Read few books; read few authors; read few works; within these works, read a few passages; chose passages considered to be important and sufficient.
Reading basically involves providing an opportunity for meditation.
Meletan-meditation: it is exercise, to train oneself, a sort of mental exercise, a way of confronting an adversary, in order to find out if you can resist him or be the stronger. For Greeks or Latins, the meletan is to perform an exercise of appropriation of a thought. It involves ensuring that this truth is engraved in the mind in such a way that it is recalled immediately the need arises, and in such a way that we have, consequently making it a principle of action.
For example, the meditation of death. In a sense, meditating death does not mean thing that you are going to die, or convincing you that you are really going to die. Meditating death is placing yourself, in thought, in the situation of someone who is in the process of dying, or who is about to die, or who is living his last days.Through thought, the person who is dying or whose death is imminent.
Seneca, Letter 84: we should alternate between writing and reading. We should neither always write or always read; the former of the two activities will end up exhausting our energy if we keep at it constantly. The second lessens and dilutes our energy. We should meditate, write, and train.
Epictetus: "May death take me while I am thinking, writing, and reading these phrases."
Writing is a part of exercise with the advantage of two possible and simultaneous uses. The use for oneself. For simply by writing we absorb the thing itself we are thinking about. We help it to be established in the soul and we help it to be established in the body, to become a kind of habit for the body, or at any rate a physical virtuality. It was a recommended custom to write after having read something, and after having written it, to read it again and read it again out loud. The exercise of reading was not something easy: it was not a matter of just reading at sight. You had to stress the words properly, you had to utter them in a low voice. So the exercise of reading, writing, and rereading what you had written and the notes you had taken was an almost physical exercise of the assimilation of the truth and the logos you were holding on to. Epictetus says: "Keep these thoughts ready at hand night and day; put them into writing and read them." They are aids to memory, allowing the one who gives advice to rememorize the truths he passes on to the others but which he also needs for his own life.
Friday, October 23, 2009
MF 19: Speak freely
What is anger? Anger is the uncontrolled, violent rage of someone towards someone else over whom the former is entitled to exercise his power, is in a position to do so, and who is therefore in a position to abuse his power.
Seneca, Natural Questions: What is it to conduct himself well in his job as procurator? On one hand, he exercises his functions. He exercises them, but without abandoning what is indispensable for exercising them well, that is to say free time and literature. A studious free time, applied to study, to reading and writing, etc, as complement, accompaniment, and regulative principle, is the guarantee that Lucilius properly discharges his office as procurator.
Most men are tormented by either disgust or self-love with themselves, which leads, in the former case, to being concerned about things that are really not worth caring about; by caring things external to the self; and, in the later case, through self-love, it leads to being attracted by sensual pleasures, by all the pleasures through which one tries to please oneself. These people are never alone with themselves. They are never alone with themselves in the sense that they never have that full, adequate, and sufficient relationship to themselves that ensures that we do not feel dependent on anything, neither on the misfortunes that threaten nor on the pleasures we may encounter or obtain from around us. The figure of the flatterer and the dangers of flattery rush in here, in this insufficiency that ensures that we are never alone with ourselves, in this inability to be alone, when we are either disgusted with or too attached to ourselves.
Speaking freely is anti-flattery. It is anti-flattery that someone who speaks and who speaks to the other but, unlike what happens in flattery, he speaks to the other in such a way that this other will be able to form an autonomous, independent, full and satisfying relationship to himself.
It would be better if the person being guided were not much richer and more powerful than the person guiding him.
Seneca, Natural Questions: What is it to conduct himself well in his job as procurator? On one hand, he exercises his functions. He exercises them, but without abandoning what is indispensable for exercising them well, that is to say free time and literature. A studious free time, applied to study, to reading and writing, etc, as complement, accompaniment, and regulative principle, is the guarantee that Lucilius properly discharges his office as procurator.
