Guyot Marchant, The Paris Dance of Death: The Schoolmaster and the Soldier (1485)
The Death of Marcus Aurelius
Monday, October 9, 2023
The Paris Dance of Death 10
Sunday, October 8, 2023
Stobaeus on Stoic Ethics 2
Of goods, some are virtues, some are not.
Prudence, then, and temperance and justice and courage and great-heartedness and strength of body and soul are virtues; joy and good spirits and confidence and wish and such things are not virtues.
Of virtues, some are kinds of knowledge of certain things and crafts, and some are not.
Prudence, then, and temperance and justice and courage are kinds of knowledge of certain things and crafts; great-heartedness and strength of body and soul are neither kinds of knowledge of certain things nor crafts.
Analogously, of bad things some are vices and some are not.
Imprudence, then, and injustice and cowardice and pusillanimity and powerlessness are vices; pain and fear and such things are not vices.
Of vices, some are kinds of ignorance of certain things and the absence of skill, some are not.
Imprudence, then, and wantonness and injustice and cowardice are kinds of ignorance of certain things and the absence of skill. Pusillanimity and powerlessness and weakness are neither kinds of ignorance nor lacks of skill.
IMAGE: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Allegory of Virtue and Nobility (c. 1748)
Saturday, October 7, 2023
The Wisdom of Solomon 19:1-5
for God knew in advance even their future actions,
[2] that, though they themselves had permitted your people to depart
and hastily sent them forth,
they would change their minds and pursue them.
[3] For while they were still busy at mourning,
and were lamenting at the graves of their dead,
they reached another foolish decision,
and pursued as fugitives those whom they had
begged and compelled to depart.
[4] For the fate they deserved drew them on to this end,
and made them forget what had happened,
in order that they might fill up the punishment
which their torments still lacked,
[5] and that your people might experience an incredible journey,
but they themselves might meet a strange death.
IMAGE: Richard Dadd, The Flight out of Egypt (c. 1849)
Maxims of Goethe 25
A man is really alive only when he delights in the goodwill of others.
IMAGE: Cristiano Banti, Confidences (1868)
,_by_Cristiano_Banti.jpg)
Seneca, Moral Letters 57.2
The gloom, however, furnished me with some food for thought; I felt a certain mental thrill, and a transformation unaccompanied by fear, due to the novelty and the unpleasantness of an unusual occurrence.
Of course I am not speaking to you of myself at this point, because I am far from being a perfect person, or even a man of middling qualities; I refer to one over whom fortune has lost her control. Even such a man's mind will be smitten with a thrill and he will change color.
For there are certain emotions, my dear Lucilius, which no courage can avoid; Nature reminds courage how perishable a thing it is. And so he will contract his brow when the prospect is forbidding, will shudder at sudden apparitions, and will become dizzy when he stands at the edge of a high precipice and looks down.
This is not fear; it is a natural feeling which reason cannot rout. That is why certain brave men, most willing to shed their own blood, cannot bear to see the blood of others. Some persons collapse and faint at the sight of a freshly inflicted wound; others are affected similarly on handling or viewing an old wound which is festering. And others meet the sword-stroke more readily than they see it dealt.
Of course I am not speaking to you of myself at this point, because I am far from being a perfect person, or even a man of middling qualities; I refer to one over whom fortune has lost her control. Even such a man's mind will be smitten with a thrill and he will change color.
For there are certain emotions, my dear Lucilius, which no courage can avoid; Nature reminds courage how perishable a thing it is. And so he will contract his brow when the prospect is forbidding, will shudder at sudden apparitions, and will become dizzy when he stands at the edge of a high precipice and looks down.
This is not fear; it is a natural feeling which reason cannot rout. That is why certain brave men, most willing to shed their own blood, cannot bear to see the blood of others. Some persons collapse and faint at the sight of a freshly inflicted wound; others are affected similarly on handling or viewing an old wound which is festering. And others meet the sword-stroke more readily than they see it dealt.
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 57
Though it is almost impossible for me to express in my own words, I believe I know something of the sort of feeling that Seneca describes. It isn’t quite distress, which involves a conscious awareness of a present evil, and it isn’t quite fear, which involves a conscious expectation of some impending danger.
