Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.1

In the morning when you rise unwillingly, let this thought be present: I am rising to the work of a human being.

Why then am I dissatisfied if I am going to do the things for which I exist, and for which I was brought into the world?

Or have I been made for this, to lie in the bedclothes and keep myself warm?

“But this is more pleasant!”

Do you exist then to take your pleasure, and not at all for action or exertion? Do you not see the little plants, the little birds, the ants, the spiders, and the bees working together to put in order their several parts of the Universe? And are you unwilling to do the work of a human being, and you do not make haste to do that which is according to your nature?

“But it is necessary to take rest also!”

It is necessary, however nature has fixed bounds to this too. She has fixed bounds both to eating and drinking, and yet you go beyond these bounds, beyond what is sufficient. Yet in your acts it is not so, but you stop short of what you can do. So you do not love yourself, for if you did, you would love your nature and her will.

Those who love their several arts exhaust themselves in working at them unwashed and without food, but you value your own nature less than the turner values the turning art, or the dancer the dancing art, or the lover of money values his money, or the vainglorious man his little glory.

And such men, when they have a violent affection for a thing, choose neither to eat nor to sleep, but rather than to perfect the things that they care for. But are the acts that concern society more vile in your eyes and less worthy of your labor?

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 5 (tr Long)

Of all the topics that are regularly considered in casual conversation, few seem to be as common as discussing how much we hate getting up for work. Perhaps only complaints about the weather can come close.

It’s not hard to see why this is the case. Most everyone will seem to agree, and, like the weather, we feel as if there’s not much we can do about it in any event. We carry on, doing what is expected of us, with tired resignation and a twinge of resentment.

I have known the feeling well, and upon reflection, it has always been because I have failed to understand what my work in this life is, and how I can find joy in making an effort for its sake. It is too easy to seek the gratification of laziness when I can perceive no real value in activity.

Yes, there are all of those tasks and chores during the day, all of those obstacle courses we need to run, so that we can put food on the table and a roof over our heads. But these things are accessories to life, and not the work of a human being.

Yes, there are all the orders and demands given to us by those who are richer or stronger than we are, and we comply so that we can find ourselves some acceptance and approval. But these things are conveniences of life, and not the work of a human being.

Yes, there are all sorts of skills and careers we may pursue, all of them with their own specific purpose in making everyone’s life easier. But these things are only an assistance in life, and not the work of a human being.

When an ant, or a bee, or any living thing dedicates itself completely to its own task and place in Nature, it does so out of an instinctive drive to fulfill its very purpose. Is it sufficient to say that the purpose of a human being is to get a job, buy things, and stay out of trouble?

If that is all I have to live for, it should come as no surprise that I will dislike the very idea of work, and I will prefer to sleep in. The work of a human being, that which we essentially and universally share in common, is to pursue virtue, to know what is true and to love what is good, to always think with compassion and to act with justice. I most certainly wouldn’t want to get out of bed to crawl along in traffic, shuffle papers, crank out widgets all day, or get yelled at by the boss, though I will gladly jump up right away to have a chance to be happy.

That is, after all, what the work of a human being is, not to become rich or important, but to be happy, to live with excellence, whatever our different particular roles in life may be. With that in mind, work, rightly understood, is not a burden, but a blessed opportunity.

When people are passionate about what they are doing, and truly love the goals that they seek, they will gladly put aside most anything else for the sake of that purpose. Just as the Stoic Turn flips just about everything on its head, it also redefines the dignity of work, because it redefines the very things in life that are worth working for. 

Written in 3/2006

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.54

Always run to the short way, and the short way is the natural way.

Accordingly, say and do everything in conformity with the soundest reason. For such a purpose frees a man from trouble, and warfare, and all artifice and ostentatious display.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 4 (tr Long)

This doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the scenic route, or follow the road less traveled, or take the long way home, or find pleasure in a winding path. It’s too easy to mix up all of the different road analogies. It’s just about staying on task, and not allowing ourselves to be diverted from our awareness of what is true and the good in this life.

The short way is the most natural, in the sense that it removes whatever is unnecessary, and frees us from distraction. If I always keep my mind directly focused on my goal, whatever else may be happening around me, I will not be tempted to confuse lesser things for greater things. If I can always relate my every thought and action directly to the purpose of a life well lived, I will avoid becoming lost in the confusion.

