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) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 85.10

“He who is brave is fearless; he who is fearless is free from sadness; he who is free from sadness is happy.” 
 
It is our own school which has framed this syllogism; they attempt to refute it by this answer, namely, that we Stoics are assuming as admitted a premise which is false and distinctly controverted—that the brave man is fearless. 
 
“What!” they say, “will the brave man have no fear of evils that threaten him? That would be the condition of a madman, a lunatic, rather than of a brave man. The brave man will, it is true, feel fear in only a very slight degree; but he is not absolutely free from fear.”
 
Now those who assert this are doubling back to their old argument, in that they regard vices of less degree as equivalent to virtues. For indeed the man who does feel fear, though he feels it rather seldom and to a slight degree, is not free from wickedness, but is merely troubled by it in a milder form. 
 
“Not so,” is the reply, “for I hold that a man is mad if he does not fear evils which hang over his head.” 
 
What you say is perfectly true, if the things which threaten are really evils; but if he knows that they are not evils and believes that the only evil is baseness, he will be bound to face dangers without anxiety and to despise things which other men cannot help fearing. 
 
Or, if it is the characteristic of a fool and a madman not to fear evils, then the wiser a man is the more he will fear such things! 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 85 
 
We have come to a point where the distinctions must be subtle, and I fear that I lack the proper words to express them, but it remains critical to maintain the power of the virtues to rise above the passions, for otherwise we will all settle for being just a little less vicious than the next fellow. 
 
To be fearless must involve being free from fear, whether that means feeling no distress at all, or possessing a mastery over any passions that might be present. If I have no anxiety about my future, then my mind can truly be at peace, and so I can rightly say that I am happy; while the miserable man will always be consumed by worry, the blessed man can now face his hardships with confidence. 
 
The critic, doubting the influence of our judgments, will protest that it is impossible to remove fear from our lives, and that an absence of fear could therefore only be a symptom of ignorance, recklessness, or insanity. As someone who still regularly struggles with dread, I am quite sympathetic to such objections, wondering whether the Stoics have crossed the line into dismissing the essential place of our emotions. 
 
It is commonly said that courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the ability to conquer fear. Indeed, we are told that every soldier is terrified before he goes into battle, or even that every man has to tremble at the approach of his death, however ordinary. How can it be reasonable to expect a total lack of fear? How could we face any danger without feeling deeply disturbed? 
 
Yet I have heard some veterans speak of the horror leaving them completely upon making a valiant choice, and I have watched people die in a state of absolute acceptance. I will not question their integrity, or attribute this to derangement. To say that perfect serenity might be rare makes it neither unattainable nor undesirable. 
 
Some feelings come to us through the instincts of the body, and we must listen carefully to what they say, while never allowing them to decide for us. Other feelings come to us through the workings of the mind, and we must always be conscious of how our thinking informs the shape of those emotions. Slowly but surely, our feelings become ordered when they are in harmony with our understanding, since our estimation of good or bad is ultimately the measure of our desire or aversion. 
 
No, the Stoic is not asking us to repress our emotions; he is instead suggesting that we take responsibility for them, and to direct them according to our reason. A passion, in the particular Stoic sense of an unhealthy feeling, can always be transformed into a healthy sentiment that supports our nature. 
 
What was once gratification can now be joy. What was once lust can now be good will. What was once fear can now be caution. And there never needs to be any despair, because an attitude of acceptance always allows us to discover the opportunity within our own character. 
 
The critic may be confused about the definitions of benefit and harm, assuming that certain things are evils, when they can actually be occasions for good. Poverty, obscurity, and even death itself are not, in themselves, to be feared. The vices of avarice, vanity, and cowardice are far more pernicious. 

—Reflection written in 1/2014 

IMAGE: Francois Gerard, Gallic Courage (1832) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 85.9

I will tell you what is the source of this error: men do not understand that the happy life is a unit; for it is its essence, and not its extent, that establishes such a life on the noblest plane. 
 
Hence there is complete equality between the life that is long and the life that is short, between that which is spread out and that which is confined, between that whose influence is felt in many places and in many directions, and that which is restricted to one interest. 
 
