On contentment

FROM PLUTARCH TO PACCIUS. I hope this finds you well. Not long ago, I got your letter, in which you suggested that I write down for you something about contentment, and about those passages in Timaeus which need rather careful interpretation. At pretty much the same time, our friend Eros suddenly found he had to sail to Rome, since he had received a letter from the illustrious Fundanus; typically, Fundanus told him to hurry. On the one hand, I didn't have as much time as I wanted to get to grips with the topics you were asking me to address; but on the other hand, I couldn't bear the idea of Eros leaving here, going to you and being found to be completely empty-handed. So I read those bits of my notebooks, written in fact for myself, which covered the topic of contentment. I imagined that what you too wanted from this discourse was practical help, not a lecture whose aim was elegant composition; and I share your pleasure in the fact that although you have friends in positions of authority, and although you have a preeminent reputation as a political speaker, you have not experienced what Merops did in the tragedy: it is not the case, as it was with him, that 'the adulation of the masses has driven you mad' and into abnormal behaviour. No, you have taken to heart what you have often been told: 'gout is not alleviated by a patrician shoe, nor a whitlow by an expensive ring nor a migraine by a crown.' How on earth can assets or a reputation or power at court contribute towards having a mind that is free of distress and a life that is as calm as a millpond, unless their possession and use are pleasant, but at the same time they are never missed if they are lacking? And what else guarantees this except rationality which has become accustomed to quickly restraining - and taking care to do so - the emotional, irrational part of the mind on the many occasions when it tries to exceed its bounds, and not conniving at its flooding and racing away from what is actually there?

Xenophon recommends that we remember and acknowledge the gods particularly in times of prosperity, so that when we are in need, we can confidently petition them in the knowledge that they are predisposed to be charitable and friendly. It is no different in the case of rational arguments which help us combat the emotions: anyone with any sense should pay attention to them before emotion arises, so as to widen his defensive preparations and thereby increase the benefit he gains. You know how aggressive dogs get thoroughly agitated at any and every loud voice and are calmed down only by the one with which they are familiar; so the mind's emotions too are hard to restrain when they are overexcited, unless rational arguments are already there, ingrained and familiar, to check the agitation.

Whoever it was who said that 'Contentment is impossible for anyone who busies himself with personal or public affairs' makes contentment, in the first place, an expensive commodity if its price is inactivity. It is as though his prescription for every invalid is to say, 'You poor thing, stay perfectly still in your bed', whereas inertia is in fact no good as a treatment for a body suffering from numbness and, as psychiatry, it is equally ineffective to try to remove agitation and distress from the mind by means of laziness, weakness and betrayal of friends, household and country.

Moreover, in the second place, it is not true that anyone who is not busy is content. It would follow that women are more content than men, since they generally deal only with domestic matters; but in fact, although (in Hesiod's words) the north wind 'does not reach a young woman's tender body', nevertheless distress, disturbance and depression trickle into the women's quarters through the agency of jealousy, superstition, ambition and innumerable empty beliefs. Laertes spent twenty years by himself away from civilization, 'with an old woman to look after him, who served his food and drink', and although he shunned his country, home and kingdom, nevertheless his inactivity and ennui had distress as a constant close companion. Even absolute inactivity is likely to induce discontent in some cases: for example, 'But swift-footed Achilles, Peleus' son, descended from Zeus, stayed sitting by his sharp-prowed ships and never went to assembly, which brings men prestige, or to battle, but stayed there with his heart pining in longing for the war cry and for battle.' The depth of his feeling and his grief caused him to say to himself, 'I sit by my ships, a pointless burden to the world.'

This is why not even Epicurus thinks that a quiet life is desirable; he says that people who want status and fame should go along with this aspect of their nature and engage in politics and public life, because they are inherently more likely to be thrown off balance and to be harmed by inactivity - by failing to fulfil their desires. But it is ridiculous for him to recommend public life, not to those with talent, but to those who are incapable of living peacefully. Contentment and discontent should be defined not by the frequency or rarity of one's actions, but by their goodness or badness: the omission of good deeds is - and this has been said before - just as annoying and disturbing as the commission of bad deeds.

There are people who think that freedom from distress resides in one way of life in particular - for instance, in farming or bachelorhood or kingship. What Menander said can act as a reminder for them: 'Phanias, I used to think that rich people, because they have no debts, don't sigh at night, or toss and turn, or moan "Poor me!"; I used to think they slept a pleasant, peaceful sleep.' He goes on to explain that, in his experience, even the rich suffer exactly as the poor do, and then says, 'Is grief related in some way to life? It consorts with a life of luxury, is inseparable from a life of fame, grows old with a life of poverty.'

Consider people who are scared of sailing or who get seasick: they imagine that the voyage will pass more easily if they exchange a skiff for a merchant ship, and then the merchant ship for a trireme; but this gets them nowhere, because they take their sickness and fears with them. This is an analogy for exchanging one way of life for another; it does not eradicate from the mind the factors which make it distressed and disturbed, which are unworldliness, lack of discrimination and not being able, or not knowing how, to make proper use of one's present circumstances. These are the storm winds that vex both rich and poor, trouble both married and single; they make men shun public life and then find a quiet life intolerable; they make men pursue promotion at court and be miserable as soon as they get it. 'Helplessness makes sick people a peevish lot': their wives irritate them, they complain about their doctors, grumble about their beds and 'for a friend to come is a nuisance, to leave is an offence', as Ion says. But when the illness has dissolved and the humours are differently blended, health comes and makes everything nice and pleasant, in the sense that someone who yesterday detested eggs and cakes and bread made from fresh wheat, today is even glad to eat coarse bread with olives or mustard seeds.

