Seneca, Moral Letters 50.3

Suppose that we have begun the cure; when shall we throw off all these diseases, with all their virulence? 
 
At present, we do not even consult the physician, whose work would be easier if he were called in when the complaint was in its early stages. The tender and the inexperienced minds would follow his advice if he pointed out the right way.
 
No man finds it difficult to return to Nature, except the man who has deserted Nature. We blush to receive instruction in sound sense; but, by Heaven, if we think it base to seek a teacher of this art, we should also abandon any hope that so great a good could be instilled into us by mere chance. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 50 
 
We are proud of our progress in medicine, certain that we understand both the causes and cures of diseases far better than anyone before us, and so we believe we have greatly improved our quality of life. 
 
We are proud of our progress in education, certain that our methods are the most effective for molding willing and productive workers, and so we believe we have greatly improved our quality of life. 
 
Yet while we spend many more hours at the doctor’s office, and many more years in the classroom, can we honestly say that we have mastered the formation of the virtues, and that we can administer a remedy against the vices? No other quality in life amounts to anything without the quality of character. 
 
Unfortunately, most of us won’t even admit that we suffer from a deep moral sickness, and even if we do recognize it, we stubbornly refuse the treatments prescribed by philosophy. 
 
In an environment of relativism, where good and bad are reduced to matters of preference instead of principle, it is easy to look the other way. There will inevitably come a point, however, when the emptiness on the inside becomes too much to bear, and then we insist on how there is nothing in Nature to relieve us of anxiety and dread. 
 
Reason is trying to point to our genuine purpose in life, while we are too enslaved by our impressions to listen. Sick enough to suffer, while not quite sick enough to die. 
 
Isn’t it impossible to become a good man? No, it is only difficult, and it is only difficult because we have built up the layered habits of dependent appetites. If I have already gone so far down the wrong path, will I still have the humility to admit that I need to retrace all those missteps? 
 
I can mope as much as I like, but it isn’t going to fix itself. 

—Reflection written in 3/2013 

The Dance of Death 8

Giacomo Borlone de Buschis, The Triumph of Death (c. 1485) 

Dhammapada 314, 315

An evil deed is better left undone, for a man repents of it afterwards; a good deed is better done, for having done it, one does not repent. 

Like a well-guarded frontier fort, with defenses within and without, so let a man guard himself. 

Not a moment should escape, for they who allow the right moment to pass, suffer pain when they are in hell. 

Seneca, Moral Letters 50.2

You know Harpasté, my wife's female clown; she has remained in my house, a burden incurred from a legacy. I particularly disapprove of these freaks; whenever I wish to enjoy the quips of a clown, I am not compelled to hunt far; I can laugh at myself. 
 
Now this clown suddenly became blind. The story sounds incredible, but I assure you that it is true: she does not know that she is blind. She keeps asking her attendant to change her quarters; she says that her apartments are too dark. 
 
You can see clearly that that which makes us smile in the case of Harpasté happens to all the rest of us; nobody understands that he is himself greedy, or that he is covetous. 
 
Yet the blind ask for a guide, while we wander without one, saying: "I am not self-seeking; but one cannot live at Rome in any other way. I am not extravagant, but mere living in the city demands a great outlay. It is not my fault that I have a choleric disposition, or that I have not settled down to any definite scheme of life; it is due to my youth." 
 
Why do we deceive ourselves? The evil that afflicts us is not external, it is within us, situated in our very vitals; for that reason we attain soundness with all the more difficulty, because we do not know that we are diseased. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 50 
 
I’m afraid I find any sort of clown, mime, or jester to be unnerving instead of amusing, and so I can’t imagine the discomfort of having one live in my home. Who says the rich have it easier? Even the prospect of a maid or a butler disturbs me, for what becomes of the man who has others doing for him what he is meant to do for himself? 
 
Like Seneca, I am already ridiculous enough on my own, and I do not require anyone to play the fool for my entertainment. Yet I should not let myself grow smug, because I know how easy it is for me to fall into delusion. 
 
As for blindness, I must finally admit how these eyes that were once so sharp are now going cloudy. My wife giggles when I can’t read the fine print, and the dreaded glasses are surely around the corner. If I have difficulty in accepting that I can’t see, in what more serious ways might I also be in denial? 
 
