with the smallest, the most vulnerable things, like a pot, or a cup,
and then advance to a tunic, a paltry dog, a mere horse, a bit of
land; next yourself, your body and its limbs, your children, wife,
brothers. Look about on every side and cast these things away from
you. Purify your judgements, lest something not your own have become
fastened to you, or grown together with you, and cause you pain when
it is torn loose. -- Epictetus
Epictetus does not mean that one should literally cast away all these
externals from oneself. Rather, he is simply describing the ascetic
method which will prepare him to remain steadfast in the face of the
so-called 'inevitable misfortunes' of life. He simply means that one
should not acquire the disastrous habit of firmly fastening one's
desire to externals by judging that one needs them to be happy.
Epictetus' warning is that to judge that one needs some external in
order to be happy is effectively to make oneself dependent upon that
external for one's happiness."
-- http://puffin.creighton.edu/PHIL/Stephens/OSAP Epictetus on Stoic Love.htm
0 comments:
Post a Comment