The engendering of rationality within us causes this kind of satisfaction with, and change of attitude towards, any way of life. Alexander once shed tears while listening to Anaxarchus lecture on the existence of an infinite number of worlds. His friends asked him what the matter was, and he replied, 'Don't you think tears are called for, if there are an infinite number of worlds, and I've not yet gained control of just one?' On the other hand, Crates, with his bag and threadbare cloak, spent his whole life joking and laughing as though he were on holiday. Moreover, Agamemnon was troubled by his extensive responsibilities as king - 'You will recognize Agamemnon, son of Atreus, whom Zeus has singled out for constant hard work' - but when Diogenes was up for sale, he lay on the ground and teased the auctioneer by refusing to get up when told to, but joking and saying with a laugh, 'Imagine it's a fish you're trying to sell!' Or again, Socrates went on discussing philosophy with his companions while he was in prison, but Phaethon used to weep when he had scaled the heights of heaven, if no one gave him his father's horses and chariot.

It is the shoe that bends along with the foot, not the other way around; and likewise, an implication of what we have been saying is that disposition moulds life. I mean, the notion that familiarity makes the best life pleasant for anyone who has chosen it is wrong: it is rational intelligence which makes the life one already has both the best one and the most pleasant one. It follows that we should purify our innate well of contentment and then external things will be in harmony with us too, provided we don't maltreat them, and will seem congruent and congenial. 'There's no point in getting angry with one's situation, because it is utterly indifferent; but success will accrue to anyone who treats the situations he encounters correctly.'

Plato compared life to a game of dice in which it is not just important to throw something appropriate, but also to make good use of it however the throw turns out. And where our situations are concerned, it may be true that we do not control the throw of the dice, but it is our job, if we are sensible, to accommodate ourselves to whatever fortune deals us and to allocate everything to a place where, as each situation arises, if it is congruent, we can maximize its benefit, and if it is unwelcome, we can minimize its harm. A physical illness can make people incapable of enduring either heat or cold, and those who muddle unintelligently through life are like that, in the sense that they get ecstatic at good fortune and depressed at bad fortune - which is to say that both good and bad fortune knock them off balance, or rather that they knock themselves off balance when they encounter either of them; and it is the same story when they encounter anything that one might term good. Theodorus the Atheist (as he was called) used to say that although he delivered his lectures with his right hand, the audience caught them in their left hands; and uneducated people, faced with a favourable or right-handed opportunity, often take it up awkwardly or left-handedly and make fools of themselves. Thyme, the most acrid and dry of plants, provides bees with honey; and likewise intelligent people can invariably find something congruent with and useful to themselves from the most forbidding of situations.

The chief thing, then, to practise and pursue is the attitude exemplified by the man whose stone missed his dog and hit his stepmother: 'That's not bad either!' he said. It is possible to change opportunities so that they are no longer unwelcome. Diogenes was exiled; 'That's not bad either', because he subsequently took up philosophy. Zeno of Citium had just one ship left from his merchant fleet; when he was told that this one too was lost, sunk with all its cargo, he said, 'Thank you, fortune, for helping to drive me into a threadbare cloak.'

Why can't the rest of us behave in the same way? Have you failed to capture some public position you were after? You can live in the country, minding your own business. Have you been spurned while courting the affection of someone in authority? You can now live a life free of risk and bother. Is your time again taken up with worldly business and worries? Well, to quote Pindar, 'the extent to which warm water relaxes a body is nothing' compared to how fame and respect, conjoined with power, make 'work pleasant and labour non-laborious'. Are you faced with misery and insults because lies or malicious tales are being spread about you? This is a following wind, blowing you towards the Muses and the Academy, as Plato was driven by the storm winds of his friendship for Dionysius.

It follows that another thing that is important for contentment is to reflect on famous men, and how they have not been affected at all by circumstances identical to one's own. Is childlessness your problem, for example? Look at the kings of Rome, none of whom had a son to whom he could bequeath his kingdom. Are you weighed down by poverty at the moment? But is there any Boeotian you would rather be than Epaminondas, any Roman rather than Fabricius? 'But my wife has been seduced!' Well, haven't you read the inscription at Delphi which goes 'Erected by Agis, lord of water and of earth'? And haven't you heard that this is the man whose wife Timaea was seduced by Alcibiades, and that in an undertone to her serving-women she used to call her child Alcibiades? Yet this did not stop Agis from being the most famous and important Greek of his day. Nor, for example, did the promiscuity of Stilpo's daughter stop him living a more carefree life than any of his philosophical contemporaries. In fact, when Metrocles told him off for his daughter's behaviour, Stilpo's response was, 'Is it my fault or hers?' Metrocles said, 'Her fault, but your misfortune.' 'What do you mean?' asked Stilpo. 'Isn't a fault a mistake?' 'Certainly,' said Metrocles. 'And isn't anyone making a mistake also suffering a setback?' continued Stilpo. Metrocles agreed. 'And isn't anyone suffering a setback also suffering a misfortune?' Stilpo concluded. This calm, philosophical argument showed the Cynic's aspersion to be empty barking.