What is it that really gets us into trouble? Wanting all of the things we do not need.

What is it that brings us into conflict with others? Assuming that our own happiness requires a control over the lives of others.

What is it that tempts us to put on a show? Thinking that it is more important to be seen than to simply do.

The short way always points toward the goal. When asked what is most important in life, people offer a befuddling range of answers. A career, success, security, friends and family, health, a long life, or just having fun. Now the Stoic may well have these things, or he may not have them, and he recognizes why they might be preferable. But he will never confuse them with what he should desire above all else, always living with virtue.

I once confused a girl I knew when she asked me whether I’d rather be rich or handsome, and I told here I’d rather be a good man.

“That’s not the question!” she said.

“Exactly,” I replied. “It isn’t the question at all. It’s a diversion from the question.”

As soon as I start thinking about becoming rich, or spend my time trying to appear handsome, I am no longer keeping my eyes on the prize. Shallow people may be drawn to shiny things, but people of conviction are drawn to things that are true and good, however dull they may appear.

Becoming busy with all the accessories of living will keep me turned away from the task. I will then find that I am out of time, because life is short, and I didn’t run the short way. 

Written in 2/2006

Boethius, The Consolation 1.22

While I grieved so in long-drawn pratings, Philosophy looked on with a calm countenance, not one whit moved by my complaints.

Then she said, “When I saw you in grief and in tears I knew thereby that you were unhappy and in exile, but I knew not how distant was your exile until your speech declared it. But you have not been driven so far from your home. You have wandered there yourself, or if you would rather hold that you have been driven, you have been driven by yourself, rather than by any other.

“No other could have done so to you. For if you recall your true native country, you know that it is not under the rule of the many-headed people, as was Athens of old, but there is one Lord, one King, who rejoices in the greater number of His subjects, not in their banishment.

“To be guided by His reins, to bow to His justice, is the highest liberty. Know you not that sacred and ancient law of your own state, by which it is enacted that no man, who would establish a dwelling-place for himself there, may lawfully be put forth? For there is no fear that any man should merit exile, if he is kept safe therein by its protecting walls.

“But any man that may no longer wish to dwell there, does equally no longer deserve to be there.” . . .

—from Book 1, Prose 5

Lady Philosophy may have underestimated the degree of Boethius’ grief, but she is certain she is not mistaken about its root cause. He is convinced that because wrong has been done to him, he has been exiled from happiness. No, she insists, only you can exile yourself from your own happiness.

As soon as Boethius casts blame, Philosophy asks him to reconsider the very measure of blame. As soon as Boethius has finished expressing all of his worries, Philosophy tells him that they are not his true worries at all.

I have often looked at happiness as something precarious, something that others could snatch away at any moment. I have also had those times where I was certain it had already been taken from me, and wondered how I could somehow win it back. The assumption, of course, is that what has been given, can just as readily be taken away. But who is it that does the giving and the taking?

Given how much time and effort we put into thinking about ourselves, it’s quite odd that it never occurs to us that we are the masters of our own happiness. It seems so apparent that we expect to receive the blessings of life from outside of us, without thinking that we can provide it for ourselves.

Lady Philosophy here introduces a central argument to the entire text. We can’t be exiled from something that is ours to give and take. If we have lost it, it is because we have neglected it, or have wandered away.

Together with this we are introduced to another central argument, that we can always be guaranteed to possess what is rightfully our own. Yes, both our circumstances and other people can, and will, take away many things we think belong to us, but that is because they are outside of us, and our attachment to them is tenuous. But how is man to be separated from himself? He possesses himself by his very existence. Only he can surrender himself.

The very order of the Universe itself, which gives to everything its own distinct nature, assures us of this. The source of that order can have many names, but it is absolute, and not relative. It is one, and not many. It is perfect, and not flawed. Call it what you will, but Lady Philosophy will call it God.

Always remember that the Universe is a monarchy, and not a democracy, given meaning and form through complete goodness.

Lady Philosophy is not simply going to assume these basic principles, but will proceed to offer a variety of arguments for them for the remainder of the text. They will be the rational foundation for Boethius’ recovery.

When Napoleon was finally exiled to St. Helena, they say he could think of nothing but the home he had lost, and he was filled with rage and despair. A classic painting by Sandmann has the fallen Emperor staring out over the wide ocean. Did he ever consider that his comfort was right there within him, that he was the one who had chosen to exile himself from happiness? 