Those who reckon life by number, or by measure, or by parts, rob it of its distinctive quality. Now, in the happy life, what is the distinctive quality? It is its fullness. 
 
Satiety, I think, is the limit to our eating or drinking. A eats more and B eats less; what difference does it make? Each is now sated. Or A drinks more and B drinks less; what difference does it make? Each is no longer thirsty. Again, A lives for many years and B for fewer; no matter, if only A’s many years have brought as much happiness as B’s few years. 
 
He whom you maintain to be “less happy” is not happy; the word admits of no diminution. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 85 
 
Happiness is not an accumulation of bits and pieces, but rather a purity of presence. One of my most important moments of insight came when I finally saw how my peace of mind had nothing to do with having more or less, and indeed, had nothing to do with possessing anything at all. 
 
The quality of contentment is never determined by the quantity of the components; it is the integrity of the act itself, whatever the circumstances, that leaves nothing else to be desired. 
 
The Stoic Turn will seem nonsensical until such a fundamental awareness is reached. Only then can I say that, beyond my preferences, it will make no difference how many years I might live, or in what place I happen to find myself, or in which occupation I strive to do my best. 
 
While the people around me are worried about living longer, and collecting new trinkets, and building a reputation, I should concern myself first and foremost with the content of my character. 
 
The satisfaction comes from finding the good in any conditions, such that the happiness lies in the perfecting of our own attitudes. I appreciate Seneca’s image of feeling satiated after a meal, because there is really nothing quite like that sense of knowing that you have now had enough. 
 
How much is enough? If there is an elaborate feast set before me, the amount that I eat is measured by my appetite. Perhaps I will heap my plate with steak and lobster, or perhaps I will be delighted with merely a single grape. The most effective way to be satisfied is to moderate our desires. 
 
One of my many eccentricities is a love of Chinese buffets, and I will often travel well off the beaten path to find some hidden gem. As I have grown older, however, I can no longer eat nearly as much as I once did, and so I feared that my glorious road trips would soon be over: where’s the fun in just sampling one or two dishes? I had somehow convinced myself that the adventure was only worthwhile when I consumed those heroic portions. 
 
What a pleasant surprise it was to learn that I didn’t need to compete with the fellow at the next table over how many chicken wings we could devour, and that there was no point in calculating the value of the meal by ounces per dollar. The other day, I was perfectly happy with a bowl of hot and sour soup and a small plate of dumplings, which ended up being far more rewarding than any marathon gorging. 
 
One of my many weaknesses is a love of the pint and the dram, and I had far too many nights where I didn’t have the sense to say, “no more”. The beer and the whiskey were not themselves the problem—my own intemperance, an unwillingness to establish a limit, was always the problem. I now deeply admire the man who finds his joy while sipping from one drink for the entire evening. 
 
When it comes to happiness, there is no more or less, no “kind of” or “sort of”. If anyone asks me if I am happy, I won’t pretend to be the sage. I can see it around the bend, but for right now, I am very much a work in progress. 

—Reflection written in 1/2014 

IMAGE: Adriaen van Utrecht, Banquet Still Life (1644) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 85.8

Now if the life of the gods contains nothing greater or better, and the happy life is divine, then there is no further height to which a man can be raised. 
 
Also, if the happy life is in want of nothing, then every happy life is perfect; it is happy and at the same time most happy. Have you any doubt that the happy life is the Supreme Good? 
 
Accordingly, if it possesses the Supreme Good, it is supremely happy. Just as the Supreme Good does not admit of increase (for what will be superior to that which is supreme?), exactly so the happy life cannot be increased either; for it is not without the Supreme Good. 
 
If then you bring in one man who is “happier” than another, you will also bring in one who is “much happier”; you will then be making countless distinctions in the Supreme Good; although I understand the Supreme Good to be that good which admits of no degree above itself. 
 
If one person is less happy than another, it follows that he eagerly desires the life of that other and happier man in preference to his own. But the happy man prefers no other man’s life to his own. 
 
Either of these two things is incredible: that there should be anything left for a happy man to wish for in preference to what is, or that he should not prefer the thing which is better than what he already has. 
 