Still, most people are hurt and provoked, by their enemies' flaws, as well as by those of their friends and relatives. I mean, being inclined towards insolence, anger, spite, malice, jealousy and hostility not only plagues those people who have these weaknesses, but also annoys and irritates foolish people - as, of course, do a neighbour's short temper, an acquaintance's grumpiness and a public administrator's iniquity. And I think that you too are very far from failing to get upset at these flaws; like the doctors in Sophocles who 'use bitter medicine to flush out bitter bile', you react to these affections and affictions with rage and bitterness. But this is unreasonable, because the public business which has been entrusted to you and which you conduct is managed by people whose characters are not straightforward and good, as well-made tools should be, but are invariably jagged and warped; and you should not, therefore, consider it to be your job - or at any rate you should not consider it to be an easy job - to straighten them out. However, if you use them as a doctor uses tooth extractors and wound clamps - that is, as being made just the way they are - and if you show yourself to be as lenient and moderate as circumstances permit, then your pleasure in your own attitude will outweigh your distress at others' unsatisfying and iniquitous behaviour, you will regard them as doing what comes naturally to them (as dogs are when they bark) and you will stop unwittingly being infected by others' flaws, which is to let plenty of distressing factors seep into the sunken and low-lying land of this pettiness and weakness of yours.

Some philosophers find fault even with compassion, when it is felt for people who are out of luck, on the grounds that while helping people one comes across is a good thing, sharing their troubles and giving in to them is not. More importantly, they forbid us to be discontented or depressed even when we realize that we ourselves have flawed and defective characters; they tell us instead not to get distressed, but just to try to cure the problem, as is right and proper. You should consider, then, how utterly illogical it is for us to connive at ourselves getting cross and irritated because not everyone with whom we have dealings and who crosses our paths is fair and congenial.

No, my dear Paccius, you must make sure that we are not deceiving ourselves by denouncing and being worried about the iniquity of people we come across only in so far as it affects us, rather than in general - that is, you must make sure that we are not being motivated by selfishness, but by hatred of badness. The point is that if we are unduly discomposed by public life and if we have unwarranted impulses and aims, or alternatively unwarranted aversions and antipathies, then this makes us suspicious of people and irritated by them, because we think that they are the causes of our losses and accidents. A high degree of contentment and calmness in relating to people is an attribute of someone who has trained himself to cope with public life without fuss and bother.

Bearing this in mind, let us return to the matter of one's situation. When we have a fever, everything tastes bitter and unpleasant, but once we have seen other people taking the same food without revulsion, we stop blaming the food and drink, and start to blame ourselves and our illness. In the same way, we will stop blaming and being disgruntled at circumstances if we see other people cheerfully accepting identical situations without getting upset. So when unwelcome incidents occur, it is also good for contentment not to ignore all the gratifying and nice things we have, but to use a process of blending to make the better aspects of our lives obscure the glare of the worse ones. But what happens at the moment is that, although when our eyes are harmed by excessively brilliant things we look away and soothe them with the colours that flowers and grasses provide, we treat the mind differently: we strain it to glimpse the aspects that hurt it, and we force it to occupy itself with thoughts of the things that irritate it, by tearing it almost violently away from the better aspects. And yet the question addressed to the busybody can be transferred to this context and fit in nicely: 'You spiteful man, why are you so quick to spot someone else's weakness, but overlook your own?' So we might ask: why, my friend, do you obsessively contemplate your own weakness and constantly clarify it and revivify it, but fail to apply your mind to the good things you have? Cupping-glasses extract from flesh anything particularly bad, and likewise you are attracting to yourself the very worst of your attributes. You are making yourself no better at all than the Chian who used to sell plenty of quality wine to other people, but for his own meal used to taste wines until he found a vinegary one; and when someone asked one of his servants what he had left his master doing, the servant replied, 'Looking for bad when surrounded by good.'

As a matter of fact, most people do bypass what is good and refreshing in their lives, and make straight for the unpleasant, bad elements. Aristippus was different, however: he was good at lightening himself and raising himself up (imagine him on a pair of scales) towards the better aspects of his situation. At any rate, he once lost a fine estate, and people were insincerely saying how sorry and sympathetic they felt. He asked one of them, 'Haven't you got just one little plot of land, while I have still got three farms?' The fellow said yes, and Aristippus said, 'Why, then, am I not feeling sorry for you, rather than the other way round?' The point is that it is crazy to be upset about what one has lost and not feel happy about what one has kept; otherwise, we are behaving like little children who, when deprived of just one of their many toys, wail and scream and throw all the rest of their toys away. In the same way, if we let fortune distress us just once, then our whining and resentment deprives everything else as well of any benefit for us.