Seneca says it is like a thrill, and the only way I can characterize it is being possessed by a sense of awe, one that imposes an impression of being powerless in the face of something far mightier than myself.
And a critical part of this feeling is that it overwhelms us, regardless of how highly developed we are in wisdom and virtue. The Stoics, of course, prize the ability to rule our emotions, such that an ideal sage would theoretically be someone who has an absolute mastery over them, yet I wonder if in practice there will always remain certain core passions that will elude our control. In that case, I can only learn to bear them, not to conquer them.
My dizzying reaction to heights, for example, has long refused to be tamed. I can manage to endure a violence done to me, while I cannot stand to see it done to another. Though it happens rarely, I can be overcome by a specific sort of self-consciousness that gives me a crippling type of tunnel vision. We surely all have our own peculiar instances.
As for those tunnels, beyond my unpleasant experiences in Boston, I find myself dreaming about them regularly, especially railroad or subway tunnels. I always wake from these dreams with a sliver of that “thrill” or “awe” feeling, and it sometimes frustrates me that I have no command over it.
Now the usual pop psychology, derived from Freud, tells me it’s all about sex, but a psychiatrist I know, more a fan of Jung, grinned from ear to ear when I once asked him about the tunnel dreams.
“Classic!” he said. “Not everything is about sex, especially sex itself. A tunnel is often an archetype of transition, and it may reflect your concern about a change into something unknown. Yes, it could be about death, but frequently it’s about far more powerful transformations than death.”
When you put it that way, I feel that sense of awe coming on again. There are things at work within me that elude even my own capacity to tame.
Though it is almost impossible for me to express in my own words, I believe I know something of the sort of feeling that Seneca describes. It isn’t quite distress, which involves a conscious awareness of a present evil, and it isn’t quite fear, which involves a conscious expectation of some impending danger.
Seneca says it is like a thrill, and the only way I can characterize it is being possessed by a sense of awe, one that imposes an impression of being powerless in the face of something far mightier than myself.
And a critical part of this feeling is that it overwhelms us, regardless of how highly developed we are in wisdom and virtue. The Stoics, of course, prize the ability to rule our emotions, such that an ideal sage would theoretically be someone who has an absolute mastery over them, yet I wonder if in practice there will always remain certain core passions that will elude our control. In that case, I can only learn to bear them, not to conquer them.
My dizzying reaction to heights, for example, has long refused to be tamed. I can manage to endure a violence done to me, while I cannot stand to see it done to another. Though it happens rarely, I can be overcome by a specific sort of self-consciousness that gives me a crippling type of tunnel vision. We surely all have our own peculiar instances.
As for those tunnels, beyond my unpleasant experiences in Boston, I find myself dreaming about them regularly, especially railroad or subway tunnels. I always wake from these dreams with a sliver of that “thrill” or “awe” feeling, and it sometimes frustrates me that I have no command over it.
Now the usual pop psychology, derived from Freud, tells me it’s all about sex, but a psychiatrist I know, more a fan of Jung, grinned from ear to ear when I once asked him about the tunnel dreams.
“Classic!” he said. “Not everything is about sex, especially sex itself. A tunnel is often an archetype of transition, and it may reflect your concern about a change into something unknown. Yes, it could be about death, but frequently it’s about far more powerful transformations than death.”
When you put it that way, I feel that sense of awe coming on again. There are things at work within me that elude even my own capacity to tame.
—Reflection written in 5/2013
Friday, October 6, 2023
Stoic Snippets 216
But the Universal Nature delights in change, and in obedience to her all things are now done well, and from eternity have been in like form, and will be such to time without end.
What, then, do you say—that all things have been and all things always will be bad, and that no power has ever been found in so many gods to rectify these things, but the world has been condemned to be bound in never ceasing evil?
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.35
IMAGE: A.P. van de Venne, An Allegory of Change (1655)
Thursday, October 5, 2023
Delphic Maxims 36
Εὔφημος ἴσθι
Be religiously silent
IMAGE: John Everett Millais, The Pharisee and the Publican (1864)
The Art of Peace 102
Ultimately, you must forget about technique.
The further you progress, the fewer teachings there are.
The Great Path is really No Path.
