Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.42

M. But as we are to depart in the morning, let us remember these five days’ discussions; though, indeed, I think I shall commit them to writing: for how can I better employ the leisure which I have, of whatever kind it is, and whatever it be owing to? 
 
And I will send these five books also to my friend Brutus, by whom I was not only incited to write on philosophy, but, I may say, provoked. And by so doing it is not easy to say what service I may be of to others. 
 
At all events, in my own various and acute afflictions, which surround me on all sides, I cannot find any better comfort for myself. 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.42 
 
A colleague recently chided me for paying so much attention to this “fake” text, because “any scholar knows these conversations never actually happened.” Well, I don’t know that, and neither does he, but I hardly think that’s the point. For me, what is more to the point is that I walked away from these Tusculan Disputations with a revived commitment to becoming a man of character, let the chips fall where they may. I can smile and nod at the criticism, instead of tossing back some clever insult. 
 
While we remember Brutus as the worst sort of traitor, perhaps deservedly, I would prefer to ponder how he must have struggled with choosing an honorable path. Whether we are remembered as heroes or as villains, or even if we are not remembered at all, matters far less than whether we worked to increase in the virtues. When this is our priority, all the rest will pale in comparison, and happiness is finally within our reach. 
 
Am I terrified of dying? I will no longer be so hesitant, once I can discern the genuine value of living. 
 
Do I cringe at the prospect of pain? It will cease to appear like an evil, if can I discover the source of my good. 
 
Have I been overcome by the weight of my grief? I must distinguish between what can be lost, and what can never be lost. 
 
Is my soul tortured by extreme passions? It will only be an order to my thinking that brings out an order in my feelings. 
 
Must I worry that the content of my character won’t be enough? In the end, that is all I can be, and all I can call my own. 
 
People often frown at philosophy, wondering what it could possibly “get” them. I can assure you it will give you absolutely nothing beyond itself, and if you were to look for some further reward, you wouldn’t be doing philosophy. It will, however, provide the means for an inner peace, and that is the key to finding the benefit in absolutely everything else. 

—Reflection written in 3/1999

IMAGE: Vincenzo Foppa, The Young Cicero Reading (c. 1464) 

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.41

M. This is the very same which is said by Epicurus and Hieronymus. Now, if those philosophers, whose opinion it is that virtue has no power of itself, and who say that the conduct which we denominate honorable and laudable is really nothing, and is only an empty circumstance set off with an unmeaning sound, can nevertheless maintain that a wise man is always happy, what, think you, may be done by the Socratic and Platonic philosophers? 
 
Some of these allow such superiority to the goods of the mind as quite to eclipse what concerns the body and all external circumstances. But others do not admit these to be goods; they make everything depend on the mind: whose disputes Carneades used, as a sort of honorary arbitrator, to determine. 
 
For, as what seemed goods to the Peripatetics were allowed to be advantages by the Stoics, and as the Peripatetics allowed no more to riches, good health, and other things of that sort than the Stoics, when these things were considered according to their reality, and not by mere names, his opinion was that there was no ground for disagreeing. 
 
Therefore, let the philosophers of other schools see how they can establish this point also. It is very agreeable to me that they make some professions worthy of being uttered by the mouth of a philosopher with regard to a wise man’s having always the means of living happily. 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.41
 
Even when there is a divergence among philosophers on how to define what is good, they will generally agree that our understanding determines what is good. Even when the likes of Hume or Nietzsche insist that the mind must be a slave to the passions, they have awkwardly employed reason to establish such a measure. Whichever way you go, there is no escaping that the life of wisdom, in one way or another, is the happy life. 
 
The Stoics held the far more rigid, and to us far more shocking, view that only virtue could be considered our true good, while the Peripatetics spoke of a hierarchy of goods, with the lower being relative to the higher, such that money and fame are in service to the formation of character. 
 
Now as important as the nuances of theory must be, how greatly will these two approaches differ in practice? I am happy to debate about the merits of fortune, and in what manner the circumstances might contribute to our happiness, but as long as a fellow knows to put his integrity first, he will also know to put his conveniences second, and so his conscience remains the source of his blessings, whatever the subtleties of the school. 
 
As much as he may be in error, the sensualist or the relativist has also used his reason to arrive at his desired end, and therefore he does not need to reinvent his whole nature to get back on track, only to correct his lapses of judgment. I have learned the hard way that it is best to first focus on what is held in common, instead of promptly bickering about the details. 
 
When I am teaching, on most any topic, I never miss the opportunity to ask my students about their perception of the good. From those who are patient enough to engage, I am usually offered a laundry list of benefits, though my constant pestering then encourages them to consider a deeper pattern. Are there times, for example, when fortune or fame could end up becoming harmful? 
 
And this is why I believe Plato’s Meno to be such a wonderful text. What makes any circumstance good or bad? You guessed it—the presence or absence of knowledge! And if you don’t happen to be keen on the argument offered by Socrates, note how you have now countered with a different argument, itself an exercise in understanding as a standard for right and wrong. 
 
This is one of the reasons I am so inspired by Cicero: where else will you find the quest for a harmony between the Stoics, Peripatetics, Academics, and, yes, even the Epicureans? Philosophy, like any aspect of life, should be about what we can discover to share together. 

