Fractals 5

Musonius Rufus, Lectures 20.5

In still another way the man of luxurious habits would be unjust, for he would hesitate to undertake the necessary burdens for his city without abandoning his extravagant life, and if it seemed necessary to suffer deprivation on behalf of his friends or relatives he would not submit to it, for his love of luxury would not permit it. 

 

Nay more, there are times when duties to the gods must be undertaken by the man who would be just toward them, by performing sacrifices, initiatory rites, or some such other service. 

 

Here, too, the wastrel will be found wanting. Thus, he would in all ways be unjust toward his city, toward his friends, and toward the gods, in failing to do what it is his duty to do. So, then, as being also the cause of injustice, luxury and extravagance must be shunned in every way.

 

Observe the finer folk, as they retain their own luxuries, and care so little for even your mere survival. Yes, as a part of their glorious image, they will speak words of vague universal compassion, for the reason that those clever words are a means for their particular power. 

 

Beg a working man for a dollar, and there’s a good chance he’ll give it to you. Beg a millionaire for a dollar, and there’s a good chance he will have you arrested for panhandling and vagrancy. You know it to be true. 

 

We would like to think that the luxurious people make all of us better by spending their money to employ us. Yet I seem to get poorer every year, working harder and harder, and they seem to get richer every year, doing less and less. What is the actual difference between chattel slavery and wage slavery?

 

For some, this is a call to violent revolution. “Kill the Rich! Take back what is ours!”

 

There is another solution, a totally different kind of revolution. “Make virtue your only currency, and meet hatred with love.”

 

The whole can only suffer when one piece of it arrogantly makes itself the meaning of the whole. This happens every day, wherever you may look, and it is easy to feel resentment. 

 

Yet with no money, and with no influence, and with no status, you may change the whole, working from whoever you are. Love is more powerful than wealth. Virtue will always trump money. 

 

Heal the whole world with your love. You will never lose with love, because you are triumphant if another man embraces it, just as you are triumphant if another man kills you for it. You have loved without condition, as God and Nature had asked you to do. 

 

Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

Written in 6/2000

Sayings of Ramakrishna 38

Two are the occasions when the Lord smiles. 

First, when brothers remove the chains which partition off the family property, saying, "This is mine and that is thine."

And secondly, when the patient is on the point of death, and the physician says, "I will cure him."

Musonius Rufus, Lectures 20.4

For my part, then, I would choose sickness rather than luxury, for sickness harms only the body, but luxury destroys both body and soul, causing weakness and impotence in the body and lack of self-control and cowardice in the soul. 
 
Furthermore, luxury begets injustice because it also begets covetousness. For no man of extravagant tastes can avoid being lavish in expenditure, nor being lavish can he wish to spend little; but in his desire for many things he cannot refrain from acquiring them, nor again in his effort to acquire can he fail to be grasping and unjust; for no man would succeed in acquiring much by just methods. 
 
Once I figure out that riches aren’t always good for me, I am prone to another terrible mistake, one that comes from swinging between extremes, based upon emotion instead of reason, where I suddenly think that being rich is somehow a bad thing. 
 
This conclusion hardly follows, since riches or poverty, health or illness, luxury or hardship are never good or bad in and of themselves for me; they become good or bad by what I choose to do with them. 
 
Stoicism 101: the man makes something of the conditions, the conditions make nothing of the man. 
 
Being wealthy isn’t a problem, though loving wealth is a problem. Being poor isn’t a problem, though hating poverty is a problem. Indifference to externals means that I will make the best of myself, whatever Providence decides that I should receive. This is only possible by a change of priorities through the Stoic Turn. 
 
Nevertheless, let me be quite practical about all of this. What is most likely to happen when I am given various succulent treats? I will settle for the comfort, and I will ring my wagons around it. 
 
What is most likely to happen if I am denied gratification? I will fortunately have to find another way to make something of myself, a means from within my own judgments, and I will leave the safety of the camp to go into the wilderness. 
 
