Dignity!
Been a while since I've posted...Since I am having a very long writer's block, here's a piece from the book "Fooled by Randomness"....Simple, yet powerful!
The author speaks of a poem "Apoleipein o Theos Antonion" which addresses Mark Antony, who has just lost the battle against Octavius and was forsaken by Bacchus, the God who until then had protected him. Legend has it that even Antony's horse had deserted him to go to his enemy.
The poem asks Antony to just bid farewell, to Alexandria , the city that is leaving him. It tells him not to mourn his luck, not to enter denial, not to believe that his eyes and ears are deceiving him. "Do not degrade yourself with empty hopes, Antony. Just listen while shaken by emotion but not with the coward's imploration and complaints".
While shaken with emotion. No stiff upper lip. There is nothing wrong and undignified with emotions - we are cut to have them. What is wrong, is not following the heroic, or at least the dignified path. This is what stoicism truly means. It is the attempt of man to get even with probability. The stoic is a person who combines the qualities of wisdom, upright dealing, and courage. The stoic will thus be immune from life's gyrations as he will be superior to the wounds from some of life's dirty tricks.
Being a hero does not necessarily mean such an extreme act as getting killed in a battle or taking one's life - the latter is recommended only in a narrow set of circumstances and considered cowardly otherwise.Having control over randomness can be expressed in the manner in which one acts in the small and the large. Recall that epic heroes were judged by their actions, not by the results. No matter how sophisticated our choices, how good we are at dominating the odds, randomness will have the last word. We are left only with dignity as a solution - dignity defined as the execution of protocol of a behaviour that does not depend upon the immediate circumstance. It may not be the optimal one, but it certainly is the one that makes us feel best. Grace under pressure, for example. Or in deciding not to toady up to someone, whatever the reward. Or in fighting a duel to save face. Or in signaling to a prospective mate during courtship: "Listen, I have a crush on you; I am obsessed with you, but I will not do a thing to compromise my dignity. Accordingly, the slightest snub and you will never see me again."
The author speaks of a poem "Apoleipein o Theos Antonion" which addresses Mark Antony, who has just lost the battle against Octavius and was forsaken by Bacchus, the God who until then had protected him. Legend has it that even Antony's horse had deserted him to go to his enemy.
The poem asks Antony to just bid farewell, to Alexandria , the city that is leaving him. It tells him not to mourn his luck, not to enter denial, not to believe that his eyes and ears are deceiving him. "Do not degrade yourself with empty hopes, Antony. Just listen while shaken by emotion but not with the coward's imploration and complaints".
While shaken with emotion. No stiff upper lip. There is nothing wrong and undignified with emotions - we are cut to have them. What is wrong, is not following the heroic, or at least the dignified path. This is what stoicism truly means. It is the attempt of man to get even with probability. The stoic is a person who combines the qualities of wisdom, upright dealing, and courage. The stoic will thus be immune from life's gyrations as he will be superior to the wounds from some of life's dirty tricks.
Being a hero does not necessarily mean such an extreme act as getting killed in a battle or taking one's life - the latter is recommended only in a narrow set of circumstances and considered cowardly otherwise.Having control over randomness can be expressed in the manner in which one acts in the small and the large. Recall that epic heroes were judged by their actions, not by the results. No matter how sophisticated our choices, how good we are at dominating the odds, randomness will have the last word. We are left only with dignity as a solution - dignity defined as the execution of protocol of a behaviour that does not depend upon the immediate circumstance. It may not be the optimal one, but it certainly is the one that makes us feel best. Grace under pressure, for example. Or in deciding not to toady up to someone, whatever the reward. Or in fighting a duel to save face. Or in signaling to a prospective mate during courtship: "Listen, I have a crush on you; I am obsessed with you, but I will not do a thing to compromise my dignity. Accordingly, the slightest snub and you will never see me again."
posted by sajetspeaketh at 6:16 AM
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