—Reflection written in 3/1999 

IMAGE: Pietro della Vecchia, Three Philosophers (c. 1650) 

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.40

M. Now, as to the evil of being deaf. M. Crassus was a little thick of hearing; but it was more uneasiness to him that he heard himself ill spoken of, though, in my opinion, he did not deserve it. 

 

Our Epicureans cannot understand Greek, nor the Greeks Latin: now, they are deaf reciprocally as to each other’s language, and we are all truly deaf with regard to those innumerable languages which we do not understand. They do not hear the voice of the harper; but, then, they do not hear the grating of a saw when it is setting, or the grunting of a hog when his throat is being cut, nor the roaring of the sea when they are desirous of rest. 

 

And if they should chance to be fond of singing, they ought, in the first place, to consider that many wise men lived happily before music was discovered; besides, they may have more pleasure in reading verses than in hearing them sung. 

 

Then, as I before referred the blind to the pleasures of hearing, so I may the deaf to the pleasures of sight: moreover, whoever can converse with himself does not need the conversation of another. 

 

But suppose all these misfortunes to meet in one person: suppose him blind and deaf—let him be afflicted with the sharpest pains of body, which, in the first place, generally of themselves make an end of him; still, should they continue so long, and the pain be so exquisite, that we should be unable to assign any reason for our being so afflicted—still, why, good Gods! should we be under any difficulty? For there is a retreat at hand: death is that retreat—a shelter where we shall forever be insensible. 

 

Theodorus said to Lysimachus, who threatened him with death, “It is a great matter, indeed, for you to have acquired the power of a Spanish fly!” 

 

When Perses entreated Paulus not to lead him in triumph, “That is a matter which you have in your own power,” said Paulus. 

 

I said many things about death in our first day’s disputation, when death was the subject; and not a little the next day, when I treated of pain; which things if you recollect, there can be no danger of your looking upon death as undesirable, or, at least, it will not be dreadful. 

 

That custom which is common among the Grecians at their banquets should, in my opinion, be observed in life: Drink, say they, or leave the company; and rightly enough; for a guest should either enjoy the pleasure of drinking with others, or else not stay till he meets with affronts from those that are in liquor. Thus, those injuries of fortune which you cannot bear you should flee from. 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.40 

 

I had to smile when I first read the opening of this chapter, because while I rarely grow tired of seeing the world, I do very often grow tired of hearing it. I am what they now call an introvert, so I have an aversion to grating noises and to mindless chatter, and this hasn’t been helped by spending so much of my life in academia, which is so full of talk and so starved of meaning. 

 

It has helped me immensely to learn the difference between hearing and listening, to rise above the cackling and to focus on the sublime sounds that can soothe the soul. Please remind me of this the next time my neighbor is blaring his death metal while aimlessly walking around with his leaf blower. 

 

If what they have to say cannot help me to become better, then being deaf to them will not run the risk of making me any worse. Furthermore, if I consider it carefully, I will realize how little of what I hear is within my power of comprehension to begin with, from the confusion of a foreign tongue, to the mysterious meowing of my cat, to the puzzling compositions of Arnold Schoenberg. 

 

Nature has made so many sounds unintelligible to me, and I should hardly complain if she denies me a few more. I must attend to what whatever she chooses to offer, by whatever senses she permits me to retain. More is not always better; if it is enough for me to live with a simple dignity and integrity, I am content. 

Now I do so love my music, which has become such a central part of my daily ritual, and I have often wondered how I could manage without it, but if I can no longer listen to my records, I can whistle a tune, and if my lips grow too weak, I can play a song in my head. Deprive me of my hearing, and I can still perform the entirety of Holst’s The Planets out of habit, the first album my father bought me, and which no crippling circumstance can now take away from me. 

 

The human mind is remarkably adaptable, perfectly capable of thriving without so many of the things we falsely assume that we need. The blind man learns to rely more on his hearing, as the deaf man learns to observe more carefully with his eyes. 

 

And what if Providence strips me of both my hearing and my sight? That would be a mighty burden indeed, and yet there are those who have not only endured it, but they have also come to be at peace with it. Could I manage such a mighty task? As much as it even pains me to imagine, my own narrow experience points the way: I now comically pride myself on making it from my desk to my bed in total darkness, across the entire length of the house, simply by touch and by memory.

 

As a creature endowed with reason, however limited it may be, I have the capacity to bear anything I can understand, and where the suffering does indeed become unbearable, that is where Nature grants me the release of death. They say that whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger, to which can be added that whatever does kill me is the final relief. I only struggle with this fact if I treat survival as a good, when my sole good is virtue, through which anything else becomes good. 

 

I once found myself trapped in a wild drinking session with my uncle and his friends, where every new guest who arrived bought me yet another pint. The full glasses were lining up. I realized I could not keep up with these hardened fellows, and I quietly snuck out of the pub, so as not to make a fuss. 

 

When my uncle arrived home many hours later, wobbling through the door, he grinned at me and said, “You did right.” I hope I can act with a similar prudence when it is time to give up the ghost, and the memory of my uncle’s words can guide the way for me one last time. 

—Reflection written in 3/1999 

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.39

M. When I was a boy, Gnaeus Aufidius, a blind man, who had served the office of praetor, not only gave his opinion in the Senate, and was ready to assist his friends, but wrote a Greek history, and had a considerable acquaintance with literature. 
 
