Seneca, Moral Letters 86.7

But to return to our olive-yard again. I saw it planted in two ways. If the trees were large, Aegialus took their trunks and cut off the branches to the length of one foot each; he then transplanted along with the ball, after cutting off the roots, leaving only the thick part from which the roots hang. He smeared this with manure, and inserted it in the hole, not only heaping up the earth about it, but stamping and pressing it down.
 
There is nothing, he says, more effective than this packing process; in other words, it keeps out the cold and the wind. Besides, the trunk is not shaken so much, and for this reason the packing makes it possible for the young roots to come out and get a hold in the soil. These are of necessity still soft; they have but a slight hold, and a very little shaking uproots them. 
 
This ball, moreover, Aegialus lops clean before he covers it up. For he maintains that new roots spring from all the parts which have been shorn. Moreover, the trunk itself should not stand more than three or four feet out of the ground. For there will thus be at once a thick growth from the bottom, nor will there be a large stump, all dry and withered, as is the case with old olive-yards.
 
The second way of setting them out was the following: he set out in similar fashion branches that were strong and of soft bark, as those of young saplings are wont to be. These grow a little more slowly, but, since they spring from what is practically a cutting, there is no roughness or ugliness in them. 
 
This too I have seen recently—an aged vine transplanted from its own plantation. In this case, the fibers also should be gathered together, if possible, and then you should cover up the vine-stem more generously, so that roots may spring up even from the stock. I have seen such plantings made not only in February, but at the very end of March; the plants take hold of and embrace alien elms. But all trees, he declares, which are, so to speak, “thick-stemmed,” should be assisted with tank water; if we have this help, we are our own rainmakers. 
 
I do not intend to tell you any more of these precepts, lest, as Aegialus did with me, I may be training you up to be my competitor. Farewell. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 86 
 
Perhaps one of the reasons I am not a very good gardener is that I am afraid to use a strong hand. Plants can seem quite delicate to me, and so, out a misguided tenderness, I neglect to do what is necessary. Like all of us, they often need a firm nudge to best fulfill their nature. 
 
The soil must be properly tilled. Be meticulous with watering and heedful of the light and the temperature. The weeds need to go. Don’t hesitate when it comes to pruning. Most importantly, know the plan from the get-go, and stick with it—by the time I have second-guessed, it is probably too late. 
 
When I first read this description of transplanting olive trees, it sounded downright brutal. Cut back all of the branches? Leave only the ball of the roots? Pack it so firmly and deeply into the ground that there is absolutely no room to move? So be it, if this is required for growth to take place. The care of infants, for example, taught me something similar about taking the bull by the horns. 
 
I recently had a neighbor who was remarkably skilled at growing new trees from old cuttings, while the best I could manage was accidentally growing some vines from a forgotten Halloween pumpkin. For all of the excuses I could make, the only difference between us was that I lacked his vigilance and discipline. 
 
Indeed, every spring I observe the eager suburbanites spending ridiculous amounts of money on new plants from the big box store, only to then repeat the entire process the following year. Whatever happened in between? They spent a few hours throwing them into the dirt, and then they ignored them completely. 
 
We like things when they appear novel, though we quickly lose interest once they demand any serious commitment, like children who grow tired of their puppies. We unfortunately limit ourselves to being lazy consumers, instead of striving to become vital creators. To care for a garden is a fine preparation for the care of a life. 
 
It is good to cherish and to nurture what is old, not merely because it is old, but because it more fully expresses the continuity of what is timeless. I must not dispose of my plants when they offer me a spot of trouble, just as I should not dispose of my friends when they cease to be convenient. As long as life remains in it, it is always worth nourishing the good in it. 
 
While many things are best enjoyed when still fresh, I have found that the deepest truths will benefit greatly from aging. A colleague tells me this about his wine, and I know it to be the case for my pipe tobacco, and it is most certainly true about love. 
 
All this talk about bathing, and then about gardening, is a priceless aid in appreciating the enduring values. In the end, it doesn’t really matter how we choose to wash ourselves, and it doesn’t really matter if we are brave enough to raise a bonsai or are willing to settle for mowing the lawn. What does matter, however, is that we approach every aspect of this life with a total reverence, humbled by the fact that there is nothing new under the sun. 
 
Whatever immortal lessons you may have learned along the way, be sure to pass them on to the next fellow in line. His is your cooperator in the work of Providence, not your competitor. 

—Reflection written in 1/2014 

IMAGE: Camille Pissarro, Orchard in Bloom (1872) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 86.6

If what I am saying shall seem to you too pessimistic, charge it up against Scipio’s country house, where I have learned a lesson from Aegialus, a most careful householder and now the owner of this estate; he taught me that a tree can be transplanted, no matter how far gone in years. 
 
We old men must learn this precept; for there is none of us who is not planting an olive-yard for his successor. I have seen them bearing fruit in due season after three or four years of unproductiveness. And you too shall be shaded by the tree which 
 
“Is slow to grow, but bringeth shade to cheer 
Your grandsons in the far-off years,”
 
as our poet Vergil says. Vergil sought, however, not what was nearest to the truth, but what was most appropriate, and aimed, not to teach the farmer, but to please the reader. For example, omitting all other errors of his, I will quote the passage in which it was incumbent upon me today to detect a fault:
 
“In spring sow beans then, too, O clover plant, 
Thou’rt welcomed by the crumbling furrows; and 
The millet calls for yearly care.” 
 
