought, therefore, to apply these energetic, combative virtues to poverty, and to riches those other more thrifty ones that trip lightly along, and merely support their own weight. This being the distinction between them, I would rather have to deal with those that I can practice in comparative quiet, than those that can only be a trial trial through blood and sweat.

"Wherefore," says the sage, "I do not talk one way and live another, but you do not rightly understand what I say. The sound of my words alone reaches your ears, but you do not try to find out their meaning."

—Seneca the Younger, On the happy life, Chapter 25 (tr Stewart)

Sometimes I need to push myself forward, and sometimes I need to hold myself back. Virtue always consists in the mean or balance between too little and too much, and will therefore need either drive or restraint to find the mark.

I understand Seneca’s point immediately, because it is a common pattern. Just as it is easier to go downhill than it is to go uphill, there is less effort in withholding force than applying more. Now some virtues demand that we drive ourselves on, and others that we rein ourselves in. Fortitude, for example, requires that we push forward, while temperance requires that we pull back.

This can also apply to having greater or lesser gifts of fortune. Having more and spending less is a far easier thing than having less and acquiring more. A preference for the former should make perfect sense.

Here I confront a difficulty, though it has far less to do with the truth of Seneca’s general observation that the quirks of my own temperament. Aristotle argued that while the mean of virtue tends to be similar for all of us, the mean for a certain individual might rest in a rather different place, depending on disposition or habit. If I am already a forceful person, fortitude may require me to curb myself from recklessness rather than spur myself out of cowardice. If I am already satisfied with too little, temperance may require me to spur myself out of self-denial rather than curb myself from gluttony.

Now Seneca has repeatedly argued that wealth is preferable to poverty, because it is better to work with more than with less, and as a rule he is quite right. Yet I have found that my personal tendencies often seem to work in the opposite way. This isn’t because Seneca has it backwards, because, as Aristotle said, there will be exceptions on both sides of what is most common. I suspect I’m the one who has it a bit backwards.

I regularly find it harder to restrain myself from excess and easier to drive myself out of deficiency. When more is given to me, I usually make less of it, and when less is given to me, I have better success at making more of it. This hardly means I enjoy having less, but I meet a far greater resistance when I have more.

Some horses are easier to rein in and other horses are easier to drive on. I am that second kind of horse. I am happier with the wind in my face than at my back.

Perhaps if someone is already bit more practiced in virtue, someone like a Seneca, pulling back is easier than pushing forward. I am still a beginner, and work best when I struggle through something. Hopefully when I have found my right balance, I can start coasting instead of climbing. Right now, I will tend to fall flat on my face when I go downhill.

Written in 6/2004

Image: John Vanderbank, A Young Gentleman Riding a Schooled Horse (c. 1728)

Seneca, On the Happy Life 57: A Conqueror or a Captive?

. . . What, then, is the upshot of all this? It is that I prefer to have to regulate joys than to stifle sorrows. The great Socrates would say the same thing to you.

 "Make me," he would say, "the conqueror of all nations. Let the voluptuous car of Bacchus bear me in triumph to Thebes from the rising of the sun. Let the kings of the Persians receive laws from me. Yet I shall still feel myself to be a man even at the very moment when all around salute me as a god.

“Straightway, connect this lofty height with a headlong fall into misfortune. Let me be placed upon a foreign chariot that I may grace the triumph of a proud and savage conqueror. I will follow another's car with no more humility than I showed when I stood in my own.”

What then? In spite of all this, I would rather be a conqueror than a captive. I despise the whole dominion of Fortune, but still, if I were given my choice, I would choose its better parts. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, On the happy life, Chapter 25 (tr Stewart)

I would indeed gladly choose pleasure over pain, comfort over suffering, but I can only free myself from slavery to preferences when I begin to see that all of my circumstances should be in the service of right action. Give me what is easier, but I should be just as willing, and just as proud, to face what is harder.

I have long been in awe and wonder at the Gospel scene of the Agony in the Garden. I imagine people of many faiths and cultures can surely appreciate both the pain and difficulty of such a decision, as well as the love and humility of the choice that was made. From Matthew 26:36-39:

Then Jesus went with them to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to his disciples, “Sit here, while I go yonder and pray.” And taking with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death; remain here, and watch with me.” And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.”

My own struggles have never been about the redemption of humanity, but they have been hard enough to bear. I made poor choices about attachments, and paid many years of consequences for them. They were life-defining mistakes. I often wish none of it had ever happened, but I then also realize that the pain was what led to the only things that are now good within me. Give me contentment over loss, but not at the expense of my soul.

As much as I might like to be driving the chariot of a conquering king, can I still learn to be a decent and happy man if I am paraded about as a vanquished captive? Can I be humble and righteous both in victory and in defeat?

Kipling always said it so well:

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same. . . 