Someone might ask, 'But what can we be said to have or not to have?' Fame, property, married status, a good friend - these are the things people have. When Antipater of Tarsus was close to death, he added up the good things that had happened to him, and included even the easy voyage he had had from Cilicia to Athens. And we must not overlook even things we share with others, but take them into account, and be thankful that we have life and health and that we walk the earth; that there is no war, either foreign or civil, but that we may, if we so choose, farm the land and sail the seas without fear; that the full range of possibilities is open to us, from oratory and politics to a quiet, inactive life. When we have these shared things, we will increase our contentment with them if we imagine that we do not have them, and frequently remind ourselves how desirable health is to sick people, peace to people at war, and the acquisition of fame and friends to an obscure stranger in a city as big as yours, and also remind ourselves how distressing it is to lose these things if they have been ours in the past. If we do this, then we will not rate and value any of these things highly only once it has been lost, while discounting it altogether as long as it is in our keeping. I mean, the fact that we do not own something does not increase its value; and we should not be acquisitive as if these things were important, and be constantly trembling in fear of losing them as if they were important, but ignore them and belittle them, while we have them, as if they were worthless. Instead, while we have them, we should above all use them for our enjoyment and profit from them, so that, in the event of their loss, we can endure this too with greater equanimity. Arcesilaus used to point out that although most people think it their duty to use their minds to explore and their eyes to examine other people's poems, paintings and statues in precise and minute detail, yet they forget their own lives, which could provide plenty of areas for pleasurable reflection: they constantly look outwards and are impressed by other people's fame and fortune, just as adulterers are by other men's wives, but belittle themselves and what they already have.

Nevertheless, another thing that is important for contentment is to restrict one's inspection as much as possible to oneself and those things which are relevant to oneself, or else to consider people who are less well off than oneself. What one should avoid is lining oneself up against people who are better off, despite the fact that this is the usual practice: prisoners, for instance, envy those who have been freed, who envy people who have always been free, who envy those with citizen status, who in turn envy rich people, who envy province commanders, who envy kings, who - because they almost aspire to making thunder and lightning - envy the gods. Consequently, since they never attain things which are out of their reach, they are never thankful for the things that are relevant to them. 'Gold-laden Gyges' possessions are of no interest to me; I have never yet been gripped by envy, nor do I seek to emulate what the gods do, nor do I desire a great kingdom. I do not set my sights on such distant views.'

Someone might say, 'That's because this is a Thasian speaking.' But there are other provincials - from Chios, Galatia or Bithynia - who are dissatisfied with having obtained a portion of status or power among their compatriots, and who weep because they do not wear patrician robes; and if they do, then because they have not yet held military command at Rome; and if they have, then because they are not consuls; and if they are, then because when the announcement was made, they did not head the list. The only possible description of this is self-mortification and self-inflicted punishment, as a result of scrabbling for reasons to be ungrateful to fortune. On the other hand, anyone whose mind sanely reflects that the sun sees countless thousands of humans - 'all we who enjoy the broad land's produce' - does not slump into depression and despondency if there are people more famous and rich than himself; there are so many human beings that his life is a thousand times more perfect than thousands of people's, so he continues on his path, celebrating his own destiny and life.

It may be impossible to choose one's opponents in the Olympic Games and so gain victory that way, but life's situations do often present one with opportunities for appreciating one's better position - for being envied rather than envying others - unless, of course, it is Briareus or Heracles one pits oneself against! So when you find yourself overawed by the apparent superiority of a man who is being carried in a sedan chair, make sure you look down and also see those who are keeping him off the ground; and when you find yourself envying Xerxes, as the Hellespontian did, on the famous occasion of Xerxes' pontoon crossing, make sure you also see the men being driven by whips to excavate Mount Athos and the men with faces mutilated when the bridge was destroyed by the waves; if you take their thoughts into consideration as well, you find that they are envying your life and your situation.

Socrates once heard one of his acquaintances remarking how expensive Athens was: 'A mina for Chian wine, three minae for a purple-dyed robe, five drachmae for a kotyle of honey.' Socrates grabbed hold of him and showed him some grain - 'An obol for half a hekteus - Athens is cheap'; and then some olives - 'Two bronze coins for a choinix - Athens is cheap'; and then some simple cloaks - 'Ten drachmae - Athens is cheap.' So when we too hear someone remarking on how trivial and terribly distressing our personal situations are, because we are not consuls or governors, we can reply, 'Our situations are not at all unprepossessing, and our lives are to be envied, because we are not beggars or porters or flatterers.'

Despite all this we habitually live, out of stupidity, with our attention on others rather than on ourselves. So since human nature contains plenty of malicious envy and spite, with the result that the degree of pleasure we feel in what is ours is less than the degree of irritation we feel at others' successes, then you must not only notice the splendid and pre-eminent features of the people you envy and admire, but you must also remove and draw aside the florid veil, so to speak, of their reputation and their façade, and get inside, where you will notice that they contain plenty of unsavoury features and plenty of unpleasantness. At any rate, something Pittacus said is instructive, since he is outstandingly famous for courage, wisdom and morality: he once had some friends round for dinner, and his wife burst in angrily and overturned the table; his friends were astounded, but he said, 'No one's life is perfect; anyone with only my troubles is very well off.'