You may judge by the following incident whether those plants should be set out at the same time, or whether both should be sowed in the spring. It is June at the present writing, and we are well on towards July; and I have seen on this very day farmers harvesting beans and sowing millet. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 86 
 
Long before I ever started dabbling in philosophy, I was in love with the natural world, and I have never regretted fostering that particular instinct. Animals can feel as if they have been the best of friends, and plants can teach me about the core of what it means to live. 
 
While I am not patient enough to train a dog, a tabby cat has been my loyal companion for many years. He gets me, even though he does not understand me. 
 
While I have never had a green thumb, I care for a small bed of herbs in my backyard. Sometimes these plants grow strong, and sometimes they wither away, but they never fail to do their best, without any hesitation. 
 
My mother and father kept the most exquisite garden—to remember it is to conquer despair. What happens in one aspect of nature is always mirrored in another, so I do not think it ridiculous to observe how the virtue of a tree has much in common with the virtue of a man. It is no accident that poets have long drawn from the language of seeds and of blossoms, of cultivating and of harvesting. 
 
I would have to ask my parents if Cicero was right to question Vergil about the best growing seasons, but for the moment, my interest is in the likeness between nurturing a garden and nurturing a soul. How can an old tree be transplanted into new soil? How can ancient wisdom be passed on to younger minds? The goal should be to maintain that which is perennial, instead of merely starting over with a fresh batch of annuals. 
 
The newest thing is usually the flashiest thing, so those who are driven first by their passions will be charmed by the sparkle of the impressions. Yet given a bit of time, which can lift us to a broader perspective, we begin to understand why, for all the comings and goings, the only real truths are the timeless truths. The sapling is sassy, though the oak is enduring. 
 
Yes, every creature must eventually weaken and diminish, and this is only fitting, for when the new arises from the old, it will nevertheless express the patterns of what came before. This is the work of the Creator: the beings reflect Being, and the natures reflect Nature. 
 
Do not underestimate those timeworn olive trees. They may have some fruit in them yet. 

—Reflection written in 1/2014 

IMAGE: Georges Seurat, The Gardener (1883) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 86.5

How some persons nowadays condemn Scipio as a boor because he did not let daylight into his perspiring room through wide windows, or because he did not roast in the strong sunlight and dawdle about until he could stew in the hot water! 
 
“Poor fool,” they say, “he did not know how to live! He did not bathe in filtered water; it was often turbid, and after heavy rains almost muddy!” 
 
But it did not matter much to Scipio if he had to bathe in that way; he went there to wash off sweat, not ointment. And how do you suppose certain persons will answer me? They will say: “I don’t envy Scipio; that was truly an exile’s life—to put up with baths like those!” 
 
Friend, if you were wiser, you would know that Scipio did not bathe every day. It is stated by those who have reported to us the old-time ways of Rome that the Romans washed only their arms and legs daily—because those were the members which gathered dirt in their daily toil—and bathed all over only once a week. 
 
Here someone will retort: “Yes; pretty dirty fellows they evidently were! How they must have smelled!” 
 
But they smelled of the camp, the farm, and heroism. Now that spick-and-span bathing establishments have been devised, men are really fouler than of yore.
 
What says Horatius Flaccus, when he wishes to describe a scoundrel, one who is notorious for his extreme luxury? He says: “Buccillus smells of perfume.” 
 
Show me a Buccillus in these days; his smell would be the veritable goat-smell—he would take the place of the Gargonius with whom Horace in the same passage contrasted him. It is nowadays not enough to use ointment, unless you put on a fresh coat two or three times a day, to keep it from evaporating on the body. But why should a man boast of this perfume as if it were his own? 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 86 
 
As a child of two continents, it was sometimes hard to feel at home, but it also gave me the benefit of seeing a few things from a broader perspective. Even in my own lifetime, many of those contrasts have gradually disappeared, as our cultures become homogenized, so I now torture my own children with endless stories about how both America and Europe used to be. Like Seneca, my intention is to point toward what is perennial, not merely to linger on the past. 
 
At American schools, I was confused when my peers were always talking about taking showers, at many different times during the day, and they became deeply anxious if they were ever denied the chance to do so. There were showers in the morning, and showers in the evening, and showers after sports or any sort of physical exertion. I finally realized they had an aversion to the slightest presence of sweat, which also explained why the continually covered themselves with a variety of deodorants and antiperspirants.
 
Now my mother, very of much of the European old school, would not have permitted me to leave the house dirty or smelly, but I was never told to shower daily. I was, however, expected to wash thoroughly as a part of my routine, and I would be sent back to the bathroom if I cut any corners. A sink, a washcloth, and a bar of soap were the tools. A proper bath was added once a week, and only more often if I somehow made a terrible mess of myself. 
 
To the American, the European would seem like a filthy beast, stinking to high heaven, and to the European, the American would seem like a spoiled brat, wallowing in decadence. Both were exaggerations, of course, and yet I couldn’t help but notice how the average Bostonian was still a far sloppier, grubbier, and, dare I say, ruder fellow than the average Austrian. Let us be careful about what we mean by being clean. 
 
Both Seneca and my mother may have been on to something. 
 
By the time I became a teacher, my students still appeared to be showering before class, since most of them crawled in with wet hair, but I was sometimes alarmed by the smell in the room. No, it wasn’t just sweat, it was also stale beer, masked by the pungent scent of cheap body spray. I once observed a young man fumigate himself from head to toe with a can, for well over a minute, which was a world away from my spritz of 4711 after shaving, or that dab of Eau Sauvage on a special occasion, from a bottle that lasted me over a decade. 
 
