Daily Advice 12.31.20
Dec. 31st, 2020 02:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
readoldthings A final note from Seneca's On Anger, to say farewell to 2020:
Reflecting on the year just past, I find myself greatly tempted to anger with my fellow Americans. I can't figure out how it's possible to believe that what one sees on the television is real, or not to realize that major media corporations manipulate the mind and emotions of their viewers on purpose. At my worst, I want to start screaming at people for behaving little better than cattle.
This is precisely the behavior that Seneca would have me avoid. And isn't he right? Haven't I been equally as foolish? Don't I need pardon from time to time, and, given that, hadn't I better offer it to others-- even if it seems that they've deliberately replaced their brains with the voice of Don Lemon? And if they are acting like cattle-- can you blame a cow for being a cow?
While the TV news has been terrible, 2020 has been, for me, one of the best years of my life, and I'm sorrow to see it go. Thank you to everyone who has been reading and commenting on this blog. See you next year, everybody!
"It is impossible", says Theophrastus, "for a good man not to be angry with bad men." According to this, the better a man is, the more irascible he will be; on the contrary, be sure that none is more peaceable, more free from passion, and less given to hate. Indeed, what reason has he for hating wrong-doers, since it is error that drives them to such mistakes? But no man of sense will hate the erring; otherwise he will hate himself. Let him reflect how many times he offends against morality, how many of his acts stand in need of pardon; then he will be angry with himself also. For no just judge will pronounce one sort of judgement in his own case and a different one in the case of others. No one will be found, I say, who is able to acquit himself, and any man who calls himself innocent is thinking more of witnesses than conscience. How much more human to manifest toward wrong-doers a kind and fatherly spirit, not hunting them down but calling them back! If a man has lost his way and is roaming across our fields, it is better to put him upon the right path than to drive him out.
Reflecting on the year just past, I find myself greatly tempted to anger with my fellow Americans. I can't figure out how it's possible to believe that what one sees on the television is real, or not to realize that major media corporations manipulate the mind and emotions of their viewers on purpose. At my worst, I want to start screaming at people for behaving little better than cattle.
This is precisely the behavior that Seneca would have me avoid. And isn't he right? Haven't I been equally as foolish? Don't I need pardon from time to time, and, given that, hadn't I better offer it to others-- even if it seems that they've deliberately replaced their brains with the voice of Don Lemon? And if they are acting like cattle-- can you blame a cow for being a cow?
While the TV news has been terrible, 2020 has been, for me, one of the best years of my life, and I'm sorrow to see it go. Thank you to everyone who has been reading and commenting on this blog. See you next year, everybody!
