Seneca, Moral Letters 63.5

He who writes these words to you is no other than I, who wept so excessively for my dear friend Annaeus Serenus that, in spite of my wishes, I must be included among the examples of men who have been overcome by grief. 
 
Today, however, I condemn this act of mine, and I understand that the reason why I lamented so greatly was chiefly that I had never imagined it possible for his death to precede mine. The only thought which occurred to my mind was that he was the younger, and much younger, too—as if the Fates kept to the order of our ages! 
 
Therefore, let us continually think as much about our own mortality as about that of all those we love. In former days I ought to have said: "My friend Serenus is younger than I; but what does that matter? He would naturally die after me, but he may precede me."
 
It was just because I did not do this that I was unprepared when Fortune dealt me the sudden blow. Now is the time for you to reflect, not only that all things are mortal, but also that their mortality is subject to no fixed law. Whatever can happen at any time can happen today.
 
Let us therefore reflect, my beloved Lucilius, that we shall soon come to the goal which this friend, to our own sorrow, has reached. And perhaps, if only the tale told by wise men is true and there is a bourn to welcome us, then he whom we think we have lost has only been sent on ahead. Farewell. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 63 
 
When I more fully understand something, I learn to be more at peace with its nature, and so I will also not so easily let myself be devastated by its failure to comply to my whims. 
 
Knowing how it was meant to be, and why it unfolds as it does, offers an assurance that my commitment has not been in vain. 
 
I have been scolded, by different kinds of folks, both for caring too little and for caring too much, and yet I now find that the prudent path is about the quality of the caring, not about its quantity. 
 
How am I ordering and directing my attachments? Do I seek out how to serve what I love, or do I expect it to gratify me? Once it passes on, will I be glad for what it was, for its own sake, or will I demand its continuation, for my own convenience? 
 
Like Seneca, I have clung too tightly, and it was always because I did not consider how precious something was while I still possessed it. 
 
By taking it for granted, I treated it as an entitlement, and not as a gift. If I do not appreciate the fullness of its dignity at this one very moment, I am not really respecting it at all, by attaching my various terms and conditions. 
 
In this light, it can once again make far more sense of why the Stoics constantly keep in mind the transience of all creatures. When we consciously reflect upon mortality, everything in life becomes brighter and sweeter, as there is now no need for a stagnation of permanence. 
 
The sudden spark is then just as hot as the slow burn of an ember. 
 
If my beloved is lost, there will be less sorrow once I grasp how the same fate awaits us all, and why it is always right and proper for it to be so. For the new to arise, the old must give way. 
 
Will there be some future state when we meet again? Perhaps, but only if Providence is willing, and even then, such a prospect for the future should not be my motive for loving without reservation in the present. 

—Reflection written in 6/2013 

IMAGE: Frederick William Elwell, The Wedding Dress (1911) 

Sayings of Publilius Syrus 134

Turn a deaf ear to calumnious reports. 

IMAGE: Sandro Botticelli, The Calumny of Apelles (c. 1495) 

From left to right: Truth, pointing to Heaven. Repentance, in black. Perfidy, in red and yellow, and Calumny, in white and blue, assault a helpless victim. Fraud is arranging Calumny's hair. Rancor reaches out to cover the King's eyes. Ignorance and Suspicion speak into the King's donkey ears. 

Justus Lipsius, On Constancy 1.1

(1584) 

A preface and introduction; also a complaint of the troubles of the Low Countries. 

A few years past, as I traveled toward Vienna in Austria, I turned aside, not without God's direction, to the town of Liege, being not far out of my way, and where I had some friends, whom both for custom and good will I was persuaded to salute. 

Among whom was Charles Langius, a man, simply and without boasting be it spoken, for virtue and learning the chief of the Flemings. Who having received me into his house, tempered my entertainment, not only with courtesy and good will, but also with such communication as was profitable unto me, and will be while I live. 

For he was the man that opened my eyes by driving away the clouds of some vulgar opinions: he showed me the pay-way whereby I might directly come, as Lucretius says,

To the lofty temples of Sages right,

By the clear beams of Learning's light. 

