Dio Chrysostom, The Euboean Discourse 3

"When he had thus concluded, that first speaker again spoke in reply, and the two stormed at each other for a long time. But finally I was bidden to say whatever I wished. 

"'And what ought I to say?' I asked. 'Reply to what has been said,' cried one from his seat. 

"'Well then, I declare,' said I, 'that there is not one word of truth in what he has said. And as for me, sirs,' I continued, 'I thought I was dreaming when he prated about fields and villages and such like. We have no village or horses or asses or cattle. I wish we might possess all the good things he described, that we might not only have given to you but might also belong to the wealthy class ourselves! Yet what we even now have is sufficient for us, and do you take whatever you wish of it. Even if you want all, we shall replace it.' At these words they applauded. 

"Thereupon the magistrate asked me what we would be able to give to the people, to which I replied, 'Four deer pelts of excellent quality.' Here the majority laughed and the magistrate was vexed at me. 

"'That is because the bear skins are rough,' I continued, 'and the goat skins are not as good as they. Some are old and some are small. But take these too, if you wish.' 

"Then he was vexed once more and said that I was a downright landloper,⁠ and I replied, 'Do I again hear mention of lands, and from you? Did I not tell you that we have no lands?'

"He asked next whether we would agree each to give an Attic talent,⁠ and I replied, 'We do not weigh our meat, but we will give whatever we have. There is a little salted down, but the rest is smoked and not much inferior to the other. There are sides of bacon and venison and other excellent meats.' 

"Then they did raise an uproar and called me a liar. The man also asked me if we had any grain and about how much. I told him the exact amount. 'Three bushels of wheat,' said I, 'six of barley, and the same amount of millet, but only four quarts of beans, since there were none this year. Now do you take the wheat and the barley,' said I, 'and leave us the millet. But if you need millet, take it too.' 

"'And do you not make any wine?' another asked. 'We make it,' I said, 'so that if any one of you comes, we will hand it over, but be sure to bring some kind of wineskin with you, since we haven't any.' 

"'Now, just how many vines have you?' 'Two,' I replied, 'outside our doors, twenty in the yard, the same number across the river that we set out recently. They are of very fine quality and yield large clusters when the passers‑by leave them alone. But to spare you the trouble of asking about every detail, I will tell you what else we have: eight she-goats, a mulley⁠ cow with a very pretty calf, four sickles, four grub hoes, three spears, and each of us owns a hunting knife. As for the crockery—why should one mention that? We have wives too, and children by them. We live in two pretty huts, and we have a third where the grain and the pelts are kept.' 

"'Yes by heavens,' said the orator, 'where you bury your money too, I suspect.' 'Well then,' said I, 'come and dig it up, you fool! Who buries money in the ground? It certainly does not grow.' Then everybody laughed, and it was at him, I thought.

"'That is what we have; and now, if you want everything, we are willing to give it to you voluntarily. There is no need for you to take it from us by force as though it belonged to foreigners or rogues; for, mark you, we are citizens too of this city, as I used to hear my father say. And once he too came here just when a grant of money was being made, as it happened, and got some too along with the rest. 

"'Therefore we are raising our children to be your fellow citizens; and should you ever need them, they will help you against brigands and foreign foes. Just now there is peace; but if ever such a crisis does arise, you will pray heaven that the majority be like ourselves. For do not imagine that this talker will fight for you then, unless, indeed, it be to scold like a woman. 

"'Besides, whenever we catch any game, we will give you a part of the meat and of the skins; only send someone to get them. Then if you bid us raze our huts, we will do so if they trouble you. But you must give us housing here; else how shall we endure the winter's cold? You have many empty houses inside the city walls; one of them will be enough for us. Yet if we choose to live elsewhere than here and thus avoid adding to the congestion caused by so many people being huddled together, that surely is no reason for moving us. 

"'Then as to that ghoulish and wicked practice in case of wrecked vessels which the speaker had the hardihood to accuse us of—and I almost forgot to speak of it, although I should have done so at the very start—who among you could possibly believe him? Not to mention the impiety of it, it is impossible to salvage anything at all there. Indeed, all the timber you can find there is the splinters, so very small are the fragments cast up. 