Diodorus the Stoic was blind, and lived many years at my house. He, indeed, which is scarcely credible, besides applying himself more than usual to philosophy, and playing on the flute, agreeably to the custom of the Pythagoreans, and having books read to him night and day, in all which he did not want eyes, contrived to teach geometry, which, one would think, could hardly be done without the assistance of eyes, telling his scholars how and where to draw every line. 
 
They relate of Asclepiades, a native of Eretria, and no obscure philosopher, when someone asked him what inconvenience he suffered from his blindness, that his reply was, “He was at the expense of another servant.” 
 
So that, as the most extreme poverty may be borne if you please, as is daily the case with some in Greece, so blindness may easily be borne, provided you have the support of good health in other respects. 
 
Democritus was so blind he could not distinguish white from black; but he knew the difference between good and evil, just and unjust, honorable and base, the useful and useless, great and small. Thus one may live happily without distinguishing colors; but without acquainting yourself with things, you cannot; and this man was of opinion that the intense application of the mind was taken off by the objects that presented themselves to the eye; and while others often could not see what was before their feet, he travelled through all infinity. 
 
It is reported also that Homer was blind, but we observe his painting as well as his poetry. What country, what coast, what part of Greece, what military attacks, what dispositions of battle, what array, what ship, what motions of men and animals, can be mentioned which he has not described in such a manner as to enable us to see what he could not see himself? 
 
What, then! Can we imagine that Homer, or any other learned man, has ever been in want of pleasure and entertainment for his mind? Were it not so, would Anaxagoras, or this very Democritus, have left their estates and patrimonies, and given themselves up to the pursuit of acquiring this divine pleasure? 
 
It is thus that the poets who have represented Tiresias the Augur as a wise man and blind never exhibit him as bewailing his blindness. And Homer, too, after he had described Polyphemus as a monster and a wild man, represents him talking with his ram, and speaking of his good fortune, inasmuch as he could go wherever he pleased and touch what he would. And so far he was right, for that Cyclops was a being of not much more understanding than his ram. 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.39 
 
While I would like to pride myself on being an observant sort of fellow, I was once humbled by how long it took me to realize that a man I was conversing with across a conference table was blind. Yes, I noticed he was wearing his sunglasses indoors, but I just assumed he was trying to follow the edgy fashion of the hour. Beyond that, he gave no indication of his disability, always facing whoever was speaking, picking up on everyone’s gestures and moods, and completely in control of the space around him. 
 
It only dawned on me once he stood up to get himself a cup of coffee, which he did with far more confidence and efficiency than I could ever muster. I’m afraid I no longer remember his name, and yet I still think of him whenever I catch myself complaining about this or that inconvenience. Here I am, whining over a hangnail, and the man without the use of his eyes is so firm in his character and so cheerful in his demeanor that I must hang my head in shame. 
 
A few years later I had the unpleasant experience of meeting a man who sadly took his blindness as an excuse for bitterness and rage. After asking me to pass a salt shaker, he berated me for doing so in an offensive manner, and my attempt at an apology, though I had intended no disrespect, caused him to hurl it back in my direction. He yelled for some time about the grave injustice of his handicap, and he ended by telling me why I was the one who deserved to lose my sight. 
 
I thankfully kept my cool as the owner escorted him out of the diner, and a moment of reflection allowed me to consider how often I had blamed the world instead of being accountable for myself. What right do I have to throw stones, or salt shakers, when my own indignation will flare up at the slightest provocation? To wish evil upon another is the inevitable result of the deepest rot within myself. 
 
Both of these men merely happened to be blind, for their physical condition did not define them. What distinguished then was their respective attitudes, which is a contemporary way of saying that they worked from very different first principles of right and wrong, either a reliance upon the virtues or a surrender to the circumstances. One man masters himself through his reason, while the other becomes a slave to his passions. 
 
If I can forgive the gravest insult, or carry on alone after I have been abandoned, or continue to act with integrity in the face of poverty, could I not also bear the loss of my eyes? I would no longer be able to see a sunset, but I would retain the power to appreciate beauty. I would no longer be able to read a word, but I would retain the power to contemplate its truth. Indeed, I could even take the absence of the former as a spur to cherish the latter; there is surely a reason why we speak of the blind poet, like Homer, as being gifted with a far more profound form of vision. 
 
My first exposure to Democritus was too cursory, so I only noticed his theory of atomism, and it was not until much later that I paid attention to the stories about his character. He lost his sight in his old age, and yet he was always known for his cheerfulness and optimism, called the “Laughing Philosopher” for being able to find joy and goodness in everything. Though the wise man may be all too familiar with suffering, he does not need to be at the mercy of his grief. 

—Reflection written in 3/1999 

IMAGE: Charles-Antoine Coypel, Cheerful Democritus (1746) 

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.38

M. Besides the emotions of the mind, all griefs and anxieties are assuaged by forgetting them, and turning our thoughts to pleasure. Therefore, it was not without reason that Epicurus presumed to say that a wise man abounds with good things, because he may always have his pleasures; from whence it follows, as he thinks, that that point is gained which is the subject of our present inquiry, that a wise man is always happy. 
 
What! Though he should be deprived of the senses of seeing and hearing? Yes; for he holds those things very cheap. For, in the first place, what are the pleasures of which we are deprived by that dreadful thing, blindness? 
 
For though they allow other pleasures to be confined to the senses, yet the things which are perceived by the sight do not depend wholly on the pleasure the eyes receive; as is the case when we taste, smell, touch, or hear; for, in respect of all these senses, the organs themselves are the seat of pleasure; but it is not so with the eyes. 
 