For, as we walked in the porch of his house after noon, the hot sun toward the end of June, being in his full force, he asked me friendly of my journey, and the causes thereof. 

To whom when I had spoken much of the troubles of the Low Countries, of the insolence of the government and soldiers, I added lastly that I pretended other excuses, but this in truth was the cause of my departure. 

"For," said I, "who is of so hard and flinty a heart that can any longer endure these evils? We are tossed, as you see, these many years with the tempest of civil wars: and like sea-faring men are we beaten with sundry blasts of troubles and sedition. 

"If I love quietness and rest, the trumpets and rattling of armor interrupts me. If I take solace in my country gardens and farms, the soldiers and murderers force me into the town. Therefore, Langius, I am resolved, leaving this unfortunate and unhappy Flanders—pardon me my dear country—to change land for land, and to fly into some other part of the world, where I may neither hear of the name, nor facts of a Pelops brood."

Hereat Langius much marveling and moved: "Yea, friend Lipsius, and will you thus leave us?"

"Yes truly," said I, "I will either leave you, or this life. How can I fly from these evils but only by flight? For to see and suffer these things daily as heretofore, I cannot, Langius, neither have I any plate of steel about my heart."

Langius sighed at these words, and therewithal said unto me, "O fond youth, what childishness is this? Or what mind you to seek safety by flying away? This country, I confess, is tossed and turmoiled grievously: What part of Europe is at this day free? So as you may conjecture that saying of Aristophanes to prove true:

Thundering Jupiter will turn all things upside down. 

"Wherefore, Lipsius, you must not forsake your country, but the affections. Our minds must be so confirmed and conformed, that we may be at rest in troubles, and have peace even in the midst of war." 

Hereto I, rashly enough, replied: "Nay surely, I will forsake my country, knowing that it is less grief to hear report of evils than to be an eyewitness unto them. Besides that, thereby we ourselves shall be without danger of the lists: Mark you not what Homer wisely warns? Be out of the weapon's reach; lest that happily some man add one wound unto another." 

IMAGE: Peter Paul Rubens, Portrait of Justus Lipsius (c. 1616) 

Storm on the Sea 16

Alexey Bogolyubov, Rough Sea in Cap Martin (c. 1875) 

Ruins 6

Canaletto, The Ruins of a Temple (c. 1750) 

Vanitas 78

Jean Francois de le Motte, Vanitas (c. 1675) 

Maxims of Goethe 32

Common sense, which is here put forward as the genius of humanity, must be examined first of all in the way it shows itself. 

If we inquire the purpose to which humanity puts it, we find as follows: Humanity is conditioned by needs. If they are not satisfied, men become impatient; and if they are, it seems not to affect them. 

The normal man moves between these two states, and he applies his understanding—his so-called common sense—to the satisfaction of his needs. 

When his needs are satisfied, his task is to fill up the waste spaces of indifference. Here, too, he is successful, if his needs are confined to what is nearest and most necessary. 

But if they rise and pass beyond the sphere of ordinary wants, common sense is no longer sufficient; it is a genius no more, and humanity enters on the region of error. 

Seneca, Moral Letters 63.4

You have buried one whom you loved; look about for someone to love. It is better to replace your friend than to weep for him.
 
What I am about to add is, I know, a very hackneyed remark, but I shall not omit it simply because it is a common phrase: A man ends his grief by the mere passing of time, even if he has not ended it of his own accord. But the most shameful cure for sorrow, in the case of a sensible man, is to grow weary of sorrowing. I should prefer you to abandon grief, rather than have grief abandon you; and you should stop grieving as soon as possible, since, even if you wish to do so, it is impossible to keep it up for a long time.
 
Our forefathers have enacted that, in the case of women, a year should be the limit for mourning; not that they needed to mourn for so long, but that they should mourn no longer. In the case of men, no rules are laid down, because to mourn at all is not regarded as honorable. 
 