"'Besides, that is the most inaccessible beach in existence. And the oar-blades which I once found cast ashore—why, I nailed them to the sacred oak that grows by the sea. Pray god I may never get or earn any profit like that from human misfortune! Why, I have never made anything out of it, but many is the time I have pitied shipwrecked travelers who have come to my door, taken them into my hut, given them to eat and to drink, helped them in any other way that I could, and accompanied them until they got out of the wilderness. 

"'Yet who of them is there who will testify for me now? And I never did that to win a testimonial or gratitude; why, I never knew where the men came from even. I pray that none of you may ever undergo such an experience.'" . . . 

Bach 1, Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit

I was raised on the music of Bach, even if it took me some time to recognize what a blessing it was, providing me with most all of the tools I needed to maintain a sharp mind and a caring heart. 

During breakfast on Sunday mornings, the family would always listen to the cantata for that week, and to this day I will hum arias in my head, much like I imagine others sing along to the favorite pop songs of their youth. 

Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit, or also known as Actus tragicus, was a favorite, probably because I was originally confused by some of the German lyrics, thinking it was about selling real estate, instead of getting one's house in order to meet our Maker. 

Who would ever have thought that very similarly expressed Stoic sayings would put a smile on my face, so many decades later? 

My preference has always been for interpretations of Bach by Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Concentus Musicus, though I am not educated enough in the workings of Early Music to defend that attachment. 

Recently, I have been following the work of the Netherlands Bach Society, who intend to gradually release the complete works free of charge, in HD video. I will not see the project finished, but perhaps my son will. I applaud the noble intent to provide it as a sort of public service! 

At any time of the day, for whatever the occasion, you can't go wrong putting on a record by Bach. It is music made to nurture the soul, straight to the root. If you ever doubt the immediate presence of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful in this life, Bach will promptly rid you of such worries. 

Johann Sebastian Bach, Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit, BWV 106, Netherlands Bach Society 

Proverbs 3:5-12

[5] Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
and do not rely on your own insight.
[6] In all your ways acknowledge him,
and he will make straight your paths.
[7] Be not wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord, and turn away from evil.
[8] It will be healing to your flesh
and refreshment to your bones.
[9] Honor the Lord with your substance
and with the first fruits of all your produce;
[10] then your barns will be filled with plenty,
and your vats will be bursting with wine.
[11] My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline
or be weary of his reproof,
[12] for the Lord reproves him whom he loves,
as a father the son in whom he delights. 

IMAGE: Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Hay Harvest (1565) 

Delphic Maxims 84

Κρῖνε δίκαια 

Discern justly 

IMAGE: Jef Van der Veken (after Jan van Eyck), The Just Judges (1945/1432) 

Dio Chrysostom, The Euboean Discourse 2

"Now the other one of us has never yet been to town, though he is fifty years old, and I only twice—once when I was still a boy, with my father, when we had the cattle; and later on a man came demanding money, under the impression that we had some, and bade us follow him to the city. Now we had no money and swore on oath that we had not, adding that otherwise we would have given it. We entertained him as best we could and gave him two deerskins, and I followed him to the city,⁠ for he said it was necessary for one of us to go and explain this matter. 

"Now, as on my former trip, I saw many large houses and a strong surrounding wall with a number of lofty square structures⁠ on the wall and many boats lying in complete calm at anchor in a lake as it were. There is nothing like that anywhere here where you put in, and that is why the ships are wrecked. Now that is what I saw, and a big crowd herded in together and a tremendous uproar and shouting, so that I thought they were all fighting with one another. 

"Well, he brought me before certain magistrates and said with a laugh, 'This is the man you sent me for. He has nothing but his long hair and a hut of very strong timber.' Then the officials went into the theater and I with them. The theater is hollow like a ravine, except that it is not long in two directions but semi-circular, and not natural but built of stone. But perhaps you are laughing at me for telling you what you know perfectly well. 

"Now at first the crowd deliberated on other matters for a considerable while, and they kept up a shouting, at one time in gentle fashion and all of them in cheerful mood, as they applauded certain speakers, but at other times with vehemence and in wrath. This wrath of theirs was something terrible, and they at once frightened the men against whom they raised their voices, so that some of them ran about begging for mercy, while others threw off their cloaks for fear. 

"I too myself was once almost knocked over by the shouting, as though a tidal wave or thunder-storm had suddenly broken over me. And other men would come forward, or stand up where they were, and address the multitude, sometimes using a few words, at other times making long speeches. To some of these they would listen for quite a long time, but at others they were angry as soon as they opened their mouths, and they would not let them so much as cheep. 