'In public this man is an object of envy, but as soon as he opens the door of his home, he's in a pitiful state: his wife is in complete control, she bosses him about and argues all the time. He's got rather a lot of reasons to be miserable, whereas I've got none.' Plenty of these kinds of troubles accompany wealth, fame and kingship, but most people fail to notice them under the showy veneer. 'Son of Atreus, you are fortunate - your birth was favoured by fate and your destiny is to prosper': this kind of accolade is given for weaponry, horses and an extensive army, for external possessions, but from within come the contradictory emotional cries, bearing witness against this hollow fame - 'Zeus the son of Cronus has thoroughly imprisoned me in deep madness' and 'I envy you, old man, and I envy anyone whose life is at an end, if he has kept himself safe by avoiding recognition and fame.' Here is another point we should bear in mind, then, to enable us to carp less against fortune and to decrease the extent to which, by admiring our acquaintances' attributes, we belittle and denigrate our own.

Now, a major impediment to contentment is the failure to keep our desires furled or unfurled, so to speak, in a way which is commensurate with the prevailing potential. Instead, we give them too much slack through our hopes, and then when we fail, we blame fate and fortune, but not our own stupidity. We wouldn't describe as unfortunate anyone who wanted to shoot with his plough and hunt hares with his cow, nor would we say that anyone who fails to capture deer or boar with fishing-baskets or seines is being opposed by bad luck: it is stupidity and silliness which are setting him to impossible endeavours. The chief cause is in fact selflove, which makes people ambitious and competitive whatever the situation, and makes them greedily take on everything: they not only expect to be rich, erudite, strong, outgoing, pleasant and intimate with kings and leaders of nations, but they are discontented if their dogs, horses, quails and cocks are not the best at what they do.

Dionysius the Elder was not satisfied with being the most important tyrant of the time, but because his verse was worse than that of Philoxenus the poet, and he failed to do better than Plato at philosophical discussion, he got furiously angry - he imprisoned Philoxenus in the quarries, and he sent Plato to Aegina to be sold into slavery. Alexander was different: when the sprinter Crison was racing with him and gave the impression of deliberately slowing down, Alexander was very cross. And Achilles in the poem does well too: he starts off saying, 'None of the bronze-clad Achaeans is my equal', but goes on, 'in war; but there are those who are better in assembly.' On the other hand, when Megabyzus the Persian visited Apelles' studio and tried to start a conversation about art, Apelles shut him up by saying, 'As long as you kept quiet, you seemed to be someone because of your golden jewellery and purple-dyed clothes, but now even these lads here who grind the pigment are laughing at you for talking nonsense.'

Now, although people might think, when they hear the Stoic description of the sage not only as wise, moral and courageous, but also as an orator, poet and military commander, as possessing wealth and as a king, that they are joking, nevertheless they expect all these descriptions for themselves and are annoyed if they don't get them. Yet even different gods have different functions - one being called the god of battle, another the god of prophecy, another the god of profit; and Aphrodite is ordained by Zeus to preside over marriage and sex, precisely because her domain does not include military matters.

The point is that some pursuits inherently do not go together, but rather tend in opposite directions. For instance, rhetorical training and the acquisition of intellectual disciplines need freedom and no pressure, but political power and intimacy with kings do not accrue without one being busy and using up one's time. Moreover, 'drinking wine and overeating meat may make the body strong and robust, but they weaken the mind'; and whereas constant concern and care for money increase affluence, yet disdain and scorn for money constitute an important resource for philosophy. So not everything is for everyone: one should follow the Delphic inscription and know oneself, and then engage in the single activity for which one is naturally suited; and one should avoid forcibly and unnaturally compelling oneself to envy alternative ways of life - and different ones at different times. 'A horse is harnessed to a cart, an ox to a plough; a dolphin darts with great rapidity by a ship; and whoever plans death for a boar must find a courageous dog.'

Anyone, however, who is upset and distressed because he is not simultaneously a lion, 'mountain-reared, confident in his might', and a little Maltese dog protected in the lap of a widow, is crazy - but no crazier than anyone who wants to be Empedocles, Plato or Democritus, writing about the universe and the way things really are, and at the same time a Euphorion, with a rich older woman for a lover, or a Medius, hobnobbing with Alexander as one of his drinking companions, and gets irritated and distressed if he isn't an Ismenias, admired for his affluence, and an Epaminondas, admired for his goodness. I mean, runners aren't discontented because they don't win the wrestling competition: they find pride and satisfaction in their own prizes. 'You have obtained Sparta, so do it credit.' And, as Solon says, 'We will not exchange our virtue for their wealth, since the one is stable, but different people have money at different times.'

When Strato, the natural philosopher, was told that Menedemus' students far outnumbered his, he said, 'What else would you expect? There are bound to be more people who want to bathe than want to put oil on their bodies.' And Aristotle wrote to Antipater, 'The fact that Alexander rules over a lot of people does not make him the only one who can legitimately feel proud: anyone whose thinking about the gods is correct has just as much right.' The point is that people who value what they have, as in these stories, are not upset by whatever anyone else they come across has. But what happens at the moment is that although we do not expect a vine to produce figs or an olive to produce grapes, yet if we don't have the advantages of both plutocrats and scholars, military commanders and philosophers, flatterers and those who speak their minds, misers and big spenders, all at once, we bully ourselves, are dissatisfied with ourselves, and despise ourselves as living deficient and unfulfilled lives.