It’s bad enough to lie to another, but lying to oneself is a far deeper form of rot. As much as I insist on how I am trying to be a good man, that isn’t quite the same thing as actually being a good man, and so I am prone to continue making excuses for craving the basest glory and gratification. 
 
The words Seneca uses to describe such alibis ring as true today as they did back then, for the highs and lows of our human nature haven’t really changed. We will say that living in the big city requires following the big city rules, or that our careers allow us no option but to surround ourselves with decadence, or that our shallow interests and ill-tempered personalities are just a result of living in a hectic world. 
 
Hard experience has taught me to be suspicious of any man who claims he “didn’t have a choice.” Don’t trust him, for he doesn’t even trust his own convictions. There is always a choice, however imposing the circumstances. 

—Reflection written in 3/2013 

A New Substack Page

Occasionally, some kind and thoughtful person asks if there is a way to offer donations for the writing on the Stoic Breviary blog. Those who know our whacky family will also know that none of this was ever done for any financial profit, and that publishing these reflections has been a labor of love, not an exercise in selling a brand. 

Still, the Stoic can always appreciate a bit of money, as long as he knows how to make good use of it. We are deeply grateful for any assistance in keeping this project going. 

The original print book is still for sale on Amazon, as well as two short Kindle texts on the Liberal Arts and the Good Life. 

A Stoic Breviary: Classical Wisdom in Daily Practice

Stoic Reflections on the Liberal Arts

Stoic Reflections on the Good Life

The only spot on social media where A Stoic Breviary has any traction is Tumblr (go figure!) where tips can be offered, if you are so inclined. 

Finally, we were recently encouraged to start a Substack page for A Stoic Breviary. After some hesitation, it is now up and running. 

https://stoicbreviary.substack.com 

The idea here is that there will be regular free content, but also a paid option, which will include the full run of the original Stoic Breviary book, and ultimately a revised and cleaned-up version of some of the reflections on Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Musonius Rufus, and Seneca. 

Now we don't think it right to demand payment for philosophy, following the example of Socrates. This is why anyone who is struggling financially has always been sent a free copy of the original book, and why this creaky Blogger site will continue to offer the original entries, warts and all. 

However, if you wish to support A Stoic Breviary with donations, the Substack page exists as a convenient means for that very purpose. It is an option for the generous soul, not a requirement. 

Thank you for reading along! 

Sayings of Publilius Syrus 112

It is barbarity, not courage, that can slay babes. 

IMAGE: Giotto, The Massacre of the Innocents (c. 1306) 

Ellis Walker, Epictetus in Poetical Paraphrase 40

XL. 

Let modest silence by your greatest care
In human conversation, and beware
Of being over talkative, and shun
That lewd perpetual motion of the tongue,
That itch of speaking much, and be content
That your discourse (though short) be pertinent;
And when occasion serves, then speak your sense,
Without an over-weening confidence.
Nor catch at ev'ry bait, nor open at
The common opportunities of chat:
As, such a fencer play'd his part with skill,
That, like a wrestler, breaks what rib he will:
That such a horse is of the fleetest kind,
And that his dam engender'd with the wind;
That a full cry of deep-mouth'd, long-ear'd hounds
Is the most sweet and ravishing of sounds:
That such a lord with the best wines doth treat,
Has the best cook, is the best read in meat. 
These are the thead-bare themes that please the crowd,
The ignorant, the thoughtless, and the proud.
But chiefly shun discourse concerning men,
Nor fondly this man praise, and that condemn;
For all immod'rate, and too lavish praise,
Too great an expectation's apt to raise;
And by reviling others you express
Your little wisdom, but much bitterness:
Nor with absurd comparisons defame
One man, by adding to another's name:
For thus, by way of foyle, the one's disgrace
Sets off the character you mean to raise;
With hemlock this you crown, and that with bays. 

Seneca, Moral Letters 50.1

Letter 50: On our blindness and its cure 

I received your letter many months after you had posted it; accordingly, I thought it useless to ask the carrier what you were busied with. He must have a particularly good memory if he can remember that! 