For certainly, the more prudent he is, the more he will strive after the best, and he will desire to attain it by every possible means. But how can one be happy who is still able, or rather who is still bound, to crave something else? 

—from Seneca Moral Letters 85 
 
If it is already the best, then it can’t get any better. Among all those who have lived happy, there is no special award for claiming to be the happiest. 
 
Once a good life is truly attained, it will leave nothing more to be desired. Yet observe how the grasping men, the ones who are the first to boast about how blessed they are, are never content with what they already have, and they are constantly looking over their shoulders, as if happiness were a competition. 
 
They would be relieved of their burdens if only they recognized why contentment is about the quality of our thoughts, and not about the quantity of our playthings. They would abandon their envy if they just realized how each instance of virtue is complete within itself, and there is no limit on how much of it there is to go around. 
 
After many disappointments with chasing worldly prizes, I sought to reconsider the faith of my fathers, and I was encouraged to find some people who still kept their priorities pure and simple—the love of God and the love of neighbor. But I then let myself get waylaid by the impostors, the ones who were gifted at talking the talk, but never seemed to actually walk the walk. 
 
I was confused when they preached about character, even as they simultaneously schemed for greater power and plotted against their enemies. I asked them why the pursuit of virtue apparently required getting my hands dirty with all sorts of nasty little deeds. 
 
“Well, it’s never that simple, is it? How can you do anything good without acquiring the money to back it up? How can you serve God when the other guy has an advantage over you? You won’t get anywhere in life if you don’t play by the rules of the game.”
 
I now understood completely, but not in the way that they had hoped. In my own set of rules, a man cannot serve two masters, and the ends do not justify the means. Just as some of the ancient philosophers were tempted to dilute the virtues, so some of the modern evangelists wanted to have their cake and eat it too. Whether we happen to be rich or poor, revered or reviled, robust or feeble, there can be nothing greater than some basic human decency. 
 
If the businessman is honored to provide his services, he won’t need to have the college name a building after him. If the lawyer is content to protect the innocent, he will gladly forgo the mansion and the trophy wife. If the bishop is at peace with his piety, he can easily do without the limousine to the airport. Once they insist upon supplementing their virtues, they never had those virtues to begin with. 
 
Have you practiced prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice in everything that you do? Then you can be supremely happy, and no man can ever take that away from you. 

—Reflection written in 1/2014 

Seneca, Moral Letters 85.7

Then, again, we should see to it that two principles which ought to be tested separately should not be confused. For the conclusion is reached independently that that alone is good which is honorable, and again independently the conclusion that virtue is sufficient for the happy life. 
 
If that alone is good which is honorable, everyone agrees that virtue is sufficient for the purpose of living happily; but, on the contrary, if virtue alone makes men happy, it will not be conceded that that alone is good which is honorable.
 
Xenocrates and Speusippus hold that a man can become happy even by virtue alone, not, however, that that which is honorable is the only good. Epicurus also decides that one who possesses virtue is happy, but that virtue of itself is not sufficient for the happy life, because the pleasure that results from virtue, and not virtue itself, makes one happy. 
 
This is a futile distinction. For the same philosopher declares that virtue never exists without pleasure; and therefore, if virtue is always connected with pleasure and always inseparable therefrom, virtue is of itself sufficient. For virtue keeps pleasure in its company, and does not exist without it, even when alone.
 
But it is absurd to say that a man will be happy by virtue alone, and yet not absolutely happy. I cannot discover how that may be, since the happy life contains in itself a good that is perfect and cannot be excelled, If a man has this good, life is completely happy. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 85 
 
In different corners of our lives, we will sometimes assert conflicting values, sometimes out of hypocrisy, because we believe we can pull a fast one, and sometimes out of ignorance, because we aren’t yet making the necessary connections. How often I assured myself that a good conscience would be more than enough, and yet I then found myself obsessed with acquiring some further comfort, as if I were stepping back and forth between two different worlds. 
 
But it is always one and the same world, and we are always called to the excellence of one and the same nature, however much we may object. My attempts at trying to have it both ways are usually a sign that I remain deeply confused about who I am meant to be, unwilling to commit by trying to play it safe. If an integrity of character leaves me short, can I still fall back on chasing after the fortune and the fame? 
 