In addition, there are also clear reminders from nature. Different animals have been differently equipped by nature to provide for themselves: they have not all been made carnivores or seed-peckers or root-diggers. In the same way, nature has granted a wide variety of means of living to human beings - 'to shepherd, ploughman, bird-catcher and to the man whose livelihood comes from the sea'. What we should do, then, is choose what suits our specific natures, work at it and forget others' occupations; in other words, we should not show up any deficiency in Hesiod's assertion that 'Potter is jealous of potter, builder of builder.' I mean, people do not try to emulate only others with the same profession and same way of life; instead, rich men envy scholars and are in turn envied by famous people, while lawyers envy professional orators and - strange though it may seem - free men and aristocrats are utterly in awe of what they see as the happiness of comic actors in successful plays, and of dancers and servants in the royal courts. The result is that they distress and discompose themselves a great deal.

It is clear from the differences between people's experiences that everyone has within himself the resources which may lead to contentment or discontent - the jars of good and bad do not sit 'on Zeus's threshold', but lie in our minds. Foolish people overlook and ignore good things even when they are present, because their thoughts are always straining towards the future; intelligent people, on the other hand, use their memories to keep them vivid for themselves even when they are no longer present. Anything present is accessible for the minutest fraction of time and then escapes perception, and consequently foolish people think that it ceases to be relevant to us, or ceases to be ours. There is a painting of a man in Hades weaving a rope, who lets it out to a donkey at pasture, which eats up what he is weaving; in exactly the same way, most people succumb to blind, ungrateful oblivion, which consumes them and leaves no trace of any event, any moment of success, pleasant relaxation, interaction or delight.

This oblivion prevents life being a unity of past events woven with present ones: it divides yesterday from today, as if they were distinct, and likewise treats tomorrow as different from today, and it immediately consigns every occurrence to non-existence by never making use of memory. The school of thought which eliminates growth on the assumption that being is in constant flux makes each person, in theory, different from himself, and then different again; similarly, those who don't use memory to protect or recover what has gone before, but let it trickle away, day by day, make themselves in fact incomplete and empty and in suspense for the day to follow, as if the events of last year, the recent past and yesterday had no bearing on them or, in short, didn't happen to them.

So this is another thing that unsettles contentment, but not as much as the next factor we must consider. You know how when flies settle on mirrors, they skid off the smooth parts but cling on to places which are rough and scratched; this is an analogy for how people slide away from happy, congenial matters and get caught up in their memories of unpleasant things. An even better analogy might be based on the story that in Olynthus there is a place (called 'Beetle-death') which beetles fall into and are unable to get out of: they go round and round in circles until they die there. Likewise, without noticing it, people slip into recalling their bad times and are unwilling to revive or resuscitate themselves.

What we should do is treat the mind like a painting, and the events the mind recalls like the colours, and so give prominence to what is bright and vivid, and push anything gloomy into the obscurity of the background. I mean, it is impossible to eradicate and exclude the gloomy aspects altogether: 'The world is fitted together by interchange between opposites, as are a lyre and a bow', and nothing in human life is pure and unalloyed. In music there are low notes and high notes, and in grammar there are vowels and consonants, and musicianship and literacy do not come from disliking and avoiding one or the other extreme, but from knowing how to make use of them all, and how to blend them into an appropriate mixture. Events too contain polarity: as Euripides says, 'Good and bad are inseparable, but blending is possible, to make things fine.' So, to continue our simile, we should not get discontented or give up when faced with discrepancy, but should behave like expert musicians: if someone plays bad music, they lessen its impact by playing better music, and they enclose wrong notes within right ones. So we should make our life's mixture harmonious and congruent with ourselves.

I mean, Menander is wrong when he says, 'From the moment of birth onwards, everyone is attended by a deity, who is an excellent guide through the mysteries of life.' Empedocles is more likely to be right with his view that each of us has two destinies or deities, which take us in hand and into their power when we are born: 'Earth was there, and far-seeing Sun, bloody Discord and tranquil Harmony, Beauty and Ugliness, Speed and Slowness, fair Truth and dark-locked Doubt.' Consequently, since at birth we admitted, all together, the potential for each of these experiences, and since we therefore inherently contain plenty of inconsistencies, anyone with any sense prays for the better things, but expects the others as well, and copes with both sets by never behaving excessively. For, in the first place, as Epicurus says, 'Increased pleasure in approaching the future depends on decreased need of it'; and in the second place, increased enjoyment of wealth, fame, power and status depends on decreased dread of their opposites, in the sense that a strong desire for each of them instils a very strong fear of their departure, and so weakens and destabilizes the pleasure, as if it were a candle flame in a draught. Anyone whom rationality allows to stand up to fortune fearlessly and unflinchingly, and say, 'You are welcome if you bring a gift, and no great ordeal if you leave', is enabled by his courage and fearlessness (because he knows that its departure would not be unbearable) thoroughly to enjoy whatever his present situation is. When Anaxagoras' son died, he declared, 'I knew that I had fathered a mortal'; and it is possible not to stop at admiring his character, which enabled him to say this, but also to mirror him by saying, whenever fortune intrudes, 'I know that the wealth I have is transitory and unstable'; 'I know that I owe my position to people who have the power to remove it'; 'I know that although my wife is good, she is a woman, and that my friend is human - a member of an inherently inconstant species, as Plato remarked.'