Written in 6/2015

Image: Franz Josef Sandmann, Napoleon in St. Helena (c. 1820)

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.53

It is a vulgar, but still a useful help towards contempt of death, to pass in review those who have tenaciously stuck to life. What more, then, have they gained than those who have died early?

Certainly they lie in their tombs somewhere at last, Cadicianus, Fabius, Julianus, Lepidus, or any one else like them, who have carried out many to be buried, and then were carried out themselves.

Altogether the interval is small between birth and death; and consider with how much trouble, and in company with what sort of people, and in what a feeble body this interval is laboriously passed. Do not then consider life a thing of any value.

For look to the immensity of time behind you, and to the time which is before you, another boundless space. In this infinity then what is the difference between him who lives three days and him who lives three generations?

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 4 (tr Long)

Marcus Aurelius calls it vulgar, because I suspect that there is the implicit temptation to gloat. A good man never gloats. He shows appreciation.

At the same time, there is something that can be learned from the vanity of others. I will only become vain if I start to think I am somehow superior, if I become just like those very people who think they are somehow better than me.

Three days or three generations? There is no real difference. In the face of what is Infinite, it means absolutely nothing.

But isn’t it all about me, getting what I want? It is about me, but not all about me. I need to think of myself as a piece of everything else, not of everything else as being a piece of me.

I have struggled to make so many things timeless, or to take what was passing and try to make it forever. I remember all the pop songs, the ones that told me that one more night would somehow make it all last. I would repeat things, hoping they would bring back what was lost. Now that was my vanity.

Only Nature itself, and the Divine Mind that rules it, are timeless. I am a part within the whole, and I can change my ways, to be happy as a part within that whole. It is never about gloating, but always about appreciation.

I once saved from three months of my paltry paycheck to take a girl to a fancy dinner. In hindsight, I know it meant little to her, because her father’s credit card could have paid for it in a moment, without any problem. But it was about me trying to do my own part, not about me asking to receive. I even understood that bit back then.

I put on my only tailored suit, with a pressed white shirt and fancy silk tie, and Italian shoes I’d only worn once before. I shaved twice with a proper blade, and splashed myself with cologne well beyond my price range. My mother told me how handsome I looked, and my father reminded me that I should always be a gentleman.

I still have the fondest memories of that dinner, until the end of it, when it all went a bit wrong, even as I learned something very right.

“Thanks. That was really nice! It’ll be even nicer when we can do this all of the time. It’ll only be a few more years until we’ve got it made!”

She meant it as an encouragement, though I suddenly saw it as a discouragement.

“How will we have it made?” I asked.

“You know, good degrees, good jobs, it’ll work out forever.”

“How will that make anything forever?”

Well,” she said quite seriously, “we need to pay for forever.”

There it was, two of the biggest obstacles to my own living, laid out for me as clearly as they could ever be. The idea that I could make anything forever, and the idea that I could do it all by finding a way to pay for it.

I had always enjoyed strolling down Newbury Street in Boston, lined with all the best stores, selling all of the best things, to all of the best people. As I glanced at them now, they looked more like tombs in a neat little row. We somehow become convinced that we can buy eternity, and we are buying into the biggest scam there ever was.

Observe all the human monuments to immortality, and then how those who paid for them and built them are no longer here to appreciate them. I realized how that was such a waste of living, clinging to what is never meant to be permanent. 

Written in 2/2006

Image: Roman tombs in the Isola Sacra, Lazio.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.52

I am unhappy, because this has happened to me.

Not so, but I am happy, though this has happened to me, because I continue free from pain, neither crushed by the present nor fearing the future.

For such a thing as this might have happened to every man, but every man would not have continued free from pain on such an occasion. Why then is that rather a misfortune than this a good fortune? And do you in all cases call that a man's misfortune, which is not a deviation from man's nature? And does a thing seem to you to be a deviation from man's nature, when it is not contrary to the will of man's nature?

Well you know the will of Nature. Will then what has happened prevent you from being just, magnanimous, temperate, prudent, secure against inconsiderate opinions and falsehood? Will it prevent you from having modesty, freedom, and everything else, by the presence of which man's nature obtains all that is its own?