Seneca, Moral Letters 57.1
Letter 57: On the trials of travel
When it was time for me to return to Naples from Baiae, I easily persuaded myself that a storm was raging, that I might avoid another trip by sea; and yet the road was so deep in mud, all the way, that I may be thought none the less to have made a voyage.
On that day I had to endure the full fate of an athlete; the anointing with which we began was followed by the sand-sprinkle in the Naples tunnel.
No place could be longer than that prison; nothing could be dimmer than those torches, which enabled us, not to see amid the darkness, but to see the darkness.
But, even supposing that there was light in the place, the dust, which is an oppressive and disagreeable thing even in the open air, would destroy the light; how much worse the dust is there, where it rolls back upon itself, and, being shut in without ventilation, blows back in the faces of those who set it going!
So we endured two inconveniences at the same time, and they were diametrically different: we struggled both with mud and with dust on the same road and on the same day.
When it was time for me to return to Naples from Baiae, I easily persuaded myself that a storm was raging, that I might avoid another trip by sea; and yet the road was so deep in mud, all the way, that I may be thought none the less to have made a voyage.
On that day I had to endure the full fate of an athlete; the anointing with which we began was followed by the sand-sprinkle in the Naples tunnel.
No place could be longer than that prison; nothing could be dimmer than those torches, which enabled us, not to see amid the darkness, but to see the darkness.
But, even supposing that there was light in the place, the dust, which is an oppressive and disagreeable thing even in the open air, would destroy the light; how much worse the dust is there, where it rolls back upon itself, and, being shut in without ventilation, blows back in the faces of those who set it going!
So we endured two inconveniences at the same time, and they were diametrically different: we struggled both with mud and with dust on the same road and on the same day.
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 57
I suppose I should have known better, but until first reading this letter it had not really occurred to me that the Romans built extensive road tunnels. I do chuckle to myself when I see how many of the old Roman roads are still quite passable after two millennia, while the new highway outside my town is already collapsing after a decade.
The Crypta Neapolitana, which Seneca describes here, was half a mile long, connected Naples and the Phlegraean Fields by avoiding a swamp and some steep hills, and it continued to be used into the early twentieth century.
Recall that only a few letters ago, Seneca had a rather unpleasant experience on a sea voyage, and so it is understandable that he sought out a different route. The fact remains, however, that Fortune likes to play with us, and she prefers to keep us on our toes, so we are bound to find both the unexpected and the challenging on any sort of journey. There is little point in trying to avoid her lessons.
Like a wrestler being first anointed in oil, and then sprinkled with sand so that his opponent might still grip him, Seneca first gets plastered with mud on the road, and then covered with clouds of dust inside the tunnel. Joined together with the sort of darkness that seems impenetrable by any light, this must have been the kind of trip that leaves a deep and lasting mark on the mind.
I have many vivid memories from many different journeys, sometimes terrifying, sometimes exhilarating, and sometimes both. As I read about Seneca venturing into the Crypta Neapolitana, I immediately think of traveling either to or from Boston’s Logan Airport through the Callahan and Sumner Tunnels.
Both passages were narrow, cramped, and filthy. There was usually enough light to see, but the flickering neon tubes on the ceiling did not mix well with the garish yellow tiles that lined the walls. I don’t recall any mud, but even with air conditioning we would be instantly covered in sweat. Though there was no dust, the noxious exhaust fumes were just as painful to the eyes and the throat.
A memory like this one sticks with me for life, and it takes on a far greater significance by standing in for various reflections on the more profound aspects of life. Seneca’s journey by tunnel also provided him with the occasion to ponder the power of our impressions to inspire the fear of death. . . .
I suppose I should have known better, but until first reading this letter it had not really occurred to me that the Romans built extensive road tunnels. I do chuckle to myself when I see how many of the old Roman roads are still quite passable after two millennia, while the new highway outside my town is already collapsing after a decade.
The Crypta Neapolitana, which Seneca describes here, was half a mile long, connected Naples and the Phlegraean Fields by avoiding a swamp and some steep hills, and it continued to be used into the early twentieth century.