The point is that, if anything happens which may be unwelcome, but is not unexpected, this kind of preparedness and character leaves no room for 'I couldn't have imagined it' and 'This isn't what I'd hoped for' and 'I didn't expect this', and so stops the heart lurching and beating fast and so on, and quickly settles derangement and disturbance back on to a foundation. Carneades used to remind people who were involved in important affairs that unexpectedness is the be-all and end-all of distress and discontent. Consider, for example, how much smaller the Macedonian kingdom was than the Roman empire. Nevertheless, when Perseus lost Macedonia, not only did he complain bitterly about his own destiny, but it was universally held that his misfortune and fate were worse than absolutely everyone else's; but when Aemilius (who had defeated Perseus) resigned from his position of controlling more or less all the lands and seas in the world, he was fêted and he performed sacrifices to the gods for his acknowledged happiness. There was a good reason for this: Aemilius had accepted a position knowing that he would one day pass it on, whereas Perseus had lost his position unexpectedly. Homer too makes some good points about what happens when things are unexpected: Odysseus wept when his dog greeted him, but sat down impassively next to his sobbing wife; the reason is that he reached his wife with his emotions tamed and controlled by rational foresight, but he fell into the other situation without anticipating it - its surprising nature made it come out of the blue.

To express the matter generally, while some unwelcome events do by their very nature entail distress and pain, nevertheless, where the majority of such events are concerned, it is our minds that condition and teach us to resent them. Therefore, when faced with this latter category of unwelcome events, it is useful always to have available Menander's line, which says, 'No experience is terrible unless you make it so.' He is implicitly asking the question: Unless your body or mind are actually affected, what difference does it make to you if, for example, your father was not an aristocrat, your wife is having an affair, you fail to win some prize or you lose your right to the front seats in the theatre? For these occurrences do not stop a man being in excellent physical or mental condition. And where the former events are concerned, the ones which do seem by their very nature to cause distress - such as illness, stress and a friend's or child's death - then there is Euripides' famous line: 'I say "Poor me!" - but why? I am only experiencing what it is to be human.' You see, no rational argument checks the downward slide of our emotions as well as one which reminds us that, in common with others and thanks to our nature, there are things which we cannot avoid; this necessity, which is due to corporeality, affords fortune its only hold on human beings; but corporeality is just one part of man's mixed nature, and in his most authoritative and important aspects he remains secure and stable.

When Demetrius had captured Megara, he asked Stilpo whether anything of his had been looted; Stilpo replied that he had seen nothing being carried off about which he would want to say 'mine'. So, if fortune steals and removes from us everything else, we still have something in us which is such that 'the Achaeans cannot carry or take it away'. It follows that we should not completely belittle and denigrate our nature as being weak, unstable and entirely subject to fortune; on the contrary, we know that the part of man which is flawed and unsound (and so liable to fortune) is small, and that we ourselves control the better part, which safely contains the most important of our benefits - correct beliefs, things we have learned and arguments conducive to goodness - which therefore subsist indelibly and indestructibly. If we are aware of this, the future doesn't dismay or terrify us and, where fortune is concerned, we say what Socrates said to the jurors (though he was apparently addressing his prosecutors) - that Anytus and Meletus can kill him, but not harm him.

The point is that fortune can make us fall ill, can deprive us of our wealth, can ruin our relationship with the people or the king, but it cannot make someone who is good, brave and high-minded into a bad, cowardly, mean-spirited, petty and spiteful person, and it cannot deprive us of the permanent presence of an attitude towards life which is a more helpful guide in this sphere than a helmsman is on a sea voyage. A helmsman is incapable of quelling a rough sea or the wind, and he cannot at will happen upon a safe harbour when he needs one, and he cannot endure whatever happens confidently and without flinching: as long as he doesn't give up, and relies on his skill, 'he escapes the hell-dark sea by reefing the mainsail right down to the bottom of the mast', but when the waves loom over him, he sits there quaking and trembling. On the other hand, a wise person's attitude calms the majority of physical matters, since his self-control, responsible regimen and moderate exercise get rid of the preconditions of illness; and if some external source of infection crops up, like the onset of a squall, then, in Asclepiades' words, 'he furls and lightens the sail, and rides it out'; and if some major unpredictable event overtakes and overwhelms him, the harbour is close by - he can swim away from the uncaulked hull of his body.

You see, it is not desire for life, but fear of death which makes an unintelligent person depend on his body and grasp on to it (one is reminded of how Odysseus' fear of Charybdis below him made him grasp on to the fig tree), 'when winds make both stopping and sailing impossible', and he is dissatisfied with one option and afraid of the other. However, anyone who has come, by whatever route, to understand the nature of the mind, and who appreciates that at death the change the mind undergoes is either for the better or at least not for the worse, is well equipped by this lack of fear of death to be content about his life. Anyone who can not only enjoy life when the pleasant and congenial aspect of it is uppermost, but who, when faced with an excess of events which are antipathetic and incongruent with his nature, can also depart without fear and with the words, 'The god himself will free me, when I will it' - well, it is inconceivable that such a man could be annoyed or angry or upset by anything that happened to him.