For all that, what woman can you show me, of all the pathetic females that could scarcely be dragged away from the funeral-pile or torn from the corpse, whose tears have lasted a whole month? Nothing becomes offensive so quickly as grief; when fresh, it finds someone to console it and attracts one or another to itself; but after becoming chronic, it is ridiculed, and rightly. For it is either assumed or foolish. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 63 
 
It is not that a friend is somehow disposable, but rather that if a friend must pass, as all things ultimately must do, then this is not a reason to despair of love. I have an unfortunate tendency to give up on others, and to give up on myself, when I face a setback, and I must remember that friendship is never to be rejected simply because a moment has gone. I am now called to lift myself up, and to give of myself for the next moment—in that case, nothing can be said to have been lost at all. 
 
Seneca addresses the problem of lasting grief far more closely in his three Consolations, which I must admit I can find very difficult to read, precisely because they go straight to the heart of my own sort of sorrow. 
 
I initially feel misunderstood when he stresses the necessity of “moving on”, because it sounds too much like a heartless criticism, and yet what I am missing is the fact that I am the only hindrance to my own recovery, and that I urgently need to take control of myself instead of allowing myself to be tossed and turned by circumstances. 
 
No, Seneca is absolutely right to put the ball back in my court. That he is taking the time to offer comfort is itself proof of his sympathy, and he wishes for us, whatever the specifics of our heartache, to finally find peace of mind. The passage of time can certainly remove, or at least diminish, grief, though that avoids the central problem, my unwillingness to become my own master. 
 
If the sadness is to drag on and on, and I then only become tired of carrying it, I haven’t gotten to the root of the matter, and the next upset in my life will be just as severe. While I should not seek to deny my emotions, I should take them by the horns. Le them say what the must say, and then let me make my judgment about them, with firmness and finality. 
 
I don’t know if a woman should mourn for no more than a year, or if a man should not be seen to be mourning at all, yet I do know that choosing to dwell on a loss is a betrayal of my responsibility to myself. Don’t ignore it, don’t deny it, but be sure to let it know who’s the boss. My own thinking ends up being my own worst enemy. 

—Reflection written in 6/2013 

IMAGE: Bertha Wegmann, Despair (c. 1900) 

Delphic Maxims 43

Πᾶσιν ἁρμόζου 

Adapt yourself to all things 

Chuang Tzu 5.1

In Lû there was Wang Thâi who had lost both his feet; while his disciples who followed and went about with him were as numerous as those of Kung-nì. Khang Kì asked Kung-nì about him, saying: 

"Though Wang Thâi is a cripple, the disciples who follow him about divide Lû equally with you, Master. When he stands, he does not teach them; when he sits, he does not discourse to them. But they go to him empty, and come back full. Is there indeed such a thing as instruction without words? And while the body is imperfect, may the mind be complete? What sort of man is he?" 

Kung-nì replied, "This master is a sage. I have only been too late in going to him. I will make him my teacher; and how much more should those do so who are not equal to me! Why should only the state of Lû follow him? I will lead on all under heaven with me to do so." 

Khang Kì rejoined, "He is a man who has lost his feet, and yet he is known as the venerable Wang—he must be very different from ordinary men. What is the peculiar way in which he employs his mind?" 

The reply was, "Death and life are great considerations, but they could work no change in him. Though heaven and earth were to be overturned and fall, they would occasion him no loss. His judgment is fixed regarding that in which there is no element of falsehood; and, while other things change, he changes not. The transformations of things are to him the developments prescribed for them, and he keeps fast hold of the author of them." 

Khang Kì said, "What do you mean?" 

"When we look at things," said Kung-nì, "as they differ, we see them to be different, as for instance the liver and the gall, or Khû and Yüeh; when we look at them, as they agree, we see them all to be a unity. 

"So it is with this Wang Thâi. He takes no knowledge of the things for which his ears and eyes are the appropriate organs, but his mind delights itself in the harmony of all excellent qualities. He looks at the unity which belongs to things, and does not perceive where they have suffered loss. He looks on the loss of his feet as only the loss of so much earth." 

Khang Kì said, "He is entirely occupied with his proper self. By his knowledge he has discovered the nature of his mind, and to that he holds as what is unchangeable; but how is it that men make so much of him?" 

