When a favor isn't a favor.

"Let us make our benefits, not as investments, but as gifts.  The man who, when he gives, has any thought of repayment deserves to be deceived.  But suppose it has turned out ill.  Both children and wives have disappointed our hopes, yet we marry and rear children, and so persistent are we in the face of experience that, after being conquered, we go back to war and, after being shipwrecked, we go back to sea.

"How much more fitting to persevere in bestowing benefits!  For if a man stops giving them because they were not returned, his purpose in giving them was to have them returned, and he supplies a just excuse to the ingrate, whose disgrace lies in not making a return.

"How many are unworthy of seeing the light!  Yet the day dawns.  How many complain because they have been born!  Yet Nature begets new progeny, and even those who would rather not have been, she suffers to be.  To seek, not the fruit of benefits, but the mere doing of them, and to search for a good man even after the discovery of bad men--this is the mark of a soul that is truly great and good.  What glory would there be in doing good to many if none ever deceived you?  But as it is, it is a virtue to give benefits that have no surety of being returned, whose fruit is at once enjoyed by the noble mind.

--Seneca the Younger, On Benefits 1 (tr Basore)

The Stoic understands the giving of a gift as an end in itself, an act that provides a benefit to another simply for its own sake.  The joy is in the giving, with nothing more expected in return. This idea may be simple enough, yet we seem to fail in putting it into practice time and time again. We do this only because we look for rewards outside ourselves and not simply within the dignity of our own will and action.

A lawyer I knew once told me that he did his pro bono work to maintain his standing and reputation in his profession. He could simply not understand my question about how it could be work without payment if he did it in order to receive a benefit in return. He finally sighed and said "well, be serious, no one does anything if they don't get anything back for it. That would be pretty stupid!" He was also a fellow who wondered why his profession was so often maligned.

At another time I had the unenviable task of attending a fundraising dinner. My distress came not merely from the fact that I am an introvert who dislikes public display, but from bearing the cringe worthy self-service of important people patting themselves on the back. One after another, wealthy donors went on the stage, giving variations of the same speech. They reminded us that they felt privileged and humbled to be of service, that it wasn't about the recognition, and that they only wished they could do more. They were then applauded by the crowd, given plaques and certificates, and had their pictures taken with other important people. The photographs then appeared in the next day's newspaper and were plastered across websites, and the plaques were placed nonchalantly on their office desks. One fine fellow even had a new building named after him that night. I felt certain that they had all made a cost benefit analysis, and were happy with their exchange of cash for honor.

There's a good reason the Gospels ask us to give in secret, because it's not about the recognition or the expectation of any further return. The gift benefits the recipient, and the giving benefits my virtue.  Nothing more is needed. Anything else would not be a gift, but a transaction. This only makes sense if, like the Stoic, we understand wherein true excellence and happiness lie.

Sometimes a favor isn't really a favor. Though we use the phrase without really thinking about it, I have to laugh inside whenever I hear "you owe me a favor." If I owe it, it isn't a favor, it's a debt.

One way to recognize the man with a Stoic spirit is if he gives of himself freely when no one is looking. He will continue to do so without any external reward, because he knows that his happiness isn't from the things outside of him.

Written on 12/21/2005

 Image: Three Magi Bearing Gifts, Basilica of Sant'Apollinaire, Ravenna (c. 565)

Honorary Stoicism 7

Honorary Stoicism 6

Stoic courage.

"The soul that is altogether courageous and great is marked above all by two characteristics: one of these is indifference to outward circumstances; for such a person cherishes the conviction that nothing but moral goodness and propriety deserves to be either admired or wished for or striven after, and that he ought not to be subject to any man or any passion or any accident of fortune.

"The second characteristic is that, when the soul is disciplined in the way above mentioned, one should do deeds not only great and in the highest degree useful, but extremely arduous and laborious and fraught with danger both to life and to many things that make life worth living.

"All the glory and greatness and, I may add, all the usefulness of these two characteristics of courage are centered in the latter; the rational cause that makes men great, in the former. For it is the former that contains the element that makes souls preeminent and indifferent to worldly fortune. And this quality is distinguished by two criteria: (1) if one account moral rectitude as the only good; and (2) if one be free from all passion.

"For we must agree that it takes a brave and heroic soul to hold as slight what most people think grand and glorious, and to disregard it from fixed and settled principles. And it requires strength of character and great singleness of purpose to bear what seems painful, as it comes to pass in many and various forms in human life, and to bear it so unflinchingly as not to be shaken in the least from one's natural state of the dignity of a philosopher.