Most men are tormented by either disgust or self-love with themselves, which leads, in the former case, to being concerned about things that are really not worth caring about; by caring things external to the self; and, in the later case, through self-love, it leads to being attracted by sensual pleasures, by all the pleasures through which one tries to please oneself. These people are never alone with themselves. They are never alone with themselves in the sense that they never have that full, adequate, and sufficient relationship to themselves that ensures that we do not feel dependent on anything, neither on the misfortunes that threaten nor on the pleasures we may encounter or obtain from around us. The figure of the flatterer and the dangers of flattery rush in here, in this insufficiency that ensures that we are never alone with ourselves, in this inability to be alone, when we are either disgusted with or too attached to ourselves.
Speaking freely is anti-flattery. It is anti-flattery that someone who speaks and who speaks to the other but, unlike what happens in flattery, he speaks to the other in such a way that this other will be able to form an autonomous, independent, full and satisfying relationship to himself.
It would be better if the person being guided were not much richer and more powerful than the person guiding him.
MF 20: Speak the truth without embellishment
Galen, On the Passions: Everyone who wishes to conduct themselves properly in life needs a guide. What we require of the guide are certain moral qualities: First, frankness, the exercise of speaking freely. We have to test the frankness and truthfulness of the person who speaks about himself. Second, he should possess a moral quality by showing by his life that he is a decent man.
Seneca, Letter 7: Philosophy does not renounce the charms of the mind. But one should not take such great pains over words. Let us say what we think and think what we say; let speech harmonize with conduct. That man who is the same both when you see him and when you hear him has fulfilled his commitments. We will see the originality of his nature, its greatness. Our discourse should strive not to please, but to be useful. If you can attain eloquence without painstaking, if it comes naturally and at slight cost, accept it, so that it may serve the finest thing sand so that it shows things rather than displays itself. Other arts are concerned solely with cleverness, but we are concerned only with the soul.
A sick man does not go in search of an eloquent doctor. However, if he finds that the man who can cure also discourses elegantly about the treatment to be followed, the patient will reconcile himself to this. But this will be no reason for him to congratulate himslef on having discovered a doctor who, in addition to his skill, is eloquent.
Seneca: It is a matter of showing what I feel rather than speaking, if I have conveyed my thought without studied embellishment or platitude. Not only do I feel and consider the things I say to be true, but I even love them. I am attached to them and my whole life is governed by them.
Seneca, Letter 7: Philosophy does not renounce the charms of the mind. But one should not take such great pains over words. Let us say what we think and think what we say; let speech harmonize with conduct. That man who is the same both when you see him and when you hear him has fulfilled his commitments. We will see the originality of his nature, its greatness. Our discourse should strive not to please, but to be useful. If you can attain eloquence without painstaking, if it comes naturally and at slight cost, accept it, so that it may serve the finest thing sand so that it shows things rather than displays itself. Other arts are concerned solely with cleverness, but we are concerned only with the soul.
A sick man does not go in search of an eloquent doctor. However, if he finds that the man who can cure also discourses elegantly about the treatment to be followed, the patient will reconcile himself to this. But this will be no reason for him to congratulate himslef on having discovered a doctor who, in addition to his skill, is eloquent.
Seneca: It is a matter of showing what I feel rather than speaking, if I have conveyed my thought without studied embellishment or platitude. Not only do I feel and consider the things I say to be true, but I even love them. I am attached to them and my whole life is governed by them.
MF 21: Self exercise techniques
Pythagorean instruction of silence. (two most difficult things of all, keeping quiet and listening)
An exercise of memory
techniques for concentrating though and breathing
ascesis exercises: abstinence, meditation, meditation on death, meditation on future evils, the examination of conscience, etc.
The body must not be neglected in the exercises, even when it is a matter of practicing philosophy. Virtue must go through the body to become active.
Musonius: There are exercises of the body itself, of the soul itself, and of the body and the soul. The objectives are, on the one hand, training and strengthening courage, which we should understand as resistance to external events, the ability to bear them without suffering, collapsing, and letting oneself be overcome by them; resistance to external events, misfortunes, and all the rigors of the world. Then, second, training and strengthening that other virtue, the ability to control oneself.
To bear what comes from the external world and enables us to limit, regulate, and master all the internal impulses, the impulses f one's self.