For it is the mind which is entertained by what we see; but the mind may be entertained in many ways, even though we could not see at all. I am speaking of a learned and a wise man, with whom to think is to live. 
 
But thinking in the case of a wise man does not altogether require the use of his eyes in his investigations; for if night does not strip him of his happiness, why should blindness, which resembles night, have that effect? 
 
For the reply of Antipater the Cyrenaic to some women who bewailed his being blind, though it is a little too obscene, is not without its significance. “What do you mean?” saith he; “do you think the night can furnish no pleasure?” 
 
And we find by his magistracies and his actions that old Appius, too, who was blind for many years, was not prevented from doing whatever was required of him with respect either to the republic or his own affairs. 
 
It is said that C. Drusus’s house was crowded with clients. When they whose business it was could not see how to conduct themselves, they applied to a blind guide. 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.38 
 
Even if Epicurus was mistaken in treating pleasure as an end, he was right to remind us how we can always find enjoyment in what is truly our own. Where have I been directing my attention? If I fret over a painful circumstance, I will always feel discouraged, but if I focus upon the good within me, I will make for myself a place of serenity. As Marcus Aurelius said, the happiness of my life depends on the quality of my thoughts. 
 
Yet it is easier to cast blame than to take responsibility, and so I am tempted to worry about the things I might lose, instead of appreciating what Nature has already guaranteed. Like a cynical and snarky teenager, I start to make up a list of hardships I am convinced would make me miserable, and I am surprised to find that Cicero is already a step ahead of me. 
 
I am sure I would greatly miss a limb, for example, and just picturing this makes me feel queasy, but the ghastly prospect of going blind stops me dead in my tracks. I don’t know if this fear is equally common in all of us, or if my own peculiar attachment to the written word raises the level of terror; whatever the case, the absence of sight would separate me from my books, and how would I survive without the power to read anything and everything to come my way? 
 
I always had perfect vision, until I recently noticed the pages getting a bit blurry. An optometrist assured me the problem was ever so slight, and while I might need glasses in the future, he suggested that I could avoid the strain on my eyes by simply taking regular breaks from my constant studying and writing. I resisted the urge to offer him harsh words, because I knew he was quite right. Still, I cursed the gods under my breath for messing with one of my dearest delights. 
 
With some time to reflect, however, I realized how it was not the seeing itself that I craved, but the understanding that stood behind any of the seeing. I could do without the scribbles that were written on the paper, but I could not live without the deeper awareness to which all of those images were pointing. As much as I am a creature of the senses, they are entirely in service to my essence as a creature of thought. I was looking for the brightness, so to speak, in all the wrong places. 
 
If you darken my eyes, I would likely be able to adapt, as I have learned to deal with so many other obstacles that I once believed to be insurmountable. If you darken my mind, there is really nothing left for me, or of me, to consider, and there is then little point to wearing glasses or reading books. How quickly I confuse the impression with the comprehension. 
 
It had never really occurred to me how the pleasure of sight is more in the contemplation of the perception, not just in the perception itself. Without my sight, I can still hear, or touch, or taste, and if those senses are also hindered, I still retain the riches of my memory and my imagination. I ought to beware of a rather different sort of blindness in my life, the oblivion of mental dullness. 
 
I have known some people who stewed in resentment over their blindness, and I have known others who did not permit it to hinder their joy or diminish their sense of worth. Once again, the difference is in the estimation. 

—Reflection written in 3/1999 

IMAGE: Gustav Klimt, Blind Man (1896) 

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.37

M. If, then, honor and riches have no value, what is there else to be afraid of? 
 
Banishment, I suppose; which is looked on as the greatest evil. Now, if the evil of banishment proceeds not from ourselves, but from the froward disposition of the people, I have just now declared how contemptible it is. But if to leave one’s country be miserable, the provinces are full of miserable men, very few of the settlers in which ever return to their country again. 
 
But exiles are deprived of their property! What, then! Has there not been enough said on bearing poverty? But with regard to banishment, if we examine the nature of things, not the ignominy of the name, how little does it differ from constant travelling! In which some of the most famous philosophers have spent their whole life, as Xenocrates, Crantor, Arcesilas, Lacydes, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Zeno, Cleanthes, Chrysippus, Antipater, Carneades, Panaetius, Clitomachus, Philo, Antiochus, Posidonius, and innumerable others, who from their first setting-out never returned home again. 
 
Now, what ignominy can a wise man be affected with (for it is of such a one that I am speaking) who can be guilty of nothing which deserves it? For there is no occasion to comfort one who is banished for his deserts. Lastly, they can easily reconcile themselves to every accident who measure all their objects and pursuits in life by the standard of pleasure; so that in whatever place that is supplied, there they may live happily. Thus what Teucer said may be applied to every case:
 
“Wherever I am happy is my country.” 
 
Socrates, indeed, when he was asked where he belonged to, replied, “The world;” for he looked upon himself as a citizen and inhabitant of the whole world. 
 
How was it with T. Altibutius? Did he not follow his philosophical studies with the greatest satisfaction at Athens, although he was banished? Which, however, would not have happened to him if he had obeyed the laws of Epicurus and lived peaceably in the republic. 
 
