Seneca, Moral Letters 84.5

“How,” you ask, “can this be accomplished?” 
 
By constant effort, and by doing nothing without the approval of reason. And if you are willing to hear her voice, she will say to you: 
 
“Abandon those pursuits which heretofore have caused you to run hither and thither. 
 
“Abandon riches, which are either a danger or a burden to the possessor. 
 
“Abandon the pleasures of the body and of the mind; they only soften and weaken you. 
 
“Abandon your quest for office; it is a swollen, idle, and empty thing, a thing that has no goal, as anxious to see no one outstrip it as to see no one at its heels. 
 
“It is afflicted with envy, and in truth with a twofold envy; and you see how wretched a man’s plight is if he who is the object of envy feels envy also." 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 84 
 
Whenever I seek to learn, I should cast a wide net, and I should then sort through the catch to select what is best. My own attachment to a liberal arts model, which is open to any topic, from every time or place, is not concerned with accumulating more facts, but rather with employing a wide range of experiences to build the habits of understanding, to equip me with the common principles required for making some sense of life’s surprises. 
 
What use will there be in mastering this or that trade, if we are not first prepared in the shared vocation of just being human? I applaud you for wishing to be a lawyer, or a doctor, or a banker—now what tools will you employ to distinguish the true from the false, and the right from the wrong, regardless of your job title? This is what binds a man together, whatever his circumstances. 
 
We will gladly spend many years at school in order to earn an advanced degree, and yet we somehow assume that it is beyond our power to rule over our own passions. Or, at the very least, we insist that the challenge of self-mastery demands far too much of us, that a life devoid of diversions must surely be too difficult: “Let the sages seek their enlightenment, but I will settle for the mediocrity of busywork.” 
 
There is no profound secret to escaping from the loop, only a clarity of thinking. What has hindered me from a peace of mind in the past? Fixations on money, on gratification, and on reputation. At first glance, it may seem that Seneca is denying me everything that is fun, though a careful reflection reveals it to be everything that has made me miserable. 
 
When worrying about property becomes a burden instead of a relief, it is time to reassess my values. 
 
When chasing after amusements leaves me empty, it is time to discover a far deeper joy, one joined to my nature. 
 
When putting on an act grows tiresome, it is time to focus on being myself, not what anyone else might wish me to be. 
 
A surefire sign that I have fallen into a trap is when that flashy fellow I so desperately envied turns out to be just as frustrated and unfulfilled as I am. Behind the boasting and the noise, wisdom is one, simple, and pure. 

—Reflection written in 12/2013 

IMAGE: Rembrandt, The Parable of the Rich Fool (1627) 

Stoic Snippets 277

First, do nothing inconsiderately, nor without a purpose. 

Second, make your acts refer to nothing else than to a social end. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.20 

IMAGE: Rembrandt, The Night Watch (1642) 

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.35

M. They report of Timotheus, a famous man at Athens, and the head of the city, that having supped with Plato, and being extremely delighted with his entertainment, on seeing him the next day, he said, “Your suppers are not only agreeable while I partake of them, but the next day also.” Besides, the understanding is impaired when we are full with overeating and drinking. 
 
There is an excellent epistle of Plato to Dion’s relations, in which there occurs as nearly as possible these words: “When I came there, that happy life so much talked of, devoted to Italian and Syracusan entertainments, was noways agreeable to me; to be crammed twice a day, and never to have the night to yourself, and the other things which are the accompaniments of this kind of life, by which a man will never be made the wiser, but will be rendered much less temperate; for it must be an extraordinary disposition that can be temperate in such circumstances.” 
 
How, then, can a life be pleasant without prudence and temperance? Hence you discover the mistake of Sardanapalus, the wealthiest king of the Assyrians, who ordered it to be engraved on his tomb, 
 
“I still have what in food I did exhaust; 
But what I left, though excellent, is lost.” 
 
“What less than this,” says Aristotle, “could be inscribed on the tomb, not of a king, but an ox?” He said that he possessed those things when dead, which, in his lifetime, he could have no longer than while he was enjoying them. 
 
Why, then, are riches desired? And wherein does poverty prevent us from being happy? In the want, I imagine, of statues, pictures, and diversions. But if anyone is delighted with these things, have not the poor people the enjoyment of them more than they who are the owners of them in the greatest abundance? For we have great numbers of them displayed publicly in our city. 
 
