You Are Not in a Storm. You Are Seasick.

You wrote to me the way a man writes to his doctor, and I am going to answer you the same way.¹ You said: I will describe the symptoms, you find the name of the illness.

So let me read your own account back to you first, because half of any cure is hearing the thing said plainly.

The Complaint You Sent Me

You told me that some of your faults are on the surface where you can get your hands on them, and others are further down and harder to reach, and that the worst ones are not there all the time — they come and go like a raiding enemy, so that you can neither stand guard as in war nor rest as in peace.

You are not free of the vices you fear and hate. You are not quite in bondage to them either. Not the worst possible state of mind, you said, but a peculiarly discontented and sulky one. Neither ill nor well.

And then you gave me the details, and they are very exact.

You genuinely love thrift. You want plain clothes that need no looking after, food that does not require a regiment to prepare it, your father's heavy country silver with no maker's name on it, a table that no guest looks at with either pleasure or envy.

And then you go out. And you see a schoolboy dressed with extraordinary care, and slaves decked in gold, and houses where you walk on precious stones and the ceilings are painted, and water running clear to the bottom around the guests at dinner. And you come home dazzled. Not a worse man, you said — a sadder one. You cannot walk among your own modest possessions with quite the same step, and a doubt steals over you as to whether that way of living might not be the better one.

And the same oscillation in the rest of it. Sometimes you want to plunge into public life, take office, become consul — not for the purple robe but to be of use. And then something jars, something disgraceful happens of the kind that happens in every man's life, or some trivial business eats a week, and back you go to your leisure like tired cattle moving faster because they are heading home. And then you read some brave sentence, or somebody's example stings you, and you want to run into the law courts again.

And you finished with the best line either of us will write on the subject. I am not suffering from a storm, you said. I am seasick. Help me — I am in distress within sight of land.

You Are Not Unhealthy. You Are Unaccustomed to Health.

I have been quietly asking myself for a long time what your condition most resembles, and I have it.

You are like a man who has come through a long and serious illness and now gets the occasional twinge. He has passed the last stage of the disease, and he is in perfect health, but he does not trust it. He holds out his wrist to have his pulse felt. Every time he feels warm, he suspects the fever is back.

Men like that are not unhealthy. They are unaccustomed to being healthy. Even a quiet lake keeps rippling for a while after the storm has gone off it.

So what you need is not one of the harsher remedies. You do not need to check yourself, or be angry with yourself, or reproach yourself sternly. You need the last item on the list, which is the hardest one to prescribe: have confidence in yourself. Believe you are on the right road, and stop being drawn off it by the enormous number of tracks that other men's wanderings have crossed it with — some of which, I grant you, circle very close to the right road indeed.

And notice what you are actually asking for. To be undisturbed. That is not a small thing. It is the greatest thing there is, and it lifts a man very close to a god. The Greeks call it euthymia, good spirits, and Democritus wrote well about it. I call it peace of mind.

Here is what we are looking for. A mind that holds a steady course; that is pleased with itself; that looks at its own circumstances with pleasure and does not have that pleasure interrupted; that stays level, and is never elated and never cast down.

And I will tell you now, for your comfort, that you suffer far less by running yourself down than the men who are trapped inside some grand declaration they once made, or weighted with some magnificent title, so that it is shame rather than conviction that keeps them performing.

Every Mortal Flees From Himself

Now let me drag the whole disease into the light, because you have only your own portion of it.

There are men who change their purpose constantly and are always fondest of whatever they have just abandoned. There are men who simply yawn and dawdle. There are men who turn over and over like bad sleepers, arranging themselves one way and then another until sheer exhaustion passes for rest — and who end up living a particular life not because they chose it but because old age, which is slow to alter anything, caught them in the middle of it.

All the varieties have one effect: the man becomes dissatisfied with himself. And out of that comes the endless vacillation, and the hesitation, and then the dullness, as a mind that has been disappointed often enough goes numb.