But I hope by this time you are living in such a way that I can be sure what it is you are busied with, no matter where you may be. For what else are you busied with except improving yourself every day, laying aside some error, and coming to understand that the faults which you attribute to circumstances are in yourself? 
 
We are indeed apt to ascribe certain faults to the place or to the time; but those faults will follow us, no matter how we change our place. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 50 
 
We say we are busy in our careers, and we largely limit the term “business” to mean that by which we earn a profit. We say that our time should be spent productively, by which we mean the most efficient way to accumulate wealth. When we are asked “what we do”, we are trained to respond by offering our trade. 
 
It’s a shame to reduce people to trifling labels. What does it tell us about our priorities when we define ourselves by such servile standards? “Making a living” should be about human formation, not about moving around little pieces of paper. 
 
Though I know that some people do so merely to be facetious, I enjoy it when a man lists his profession as something like “a seeker of the truth” or “an imbiber of beauty” or “a wanderer on the back roads”. He is at least aware that he is made for far more than punching the clock. 
 
We have one job, which is a full-time job, and that is to become a little better as human beings daily, and that is achieved by the increase of the virtues. That is the only currency that counts in this life. Any other chores we undertake must be in service to that noble vocation. 
 
Instead of taking credit for fiddling about with the circumstances of life, taking full responsibility for oneself means rising above those circumstances. As long as I am blaming the way of the world for my ills, or accusing others of bringing me down, I still have far to go in my quest for self-improvement. 
 
I won’t become any better, and thereby any happier, by getting a fancier job, or showing off an adorable family, or buying that nice house in the suburbs. Whatever I claim to own, it will be as nothing if I don’t first genuinely own myself. 
 
If I don’t expunge my vices, they will continue to assail me, wherever I happen to go, and with whomever I happen to rub shoulders. 

—Reflection written in 3/2013 

Maxims of Goethe 10

It is a very hard and troublesome thing to dispose of whole, half-, and quarter-mistakes; to sift them and assign the portion of truth to its proper place. 

IMAGE: Louise Seidler, J.W. Goethe (1811) 

William Hogarth, A Harlot's Progress 5

Moll is dying of syphilis in a run-down room, as her doctors argue over her treatment, her landlady rifles through her possessions, and the maid has had enough of the ruckus. Meanwhile, Moll's son sits by the fire, picking fleas out of his hair. 

A professor of mine loved how the clothes on the line above Moll appear like a spirit reaching down to grab her soul. 

The two doctors are well-known physicians of the time, Richard Rock and Jean Misaubin, so Hogarth can put in a jab at the vanities of the medical world. They are apparently disagreeing about whether to use bleeding or cupping with their patient, oblivious to the fact that neither treatment will do one bit of good. 

The modern viewer will, of course, find such methods barbaric, though we should be careful we don't blindly assume our own "cures" are any better. To this day, we still bow and scrape to our doctors, and all too often they leave us far poorer, though just as sick. 

I am told the small detail to the left of the door is a piece of matzah being used as a flytrap, which may be a clue that Moll's former "benefactor" is still quietly paying her bills. Lascivious men will often try to cover for their sins with cold, hard cash. 

William Hogarth, A Harlot's Progress, Plate 5 (1732) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 49.6

You are mistaken if you think that only on an ocean voyage there is a very slight space between life and death. No, the distance between is just as narrow everywhere. It is not everywhere that death shows himself so near at hand; yet everywhere he is as near at hand.
 
Rid me of these shadowy terrors; then you will more easily deliver to me the instruction for which I have prepared myself. At our birth Nature made us teachable, and gave us reason, not perfect, but capable of being perfected.
 
Discuss for me justice, duty, thrift, and that twofold purity, both the purity which abstains from another's person, and that which takes care of one's own self. 
 
If you will only refuse to lead me along by-paths, I shall more easily reach the goal at which I am aiming. For, as the tragic poet says: 
 
“The language of truth is simple.”
 
We should not, therefore, make that language intricate; since there is nothing less fitting for a soul of great endeavor than such crafty cleverness. Farewell. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 49 
 
I knew a fine young lady who was horrified of flying, such that even the sight of a plane overhead would make her shiver. She took all of her trips by car or by train, until one day she was tragically killed while driving home from work. 
 