Remember too, on every occasion that leads you to vexation, to apply this principle: not that this is a misfortune, but that to bear it nobly is good fortune.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 4 (tr Long)

Even the most initial stages of making the Stoic turn can have profound effects. I would find myself concerned about completely different things than I had been before, and I would find myself stared at with confusion, and sometimes even disgust, by those who were still more tightly bound to circumstances. I began to see that a Stoic transformation could never be merely cosmetic. Either I am becoming a completely different sort of person, or it is of no use to me at all.

We have been told for so long how happiness or misery depend upon what happens, that we can hardly imagine it any other way. This passage summarizes the radical alternative. It isn’t what happens, but whether we bear what happens with nobility. It will only hurt me as much as I permit it to hurt me.

This claim is often met with jeers of derision. Surely the loss of property, or honor, or the health of the body is painful? Doesn’t it hurt to be hungry, sick, or rejected? Yes, such states will bring with them various feelings of pain, sometimes quite severe. The question is what I will make of it, whatever the feeling, whatever the fortune. I will only be able to understand this if I begin with the premise that a person is, by his very nature, a creature of thought, choice, and action, and cannot at all be hurt by what is outside of him.

Define a man by his circumstances, and he will suffer from pain quite often. Define a man by his character, and he does not need to suffer any pain within himself at all. Because he has rebuilt what he values, he can no longer consider the presence or absence of fortune as itself a gain or a loss.

What we usually think of as “good” or “bad” fortune can, and will, happen to anyone, and that is why fortune is not the distinguishing mark of someone who is good or bad, happy or unhappy. Give me this, or take away that, and I can be completely myself, with no obstacle or hindrance.

This needn’t be seen as some mysterious, mystical state. Observe that all the things that make my life worth living can be done in any state of fortune. Look only to all the noble actions, those at our human core, and how they can always remain unhindered.

I can be generous, practice self-control and conscience, and not have to worry about what others may think, or how much they may deceive. I can be humble, content with myself, and totally free to be my own master. No situation can halt me from being virtuous within myself.

I can be complete through myself at any given instant. Fulfillment does not proceed from events, but can subsist through any events.

Written in 2/2006

Ah, half measures!

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.51

Be like the promontory against which the waves continually break, but it stands firm and tames the fury of the water around it.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 4 (tr Long)

The central tenet of Stoic ethics is that our happiness rests in our own actions, and that we never need to allow ourselves to be ruled by our circumstances. This is sometimes seen as a sort of inner toughness, though it hardly means that the Stoic does not love. It is also sometimes seen as a sort of indifference, though it hardly means that the Stoic does not care. They key lies in learning how to love, and what to care for.

The image of the cliff standing against the sea is, as they say, an oldie but a goodie. It can do much to remind us that we need never be cast down by what smashes into us, and that a fury without doesn’t have to lead to a fury within.

My own attempts at Stoic self-reliance were often less than satisfactory, and though all of us will develop our own patterns of thinking that help us through, I found that, in my case, I was falling short because I was misunderstanding the nature of strength.

I would look at something outside of me, something I felt hurt or threatened by, and I would be intimated by the power that it had. “How can I possibly be strong enough to defeat that?” In some cases it was someone with incredible influence, or a circumstance that would surely never budge, but most often it was about the force of feelings that seemed to flow off from horrifying events.

I would wince, shut my eyes, and expect the worst to hit me. I was convinced I needed to fight things off to be strong, though I was also convinced I didn’t have the strength to do the fighting. There seems little point in holding one’s hand up in defiance of a steamroller. My body was too weak, my resources were too meager, and my own will could hardly stand up to the will of so many others.

I was confronting the wrong enemy. I somehow assumed all of it meant controlling the sea, instead of just being a cliff. Let the water swirl around me as it wishes, but it is my own immovability that can make me strong. In the simplest of terms, it was never about conquering the ocean, but about conquering myself. The situation was not the problem. My own fear of the situation was the problem.

No, in most cases I am not at all strong enough to defeat someone else, or change the state of affairs, or determine events. Even the feelings that follow from events may not be subject to my conscious choice. They happen to me, like other things happen, which is why they are called passions, and not actions.

I always like to remind myself that analogies are inherently incomplete, but notice that the promontory doesn’t stop there from being any waves. By standing as it does, it redirects the waves around it. The taming is from being strong within myself, and by taming my own thoughts, I can then make myself strong in the face of whatever may come my way.

