My Virtual Reading Room

Some sense of being successful in life may lie in knowing which league to play in. If you are and have always been short, chubby and slow, and your sense of success means playing striker on a World Cup soccer team, failure will be your lot in life.

Wrong league.

However, if you are pleased to play goalie on a local playground team with other short, chubby, and slow people--and you have a wonderful time doing it, then you are a successful soccer player.

Right league.

And the same is true for any sport- tennis, baseball, volleyball, poker or whatever pick a league worth of your abilities and flourish there.

Or, as Epictetus said in the first century BC:“If you can fish, fish. If you can sing, sing. If you can fight, fight. Determine what you can do. And do that.”

Likewise, some sense of being successful in life may lie in knowing on which scale you work best. For example, an astronomer is one whose mind can work on a cosmic scale. A physicist is one whose mind can handle the quantum scale. A theologian, the metaphysical scale. A historian deals with the long picture. A psychiatrist works with the deep picture. A cook or taxi driver attends the immediate situation. Poets and artists operate on a very personal scale.

Many people die confused and unfulfilled, because they spend a life trying to perform above or even below their abilities and perspective, usually a matter of working on the wrong scale.

( Read more... )

Finally found the passage I had been looking for...here:
**
...But, to sum it all up: remember that the door has been thrown open. Do not become a greater coward than the children, but just as they say, "I won't play any longer," when the thing does not please them, so do you also, when things seem to you to have reached that stage, merely say, "I won't play any longer," and take your departure; but if you stay, stop lamenting.
..............................
How long, then, should we obey such commands? As long as it is beneficial, and that means, as long as I preserve what is becoming and consistent. Further, some men are unduly crabbed and have too sharp tongues and say, "I cannot dine at this fellow's house, where I have to put up with his telling every day how we fought in Moesia: 'I have told you, brother, how I climbed up to the crest of the hill; well now, I begin to be besieged again.'" But another says, "I would rather dine and hear him babble all he pleases."

And it is for you to compare these estimates; only do nothing as one burdened, or afflicted, or thinking that he is in a wretched plight; for no one forces you to do this. Has some one made a smoke in the house? If he has made a moderate amount of smoke I shall stay; if too much, I go outside. For one ought to remember always and hold fast to this, that the door stands open.

But some one says, "Do not dwell in Nicopolis." I agree not to dwell there. "Nor in Rome." I agree not to dwell in Rome, either. "Dwell in Gyara." But to dwell in Gyara seems to me to be like a great quantity of smoke in the house. I leave for a place where no one will prevent me from dwelling; for that dwelling-place stands open to every man.

...What do we admire? Externals. What are we in earnest about? About externals. Are we, then, at a loss to know how it comes about that we are subject to fear and anxiety? Why, what else can possibly happen, when we regard impending events as things evil? We cannot but be in fear, we cannot but be in anxiety. And then we say, "O Lord God, how may I escape anxiety?"

Fool, have you not hands? Did not God make them for you? Sit down now and pray forsooth that the mucus in your nose may not run! Nay, rather wipe your nose and do not blame God! What then? Has he given you nothing that helps in the present case? Has he not given you endurance, has he not given you magnanimity, has he not given you courage? When you have such serviceable hands as these do you still look for someone to wipe your nose?

But these virtues we neither practise nor concern ourselves withal. Why, show me one single man who cares how he does something, who is concerned, not with getting something, but with his own action. Who is there that is concerned with his own action while he is walking around? Who, when he is planning, is concerned with the plan itself, and not with getting what he is planning about? And then if he gets it, he is all set up and says, "Yes, indeed, what a fine plan we made! Did I not tell you, brother, that, if there was anything at all in my views, it was impossible for the plan to fall out otherwise?" But if the plan goes the other way, he is humble and wretched, and cannot even find any explanation at what has happened.

Who of us ever called in a seer for a case of this kind? Who of us ever slept in a temple for enlightenment about our action? Who? Show me but one, that I may see him, the man that I have long been looking for, the truly noble and gifted man; be he young or old, only show him!

...What kind of witness do you bear for God? "I am in sore straits, O Lord, and in misfortune; no one regards me, no one gives me anything, all blame me and speak ill of me." Is this the witness you are going to bear, and is this the way in which you are going to disgrace the summons that He gave you, in that He bestowed this honour upon you and deemed you worthy to be brought forward in order to bear testimony so important?

But the one who has authority over you declares, "I pronounce you impious and profane." What has happened to you? "I have been pronounced impious and profane." Nothing else? "Nothing." But if he has passed judgment upon some hypothetical syllogism and had made a declaration, "I judge the statement, 'If it is day, there is light,' to be false," what has happened to the hypothetical syllogism? Who is being judged in this case, who has been condemned? The hypothetical syllogism, or the man who has been deceived in his judgment about it? Who in the world, then, is this man who has authority to make any declaration about you?  Does he know what piety and impiety is? Has he pondered the matter? Has he learned it? Where? Under whose instruction? And yet a musician pays no attention to him, if he declares that the lower string is the highest, nor does a geometrician, if the man decides that the lines extending from the centre to the circumference of a circle are not equal; but shall the truly educated man pay attention to an uninstructed person when he passes judgment on what is holy and unholy, and on what is just and unjust?