Plato in Law: In order to train a good citizen or a good guardian, we need to train both his courage and then his moderation or self-control. In Plato these two virtues---courage with regard to the external world; control of oneself----are secured by physical exercises. All this specifically athletic training is one of the guarantees that one will not be afraid of external adversity, that one will not be afraid of the adversaries with whom one learns to fight, the struggle with another person having to serve as the model for the struggle with events and misfortunes.
Athletic preparation involves many renunciations, many abstentions and sexual abstinence in particular: It is well known that one cannot win a contest a Olympia unless one has led a particularly chaste life. One must accustom oneself to bear hunger and thirst, and to bear extreme cold and heat. One must get used to sleeping rough. One must get used to coarse and inadequate clothing, etc.
Seneca: Light exercises only. Not let gymnastics burden the soul. Stoic ethics is concerned with the bodies of old men, of quadragenarians, not with the young man's athletic body. Practice wearing coarse clothes, eating little, and drinking water, to be sufficiently detached to be able to treat the wealth and goods around us with the necessary indifference and with correct and wise nonchalance. What he eats must be what is actually necessary to relieve his hunger. He must only drink knowing that the final purpose and real measure of what he drinks should be what enables him to quench his thirst, etc. Exercises of abstinence for forming a style of life, and not exercises of abstinence for regulating one's life in accordance with precise interdictions and prohibitions.
The exercise that "tomorrow you will die." This exercise, in which one both displays legitimate attachment and in which one detaches oneself through this work of the soul that clearly sees the real fragility of this bond with people you love, will be a test.
An exercise of memory
techniques for concentrating though and breathing
ascesis exercises: abstinence, meditation, meditation on death, meditation on future evils, the examination of conscience, etc.
The body must not be neglected in the exercises, even when it is a matter of practicing philosophy. Virtue must go through the body to become active.
Musonius: There are exercises of the body itself, of the soul itself, and of the body and the soul. The objectives are, on the one hand, training and strengthening courage, which we should understand as resistance to external events, the ability to bear them without suffering, collapsing, and letting oneself be overcome by them; resistance to external events, misfortunes, and all the rigors of the world. Then, second, training and strengthening that other virtue, the ability to control oneself.
To bear what comes from the external world and enables us to limit, regulate, and master all the internal impulses, the impulses f one's self.
Plato in Law: In order to train a good citizen or a good guardian, we need to train both his courage and then his moderation or self-control. In Plato these two virtues---courage with regard to the external world; control of oneself----are secured by physical exercises. All this specifically athletic training is one of the guarantees that one will not be afraid of external adversity, that one will not be afraid of the adversaries with whom one learns to fight, the struggle with another person having to serve as the model for the struggle with events and misfortunes.
Athletic preparation involves many renunciations, many abstentions and sexual abstinence in particular: It is well known that one cannot win a contest a Olympia unless one has led a particularly chaste life. One must accustom oneself to bear hunger and thirst, and to bear extreme cold and heat. One must get used to sleeping rough. One must get used to coarse and inadequate clothing, etc.
Seneca: Light exercises only. Not let gymnastics burden the soul. Stoic ethics is concerned with the bodies of old men, of quadragenarians, not with the young man's athletic body. Practice wearing coarse clothes, eating little, and drinking water, to be sufficiently detached to be able to treat the wealth and goods around us with the necessary indifference and with correct and wise nonchalance. What he eats must be what is actually necessary to relieve his hunger. He must only drink knowing that the final purpose and real measure of what he drinks should be what enables him to quench his thirst, etc. Exercises of abstinence for forming a style of life, and not exercises of abstinence for regulating one's life in accordance with precise interdictions and prohibitions.
The exercise that "tomorrow you will die." This exercise, in which one both displays legitimate attachment and in which one detaches oneself through this work of the soul that clearly sees the real fragility of this bond with people you love, will be a test.
MF 22: Life itself as a test
Life must be recognized, thought, lived, and practiced as a constant test.
Life in its entirety, with its system of tests and hardships, is an education.
You don't become a champion at the Olympic games without sweat.