In what was Epicurus happier, living in his own country, than Metrodorus, who lived at Athens? Or did Plato’s happiness exceed that of Xenocrates, or Polemo, or Arcesilas? Or is that city to be valued much that banishes all her good and wise men? 
 
Demaratus, the father of our King Tarquin, not being able to bear the tyrant Cypselus, fled from Corinth to Tarquinii, settled there, and had children. Was it, then, an unwise act in him to prefer the liberty of banishment to slavery at home? 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.37 
 
I have often wondered if exile could still be a fitting form of punishment, though I’m not sure how it would work in our far more crowded world. We seem to be rather fond of locking people up if they don’t play nice, when it can be argued that firmly asking them to leave is both just and effective. If you tell me I read too much history, I will politely suggest we don’t read nearly enough. 
 
It doesn’t help, of course, to have a nostalgic and melancholic personality, fueled, over the years, by tragic tales of brooding Jacobites forever cast out from their native land. Perhaps you will at least grant me that banishment is a far more gentlemanly sentence than being left to rot in a cage? 
 
Yet a Greek or a Roman would still find this a terrible price to pay, for what is a man if he is ripped from his native soil? How is the tree to survive without its roots? Even in our day and age, when people tend to change their locations almost as often as they acquire new lovers, homesickness can cripple the toughest among us. The pain of it is slow and subtle, but it is sharp and certain. 
 
Cicero was hardly one of the Stoics, but he had no difficulty in enlisting their arguments to support a truth held in common by all the Wisdom Traditions: our happiness if measured by our character, and not by our circumstances. While pain, sometimes quite severe, will accompany any form of loss, it is our nature to seek out the true and the good, and to enlist all conditions, whether or not they happen to be convenient, in service to the virtues. Any obstacle to the body becomes another opportunity for the soul. 
 
And so exile is yet another one of those aspects of fortune, like pleasure, money, or fame, that is meant to be transformed into something greater. If others choose to shun me, that is on them, and I should not define myself by their opinions. If I choose to succumb to grief, that is on me, and I need only correct my opinion to restore my serenity. This will be as easy, or as difficult, as I allow it to be. 
 
If I have indeed committed a wrong, then I rightly deserve the penalty, which I should accept as a chance to humbly pay my debts. If I am convinced that I have committed no wrong, then the disservice done to me is now just a further occasion to prove my worth, to act with even greater dignity in the face of iniquity. If I understand my place within the whole, I know why wisdom can suffer no harm, and why ignorance is always bereft of benefits. 
 
It is easy to go with the flow of entitlement and resentment, yet it is a real test of conscience to offer love in the face of hatred. When I am struggling with the challenge of being evicted, of being told I am no longer welcome, I can think of the countless witnesses, whether celebrated or unsung, who refused to let their worth be bound to a single place, or to sell their loyalties for comforts. They saw their travels as adventures, not as burdens. 
 
What can they take away from me? Everything expect my integrity, which is entirely beyond their reach. Where is my true home? It is to be found wherever I can practice the virtues, in the city or in the wilderness. Can I be happy among strangers? The genuine citizens of the world will recognize and respect one another whenever they meet, whatever the color of their flags, even as the bigots continue to hide behind their walls. 

—Reflection written in 3/1999 

IMAGE: Briton Riviere, An Exile of the '45 (c. 1880) 

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.36

M. Let us inquire, then, if obscurity, the want of power, or even the being unpopular, can prevent a wise man from being happy. Observe if popular favor, and this glory which they are so fond of, be not attended with more uneasiness than pleasure. 
 
Our friend Demosthenes was certainly very weak in declaring himself pleased with the whisper of a woman who was carrying water, as is the custom in Greece, and who whispered to another, “That is he—that is Demosthenes.” What could be weaker thanthis? and yet what an orator he was! But although he had learned to speak to others, he had conversed but little with himself. 
 
We may perceive, therefore, that popular glory is not desirable of itself; nor is obscurity to be dreaded. “I came to Athens,” saith Democritus, “and there was no one there that knew me.” This was a moderate and grave man who could glory in his obscurity. 
 
Shall musicians compose their tunes to their own tastes? And shall a philosopher, master of a much better art, seek to ascertain, not what is most true, but what will please the people? Can anything be more absurd than to despise the vulgar as mere unpolished mechanics, taken singly, and to think them of consequence when collected into a body? 
 
These wise men would condemn our ambitious pursuits and our vanities, and would reject all the honors which the people could voluntarily offer to them; but we know not how to despise them until we begin to repent of having accepted them. 
 
There is an anecdote related by Heraclitus, the natural philosopher, of Hermodorus, the chief of the Ephesians, that he said “that all the Ephesians ought to be punished with death for saying, when they had expelled Hermodorus out of their city, that they would have no one among them better than another; but that if there were any such, he might go elsewhere to some other people.” 
 
Is not this the case with the people everywhere? Do they not hate every virtue that distinguishes itself? What! Was not Aristides (I had rather instance in the Greeks than ourselves) banished from his country for being eminently just? 
 
What troubles, then, are they free from who have no connection whatever with the people? What is more agreeable than a learned retirement? I speak of that learning which makes us acquainted with the boundless extent of nature and the Universe, and which even while we remain in this world discovers to us both heaven, earth, and sea. 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.36 
 
I can categorize the many diversions in any way I wish, but what they all share in common is a turning away from our essence to a fixation on accidents. When I am unwilling to fulfill my human calling, I seek to replace it with a dazzling array of amusements and trinkets, hoping they will somehow fill the void and drown out the silence. I call myself liberated when I am bound by gratification, and I claim to be a professional when I am entranced by busywork. 
 