"Moreover, it would be inconsistent for the man who is not overcome by fear to be overcome by desire, or for the man who has shown himself invincible to toil to be conquered by pleasure. We must, therefore, not only avoid the latter, but also beware of ambition for wealth; for there is nothing so characteristic of narrowness and littleness of soul as the love of riches; and there is nothing more honorable and noble than to be indifferent to money, if one does not possess it, and to devote it to beneficence and liberality, if one does possess it. As I said before, we must also beware of ambition for glory; for it robs us of liberty and in defense of liberty a high-souled man should stake everything. And one ought not to seek military authority; nay, rather it ought sometimes to be declined, sometimes to be resigned."

--Cicero, On Duties 1.20 (tr Miller)

When trouble or hardship came my way, my father would regularly offer a single word: "courage". This would often frustrate me, because I did not think I could be brave. I understood courage to be a virtue for those who were strong in body and in will, and I felt weak in both. The brave were those who succeeded, and I was rarely successful.

The problem was that I misunderstood what my father meant, and I did not grasp the true nature of courage. I measured it by the things outside of me, not by the character within me. I assumed that being brave meant being a "winner" who received worldly rewards. I didn't understand that courage was about my attitude, not about my circumstances.

Fortitude isn't a some magical formula, some gift of strength given to some and withheld from others. Fortitude is rooted simply in my willingness to be indifferent to what happens to me, and caring first and foremost about the excellence of my own thoughts, choices, and actions. As soon as I can embrace that most basic value of Stoicism, then I can be brave. This is precisely because I will no longer fear losing the sorts of external things that are no longer important to me. Once again, change the thinking, and you change the doing.

If I am indifferent to wealth or poverty, pleasure or pain, honor or dishonor, a long or a short life, caring only for knowing the truth and loving the good, then I can be a man of courage. And no circumstance or consequence will take that from me. 



Written on 7/24/2014

The chains of fortune.

"All of us are chained to Fortune.  Some are bound by a loose and golden chain, others by a tight chain of baser metal; but what difference does it make?  The same captivity holds all men in its toils, those who have bound others have also been bound--unless perhaps you think that a chain on the left hand a is a lighter one.

"Some are chained by public office, others by wealth; some carry the burden of high birth, some of low birth; some bow beneath another's empire, some beneath their own; some are kept in one place by exile, others by priesthoods.

"All life is a servitude. And so a man must become reconciled to his lot, must complain of it as little as possible, and must lay hold of whatever good it may have; no state is so bitter that a calm mind cannot find in it some consolation. Even small spaces by skillful planning often reveal many uses; and arrangement will make habitable a place of ever so small dimensions.  Apply reason to difficulties; it is possible to soften what is hard, to widen what is narrow, and burdens will press less heavily upon those who bear them skilfully.

"Moreover, we must not send our desires upon a distant quest, but we should permit them to have access to what is near, since they do not endure to  be shut up altogether.  Leaving those things that either cannot be done, or can be done only with difficulty, let us pursue what lies near at hand and allures our hope, but let us be aware that they all are equally trivial, diverse outwardly in appearance, within alike vain.

"And let us not envy those who stand in higher places; where there appeared heights, there are precipices.  Those, on the other hand, whom an unkind lot has placed in a critical position, will be safer by reducing their pride in the things that are in themselves proud and lowering their fortune, so far as they shall be able, to the common level.

"While there are many who must necessarily cling to their pinnacle, from which they cannot descend without falling, yet they may bear witness that their greatest burden is the very fact that they are forced to be burdensome to others, being not lifted, but nailed on high.  By justice, by kindness, by courtesy, and by lavish and kindly giving let them prepare many safeguards against later mishaps,in hope whereof they may be more easy in their suspense."

--Seneca the Younger, On Tranquility of Mind 10 (tr Basore)

I recall finding this passage dark and depressing when I first read it a decade ago. It seemed like it was dwelling on all of the inevitable burdens of fortune, and that we can only begrudgingly grin and bear it. That I thought so, however, came precisely from the fact that I still measured my life through fortune, and I was saddened by the prospect of losing what I considered her blessings.

As unpleasant as it may seem, the circumstances of our lives and positions are not within our power. Even when we think we have achieved them by our merits, that illusory hold depends entirely upon things outside of us. Facing this fact, I might seek to conquer fortune, and then I will be sorely disappointed. Or I could feel resentment, and then I will have made myself miserable. Or, like a Stoic I could come to terms with the reality, and find what is good within it.