The more things change, the more they stay the same. 
 
I can honestly say that I am very rarely offended by someone’s body odor, and when I am, I must remind myself that it is usually due to circumstances beyond their control. A man who has been working probably should smell of sweat, though if he is well-mannered, he will wash up before he sits down at the table. Nor do I mind the smell of hay, compost, goats, horses, or cattle, as they are a sign that I am in a properly natural place. 
 
What does sadden me, however, is the attempt to conceal our rough physicality, to hide behind some fancy perfume. It is yet another instance of putting on an act, of pretending to be better than we really are. No, I correct myself: not better at all, but worse, because we are hardly being authentic. It isn’t our scent to begin with. 
 
A man should not have to drench himself with chemicals before he faces the world, and a woman should not have to spend an hour “putting on her face” before she is taken seriously. 

—Reflection written in 1/2014 

Seneca, Moral Letters 86.4

In the early days, however, there were few baths, and they were not fitted out with any display. For why should men elaborately fit out that which, costs a penny only, and was invented for use, not merely for delight? 
 
The bathers of those days did not have water poured over them, nor did it always run fresh as if from a hot spring; and they did not believe that it mattered at all how perfectly pure was the water into which they were to leave their dirt.
 
Ye gods, what a pleasure it is to enter that dark bath, covered with a common sort of roof, knowing that therein your hero Cato, as aedile, or Fabius Maximus, or one of the Cornelii, has warmed the water with his own hands! 
 
For this also used to be the duty of the noblest aediles—to enter these places to which the populace resorted, and to demand that they be cleaned and warmed to a heat required by considerations of use and health, not the heat that men have recently made fashionable, as great as a conflagration—so much so, indeed, that a slave condemned for some criminal offence now ought to bebathed alive! 
 
It seems to me that nowadays there is no difference between “the bath is on fire,” and “the bath is warm." 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 86 
 
As much as this whole letter may come across as an extended grievance, I find it encouraging to learn how the people of any time or place are tempted by extravagance. Whether in ancient Rome or in modern New York, to recognize our weaknesses can point us back to our strengths. 
 
We are all, of course, drawn to the pleasures of the flesh, but on an even deeper level, we desperately crave being significant, and we come to believe that putting on an elaborate show is the quickest way to making our mark. If we pretend on the outside, other people will surely think us worthy on the inside, and so a pursuit of vanity takes the place of building any genuine character. 
 
We collect the trinkets and the trophies, acting as if our lives must be a continual performance, such that a bath is no longer about getting clean, or our work is no longer about being of service, or our friendships are no longer about offering love. How can it be used to promote the image? How can it increase our prestige? How can it make us feel more important? 
 
If I only choose to look honestly, I can find the pretensions in the most ridiculous of places. How many of us remember drinking water from what we used to call bubblers? I would keep track of which ones actually ran cold, something I considered a special treat. 
 
Yet somewhere during the 1990’s, bottled water became all the rage, to the point where the designer labels we carried around with us were an expression of our cultural identity, a statement about the smartest style and the most progressive politics wrapped up in a tidy package. 
 
Was it cleaner, or healthier, or better for the planet? I don’t rightly know, but I do know how much money we spent for those accessories, how much new trash it produced, and how people would insist they could taste the purity, even after a mischievous friend of mine had secretly replaced the contents with regular tap water. Is it technically a lie if we have convinced ourselves of the falsehood? 
 
Every generation has its own varieties. I suspect a good man will drink or bathe with whatever water he has at hand, without getting too worried about its pedigree. 

—Reflection written in 1/2014 

IMAGE: Edmond Paulin, Cross-section of the Baths of Diocletian (1880) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 86.3

I have so far been speaking of the ordinary bathing establishments; what shall I say when I come to those of the freedmen? What a vast number of statues, of columns that support nothing, but are built for decoration, merely in order to spend money! And what masses of water that fall crashing from level to level! We have become so luxurious that we will have nothing but precious stones to walk upon. 
 
In this bath of Scipio’s there are tiny chinks—you cannot call them windows—cut out of the stone wall in such a way as to admit light without weakening the fortifications; nowadays, however, people regard baths as fit only for moths if they have not been so arranged that they receive the sun all day long through the widest of windows, if men cannot bathe and get a coat of tan at the same time, and if they cannot look out from their bathtubs over stretches of land and sea. 
 
So it goes; the establishments which had drawn crowds and had won admiration when they were first opened are avoided and put back in the category of venerable antiques as soon as luxury has worked out some new device, to her own ultimate undoing. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 86 
 
Despite my griping, I am wary of those who glorify the past, just as I am wary of those who latch onto the latest craze. In both cases, the extremes arise from a failure to build our lives on a firm foundation, the timeless truths that are never at the mercy of either obstinacy or volatility. As long as humans remain humans, the virtues will remain virtues. 
 
Regardless of the fashions, the best sort of bathtub will help us to wash away the day’s grime and to soothe our aching muscles; how strange that those who never seem to break a sweat from an honest day’s work are the ones most concerned with installing the most elaborate fixtures. 
 