And whatever store of them private people have, they cannot have a great number, and they but seldom see them, only when they go to their country seats; and some of them must be stung to the heart when they consider how they came by them. 
 
The day would fail me, should I be inclined to defend the cause of poverty. The thing is manifest; and nature daily informs us how few things there are, and how trifling they are, of which she really stands in need. 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.35 
 
While my college was expert at putting on grand airs, its culture had become hopelessly vulgar, so my social life during those four years involved searching for some genuine friends I would never find. The ritual of partying, in a gaudy 1980’s style, would define the entire week, and it quickly proved tiresome. Despite what Animal House had promised me, the constant pursuit of booze and sex turned out to not be so fulfilling after all. There was much intelligence, and a great deal of money, but also a dearth of conscience to give it any meaning and purpose. 
 
The Greeks had their elaborate banquets, and my neighbors have lately been inviting me on their boisterous pub crawls, and I’m afraid I no longer find the appeal in either of them. I am hardly prudish, though I am slowly learning to be prudent; I am admitting to myself that temperance need not be a dirty word. Beyond any lofty moralizing, there is the practical insight that pleasure can just as easily be a curse as it can be a blessing, for happiness requires carefully taking a few steps back. 
 
I recall the odd claim of a good night being the one you couldn’t remember, yet even Epicurus would tell me why the best night is the one that never ceases to bring joy. I wonder how much of the craze for gratification is more about hiding from our humanity than embracing it, a surrender rather than of a victory, slavery instead of liberation. It will be far too late once my feasting becomes like that of Belshazzar. The writing is on the wall. 
 
The danger is not in pleasure, but in pleasure divorced from understanding. It is not in luxury, but in luxury lacking charity. It is not in wealth, but in wealth without character. It is not in fame, but in fame devoid of responsibility. Aristotle was quite right to condemn Sardanapalus, who abandoned the life of a man in favor of the life of a beast, and whose various proclamations about the merits of decadence sound so awfully familiar to my modern ears. 
 
And although we may prize beautiful things, where do we get the idea that owning them makes them any more beautiful, or clinging to such things on the outside makes us any better on the inside? Boethius argued much the same, when he explained how our possessions are quite accidental to our true worth: “They do not become valuable by reason that they have come into your wealth, but you have desired to count them among your wealth, because they seemed valuable.” 
 
If it is there for all to enjoy, the title makes no difference, and if it must be hidden away from prying eyes and greedy hands, where is the enjoyment in that? Whenever I have found myself with a craving for property, I have also, deep down inside, known it to be a pathetic substitution, a compensation for what I lack in character. The problem isn’t so much if anyone else will find out, as it is how long I can keep deceiving myself. 
 
Cicero was far from being a poor man, and he thankfully did not play the hypocritical game, like those fat churchmen, of praising poverty while living it large. He was, however, fully aware why his circumstances had nothing to do with his virtues, and therefore they did not determine his happiness. Riches and standing have served us well if they can help us to perceive why we don’t really need them. 

—Reflection written in 3/1999 

IMAGE: Rembrandt, Belshazzar's Feast (c. 1635) 

When You Are Old

"When You Are Old" 

Willian Butler Yeats (1865-1939) 

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars. 

IMAGE: School of Rembrandt, Old Woman Reading (c. 1634) 

Maxims of Goethe 69

One need only grow old to become gentler in one's judgments. I see no fault committed which I could not have committed myself. 

IMAGE: School of Rembrandt, Old Man in Prayer (c. 1640) 

Stobaeus on Stoic Ethics 13

The Stoics call "practices" the love of music, of letters, of horses, of hunting, and, broadly speaking, the so-called general crafts. 

They are not knowledge, but they leave them in the class of virtuous conditions, and consistently they say that only the wise man is a music lover and a lover of letters, and analogously in the other cases. 

They give a definition of a "practice" as follows: a method using a craft or some part of a craft that leads us to what is in accord with virtue. 

IMAGE: Rembrandt, The Scholar at the Lectern (1641) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 79.4

Already much of the task is accomplished; nay, rather, if I can bring myself to confess the truth, not much. 
 
For goodness does not mean merely being better than the lowest. Who that could catch but a mere glimpse of the daylight would boast his powers of vision? One who sees the sun shining through a mist may be contented meanwhile that he has escaped darkness, but he does not yet enjoy the blessing of light.
 