While I may think that a craving for fame only entraps the those consumed by the most extreme vanity, we are all tempted to define ourselves by recognition, whether big or small. If I have no confidence in being myself, for my own sake, it feels so much easier to rely on the approval of others, to find security in the herd. If my worth flows from popular opinion, I fear that is a sign of weakness, not of strength. 
 
Like Demosthenes, we get caught up in playing a game, mistaking image for integrity. We weave an elaborate web of deception, which is compounded by assuming that impressing ever more people will increase our significance, and so the performance grows ever more intricate, and ridiculous, by the day. In such a setting, which of us still has the courage to be like Democritus, to become indifferent to the superficial moods of the crowd? 
 
Praise will come, and praise will go, and as much as we may prefer to be celebrated, renown can be one possible consequence of honor, but it can never be the cause of honor. If it happens to come, accept the compliment as an encouragement to live well, and if it happens to go, also take that rejection as an encouragement to live well. How foolish to suggest that a man becomes noble by suddenly winning the favor of ten thousand base followers! 
 
While I here run the grave risk of sounding like a snob, it simply needs to be said: nothing has ever become true, or good, or beautiful because some majority granted it their support. A flourishing democracy would require that the many choose to follow the virtues, just as a flourishing monarchy would require that the one chooses to follow the virtues; we are just as much in danger of the mob as we are of the tyrant. 
 
Indeed, where the frenzied masses gather together, it is so easy for the one to surrender his will to the pressures of conformity. A carefully informed conscience is the sole remedy, and that can only happen at the level of individual judgment, from the bottom up, and never from the top down. I am immediately suspicious when I am told to comply to the fashion of the hour, simply because I know how fickle our passions can be, especially when crammed into confined spaces. 
 
There is no shame in being a rhetorician, or even a politician, as long as one can first be a philosopher. Have you ever felt like Hermodorus, shunned for not being exactly the same as everyone else? Of course you have, and that has been a wonderful gift, the key to discovering your own peace of mind. 

—Reflection written in 3/1999 

IMAGE: Eugene Delacroix, Demosthenes Declaiming by the Seashore (1859) 

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.35

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

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

—Reflection written in 3/1999 

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

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.34

M. For who does not see this, that an appetite is the best sauce? When Darius, in his flight from the enemy, had drunk some water which was muddy and tainted with dead bodies, he declared that he had never drunk anything more pleasant; the fact was, that he had never drunk before when he was thirsty. 
 
Nor had Ptolemy ever eaten when he was hungry; for as he was travelling over Egypt, his company not keeping up with him, he had some coarse bread presented him in a cottage, upon which he said, “Nothing ever seemed to him pleasanter than that bread.” 
 
They relate, too, of Socrates, that, once when he was walking very fast till the evening, on his being asked why he did so, his reply was that he was purchasing an appetite by walking, that he might sup the better. 
 
And do we not see what the Lacedaemonians provide at their public table? Where the tyrant Dionysius supped, but told them he did not at all like that black broth, which was their principal dish; on which he who dressed it said, “It was no wonder, for it wanted seasoning.” Dionysius asked what that seasoning was; to which it was replied, “Fatigue in hunting, sweating, a race on the banks of Eurotas, hunger and thirst,” for these are the seasonings to the Lacedaemonian banquets. 
 
And this may not only be conceived from the custom of men, but from the beasts, who are satisfied with anything that is thrown before them, provided it is not unnatural, and they seek no farther. 
 
Some entire cities, taught by custom, delight in parsimony, as I said but just now of the Lacedaemonians. Xenophon has given an account of the Persian diet, who never, as he said, use anything but cresses with their bread; not but that, should nature require anything more agreeable, many things might be easily supplied by the ground, and plants in great abundance, and of incomparable sweetness. 
 
Add to this strength and health, as the consequence of this abstemious way of living. Now, compare with this those who sweat and belch, being crammed with eating, like fatted oxen; then will you perceive that they who pursue pleasure most attain it least; and that the pleasure of eating lies not in satiety, but appetite. 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.34 
 
The Epicureans were certainly onto something here, though I now realize how all the thoughtful people, regardless of their peculiar schools, were patiently giving me this advice from the very beginning, even as I smugly rolled my eyes. Sometimes we are too smart for our own good, assuming we have nothing to learn from those who have already trod the path. In such a case, I can only hope to catch on before it is too late. 
 
I might think that getting more will accordingly grant me greater contentment, when Nature has thrown me for a loop, as she is rather fond of doing, by arranging for moderation to be the true source of appreciation. If I receive everything that I desire, I will immediately long for more, but if I have to struggle for the slightest rewards, I can now savor them thoroughly, having learned their true value. 
 
And what is perhaps most remarkable is that the arrangement works best when I freely deny myself, instead of just begrudgingly bearing my circumstances. It may take some time to recognize how we are made to rule ourselves with joy, rather than being ruled by others with resentment, and why a genuine satisfaction rests in depth over breadth, in perfecting ourselves through the very little we need, not in being enslaved to every alluring impulse. Less becomes more, because we are discovering how to be more while simultaneously having less. 
 