Recall that only a few letters ago, Seneca had a rather unpleasant experience on a sea voyage, and so it is understandable that he sought out a different route. The fact remains, however, that Fortune likes to play with us, and she prefers to keep us on our toes, so we are bound to find both the unexpected and the challenging on any sort of journey. There is little point in trying to avoid her lessons.
Like a wrestler being first anointed in oil, and then sprinkled with sand so that his opponent might still grip him, Seneca first gets plastered with mud on the road, and then covered with clouds of dust inside the tunnel. Joined together with the sort of darkness that seems impenetrable by any light, this must have been the kind of trip that leaves a deep and lasting mark on the mind.
I have many vivid memories from many different journeys, sometimes terrifying, sometimes exhilarating, and sometimes both. As I read about Seneca venturing into the Crypta Neapolitana, I immediately think of traveling either to or from Boston’s Logan Airport through the Callahan and Sumner Tunnels.
Both passages were narrow, cramped, and filthy. There was usually enough light to see, but the flickering neon tubes on the ceiling did not mix well with the garish yellow tiles that lined the walls. I don’t recall any mud, but even with air conditioning we would be instantly covered in sweat. Though there was no dust, the noxious exhaust fumes were just as painful to the eyes and the throat.
A memory like this one sticks with me for life, and it takes on a far greater significance by standing in for various reflections on the more profound aspects of life. Seneca’s journey by tunnel also provided him with the occasion to ponder the power of our impressions to inspire the fear of death. . . .
—Reflection written in 5/2013
IMAGE: Caspar van Wittel, The Crypta Neapolitana (c. 1700)
Wednesday, October 4, 2023
Sayings of Heraclitus 75
IMAGE: Michelangelo, The Delphic Sibyl (c. 1509)
Sayings of Ramakrishna 224
So the religious teachers of all climes and ages are but as many lamp-posts through which is emitted the light of the spirit flowing constantly from one source, the Lord Almighty.
Seneca, Moral Letters 56.7
You may therefore be sure that you are at peace with yourself, when no noise reaches you, when no word shakes you out of yourself, whether it be of flattery or of threat, or merely an empty sound buzzing about you with unmeaning din.
"What then?" you say, "is it not sometimes a simpler matter just to avoid the uproar?"
I admit this. Accordingly, I shall change from my present quarters. I merely wished to test myself and to give myself practice. Why need I be tormented any longer, when Ulysses found so simple a cure for his comrades even against the songs of the Sirens? Farewell.
"What then?" you say, "is it not sometimes a simpler matter just to avoid the uproar?"
I admit this. Accordingly, I shall change from my present quarters. I merely wished to test myself and to give myself practice. Why need I be tormented any longer, when Ulysses found so simple a cure for his comrades even against the songs of the Sirens? Farewell.
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 56
So the next time I insist that some noise is too much to bear, or that I can no longer put up with the constant chatter of vacuous conversations going on around me, let me be careful to understand my true meaning.
The sound is a completely natural effect of events unfolding as they should, and any discomfort that comes from it is all about my unwillingness to accept things as they are. The empty talk is a consequence of how other people have chosen to think, and my frustration with their choices is really about my own failure to let them be as they wish.
Before I complain, what can I do about my own attitude? I will usually discover that there are then no grounds for finding fault. I have now learned to hear something beautiful in the cawing and croaking of a crow, and I have been working on listening to anything my fellows have to say as an exercise in compassion.
It will only be when I have come to terms with myself, and established a serenity within my judgments, that I will become capable of coming to terms with the commotions out there in the wide world. It stops being a noise when my mind holds a mastery over my ears. It is no longer wasted speech when I embrace that someone is trying to say something of meaning, however confused.
A few years back, I started to develop an occasional ringing in my left ear, which then gradually became louder and louder. It is now also constant, and while I initially thought I would not be able to live with such an intrusion, I have made my peace with it. On one day, it can remind me not to play my music too loudly. On the next day, it can be a timely warning about how more and more bits of me are going to fall apart, and why that is perfectly fitting and suitable in the order of things.
Yes of course, if it I within my power, I can always decide to move myself to a calmer environment, if that will indeed assist me at being calmer on the inside. Nevertheless, I must remember that no amount of fussing with the circumstances can take of the place of taming my own passions.