I am not a violent man, but I’m afraid I did lose my temper and punch a boorish fellow for making a tasteless joke about her passing. The fact is that we understandably shy away from situations we think are dangerous, and yet the very real prospect of death hovers around us constantly. We should never take it lightly. 
 
I, for one, am deeply uncomfortable around the water, and I have recurring nightmares about drowning. As much as I dread the idea of getting on board a ship, I could just as easily take an awkward tumble and crack my skull the next time I get up from my cozy desk. Let me be prepared. 
 
Can I do this by avoiding anything that might cause me harm? No, the solution is, as always, within me. Let me subdue my fear by living as best I can, for I do not know how or when I will perish. If the job has been well done, there need be no anxiety about being relieved of duty. 
 
And what is this work to which I am called? Thankfully, there is nothing mysterious or complex about it, though the “experts” would like us to think it demands their professional qualifications. No, I must only look at my own nature to recognize how, regardless of the circumstances, I was given a mind to embrace understanding, and a will to extend love. 
 
I wasn’t born with the answers, but I was born with the power to reflect upon myself. No rocket science is required. If I cling to the virtues as the perfection of my humanity, I have nothing to fear, for there is nothing that can injure my dignity or hinder my purpose. 
 
As I grow more and more confident in these convictions, more and more people snigger at me, telling me I am being unrealistic and impractical. I can only ask them to take another look at who they are, and to reconsider what it is they truly need to be happy. 
 
What could be more “real” than fulfilling the essential duty of a human being? The rest is window dressing. What could be more “practical” than caring for the purity of my soul, the very core of my identity? If you must, you may keep your trinkets—I choose to define myself by the love of the truth. 
 
If you are still laughing, please ask yourself what brings you the most grief in life. Isn’t it dealing with cruel and shifty people, which then makes you believe you must be cruel and shifty in return? 
 
All of those problems will disappear the moment you decide that character and integrity are all that count. If a man is prudent, brave, temperate, and just, he will not bring suffering to either himself or to others. All the rest takes care of itself once that is achieved. 
 
Keep it simple. Don’t let the sophists convince you it has to be cryptic and convoluted. 

—Reflection written in 3/2013 

Allegory of Vices and Virtues

Jules Joseph Lefebvre, Allegory of Vices and Virtues (c. 1870) 

In a shift from the more traditional depictions of the virtues and the vices, Lefebvre here offers a different set of symbols to reflect the moral struggle of a young man. 

On the left are Venus and her followers, luring him with the promises of lust, drink, music, and dance. 

On the right are Glory, Silence, Victory, and Piety, proposing another path of life. 

We don't see his face, but he still seems confused. We all have our own variations. 

Time

As a reference for Seneca, Moral Letters 49 and James Vila Blake, Sonnets from Marcus Aurelius 6: 

Those of my generation will still remember this song, though the most cynical and jaded of my peers would mock its clichéd sentimentality. Yet many years later, I find how those very same people will post it on social media when their mothers and fathers pass away. 

It isn't that the song has changed, it's that folks eventually figure out how time passes gently but inescapably. Time can be a harsh mistress. Whatever plans I have to make her fit my whims are hopelessly misguided, and whatever regrets I brood over are usually uncovered far too late. 

Since all creatures are so ephemeral, it is best to do what needs to be done, and to say what needs to be said, before the opportunity is forever lost. 

The Alan Parsons Project, "Time" from The Turn of a Friendly Card (1980) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhRzORqNa0E 

Time, flowing like a river 
Time, beckoning me 
Who knows when 
We shall meet again, if ever 
But time keeps flowing 
Like a river to the sea 

Goodbye my love 
Maybe for forever 
Goodbye my love 
The tide waits for me 
Who knows when 
We shall meet again, if ever 
But time keeps flowing 
Like a river (on and on) 
To the sea, to the sea 

'Til it's gone forever 
Gone forever 
Gone forevermore 

Goodbye my friend 
(Goodbye my love) 
Maybe for forever 
Goodbye my friend 
(Who knows when
We shall meet again) 
The stars wait for me 
Who knows where 
We shall meet again, if ever 
But time keeps flowing 
Like a river (on and on) 
To the sea, to the sea 

'Til it's gone forever 
Gone forever 
Gone forever 
Gone forever now 
Forevermore, forevermore 

Delphic Maxims 21

Παιδείας ἀντέχου 

Cling to discipline 

James Vila Blake, Sonnets from Marcus Aurelius 6

6.  