Epictetus: We can benefit from every difficulty and trouble. Confronted by something that happens to us, for example the death of someone close to us, an illness, loss of wealth, or an earthquake, we should say to ourselves that each of these events, whatever it may be and however accidental it may seem, is really part of the order of the world and its necessary sequence. We should consider that what we believe to be an evil is not really an evil. It is only our opinion that separates us and distances us from the rational point of view and from rational being. All these events are part of the order of the world, and consequently not an evil.
Oedipus at Colonus: Of all this I was innocent. No one can reproach me. Who then would not have killed an insolent old man as I did, since I did not know he was my father? Who then would not have married a woman, not knowing it was my mother? Of all this I was innocent and the gods have pursued me with a vengeance that was not and could not be a punishment. But now we are here, exhausted by ordeals, I come to give a power to the earth where I will die, a new, protective power given to me precisely by the gods.
It is gods that surround good men with the series of tests, misfortunes, etc, necessary to form them. God prepares them: the men he tests he prepared for himself.
Greek novels are long adventure stories which are also stories of voyages, misfortunes, and trials and tribulations, across the Mediterranean world and which in one sense slip easily into the lodge within the major form defined by the Odyssey. It involved knowing who would finally prevail, man or gods. The theme that life must be a formative test of the self appears very clearly. The outcome should be purity of the self in the sense of that over which one exercises vigilance, surveillance, protection, and mastery. The question permeating these novels is quite simple that of virginity. Will the girl keep her virginity, will the boy keep his virginity, will those who are committed to preserving this personal purity, keep their virginity? All these episodes are constructed in order to know the extent to which they will be able to preserve this virginity which, in this literature, seems to me to be like the visible form of the relationship to the self in its transparency and mastery. Preserving virginity so that it is still intact, integral, for both the boy and the girl when, having finally returned home, they find each other again and are legally married. It seems to me that the preservation of this virginity is nothing other than the figurative expression of what, throughout the trials and tribulations of life, must be preserved and maintained to the end: the relationship the one's self. Once again, one lives for one's self.
Life in its entirety, with its system of tests and hardships, is an education.
You don't become a champion at the Olympic games without sweat.
Epictetus: We can benefit from every difficulty and trouble. Confronted by something that happens to us, for example the death of someone close to us, an illness, loss of wealth, or an earthquake, we should say to ourselves that each of these events, whatever it may be and however accidental it may seem, is really part of the order of the world and its necessary sequence. We should consider that what we believe to be an evil is not really an evil. It is only our opinion that separates us and distances us from the rational point of view and from rational being. All these events are part of the order of the world, and consequently not an evil.
Oedipus at Colonus: Of all this I was innocent. No one can reproach me. Who then would not have killed an insolent old man as I did, since I did not know he was my father? Who then would not have married a woman, not knowing it was my mother? Of all this I was innocent and the gods have pursued me with a vengeance that was not and could not be a punishment. But now we are here, exhausted by ordeals, I come to give a power to the earth where I will die, a new, protective power given to me precisely by the gods.
It is gods that surround good men with the series of tests, misfortunes, etc, necessary to form them. God prepares them: the men he tests he prepared for himself.
Greek novels are long adventure stories which are also stories of voyages, misfortunes, and trials and tribulations, across the Mediterranean world and which in one sense slip easily into the lodge within the major form defined by the Odyssey. It involved knowing who would finally prevail, man or gods. The theme that life must be a formative test of the self appears very clearly. The outcome should be purity of the self in the sense of that over which one exercises vigilance, surveillance, protection, and mastery. The question permeating these novels is quite simple that of virginity. Will the girl keep her virginity, will the boy keep his virginity, will those who are committed to preserving this personal purity, keep their virginity? All these episodes are constructed in order to know the extent to which they will be able to preserve this virginity which, in this literature, seems to me to be like the visible form of the relationship to the self in its transparency and mastery. Preserving virginity so that it is still intact, integral, for both the boy and the girl when, having finally returned home, they find each other again and are legally married. It seems to me that the preservation of this virginity is nothing other than the figurative expression of what, throughout the trials and tribulations of life, must be preserved and maintained to the end: the relationship the one's self. Once again, one lives for one's self.