Our souls will not have reason to rejoice in their lot until, freed from this darkness in which they grope, they have not merely glimpsed the brightness with feeble vision, but have absorbed the full light of day and have been restored to their place in the sky—until, indeed, they have regained the place which they held at the allotment of their birth. 
 
The soul is summoned upward by its very origin. And it will reach that goal even before it is released from its prison below, as soon as it has cast off sin and, in purity and lightness, has leaped up into celestial realms of thought. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 79 
 
Once I have set my sights on the virtues, I am confronted with another challenge. From thinking far too little of myself, I am tempted to now think far too much of myself, to presume that I have gained a mastery over something by merely glancing at it. I may speak about it with an intense passion, but I have not yet done the rough work of weaving it into my very bones. 
 
Am I a better man today than I was yesterday, or a decade ago? While it is good to be proud of progress, however slight, an advancement is not the same as a completion, just as one step does not conclude the entire journey. To catch a glimmer of light, from the corner of my eye, and to be drawn to its warmth, is not yet to bask in its glow. I am peeking through a dusty windowpane, even as I am being called to stroll freely in the sunshine. 
 
It begins with a transformation of understanding. It continues with a purity of intention. It is expressed in a habit of action; though it may not have to take a long time, it does demand a rigorous practice. Aristotle rightly distinguished between moral continence, where I know something of the good while still struggling to act upon it, and moral virtue, where the exercise of the good becomes like a second nature. 
 
I should not delude myself into believing that there are any shortcuts to an informed character. Latching onto a political creed, or a religious cult, or an ethnic tribe is never a substitute for a personal commitment, because it assumes the appearance without the responsibility. I note how the more I am inclined to scold my supposed enemies, the more I am whitewashing my own hidden vices. 
 
The angry zealot thinks he is already a sage, and the bitter cynic denies that there can ever be any sages, and both of them are victims of their own anxieties. I choose not to fall for either of these traps today, and if I can then manage it again tomorrow, I have achieved a bit of growth. Maturity is not instant, nor is it impossible: it comes from the process of dragging myself out of the shadows and daring to be consumed by the radiance. 
 
It is the rediscovery of the home I have forgotten, a return to my nature, a reverence that unfolds into a recognition. 

—Reflection written in 11/2013 

IMAGE: Rembrandt, The Philosopher in Meditation (1632) 

Delphic Maxims 71

Ὁμοίοις χρῶ 

Associate with your peers 

IMAGE: Rembrandt, The Syndics of the Amsterdam Drapers' Guild (1662) 

Stockdale on Stoicism 47

Epictetus once gave a lecture to his faculty complaining about the common tendency of new teachers to slight the stark realism of Stoicism 's challenges in favor of giving the students an uplifting, rosy picture of how they could meet the harsh requirements of the good life painlessly. 

Epictetus said: "Men, the lecture-room of the philosopher is a hospital; students ought not to walk out of it in pleasure, but in pain." 

If Epictetus 's lecture room was a hospital, my prison was a laboratory—a laboratory of human behavior. I chose to test his postulates against the demanding real-life challenges of my laboratory. 

I'm not talking about brainwashing; there is no such thing. I'm talking about having looked over the brink, and seen the bottom of the pit, and realizing the truth of that linchpin of Stoic thought: that the thing that brings down a man is not pain but shame! 

—from James B. Stockdale, Master of My Fate: A Stoic Philosopher in a Hanoi Prison 

IMAGE: Rembrandt, St. Peter in Prison (1631) 

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 4.20

M. They say that even grief, which we have already said ought to be avoided as a monstrous and fierce beast, was appointed by nature, not without some good purpose, in order that men should lament when they had committed a fault, well knowing they had exposed themselves to correction, rebuke, and ignominy; for they think that those who can bear ignominy and infamy without pain have acquired a complete impunity for all sorts of crimes; for with them reproach is a stronger check than conscience. 
 
From whence we have that scene in Afranius borrowed from common life; for when the abandoned son says, “Wretched that I am!” 
 
The severe father replies,“Let him but grieve, no matter what the cause.”
 
And they say the other divisions of sorrow have their use; that pity incites us to hasten to the assistance of others, and to alleviate the calamities of men who have undeservedly fallen into them; that even envy and detraction are not without their use, as when a man sees that another person has attained what he cannot, or observes another to be equally successful with himself; that he who should take away fear would take away all industry in life, which those men exert in the greatest degree who are afraid of the laws and of the magistrates, who dread poverty, ignominy, death, and pain. 
 