The reply was, "Men do not look into running water as a mirror, but into still water—it is only the still water that can arrest them all, and keep them in the contemplation of their real selves. 

"Of things which are what they are by the influence of the earth, it is only the pine and cypress which are the best instances—in winter as in summer brightly green. 

"Of those which were what they were by the influence of heaven, the most correct examples were Yâo and Shun; fortunate in thus maintaining their own life correct, and so as to correct the lives of others. 

"As a verification of the power of the original endowment, when it has been preserved, take the result of fearlessness—how the heroic spirit of a single brave soldier has been thrown into an army of nine hosts. 

"If a man only seeking for fame and able in this way to secure it can produce such an effect, how much more may we look for a greater result from one whose rule is over heaven and earth, and holds all things in his treasury, who simply has his lodging in the six members of his body, whom his ears and eyes serve but as conveying emblematic images of things, who comprehends all his knowledge in a unity, and whose mind never dies! 

"If such a man were to choose a day on which he would ascend far on high, men would seek to follow him there. But how should he be willing to occupy himself with other men?" 

Sayings of Ramakrishna 231

Q: What is the reason that a Prophet is not honored by his own kinsmen? 

A: The kinsmen of a juggler do not crowd round him to see his performances, while strangers stand agape at his wonderful tricks. 

IMAGE: Rembrandt, Jeremiah Lamenting the Destruction of Jerusalem (1630) 

Wisdom from the Bhagavad Gita 66

72. Has this been heard by you, Pârtha, with an attentive mind? Has the delusion of your ignorance been destroyed, O Dhananjaya? 

Arjuna said: 

73. Destroyed is my delusion, and I have gained my memory through Your grace, O Achyuta. I am firm; my doubts are gone. I will do Your word. 

Sanjaya said: 

74. Thus have I heard this wonderful dialogue between Vâsudeva and the high-souled Pârtha, causing my hair to stand on end. 

75. Through the grace of Vyâsa have I heard this supreme and most profound Yoga, direct from Krishna, the Lord of Yoga, Himself declaring it. 

76. O King, as I remember and remember this wonderful and holy dialogue between Keshava and Arjuna, I rejoice again and again. 

77. And as I remember and remember that most wonderful Form of Hari, great is my wonder, O King; and I rejoice again and again. 

78. Wherever is Krishna, the Lord of Yoga, wherever is Pârtha, the wielder of the bow, there are prosperity, victory, expansion, and sound policy: such is my conviction. 

—Bhagavad Gita, 18:72-78 

Here the Bhagavad Gita ends. 
Om! Peace! Peace! Peace be to all! 

Seneca, Moral Letters 63.3

Therefore, Lucilius, act as befits your own serenity of mind, and cease to put a wrong interpretation on the gifts of Fortune. Fortune has taken away, but Fortune has given.
 
Let us greedily enjoy our friends, because we do not know how long this privilege will be ours. Let us think how often we shall leave them when we go upon distant journeys, and how often we shall fail to see them when we tarry together in the same place; we shall thus understand that we have lost too much of their time while they were alive.
 
But will you tolerate men who are most careless of their friends, and then mourn them most abjectly, and do not love anyone unless they have lost him? The reason why they lament too unrestrainedly at such times is that they are afraid lest men doubt whether they really have loved; all too late they seek for proofs of their emotions.
 
If we have other friends, we surely deserve ill at their hands and think ill of them, if they are of so little account that they fail to console us for the loss of one. If, on the other hand, we have no other friends, we have injured ourselves more than Fortune has injured us; since Fortune has robbed us of one friend, but we have robbed ourselves of every friend whom we have failed to make.
 
Again, he who has been unable to love more than one, has had none too much love even for that one. If a man who has lost his one and only tunic through robbery chooses to bewail his plight rather than look about him for some way to escape the cold, or for something with which to cover his shoulders, would you not think him an utter fool? 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 63  
 
For something to be taken away, it must first be given, and so the passing is thereby a very part of the presence. If I perceive the loss only as a denial of what I desire, I am failing to recognize how every act of Fortune offers yet another opportunity to act with character. Nothing can be denied if everything is truly appreciated. 
 
