You were a fool, and set your thoughts on uncertainties. Why then do you not accuse yourself, instead of sitting crying like young girls? — Epictetus, Discourses, Book IV, Ch. 10
What is amazing is not just that people are greedy and prone to engage in ethically questionable activities; the big lesson is how people can reach unimaginable positions of power and essentially be (a) incompetent, and (b) not willing to do even the most mundane and trivial parts of their job.
What would Heracles have been if he had said, “How am I to prevent a big lion from appearing, or a big boar, or brutal men?” What care you, I say? If a big boar appears, you will have a greater struggle to engage in; if evil men appear, you will free the world from evil men.
“But if I die thus?”
You will die a good man, fulfilling a noble action.
What greater good do you look for than this? You were shameless and shall be self-respecting, you were undisciplined and shall be disciplined, untrustworthy and you shall be trusted, dissolute and you shall be self-controlled. If you look for greater things than these, go on doing as you do now, not even a god can save you.
Freak out. This is a very important part of the process. Seriously. Look at the list of everything you’ve been trying to work on concurrently, or meaning to work on, and see how infeasible that list really is. Then look at the one or two or three things you really really really want to accomplish, and let yourself soak in the truth: you are not going to get your most valued goals accomplished when you are trying to do this many things.
Given the combined emotional maturity of the bride and groom, I wondered at the wedding which would come first: a thank you note for the gift, or a divorce.
Why do you not come forward and openly proclaim that you are at peace with all men, whatever they do, and that you laugh above all at those who think that they are harming you? saying, “These slaves do not know who I am, nor where to find what is good or bad for me, for they have no way of getting at my position.”
Sparrows were feeding in a freezing drizzle
That while you watched turned into pieces of snow
Riding a gradient invisible
From silver aslant to random, white, and slow.
There came a moment that you couldn’t tell.
And then they clearly flew instead of fell.
There is but one way to peace of mind (keep this thought by you at dawn and in the daytime and at night) — to give up what is beyond your control, to count nothing your own, to surrender everything to heaven and fortune.
Ought you to desire what is not given you, or to be ashamed if you do not attain to it? Is this all the habit you acquired when you studied philosophy, to look to others and to hope for nothing from yourself and your own acts?
“Look at me, I have no house or city, property or slave: I sleep on the ground, I have no wife or children, no miserable palace, but only earth and sky and one poor cloak. Yet what do I lack? Am I not quit of pain and fear, am I not free? When has any of you ever seen me failing to get what I will to get, or falling into what I will to avoid? When did I blame God or man, when did I accuse any? Has any of you seen me with a gloomy face? How do I meet those of whom you stand in fear and awe? Do I not meet them as slaves? Who that sees me but thinks that he sees his king and master?” There you have the true Cynic’s words; this is his character, and scheme of life.
There’s no one behind the customer service counter at Barnes and Noble but there is a woman doing something with the books in front of the counter . . .
“Do you work here?” I ask.
“Yes,” she says, but not in a friendly way . . . more like yes, I work here but I regret it.
‘I’m looking for The Book of Holiday Awesome,” I say.
“I’ve never heard of that,” she says.
I don’t care if she’s heard of it. I just want to know if they have a copy of it on hand.
“Do you know the author?” she asks.
“No.”
She types a couple of things into the computer. “Nothing is coming up,” she says.
It’s a popular book so something should be coming up, even if it’s just to say they don’t have it in stock.
I lean over the counter to see what she’s typed in the search box. Here it is: the book of holiday awsum.
It is where you think not, and will not seek for it. For if you had wished you would have found it in yourselves and would not have wandered outside and would not have sought the things of others as your own.
Did Laius obey Apollo? Did he not go away in his drunken stupor and dismiss the oracle from his mind? What then? Did Apollo withhold the truth from him for that reason? Indeed I do not know whether you will obey me or not, but Apollo knew most certainly that Laius would not obey, and yet he spoke. Why did he speak? Nay, why is he Apollo, why does he give oracles, why has he set himself in this position, to be a Prophet and a Fountain of truth, so that men from all the world come to him? Why is “Know thyself” written up over his shrine, though no one understands it?