But while they argue thus, they allow indeed of these feelings being retrenched, though they deny that they either can or should be plucked up by the roots; so that their opinion is that mediocrity is best in everything. When they reason in this manner, what think you—is what they say worth attending to or not?
 
A. I think it is. I wait, therefore, to hear what you will say in reply to them. 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 4.20 
 
This is a point where many people will, along with the Auditor, object to Cicero’s line of reasoning. We have grown so accustomed to defining ourselves exclusively by our emotional states that we believe the intensity of the feeling to be the measure of our moral worth: surely being good is all about being passionate?
 
Recall, however, that Cicero, in this case together with the Stoics, is not arguing for any repression of desire, but rather for a moderation of desire, where we do not allow our feeling to be at war with our thinking. The difference between ordered and disordered emotions depends on whether or not they are in harmony with reason, for the right kinds of attachments and aversions will proceed from the right kinds of judgments. 
 
Simply put, if you start with a confused mind, you will end up with a troubled heart; an informed conscience is the only way to bring peace to our passions. Using the old Stoic distinctions, gratification, lust, grief, and fear are the consequences of an unhealthy attitude, yet joy, wish, and caution are the consequences of a healthy attitude. Remember, of course, that we need not dwell upon a “reasonable” sort of grief, since any present evil can be overcome by a change in our own assessment of the true human good. 
 
We should understand Cicero’s view in this larger context, and so also be on our guard against any claims about manipulating people’s behavior by appealing to their extreme emotions. Properly nurture a man’s reason, respecting his capacity to choose freely, and there will be no call for such crude constraints. Work from the inside out, not from the outside in. 
 
I have often heard it said that grief is necessary to feel shame, or that pity is the best means to practicing charity, or that envy is a condition for achieving success, or that fear is what will force us to obey the law. If such feelings do come to us, let us certainly make good use of them, but we are made to transform them, not to encourage them. 
 
No, a man will hardly become “better” by being urged into an ever more frantic mood: he will have lost control of his own faculties, and any external resemblance to virtue this might produce will be nothing but a perverse caricature. Teach him to embrace the best in his nature, rather than to merely settle for the worst in his nature, and inspire him to reach for excellence, instead of wallowing in his mediocrity. 
 
There was nothing just about Judas returning the silver from a sense of anguish. Do not confuse the condescension of a politician with a service to the poor man. The jealousy of Achilles did not make him a finer warrior. My terror at being locked in a cage is no incentive to love. 
 
At the risk of becoming even more unpopular, I will suggest that the failure of our schools, workplaces, and courts is due precisely to the philosophical blunder of tricking the passions instead of taming them. 

—Reflection written in 1/1999 

IMAGE: Rembrandt, Judas Returning the Thirty Silver Pieces (1629) 

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 4.17

M. Whoever, then, through moderation and constancy, is at rest in his mind, and in calm possession of himself, so as neither to pine with care, nor be dejected with fear, nor to be inflamed with desire, coveting something greedily, nor relaxed by extravagant mirth—such a man is that identical wise man whom we are inquiring for: he is the happy man, to whom nothing in this life seems intolerable enough to depress him; nothing exquisite enough to transport him unduly. 
 
For what is there in this life that can appear great to him who has acquainted himself with eternity and the utmost extent of the Universe? For what is there in human knowledge, or the short span of this life, that can appear great to a wise man? Whose mind is always so upon its guard that nothing can befall him which is unforeseen, nothing which is unexpected, nothing, in short, which is new. 
 
Such a man takes so exact a survey on all sides of him, that he always knows the proper place and spot to live in free from all the troubles and annoyances of life, and encounters every accident that fortune can bring upon him with a becoming calmness. 
 
Whoever conducts himself in this manner will be free from grief, and from every other perturbation; and a mind free from these feelings renders men completely happy; whereas a mind disordered and drawn off from right and unerring reason loses at once, not only its resolution, but its health. 
 
Therefore, the thoughts and declarations of the Peripatetics are soft and effeminate, for they say that the mind must necessarily be agitated, but at the same time they lay down certain bounds beyond which that agitation is not to proceed. 
 
And do you set bounds to vice? Or is it no vice to disobey reason? Does not reason sufficiently declare that there is no real good which you should desire too ardently, or the possession of which you should allow to transport you? And that there is no evil that should be able to overwhelm you, or the suspicion of which should distract you? And that all these things assume too melancholy or too cheerful an appearance through our own error? 
 