Written in 2/2006

Jars of Clay, "Flood"

As a reference for Boethius, The Consolation 1.21:

Jars of Clay, "Flood", from Jars of Clay (1995)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfAhpX_wIBk

Rain rain on my face
It hasn't stopped
Raining for days
My world is a flood
Slowly I become
One with the mud

But if I can't swim after forty days
And my mind is crushed
By the crashing waves
Lift me up so high
That I cannot fall
Lift me up

Lift me up when I'm falling
Lift me up I'm weak and I'm dying
Lift me up I need you to hold me
Lift me up and keep me from drowning again

Downpour on my soul
Splashing in the ocean
I'm losing control
Dark sky all around
Can't feel my feet
Touching the ground

But if I can't swim after forty days
And my mind is crushed
By the crashing waves
Lift me up so high
That I cannot fall
Lift me up 

Lift me up when I'm falling
Lift me up I'm weak and I'm dying
Lift me up I need you to hold me
Lift me up and keep me from drowning again

Calm the storms that drench my eyes
And dry the streams still flowing
Casting down all waves of sin
And guilt that overthrows me. . .

Boethius, The Consolation 1.21

. . . “For why does Fortune with her fickle hand

deal out such changing lots?

The hurtful penalty is due to crime,

but falls upon the sinless head.

Depraved men rest at ease on thrones aloft,

and by their unjust lot can spurn beneath their hurtful heel

the necks of virtuous men.

Beneath obscuring shadows lies bright virtue hid;

the just man bears the unjust's infamy.

They suffer not for forsworn oaths,

they suffer not for crimes glazed over with their lies.

But when their will is to put forth their strength,

with triumph they subdue the mightiest kings

whom peoples in their thousands fear.

O You, who weaves the bonds of Nature's self,

look down upon this pitiable Earth!

Mankind is no base part of this great work,

and we are tossed on Fortune's wave.

Restrain, our Guardian, the engulfing surge,

and as You who unbounded heaven rule,

with a like bond make true and firm these lands”.

—from Book 1, Poem 5

We may think that God rules the entire Universe through His absolute power, but we also find that blind Fortune seems to determine so much of our lives. How are we to discover any agreement between the existence of a mighty Creator, who gives order to all things, and the fact that so many of those things appear to be quite disordered?

I have sometimes pondered this problem in terms of trying to harmonize the big picture with the small picture. “Up there”, in the great cosmic plan of things, everything has it place, but “down here”, in the daily grind of trying to make it through, I may not understand how that Divine blueprint could possibly be playing itself out. It’s as if all the order conceived within God’s mind doesn’t seem to seep or trickle down to my level.

Evil people commit the crimes, and the good people suffer the punishment. Tyrants hold their sway over helpless victims. Virtue is somehow overwhelmed by vice, and justice is trampled by injustice. Promises are broken, and lies are the order of the day. Who bears the burden? Precisely those who try to be loyal and honest.

How often do we indeed see the most brutal and hateful of monsters with the power to roll over everything in their path? It can be the dictator, the demagogue, the player, or the man without a conscience, but you will find him in too many places, big or small, from the bully who owns you where you work, to the ruler of a nation who will crush you without a second thought. Where is God’s power in all of this?

As much as I may try to find the good in everything, I see so much more bad than good. What am I missing?

Perhaps God is not powerful enough to stop it, or He isn’t good enough to care, or He doesn’t know enough to notice. Yet as soon as I assume any of those things, I’m not talking about God at all. Perfection, that which has no limit, surely cannot admit of weakness, or evil, or ignorance.

Boethius asks God to give us some respite. Please stop throwing us into a stormy ocean, and offer us a safe harbor. The crushing waves are too much to bear. Be the protector of righteousness we need You to be.

This is the sort of thinking that always gets me into trouble, but in my darkest and most stubborn moments I will wonder why I should even need to ask for God to provide comfort from suffering. If He made me, he knows what I need. Why is He withholding it, and why must I beg? Don’t we all deserve to live the way He made us to live?

Most of the pieces to Boethius’ dilemma are now in place. It is the same stubborn problem that all honest, sincere, and conscientious people must face.

There's that desperate feeling that one can't stay afloat much longer.

At one of the lowest times in my life, when thoughts like these were so common, I remember hearing a song on the radio called “Flood”, by the band Jars of Clay. I immediately recognized the urgency behind it, and it reminded me of the Consolation right away:

Lift me up—when I'm falling.

Lift me up—I'm weak and I'm dying.