Would I rather be sick instead of pampered, as Musonius so boldly suggests? Yes, if that is truly necessary to become a more understanding and loving person. My preferences must ultimately bow to my principles. 
 
I should see how my desire for more expensive and convenient “stuff” ends up becoming a burden. 
 
Musonius has the courage to say something I could never quite bring myself to proclaim openly: Fine furnishings never made anyone bad, but bad people have quite the lust for fine furnishings. Look to what is inside the heart and the mind, and you will know precisely who you are. 
 
If I want to live in the grandeur of luxury, I will have to spend much to achieve it. If I want to spend much, I will have to gain much before I can spend it. If I am a grasping man, my life is now about receiving instead of giving. If I only wish to receive, I have now thrown my very humanity out the window. 
 
I am no longer a man of any worth; I am a man who defines himself by everything except himself. 
 
Is it possible for me to be both rich and just? Yes, but only if I am totally ecstatic about throwing away all of the riches for the sake of all of the justice. 

Written in 6/2000

Sayings of Socrates 47

On hearing the line of Euripides' play Auge where the poet says of virtue:

'Tis best to let her roam at will,

he got up and left the theater. For he said it was absurd to make a hue and cry about a slave who could not be found, and to allow virtue to perish in this way. 

Someone asked him whether he should marry or not, and received the reply, "Whichever you do you will repent it." 

He used to express his astonishment that the sculptors of marble statues should take pains to make the block of marble into a perfect likeness of a man, and should take no pains about themselves lest they should turn out mere blocks, not men. 

He recommended to the young the constant use of the mirror, to the end that handsome men might acquire a corresponding behavior, and ugly men conceal their defects by education.

—Diogenes Laërtius, Lives of the Eminent Philosophers 2.33

Musonius Rufus, Lectures 20.3

Why is it, then, that the rare and expensive pieces are sought after rather than those that are available and cheap? It is because the things that are really good and fine are not recognized, and in place of them those which only seem good are eagerly sought by the foolish. As madmen often think that black is white, so foolishness is next of kin to madness. 

 

Now we should find that the best lawgivers— and I think first of all of Lycurgus, who drove extravagance out of Sparta and substituted frugality, who preferred a life of deprivation as a means of producing courage to a life of excess, and who did away with luxury as a corrupting influence and considered the will to bear hardships the salvation of the state. 

 

Testimony to this is the endurance of the Spartan ephebes, who were made accustomed to bear hunger and thirst and cold, and even blows and other hardships. Trained in such noble and austere habits the ancient Lacedaemonians were the best of the Greeks and were so esteemed. Their very poverty they caused to be more envied than the King's wealth. 

 

From an early age, I saw an association between merit and glory, such that those who were deemed to be worthy were always rewarded with fame and luxury. It started with winning differently colored stickers, moved on to class rankings, and ended up with titles and bank accounts. 

 

Through it all, if it sparkled more and it cost more, it was surely worth more. This was true of clothing, of cars, of homes, of offices, even of the very people themselves. There may have been much public insistence that people mattered more than things, but we all really knew that the people were just another set of things, to be bought and sold based upon appearances. 

 

When we already begin with the wrong values, we will then pursue all the wrong goals, and what is in itself rather ignorant is made to look so terribly wise. It happens for one simple reason, the fact that we confuse character and circumstance. 

 

Stoic living will never be popular in that sort of climate, and so the hero to the Stoic will be thought quite the fool by the seeker of status. I am always wary of making the Spartans into saints, but I understand completely why the Stoics thought so much of their lawgiver, Lycurgus. One of his crazy ideas was that we can help people make far more of themselves by making then do with far less. 

 

I may think, for example, that I am a better man because my home is completely climate controlled, while lesser people have to put up with the heat and the cold. Actually, it only means that I am a pampered man, and I am overlooking the possibility that bearing the heat and the cold can be excellent ways to acquire some mastery over myself. 

 

The good man sees the opportunity in hardship, while the rich man sees only an obstacle. The good man will gladly surrender his own comfort for the sake of his virtue, while the rich man will gladly surrender the comfort of others for the sake of his pleasure. 