Do I understand what I mean by this “good” that I seek? We are constantly using the term, and yet we rarely bother to examine what it means. “You know—the sort of things that I want.” And what sort of things should I want? “You know—the ones that are good for me.” Ah, yes, I’m glad we had this chat. 
 
Will there be a list of many things, or will it reduce down to a single thing? For the Stoics, in their admittedly irritating manner, the human good will solely be the excellence of our nature, and such a rational nature is defined by the quality of our judgments. 
 
Hence the virtues become the deciding factor, through which any other circumstances can become beneficial for us, and the absence of which brings us nothing but harm. If it is sufficient for a creature to be what it was made to be, then our moral worth stands as absolute, and everything else is relative. 
 
There remains the temptation, however, to squeeze in some other goods, as if a righteous soul still needs a few accessories. Perhaps we also require a certain amount of money, or some approval from our fellows, or a fairly healthy body? Before we know it, we have muddied the waters, and we have added so many conditions that virtue now seems to depend upon everything except itself. 
 
And so certain Academics and Peripatetics spoke of the most favorable conditions, forgetting how any situation at all can become an occasion to do what is right, and the Epicureans claimed the primacy of pleasure, as if an effect can swap places with its cause. I wonder if they were so fixated on their preferences that they began to compromise on their principles? If we grant that virtue is indeed the greatest human good, as is evident from our very identity, then any other considerations will fade in comparison. 
 
When we face our hardships with dignity, virtue remains as complete and self-sufficient. When we find that we have been granted the deepest joy, it is only the perfection of virtue that made this possible. A man properly feels good because he knows that he does good. 

—Reflection written in 1/2014 

Seneca, Moral Letters 85.6

Some men have made a distinction as follows, saying: “If a man has self-control and wisdom, he is indeed at peace as regards the attitude and habit of his mind, but not as regards the outcome. For, as far as his habit of mind is concerned, he is not perturbed, or saddened, or afraid; but there are many extraneous causes which strike him and bring perturbation upon him.”
 
What they mean to say is this: “So-and-so is indeed not a man of an angry disposition, but still he sometimes gives way to anger,” and “He is not, indeed, inclined to fear, but still he sometimes experiences fear”; in other words, he is free from the fault, but is not free from the passion of fear. 
 
If, however, fear is once given an entrance, it will by frequent use pass over into a vice; and anger, once admitted into the mind, will alter the earlier habit of a mind that was formerly free from anger.
 
Besides, if the wise man, instead of despising all causes that come from without, ever fears anything, when the time arrives for him to go bravely to meet the spear, or the flames, on behalf of his country, his laws, and his liberty, he will go forth reluctantly and with flagging spirit. Such inconsistency of mind, however, does not suit the character of a wise man. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 85 
 
Stoicism is hardly opposed to feelings, and not even to intense feelings, but it does warn us against being at the mercy of unbridled feelings, where we are swept along instead of deciding upon our own path. That so many of us choose to be consumed by anger, or fear, or lust does not mean that such agitations somehow ought to become our natural state. 
 
The common assumption is that since our emotions just “happen” to us, we are therefore obliged to obey them, much like we believe our happiness to be determined by the arrangement of our circumstances. So, we might praise a man for being ordered in his thinking, but we then excuse his rage, or his dread, or his cravings on account of events that are beyond his control. 
 
Indeed, I often hear people insisting that wrath and hatred are righteous responses to whatever we find to be unpleasant, as if indiscipline were somehow a mark of excellence. I recently asked a student why she felt obliged to insult her peers whenever they proposed a different point of view, and she stared at me with confusion. “Well what else am I supposed to do? I was offended!” 
 
Heaven knows, I don’t wish to add up the number of times I have lost my temper, and fallen into despair, and burned with longing, and yet all of my blunders have taught me why there is nothing worthy in the act of losing myself. My courage can be without malice, my suffering does not call for self-pity, and my love need never demand gratification. If the understanding is sound, and the intentions are sincere, my feelings do not have to become bitter and twisted. 
 