With a calm mind, I can learn to not only accept, but be peaceful and happy in my situation. This requires, of course, making the Stoic Turn, of recognizing that my happiness rests in what I do, not in what happens to me. This flips the values we are we have grown so accustomed. 

I have experienced directly, time and time again, what Seneca describes. The analogy of finding comfort in a small space was especially insightful and amusing. I have indeed found myself in situations that seemed like they would be unbearable, and sometimes I have made them more burdensome by fighting against them. But with patience I have learned to find contentment in some of the most sparse of circumstances, and I have only been able to do so by remembering what really makes my life worth living.

The less I want from the world, the less I need from the world, and if I ask for nothing, I won't be disappointed by losing anything that isn't truly my own. Why should I envy those in lofty positions? They only have that much further to fall.

 Written on 11/30/2003

Image: Albrecht Dürer, The Wheel of Fortune (1494)

Work with what opposes you.

"That which rules within, when it is according to nature, is so affected with respect to the events which happen, that it always easily adapts itself to that which is and is presented to it. For it requires no definite material, but it moves towards its purpose, under certain conditions however; and it makes a material for itself out of that which opposes it, as fire lays hold of what falls into it, by which a small light would have been extinguished: but when the fire is strong, it soon appropriates to itself the matter which is heaped on it, and consumes it, and rises higher by means of this very material."

--Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4 (tr Long)

 My son was once proudly explaining to me how in his martial arts class he was learning how to channel the force of his opponents attack to his advantage. "It's taking the momentum that is moving against you and using it yourself!" he said excitedly. An old philosopher couldn't resist asking him if the art of life in general could also be viewed this way. This made him even more excited, and he came up with example after example from his own day.

I remember figuring out something very similar when I was fencing in school.  The instinct of every confident young man is to thrash away at one's opponent, blindly hacking and clanging away. I never became an accomplished fencer, but the times when I won matches were the times when I learned to use my opponent's poorly planned or timed moves against him. I once, almost comically, had to do little more than move slightly aside while the other fencer simply skewered himself.

 We are all prone to seeing anything and everything in terms of opposition and conflict.  This is true not only in the prevalence of war, but is found in politics, business, law, even the world of education. We are used to working against things, and therefore see the world full of things that are obstacles we must confront with greater force. Might it be possible, however, to think in terms of working with things, to transform what seems opposed into something for our use?

The Stoic, I think, does precisely that. It involves, first and foremost, a radical change in judgment. The world will present me with a variety of situations, seeming either pleasant and unpleasant, convenient or inconvenient. Instead of rushing toward or against such appearances, I can treat these things as indifferent. Then I can find in each and every circumstance something that will be helpful in becoming wiser and more loving.

There is no need for me to fight and complain if only I work with every opportunity to my benefit. If I am given either wealth or poverty, health or sickness, fame or solitude, I can use these to live with virtue, for all states of fortune provide the means to think and act well.

Written on 6/6/2013

Image: Georg Mühlberg, Sabre Duel of German Students (c. 1900)

How to be invincible.

"If you work at that which is before you, following right reason seriously, vigorously, calmly, without allowing anything else to distract you, but keeping your divine part pure, as if you should be bound to give it back immediately; if you hold to this, expecting nothing, fearing nothing, but satisfied with your present activity according to nature, and with heroic truth in every word and sound which you utter, you will live happy. And there is no man who is able to prevent this."

--Marcus Aurelius, Meditations Book 3 (tr Long)

This has long been one of my favorite passages, a brief yet eloquent summation of Stoic philosophy, and one that I turn to time and time again when a dark mood comes over me.

I have long been afraid of effort, because I've been afraid that the outcome will be a failure and a disappointment. But if I follow the advice of Marcus Aurelius, I need have no such fear. The source of the fear is the expectation of some external reward that is ultimately outside of my power. A true reward, of course, isn't external at all. The one very thing that is the source of my happiness, being content with my own judgments, choices, and actions alone, is always completely within my power. It cannot be taken away, even as everything else can.

By all means, you may remove anything and everything from around me. You may even destroy me entirely. No matter, because I am the only one who chooses how I will act within those circumstances. When I rightly understand the conditions for happiness, I know I must never fail, unless I so choose.  Change the judgment of the conditions, and you change your awareness of true success.

I have a close association between this passage from the Meditations and the Bhagavad Gita, because I happened to be reading both closely at the same time a few years back. Both are from very different backgrounds, of course, but I have always noted their shared insistence on the road to inner peace.