"But when they finally settled down and there was quiet, they brought me forward. And some cried out, 'This man, sirs, is one of the fellows who have been enjoying the use of our public land for many years, and not only he but his father before him. They graze their cattle on our mountains, farm and hunt, have built many houses, have set out vines, and enjoy many other advantages without paying rent to anybody for the land or ever having received it from the people as a gift. 

"'For what, pray, would they ever have received it? And though they occupy what is ours and are wealthy, yet they have never performed any public service, nor do they pay any tax on what they make, but live free from taxes and public services as though they were benefactors of the city. Yes, and I believe,' he continued, 'that they have never come here before.' I shook my head,⁠ and the crowd laughed when they saw. This laughing enraged the speaker and he abused me roundly. 

"Then turning toward the audience once more, he said, 'Well, then, if these doings meet with your approval, we had all better lose no time in looting the public property, some of us taking the city's money, just as certain individuals are even now doing, no doubt, and others squatting upon the land without your consent, if you are going to let these backwoodsmen hold without payment more than 250 acres of the best land, from which you might get three Attic measures⁠of grain per head.' 

"When I heard this, I laughed as loud as I could. The crowd, however, did not laugh as before but became very noisy, while the fellow grew angry, and giving me a fierce look, said, 'Do you see the deceit­fulness and impudence of the scamp and how insolently he mocks me? I have a mind to have him and his partner dragged off to prison; for I understand that there are two ringleaders of this gang that has seized practically all the land in the mountains. 

"'Yes, and I do not believe they keep their hands off the wrecks that are cast up from time to time, living as they do almost above the rocks above Cape Caphereus.⁠ Where, otherwise, did they get such valuable fields, nay, rather, entire villages, and such numbers of cattle and draught animals and slaves? 

"'Perhaps, too, you note how poor his blouse is and the skin he put on to come here in order to deceive you with the notion that he is evidently a beggar and has nothing. For my part,' said he, 'when I look at him, I am almost frightened, as I fancy I should be if I saw Nauplius⁠ come from Caphereus. I believe he flashes mariners a signal from the heights so as to decoy them on to the rocks.' While he said this and much more besides, the crowd grew ugly, while I was sore perplexed and afraid they might do me some mischief. 

"Then another person came forward, a good kindly man, to judge from the words he spoke and from his appearance. He first asked the people to be silent, and they became silent, and then in a quiet tone he said that they who tilled the country's idle land and got it into shape did no wrong, but, on the contrary, deserved commendation. They should not be angry at those who built upon public land and planted trees upon it, but at those who injured it. 

"'At this moment, sirs,' he said, 'almost two-thirds of our land is a wilderness because of neglect and lack of population. I too own many acres, as I imagine some others do, not only in the mountains but also on the plains, and if anybody would till them, I should not only give him the chance for nothing but gladly pay money besides. For it is plain that they become more valuable to me, and at the same time the sight of land occupied and under cultivation is a pleasing one, while waste lands are not only a useless possession to those who hold them, but very distressing evidence of some misfortune of their owners. 

"'Wherefore, I advise you rather to encourage all the other citizens you can to take some of the public land and work it, those who have some capital taking more, and the poorer citizens as much as each is able to handle, that your land may be in use, and the citizens who accept may be free from two very great evils, idleness and poverty. 

"'So let these men have it free for ten years, and after that period let them agree to pay a small portion from their produce but nothing from their cattle. If any alien takes up land, let him likewise pay nothing for the first five years, but after that twice as much as the citizens. And let any alien who shall put fifty acres under cultivation be made a citizen, in order to encourage as many as possible. 

"'At the present moment even the land just outside the city gates is quite wild and terribly unattractive, as though it were in the depths of a wilderness and not in the suburbs of a city, while most of the land inside the walls is sown or grazed. It is therefore surprising that orators trump up charges against the industrious people of Caphereus in the remote parts of Euboea, and yet hold that the men farming the gymnasium and grazing cattle in the market-place are doing nothing out of the way. 

"'You can doubtless see for yourself that they have made your gymnasium into a ploughed field, so that the Heracles and numerous other statues are hidden by the corn, some those of heroes and others statues of gods. You see too, day after day, the sheep belonging to this orator invade the marketplace at dawn and graze about the council chamber and the executive buildings. Therefore, when strangers first come to our city, they either laugh at it or pity it.' Now on hearing this they burst into a rage against that first speaker in his turn and made a great uproar. 