I think of my first summer in Texas, when I drove myself to the edge of insanity about the sweltering heat and humidity. By the second summer, I knew to tell myself, over and over again: “Rise above it. It does not need to break you. You are more than the number on a thermometer.”
Quieter quarters are good. A quieter soul is better.
So the next time I insist that some noise is too much to bear, or that I can no longer put up with the constant chatter of vacuous conversations going on around me, let me be careful to understand my true meaning.
The sound is a completely natural effect of events unfolding as they should, and any discomfort that comes from it is all about my unwillingness to accept things as they are. The empty talk is a consequence of how other people have chosen to think, and my frustration with their choices is really about my own failure to let them be as they wish.
Before I complain, what can I do about my own attitude? I will usually discover that there are then no grounds for finding fault. I have now learned to hear something beautiful in the cawing and croaking of a crow, and I have been working on listening to anything my fellows have to say as an exercise in compassion.
It will only be when I have come to terms with myself, and established a serenity within my judgments, that I will become capable of coming to terms with the commotions out there in the wide world. It stops being a noise when my mind holds a mastery over my ears. It is no longer wasted speech when I embrace that someone is trying to say something of meaning, however confused.
A few years back, I started to develop an occasional ringing in my left ear, which then gradually became louder and louder. It is now also constant, and while I initially thought I would not be able to live with such an intrusion, I have made my peace with it. On one day, it can remind me not to play my music too loudly. On the next day, it can be a timely warning about how more and more bits of me are going to fall apart, and why that is perfectly fitting and suitable in the order of things.
Yes of course, if it I within my power, I can always decide to move myself to a calmer environment, if that will indeed assist me at being calmer on the inside. Nevertheless, I must remember that no amount of fussing with the circumstances can take of the place of taming my own passions.
I think of my first summer in Texas, when I drove myself to the edge of insanity about the sweltering heat and humidity. By the second summer, I knew to tell myself, over and over again: “Rise above it. It does not need to break you. You are more than the number on a thermometer.”
Quieter quarters are good. A quieter soul is better.
—Reflection written in 5/2013
IMAGE: Joseph Ducreux, The Silence (c. 1799)
_-_NM_7495_-_Nationalmuseum.jpg)
Tuesday, October 3, 2023
Stoic Snippets 215
Imagine that you see their poor souls laid bare. When they think that they do harm by their blame or good by their praise, what an idea!
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.34
IMAGE: John William Waterhouse, Cleopatra (1888)
Monday, October 2, 2023
Tidbits from Montaigne 58
—Michel de Montaigne, Essays 3.9
Dhammapada 345, 346
Wise people do not call that a strong fetter which is made of iron, wood, or hemp; far stronger is the care for precious stones and rings, for sons and a wife.
That fetter wise people call strong which drags down, yields, but is difficult to undo; after having cut this at last, people leave the world, free from cares, and leaving desires and pleasures behind.
Seneca, Moral Letters 56.6
The mind which starts at words or at chance sounds is unstable and has not yet withdrawn into itself; it contains within itself an element of anxiety and rooted fear, and this makes one a prey to care, as our Vergil says:
“I, whom of yore no dart could cause to flee,
Nor Greeks, with crowded lines of infantry.
Now shake at every sound, and fear the air,
Both for my child and for the load I bear.”
This man in his first state is wise; he blenches neither at the brandished spear, nor at the clashing armor of the serried foe, nor at the din of the stricken city.
This man in his second state lacks knowledge fearing for his own concerns, he pales at every sound; any cry is taken for the battle-shout and overthrows him; the slightest disturbance renders him breathless with fear. It is the load that makes him afraid.
Select anyone you please from among your favorites of Fortune, trailing their many responsibilities, carrying their many burdens, and you will behold a picture of Vergil's hero, "fearing both for his child and for the load he bears."
“I, whom of yore no dart could cause to flee,
Nor Greeks, with crowded lines of infantry.
Now shake at every sound, and fear the air,
Both for my child and for the load I bear.”
This man in his first state is wise; he blenches neither at the brandished spear, nor at the clashing armor of the serried foe, nor at the din of the stricken city.