But if fools find this error lessened by time, so that, though the cause remains the same, they are not affected, in the same manner, after some time, as they were at first, why, surely a wise man ought not to be influenced at all by it. 
 
But what are those degrees by which we are to limit it? Let us fix these degrees in grief, a difficult subject, and one much canvassed. Fannius writes that P. Rutilius took it much to heart that his brother was refused the consulship; but he seems to have been too much affected by this disappointment, for it was the occasion of his death: he ought, therefore, to have borne it with more moderation. 
 
But let us suppose that while he was bearing this with moderation, the death of his children had intervened; here would have started a fresh grief, which, admitting it to be moderate in itself, yet still must have been a great addition to the other. Now, to these let us add some acute pains of body, the loss of his fortune, blindness, banishment. Supposing, then, each separate misfortune to occasion a separate additional grief, the whole would be too great to be supportable. 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 4.17 

 
Was it a hallmark of my generation to make intensity the standard of worth? I was constantly being told how I would succeed if I was only more passionate, constantly excited and busy, displaying my enthusiasm above all else. While I certainly understand the need to be fiercely motivated, I will not confuse this with a nervous frenzy—before all else, there must be a serenity within me. 
 
The anxious man runs to and fro, shifting his attention from one diversion to another, and he is always a victim of his moods, which rise and fall according to the flukes of fortune. He is elated when he gets a promotion at the office, but then he is depressed when he finds his wife sleeping with her tennis instructor. There is no peace for him, since there is nothing constant within his soul. 
 
It doesn’t have to be that way. Where there is a mind in tune with Nature, there will be a soul charged with virtue, and so a man can be happy by simply living according to his own merits. He does not identify himself by his circumstances, and so he is neither raised up nor cast down by extremes of pleasure or pain. By knowing who his is, he is on an even keel. 
 
He doesn’t sweat the small stuff, having an appreciation for the meaning and purpose of the whole; both the promotion at work and the wayward wife are equally taken as opportunities to act with greater character. Asking for nothing more, and immune to losing what he already has, he does not work himself up into a lather. 
 
As much as I deeply respect the tradition of Aristotle, I have sometimes wondered if the school wished to have it both ways, by defining virtue as the excellence of our thoughts and deeds, while still demanding specific external conditions to make this feasible, or by claiming that a good man can still be agitated, just not beyond a certain limit. With Cicero, I ask: why settle for half measures? 
 
I do not wish to suggest that the Peripatetics intended this at all, but it reminds me of my “pious” friends who speak so much about holiness and prayer, yet then spend most of their day promoting their careers. I also think of those who justify outbursts of rage when they happen to be convenient, by calling them expressions of “righteous anger”. Sitting on the fence is never very comfortable. 
 
If it possible to stand on my own two feet, it is lazy to still walk on crutches. If it is possible to live well without relying on tantrums and heartache, there is no need for bloated emotions. In both cases, it most certainly is possible, because I am a creature ruled by my own judgments, and I will only insist otherwise when I am trying to pass the buck. Let me employ any means that come to me, without submitting to them. Let me feel with depth and sincerity, without losing a grip on myself. 
 
Once I allow one little grief to take a hold of me, hoping only that time will heal my wounds, whatever shall I do when the next one comes my way? What if those smaller frustrations, which I am willing to overlook individually, arrive all at once? It is better to arm myself against grief, or fear, or gratification, or lust from the very beginning, as best as is within my power. 
 
To be strong does not mean I must become insensitive, only vigilant. I know all too well how a fellow can fall apart by bits and pieces, forgetting how a trifling compromise soon leads to a total surrender. In this, the school of hard knocks has taught me to trust the rigor of the Stoics over the accommodations of the Peripatetics. 
 
Rutilius permitted a worry to get its foot in the door, and it turned out to be the end of him. An old schoolmate always argued that World War II was actually over on the day the Allies established that tiny beachhead at Normandy. Or, as Grandma used to say, one bad apple spoils the whole barrel. There can be no haggling when it comes to virtue and vice. 

—Reflection written in 1/1999 

IMAGE: Jan Gillisz van Vliet (after Rembrandt), A Man Grieving (1634) 

Epictetus, Golden Sayings 177

When a man prides himself on being able to understand and interpret the writings of Chrysippus, say to yourself: 

If Chrysippus had not written obscurely, this fellow would have had nothing to be proud of. But what is it that I desire? To understand Nature, and to follow her! 

