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Daily Advice 12.11.2020
Dec. 11th, 2020 08:48 amToday, a passage from Seneca's work On Providence--
I was born in the early '80s. That makes me either a very young member of Generation X or a very old Millennial, depending upon which timeline you follow. I like the term X-ennial, referring to those of us who straddle the generational cusp. We were born into the world prior to the rise of the Devices, but we came of age with them. We were also born into a world in which the country was at peace and its power unquestioned-- but we came of age with the global wars and the rise of the surveillance state. Now we're entering a new era in which all of the trends of the preceding two decades are converging upon a kind of bizarre medicalized totalitarianism, with a creepy racial undercurrent. To put it bluntly, it sucks.
Earlier in the same passage, Seneca says that "God does not make a spoiled pet of a good man; he tests him, hardens him, and fits him for his own service." If the times are hard-- and they are-- let us be willing to say so, but let us also give thanks for the opportunity to become stronger, and wiser, than we were.
No evil can befall a good man; opposites do not mingle. Just as the countless rivers, the vast fall of rain from the sky, and the huge volume of mineral springs do not change the taste of the sea, do not even modify it, so the assaults of adversity do not weaken the spirit of a brave man. It always maintains its poise, and it gives its own colour to everything that happens; for it is mightier than all external things. And yet I do not mean to say that the brave man is insensible to these, but that he overcomes them, and being in all else unmoved and calm rises to meet whatever assails him. All his adversities he counts mere training. Who, moreover, if he is a man and intent upon the right, is not eager for reasonable toil and ready for duties accompanied by danger? To what energetic man is not idleness a punishment?
Wrestlers, who make strength of body their chief concern, we see pitting themselves against none but the strongest, and they require of those who are preparing them for the arena that they use against them all their strength; they submit to blows and hurts, and if they do not find their match in single opponents, they engage with several at a time. Without an adversary, prowess shrivels.
These are words to remember in hard times. If we follow Plato, we had at least some role in choosing to be born in this place, at this time-- or else it was chosen for us by guardians who are wiser than we. Wrestlers, who make strength of body their chief concern, we see pitting themselves against none but the strongest, and they require of those who are preparing them for the arena that they use against them all their strength; they submit to blows and hurts, and if they do not find their match in single opponents, they engage with several at a time. Without an adversary, prowess shrivels.
I was born in the early '80s. That makes me either a very young member of Generation X or a very old Millennial, depending upon which timeline you follow. I like the term X-ennial, referring to those of us who straddle the generational cusp. We were born into the world prior to the rise of the Devices, but we came of age with them. We were also born into a world in which the country was at peace and its power unquestioned-- but we came of age with the global wars and the rise of the surveillance state. Now we're entering a new era in which all of the trends of the preceding two decades are converging upon a kind of bizarre medicalized totalitarianism, with a creepy racial undercurrent. To put it bluntly, it sucks.
Earlier in the same passage, Seneca says that "God does not make a spoiled pet of a good man; he tests him, hardens him, and fits him for his own service." If the times are hard-- and they are-- let us be willing to say so, but let us also give thanks for the opportunity to become stronger, and wiser, than we were.
