Stoic Sage

Whenever you see someone in tears, distraught because they are parted from a child, or have met with some material loss, be careful lest the impression move you to believe that their circumstances are truly bad. Have ready the reflection that they are not upset by what happened – because other people are not upset when the same thing happens to them – but by their own view of the matter. Nevertheless, you should not disdain to sympathize with them, at least with comforting words, or even to the extent of sharing outwardly in their grief. But do not commiserate with your whole heart and soul.

Enchiridion 16.1

Don’t look down on death, but welcome it. It too is one of the things required by nature. Like youth and old age. Like growth and maturity. Like a new set of teeth, a beard, the first gray hair. Like sex and pregnancy and childbirth. Like all the other physical changes at each stage of life, our dissolution is no different. So this is how a thoughtful person should await death: not with indifference, not with impatience, not with disdain, but simply viewing it as one of the things that happen to us. Now you anticipate the child’s emergence from its mother’s womb; that’s how you should await the hour when your soul will emerge from its compartment. Or perhaps you need some tidy aphorism to tuck away in the back of your mind. Well, consider two things that should reconcile you to death: the nature of the things you’ll leave behind you, and the kind of people you’ll no longer be mixed up with. There’s no need to feel resentment toward them—in fact, you should look out for their well-being, and be gentle with them—but keep in mind that everything you believe is meaningless to those you leave behind. Because that’s all that could restrain us (if anything could)—the only thing that could make us want to stay here: the chance to live with those who share our vision. But now? Look how tiring it is—this cacophony we live in. Enough to make you say to death, “Come quickly. Before I start to forget myself, like them.”

Meditations 9.3

That I had good grandparents, a good mother and father, a good sister, good teachers, good servants, relatives, friends—almost without exception. And that I never lost control of myself with any of them, although I had it in me to do that, and I might have, easily. But thanks to the gods, I was never put in that position, and so escaped the test. That I wasn’t raised by my grandfather’s girlfriend for longer than I was. That I didn’t lose my virginity too early, and didn’t enter adulthood until it was time—put it off, even. That I had someone—as a ruler and as a father—who could keep me from being arrogant and make me realize that even at court you can live without a troop of bodyguards, and gorgeous clothes, lamps, sculpture—the whole charade. That you can behave almost like an ordinary person without seeming slovenly or careless as a ruler or when carrying out official obligations. That I had the kind of brother I did. One whose character challenged me to improve my own. One whose love and affection enriched my life. That my children weren’t born stupid or physically deformed. That I wasn’t more talented in rhetoric or poetry, or other areas. If I’d felt that I was making better progress I might never have given them up. That I conferred on the people who brought me up the honors they seemed to want early on, instead of putting them off (since they were still young) with the hope that I’d do it later. That I knew Apollonius, and Rusticus, and Maximus. That I was shown clearly and often what it would be like to live as nature requires. The gods did all they could—through their gifts, their help, their inspiration—to ensure that I could live as nature demands. And if I’ve failed, it’s no one’s fault but mine. Because I didn’t pay attention to what they told me—to what they taught me, practically, step by step. That my body has held out, especially considering the life I’ve led. That I never laid a finger on Benedicta or on Theodotus. And that even later, when I was overcome by passion, I recovered from it. That even though I was often upset with Rusticus I never did anything I would have regretted later. That even though she died young, at least my mother spent her last years with me. That whenever I felt like helping someone who was short of money, or otherwise in need, I never had to be told that I had no resources to do it with. And that I was never put in that position myself—of having to take something from someone else. That I have the wife I do: obedient, loving, humble. That my children had competent teachers. Remedies granted through dreams—when I was coughing blood, for instance, and having fits of dizziness. And the one at Caieta. That when I became interested in philosophy I didn’t fall into the hands of charlatans, and didn’t get bogged down in writing treatises, or become absorbed by logic-chopping, or preoccupied with physics. All things for which “we need the help of fortune and the gods.”

Meditations 1.17

‘Well, it had to have been something that affected you so much that you walked out on your child. It might be related to the impulse that made a man at Rome cover his head while his favourite horse was running, and who later required sponges to be revived when his horse unexpectedly won. [28] The precise explanation for such behaviour might be out of place here. For now, assuming that philosophy contains at least a grain of truth, it’s enough to be convinced that you will not find it by looking for any cause outside yourself. The same thing is always the reason for our doing or not doing something, for saying or not saying something, for being elated or depressed, for going after something or avoiding it. [29] It’s the same reason that you’re here now listening to me, and I’m saying the things that I’m now saying – [30] our opinion that all these things are right.’ ‘Of course.’ ‘If we saw things differently we would act differently, in line with our different idea of what is right and wrong. [31] This, then, was the cause of Achilles’ lamentations – not the fact that Patroclus died, since other people don’t carry on so when a friend or companion dies – but the fact that he chose to lament. [32] The same cause lies behind your desertion of your daughter – you thought it was a good idea at the time. Conversely, if you stay with her, it would be for the same reason. Now you are about to return to Rome; that is your decision – but if it changes, you won’t go. [33] In other words, it isn’t death, pain, exile or anything else you care to mention that accounts for the way we act, only our opinion about death, pain and the rest.

Discourses 1.11.27

From this comes that boredom and dissatisfaction and the vacillation of a mind that nowhere finds rest, and the sad and languid endurance of one’s leisure; especially when one is ashamed to confess the real causes of this condition and bashfulness drives its tortures inward; the desires pent up within narrow bounds, from which there is no escape, strangle one another. Thence comes mourning and melancholy and the thousand waverings of an unsettled mind, which its aspirations hold in suspense and then disappointment renders melancholy. Thence comes that feeling which makes men loathe their own leisure and complain that they themselves have nothing to be busy with; thence too the bitterest jealousy of the advancements of others. For their unhappy sloth fosters envy, and, because they could not succeed themselves, they wish every one else to be ruined; then from this aversion to the progress of others and despair of their own their mind becomes incensed against Fortune, and complains of the times, and retreats into corners and broods over its trouble until it becomes weary and sick of itself. For it is the nature of the human mind to be active and prone to movement. Welcome to it is every opportunity for excitement and distraction, and still more welcome to all those worst natures which willingly wear themselves out in being employed. Just as there are some sores which crave the hands that will hurt them and rejoice to be touched, and as a foul itch of the body delights in whatever scratches, exactly so, I would say, do these minds upon which, so to speak, desires have broken out like wicked sores find pleasure in toil and vexation. For there are certain things that delight our body also while causing it a sort of pain, as turning over and changing a side that is not yet tired and taking one position after another to get cool. Homer’s hero Achilles is like that—lying now on his face, now on his back, placing himself in various attitudes, and, just as sick men do, enduring nothing very long and using changes as remedies.

On the Tranquillity of Mind 2.4