Ποταμός τις ἐστι τῶν γινομένων καὶ ῥεῦμα βίαιόν ὁ αἰών: ἅμα τε γὰρ ὥφθη ἕκαστον καὶ παρενήνεκται, καὶ ἄλλο παραφέρεται, τὸ δὲ ἐνεχθήσεται. 

Time is like a river, or a streaming on, of all things that come to pass, even a violent flood of them. Each thing is no sooner seen than swept past, and another is sweeping by, and this also will be carried away. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.43 

6. 

There be drops small, and large drops, all being rain, 

Making the ocean, rivers and rivulets; 

There be moments slender, and mighty moments amain—

Time’s tide, or torrents of hours, or minutary jets. 

The brooks and rivers that to oceans run, 

Navies and nations on their bosoms bear; 

The pendule’s pulses into centuries done 

Torrential whirl alike the foul and fair. 

All things rush on. One doth but well arrive 

Before ’tis gone—another hath his room— 

That too is sped in cresty fog and dive— 

All with distinguished shapes, all to one doom. 

Here do I halt to see them swirling by; 

And as they go, I drown them in mine eye. 

IMAGE: Hermann Herzog, Raging River (c. 1860) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 49.5

And yet I may well seem in your eyes no less mad, if I spend my energies on that sort of thing; for even now I am in a state of siege. And yet, in the former case it would be merely a peril from the outside that threatened me, and a wall that sundered me from the foe; as it is now, death-dealing perils are in my very presence. I have no time for such nonsense; a mighty undertaking is on my hands. 
 
What am I to do? Death is on my trail, and life is fleeting away; teach me something with which to face these troubles. Bring it to pass that I shall cease trying to escape from death, and that life may cease to escape from me. Give me courage to meet hardships; make me calm in the face of the unavoidable.
 
Relax the straitened limits of the time which is allotted me. Show me that the good in life does not depend upon life's length, but upon the use we make of it; also, that it is possible, or rather usual, for a man who has lived long to have lived too little. 
 
Say to me when I lie down to sleep: "You may not wake again!" And when I have waked: "You may not go to sleep again!" Say to me when I go forth from my house: "You may not return!" And when I return: "You may never go forth again!" 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 49 
 
I understand why military analogies can fall flat, since not all of us possess the capacity for going to war, and the drudgery of everyday life seems so far removed from the heroic deeds of a soldier. 
 
How could I possibly compare the siege of a city to my humdrum attempts at acting with a smidgen of integrity? Aren’t these two totally different sorts of honor? 
 
Do not be deceived. Battles take on many forms, and the ones that matter the most take place on the inside, not on the outside. 
 
The young soldier confronts the fear of death to do his duty, while the old sage conquers the fear of death by treasuring the virtues. The one worries that he might die, the other accepts that he must die, and in their own ways they both come to understand why living well is so much more important than merely living. 
 
Know that the time granted is sorely limited, and how Fortune do not take kindly to do-overs. The only way to find that strength is by joining my own will to the will of Providence. It is as if our lives have been set out before us so we can learn to cherish quality over quantity. 
 
Some may consider Seneca’s wishes here to be morbid, but that is because they are still perceiving death itself to be an evil. I should be acutely aware that death can come at any time, in order that I might treat each and every moment as precious. 
 
Upon waking and upon going to sleep, when leaving the home and when returning to it, imagining it as the last time reminds me to act on my conscience right here and now, never assuming I can delay until tomorrow. He who hesitates is lost. 

—Reflection written in 3/2013 

IMAGE: Rembrandt, An Old Man in an Armchair (c. 1650) 

Plutarch, The Life of Cato the Younger 8

When the Servile War was in progress,​ which was called the war of Spartacus, Gellius​ was commander, while Cato took part in his campaign as a volunteer, for the sake of his brother; for his brother Caepio was a military tribune. 