Accordingly, I ask who is the Interpreter. On hearing that it is Chrysippus, I go to him. But it seems I do not understand what he wrote. So I seek one to interpret that. So far there is nothing to pride myself on. 

But when I have found my interpreter, what remains is to put in practice his instructions. This itself is the only thing to be proud of.  

But if I admire the interpretation and that alone, what else have I turned out but a mere commentator instead of a lover of wisdom?—except indeed that I happen to be interpreting Chrysippus instead of Homer. 

So when any one says to me, "Prithee, read me Chrysippus," I am more inclined to blush, when I cannot show my deeds to be in harmony and accordance with his sayings. 

IMAGE: Rembrandt, Two Scholars Disputing (1628) 

Sayings of Ramakrishna 231

Q: What is the reason that a Prophet is not honored by his own kinsmen? 

A: The kinsmen of a juggler do not crowd round him to see his performances, while strangers stand agape at his wonderful tricks. 

IMAGE: Rembrandt, Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem (1630) 

Stoic Snippets 219

Either the gods have no power or they have power. 

If, then, they have no power, why do you pray to them? 

But if they have power, why do you not pray for them to give you the faculty of not fearing any of the things which you fear, or of not desiring any of the things which you desire, or of not being pained at anything, rather than pray that any of these things should not happen or happen? 

For certainly if they can cooperate with men, they can cooperate for these purposes. 

But perhaps you will say the gods have placed them in your power. Well, then, is it not better to use what is in your power like a free man than to desire in a slavish and abject way what is not in your power? 

And who has told you that the gods do not aid us, even in the things which are in our power? Begin, then, to pray for such things, and you will see. 

One man prays thus: How shall I be able to lie with that woman? Do you pray thus: How shall I not desire to lie with her? 

Another prays thus: How shall I be released from this? Pray you: How shall I not desire to be released? 

Another thus: How shall I not lose my little son? You thus: How shall I not be afraid to lose him? 

In fine, turn your prayers this way, and see what comes. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.40 

IMAGE: Rembrandt, An Elderly Man in Prayer (c. 1660) 

Jacob Wrestling with the Angel 2

Rembrandt, Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (c. 1659) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 49.5

And yet I may well seem in your eyes no less mad, if I spend my energies on that sort of thing; for even now I am in a state of siege. And yet, in the former case it would be merely a peril from the outside that threatened me, and a wall that sundered me from the foe; as it is now, death-dealing perils are in my very presence. I have no time for such nonsense; a mighty undertaking is on my hands. 
 
What am I to do? Death is on my trail, and life is fleeting away; teach me something with which to face these troubles. Bring it to pass that I shall cease trying to escape from death, and that life may cease to escape from me. Give me courage to meet hardships; make me calm in the face of the unavoidable.
 
Relax the straitened limits of the time which is allotted me. Show me that the good in life does not depend upon life's length, but upon the use we make of it; also, that it is possible, or rather usual, for a man who has lived long to have lived too little. 
 
Say to me when I lie down to sleep: "You may not wake again!" And when I have waked: "You may not go to sleep again!" Say to me when I go forth from my house: "You may not return!" And when I return: "You may never go forth again!" 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 49 
 
I understand why military analogies can fall flat, since not all of us possess the capacity for going to war, and the drudgery of everyday life seems so far removed from the heroic deeds of a soldier. 
 
How could I possibly compare the siege of a city to my humdrum attempts at acting with a smidgen of integrity? Aren’t these two totally different sorts of honor? 
 
Do not be deceived. Battles take on many forms, and the ones that matter the most take place on the inside, not on the outside. 
 
The young soldier confronts the fear of death to do his duty, while the old sage conquers the fear of death by treasuring the virtues. The one worries that he might die, the other accepts that he must die, and in their own ways they both come to understand why living well is so much more important than merely living. 
 
Know that the time granted is sorely limited, and how Fortune do not take kindly to do-overs. The only way to find that strength is by joining my own will to the will of Providence. It is as if our lives have been set out before us so we can learn to cherish quality over quantity. 
 
Some may consider Seneca’s wishes here to be morbid, but that is because they are still perceiving death itself to be an evil. I should be acutely aware that death can come at any time, in order that I might treat each and every moment as precious. 
 
Upon waking and upon going to sleep, when leaving the home and when returning to it, imagining it as the last time reminds me to act on my conscience right here and now, never assuming I can delay until tomorrow. He who hesitates is lost. 