"'Yet though the accuser does such things, he thinks that humble and needy citizens ought to be haled off to prison, so that no one, forsooth, may do any work hereafter, but that those outside the city may live by brigandage and those within by thievery. 

"'I move,' he continued, 'that we leave these men in possession of what they themselves have created, provided they pay a moderate tax hereafter, and that we cancel all arrears to date, since they tilled land that had been wild and valueless and gained possession in that way. If, however, they wish to pay a price for their farm, let us sell to them at a cheaper figure than to anybody else.'" . . . 

Sayings of Heraclitus 88

It is not good for men to get all they wish to get. 

It is sickness that makes health pleasant; evil, good; hunger, plenty; weariness, rest. 

IMAGE: Gabriel Metsu, The Sick Child (c. 1660) 

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." 

Diogenes Toons

By JOHN PORCELLINO, King-Cat Comics 

Heimat

Graz, Austria, by BERND THALLER

Rain, Steam, and Speed

J.M.W. Turner, Rain, Steam, and Speed (1844) 

Dio Chrysostom, The Euboean Discourse 1

I shall now relate a personal experience of mine; not merely something I have heard from others. Perhaps, indeed, it is quite natural for an old man to be garrulous and reluctant to drop any subject that occurs to him, and possibly this is just as true of the wanderer as of the old man. The reason, I dare say, is that both have had many experiences that they find considerable pleasure in retelling. Anyhow I shall describe the character and manner of life of some people that I met in practically the centre of Greece. 

It chanced that at the close of the summer season I was crossing from Chios with some fishermen in a very small boat, when such a storm arose that we had great difficulty in reaching the Hollows of Euboea⁠ in safety. The crew ran their boat up a rough beach under the cliffs, where it was wrecked, and then went off to a company of tomorrow⁠, whose vessel was anchored in the shelter of the spur of rocks near by, and they planned to stay there and work along with them. 

So I was left alone, and not knowing of any town in which to seek shelter, I wandered aimlessly along the shore, on the chance that I might find some boat sailing by or riding at anchor. I had gone on a considerable distance without seeing anybody when I chanced upon a deer that had just fallen over the cliff and lay in the wash of the breakers, lapped by the waves and still breathing. And soon I thought I heard the barking of dogs above, but not clearly owing to the roar of the sea. 

On going forward and gaining an elevated position with great difficulty, I saw the dogs baffled, running to and fro, and inferred that their quarry, being hard pressed by them, had jumped over the cliff. Then, soon after, I saw a man, a hunter, to judge by his appearance and dress; he wore a beard on his healthy face, and not simply hair at the back of his head in mean and base fashion, as Homer says the Euboeans did⁠ when they went against Troy, mocking and ridiculing them, it seems to me, because, while the other Greeks there made a good appearance, they had hair on only half the head. 

Now this man hailed me, saying, "Stranger, have you seen a deer running anywhere hereabouts?" And I replied, "Yonder it is this minute, in the surf," and I took him and showed it to him. So he dragged it out of the sea, ripped off the skin with his knife while I lent a helping hand as best I could. Then, after cutting off the hind quarters, he was about to carry them away along with the hide, when he invited me to come along and dine upon the venison with him, adding that his dwelling was not far away. 

"And then in the morning," he continued, "after you have rested with us, you shall come back to the sea, since the present is no weather for sailing. Yet do not worry about that," he continued, "I should be content to have the wind die down after full five days, but that is not likely when the peaks of the Euboean mountains are so capped with clouds as you see them now." 

And at the same time he asked me whence I came, how I had landed there, and whether the boat had not been wrecked. "It was a very small one," I replied, "belonging to some fishermen who were crossing over, and I, their only passenger, sailed with them on urgent business, but all the same it ran aground and was wrecked." 

"Well, it could not easily have been otherwise," he replied; "for see, how wild and rugged the part of the island is that faces the sea. These are what they call the Hollows of Euboea, where a ship is doomed if it is driven ashore, and rarely are any of those aboard saved either, unless, of course, like you they sail in a very light craft. But come and have no fear. Today you shall rest after your trying experience, but tomorrow we shall do our best to get you out safely, now that we have come to know you. You look to me like a man from the city, not a sailor or worker on the land, nay, you seem to be suffering from some grievous infirmity of body, to judge by your leanness."