MF 23: Imagination of the future
Epictetus: Just as Zeus lives for himself, reposes in himself, reflects on the nature of his government, occupies himself with thoughts which are worthy of him, so also should we be able to converse with ourselves, be able to do without others, and not be at a loss as to how we spend our time; we must reflect on the divine government, on our relations with the rest of the world, to consider what our attitude hitherto has been towards events, what it is now, what things affect us, how we might remedy them also, and how we might eradicate them.
Epictetus: the great difference between animals and humans is that animals do not have to look after themselves. They are provided with everything so that they can be of use to us. As for humans, they are living beings who must take care of themselves because Zeus has entrusted them to themselves, by giving them the reason which enables them to determine the use to which all the other faculties may be put. So God has entrusted us to ourselves, so that we have to look after ourselves. If now, instead of passing from animals to humans, we go from humans to Zeus, what then is Zeus? He is simply the being who does nothing else but attend to himself. Zeus is the being who lives for himself: the one who is forever himself with himself, reflecting on the nature of his own government, knowing his reason, the reason of God, and finally occupying hiself with thoughts that are worthy of him, conversing with himself.
The portrait of a sage who has achieved wisdom: Living in complete independence; reflecting on the nature of the government on exercises on oneself and on others; conversing with one's own thoughts; speaking with oneself. Whereas the sage has arrived at this progressively, by stages, Zeus is put in this position by his very being. Zeus is the one who has only to take care of himself. We should be able to converse with ourselves, know how to do without others, not be at a loss as to how we spend our time. We must reflect on our relations with the rest of the world. We must meditate on these different things: 1) attitude towards events; 2) what things affect us; 3) how might we remedy them; 4) how might we eradicate them? These are the four great domains of the exercise of thought in Epictetus.
In Plato's case, the truth grasped is ultimately that essential truth that will enable us to lead other men. In the case of Stoics, it won't be a gaze directed towards the reality of essences, but one directed towards the truth of what we think. It also involves knowing if we will be able to act according to this tested truth of opinions, and if we can be the ethical subject of the truth that we think. The Stoics have several exercises for responding to this question , the most important of which are the exercise of death and the the examination of conscience.
A fundamental theme in the practice of the self is that we should not let ourselves be worried about the future. The future preoccupies. We are occupied in advance. The mind is pre-absorbed by the future, and this is something negative.
Thinking about past has a positive value.
The man of the future is the person who, not thinking about the past, cannot think about the present and who is therefore turned towards a future that is only nothingness and nonexistence, who allows what he is doing to be consumed by something else as he does it.
Seneca, Letter 99: We are ungrateful for benefits already obtained, because we count on the future, as if the future, supposing it falls to us in turn, must not swiftly join the past. He who limits the object of his pleasures to the present extremely contracts the field of his satisfactions.
The Stoics say, a man who is suddenly surprise by an event is really at risk of finding himself in a weak position if he is not prepare for it. First of all, we must assume that mot just the most frequent evils may happen to us, those that normally happen individuals, but that anything that can happen to us will happen to us.
Seneca, Letter 91: The person who said it only needs a day, an hour, or a moment to overturn the greatest Empire of the world has still granted too much time.
Seneca, Letter 24: Get it clear in your mind that whatever event you fear will happen without fail.
We should remove the mask not only from men but also from things, forcing them to take on their true appearance again.
An old Stoic aphorism: Either a pain is so violent that you cannot bear it, or a pain is bearable.
Epictetus: the great difference between animals and humans is that animals do not have to look after themselves. They are provided with everything so that they can be of use to us. As for humans, they are living beings who must take care of themselves because Zeus has entrusted them to themselves, by giving them the reason which enables them to determine the use to which all the other faculties may be put. So God has entrusted us to ourselves, so that we have to look after ourselves. If now, instead of passing from animals to humans, we go from humans to Zeus, what then is Zeus? He is simply the being who does nothing else but attend to himself. Zeus is the being who lives for himself: the one who is forever himself with himself, reflecting on the nature of his own government, knowing his reason, the reason of God, and finally occupying hiself with thoughts that are worthy of him, conversing with himself.