Which of us has not wished that we had rightly treasured what is now departed? Indeed, whenever I do find myself feeling this way, I also know that it is once again time to do some serious moral housekeeping, because my remorse is a surefire sign that I was negligent in loving while it remained within my power. 
 
I understand more and more why the Stoic is so insistent on living each moment to the absolute fullest, for the now is the only guarantee. While I know that Horace was more inspired by the Epicureans than by the Stoics, this hardly makes his injunction to “Seize the Day!” any less true for all of us. The good man knows that he must never hesitate to love and to be loved. 
 
Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.
 
Observe, in contrast, the fellow who neglects his supposed friends while they are still alive, and then puts on an elaborate show of mourning and homage once they are gone. I may be tempted to call him a scoundrel, but his need to play at a part for the sake of his image is sadly a mark of his weakness. 
 
He is afraid to give anything of himself, and instead chooses to go through the motions after the fact. And have I not also hidden myself away when I am afraid to risk myself for the sake of a real commitment? I reveal my own inconstancy if I cling to spurious company, or if I consider myself to be safer by choosing no comrades at all. 
 
Friends should surely be chosen wisely, though that is never an excuse to hold myself back from sharing love. As Marcus Aurelius always reminds me, if man is a rational animal, he is also made to be social animal, and a rejection of greater fellowship is a rejection of my very nature. 
 
A loss will cause pain, and yet that should be transformed into a motivation to continue loving. Would not my absent friend wish me to pass on all that we had, the bond that was true, good, and beautiful? 

—Reflection written in 6/2013 

The Noble Nature

"The Noble Nature" 

Ben Jonson (1572-1637) 

It is not growing like a tree 

In bulk, doth make Man better be; 

Or standing long an oak, three hundred year, 

To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere: 

A lily of a day 

Is fairer far in May, 

Although it fall and die that night—

It was the plant and flower of Light. 

In small proportions we just beauties see; 

And in short measures life may perfect be. 

IMAGE: Luis Ricardo Falero, The Lily Fairy (1888) 

Wisdom from the Early Cynics, Diogenes 26

Once Diogenes saw the officials of a temple leading away someone who had stolen a bowl belonging to the treasurers, and said, "The great thieves are leading away the little thief." 

Noticing a lad one day throwing stones at a gallows, "Well done," he said, "you will hit your mark." 

When some boys clustered round him and said, "Take care he doesn't bite us," he answered, "Never fear, boys, a dog does not eat beetroot." 

To one who was proud of wearing a lion's skin his words were, "Leave off dishonoring the habiliments of courage." 

When someone was extolling the good fortune of Callisthenes and saying what splendor he shared in the suite of Alexander, "Not so," said Diogenes, "but rather ill fortune; for he breakfasts and dines when Alexander thinks fit." 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 6.45 

Wisdom from the Early Stoics, Zeno of Citium 66

Goods comprise the virtues of prudence, justice, courage, temperance, and the rest; while the opposites of these are evils, namely, folly, injustice, and the rest. 

Neutral (neither good nor evil, that is) are all those things which neither benefit nor harm a man: such as life, health, pleasure, beauty, strength, wealth, fair fame and noble birth, and their opposites, death, disease, pain, ugliness, weakness, poverty, ignominy, low birth, and the like. 

This Hecato affirms in his De Fine, book VII, and also Apollodorus in his Ethics, and Chrysippus. For, say they, such things (as life, health, and pleasure) are not in themselves goods, but are morally indifferent, though falling under the species or subdivision "things preferred." 

For as the property of hot is to warm, not to cool, so the property of good is to benefit, not to injure; but wealth and health do no more benefit than injury, therefore neither wealth nor health is good. 

Further, they say that that is not good of which both good and bad use can be made; but of wealth and health both good and bad use can be made; therefore wealth and health are not goods. On the other hand, Posidonius maintains that these things too are among goods. 

Hecato in the ninth book of his treatise On Goods, and Chrysippus in his work On Pleasure, deny that pleasure is a good either; for some pleasures are disgraceful, and nothing disgraceful is good. 