I followed him gladly without fear of any treachery, since I had nothing but a shabby cloak. Now I had often found in other situations like this—for I was continually roaming about—and I certainly did in this one, that poverty is in reality a sacred and inviolable thing and no one wrongs you; yes, much less than they wrong those who carry the herald's wand. And so I followed without misgiving on this occasion. And it was about five miles to his place.

As we proceeded on our way he told me of his circumstances and how he lived with his wife and children. "There are two of us, stranger," he said, "who live in the same place. Each is married to a sister of the other, and we have children by them, sons and daughters. We live by the chase for the most part and work but a small bit of land. You see, the place does not belong to us: we did not inherit it or get it by our own efforts. Our fathers, though free, were just as poor as we are—hired herdsmen tending the cattle of a wealthy man, one of the residents of the island here, a man who owned many droves of horses and cattle, many flocks, many good fields too and many other possessions together with all these hills. 

"Now when he died and his property was confiscated—they say he was put to death by the emperor⁠ for his wealth—they at once drove off his stock to be butchered, and in addition to his stock our own few cattle, and, as for our wages, no one has ever paid them. At that time, then, we⁠ stayed of necessity at the place where he happened to have had our cattle and had built certain huts and an enclosure of palings for the calves, not very large or strong—just what would do for the summer, I suppose; for in the winter we grazed our cattle in the flat lands, where we had plenty of pasturage and a good deal of hay put up; but in the summer we would drive them into the hills. 

"It was in this place especially that our fathers made their steadings; for the place sloped in from both sides, forming a ravine, deep and shaded; through the center flowed a quiet stream in which the cows and calves could wade with perfect ease; the water was abundant and pure, bubbling up from a spring near by; and in the summer a breeze always blew through the ravine. Then the glades round about were soft and moist, breeding never a gadfly or any other cattle pest. Many very beauti­ful meadows stretched beneath tall sparse trees, and the whole district abounded in luxuriant vegetation throughout the entire summer, so that the cattle did not range very far. For these reasons they regularly established the herd there.

"Now our fathers remained in the huts at that time, hoping to hire out or find some work, and they lived on the produce of a very small piece of land which they happened to have under cultivation near the cattle-yard. This was quite enough for them as it was well manured. And having nothing more to do with cattle they turned to hunting, sometimes going alone and at other times with dogs; for two of those which had followed the cattle, after going a long distance and not seeing the herdsmen, had left the herd and returned to the place. 

"These at first merely followed as if out for some other purpose than hunting, and though, when he saw wolves, they would give chase for a distance, yet to boars or deer they would pay no attention whatever. But whenever they sighted a bear, whether early or late, they would rally to the attack, barking and fending him off, as if they were fighting a man. 

"And so, from tasting the blood of boars and deer and often eating their flesh, they changed their habits late in life and learned to like meat instead of barley-bread, gorging themselves with it whenever any game was caught and going hungry otherwise, until they finally gave more attention to the chase, pursued with equal zest every animal they sighted, began to pick up the scent and trails in some way or other, and thus changed from shepherd dogs into a sort of late-trained and rather slow hunting dogs. 

"Then when winter came on, there was no work in sight for the men whether they came down to town or to a village. So after making their huts tighter and the yard fence closer, they managed to get along and worked the whole of that plot, and the winter hunting proved easier. The tracks were naturally clearer, because printed on the damp ground, and the snow made them visible at a great distance, so that there was no need of a troublesome search, since a high-road, as it were, led to them, and the quarry was sluggish and waited longer. It is possible, besides, to catch hares and gazelles in their lairs. 

"In this way, then, our fathers lived from that time on, no longer having any desire for a different kind of life. And they married us their sons to wives, each giving his own daughter. The two old men died about a year ago, counting the many years they had lived, but being still strong and youthful and vigorous of body. Of the mothers mine is yet living." . . . 

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 

Epictetus, Golden Sayings 185

We shall then be like Socrates, when we can indite hymns of praise to the Gods in prison! 

The Rainy Day

"The Rainy Day" 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) 

The day is cold, and dark, and dreary; 
It rains, and the wind is never weary; 
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall, 
But at every gust the dead leaves fall, 
And the day is dark and dreary. 

My life is cold, and dark, and dreary; 
It rains, and the wind is never weary; 
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering past, 
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast, 
And the days are dark and dreary. 