(From the Discourses of Epictetus)

..."I do not want," says he, "this kind of a task." What, is it in your power to take any task you want? You have been given such a body, such parents, such brothers, such a country, such a position in it; and then do you come to me and say, "Change the task for me?" what, do you not possess resources to enable you to utilize that which has been given? You ought to say, "It is yours to set the task, mine to practise it well."

(From The Discourses of Epictetus)

Mindful, therefore, of this ordaining we should go to receive instruction, not in order to change the constitution of things,--for this is neither vouchsafed us nor is it better that it should be,--but in order that, things about us being as they are and as their nature is, we may, for our own part, keep our wills in harmony with what happens.

For, look you, can we escape from men? And how is it possible? But can we, if they associate with us, change them?  And who vouchsafes us that power?  What alternative remains, then, or what method can we find for living with them?

Some such method as that, while they will act as it seems best to them, we shall none the less be in a state comfortable to nature.  But if you are impatient and peevish, and if you are alone, you call it a solitude, but if you are in the company of men, you call them schemers and brigands, and you find fault even with your own parents and children and brothers and neighbours.  But you ought, when staying alone, to call that peace and freedom, and to look upon yourself as like the gods; and when you are in the company of many, you ought not to call that a mob, nor a tumult, nor a disgusting thing, but a feast and a festival, and so accept all things contentedly.

What, then is the punishment of those who do not accept?  To be just as they are.  Is one peevish because he is alone? Let him be in solitude! Is he peevish with his parents? Let him be an evil son and grieve! Is he peevish with his children? Let him be a bad father! "Throw him into prison." What sort of prison? Where he now is.

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 4 sentences on your LJ along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet! I know you were thinking about it! Just pick up whatever is closest.
6. Tag five people.
**

OK...nearest book...Epictetus' Discourses! Hahahaha!

For consider; you have fine clothes and your neighbor does not; you have a window and wish to air them. He does not know wherein the true good of man consists, but fancies that it consists in having fine clothes, the very same fancy that you also entertain.  Shall he not come, then, and carry them off? Why, when you show a cake to gluttonous men and then gulp it down all to yourself, are you not wanting them to snatch it?  Stop provoking them, stop having a window, stop airing your clothes.
**

Am not tagging anyone, but please, do join in! The more the merrier--let's see what each person's nearest book is! XD

....but there are some men of to-day whom it is impossible to move. So that I feel now what I formerly did not understand--the meaning of the proverb, "A fool you can neither persuade nor break."  God forbid that I should ever have for a friend a wise fool!  There is nothing harder to handle. "I have decided," he says! Why yes, and so have madmen; but the more firm their decision is about what is false, the more hellebore they need.   Will you not act like a sick man, and summon a physician? "I am sick, sir; help me. Consider what I ought to do; it is my part to obey you."

So also in the present instance. "I know not what I ought to be doing, but I have come to find out." Thus one should speak.  No, but this is what one hears, "Talk to me about anything else, but on this point I have made my decision."  "Anything else" indeed! Why, what is more important or more to your advantage than to be convinced that it is not sufficient for a man merely to have reached decisions, and to refuse to change? These are the sinews of madness, not health.  "If you force me to do this, I would gladly die."  What for, man? What has happened? "I have decided"! It was fortunate for me that you did not decide to kill me!

...And this is the struggle in which your teacher and trainer, if he really amounted to anything, ought to be engaged; you, for your part, would come to him saying: "Epictetus, we can no longer endure to be imprisoned with this paltry body, giving it food and drink, and resting and cleansing it, and to crown it all, being on its account brought into contact with these people and those.

Are not these things indifferent--indeed, nothing--to us? And is not death no evil? And are we not in a manner akin to God, and have we not come from Him? Suffer us to go back whence we came; suffer us to be freed at last from these fetters that are fastened to us and weigh us down. Here are despoilers and thieves, and courts of law, and those who are called tyrants; they think that they have some power over us because of the paltry body and its possessions. Suffer us to show them that they have power over no one."

And thereupon it were my part to say: "Men, wait upon God. When He shall give the signal and set you free from this service, then shall you depart to Him; but for the present endure to abide in this place, where He has stationed you. Short indeed is the time of your abiding here, and easy to bear for men of your convictions. For what tyrant, or what thief, or what courts of law are any longer formidable to those who have thus set at naught the body and its possessions? Stay, nor be so unrational as to depart."