Lift me up—I need you to hold me.

Lift me up—and keep me from drowning again.

Written in 6/2015

 

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.50

Think continually how many physicians are dead after often contracting their eyebrows over the sick; and how many astrologers after predicting with great pretensions the deaths of others; and how many philosophers after endless discourses on death or immortality; how many heroes after killing thousands; and how many tyrants who have used their power over men's lives with terrible insolence as if they were immortal; and how many cities are entirely dead, so to speak, Helike, and Pompeii, and Herculaneum, and others innumerable.

Add to the reckoning all whom you have known, one after another. One man after burying another has been laid out dead, and another buries him. And all of this in a short time.

To conclude, always observe how ephemeral and worthless human things are, and what was yesterday a little mucus tomorrow will be a mummy or ashes.

Pass then through this little space of time conformably to Nature, and end your journey in contentment, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 4 (tr Long)

This is the sort of passage that may seem depressing to some. If it all passes away, what is any of it worth? Only one aspect of life is worthy, that of living comfortably with Nature, at any point, whatever the circumstances, however long it may last. The rest need not trouble me if I have that one goal constantly in mind.

I don’t mean having my fun, or pursuing my pleasure at the expense of others. I don’t mean getting rich, regardless of who I might end up stepping on or discarding. I don’t mean making a name for myself, however much I must lie and cheat to do so.

I mean acting with integrity, with a sincere care for how I should respect myself, and thereby respect others who are exactly like myself.  We are all made for that same end.

Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 AD, killing thousands in Pompeii and Herculaneum. Further back, in 373 BC, an earthquake and tidal wave completely destroyed the Greek city of Helike, with untold lost. Were all of these lives useless, and were all of their achievements wasted?

Define achievement, and define waste.

Imagine how the man who had committed his whole life to getting all the gratification he could, or making money, or improving his name, or finding political power must have felt as the burning ashes rained down, or the waters swept him away.

Now imagine what a decent man, the man who defined himself by his character, who only offered love and concern to his neighbors for all of his life, regardless of his position, felt at that same point.

The difference would be like night and day. One would surely die with fear and dread, and the other could die with acceptance and contentment.

Death will indeed come to us all. What matters is what we do in the time, however long or short, that is offered. Do we try to improve ourselves, or try to improve our station?

Someone once told me that life was about grabbing all you could out there, and being strong enough to get it. I instinctively knew this to be wrong. Life isn’t about getting anything at all out there, but about being strong enough to get a hold of myself in here. I have only a fleeting moment to live well, and adding anything out there will not make me any better.

We’ll all be ash, like those corpses at Pompeii. Now did I manage to seek truth and justice, before I become that ash?

Instead of grasping to possess more, I could be like a grateful olive. What a wonderful image.

Written in 2/2006

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.49

If any god told you that you would die tomorrow, or certainly on the day after tomorrow, you would not care much whether it was on the third day or tomorrow, unless you were in the highest degree mean-spirited.

For how small is the difference? So think it no great thing to die after as many years as you can name, rather than tomorrow.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 4 (tr Long)

After years of ever worsening chest pains, shortness of breath, terrible exhaustion, and then finally sudden unpredictable bouts of passing out, I was advised that I had perhaps six months to live.

My heart, they said, after all the fancy tests, was just failing. Various hugely expensive surgical options were suggested, of course, all of which involved ripping me open, putting me under for many months, and all of them with absolutely no guarantee of doing anything at all.

I think, perhaps for the first time in my life, I actually managed to show even a little bit of courage. Thank you, I said. Please give me whatever you can to make it easier, and to make the end come more smoothly, but I’m not going to try to extend my meager life in quantity, at the expense if its quality.

I know that choice is not for everyone, but I made my own choice based on Stoic principles. I would rather live well, with whatever little time is given to me, than lie there having been chopped up like a piece of meat, with tubes in me, numbed by drugs that cloud my thinking, a faceless number in a sterile hospital room. Whatever will come, will come, but I will not choose to die to the chirping of machines, covered in plastic. I’d rather die with the chirping of birds, surrounded by fresh air.

And here I am, now over two years later, still alive. The esteemed doctors squirm when I show up for a renewal on my prescriptions. I know it could end at any moment, and I no longer have any fear of that. Perhaps it is just my tough Irish constitution, or the fact that I am just generally a stubborn bastard. None of that matters.