Be still, sad heart, and cease repining; 
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining; 
Thy fate is the common fate of all, 
Into each life some rain must fall, 
Some days must be dark and dreary. 

IMAGE: Vincent van Gogh, Rain (1889) 

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.31

M. For even as trading is said to be lucrative, and farming advantageous, not because the one never meets with any loss, nor the other with any damage from the inclemency of the weather, but because they succeed in general; so life may be properly called happy, not from its being entirely made up of good things, but because it abounds with these to a great and considerable degree. 
 
By this way of reasoning, then, a happy life may attend virtue even to the moment of execution; nay, may descend with her into Phalaris’s bull, according to Aristotle, Xenocrates, Speusippus, Polemon; and will not be gained over by any allurements to forsake her. Of the same opinion will Calliphon and Diodorus be; for they are both of them such friends to virtue as to think that all things should be discarded and far removed that are incompatible with it. 
 
The rest seem to be more hampered with these doctrines, but yet they get clear of them; such as Epicurus, Hieronymus, and whoever else thinks it worthwhile to defend the deserted Carneades: for there is not one of them who does not think the mind to be judge of those goods, and able sufficiently to instruct him how to despise what has the appearance only of good or evil. For what seems to you to be the case with Epicurus is the case also with Hieronymus and Carneades, and, indeed, with all the rest of them; for who is there who is not sufficiently prepared against death and pain? 
 
I will begin, with your leave, with him whom we call soft and voluptuous. What! Does he seem, to you to be afraid of death or pain when he calls the day of his death happy; and who, when he is afflicted by the greatest pains, silences them all by recollecting arguments of his own discovering? 
 
And this is not done in such a manner as to give room for imagining that he talks thus wildly from some sudden impulse; but his opinion of death is, that on the dissolution of the animal all sense is lost; and what is deprived of sense is, as he thinks, what we have no concern at all with. And as to pain, too, he has certain rules to follow then: if it be great, the comfort is that it must be short; if it be of long continuance, then it must be supportable. 
 
What, then? Do those grandiloquent gentlemen state anything better than Epicurus in opposition to these two things which distress us the most? And as to other things, do not Epicurus and the rest of the philosophers seem sufficiently prepared? Who is there who does not dread poverty? And yet no true philosopher ever can dread it. 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.31 
 
It is impossible to make it through the day without a concept of what is “good”, and yet we will be hard-pressed to find anyone willing to define it with more than a blank stare. Though our words might fail us, to be aware of what we want, and why we might want it, is surely a matter of some importance. 
 
And for all of our wishing, we will hardly expect everything to be absolutely perfect, being quite willing to tolerate some unpleasant bits slipping their way into a general picture of contentment. In practice, I suppose it is a matter of proportion, the lesser parts being outweighed by the greater whole, or, in a strictly Stoic manner, the hardships becoming the very opportunities for excellence. 
 
The investor takes some losses here, while he wins more profits there. The farmer abandons this field to vermin, and that field to drought, and through his toil he still brings home an adequate harvest. The other day, I thoroughly enjoyed a steak dinner, even if the baked potato was slightly cold. I worry that this becomes a slippery slope of constantly fretting over a balance sheet, but I recognize why most of us will settle for a blended model of happiness, uncertain if we are capable of anything purer. 
 
And even when the philosophers speak of the good as a mixture of many components, it inevitably ends up being virtue that has to come out on top, however else they express their goals. When push comes to shove, is it not character that allows us to endure pain with courage, and to face death with dignity? Where is the benefit of extensive riches if they are not employed with prudence? What is the satisfaction in refined luxuries if they are not guided by temperance? In any case, who will ever find peace without the balance of justice? 
 
As for those thinkers who focus on the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain, they must always fall back on the power of understanding as a measure for the most gratifying acts, which once again makes the appetites subservient to the intellect. Our feelings, therefore, no longer define what is good, and it is rather our knowledge of the good that ends up defining the worth of our feelings. 
 
I am hesitant to dump the Epicureans in with the “soft” crowd, since their behavior often revealed an incredible capacity for self-discipline. Indeed, their sort of “hedonism” is a far cry from the excesses commonly associated with the term, and the true sensualists I have met, of the unbridled type, have also swiftly brought themselves to total misery, precisely because they lack any kind of filter to their desires. If they manage to survive the ordeal, they are likely to seek out a far more restrained and responsible form of fulfillment. 
 