Whoever it was who said, 'Fortune, I have made a pre-emptive strike against you, and I have deprived you of every single loophole', was not basing his confidence on bolts, locks and fortifications, but on principles and arguments which are available to anyone who wants them. And this kind of argument should not induce any degree of resignation or disbelief, but admiration, emulation, enthusiasm, and investigation and observation of oneself in relatively trivial circumstances, to prepare oneself for the more important matters, so that one does not avoid them or divert one's mind from attention to them or take refuge in excuses like 'That's probably the most difficult thing I'll ever come across.' For if the mind is self-indulgent, and takes the easiest courses all the time, and retreats from unwelcome matters to what maximizes its pleasure, the consequence is weakness and feebleness born of lack of exertion; but a mind which trains and strains itself to use rationality to conceive an image of illness and pain and exile will find that there is plenty of unreality, superficiality and unsoundness in the apparent problems and horrors each of them has to offer, as detailed rational argument demonstrates.

Nevertheless, even the line of Menander which goes 'It is impossible for anyone still living to say, "That won't happen to me"' produces a shiver of fear in many people; but this is because they are unaware to what extent distress can be avoided by the beneficial practice of training oneself to gain the ability to look straight at fortune with open eyes, and not to form in oneself images which are 'soft and unweathered', like someone who has been brought up away from sunlight, in the shade of numerous hopes which constantly give way and provide no resistance against anything. However, we can also say the same thing as Menander - 'It is impossible for anyone still living to say, "That won't happen to me"' - but add that it is possible for anyone still living to say, 'Here's what I will not do: I will not lie, I will not mislead, I will not steal, I will not intrigue.' For this lies ready to hand, within our power, and its contribution towards contentment is not inconsiderable, but huge, since the alternative is for 'the realization of knowing that I have committed crimes' to mark the mind with remorse, which continually bleeds and stings like a bodily wound.

You see, while all other discomforts are eradicated by reason, it is reason itself which creates remorse, when the mind with its conscience is pricked and punished by itself. People who shiver from a chill or feel hot from a fever are more troubled and worse off than people who have the same sensations because of external heat or cold; likewise, chance events entail distress which is easier to endure, because it comes from an external source; but when 'What has happened to me is no one else's fault but my own' is the lament over one's mistakes, then because it comes from an internal source, from oneself, the result is a pain which one's sense of shame makes harder to bear. This is why a magnificent house, massive wealth, a splendid genealogy and high office, eloquence and fluency, are all incapable of giving life the degree of fair and calm weather that is afforded by a mind which is untainted by bad actions and intentions, and which bases life on a character that is calm and clear. A character like this is a fountain-head of fine achievements which entail not only present activity that is exuberant and happy and a source of pride, but also past memories that are more rewarding and secure than hopes which, as Pindar says, 'sustain one in old age'. Carneades said, 'Even if thuribles have been cleared out, they emit their scent for a long time.' And is it not the case that fine deeds leave behind in an intelligent person's mind an impression which remains pleasant and fresh, and thanks to which happiness is irrigated and thrives and he is enabled to rise above the level of those who moan and complain about life as being a vale of tears or a place designated for our soul's exile down here?

I like Diogenes' quip: once when he was visiting Sparta, he saw his host zealously getting ready for a festival day, and he said, 'Isn't it the mark of a good man to regard every day as a festival day?' And a particularly glorious festival too, if we see things aright. The world is a temple of the highest sacredness, and nowhere could be more suitable for divinity; and man is introduced into this world by means of his birth not to view manufactured, immobile images, but to gaze upon what Plato describes as the perceptible likenesses of intelligible things which divine intelligence has manifested as containers of an inherent principle of life and movement - the sun, moon and stars, the rivers with their continuous discharge of renewed water, and the earth with its supply of means of nourishment for plants and creatures. Life is an initiation into these things and there is no more perfect way to celebrate them; life, therefore, should be full of contentment and joy, and we should not make the usual mistake of waiting for occasional days like the holidays sacred to Cronus, Zeus or Athena for the opportunity to enjoy and revivify ourselves by paying mimes and dancers for bought entertainment.

Moreover, although we sit quietly and in good order on these occasions - for no one complains while he is being initiated or whinges while he is watching the Pythian Games or is drinking during the festival of Cronus - nevertheless, people bring shame on the festivals, which are arranged and conducted by God, by spending most of the rest of their time in complaints, despondency and exhausting worry. And although people enjoy listening to the delightful sounds of musical instruments and the singing of birds, and enjoy watching the play and frolics of animals, and conversely get perturbed when they growl and roar and look threatening, nevertheless when they see that their own lives are unsmiling, depressed and constantly constrained and restricted by disagreeable experiences and events and innumerable anxieties, they are unwilling to find some means of supplying themselves with recuperation and relaxation. But even when other people try to assist, they resist any argument which could help them come to terms with their current situation without finding fault with it, remember the past without ingratitude and approach the future happily and optimistically, without fear and without apprehension. BVE9HkzroslOysOzqE1gnwMEUV9MTYJBk+39x4gnrDF+PH6mUVI1wsBFfGRCd55p