This man in his second state lacks knowledge fearing for his own concerns, he pales at every sound; any cry is taken for the battle-shout and overthrows him; the slightest disturbance renders him breathless with fear. It is the load that makes him afraid.
Select anyone you please from among your favorites of Fortune, trailing their many responsibilities, carrying their many burdens, and you will behold a picture of Vergil's hero, "fearing both for his child and for the load he bears."
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 56
I am grateful I do have an uncanny knack for facing a sudden crisis, and it has now served me well many times, at those critical moments when push comes to shove. If you don’t give me the chance to think about it too much, I am surprisingly capable of acting with absolute commitment.
Yet I do run into a problem if I have a moment to doubt myself, when there is an ominous pause, and then, as time seems to slow down, I begin to question all the values I claim to hold so dear. The fear is a consequence of my “backpedaling”, of my uncertainty about who I should be. It’s quite an ugly sight!
Once again, it’s not the thinking itself that is the obstacle, but rather the disordered thinking that gives me pause. It stems from deeply held assumptions about the relationship of right and wrong to pleasure and pain. I understand something to be virtuous, while in my gut I worry about all the hurt that will come with it.
When my hands start trembling, and my entire body grows cold and numb, I may attribute it to basic biology. No, most of the time it is because I am terrified of an idea, not because I am terrified of suffering. More properly, my flawed judgments about pain have made the prospect of pain, or of death, such a barrier.
It has taken me far longer to appreciate Aeneas as a hero than it has for me to admire Hector, or even Odysseus. That’s all on me, and it is no reflection on either Vergil or Homer.
The “first state” Seneca describes is that of any person who possesses an informed conscience. The “second state” is what happens when the worry about fortune, a dwelling upon the circumstances at the expense of character, rears its ugly head. I imagine even the best of folks are subject to such anxieties.
That my instincts will produce feelings of fear is not in question, and that is why any truly brave person knows that courage is hardly the absence of fear, but the mastery of fear. I must resist the current trend of reducing human nature to the passions alone—what I will consciously do with them is what matters.
The more I choose to care about what will become of me, the less I choose to care about what I can make of myself.
I am grateful I do have an uncanny knack for facing a sudden crisis, and it has now served me well many times, at those critical moments when push comes to shove. If you don’t give me the chance to think about it too much, I am surprisingly capable of acting with absolute commitment.
Yet I do run into a problem if I have a moment to doubt myself, when there is an ominous pause, and then, as time seems to slow down, I begin to question all the values I claim to hold so dear. The fear is a consequence of my “backpedaling”, of my uncertainty about who I should be. It’s quite an ugly sight!
Once again, it’s not the thinking itself that is the obstacle, but rather the disordered thinking that gives me pause. It stems from deeply held assumptions about the relationship of right and wrong to pleasure and pain. I understand something to be virtuous, while in my gut I worry about all the hurt that will come with it.
When my hands start trembling, and my entire body grows cold and numb, I may attribute it to basic biology. No, most of the time it is because I am terrified of an idea, not because I am terrified of suffering. More properly, my flawed judgments about pain have made the prospect of pain, or of death, such a barrier.
It has taken me far longer to appreciate Aeneas as a hero than it has for me to admire Hector, or even Odysseus. That’s all on me, and it is no reflection on either Vergil or Homer.
The “first state” Seneca describes is that of any person who possesses an informed conscience. The “second state” is what happens when the worry about fortune, a dwelling upon the circumstances at the expense of character, rears its ugly head. I imagine even the best of folks are subject to such anxieties.
That my instincts will produce feelings of fear is not in question, and that is why any truly brave person knows that courage is hardly the absence of fear, but the mastery of fear. I must resist the current trend of reducing human nature to the passions alone—what I will consciously do with them is what matters.
The more I choose to care about what will become of me, the less I choose to care about what I can make of myself.
—Reflection written in 5/2013
IMAGE: Federico Barocci, Aeneas Fleeing from Troy (1598)
Sunday, October 1, 2023
Epictetus, Golden Sayings 172
When you have decided that a thing ought to be done, and are doing it, never shun being seen doing it, even though the multitude should be likely to judge the matter amiss.
For if you are not acting rightly, shun the act itself; if rightly, however, why fear misplaced censure?
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