I do know it will end sooner rather than later. It no longer troubles me. I at least suspect it will end quickly, and quite unexpectedly, whenever it happens, and though there are things I will miss most terribly, I hope that I will have done my part.

I learned that I needed to come to terms with who I am, not how long I have happened to be here. We are always told, by the big moneymaking machine, to invest in our future. I realized there is nothing more important than investing in my present.

It hasn’t been an easy path. The physical pain is far outweighed by the way the situation makes the Black Dog bite me emotionally all the more. There are times I will want to surrender completely. I even developed a little mantra for myself, whenever I went to bed in a very foul mood:

Close your eyes. Fall asleep. Don’t wake up.

I was saddened by how few people showed any concern at all, but that was itself the test that Providence offered to me. It has helped me to rely on my own thinking, and to recognize when there is actually compassionate thinking in others, however few those others might be.

How much? Meaningless.

How well? Priceless.

Not how a credit card company means it, but how a genuine Stoic means it. Our currencies are rather different.

Written in 12/2016

A chirping bird, not a chirping machine. . .

Boethius, The Consolation 1.20

“Founder of the star-studded Universe,

resting on Your eternal throne

from where You turn the swiftly rolling sky,

and bind the stars to keep Your law.

At Your word the moon now shines brightly with full face,

ever turned to her brother's light,

and so she dims the lesser lights.

Or now she is herself obscured,

for nearer to the sun her beams show her pale horns alone.

Cool rises the evening star at night's first drawing near.

The same is the morning star

who casts off the harness that she bore before,

and paling meets the rising sun.

When winter's cold does strip the trees,

You set a shorter span to day.

And You, when summer comes to warm,

do change the short divisions of the night.

Your power does order the seasons of the year,

so that the western breeze of spring

brings back the leaves which winter's north wind tore away.

So that the dog-star's heat

makes ripe the cars of corn whose seed Arcturus watched.

Nothing breaks that ancient law.

Nothing leaves undone the work appointed to its place.

Thus all things You rule with limits fixed.

The lives of men alone You scorn to restrain,

as a guardian, within bounds”. . . .

—from Book 1, Poem 5

In this first part of the verse passage, Boethius reflects on the power of God. In the second part, he will wonder why there if still injustice under the rule of such power, and he will appeal to God to make things right.

An appeal to God can make people rather uncomfortable, especially in our post-modern age, where the very concept is often frowned upon. I always suggest to new readers of the Consolation that they neither dismiss the idea off-hand, nor assume it means something narrow or dogmatic. Though what Boethius has to say can be understood very much in harmony with various forms of faith and theology, remember that he is concerned here with looking at the world in the light of reason and philosophy.

At this point in the text, one could even choose to look at the existence of God as a hypothesis, and then question how God’s existence can possibly be compatible with the existence of evil and suffering in the world. This is hardly a new question, and it has been asked time and time again, both by venerated philosophers and by everyday people. It is a problem that must be addressed, not only in theory, but also in practice. I can hardly make sense of what happens to me, and why it may happen, if I do not have an absolute measure of what is good, and how the world is ultimately ordered.

Here Boethius suggests that God is the source and Creator of all things, and thereby also the ruler of all things. Whatever may happen, up in the heavens or here on earth, is subject to Divine power. This can surely elicit awe, wonder, and reverence from us.

The idea is grand, but it is hardly beyond the scope of reason to consider. Perhaps lay aside, for the moment, any questions of different religious doctrines, and consider only the aspect of the Divine, by whatever name we may wish to call it, as being omnipotent, or all-powerful.

We are all familiar in our experience with someone or something having greater or lesser strength, but the idea of God proposes a power that is absolute, and from which all other degrees of action must proceed. It is the difference between what finite and what is infinite, between what is limited and what has no limit.

A child will try to avoid the power of his parents by waiting until they aren’t looking, or a thief can try to take what isn’t his by breaking a lock. If God has no bounds to his power, however, there is no hiding from it, and there is no overpowering it. Boethius uses a range of wonderful poetic images to express this unfettered might.

I was always raised with such an idea, and thankfully in such a way that I was not merely asked to accept it, but always encouraged to understand it. When I started asking how it all worked, I didn’t think I was being disrespectful, and when, Like Boethius, I wanted to figure out why God did or did not allow certain things, I felt that question came from a real need. 

Written in 6/2015

 The star-studded Universe. . .