 

With my rather odd sense of humor, I imagine a world where people would look out from their cozy windows during a blizzard, only to say to themselves, “Look at that fellow, walking to work through the wind and the snow, and wearing only a tattered coat and those old shoes. I feel deeply ashamed that I’m not more like him!” 

 

None of this is about wallowing in what is unpleasant, or being heartlessly tough just to put other people down. No, it is rather the insight that human greatness is to be found in the excellence of the soul, and that the luxuries of the body are usually more of a hindrance than a help to such character.

 

If I find satisfaction in possessing trinkets and fineries I will be tempted to stop right there, forgetting that my very ability to move beyond them, to take them or leave them, is what gives me merit. 

Written in 6/2000

Michael Leunig 13

Tao Te Ching 72

When the people do not fear what they ought to fear, that which is their great dread will come on them.

Let them not thoughtlessly indulge themselves in their ordinary life; let them not act as if weary of what that life depends on.

It is by avoiding such indulgence that such weariness does not arise.

Therefore the sage knows these things of himself, but does not parade his knowledge; loves, but does not appear to set a value on, himself. And thus he puts the latter alternative away and makes choice of the former.

Michael Leunig 12

As a reference for Musonius Rufus, Lectures 20.2:

Musonius Rufus, Lectures 20.2

In general, one would rightly judge what is good and bad in furnishings by these three criteria: acquisition, use, and preservation. Whatever is difficult to obtain or not convenient to use or not easy to protect is to be judged inferior; but what we acquire with no difficulty and use with satisfaction and find easy to keep is superior. 

 

For this reason earthenware and iron and similar vessels are much better than those of silver or gold, because their acquisition is less trouble since they are cheaper, their usefulness is greater since we can safely expose them to heat and fire (which cannot be done with others) , and guarding them is less of a problem, for the inexpensive ones are less likely to be stolen than the expensive ones. 

 

No small part of preserving them too is keeping them clean, which is a more expensive matter with costly ones. Just as a horse that is bought for a small price but is able to fulfill many needs is more desirable than one which does little although he was bought for a great price, so in the matter of furnishings the cheaper and more serviceable are better than the more costly and less serviceable ones. 

 

I often feel the weight of a certain assumption, that all the luxuries of modern technology are absolute goods, as there is never any question that they make our lives easier, more pleasant, and safer. With this can also come a sort of disdain for the people of the past, because they were so unfortunate and ignorant as not to possess all these glorious devices. 

 

It is easy to think this way, confusing what is optional with what is necessary. It all comes down, as it does time and time again, to what I believe I need for a good life, to the distinction between a blessing and a burden. 

 

And yet I will have moments of clarity, where I recognize that all of these furnishings, gadgets, and accessories do not always make my life easier, more pleasant, and safer; quite often they make my life harder, more frustrating, and more dangerous. 

 

Instead of removing effort from my day, I instead spend ever more of my time and resources to purchase greater fineries. Working hard to be less busy ends up making me very busy indeed. 

 

Rather than providing me with contentment, I feel the constant urge to acquire that one more thing that I still don’t have. A man who is not happy with himself is never satisfied, and enough will perpetually be another step away. 

 

Through it all, I imagine that I am more secure in my person and my property, and yet I worry about all the ways I now need to keep my pile of booty. If it isn’t really mine to begin with, I must always despair of losing it. 

 

Hard to get, hard to use, hard to maintain. At what point did something like that actually sound preferable? It must have been at the point where I thought how impressive it looked mattered more than how well it worked. 

 

In those moments of clarity, however rare they may be, I might think of the example of my car. I am told that I absolutely need one, and even that every adult in my family needs one, because we have to get to more places more quickly. 

 

Why, pray tell, must I always be going further and further afield? So I can get the best job, you silly man, and earn enough money to buy a home as far away from that job as possible, and then make the payments on that very car to cover the distance between work in the city and the house in the suburbs, which is packed with all kinds of pleasant conveniences and safe from those dirty people in the city. 