"Must I, then, be the only one to be beheaded now?" Why, did you want everybody else to be beheaded for your consolation?
........
"What aid, then, must we have ready at hand in such circumstances?" Why, what else than the knowledge of what is mine, and what is not mine, and what is permitted me, and what is not permitted me? I must die; must I, then, die groaning, too? I must be fettered: and wailing too? I must go into exile: does anyone, then, keep you from going with a smile and cheerful and serene? "Tell your secrets." I say not a word; for that is under my control. "But I will fetter you." What is that you say, man? fetter me? My leg you will fetter, but my moral purpose not even Zeus himself has power to overcome. "I will throw you into prison." My paltry body, rather! "I will behead you." Well, when did I ever tell you that mine was the only neck that could not be severed? These are the lessons that philosophers ought to rehearse, these they ought to write down daily, in these they ought to exercise themselves.

Thrasea used to say: "I would rather be killed to-day than banished to-morrow." What, then, did Rufus say to him? "If you choose death as the heavier of the two misfortunes, what folly of choice! But if as the lighter, who has given you the choice? Are you not willing to practice contentment with what has been given you?"

Wherefore, what was it Agrippinus used to remark? "I am not standing in my own way." Word was brought him, "Your case is being tried in the Senate." --"Good luck betide! But it is the fifth hour now" (he was in the habit of taking his exercise and then a cold bath at that hour); "let us be off and take our exercise." After he had finished his exercise someone came and told him, "You have been condemned." --"To exile," says he, "or to death?"--"To exile."--"What about my property?"--"It has not been confiscated."--"Well then, let us go to Aricia and take our lunch there."

This is what it means to have rehearsed the lessons one ought to rehearse, to have set desire and aversion free from every hindrance and made them proof against chance. I must die. If forthwith, I die; and if a little later, I will take lunch now, since the hour for lunch has come, and afterwards I will die at the appointed time. How? As becomes a man who is giving back that which was another's.

Indeed, a man loses only that which he already has.  "I have lost my cloak."  Yes, for you had a cloak.  "I have a pain in my head." You don't have a pain in your horns, do you?  Why, then, are you indignant?  For our losses and pains have to do only with the things which we possess.

"But the tyrant will chain--" What?  Your leg.  "But he will cut off--" What?  Your neck.  What, then, will he neither chain nor cut off?  Your moral purpose.  This is why the ancients gave us the injunction, "Know thyself."  What follows, then? Why, by the Gods, that one ought to practise in small things, and beginning with them, pass on to the greater.  "I have a head-ache."  Well, do not say "Alas!" "I have an ear-ache."  Do not say "Alas!" And I am not saying that it is not permissible to groan, only do not groan in the centre of your being.  And if your slave is slow in bringing your bandage, do not cry and make a wry face and say, "Everybody hates me." Why, who would not hate such a person?

For the future put your confidence in these doctrines and walk about erect, free, not putting your confidence in the size of your body, like an athlete; for you ought not to be invincible in the way an ass is invincible.

Who, then, is the invincible man?  He whom nothing  that is outside the sphere of his moral purpose can dismay.  I then proceed to consider the circumstances one by one, as I would do in the case of the athlete.  "This fellow has won the first round.  What, then, will he do in the second?  What if it be scorching hot?  And what will he do at Olympia?" 

it is the same way with the case under consideration.  If you put a bit of silver coin in a man's way, he will despise it.  Yes, but if you put a bit of a wench in his way, what then?  Or if it be in the dark, what then?  Or if you throw a bit of reputation in his way, what then? Or abuse, what then?  Or praise, what then?  Or death, what then?  All these things he can overcome.  What, then, if it be scorching hot--that is, what if he be drunk?  What if he be melancholy-mad?  What if asleep?  The man who passes all these tests is what I mean by the invincible athlete.

(From the Discourses of Epictetus)

Two of my favourite passages from the Discourses of Epictetus (which I am now re-reading):

"Only consider at what price you sell your freedom of will.  If you must sell it, man, at least do not sell it cheap.  But the great and pre-eminent deed, perhaps, befits others, Socrates and men of his stamp.--Why then, pray, if we are endowed by nature for such greatness, do not all men, or many, become like him?  What, do all horses become swift, all dogs keen to follow the scent?  What then?  Because I have no natural gifts, shall I on that account give up my discipline?  Far be it from me!  Epictetus will not be better than Socrates; but if only I am not worse, that suffices me.  For I shall not be a Milo, either, and yet I do not neglect my body; nor a Croesus, and yet I do not neglect my property; nor, in a word, is there any other field in which we give up the appropriate discipline merely from despair of attaining the highest."

"Come, have you not received faculties that enable you to bear whatever happens?  Have you not received magnanimity?  Have you not received courage?  Have you not received endurance?  And what care I longer for anything that may happen, if I be magnanimous?  What shall perturb me, or trouble me, or seem grievous to me?  Shall I fail to use my faculty to that end for which I have received it, but grieve and lament over events that occur?

'Yes, but my nose is running."  What have you hands for, then, slave?  Is it not that you may wipe your nose? 'Is it reasonable, then, that there should be running noses in the world?' --And how much better it would be for you to wipe your nose than to find fault!"