There is no shame in convenience, as long as it does not conflict with conscience, but the pursuit of luxury leads us down a path toward decadence, where the essence is confused with the accidents, and character is compromised for the sake of comfort. It is no longer “aesthetics” once the beautiful is reduced to mere indulgence. You will sadly find this to be a symptom of any decaying culture. 
 
Just as the ancient Romans became obsessed with opulent baths, I think of how modern Americans seek out ever more hedonistic ways to spend their money. As a child, I saw the birth of the mighty shopping malls, and yet within a decade they were already being replaced by far more exciting diversions, which contained a whole new set of amusements. 
 
The old buildings slowly decayed, the big brands moving out in favor of discount stores, massage parlors, insurance offices, and evangelical churches. Now most of them are being torn down, to be replaced by luxury condominiums. 
 
It is much the same with restaurants, movie theaters, and hotels. Whole neighborhoods will rise and fall because people refuse to be happy with a life that is pure and simple. The High Street seems to rotate its trendy shops by the month, like the internet crazes change by the week, or even by the day. 
 
Only those who lack a peace within themselves are forever craving their next fix. We believe the fads to be daring and liberating, when they are really just lazy and slavish. 

—Reflection written in 1/2014 

Seneca, Moral Letters 86.2

I have inspected the house, which is constructed of hewn stone; the wall which encloses a forest; the towers also, buttressed out on both sides for the purpose of defending the house; the well, concealed among buildings and shrubbery, large enough to keep a whole army supplied; and the small bath, buried in darkness according to the old style, for our ancestors did not think that one could have a hot bath except in darkness. 
 
It was therefore a great pleasure to me to contrast Scipio’s ways with our own. Think, in this tiny recess the “terror of Carthage,” to whom Rome should offer thanks because she was not captured more than once, used to bathe a body wearied with work in the fields! 
 
For he was accustomed to keep himself busy and to cultivate the soil with his own hands, as the good old Romans were wont to do. Beneath this dingy roof he stood; and this floor, mean as it is, bore his weight. 
 
But who in these days could bear to bathe in such a fashion? We think ourselves poor and mean if our walls are not resplendent with large and costly mirrors; if our marbles from Alexandria are not set off by mosaics of Numidian stone, if their borders are not faced over on all sides with difficult patterns, arranged in many colors like paintings; if our vaulted ceilings are not buried in glass; if our swimming-pools are not lined with Thasian marble, once a rare and wonderful sight in any temple—pools into which we let down our bodies after they have been drained weak by abundant perspiration; and finally, if the water has not poured from silver spigots. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 86 
 
If you carefully examine the contents of a man’s home, you also can learn much about the content of his character. 
 
This is only possible, however, if we do not confuse preferences with principles, the style for the substance, since in matters of taste there can be no dispute. Consider instead how a choice of surroundings reflects a deeper judgment about the perceived goods in life, and whether the furnishings are intended to gratify the body or to dignify the soul. 
 
This has less to do with how much we might possess, and more to do with why we might wish to possess it. Is the house a place to grow in love, or is it a means to impress the neighbors? Are those books consulted for the sake of wisdom, or they displayed for the sake of putting on an act? Observe the setting, and you will soon have your answer. 
 
I cannot claim to understand the Roman customs about bathing, but I have noticed how Americans are increasingly concerned about the size of their kitchens. This seems odd, because our families are far smaller than they ever were, and we cook far less than we ever did. 
 
I compare my grandmother, who would prepare meals all day in a space not much larger than a closet, to my boss’s trophy wife, who displays a row of unused cappuccino makers on her granite countertops. 
 
I am confused when the pantry in a McMansion has its own echo. I can’t figure out why a man has three different grills on his patio, and yet he only orders out from Rib Crib. If there are towels in the guest bathroom, I shouldn’t have to worry about drying my hands with them. If the pair of 4x4 trucks in the driveway are meant to make you look like a gentleman farmer, I would at least expect there to be some mud on the fenders. 
 
As for my own bathroom, our real estate agent insisted that the cavernous jacuzzi was a major selling point, and yet I miss the cozy tub of my youth. I don’t need mood lighting to brush my teeth, or a dozen mirrors to comb my hair. And still, my mailbox is full of brochures about updating my obsolete conveniences: “Act now, before it’s too late!” 
 
Through all of this nonsense, my trusty tomcat is happy to do all of his business in the field behind the house. 

—Reflection written in 1/2014 

IMAGE: Fortunino Matania, A Roman Senator in His Lakeside Villa (c. 1920) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 86.1

Letter 86: On Scipio’s villa  
 
I am resting at the country house which once belonged to Scipio Africanus himself; and I write to you after doing reverence to his spirit and to an altar which I am inclined to think is the tomb of that great warrior. 
 
That his soul has indeed returned to the skies, whence it came, I am convinced, not because he commanded mighty armies—for Cambyses also had mighty armies, and Cambyses was a madman who made successful use of his madness—but because he showed moderation and a sense of duty to a marvelous extent. 
 
I regard this trait in him as more admirable after his withdrawal from his native land than while he was defending her; for there was the alternative: Scipio should remain in Rome, or Rome should remain free. 
 
“It is my wish,” said he, “not to infringe in the least upon our laws, or upon our customs; let all Roman citizens have equal rights. O my country, make the most of the good that I have done, but without me. I have been the cause of your freedom, and I shall also be its proof; I go into exile, if it is true that I have grown beyond what is to your advantage!” 
 