Before the great battle, Arjuna loses his confidence. He wonders how he can fight his own friends and kin, and worries about the horrible results that will follow. Krishna reminds him that one must be detached from the external consequences of action and pay attention to simply doing what is right. That is the way to liberation. I must not be ruled by my passions, by my worries, by the thought of what will come tomorrow or the next day. I must rule myself, here and now.
 
Written on 4/19/1999

Honorary Stoicism 5

Grappling with honor.

"Let not reflections such as these afflict you ‘I shall live without honor, and never be of any account' for if lack of honor is an evil, no one but yourself can involve you in evil any more than in shame. Is it your business to get office or to be invited to an entertainment?

 " ‘Certainly not.’

"Where then is the dishonor you talk of? How can you be ‘of no account anywhere’, when you ought to count for something in those matters only which are in your power, where you may achieve the highest worth?

 " ‘But my friends’, you say, ‘will lack assistance.’

"What do you mean by’ lack assistance’? They will not have cash from you and you will not make them Roman citizens. Who told you that to do these things is in our power, and not dependent upon others? Who can give to another what is not his to give?

 " ‘Get them, then,’ says he, ‘that we may have them.’

"If I can get them and keep my self-respect, honor, magnanimity, show the way and I will get them. But if you call on me to lose the good things that are mine, in order that you may win things that are not good, look how unfair and thoughtless you are. And which do you really prefer? Money, or a faithful, modest friend? Therefore help me rather to keep these qualities, and do not expect from me actions which will make me lose them.
 
" 'But my country’, says he, 'will lack assistance, so far as lies in me.’

"Once more I ask, What assistance do you mean? It will not owe colonnades or baths to you. What of that? It does not owe shoes to the blacksmith or arms to the shoemaker ; it is sufficient if each man fulfills his own function. Would you do it good if you secured to it one  faithful and modest citizen?

 " ‘Yes.’

"Well, then, you would not be useless to it.

 " ‘What place then shall I have in the city?’

"Whatever place you can hold while you keep your character for honor and self-respect. But if you are going to lose these qualities in trying to benefit your city, what benefit, I ask, would you have done her when you attain to the perfection of being lost to shame and honor?"

--Epictetus, Enchiridion 24 (tr Matheson)

 The more often I read this passage, the more vividly I imagine it in a sort of comic form. One the one hand, the man who clings frantically to the things of fortune, crying out "But what about . . .?" while on the other hand an increasingly frustrated yet patient Epictetus saying, "Alright, Which part of this isn't making sense? let's take this one again from the top. . ." Something of a Stoic version of "Who's on First?"

How often has each and every one of us fallen into this very trap? I am only somebody, I will only be of some account, if I am in just the right circumstances: secure, revered, influential, productive, powerful, respected, important. It is oddly comforting to see that the Ancients struggled with the exact same problem as the Moderns.

I have long imagined a grotesque figure of a man, like myself in all respects but covered head to toe in little shiny mirrors, like a human disco ball. He is man on the inside, but his image on the outside simply reflects everything around him. As those images of external things flash and shift to and fro, so his very appearance changes to match them. I think of him as a sort of Stoic bogeyman. That is what the love of fame and honor would make of me.

Written on 5/11/2012

Images:
Gustav Troger, Mirrorman performance art (2010)
Justus van Egmont (1602-1674), Fame Crowns a Victorious General

Honorary Stoicism 4

Honorary Stoicism 3

The Hymn to Zeus

"Most glorious of Immortals, mighty God,
Invoked by many a name, O sovereign King
Of Universal Nature, piloting
This world in harmony with Law, -- all hail!

"You it is right that mortals should invoke,
For we are Your offspring, and alone of all
Created things that live and move on earth
Receive from You the image of the One.

"Therefore I praise You, and shall sing of Your power
Unceasingly. You the wide world obeys,
As onward ever in its course it rolls
Wherever You guide, and rejoices still
Beneath Your sway: so strong a minister
Is held by Your unconquerable hands--
That two-edged thunderbolt of living fire
That never fails.

"Under its dreadful blow
All Nature reels; therewith You direct
The Universal Reason which, co-mixed
With all the greater and the lesser lights,
Moves through the Universe.

"How great You are,
The Lord supreme for ever and ever!
No work is wrought apart from You, O God,
Or in the world, or in the heaven above,
Or on the deep, save only what is done
By sinners in their folly.

"No, You can
Make the rough smooth, bring wondrous order forth
From chaos; in Your sight the unlovely
Seems beautiful; for so You have fitted things
Together, good and evil, that there reigns
One everlasting Reason in them all.

