Now I’m talking like a preacher here for a bit. Please understand that I’m not trying to sell anything; it’s just the most efficient way to explain it. Stoicism is one of those things that, when described analytically, sounds horrible to some modern people. Stoic scholars agree that to describe it effectively, the teacher must “become, for the time being at least,” a Stoic.

For instance, to give you a better feel for why “your own good and your own evil” are on the list, I want to quote Alexander Solzhenitsyn from his book Gulag Archipelago, when he talks about that point in prison when he gets his act together, realizes his residual powers, and starts what I know as “ascending,” riding the updrafts of occasional euphoria as you realize you are getting to know yourself and the world for the first time.

It was only when I lay there on the rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not between states nor between social classes nor between political parties, but right through every human heart, through all human hearts. And that is why I turn back to my years of imprisonment and say, sometimes to the astonishment of those about me, bless you, prison, for having been a part of my life.

I understand that. He learned, as I and many others have learned, that good and evil are not just abstractions that you kick around and give lectures about, and attribute to this person and that. The only good and evil that mean anything are right in your own heart: within your will, within your power, where it’s up to you. What the Stoics say is: “You take care of that, and you’ll have your hands full.”

What is not up to you? Beyond your power? Not subject to your will in the last instance? For starters, let’s take “your station in life.” As I glide down toward that little town on my short parachute ride, I’m just about to learn how negligible is my control over my station in life. It’s not at all up to me. Of course I’m going right now from being the Wing Commander, in charge of a thousand people (pilots, crewmen, maintenance men), responsible for nearly a hundred airplanes, and beneficiary of goodness knows all sorts of symbolic status and goodwill, to being an object of contempt. “Criminal,” I’ll be known as. But that’s not half the revelation that is the realization of your own fragility, that you can be reduced by the natural elements, or men,
to a helpless, sobbing wreck-unable to control even your own bowels in a matter of minutes. And more than that even, you’re going to face fragilities you never before let yourself believe could be true. Like after mere minutes, in a flurry of action while being knocked down and then sat up to be bound with tourniquet-tight ropes, with care, by a professional, hands cuffed behind, jack-knifed forward, head pushed down between your ankles held secure in lugs attached to a heavy iron bar, that with the onrush of anxiety, knowing your upper-body blood circulation has been stopped, and feeling the ever-growing pain and the ever-closing-in of claustrophobia as the man standing on your back gives your head one last shove down with his heel and you start to gasp and vomit, that you can be made to blurt out answers, probably correct answers, to questions about anything they know you know. I’m not going to pull you through that explanation again. I’ll just call it “taking the ropes.”

No, “station in life” can be changed from that of a dignified and competent gentleman of culture to that of a panic-stricken, sobbing, self-loathing wreck, maybe a permanent wreck if you have no will, in less than an hour. So what? So after you work a lifetime to get yourself all set up, and then delude yourself into thinking that you have some kind of ownership claim on your station in life, you’re riding for a fall. You’re asking for disappointment. To avoid that, stop kidding yourself, just do the best you can on a common-sense basis to make your station in life what you want it to be, but never get hooked on it. Make sure in your heart of hearts, in your inner self, that you treat your station in life with indifference. Not with contempt, only with indifference.

And so onto a long list of things which some unreflective people assume they’re assured of controlling to the last instance-your reputation for example. Do what you will, it’s at least as fickle as your station in life. Others decide what your reputation is. Try to make it as good as possible, but again, don’t get hooked on it. In your heart, when you get out the key and open up that old roll-top desk where you really keep your stuff, don’t let “reputation” get mixed up with what’s within your moral purpose, what’s within the power of your will, in other words, what’s up to you. Make sure it’s in the bottom drawer, filed under “matters of indifference.” And so too with your health, your wealth, your pleasure, your pain, your fame, your
disrepute, your life, and your death. They are all externals, all outside your control in the last instance, all outside the power of where you really live. And where you really live is confined to the regime of your moral purpose, confined to matters that can be projected by your acts of will- like desires, aims, aversions, judgments, attitudes, and of course, your good and your evil. For a Stoic, the moral purpose, the will, is the only repository of things of absolute value. Whether they are projected wisely or foolishly, for good or for evil, is up to you. When his will is set on the right course, a man becomes good; when it’s on a foul course he becomes evil. With the right course comes good luck and happiness, and with the foul course, bad luck and misery.

To a Stoic, bad luck is your fault; you’ve become addicted to externals. Epictetus “What are tragedies, but the portrayal in tragic verse of the sufferings of men who have admired things external?” Not even God will intercede in your decisions. Epictetus:

God gives you attributes, like magnanimity, courage, and endurance, to enable you to bear whatever happens. These are given free of all restraint, compulsion, or hindrance; He has put the whole matter under your control without reserving even for Himself any power to prevent or hinder.

As I have said, your deliverance and your destruction are 100 percent up to you.

I know the difficulties of gulping all this down right away. You keep thinking of practical problems. Everybody has to play the game of life. You can’t just walk around saying: “I don’t care about my health, wealth, or my reputation, or whether I’m sent to prison or not.” Epictetus was a great teacher because he could draw a word picture that cleared up the way to look at what he was talking about.