What can I do but admire this magnanimity, which led him to withdraw into voluntary exile and to relieve the state of its burden? Matters had gone so far that either liberty must work harm to Scipio, or Scipio to liberty. Either of these things was wrong in the sight of heaven. 
 
So he gave way to the laws and withdrew to Liternum, thinking to make the state a debtor for his own exile no less than for the exile of Hannibal. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 86 
 
I first came to Stoicism because it offered me the only practical solution to a very pressing problem: whatever am I to do about the burden of my pain? It asks me to take the basic principles of my nature—about what is good, what is bad, and what is indifferent—and then to directly apply these values in my daily living. The school only appears radical or esoteric if we fail to recognize how it draws all of its conclusions from the universal truths held by any of the world’s wisdom traditions. 
 
It didn’t hurt, however, that I also had an immediate attraction to the peculiar styles of its authors. Musonius Rufus speaks like the teacher I always wished I had. Epictetus has the knack for knocking some sense back into me. Marcus Aurelius expertly calms my wayward passions. And Seneca is the old codger who reminds me why it is okay for me to be a young codger.
 
Those who care for me have sometimes called me an “old soul”, while those who don’t care for me are likely to describe me as an insufferable curmudgeon. My inclinations tend toward the melancholic, the romantic, and the nostalgic, which make for an interesting brew, such that I will often come across as a hopeless idealist who yearns for some long-lost world. 
 
So, while many people will skip this letter, I find it fascinating to read a retired patrician’s musings about his stay in the former home of a Roman hero. If you are patient, you may find how his glorification of the past can be a guide for our future, and why his pensive observations about bathing and gardening are actually timeless insights into the best and the worst of the human condition. 
 
I am not in the habit of deifying a mortal, but despite the flaws he surely possessed, the Stoics were quite right to praise the character of Scipio Africanus. I regularly turn to the story of his continence during the Second Punic War, to the point where I seek out its depiction in art, but here Seneca admires a moment from his later life, when Scipio was happy to withdraw from the public square, as his continued presence could only lead to greater partisan squabbling. 
 
How often do we find a soldier who can refuse the spoils of war? How often do we find a politician who can resist the temptation of further glory? We are fools to think that a man who cannot rule himself in the bedroom is fit to rule a nation, or that those who only serve their vanity are ever worthy of being served by their subjects. Scipio understood why his own good and the good of his people were always one and the same. 
 
I suppose that might sound a little too crotchety and reactionary for some? At least I am in the good company of Seneca, who understood why the best way is not necessarily the same as the fashionable way. I often think of a quote from A.E. Taylor: 
 
In short, if we mean to be philosophical, our main concern will be that our beliefs should be true; we shall care very little whether they happen to be popular or unpopular with the intellectual 'proletarians' of the moment, and if we can get at a truth, we shall not mind having to go back a long way for it. 

—Reflection written in 1/2014 

Seneca, Moral Letters 85.16

So the wise man will develop virtue, if he may, in the midst of wealth, or, if not, in poverty; if possible, in his own country—if not, in exile; if possible, as a commander—if not, as a common soldier; if possible, in sound health—if not, enfeebled. 
 
Whatever fortune he finds, he will accomplish therefrom something noteworthy. 
 
Animal tamers are unerring; they take the most savage animals, which may well terrify those who encounter them, and subdue them to the will of man; not content with having driven out their ferocity, they even tame them so that they dwell in the same abode. 
 
The trainer puts his hand into the lion’s mouth; the tiger is kissed by his keeper. The tiny Aethiopian orders the elephant to sink down on its knees, or to walk the rope. 
 
Similarly, the wise man is a skilled hand at taming evils. Pain, want, disgrace, imprisonment, exile—these are universally to be feared; but when they encounter the wise man, they are tamed. Farewell. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 85 
 
But doesn’t there have to be some limit, a bare minimum of conditions for me to work with? How can I be expected to bear such an intensity of hardship and suffering? There must surely be a point when it all becomes too much. 
 
In the depths of despair, I cannot blame anyone for thinking and feeling this way. I have been there myself, and I know very well how those impressions will frantically rush about, or they will firmly attach themselves in the most inauspicious of places. 
 
Yet I also know how quickly we can underestimate the strength of our understanding to bring meaning and purpose to even the fiercest of emotions. Ironically, I find the trick to not be in applying more brute force, but rather in yielding to an inner calm. 
 
It is an illusion to believe that a happy life demands more money, or greater authority, or even better health. Take both their presence and their absence as matters of indifference, in the total awareness that they can never define the dignity of our choices. I have often been at my best when everything else seemed to fall apart, and I have often been at my worst when the perks seemed to fall into my lap. It was estimation that made all the difference. 
 
Apply, rinse, and repeat: change the measures, and you change the outcomes. Once I no longer care so much for the accidents, I can finally get to work on the essence. 
 
It is hard enough for me to live in a precarious equilibrium with my headstrong tomcat, so I don’t foresee any animal training in my future.; I am content when he is being himself, and he is content when I am scratching his head. Nevertheless, the analogy is fitting, because the appetitive, however savage or intimidating, calls out for the guidance of the rational, however gentle or modest. Serenity is ultimately about taming those lions, tigers, and bears running around inside of our souls.
 
Those pesky syllogisms can only be of some use when they aid us in forming our daily habits, which, in turn, allow us to become our own masters. When I cry out in fear and distress over the circumstances, it is a sign that I have not yet come to fully know myself. 