And then comes the traveling. Let us go to Campania. Now I am sick of cultivated country — let us see something wild, let us go through the passes of Lucania. But there is nothing beautiful out here to relieve the eye. Let us go to Tarentum, mild in winter, with the famous harbor. No — let us go back to town; I have missed the shouting and the noise; it would be pleasant to see some human blood spilled.

One journey succeeds another and one sight replaces another, and as Lucretius has it: thus every mortal flees from himself.

But what does he gain by it, if he never escapes himself? He follows himself the whole way. He is weighed down by the most burdensome companion he could possibly have brought.

So understand this...

What you suffer from is not the fault of the places. It is the fault of us.

And watch the ordinary version of it in the street. Men rambling between houses and theatres and market squares, minding everyone else's business, always appearing to have something to do. Ask one at his own front door where he is going and he will say: by Hercules, I don't know. I shall see some people and do something.

They move without a plan, like ants running over a bush — up to the top, down to the bottom, nothing gained. You would pity them, running as if the house were on fire, jostling everyone, hurrying off to greet a man who will not greet them back, or to the funeral of somebody they never knew, or to hear the verdict on a habitual litigant, or to see the wedding of a habitual bridegroom. And home again, worn out with idleness, swearing they do not know why they went out — and out again tomorrow on the same round.

The man they find it hardest of all to catch at home is himself.

Let all your work have a purpose. These people are not made restless by labor. They are driven out of their minds by mistaken ideas.

Retire at a Walking Pace

Athenodorus says: since innocence is barely safe among such furious ambitions, withdraw from the forum, because a great mind can expand freely even in a private station.

I think he gave in to the times too completely, and fled too early.

I do not deny that a man sometimes has to retire. But retire slowly, at a foot's pace, without dropping your standards or your honor. Men who come to terms with their weapons still in their hands are more respected by the enemy and safer in their hands.

So if Fortune gets the upper hand and takes away your power to act — do not turn your back and throw down your arms and run for a hiding place, as though there were anywhere Fortune could not follow. Be more sparing about accepting office, and then work out some other way to be useful.

He cannot serve in the army: let him stand for civic office. He must live as a private man: let him plead in the courts. He is condemned to silence: let him help his countrymen with silent counsel. It is dangerous for him even to enter the forum: then let him be a good comrade, a faithful friend, a temperate guest.

Suppose he has lost the standing of a citizen. Then let him exercise the standing of a man.

Even with his hands cut off, a man can help his side in a battle, if he stands his ground and cheers the others on. Do that. If Fortune takes you out of the front rank, stand anyway. If somebody stops your mouth, stand anyway and help in silence. A good citizen's service is never wasted: he does good by being seen and heard, by his expression, by his bearing, by his silent determination, by the way he walks.

Athens under the thirty tyrants killed thirteen hundred of its best men and did not stop, because cruelty grows by exercise. And Socrates was in the middle of that city consoling the grieving, shaming rich men out of their avarice, and walking about as a free man among thirty masters.

There is a saying of Curius Dentatus that he would rather be dead than alive — and he was right, because the worst evil of the lot is to leave the ranks of the living before you die.

Weigh Yourself, the Work, and the Company

Three examinations, in order.

• First, yourself, because as a rule we think we can do more than we can. One man is carried too far by confidence in his own eloquence. Another asks more of his estate than it can yield. Another loads a weak body with heavy duties. Some men are too shy for public business, which requires an unblushing face. Some are too proud for the courts. Some cannot govern their anger and break into reckless speech at the smallest provocation. Some cannot resist a dangerous joke. For all of those men, leisure is better than employment.

• Second, the work. Compare your strength with the thing you are about to attempt, because the bearer should always be stronger than the load — a load too heavy for its bearer necessarily crushes him. And beware of business that is not large in itself but breeds: the sort that keeps generating new and different work. Never take on anything you are not free to retreat from. Apply yourself to what you can finish, or can at least hope to finish.