"The wicked do not heed this, but suffer it
To slip, to their undoing; these are they
Who, yearning ever to secure the good,
Mark not nor hear the law of God, by wise
Obedience unto which they might attain
A nobler life, with Reason harmonized.

"But now, unbid, they pass on diverse paths
Each his own way, yet knowing not the truth, --
Some in unlovely striving for renown,
Some bent on lawless gains, some on pleasure,
Working their own undoing, self-deceived.

"O You most bounteous God who sits enthroned
In clouds, the Lord of lightning, save mankind
From grievous ignorance!

"Oh, scatter it
Far from their souls, and grant them to achieve
True knowledge, on whose might You do rely
To govern all the world in righteousness;

"That so, being honored, we may requite You
With honor, chanting without pause Your deeds,
As all men should: since greater gain never
Befalls on man or god than evermore
Duly to praise the Universal Law."

--Cleanthes of Assos,  Hymn to Zeus (tr Blakeney)

 In my youth, I struggled with religion because of what I perceived as the emptiness of all those endless words of prayer. When I was older, I struggled with religion because of what I perceived as the corruption of precisely all those people who said they were religious.

The Hymn to Zeus by Cleanthes, the second head of the Stoic school, helps me to resolve both of those problems.

If I look at the Hymn simply as empty "God-Talk", I will receive no benefit from it. But if I pay attention to the the content, to the meaning of the words, I will discover something much more. This isn't just a blabbering of blind praise. It is an explanation of why I should trust in Providence.

Don't get caught up just now in the specifics of how you understand God or the Divine, or even whether you believe in a God at all. Look past the immediate impressions to the order of reason. The Universe is subject to constant change, and every effect must have a cause. Something cannot come from nothing. If all things are subject to causality, and all causality is a form of order and purpose, the Universe itself is ruled by order and purpose.

The multitude of all changing things is not fractured and chaotic, but joined together in unity. Call this God, the Absolute, Providence, or Zeus. I once taught a class on the Philosophy of Religion where it helped all the presumption and ensuing conflict to temporarily call it Bob.

Once I can recognize that the Universe has meaning and purpose, all things drawn together by a guiding principle, I need not look at life as random, chaotic, or even unfair. If all things work together for the whole, all things are, in whatever way, part of the good. Even the things we perceive as being evil are also things out of which can, and will, come good.

Even when human beings, given reason and will in the order of Nature, choose to turn away from the truth, Providence, which orders all things, also uses such vice and ignorance as a means to greater perfection. I may not understand how my virtue or my vice will serve all things, but all these things must truly have their place in the harmony of the whole.

The Hymn to Zeus helped me to learn that an understanding of Providence should not be confused with empty psuedo-religious posturing, and that those who engage only in such posturing are, however ignorant and miserable, unwittingly serving Providence in their own way.

Written on 12/15/2010

Image: Enthroned Zeus, Reverse of  silver tetradrachm, reign of Alexander the Great

Honorary Stoicism 2

Stoic treasure hunting.

"The treasures of Croesus and Cinyras we shall condemn as the last degree of poverty. One man and one alone shall we consider rich, the man who has acquired the ability to want for nothing always and everywhere."

--Musonius Rufus, Fragments 34 (tr Lutz)

If I am asked who I am, I will immediately respond with my name. But this is a social convention. I may then give my trade or profession. But this is simply one of the things that I do. I may offer my ancestry or lineage. But that is just where I came from. I may tell you where I live. But that is just a location.

We are too fond of defining ourselves by what is outside of us, and the most telling sign is that we identify who we are by what we possess. This is my house, this is my car, this is my income, this is my career, this is my reputation. These things have nothing to do with me, and I do not even possess them at all. They have come to me through the whims of circumstance, and they will leave me by the will of fortune.

I may be convinced that something is mine because I have earned it. I then realize that it was simply given to me, regardless of my merit. How many times have I lived well, and received nothing from the world? How many times have I lived poorly, and the world has applauded and rewarded me? It all comes and goes, and does not depend upon me.

I am often baffled by the the fact that a man will reach far outside of himself because he is empty inside of himself. I am considered prosperous if I have accumulated wealth, power, or status. Yet to do so is much like defining a man by his clothes or a book by its cover.

A treasure is indeed a possession, but this only makes sense if I understand that I possess nothing outside of me. I possess only myself.  I will become richer inside the less I ask of the world, and the richer I become in the world the more my soul will be impoverished.

Written on 2/1/2000

Honorary Stoicism 1

Success and triumph.

"Success comes to the common man, and even to commonplace ability; but to triumph over the calamities and terrors of mortal life is the part of a great man only.