I’m not saying much if I claim to be untroubled on the inside, though I might lose my composure as soon as the world frustrates my preferences. If my priorities are in order, I will recognize how the rise and fall of fortune has absolutely no power over my character, and why a confusion in my values is the only obstacle to my serenity. The Stoic Turn, as I call it, asks me to place a far greater importance on my own judgments than on any external conditions, treating any variations in the latter as a means to the stability of the former. 
 
Once I can justify slandering my neighbor because he voted for the wrong party, or giving up all hope because the odds were stacked against me, or cheating on my wife because the other woman was simply irresistible, what could possibly be left of my so-called virtue? At least it would be more honest of me to openly admit that I care more for convenience than I do for character, rather than pursuing the one under the appearance of the other. 
 
Yes, the Stoic is asking for much when he proposes keeping the passions at bay, but he is not asking for too much, because he trusts in the great capacities of human nature, and he knows why a compromise on the minor flaws will inevitably weaken us in the face of the major vices. Do not rely on a man who overlooks the lesser things, for he will lack the conviction to conquer the greater things. 

—Reflection written in 1/2014 

IMAGE: Dosso Dossi, Anger (c. 1515) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 85.5

Fear will grow to greater proportions, if that which causes the terror is seen to be of greater magnitude or in closer proximity; and desire will grow keener in proportion as the hope of a greater gain has summoned it to action.
 
If the existence of the passions is not in our own control, neither is the extent of their power; for if you once permit them to get a start, they will increase along with their causes, and they will be of whatever extent they shall grow to be. 
 
Moreover, no matter how small these vices are, they grow greater. That which is harmful never keeps within bounds. No matter how trifling diseases are at the beginning, they creep on apace; and sometimes the slightest augmentation of disease lays low the enfeebled body! 
 
But what folly it is, when the beginnings of certain things are situated outside our control, to believe that their endings are within our control! How have I the power to bring something to a close, when I have not had the power to check it at the beginning? For it is easier to keep a thing out than to keep it under after you have let it in. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 85 
 
The passions, and by extension the vices, can grow beyond our control, not because they are greater in strength than our reason, but rather because we have freely surrendered to them, from the very moment we choose to make our judgments dependent upon our impulses. The fortress has fallen once the gates are unlocked from the inside, not when the walls are breached from the outside. 
 
If I am confronted with a feeling of fear or of desire, is it necessary for me to submit? When the instincts of the flesh are speaking to me, of their own accord, let reason consider the meaning of these impressions, and thereby order them to their proper purpose. And when the passion stems from my own estimation of what is good and evil, it remains within my power to correct my understanding, and to thereby remove the obstacle. 
 
If my conscious mind does not take the responsibility for shaping my habits, then they have been abandoned to the workings of my unconscious appetites. Where I believe there to be harm, I will experience fear, and where I believe there to be benefit, I will experience desire. Carefully modify the perception, and then you will gradually inform the corresponding emotion: my feeling will only be as good as my thinking. 
 
It will be much harder to evict the passions after I have already invited them in, than to refuse them entry from the very beginning. Let me be mindful of keeping my balance, because very little can be done once I have already tumbled over the edge. 
 
When I was a boy, my mother, an avid gardener, gave me the task of regularly weeding our lawn. She explained that if I simply removed a few of the newly sprouting dandelions or fresh tufts of crabgrass whenever I happened to be walking on by, this would be an easy task. 
 
I did not listen, of course, and before too long the invaders had taken over, forcing me on my hands and knees for many hours, and leaving huge divots wherever I had to pull out the stubborn roots. Instead of cursing his mother for her good advice, the child must eventually learn to curse himself for his sloth. 
 
I have now spent many years battling against a cluster of vices, and I now understand how all the trouble started by being careless about a few wayward passions. I might claim I couldn’t possibly have known, and yet a part of me always knew, from a very early age, that there could be no shortcuts to happiness. As soon as I permit despair, or terror, or indulgence, or lust to make my decisions for me, I have then made myself a slave to circumstances, instead of the master of my fate. 

—Reflection written in 1/2014 

IMAGE: Jean-Baptiste Greuze, Fear (c. 1780)