—Reflection written in 1/2014 

Seneca, Moral Letters 85.15

Besides, he is not prevented from helping others, even at the time when constraining circumstances press him down. Because of his poverty he is prevented from showing how the State should be handled; but he teaches, nonetheless, how poverty should be handled. His work goes on throughout his whole life. 
 
Thus no fortune, no external circumstance, can shut off the wise man from action. For the very thing which engages his attention prevents him from attending to other things. He is ready for either outcome: if it brings goods, he controls them; if evils, he conquers them.
 
So thoroughly, I mean, has he schooled himself that he makes manifest his virtue in prosperity as well as in adversity, and keeps his eyes on virtue itself, not on the objects with which virtue deals. Hence neither poverty, nor pain, nor anything else that deflects the inexperienced and drives them headlong, restrains him from his course.
 
Do you suppose that he is weighed down by evils? He makes use of them. It was not of ivory only that Phidias knew how to make statues; he also made statues of bronze. If you had given him marble, or a still meaner material, he would have made of it the best statue that the material would permit. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 85 
 
When they tell me that I’m going to need to get all kinds of other stuff before I can ever do any of the good stuff, I fear there is some confusion about the nature of the good, and thus an unhealthy fixation on hoarding more stuff. 
 
A preference for comfort and convenience is surely reasonable, but I grow suspicious when a pursuit of the easy way becomes an excuse to hesitate on committing to the right way. If acting on my conscience requires no risk, and cannot involve the prospect of some other loss, then I should hardly dare to call it a conscience. 
 
You say it is impossible to act with charity without first being rich? Or that a danger to my own security releases me from caring for my neighbor? I would ask you to consider whether the virtues are about spending money or about spending ourselves. Even if I don’t have the means to buy you a new car, I always have the means to offer you unconditional love, and that is, after all, the force that really makes the world go around. 
 
I can be prudent, brave, temperate, and just under any circumstances, and I would dare to suggest that there are times when the richest opportunities for excellence can actually arise from situations of poverty instead of prosperity. 
 
With my priorities in order, I can be happy with more or with less, because character is about quality, and not about quantity. With the end clearly in sight, I can take both privilege and adversity as benefits, because everything in this whole wide world becomes a means to living well. 
 
The inspired artist, like Phidias, will gladly work in a variety of mediums to express his message. I knew a man who one day ran out of blocks of wood for whittling, and I then found him hard at work on a bar of soap. I still have the greatest admiration for the clever fellow who realized he did not need briar root to craft a pipe, because he could smoke his tobacco out of a corncob. Once we are at peace within ourselves, we are at peace with whatever Fortune throws our way. 
 
Draw wisdom out of ignorance. Build fortitude in the face of cowardice. Increase temperance in times of deprivation. Practice justice whenever and wherever you have been wronged. Affluence isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. 

—Reflection written in 1/2014 

IMAGE: Jozsef Dorffmeister, Phidias Sculpting the Bust of Zeus (1802) 

Seneca Moral Letters 85.14

“What then,” you say, “is not a pilot harmed by any circumstance which does not permit him to make port, frustrates all his efforts, and either carries him out to sea, or holds the ship in irons, or strips her masts?” 
 
No, it does not harm him as a pilot, but only as a voyager; otherwise, he is no pilot. It is indeed so far from hindering the pilot’s art that it even exhibits the art; for anyone, in the words of the proverb, is a pilot on a calm sea. These mishaps obstruct the voyage but not the steersman qua steersman.
 
A pilot has a double role: one he shares with all his fellow-passengers, for he also is a passenger; the other is peculiar to him, for he is the pilot. The storm harms him as a passenger, but not as a pilot. Again, the pilot’s art is another’s good—it concerns his passengers just as a physician’s art concerns his patients. But the wise man’s good is a common good—it belongs both to those in whose company he lives, and to himself also. 
 
Hence our pilot may perhaps be harmed, since his services, which have been promised to others, are hindered by the storm; but the wise man is not harmed by poverty, or by pain, or by any other of life’s storms. 
 
For all his functions are not checked, but only those which pertain to others; he himself is always in action, and is greatest in performance at the very time when fortune has blocked his way. For then he is actually engaged in the business of wisdom; and this wisdom I have declared already to be, both the good of others, and also his own. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 85 
 
This discussion about pilots and wise men makes me reflect on my own personal moments of success and failure, and how often I have managed to confuse the two. If I judge by the standards of the worldly achiever, I must be quite the disappointment, but if I turn to the mindset of the Stoic, I have been making some progress, even though there are no fancy trophies to show for it. 
 
Caught up in a world of appearances, I pretended I could rub shoulders with sophisticated intellectuals, but I had neither the talent nor the temperament to do so. No, if I was going to learn, it would have to be at my own pace, and if I was going to teach, it would have to be well out of view. While I occasionally find offers of work, I get myself in trouble whenever I ask to be paid a living wage. 
 
I have most certainly not reached the port I had once sailed for, and it is most likely that I will die an obscure eccentric, unsung and penniless. And yet, in a manner both unnerving and fitting, the journey has not been wasted, because each and every obstacle has provided a chance to grow in understanding and in love. Whenever I lose something alluring out there, I always have the option of gaining something far greater in here. 
 
It is much the same when it comes to the daunting task of raising children. Our vain attempts at producing the ideal offspring, basking in glory, must give way to the realization that no person can ever create the blessings of another. However much I might instruct, encourage, and inspire, that young mind will have to choose for itself, and whatever has been offered must then be transformed into something new. Even as I can be my own master, I cannot secure the results for anyone else.
 