Written in 6/2004

Image: Eugene Delacroix, The Triumph of Bacchus (1861)  

Seneca, On the Happy Life 56: No Unlucky Days

Learn, then, since we both agree that riches are desirable, what my reason is for counting them among good things, and in what respects I should behave differently to you if I possessed them.

Place me as master in the house of a very rich man. Place me where gold and silver plate is used for the commonest purposes. I shall not think more of myself because of things, which even though they are in my house, they are yet not a part of me.

Take me away to the wooden bridge and put me down there among the beggars. I shall not despise myself because I am sitting among those who hold out their hands for alms. For what can the lack of a piece of bread matter to one who does not lack the power of dying?

Well, then? I prefer the magnificent house to the beggar's bridge. Place me among magnificent furniture and all the appliances of luxury. I shall not think myself any happier because my cloak is soft, because my guests rest upon purple.

Change the scene. I shall be no more miserable if my weary head rests upon a bundle of hay, or if I lie upon a cushion from the circus, with all the stuffing on the point of coming out through its patches of threadbare cloth.

Well, then? I prefer, as far as my feelings go, to show myself in public dressed in woolen and in robes of office, rather than with naked or half-covered shoulders. I should like every day's business to turn out just as I wish it to do, and new congratulations to be constantly following upon the former ones.

Yet I will not pride myself upon this. Change all this good fortune for its opposite, let my spirit be distracted by losses, grief, various kinds of attacks. Let no hour pass without some dispute. I shall not on this account, though beset by the greatest miseries, call myself the most miserable of beings, nor shall I curse any particular day, for I have taken care to have no unlucky days. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, On the happy life, Chapter 25 (tr Stewart)

I must admit that I sometimes feel baffled by Seneca on virtue and fortune. I know that I must be indifferent to wealth, but I also know that I may prefer it, and it seems strange that I can both despise and desire one and the same thing. It isn’t just the terminology that can get in the way, but a sense that the entire process of moral judgment is a precarious balancing act between conscience and convenience.

I then recognize, however, that this appearance of tension arises only because I am still confused about the nature of what is valuable. Virtue and fortune do not differ in their degree, but they are rather completely different in kind, and if I think that I’m doing well by caring a bit more about my character, and bit less about my possessions, I’m actually well off the mark. I should rather care only for my character, and nothing at all for my possessions. Now my circumstances will become useful or preferable only if they can assist my practice of virtue, and it is my proper use of them that will give them any value. The means must be totally subservient to the end.

My feelings may prefer wealth to poverty, or ease to difficulty, but this should in no way affect my happiness, which relies exclusively upon my own actions. If I believe I am slightly happier because I have a good job, or slightly more miserable because I am sick, then I misunderstand what it means to be happy, and I am mixing up preference and principle.

My happiness will depend upon whether I care about the right things. This revolves around understanding that my nature is defined by what I do, not by what happens to me. As soon as I can grasp this, I will no longer worry about my fortune for its own sake, and I will no longer try balancing conscience and convenience. I will hardly be miserable if I lose something that doesn’t matter to me.

For most of us, trying to give value to both virtue and circumstance results in an unfitting compromise, and quite often means the surrender of the former to the latter. There no can be no half measures. Stoic self-reliance will only seem heartless if our hearts are in the wrong place, and continue to love the wrong things.

I can then begin to realize that no circumstance is in itself good or bad, unless I make it so, and that no day is lucky or unlucky, because luck does not determine me, but rather I determine what I will do with luck. The Universe is hardly random, of course, since everything in Nature is in its place for a purpose, and what we call luck is really only in our perception. I will learn to see that any luck, any circumstance, whether or not I may prefer it, is always an opportunity for benefit. Not all luck will increase my fortune, but it can always be a means to improve my character. 

Written in 6/2004

Image: Fortune and Her Wheel, Illustration from Boccaccio’s On the Fates of Famous Men (1467)

Seneca, On the Happy Life 55: The Student and the Master

. . . You have, therefore, no grounds for misunderstanding the honorable, brave, and spirited language that you hear from those who are studying wisdom, and first of all observe this, that a student of wisdom is not the same thing as a man who has made himself perfect in wisdom.

The former will say to you, "In my talk I express the most admirable sentiments, yet I am still weltering amid countless ills. You must not force me to act up to my rules; at the present time I am forming myself, molding my character, and striving to rise myself to the height of a great example. If I should ever succeed in carrying out all that I have set myself to accomplish, you may then demand that my words and deeds should correspond."

But he who has reached the summit of human perfection will deal otherwise with you, and will say, "In the first place, you have no business to allow yourself to sit in judgment upon your betters."

I have already obtained one proof of my righteousness, in having become an object of dislike to bad men. However, to give you a rational answer, which I grudge to no man, listen to what I declare, and at what price I value all things.