• Third, the company, and this is the one people neglect. Be careful whom you give a portion of your life to.

Vices are contagious. They pass from a man to whoever is nearest and injure whoever touches them. In a plague we are careful not to sit beside the infected, because we will catch it off their breath. Choose friends on the same principle — as far as possible unspotted. The way to breed disease is to mix the sound with the rotten.

But I am not telling you to accept nobody short of a wise man, because where will you find him? We have been looking for centuries. In place of the best possible man, take the one who is least bad.

And above everything, avoid the gloomy. Avoid the man who grumbles at whatever happens and finds something to complain about in every single thing. He may be perfectly loyal and perfectly fond of you. Your peace of mind will not survive a companion whose spirit is soured and who meets every event with a groan.

The Library Nobody Reads

Now to property, which is the single most fertile source of human misery. Put all our other troubles together — deaths, illnesses, fears, regrets, pain and hard labor — and what money does to us outweighs the lot.

Consider how much smaller a grief it is never to have had money than to have lost it. The less poverty has to lose, the less it has to torment you with. And do not imagine the rich bear losses better than the poor; a wound hurts the largest body exactly as much as the smallest. Bion said it neatly: it hurts a bald man just as much as a hairy one to have his hairs pulled out.

Diogenes understood this and made it impossible for anything to be taken from him. Call that poverty, call it destitution, call it whatever contemptuous name you like — I call a man happy if he cannot be deprived of anything, and I will call him happy until you show me another man who can lose nothing.

His one slave ran away. When the man was spotted, Diogenes did not think him worth fetching back. It would be a shame, he said, if Manes can live without Diogenes and Diogenes cannot live without Manes.

Since we are not built on that scale, the least we can do is reduce our holdings, so as to give Fortune a smaller target. Men whose bodies fit inside their armor are better suited to war than men whose bulk sticks out past it and offers itself to be wounded. The best amount of property to have is the amount that keeps you out of poverty — and is not far from it.

And keep even the respectable indulgences in bounds. What is the use of owning countless books, when a man could not read through the titles in a lifetime? A student is buried by that mass, not taught. It is better to give yourself to a few writers than to skim a great many.

Forty thousand books burned at Alexandria, and men praise it as a monument to royal taste. It had nothing to do with taste. It was learned luxury — and not even learned, since it was assembled for show. There are men who know less about letters than we expect a slave to know, and who use their books to decorate the dining room.

A library is now as necessary an appendage to a house as a hot bath. I would forgive it entirely if it came from real hunger for the things. But those costly works of sacred genius are being bought as wall furniture.

What One Man Has Suffered

Here is the exercise that does more than any other.

We are all chained to Fortune. One man's chain is loose and made of gold, another's is tight and made of cheaper metal — and what difference does that make? We are all inside the same captivity, and the men who bound us are bound themselves. One is held by public office, another by wealth. Some carry the weight of famous birth and some of obscure birth. Some obey other men, some only themselves. One is kept in a place by banishment, another by election to a priesthood.

All life is slavery. So let every man reconcile himself to his allotment, complain about it as little as he can, and take hold of whatever good lies inside his reach. No condition is so wretched that a fair mind can find nothing in it to work with.

And take the line from Publilius, who was a better writer than any of our playwrights whenever he chose to rise above jokes for the gallery...

what one man has suffered can befall us all.

Take that into the middle of yourself. Look at other men's misfortunes — there is never a shortage — and remember that nothing whatever prevents them from arriving here. That way you arm yourself long before the attack. It is too late to teach a mind endurance once the danger is standing in the room.

You say: I did not think this would happen. But why should it not? Where are the riches that want and hunger do not follow? What office has never been accompanied by disgrace and exile? What throne has no butcher waiting near it? And these things are not separated by long ages. There is about an hour between sitting on the throne yourself and clasping somebody else's knees.