As a passenger, I did not arrive where I once hoped to be going; as a pilot, I did pick up a better sense of direction. By the time I had some more skill in reading the compass, I was far less interested in arriving at a certain destination as I was in traveling in a certain way, wherever I then happened to find myself. There were limits put on my circumstances at the same time as there were opportunities for my character. 
 
How should I best serve my students? How should I best nurture my children? For all the difficulties fortune will put in my way, let me seek out my own wisdom and practice my own virtues. It turns out that attending to the thoughts, words, and deeds within my power is the best gift I can present to my fellow travelers. 

—Reflection written in 1/2014 

Seneca, Moral Letters 85.13

To this the Peripatetics retort: “Therefore, poverty will make even the wise man worse, and so will pain, and so will anything else of that sort. For although those things will not rob him of his virtue, yet they will hinder the work of virtue.”
 
This would be a correct statement, were it not for the fact that the pilot and the wise man are two different kinds of person. The wise man’s purpose in conducting his life is not to accomplish at all hazards what he tries, but to do all things rightly; the pilot’s purpose, however, is to bring his ship into port at all hazards. 
 
The arts are handmaids; they must accomplish what they promise to do. But wisdom is mistress and ruler. The arts render a slave’s service to life; wisdom issues the commands. 
 
For myself, I maintain that a different answer should be given: that the pilot’s art is never made worse by the storm, nor the application of his art either. The pilot has promised you, not a prosperous voyage, but a serviceable performance of his task—that is, an expert knowledge of steering a ship. And the more he is hampered by the stress of fortune, so much the more does his knowledge become apparent. 
 
He who has been able to say, “Neptune, you shall never sink this ship except on an even keel,” has fulfilled the requirements of his art; the storm does not interfere with the pilot’s work, but only with his success. 

—from Seneca Moral Letters 85 
 
The calculating cynic will laugh at such Stoic claims, because he thinks it more important to get something good than to be someone good. Whenever I suggest that an unaffected decency is its own reward, I am now accustomed to hearing the following sort of harangue: 
 
“You can talk about virtue all you like, but it won’t be of any use to you without the means to put it into effect. If you don’t have any money, you can’t practice charity. If you don’t build your influence, you can’t promote an agenda. If you aren’t working from a position of strength, you won’t be able to beat your competitors.”
 
This might be true, if our happiness hinged upon the comforts of the body, and not upon an excellence of the soul. Perhaps love isn’t about a balance sheet, and the best way to improve the world is to first improve ourselves, and the profit of one never requires a loss for another. What we believe to be the most practical way of life follows from what we discern to be the most real about this life. 
 
Like every analogy, the example of the pilot will fall short, once we recognize how a trade must still be bound to an external product, while the virtues remain complete in themselves, and are able to thrive under any conditions. Prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice are possible both in plenty and in want. 
 
Even so, as Seneca observes, the task of the pilot may be hindered from the outside, though he can maintain his skill from the inside. Only a fool expects a batter to hit the ball every time he takes a swing, and we may be all the more impressed by his merits when the odds are firmly stacked against him. 
 
I get worried for example, when I hear people making promises they might not be able to keep. It is one thing to pledge that we will absolutely do our best, but it is quite another to guarantee a certain outcome, however preferable it may be. A man has already done more than enough if he has given everything of himself, for that is far more valuable than any other state of affairs. 
 
A husband cannot assure his wife that he will live a long life, yet he can assure her that he will be faithful as long as he shall live. It is in a like manner that our human worth is always to be found in the content of our character before the arrangement of our circumstances. 

—Reflection written in 1/2014 

IMAGE: Carl Wilhelm Barth, Pilot Boat in Heavy Sea (1882) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 85.12

“What then?” is the query; “if the sword is brandished over your brave man’s neck, if he is pierced in this place and in that continually, if he sees his entrails in his lap, if he is tortured again after being kept waiting in order that he may thus feel the torture more keenly, and if the blood flows afresh out of bowels where it has but lately ceased to flow, has he no fear? Shall you say that he has felt no pain either?”
 
Yes, he has felt pain; for no human virtue can rid itself of feelings. But he has no fear; unconquered he looks down from a lofty height upon his sufferings. Do you ask me what spirit animates him in these circumstances? It is the spirit of one who is comforting a sick friend. 
 
“That which is evil does harm; that which does harm makes a man worse. But pain and poverty do not make a man worse; therefore they are not evils.” 
 
“Your proposition,” says the objector, “is wrong; for what harms one does not necessarily make one worse. The storm and the squall work harm to the pilot, but they do not make a worse pilot of him for all that.”
 
Certain of the Stoic school reply to this argument as follows: “The pilot becomes a worse pilot because of storms or squalls, inasmuch as he cannot carry out his purpose and hold to his course; as far as his art is concerned, he becomes no worse a pilot, but in his work he does become worse." 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 85 
 
The critic is free to stress the intensity of pain as much as he wishes, or to dwell upon the many ways we may fall short of achieving our preferences. That is neither here nor there when it comes to the virtues, which achieve their ends simply through being exercised. We can transcend the fear of pain by always placing what is lesser within the context of what is greater. 
 
I regularly find myself returning to Seneca’s beautiful image: we are called to treat our hardships in the same way as we would offer consolation and reassurance during a loved one’s illness. 
 