I do not believe it an exaggeration to say that our contemporary America is largely driven by gluttony, avarice, and lust. We feed our faces, we hoard our toys, and we chase after the holy orgasm, even as we cover it with a veneer of respectability, which merely adds vanity into the mix. If you find such a claim preposterous, ask yourself what the little green men see when they scan our broadcasts, for that shamefully exposes our real priorities. 
 
This is not grounds for despair, only for constancy. It does not make the task impossible; it simply makes the calling noble. Following one failure after another, all on account of my disordered judgments, I am beginning to nod my head when I read about Darius, Ptolemy, Socrates, or those frustrating Spartans. They knew that how we approach something will determine everything about its worth to us, with absence being a powerful means for developing gratitude. 
 
Thirst reveals the power of the filthiest water. Hunger transforms a slice of stale bread into a banquet. A hard day’s makes us earn our supper. I am not certain about the recipe for black stew, but I am told that even this would surely have been for special occasions, as it contained pork, and the daily meal would more likely have involved lentils. I can only add that one of the most satisfying meals I have ever eaten was a chunk of dry salami and two pieces of crispbread, enjoyed under a boulder during a thunderstorm. 
 
It is bad enough that processed foods make us fat, and luxuries make us lazy, and smut makes us insensitive; it is worse that the rot in the soul is far more harmful than any rot to the flesh. While they insist upon a salvation through technology, find comfort in the refuge of philosophy. 

—Reflection written in 3/1999 

IMAGE: Vincent van Gogh, The Potato Eaters (1885) 

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.33

M. You see, I imagine, how Epicurus has divided his kinds of desires, not very acutely perhaps, but yet usefully: saying that they are “partly natural and necessary; partly natural, but not necessary; partly neither. That those which are necessary may be supplied almost for nothing; for that the things which nature requires are easily obtained.” 
 
As to the second kind of desires, his opinion is that anyone may easily either enjoy or go without them. And with regard to the third, since they are utterly frivolous, being neither allied to necessity nor nature, he thinks that they should be entirely rooted out. 
 
On this topic a great many arguments are adduced by the Epicureans; and those pleasures which they do not despise in a body, they disparage one by one, and seem rather for lessening the number of them; for as to wanton pleasures, on which subject they say a great deal, these, say they, are easy, common, and within anyone’s reach; and they think that if nature requires them, they are not to be estimated by birth, condition, or rank, but by shape, age, and person: and that it is by no means difficult to refrain from them, should health, duty, or reputation require it; but that pleasures of this kind may be desirable, where they are attended with no inconvenience, but can never be of any use. 
 
And the assertions which Epicurus makes with respect to the whole of pleasure are such as show his opinion to be that pleasure is always desirable, and to be pursued merely because it is pleasure; and for the same reason pain is to be avoided, because it is pain. 
 
So that a wise man will always adopt such a system of counterbalancing as to do himself the justice to avoid pleasure, should pain ensue from it in too great a proportion; and will submit to pain, provided the effects of it are to produce a greater pleasure: so that all pleasurable things, though the corporeal senses are the judges of them, are still to be referred to the mind, on which account the body rejoices while it perceives a present pleasure; but that the mind not only perceives the present as well as the body, but foresees it while it is coming, and even when it is past will not let it quite slip away. 
 
So that a wise man enjoys a continual series of pleasures, uniting the expectation of future pleasure to the recollection of what he has already tasted. The like notions are applied by them to high living; and the magnificence and expensiveness of entertainments are deprecated, because nature is satisfied at a small expense. 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.33 
 
With Cicero, I cannot bring myself to agree with the Epicurean model of the human person, just as I also cannot subscribe to their larger view of Nature, but I do have a great admiration for any school that preaches such a serene form of self-mastery. I am, unfortunately, more familiar with the crude licentiousness that goes together with our contemporary brand of hedonism, and it just goes to show that even a philosophy grounded in the appetites does not need to be cursed by selfishness and vulgarity. 
 
Off course I am a creature of the senses, yet in itself an emotion contains no merit, and a passion is only as good as the understanding that informs it. That the Epicurean stresses the importance of prudence in guiding desire should indicate how he seeks out a broader awareness, though he still insists on defining everything by means of pleasure and pain. I would respectfully ask him to consider how the value of the feeling is relative to the value of the act, and why the capacity for happiness hinges upon the power of judgment. 
 
The temperance of an Epicurus can be said to approximate the virtues, while it may not be doing so for all the right reasons. In practice, however, observe his remarkable restraint in recognizing why most of our so-called pleasures are neither necessary nor beneficial. It can be helpful for me to examine this threefold division of my desires, so I might admit how many of the things I claim as requirements for my happiness are really just hindrances to my inner peace. 
 
Very little is needed to survive, and life makes only the slightest demands in order for us to thrive. What is it that keeps me from accepting this? I am working under the illusion that more is always better, mistaking quantity for quality and intensity for depth. If it is essential, nature has already provided for it. If it is optional, I can just as easily do without it. If it extraneous, I should rid myself of it completely. My demand for more luxury is a symptom of my weakness, not of my strength. 
 
In something akin to what later thinkers called an “enlightened self-interest”, the Epicureans calculated how the endurance of a certain pain could provide us with more lasting pleasure, just as the avoidance of a lesser pleasure could liberate us from a greater pain. In college, we would jokingly ask whether the drinking was worth the hangover, when we really should have wondered whether anything could justify the crippling lifetime of shame and regret that followed from the habits of gluttony and lust. This is why the sage is perfectly content with a glass of water and a pleasant view. 
 