"Truly, to be always happy and to pass through life without a mental pang is to be ignorant of one half of nature. You are a great man; but how do I know it if Fortune gives you no opportunity of showing your worth? You have entered as a contestant at the Olympic games, but none other besides you; you gain the crown, the victory you do not gain. You have my congratulations--not as a brave man, but as if you had obtained the consulship or praetorship; you have enhanced your prestige.

"In like manner, also, I may say to a good man, if no harder circumstance has given him the opportunity whereby alone he might show the strength of his mind, 'I judge you unfortunate because you have never been unfortunate; you have passed through life without an antagonist; no one will know what you can do--not even yourself.'

"For if a man is to know himself, he must be tested; no one finds out what be can do except by effort. And so some men have presented themselves voluntarily to laggard misfortune, and have sought an opportunity to blazon forth their worth when it was but to pass into obscurity. Great men, I say, rejoice oft-times in adversity, as do brave soldiers in warfare."

--Seneca the Younger, On Providence 3 (tr Basore)

As with all young people of the "ME Generation", I was told by most of my teachers that my life would be measured by my worldly position.

My family still insisted that I would be measured by the content of my character.

It was, and still is, a dichotomy. I can choose to determine the value of my life by what is done to me, or by what I do.

So if I did well on a standardized test, I was told I was a success. If I got into a good college, I was told I was a success. Good jobs would come my way when I did what I was told to do, and all the pleasures of life, of the upper middle class, perhaps even of the upper class if I played it right, would follow.

There is the lie.  All of that depends upon dependence. All these things are external trappings, and come from others, not from me. Once I begin to care about things beyond my power, I succumb. To be given something simply because I have the aptitude and training, the cleverness, the means and the money, the entitlement that comes from wealth and power, isn't what gives me merit as a human being.

I went to a college full of wealthy kids, a few very bright, many not so much, but what most shared in common was that they were entitled. Everything was given to them. Getting into a University, for example, is easy if your father donates many thousands to the college, makes the right connections, sends you to the best prep school, pays your tuition, and buys you a car and a condominium. Most of those young people became quite successful in the world.

We think this is a good life. No. It is success, but not a triumph. Triumph makes good out of adversity, sees misfortune as the opportunity to do good, and that breeds character. 

You might think your life is better because it is easy. No, your life is worse because it is easy. It would be better if it your life was hard. Struggle improves us, not in success, but in triumph. This is not a triumph of boasting and beating one's chest, as that is itself a symptom of the love of success. Triumph is virtue and nothing more. It isn't measured by the trappings of awards or honors, but simply by the fulfillment and joy of having acted for the good when confronted with evil.

My life is not defined by what I am given, in any way, be it wealth, power, or title. My life is defined by what I do.

'Easy Street' isn't all that easy.  My family was quite right.

Written on 3/02/2000

Image: Greek runners at the Panathenaic Games, c. 530 BC

What does it take to be a friend?

"What a man applies himself to earnestly, that he naturally loves. Do men then apply themselves earnestly to the things which are bad? By no means. Well, do they apply themselves to things which in no way concern themselves? Not to these either. It remains, then, that they employ themselves earnestly only about things which seem good; and if they are earnestly employed about things, they love such things also. 

"Whoever, then, understands what is good, can also know how to love; but he who cannot distinguish good from bad, and things which are neither good nor bad from both, can he possess the power of loving? To love, then, is only in the power of the wise.

" 'How is this?' a man may say. 'I am foolish, and yet love my child.' I am surprised indeed that you have begun by making the admission that you are foolish. For what are you deficient in? Can you not make use of your senses? do you not distinguish appearances? do you not use food which is suitable for your body, and clothing and habitation? Why then do you admit that you are foolish?

"It is in truth because you are often disturbed by appearances and perplexed, and their power of persuasion often conquers you; and sometimes you think these things to be good, and then the same things to be bad, and lastly neither good nor bad; and in short you grieve, fear, envy, are disturbed, you are changed. This is the reason why you confess that you are foolish.

"And are you not changeable in love? But wealth, and pleasure and, in a word, things themselves, do you sometimes think them to he good and sometimes bad? and do you not think the same men at one time to be good, at another time bad? and have you not at one time a friendly feeling toward them and at another time the feeling of an enemy? and do you not at one time praise them and at another time blame them?

" 'Yes; I have these feelings also.' Well then, do you think that he who has been deceived about a man is his friend?  'Certainly not.'

"And he who has selected a man as his friend and is of a changeable disposition, has he good-will toward him? 'He has not.'

