July 7th - Can I show Odysseus-like determination and perseverance?

July - Duty

July 7th

Our Duty To Learn

“This is what you should teach me, how to be like Odysseus—how to love my country, wife and father, and how, even after suffering shipwreck, I might keep sailing on course to those honourable ends.”

—Seneca, Moral Letters, 88.7b

Many schoolteachers teach The Odyssey all wrong. They teach the dates, they debate whether Homer was really the author or not, whether he was blind, they explain the oral tradition, they tell students what a Cyclops is or how the Trojan Horse worked.

Seneca’s advice to someone studying the classics is to forget all that. The dates, the names, the places—they hardly matter. What matters is the moral. If you got everything else wrong from The Odyssey, but you left understanding the importance of perseverance, the dangers of hubris, the risks of temptation and distraction? Then you really learned something.

We’re not trying to ace tests or impress teachers. We are reading and studying to live, to be good human beings—always and forever.

WEEK XXVIII (28) - Don’t Look For The Third Thing

7th to 13th July

The Stoics teach us that doing well is its own reward. To do the right thing, and to see someone helped by it, is enough. To go around expecting thanks—what Marcus Aurelius described as the “third thing”—on top of it? That’s being greedy. Keeping score not only misses the purpose of being good, it’s foolish. It sets you up for disappointment. If you are going to do some accounting, look at it from the other direction. How many people have helped us—and what do we owe them in return? Think about clearing your debts this week, and consider forgiving any notion of others owing you.

“One person, on doing well by others, immediately accounts the expected favour in return. Another is not so quick, but still considers the person a debtor and knows the favour. A third kind of person acts as if not conscious of the deed, rather like a vine producing a cluster of grapes without making further demands, like a horse after its race, or a dog after its walk, or a bee after making its honey. Such a person, having done a good deed, won’t go shouting from rooftops but simply moves on to the next deed just like the vine produces another bunch of grapes in the right season.”

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.6

“When you’ve done well and another has benefited by it, why like a fool do you look for a third thing on top—credit for the good deed or a favour in return?”

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.73

Stoic Guidance - Cardinal Virtues

If we were to describe Stoicism in one sentence, it would be this: A Stoic believes they don’t control the world around them, only how they respond—and that they must always respond with courage, temperance, wisdom, and justice.

Summary of Daily Stoic 4 Stoic Virtues.

Wisdom

“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own”

—Epictetus

Wisdom is harnessing what the philosophy teaches then wielding it in the real world. As Seneca put it, “Works not words.”

Temperance / Self-Control / Moderation / Discipline

“‘If you seek tranquillity, do less.’ Or (more accurately) do what’s essential—what the logos of a social being requires, and in the requisite way. Which brings a double satisfaction: to do less, better. Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’”

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.24

Temperance is the knowledge that abundance comes from having what is essential. The Stoics often used temperance interchangeably with “self-control.” Self-control, not just towards material goods, but self-control, harmony, and good discipline always—in pleasure or pain, admiration or contempt, failure or triumph. Temperance is guarded against extremes, not relying on the fleetingness of pleasure for happiness nor allowing the fleetingness of pain to destroy it.

Justice

“And a commitment to justice in your own acts. Which means: thought and action resulting in the common good. What you were born to do.”

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.31

Justice is “the principle which constitutes the bond of human society and of a virtual community of life.”

Epictetus said, “Seeking the very best in ourselves means actively caring for the welfare of other human beings.”

Courage

“Don’t you know life is like a military campaign? One must serve on watch, another in reconnaissance, another on the front line. . . . So it is for us—each person’s life is a kind of battle, and a long and varied one too. You must keep watch like a soldier and do everything commanded. . . . You have been stationed in a key post, not some lowly place, and not for a short time but for life.”

—Epictetus, Discourses, 3.24.31-36

Epictetus was once asked which words would help a person thrive. “Two words should be committed to memory and obeyed,” he said, “persist and resist.”

Courage to face misfortune. Courage to face death. Courage to risk yourself for the sake of your fellow man. Courage to hold to your principles, even when others get away with or are rewarded for disregarding theirs. Courage to speak your mind and insist on truth.