I believe there is more to a good life than a balance sheet of pleasure and pain, but there is some wisdom in choosing our enjoyments with the bigger picture clearly in mind. If it is genuinely worthwhile, I will not only relish it for one moment, but I will also anticipate its coming and remember it fondly once it has passed. The lush fails to wait for a fine wine to age, as the lecher passes over a lifetime with a loyal woman in favor of an hour with a floozie. 
 
It's tragic when we say that we just want to have some fun, and then our fervor brings us nothing but misery. 

—Reflection written in 3/1999 

IMAGE: Agostino Scilla, Epicurus (c. 1670) 

"Whatever you do, do wisely and think of the consequences." 

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.32

M. But with how little is this man himself satisfied! No one has said more on frugality. For when a man is far removed from those things which occasion a desire of money, from love, ambition, or other daily extravagance, why should he be fond of money, or concern himself at all about it? 
 
Could the Scythian Anacharsis disregard money, and shall not our philosophers be able to do so? We are informed of an epistle of his in these words: 
 
“Anacharsis to Hanno, greeting. My clothing is the same as that with which the Scythians cover themselves; the hardness of my feet supplies the want of shoes; the ground is my bed, hunger my sauce, my food milk, cheese, and flesh. So you may come to me as to a man in want of nothing. But as to those presents you take so much pleasure in, you may dispose of them to your own citizens, or to the immortal Gods.” 
 
And almost all philosophers, of all schools, excepting those who are warped from right reason by a vicious disposition, might have been of this same opinion. Socrates, when on one occasion he saw a great quantity of gold and silver carried in a procession, cried out, “How many things are there which I do not want!” 
 
Xenocrates, when some ambassadors from Alexander had brought him fifty talents, which was a very large sum of money in those times, especially at Athens, carried the ambassadors to sup in the Academy, and placed just a sufficiency before them, without any apparatus. When they asked him, the next day, to whom he wished the money which they had for him to be paid: “What!” said he, “did you not perceive by our slight repast of yesterday that I had no occasion for money?” 
 
But when he perceived that they were somewhat dejected, he accepted of thirty minas, that he might not seem to treat with disrespect the king’s generosity. 
 
But Diogenes took a greater liberty, like a Cynic, when Alexander asked him if he wanted anything: “Just at present,” said he, “I wish that you would stand a little out of the line between me and the sun,” for Alexander was hindering him from sunning himself. 
 
And, indeed, this very man used to maintain how much he surpassed the Persian king in his manner of life and fortune; for that he himself was in want of nothing, while the other never had enough; and that he had no inclination for those pleasures of which the other could never get enough to satisfy himself; and that the other could never obtain his. 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.32 
 
I pause for a moment when Cicero tells me how any decent philosopher will revere the virtue of temperance, and why he will gladly wave aside the temptation of riches. I must remember that he is referring to the man of mindfulness and integrity, not to the polished professional, to someone who rises up to the task instead of merely basking in the title. Whenever I confuse the two, I consider their respective attitudes toward promotions, and I am immediately set straight. 
 
Even Epicurus, which for Cicero is saying quite a lot, had the good sense to be indifferent to money. Whatever their disagreements about the first principles of human nature, those who look beyond the appearances will learn how negligible our circumstances become when contrasted with our judgments. The Epicurean may still be caught up in his pleasure and pain, but he at least knows to become the master of his pleasure and pain. 
 
I am grateful to find anecdotes like these, since the stories I read in the newspapers or watch on the evening news are little more than homages to people who became wealthy, or grievances from people who wish they could become wealthy. Whatever membership card he happens to carry, the sage knows how to operate on a completely different level, where the contents of his conscience come before the contents of his bank account. His commitment seems effortless to the rest of us, because of the depth to his understanding: he grasps the reasons why he was made for the virtues, making all the rest feel paltry.
 
If I dare to say such things out loud, the critics will insist I am demanding the impossible. 
 
“How is anyone supposed to live that way?” 
 
Simply. It involves swapping the usual assumptions about means and ends. 
 
“You’d have to be rich first, before you could stop caring about money!” 
 
Yes, you would indeed have to be rich, but not in the customary commodities. This is about a fundamental change in values, not about modifying a consumer lifestyle. 
 
Anacharsis acquired a power that few of us are willing to wield, an invulnerability to the sway of others, by choosing to not to care for the same distractions they hold so dear. If I am not impressed by cash, or by luxuries, or by titles, what grip can you have on me? You have nothing I want, and you cannot take away what I already have; neither bribery nor threats will force me to submit.  
 
Xenocrates demonstrated how the man who stands on principle doesn’t need to be jerk about it. He offered a subtle lesson instead of making a scene, and when that didn’t work, he accepted a nominal gift, just large enough not cause offense, yet not so large as to place him under any obligations. There is a certain knack to being magnificent in one’s humility. 
 
Diogenes, on the other hand, never much worried about being objectionable, perhaps because he realized how the offense is ultimately a reflection on the one who feels the violent outrage. If I had my ducks in a row, I would pity an Aleander of Macedon or a King of Persia, not sell my soul by seeking their favors. The happy life only becomes impossible on account of my conceit. 

—Reflection written in 3/1999