How odd that one philosopher would claim to need the goods of fortune, and yet he distances himself from his circumstances when he recognizes their frailty. How strange that another philosopher would embrace the primacy of his passions, but then he turns around to praise moderation and sacrifice. 
 
It is almost as if any pursuit of wisdom, however diverse and roundabout, cannot help but gradually arrive at the hunch that every other value in this life somehow hinges upon the merit of the virtues. 

—Reflection written in 3/1999 

IMAGE: Jan Brueghel the Younger, Adam at Work in the Field (c. 1650) 

Dream Big

Sayings of Ramakrishna 272

Dispute not. As you rest firmly on your own faith, allow others also the same liberty to stand by their own faiths. 

By mere disputation you shall never succeed in convincing another of his error. 

When the grace of God descends on him, everyone will understand his own mistakes. 

IMAGE: Luca Giordano, Theologians Disputing (c. 1680) 

I Fear the Day

Hans Wechtlin, Allegory with an Owl (c. 1500) 

"I Fear the Day." 

Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.30

M. These, then, are the opinions, as I think, that are held and defended—the first four are simple ones: “that nothing is good but what is honest,” according to the Stoics; “nothing good but pleasure,” as Epicurus maintains; “nothing good but a freedom from pain,” as Hieronymus asserts; “nothing good but an enjoyment of the principal, or all, or the greatest goods of nature,” as Carneades maintained against the Stoics—these are simple, the others are mixed propositions. 
 
Then there are three kinds of goods: the greatest being those of the mind; the next best those of the body; the third are external goods, as the Peripatetics call them, and the Old Academics differ very little from them. Dinomachus and Callipho have coupled pleasure with honesty; but Diodorusthe Peripatetic has joined indolence to honesty. These are the opinions that have some footing; for those of Aristo, Pyrrho, Herillus, and of some others, are quite out of date. 
 
Now let us see what weight these men have in them, excepting the Stoics, whose opinion I think I have sufficiently defended; and indeed I have explained what the Peripatetics have to say; excepting that Theophrastus, and those who followed him, dread and abhor pain in too weak a manner. 
 
The others may go on to exaggerate the gravity and dignity of virtue, as usual; and then, after they have extolled it to the skies, with the usual extravagance of good orators, it is easy to reduce the other topics to nothing by comparison, and to hold them up to contempt. They who think that praise deserves to be sought after, even at the expense of pain, are not at liberty to deny those men to be happy who have obtained it. Though they may be under some evils, yet this name of happy has a very wide application. 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 5.30 
 
I believe it was Descartes who suggested that there is no statement so strange, that some philosopher has not said it. Now those who know me are well aware that I have little patience for Descartes, perhaps the worst expression of the Enlightenment, a fellow who took it upon himself to reinvent the wheel, but in this case, he does have a good point. I will qualify, however, that the title does not necessary grant the authority: true philosophers, those who count, will flock together like birds of a feather. 
 
Where there are open minds and generous hearts, as opposed to haughty pontificating and petty bickering, philosophy cannot help but seek out the universal and the necessary, what we share in common over any personal preferences. If a disagreement is about a matter of emphasis, proper distinctions can clarify the terms, and if it does come down to a conflict of principles, a sincere discussion always brings us closer to a resolution. 
 
I will propose that philosophers only fight after they have abandoned reason, for whatever is reasonable cannot admit of contradiction. The clash of schools and factions does not reflect poorly on the prospects for wisdom, only on our failure to heed its calling. For all of my attachments to Marcus Aurelius or Thomas Aquinas, my service to the truth comes first, a proposition both thinkers would have immediately understood. 
 
Cicero offers four alternative definitions of the good, and he also reiterates three possible settings for the good. Generally speaking, we will find broadly similar divisions in our own time, from those who continue to stress the content of character, to those who are concerned with the balance of pleasure and pain, to those who are content with a skeptical pragmatism. Some of us look to our possessions, some of us attend to our bodies, and some of us nurture our souls. With all of these options, and their various modifications, how are we to find a common ground? 
 
While the bookworm in me wishes to get wrapped up in the history, including a fancy chart with all these names, my most pressing need is to make better sense of my daily priorities. I can already appreciate how our external and bodily goods are relative to, and therefore measured by, our moral worth, and I further hope that Cicero can help me to understand more of why it is virtue that binds together anything else I might consider to be a benefit. Happiness may be broad, but it cannot be vague. 

—Reflection written in 3/1999