You are wealthy. Wealthier than Pompeius? He died of hunger and thirst in a relative's house, and his heir was contracting for a public funeral for a man who had wanted bread. You have held office. As great an office as Sejanus? The people tore him apart on the day the Senate disgraced him, and the executioner could not find a piece large enough to drag to the river.

So this is what we mean when we say nothing befalls the wise man that he did not expect. We do not exempt him from the accidents of a human life. We exempt him from its miscalculations. Things do not happen as he wished — they happen as he thought they might.

I will sail, unless something stops me. I shall be praetor, if nothing prevents it. My investment will succeed, unless something goes wrong with it.

Canus and the Draughtboard

Let me give you a man.

Julius Canus had a long argument with the emperor Gaius, and as he was leaving, that Phalaris of a man told him: so that you do not comfort yourself with any foolish hopes, I have ordered your execution.

And Canus said: Thank you, most excellent prince.

I am not certain what he meant. He may have been telling him what a monster he must be, if death has become a favor. He may have been mocking his madness. He may simply have been accepting death as freedom. It was a magnanimous answer, whichever it was.

He had ten days to wait. He passed them without the slightest despondency.

He was playing draughts when the centurion in charge of the batch of prisoners came to collect him. Canus counted his pieces and said to the man across the board: Now, mind you don't tell a lie after my death and claim you won. Then he turned to the centurion and said: You will be my witness that I am one piece ahead of him.

Do you think Canus was playing at that draughtboard? He was playing with it.

His friends were miserable at losing so great a man, and he asked them why they were sad. You are all wondering whether our souls are immortal. I am about to know.

And he did not stop looking, right to the end. His teacher of philosophy went with him, and as they came near the hill where the daily sacrifice was made, he asked: What are you thinking about now, Canus?

And Canus said: I have decided that at that most swiftly-passing moment of all, I shall watch whether the spirit is conscious of leaving the body.

He promised that if he found anything out, he would come round to his friends and tell them what the condition of departed souls actually is.

That was peace in the middle of the storm. A man who used his own execution as an instrument of inquiry, who at the last step of life ran an experiment on his own escaping breath, and who did not merely go on learning until he died — he learned something out of dying.

No man has taken the life of a philosopher further than that.

Slacken the Bow. Do Not Drop It.

So, the practice. And here is where I overturn what you expected me to say.

Do not spend your life concealing yourself. Constant self-watching becomes a torture; you begin dreading being caught doing something out of character, and no man is ever at ease if he believes everybody looking at him is appraising him. And even when the disguise succeeds, a life spent in a mask is neither happy nor safe.

Retire into yourself often — company unlike your own upsets whatever you had arranged and rubs at whatever has not properly healed. But mix the two. Alternate solitude and crowds. The one will make you want the other. Solitude cures you when you are sick of people, and people cure you when you are sick of solitude.

And do not keep the mind strung to the same pitch. It has to be let down.

• Socrates was not ashamed to play with small children.
• Cato refreshed himself with wine after wearing himself out on affairs of state.
• Scipio moved those triumphal soldiers' limbs to music — not with the feeble swaying we do now, but dancing as men danced in the old days, with manly bounds, and he did not mind being seen doing it by his enemies.

Minds must have rest. They get up better and stronger for it. You cannot force crops out of rich fields year after year without exhausting them, and you cannot keep a mind at unbroken labor without destroying its liveliness.

Take walks in the open air. Travel. Change your air. Take a more generous allowance of wine. Wine washes trouble out of the depths of the mind, and its inventor is called Liber — the free one — not for the license it gives our tongues, but because it releases the mind from the bondage of care.

But observe moderation in the freedom as much as in the wine. And know the distinction that the whole of this letter rests on.

There is a great difference between slackening your hold on a thing and letting it go.

That is my account, Serenus, of what preserves peace of mind, what restores it, and what arrests the vices that quietly undermine it.

But be certain of this. Not one of these remedies is strong enough to keep so fleeting a blessing in your hands, unless you watch over that wavering mind of yours with unremitting care.