Here he had not the opportunity to employ as much as he wished his zeal and discipline in virtue, because the war was not well conducted; but notwithstanding, amidst the great effeminacy and luxury of those who took part in that campaign, he displayed such good discipline, self-control, courage in all emergencies, and sagacity, that men thought him not one whit inferior to the elder Cato. 

Moreover, Gellius assigned to him prizes of valor and distinguished honors; but Cato would not take them nor allow them, declaring that he had done nothing worthy of honors. And so, in consequence of this, he was thought to be a strange creature. 

For instance, a law was passed forbidding candidates for office to be attended by nomenclators,​ and in his canvass for the military tribune­ship he was the only one who obeyed the law. 

He made it his business to salute and address without help from others those who met him on his rounds, but he did not avoid giving offense even to those who praised his course; for the more clearly they saw the rectitude of his practice, the more distressed were they at the difficulty of imitating it. 

Sayings of Ramakrishna 208

As a piece of lead, thrown into a basin of mercury, is soon dissolved therein, so the human soul loses its individual existence when it falls into the ocean of Brâhma. 

Seneca, Moral Letters 49.4

Why do you torment yourself and lose weight over some problem which it is more clever to have scorned than to solve?
 
When a soldier is undisturbed and travelling at his ease, he can hunt for trifles along his way; but when the enemy is closing in on the rear, and a command is given to quicken the pace, necessity makes him throw away everything which he picked up in moments of peace and leisure. have no time to investigate disputed inflections of words, or to try my cunning upon them. 
 
“Behold the gathering clans, the fast-shut gates, 
And weapons whetted ready for the war.”
 
I need a stout heart to hear without flinching this din of battle which sounds round about.
 
And all would rightly think me mad if, when greybeards and women were heaping up rocks for the fortifications, when the armor-clad youths inside the gates were awaiting, or even demanding, the order for a sally, when the spears of the foemen were quivering in our gates and the very ground was rocking with mines and subterranean passages—I say, they would rightly think me mad if I were to sit idle, putting such petty posers as this: "What you have not lost, you have. But you have not lost any horns. Therefore, you have horns," or other tricks constructed after the model of this piece of sheer silliness. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 49 
 
I am most familiar with wasting time in academia, though I have sadly seen it in all walks of life, from a dozen construction workers standing around while one is digging a trench, to the tortuous meetings held in most any of the conference rooms across the country. 
 
The urgency to live only becomes apparent when we embrace a noble purpose to live. In lacking aim, we awkwardly muddle through the day, more concerned with appearing occupied than bothering to achieve anything of human value. 
 
Here the consummate professional takes great offense, and he insists on his many worthy achievements, though he remains ignorant of how all of them concern fiddling about with circumstances, while none of them are about the formation of character. He is especially outraged because you may be seeing through his disguise. 
 
I’m afraid most of the tasks I’ve spent my time trying to complete weren’t really productive at all, but rather exercises in busywork, and most of the problems I’ve tried to solve were artifices, elaborate ruses designed to avoid making genuine commitments. Recognition is the first step to reformation. 
 
Military analogies may be out of fashion at the moment, yet they are ideal for representing the gravity of putting everything on the line for the sake of conviction. Even as a soldier may polish his boots to a perfect shine when he is back in camp, he would be a fool to worry about getting them dirty as he charges into battle. 
 
It should be no different when any of us are faced with a challenge of conscience. If it is time for action, we do not have the leisure to play games with words or hide behind equivocations. Fortitude has no place for turning technicalities into excuses, and it won’t help us one bit to ponder a principle without choosing to live it. 

 
When presented with a real-life difficulty, forming a committee to further explore the matter is the mark of a shirker. Beware of those who prefer talking over doing. 
 
As Marcus Aurelius said, “Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.” 
 
Or as Thomas a Kempis said, “I would rather feel compunction than know its definition." 

—Reflection written in 3/2013 

IMAGE: Juan de la Corte, Battle Scene with a Roman Army Besieging a Large City (c. 1640) 

Stoic Snippets 196

Wipe out imagination. 

Check desire. 

Extinguish appetite. 

Keep the ruling faculty in its own power. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.7 

IMAGE: Gregorio Lazzarini, Reason Ordering Temperance to Restrain Avarice (1723)