"And he who now abuses a man, and afterward admires him? 'This man also has no good-will to the other.' "

"Well then, did you never see little dogs caressing and playing with one another, so that you might say there is nothing more friendly? but, that you may know what friendship is, throw a bit of flesh among them, and you will learn.

"Throw between yourself and your son a little estate, and you will know how soon he will wish to bury you and how soon you wish your son to die. Then you will change your tone and say, 'What a son I have brought up! He has long been wishing to bury me.' Throw a smart girl between you; and do you, the old man, love her, and the young one will love her too, If a little fame intervene, or dangers, it will be just the same."

--Epictetus, Discourses 22 (tr Long)

I have always chuckled at that old, corny joke: "The three biggest lies in all of history. 'The check is in the mail.' 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.' 'I love you.' "

We appeal to the ideals of love and friendship so regularly, and claim them as the noblest inspiration for our actions. Yet I wonder whether we even know what it means to love or to be a friend, and if we don't even know what love is, how can we possibly practice what we do not understand?

This passage has long served as a support when my impressions start running away with me. The most decisive and difficult event of my life was the loss of someone I considered the closest of friends, and I struggled for many years to make sense of what had happened. Thinking through what Epictetus says here has always given me great comfort.

In harmony with the Stoic principle that every man acts in conformity with what seems to him to be good, it would follow that my ability to love, to appreciate and desire the good in itself, is only as complete as my understanding of what is good. I can only love what I know, and if I do not even understand why I should respect and love the dignity of another person, I will act only on blind feelings and appearances.

I don't take it as elitist at all when Epictetus says that only the wise know how to love. I do not think the wise to be the gifted or educated, but simply those who seek to reflect and understand the nature of themselves and their world, the lovers of truth.

If I act based upon appearances alone, which are in themselves always changing, then my estimation of the good will depend entirely upon those variable impressions. I will then "love" what is pleasant, hate what is unpleasant, if I apprehend the good as pleasure. I will seek what brings fame and shun what brings unpopularity if I apprehend the good as honor. I will desire riches and reject poverty if I apprehend the good as wealth. As all those circumstances change, and as my measures change, what I call "love" will really just be a conditional attraction. It will come and go as all these things come and go.

This has helped me to learn why true friendship is absolute and unconditional, while the friendship of appearances is relative and conditional. If I love another person for their own sake, regardless of utility, I am rising up to virtue. Such friendship has a firm foundation If, however, my attachment is only one of affection and attraction to what is pleasing to my passions, I am falling into vice. Such friendship is fleeting, and will pass when the convenience passes. One is a love of giving, the other a love of receiving.

When I recognize how conditionally another person feels for me, I must not meet this with resentment or despair. I must meet it simply with understanding. I can choose to love, even if I am not loved in return, as long as I hold fast to the principle that it is my own actions that determine my happiness.

Though admittedly quite sentimental, I'm drawn to the image of the Claddagh ring to reflect the meaning of unbreakable friendship. My wife and I swapped out our old bands for a pair of these on our 18th wedding anniversary.

Written on 7/18/2016

Image: a Claddagh ring. The heart represents love. The hands represent friendship. The crown represents loyalty.

Stoicism and Tolkien?

 

The blame game.

"If a thing is in your own power, why do you do it? But if it is in the power of another, whom do you blame? Chance, or the gods? Both are foolish. You must blame nobody. For if you can, correct that which is the cause; but if you cannot do this, correct at least the thing itself; but if you cannot do even this, of what use is it to you to find fault? For nothing should be done without a purpose."

--Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 8 (tr Long)

At the root of all Stoic ethics is the principle that our happiness rests in what is within our power, and not in what is outside of our power. It is easy to say, but more difficult to fully understand or to do. I think this is not because of any great complexity in the concept, but rather because the world around us is constantly telling us the exact opposite. It is difficult to turn to reliance upon one's own thoughts and deeds when most everyone around you is telling you to look outside for contentment, to acquire, to consume, to be seen.

The infamous "blame game" is part of this illusion many of us live under. We come across things in our day that seem harmful or unpleasant, and we immediately look around for who is at fault. Why is my pay so low? It must be the politicians and the bankers. Why am I sick? It's the corporations who put chemicals in my food and poisons in the air. Why am I lonely? Because society is unfair.

Many people around us may well indeed be responsible for many dastardly deeds, but that is on them. I can change what is within my power, and that is the fullness of my living. If good and bad are within my power, then I must only seek one and avoid the other. If good and bad are truly outside my power, no blame will have any purpose. The only effect the blame will have, unfortunately, is to hinder myself with frustration. I must indeed change what I can, but I must also learn to accept what I cannot change.