—Reflection written in 3/2013 

IMAGE: Rembrandt, An Old Man in an Armchair (c. 1650) 

Chuang Tzu 3.3

When Kung-wan Hsien saw the Master of the Left, he was startled, and said, "What sort of man is this? How is it he has but one foot? Is it from Heaven? Or from Man?" 

Then he added, "It must be from Heaven, and not from Man. Heaven's making of this man caused him to have but one foot. In the person of man, each foot has its marrow. By this I know that his peculiarity is from Heaven, and not from Man. 

"A pheasant of the marshes has to take ten steps to pick up a mouthful of food, and thirty steps to get a drink, but it does not seek to be nourished in a coop. Though its spirit would there enjoy a royal abundance, it does not think such confinement good." 

IMAGE: Rembrandt, Beggar with a Wooden Leg (c. 1630) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 30.6

I admit, therefore, that I have visited this dear friend of mine more frequently on many pretexts, but with the purpose of learning whether I should find him always the same, and whether his mental strength was perhaps waning in company with his bodily powers. 

 

But it was on the increase, just as the joy of the charioteer is wont to show itself more clearly when he is on the seventh round of the course, and nears the prize.

 

Indeed, he often said, in accord with the counsels of Epicurus: 

 

“I hope, first of all, that there is no pain at the moment when a man breathes his last; but if there is, one will find an element of comfort in its very shortness. For no great pain lasts long.

 

“And at all events, a man will find relief at the very time when soul and body are being torn asunder, even though the process be accompanied by excruciating pain, in the thought that after this pain is over he can feel no more pain. 

 

“I am sure, however, that an old man's soul is on his very lips, and that only a little force is necessary to disengage it from the body. A fire which has seized upon a substance that sustains it needs water to quench it, or, sometimes, the destruction of the building itself; but the fire which lacks sustaining fuel dies away of its own accord." 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 30  

 

As a part of the common association between youth and vitality, we are also inclined to think of something old as if it were weak. 

 

Yes, after a certain peak, the body will begin to slow down, and there is a gradual discovery, often fiercely denied and resisted, that we can’t do as much or go as far as we once could. 

 

The mind can also lose some of its edge, especially in keenness and memory, which makes for both frustration and amusement. 

 

How did I once cycle twenty miles a day? I can’t do that anymore. Juggling four or five different writing assignments at a time? Now I struggle my way through a single paragraph, desperately grabbing after the right words. 

 

I should not be fooled, however, into believing that age is a shortcoming, for so many of our advantages and disadvantages are a matter of perspective. The young man may well be quick and resilient, yet this can easily make him careless and insensitive. The old man may well be slow and fragile, yet this can also make him deliberate and flexible. As with all our circumstances, the benefit or the harm come from how we manage to transform an obstacle into an opportunity. 

 

I think it no accident how experience encourages sound judgment, such that the older man will not necessarily become wiser, though he has been given far more chances to learn his lessons. Perhaps Nature intends for our bodies to give way as our minds become more accustomed to a reflective calm. 

 

How ironic that when I was able to rush about everywhere, I didn’t know where I was going, and now that I am finally acquiring a handful of insights, I no longer have the urge to live in a frenzy.

 

I regularly see old age being mocked or pitied, and though there is undoubtedly a decay on the outside, a closer examination can also reveal an incredible flourishing on the inside—is this what they mean by maturing and ripening? 

 

Some wines go sour over the years, and some acquire whole new layers of flavor. Where the breadth isn’t so showy, a subtle depth takes root. As I have sat with elderly family and friends as they approached death, I have noticed an almost superhuman tenderness—even in those cases where their faculties were seriously impaired. 

 

When and if I come to that point, I may understand more of it, and yet it is quite possible I will no longer possess the ability to describe it. I wonder if what Epicurus said points to some of those delicate qualities: 

 

What pain can there now be in it? So much has already been nobly endured, and this last strain will pass soon. 

 

If there is still anxiety, contemplate the abundance of relief that follows a final discomfort. 

 

There is no need to make a great show of it, and going out with a big bang is vastly overrated. I now see more of the appeal in peacefully fizzling out over the crudity of being violently smothered. 

 

A man like Bassus isn’t prudent and tranquil because he is old, but he has chosen to employ his dotage in service to his enlightenment. 

—Reflection written in 11/2012 

IMAGE: Rembrandt, Portrait of an Old Man (1632)