You really gotta hunt for the good life.
Jimmy Martin was a popular bluegrass musician from the 1950’s and 1960’s. Despite being a renowned and beloved musician, he was snubbed by the Grand Ole Opry because of his problems with alcohol. The quote above was his voicemail message before he passed away.
It’s all right to tell a man to lift himself by his own bootstraps, but it is cruel jest to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps.
I think all he was trying to say is that when you start with nothing and there are systems specifically crafted to ensure that you continue to have nothing, it’s not reasonable to expect that this will just work it’s way out by dint of hard work or perseverance. We’re still struggling to right this ship fifty years later, but I believe we’re trending in the right direction, even if the last year or so has been a set back for some people.
To that end, I spent my morning cleaning up one of the first integrated cemeteries in Atlanta. Today is not a vacation or a day off of work. It’s a day for reflection and giving something back to your community.
Philosophy is good advice; and no one can give advice at the top of his lungs.
A single tree is not remarkable if the whole forest rises to the same height.
Seneca, while referring to the role that things play in our lives, had this to say:
…mortals, most wretched in this respect also, are deceived: for we think that we hold them in our grasp but they hold us in theirs.
Remember that stuff is just stuff. Our things are not what we are composed of, not what define us, and they are not what we ought to set our aims towards. The acquisition of quality or luxury goods is an unintended consequence of your actions. He also provided the following metaphor:
He is a great man who uses earthenware dishes as if they were silver; but he is equally great who uses silver as if it were earthenware.
The active pursuit of luxury is as bad as the self-imposed rejection of anything not common.
For we must indeed have someone according to whom we may regulate our characters; you can never straighten that which is crooked unless you use a ruler.
I don’t recall which of Seneca’s letters this comes from but it reminds me of the core message in letter II, On Discursiveness In Reading where he tells Lucilius to focus on one author at a time. His main point is that jumping from thinker to thinker does little to settle or focus the self. It also reminds me of the famous Thoreau quote: “As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.” You need to find a thinker that you aspire to be like and follow their lead. Eventually, you will become more like this person.
What progress, you ask, have I made? I have begun to be a friend to myself.
A reminder that you are, invariably, your own worst enemy and your own worst critic. If there’s one person who will be on your side no matter what, it’s you. No matter what happens, be a good friend to yourself. That doesn’t mean just being “good” to yourself. Friends can be harsh and tell you things you don’t want to hear. You need to be able to do that to yourself when it’s needed. Treat yourself as a genuine friend.
Seneca is an interesting character. His proponents say he provides a rich, digestible version of realist Stoicism and greatly influenced early Christian thought. His detractors would point to his apparent misalignment between simple philosophy and extravagant lifestyle. I’ll take the middle path: He was a flawed, imperfect man who recognized his misgivings and tried to reconcile what he did with what he thought. Though Letters from a Stoic he manages to provide a realistic application of Stoic teachings.
Over the next weeks, I’ll document my favorite sayings of his.
As long as there is one upright man, as long as there is one compassionate woman, the contagion may spread and the scene is not desolate. Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time. I shall get up Sunday morning and wind the clock, as a contribution to order and steadfastness.
Sailors have an expression about the weather: they say, the weather is a great bluffer. I guess the same is true of our human society—things can look dark, then a break shows in the clouds, and all is changed, sometimes rather suddenly. It is quite obvious that the human race has made a queer mess of life on this planet. But as a people we probably harbor seeds of goodness that have lain for a long time waiting to sprout when the conditions are right. Man’s curiosity, his relentlessness, his inventiveness, his ingenuity have led him into deep trouble. We can only hope that these same traits will enable him to claw his way out.
Hang on to your hat. Hang on to your hope. And wind the clock, for tomorrow is another day.
This is going to by my final quote from Marcus Aurelius for now. I realized so many of the quotes I highlighted should have been better curated and pruned. Many of them overlap or just do not contain the best of his work. This final quote, however, contains in it a fantastic distillation of Stoic thought.
Men exist for the sake of one another. Teach them then or bear with them.
In this quote he answers (for me) the following two questions: What is our purpose? What’s best in life? According to Aurelius, to help and benefit each other. It’s a clear-eyed recognition that we are not here for ourselves or at least that we are best off helping each other. Modern human society shows us how far human cooperation can take us. Additionally, if we know something that others ought to know, we have a duty to share that knowledge.
Finally, It restates a Stoic constant: Judgement of a thing rather than the actual thing holds the power to illicit a response. Here, it’s delivered in a really useful package. If you’re not going to show someone what they’re doing wrong at least don’t get angry at them.
This might be my favorite quote of his.