 

Still, it’s funny that I never really get to sit back and enjoy those conveniences, since I’m usually working for them, or stuck in traffic. Now is my car carrying me around, or am I carrying my car around?

Written in 6/2000

Vanitas 29

Kevin Best, Vanitas Still Life with Pochette

Arts, Wealth, Pleasure, and Philosophy

Pierre-Paul Prud'hon, Arts, Wealth, Pleasure, and Philosophy (1800)

Michael Leunig 11

The Wisdom of Solomon 7:15-23

[15] May God grant that I speak with judgment
and have thought worthy of what I have received,
for he is the guide even of wisdom
and the corrector of the wise.
[16] For both we and our words are in his hand,
as are all understanding and skill in crafts.
[17] For it is he who gave me unerring knowledge of what exists,
to know the structure of the world and the
activity of the elements;
[18] the beginning and end and middle of times,
the alternations of the solstices and the changes
of the seasons,
[19] the cycles of the year and the constellations of the stars,
[20] the natures of animals and the tempers of wild beasts,
the powers of spirits and the reasonings of men,
the varieties of plants and the virtues of roots;
[21] I learned both what is secret and what is manifest,
[22] for wisdom, the fashioner of all things, taught me.
For in her there is a spirit that is intelligent, holy,
unique, manifold, subtle,
mobile, clear, unpolluted,
distinct, invulnerable, loving the good, keen,
irresistible,
[23] beneficent, humane, steadfast, sure, free from anxiety,
all-powerful, overseeing all,
and penetrating through all spirits
that are intelligent and pure and most subtle.

A Hermit Praying

Hubert Robert, A Hermit Praying in the Ruins of a Roman Temple (c. 1760)

Musonius Rufus, Lectures 20.1

Lecture 20: On furnishings. 

 

Related to and in harmony with extravagance in houses is all the matter of furnishings within the house—couches, tables, coverlets, drinking cups, and similar objects—completely surpassing all needs and going far beyond necessity. 

 

There are ivory and silver, yes, even golden couches, tables of similar materials, coverlets of purple and other colors difficult to obtain, cups made of gold and silver, some of marble or some similar material rivaling gold and silver in costliness. 

 

All these things are eagerly sought for, although a pallet furnishes us a place to lie on no worse than a silver or ivory couch, and a rough cloak is quite as suitable to cover it as a purple or crimson coverlet; it is possible for us to eat quite safely from a wooden table without longing for one of silver. Yes, and one can drink from earthenware cups which are quite as good for quenching the thirst as goblets of gold; and the wine which is poured into them is not tainted, but yields a fragrance sweeter than from cups of gold or silver. 

 

It may seem lazy of me to understand someone else’s words by pointing to yet another passage from a completely different author, but when the shoe fits so well, there is surely no shame in wearing it. 

 

I was not as keen on the musical version as most everyone else seemed to be back in the 1980’s, but the original book of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables shakes me to the core. Bishop Myriel speaks here with the voice of a true Stoic; I imagine that Musonius would have approved. 

 

The event that immediately follows this section is also profoundly moving, but I won’t spoil it for anyone who doesn’t know the story. Myriel will always be one of my literary heroes. 

 

"Monseigneur, the man is gone! The silver has been stolen!"

 

As she uttered this exclamation, her eyes fell upon a corner of the garden, where traces of the wall having been scaled were visible. The coping of the wall had been torn away.

 

"Stay! That is the way he went. He jumped over into Cochefilet Lane. Ah, the abomination! He has stolen our silver!"

 

The Bishop remained silent for a moment; then he raised his grave eyes, and said gently to Madame Magloire:

 

"And, in the first place, was that silver ours?"

 

Madame Magloire was speechless. Another silence ensued; then the Bishop went on:

 

"Madame Magloire, I have for a long time detained that silver wrongfully. It belonged to the poor. Who was that man? A poor man, evidently."

 

 "Alas! Jesus!" returned Madame Magloire. "It is not for my sake, nor for Mademoiselle's. It makes no difference to us. But it is for the sake of Monseigneur. What is Monseigneur to eat with now?"