Over the last few years, I have been enjoying a television series about air disasters. Now this would hardly seem relaxing to most of us, but I am inspired by the way ordinary people react when they are in extraordinary situations, and I am fascinated by the process of uncovering the hidden causes of the accidents. 
 
The one part that irritates me, however, is the inevitable bureaucrat who immediately wants to pin all the blame on the pilot, as if the fact that the plane crashed must surely reflect poorly on his abilities. Indeed, sometimes he may have failed to do his job, yet at other times he may have gone above and beyond the call of duty, and still the aircraft fell from the sky. While our decisions are always within our power, the events around us are not always within our power. 
 
I take special note of BEA Flight 609 in 1958, well-known to soccer fans for the loss of so many players from Manchester United. Authorities in Munich insisted that pilot James Thain, an RAF veteran, had neglected to de-ice the wings, though later investigations showed that this would not have been necessary, and pointed to uncleared slush on the runway as the reason for the plane’s failure to reach takeoff speed. 
 
Thain, of course, was cast aside, and he would never fly again, spending the rest of his days trying to clear his name. From what I can gather, he was not only a skilled pilot, but also a man of great integrity, who simply became a convenient scapegoat. Though he could not save his plane, this did no harm to his professional excellence. 
 
Be careful to distinguish when defining a success and a failure. 
 
The base pragmatist, concerned merely with the most convenient results, will not look beyond the arrangement of his circumstances, and so he is unable to rightly judge winning or losing by our inner comportment. To use a martial analogy, he believes victory requires crushing the enemy, and he thereby overlooks the virtues of the soldier who fight with honor, regardless of the outcome on the battlefield. 

—Reflection written in 1/2014 

Seneca, Moral Letters 85.11

“It is the doctrine of you Stoics, then,” they reply, “that a brave man will expose himself to dangers.” 
 
By no means; he will merely not fear them, though he will avoid them. It is proper for him to be careful, but not to be fearful. 
 
“What then? Is he not to fear death, imprisonment, burning, and all the other missiles of Fortune?” 
 
Not at all; for he knows that they are not evils, but only seem to be. He reckons all these things as the bugbears of man’s existence.Paint him a picture of slavery, lashes, chains, want, mutilation by disease or by torture—or anything else you may care to mention; he will count all such things as terrors caused by the derangement of the mind. These things are only to be feared by those who are fearful. Or do you regard as an evil that to which some day we may be compelled to resort of our own free will? 
 
What then, you ask, is an evil? It is the yielding to those things which are called evils; it is the surrendering of one’s liberty into their control, when really we ought to suffer all things in order to preserve this liberty. 
 
Liberty is lost unless we despise those things which put the yoke upon our necks. If men knew what bravery was, they would have no doubts as to what a brave man’s conduct should be. 
 
For bravery is not thoughtless rashness, or love of danger, or the courting of fear-inspiring objects; it is the knowledge which enables us to distinguish between that which is evil and that which is not. Bravery takes the greatest care of itself, and likewise endures with the greatest patience all things which have a false appearance of being evils. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 85 
 
While we could argue about the best words until the cows come home, it is good for me to embrace the feeling of caution, and it is bad for me to succumb to the feeling of fear. If something can do me genuine harm, it is wise to avoid it, and yet if something is merely alarming, I should not be intimidated by the impression.
 
All too often, we let the passions push us about, while the stable emotions are always grounded in a sound understanding. 
 
Before I am gripped by terror, wouldn’t it be best to consider the true measure of what will either help or hurt my nature? My most crippling mistakes started when I let my desires rush ahead of my awareness, and they could so easily have been avoided by first knowing what I should want to get and what I should want to avoid. 
 
Over the years, I have been frantically warned about countless dangers, and yet it turns out that so very few of them were really perilous at all. 
 
Yes, the Stoic will make some shocking claims, including the one about no circumstance ever being an evil. We are appalled by this, however, because we haven’t started at the beginning, because we are constantly assuming the conclusions without establishing the premises. This also why we bicker about taxes, and guns, and abortion, while never reasoning from first principles about our human good. 
 
If we swept away the clutter of the passions, we would see that man is a creature of reason and of will, made to know and to love, and the rest is window dressing. Virtue is his only good, and vice is his only evil. He should not fear poverty, or torture, or death, since they need not hinder the act of living well. Indeed, he should not fear anything at all, since it always remains within his power to do what is right, whatever fortune might happen to throw his way. 
 
Will there be pain? Most certainly, and sometimes we will deceive ourselves into believing that the pains are the pleasures. The trick is in employing the hardship as an opportunity to express an excellence of the soul, at which point there is no need for running away from the pain or for chasing after the pleasure—there will be the simplicity of joy. 
 
When I can master myself in this way, with no demands for ruling anyone or anything else, I will have attained a total freedom for myself. It sounds poetic to proclaim that fear is a form of slavery, but it is philosophical to explain why fear is a surrender to the things beyond our control, and therefore we ironically make indifferent things evil by giving them an authority over us. 
 
A brave man no longer fears death, because he cares first and foremost for the integrity of his character, and what once felt so big now feels rather small. It is the same with the prudent man, who knows he can conquer his own ignorance, and the temperate man, who knows he can moderate his own appetites, and the just man, who knows he can gladly give what he owes without expecting any further reward. 

—Reflection written in 1/2014 

IMAGE: Briton Riviere, Daniel in the Lion's Den (1872)