—Diogenes Laërtius, 7.102-103 

IMAGE: Adriaen van de Velde, Allegory of Innocence Between Virtues and Vices (1662) 

Stoic Snippets 224

If a man is mistaken, instruct him kindly and show him his error. 

But if you are not able, blame yourself, or blame not even yourself. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 10.4 

IMAGE: Norman Rockwell, A Country School (1946) 

Cosmos 5

Seneca, Moral Letters 63.2

"What," you say, "am I to forget my friend?" It is surely a short-lived memory that you vouchsafe to him, if it is to endure only as long as your grief; presently that brow of yours will be smoothed out in laughter by some circumstance, however casual. It is to a time no more distant than this that I put off the soothing of every regret, the quieting of even the bitterest grief. 
 
As soon as you cease to observe yourself, the picture of sorrow which you have contemplated will fade away; at present you are keeping watch over your own suffering. But even while you keep watch it slips away from you, and the sharper it is, the more speedily it comes to an end. 
 
Let us see to it that the recollection of those whom we have lost becomes a pleasant memory to us. No man reverts with pleasure to any subject which he will not be able to reflect upon without pain. So too it cannot but be that the names of those whom we have loved and lost come back to us with a sort of sting; but there is a pleasure even in this sting.
 
For, as my friend Attalus used to say: "The remembrance of lost friends is pleasant in the same way that certain fruits have an agreeably acid taste, or as in extremely old wines it is their very bitterness that pleases us. Indeed, after a certain lapse of time, every thought that gave pain is quenched, and the pleasure comes to us unalloyed."
 
If we take the word of Attalus for it, "to think of friends who are alive and well is like enjoying a meal of cakes and honey; the recollection of friends who have passed away gives a pleasure that is not without a touch of bitterness. Yet who will deny that even these things, which are bitter and contain an element of sourness, do serve to arouse the stomach?"
 
For my part, I do not agree with him. To me, the thought of my dead friends is sweet and appealing. For I have had them as if I should one day lose them; I have lost them as if I have them still.  

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 63 
 
When I linger for too long upon a loss, this is not the result of some overwhelming circumstance, but rather of my own hesitation to follow through on the true goods of nature, both my own as well as those of others. 
 
Is it the presence or absence of someone or something that brings me happiness or misery, or should I more properly be looking to my own estimation of persons, places, and things? How it may or may not have happened does not need to determine my peace of mind. 
 
I’m afraid I have become quite adept at such dawdling, such that what should have been a period of shock, succeeded by a healthy pause for inner rebuilding, was foolishly extended into too many years of slow festering. The responsibility was mine, not another’s, though it is hardly necessary to be cruel to myself to make the changes—only sincere conviction is required. 
 
No, Seneca is not asking me to forget my friend who has gone away, and instead offers me a way to remember him in a way that brings me joy through honoring him rightly. 
 
Did he choose to live well, according to the virtues, within the bounds of his own particular time and space? Then that is to his credit. Did I, in turn, choose to live well, inspired by the example of his virtues, in my own particular time and space? Then that is also to my credit, and no more is needed to cement our special human bond. Our friendship, whatever the duration, has served the true, the good, and the beautiful. 
 
A love is no greater for having lasted any longer, and no less deep from being past instead of present. The Stoic prizes a memory for its power to inform the here and now, which is to be treated as if it were the fullness of all time condensed into a single point. 
 
Now Attalus suggested that just as the tongue can learn to enjoy a bitter taste, so the soul can also learn to find pleasure in the absence of the beloved. Indeed, I do know how time has allowed my palate to appreciate what once seemed too harsh, and how reflection has helped me to smile whenever I miss a companion. 
 
Yet I am also willing to rise to Seneca’s further challenge: is it not possible to so refine my judgments that all harshness is finally removed from my feelings? Then only gratitude remains. Where life is loved to the fullest, and without any further conditions, then the passing of a moment contains neither yearning nor regret. 

—Reflection written in 6/2013 

IMAGE: Zygmunt Andrychiewicz, Death of An Artist—The Last Friend (1901) 

I Am an Ant