 

The Bishop gazed at her with an air of amazement.

 

"Ah, come! Are there no such things as pewter forks and spoons?"

 

Madame Magloire shrugged her shoulders.

 

"Pewter has an odor."

 

"Iron forks and spoons, then."

 

Madame Magloire made an expressive grimace.

 

"Iron has a taste."

 

"Very well," said the Bishop; "wooden ones then."

 

A few moments later he was breakfasting at the very table at which Jean Valjean had sat on the previous evening. As he ate his breakfast, Monseigneur Welcome remarked gayly to his sister, who said nothing, and to Madame Magloire, who was grumbling under her breath, that one really does not need either fork or spoon, even of wood, in order to dip a bit of bread in a cup of milk. . . . 

Written in 6/2000

The Art of Peace 63

The techniques of the Art of Peace are neither fast nor slow, nor are they inside or outside. They transcend time and space. 

Seneca, Moral Letters 3.6

In like manner you should rebuke these two kinds of men—both those who always lack repose, and those who are always in repose. For love of bustle is not industry—it is only the restlessness of a hunted mind. And true repose does not consist in condemning all motion as merely vexation; that kind of repose is slackness and inertia.
 
Therefore, you should note the following saying, taken from my reading in Pomponius: "Some men shrink into dark corners, to such a degree that they see darkly by day." No, men should combine these tendencies, and he who reposes should act and he who acts should take repose. 
 
Discuss the problem with Nature; she will tell you that she has created both day and night. Farewell.
 
Just as there are people who share too much and people who share too little, so too there are people who do too much and people who do too little. 
 
This further example of falling into extremes is an ideal illustration, since the contrast between the excess and the deficiency is so vivid, and it is rare indeed to come across someone who has actually achieved the right balance between them. 
 
I have known very many people who are frantic workers, in a constant state of anxiety about completing as many tasks as possible, in as little time possible, all for a mysterious sort of success. 
 
Sometimes they want worldly rewards, and sometimes they just want to feel diverted by chores, but in almost all cases they have abandoned peace of mind for the sake of busywork.
 
I have also known very many people who are lazy bums, indifferent to the world around them, and willing to abandon any sense of responsibility. They may not even be gluttons for pleasure, simply resigned instead only to surrender. 
 
Sometimes they feel that their past failures are irredeemable, and sometimes they have just been pampered and spoiled, but in almost all cases they have abandoned peace of mind due to despair. 
 
And how often will I find that person who knows what work is for, and what leisure is for, and is able to find the harmony and complementarity between the two? 
 
I have no right to condemn anyone at all, because I haven’t really managed it myself. I have days when I can’t stop moving, afraid that if I did so I would have to gaze at myself, and I have days when I refuse to even get out of bed, afraid of everything out there.
 
My struggle to find the right way to trust has the same sort of instability. At one moment I spill my soul to the worst possible companion, and at another moment I run away in terror from the best possible companion. 
 
The girl I dated all through college was chronically dishonest, and yet I never found the courage to court the kind girl who sat next to me in all my history classes for four years, because I was afraid that she would laugh at me. 
 
I know all too well that tendency to shrink away, to hide in a shadowy corner, on account of the risks that are involved; I was a master of that for many years. But where is the actual risk, and what do I really have to lose? 
 
Nature made both light and darkness, just as Nature made both pleasure and pain. The choice to engage or to run away, and the choice to reach out my hand in love or to cower inside my lonely shell, is entirely up to me, and is in no way determined by what others may say or do. 
 
If I am judging with wisdom and acting with virtue, nothing can really hurt me. Finding that precious balance, the mean between extremes, is entirely within my power, to go as I will go, even as the world goes as the world will go. 

Written in 2/2012

Vanitas 28

Simon Luttichuys, Vanitas (1667)

Fragments of Parmenides 18

Moreover, it is immovable in the bonds of mighty chains, without beginning and without end; since coming into being and passing away have been driven afar, and true belief has cast them away. It is the same, and it rests in the self-same place, abiding in itself.