Riches, I say, are not a good thing, for if they were, they would make men good. Now since that which is found even among bad men cannot be termed good, I do not allow them to be called so.

Nevertheless, I admit that they are desirable and useful and contribute great comforts to our lives.

—Seneca the Younger, On the happy life, Chapter 24 (tr Stewart)

Those who despise a life measured by virtue will immediately condemn those of us who struggle to live well. They will attack our weakness, and not the strength of what we seek. They will tell us how often we fail, while ignoring the very thing we are working toward. They revel in our imperfection, even as we try to make ourselves better.

To say that the goal cannot be achieved because I have not yet achieved it is much like saying that a journey is pointless because it has not yet been completed. Do not be deceived. Those who discourage you from what is true and good in life do so precisely because they are convinced that the things they possess define them. They mock you because they think life is about wealth and recognition, they degrade you because they think that life is about power and influence, and they mistreat you because they think that life is about conflict and conquest.

They are misguided, because they assume that wealth or power are themselves good things, failing to see that they can only become good when directed by wisdom and virtue. Money can be very harmful, since it can be abused, but virtue is always beneficial, since it always gives right purpose to what is used.

Do not fight on their terms. Love them, and teach them what is right, in word and by example. You will often think that you have failed, but you have already succeeded within yourself just by acting with charity in the face of hatred.

I have absolutely no right to consider myself better than any other man, because I am not yet a good man. I hope and pray that I may one day be so. In the meantime, I would prefer assistance to rejection. I am learning, step by painful step, to extract myself from the illusion that being rich in the world will make me good in my soul.

Yet I have known others who are indeed wise and good, and they are priceless examples to follow. I have often found such people in the most unlikely of places. They are rarely recognized for what they are, because most of us are still working from a clouded perspective on life. You will see no glamor, no sales pitch, and no vanity. You will see only a humble and faithful commitment to character. You will see someone who cares about you for your sake, and nothing more.

Don’t condemn the student because he is not yet a master. The student is striving to be a master, simply by learning to rule himself. The student will know he has become a master when he sees everything through the eyes of Nature, not through the demands of Fortune. Then he may rightly say that he is better. 

Written in 5/2004

Seneca, On the Happy Life 54: A Field of Freehandedness

. . . A benefit should be invested in the same manner as a treasure buried deep in the earth, which you would not dig up unless actually obliged.

Why, what opportunities of conferring benefits the mere house of a rich man affords! For who considers generous behavior due only to those who wear the toga? Nature bids me do good to mankind—what difference does it make whether they be slaves or freemen, free-born or emancipated, whether their freedom be legally acquired or bestowed by arrangement among friends?

Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a benefit. Consequently, money may be distributed even within one's own threshold, and a field may be found there for the practice of freehandedness, which is not so called because it is our duty towards free men, but because it takes its rise in a freeborn mind.

In the case of the wise man, this never falls upon base and unworthy recipients, and never becomes so exhausted as not, whenever it finds a worthy object, to flow as if its store was undiminished. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, On the happy life, Chapter 24 (tr Stewart)

Those who are of the selfish sort treat any benefit simply as one half of an exchange, and will constantly demand their payment, with interest. I learned the hard way that friendship is often twisted into a transaction that continues only as long as there is a profitable return. Those who are of the giving sort will also invest, not for their own gain, but for the gain of others, and they seek assistance only when in need.

Similarly, he who lives by Fortune will only grant benefits to those who are fortunate, those who wear the toga, because he wishes to share in their worldly prosperity. The man who is poor, sick, or weak is of no interest to him. But he who lives by Nature, by the merit of his own good deeds alone, has a much wider field to work in, because each and every person is an opportunity for giving benefit. Any man, whatever his position or circumstance, is of interest and concern to him.

The concepts of benefit, favor, or patronage only take on sinister tones in the hands of sinister folks. I remember someone in Boston who was in principle a Republican, but would only contribute money to campaigns by Democrats. This was because the Republicans were rarely elected in that state, and they could hardly provide a civil service promotion in return for the support. That is how favors, and politics, get a bad name.

No, those worthy of a benefit are all of those who will employ it to improve their own character, rich or poor, healthy or sick, powerful or weak, though it will be most needed by those who are poor, sick, or weak. Its return is measured by how an act of charity will permit others the means for further acts of charity, and there is wisdom to the old saying that kindness should always be passed on. It may even return back to its source.

What Seneca calls freehandedness is not free because it is only given to other free men, but because it comes from the conviction of someone who is free in his own thinking, who is his own master, and therefore not bound like a slave to the service of his circumstances.

The good man will sow freely in his field, though he is a fool to sow on barren ground. He farms not merely for his profit, but to feed people, friends and strangers alike.

Written in 5/2004

Image: Ivan Grohar, The Sower (1907)