The portrait of a sage who has achieved wisdom: Living in complete independence; reflecting on the nature of the government on exercises on oneself and on others; conversing with one's own thoughts; speaking with oneself. Whereas the sage has arrived at this progressively, by stages, Zeus is put in this position by his very being. Zeus is the one who has only to take care of himself. We should be able to converse with ourselves, know how to do without others, not be at a loss as to how we spend our time. We must reflect on our relations with the rest of the world. We must meditate on these different things: 1) attitude towards events; 2) what things affect us; 3) how might we remedy them; 4) how might we eradicate them? These are the four great domains of the exercise of thought in Epictetus.
In Plato's case, the truth grasped is ultimately that essential truth that will enable us to lead other men. In the case of Stoics, it won't be a gaze directed towards the reality of essences, but one directed towards the truth of what we think. It also involves knowing if we will be able to act according to this tested truth of opinions, and if we can be the ethical subject of the truth that we think. The Stoics have several exercises for responding to this question , the most important of which are the exercise of death and the the examination of conscience.
A fundamental theme in the practice of the self is that we should not let ourselves be worried about the future. The future preoccupies. We are occupied in advance. The mind is pre-absorbed by the future, and this is something negative.
Thinking about past has a positive value.
The man of the future is the person who, not thinking about the past, cannot think about the present and who is therefore turned towards a future that is only nothingness and nonexistence, who allows what he is doing to be consumed by something else as he does it.
Seneca, Letter 99: We are ungrateful for benefits already obtained, because we count on the future, as if the future, supposing it falls to us in turn, must not swiftly join the past. He who limits the object of his pleasures to the present extremely contracts the field of his satisfactions.
The Stoics say, a man who is suddenly surprise by an event is really at risk of finding himself in a weak position if he is not prepare for it. First of all, we must assume that mot just the most frequent evils may happen to us, those that normally happen individuals, but that anything that can happen to us will happen to us.
Seneca, Letter 91: The person who said it only needs a day, an hour, or a moment to overturn the greatest Empire of the world has still granted too much time.
Seneca, Letter 24: Get it clear in your mind that whatever event you fear will happen without fail.
We should remove the mask not only from men but also from things, forcing them to take on their true appearance again.
An old Stoic aphorism: Either a pain is so violent that you cannot bear it, or a pain is bearable.
MF 24： Meditation on death
The ultimate form of this premeditation of evils is the meditation on death. The meditation on death is found in Plato, in the Pythagoreans. Death is not just a possible event; it is a necessary event. It is not just an event of some gravity: for man it has absolute gravity. And death may occur at any time, at any moment. So it is for this event, as the supreme misfortune if you like, that we must prepare ourselves, through which this premeditation of evils will be brought to its highest point.
In Stoics, the exercise consists in thinking death as present and one is living one's last day.
Seneca, Letter 12: the whole of life is only one long day with morning, which is childhood, midday, which is maturity, and evening, which is old age; that a year is also like a day, with the morning of spring and the night of winter; that each month is also like a sort of day; and that all in all a day, the passing of a single day, is the model for the organization of the time of a life, or of different organized times and durations in a human life. Living one's life as if not just a month or a year, but the whole of his life passes by in that day. We should think of each hour of the day we are living as a sort of age of life, so that when we arrive at the evening of the day we will also arrive at the evening of life as it were, that is to say at the moment of death itself. This is the exercise of the last day. It involves organizing and experiencing our day as if each moment of the day was the moment of the great day of life, and the last moment of the day was the last moment of our existence.
Marcus Aurelius: Moral perfection involves living each day as if it were the last.
Epictetus: Don't you know that illness and death must take us in the middle of some activity? They take the laborer at his work, the sailor navigating. And what activity would you like to be engaged in when you are taken? For you will be doing something when death takes. If you can be taken, while engaged in something better than our present activity, practice that.
Seneca: On the moral progress I have been able to make in the course of my life, I trust only in death. I await the day when I will pass judgment on myself and know whether virtue was only in my words or really in my heart. Whether or not you have wasted your time will be revealed when you lose your life.