If I am poor, sick, or alone, it achieves nothing to point a finger at anyone else. I must ask, however, what I myself can do with the circumstances of my life to be good myself. We usually run from the burden of responsibility, but nothing is more liberating that being fully responsible for oneself.

If I see injustice, I can be just. If I see suffering I can give love. If I see loneliness I can offer friendship. The justice, love, and friendship of others, however, are hardly under my control.

I often suggest the exercise of quietly observing a group at work, school, or play. Observe how much time and how many words are spent in criticizing others. The danger of the exercise, and it's subtle lesson, is not starting to blame others for blaming others. I rule only myself. 

Written on 3/20/2005

Image:  Statue of Marcus Aurelius, Piazza del Campidoglio, Rome

Being angry at a blind man?

" 'Ought not then this robber and this adulterer to be destroyed?' By no means say so, but speak rather in this way: 'This man who has been mistaken and deceived about the most important things, and blinded, not in the faculty of vision which distinguishes white and black, but in the faculty which distinguishes good and bad, should we not destroy him?' "

 "If you speak thus, you will see how inhuman this is which you say, and that it is just as if you would say, 'Ought we not to destroy this blind and deaf man?' But if the greatest harm is the privation of the greatest things, and the greatest thing in every man is the will or choice such as it ought to be, and a man is deprived of this will, why are you also angry with him?

Man, you ought not to be affected contrary to nature by the bad things of another. Pity him rather. drop this readiness to be offended and to hate, and these words which the many utter: 'These accursed and odious fellows!' How have you been made so wise at once? and how are you so peevish? Why then are we angry? Is it because we value so much the things of which these men rob us? Do not admire your clothes, and then you will not be angry with the thief. Do not admire the beauty of your wife, and you will not be angry with the adulterer. Learn that a thief and an adulterer have no place in the things which are yours, but in those which belong to others and which are not in your power.

"If you dismiss these things and consider them as nothing, with whom are you still angry? But so long as you value these things, be angry with yourself rather than with the thief and the adulterer. Consider the matter thus: you have fine clothes; your neighbor has not. You have a window; you wish to air the clothes. The thief does not know wherein man's good consists, but he thinks that it consists in having fine clothes, the very thing which you also think. Must he not then come and take them away? When you show a cake to greedy persons, and swallow it all yourself, do you expect them not to snatch it from you? Do not provoke them: do not have a window, do not air your clothes."

---Epictetus, Discourses 18 (tr Long)

It has taken me many years to even begin practicing these principles. I may have understood in theory, but was often failing to apply them in practice. This means, of course, that my judgment of the the good was not complete.

I find the line of reasoning in this passage a daily help in my difficulties with judging and resenting others. It is a struggle to start building up better habits, so I must remind myself regularly what Nature truly asks of me.

We all act in one way or another because we think the action will be beneficial. It is our judgment, therefore, about what is good or bad, right or wrong, that guides, and it is therefore fair to say that ignorance, the absence of understanding, is at the root of our vices. We do not do what is good, because we do not even know what is good.

I bracket, for the moment, more complex questions about moral incontinence, and whether or how a man can truly act against his conscience. My own sense is that whenever we do something we know is wrong, that knowledge is not truly complete or informed, such that the abstract principle we may understand, more or less vaguely, is not being put into concrete practice. I have always thought there is a way to bring the differing views of Plato and Aristotle more closely together on this point, and I think Stoicism helps us with this.

I also resist the temptation of thinking that Epictetus is removing blame or responsibility from those who are ignorant. Their ignorance may be be involuntary or voluntary, and therefore undeserving or deserving of blame, but the key point is to remember that we should seek to help those who are ignorant, not condemn them. Socrates said much the same in the Apology.  We don't make ourselves better through hate or anger, and we certainly don't make the offender any better, either. One man may have treated me poorly, and now I am simply treating him poorly in return. I have compounded the evil.

The beautiful irony of the argument is that we might say that we do not care for wealth, honor, or pleasure, but then we become angry when someone deprives us of wealth, honor, or pleasure. He wants these things only because he ignorantly thinks they are good. This does not mean he has not done wrong, but that is only within his choice. It is, however, within my own power to decide how I will act, and whether I end up choosing to desire the exact same things. The less my wealth, reputation, or luxuries matter to me, the less I will care whether I have them or not.

Written on 7/11/2011

Image: William Blake, The Accusers of Theft, Adultery, Murder (c. 1794)