The exercise, thinking about death, is only a means for taking this cross-section view of life which enables one to grasp the value of the present, or again to carry out the great loop of memorization, by which one totalizes one's life and reveals it as it is.
Pythagoras's examination of conscience at the end of each day to purify the thought before sleep. The dream is the test of the soul's purity.
Murcus Aurelius's morning examination: remembering the general aim you set yourself by these actions and the general aims you should always have in mind throughout life, and so the precautions to be taken so as to act according to these precise objectives and general aims in the situations that arise.
Epictetus: We should always have ready at hand the judgment of which we feel the need; at table, we should have ready at hand the judgment concerning everything to do with eating; at the bath, we should have ready at hand all the judgments concerning how to behave at the bath. When we are in bed, we should always have ready at hand all the judgments concerning how to behave in bed. To practice philosophy is to make preparation. To practice philosophy is to put oneself in a frame of mind such that one will regard the whole of life as a test. And the meaning of ascetics, the set of exercises available to us, is that of enabling us to be permanently prepared for this life which will only ever be, until its end, a life test in the sense that it will be a life that is a test.
For the Greek, caring about the self means equipping ourselves for a series of unforeseen events by practicing a number of exercises which actualized these events with an unavoidable necessity and in which we strip them of any imaginary reality they may have, in order to reduce their existence to the strict minimum. It is in these exercises, in the interplay of these exercises, that we will be able to live existence as a test throughout our life.
In Stoics, the exercise consists in thinking death as present and one is living one's last day.
Seneca, Letter 12: the whole of life is only one long day with morning, which is childhood, midday, which is maturity, and evening, which is old age; that a year is also like a day, with the morning of spring and the night of winter; that each month is also like a sort of day; and that all in all a day, the passing of a single day, is the model for the organization of the time of a life, or of different organized times and durations in a human life. Living one's life as if not just a month or a year, but the whole of his life passes by in that day. We should think of each hour of the day we are living as a sort of age of life, so that when we arrive at the evening of the day we will also arrive at the evening of life as it were, that is to say at the moment of death itself. This is the exercise of the last day. It involves organizing and experiencing our day as if each moment of the day was the moment of the great day of life, and the last moment of the day was the last moment of our existence.
Marcus Aurelius: Moral perfection involves living each day as if it were the last.
Epictetus: Don't you know that illness and death must take us in the middle of some activity? They take the laborer at his work, the sailor navigating. And what activity would you like to be engaged in when you are taken? For you will be doing something when death takes. If you can be taken, while engaged in something better than our present activity, practice that.
Seneca: On the moral progress I have been able to make in the course of my life, I trust only in death. I await the day when I will pass judgment on myself and know whether virtue was only in my words or really in my heart. Whether or not you have wasted your time will be revealed when you lose your life.
The exercise, thinking about death, is only a means for taking this cross-section view of life which enables one to grasp the value of the present, or again to carry out the great loop of memorization, by which one totalizes one's life and reveals it as it is.
Pythagoras's examination of conscience at the end of each day to purify the thought before sleep. The dream is the test of the soul's purity.
Murcus Aurelius's morning examination: remembering the general aim you set yourself by these actions and the general aims you should always have in mind throughout life, and so the precautions to be taken so as to act according to these precise objectives and general aims in the situations that arise.
Epictetus: We should always have ready at hand the judgment of which we feel the need; at table, we should have ready at hand the judgment concerning everything to do with eating; at the bath, we should have ready at hand all the judgments concerning how to behave at the bath. When we are in bed, we should always have ready at hand all the judgments concerning how to behave in bed. To practice philosophy is to make preparation. To practice philosophy is to put oneself in a frame of mind such that one will regard the whole of life as a test. And the meaning of ascetics, the set of exercises available to us, is that of enabling us to be permanently prepared for this life which will only ever be, until its end, a life test in the sense that it will be a life that is a test.
For the Greek, caring about the self means equipping ourselves for a series of unforeseen events by practicing a number of exercises which actualized these events with an unavoidable necessity and in which we strip them of any imaginary reality they may have, in order to reduce their existence to the strict minimum. It is in these exercises, in the interplay of these exercises, that we will be able to live existence as a test throughout our life.
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