I enjoyed this lovely quote from Seneca, which I found originally on the “Root Simple” blog site today, and which I quote here from a different translation (as cited afterward).
But it does no good to have got rid of the causes of individual sorrow; for one is sometimes seized by hatred of the whole human race. When you reflect how rare is simplicity, how unknown is innocence, and how good faith scarcely exists, except when it is profitable, and when you think of all the throng of successful crimes and of the gains and losses of lust, both equally hateful, and of ambition that, so far from restraining itself within its own bounds, now gets glory from baseness – when we remember these things, the mind is plunged into night, and as though the virtues, which it is now neither possible to expect nor profitable to possess, had been overthrown, there comes overwhelming gloom. We ought, therefore, to bring ourselves to believe that all the vices of the crowd are, not hateful, but ridiculous, and to imitate Democritus rather than Heraclitus. For the latter, whenever he went forth into public, used to weep, the former to laugh; to the one all human doings seemed to be miseries, to the other follies. And so we ought to adopt a lighter view of things, and put up with them in an indulgent spirit; it is more human to laugh at life than to lament over it. Add, too, that he deserves better of the human race also who laughs at it than he who bemoans it; for the one allows it some measure of good hope, while the other foolishly weeps over things that he despairs of…
-Lucius Annaeus Seneca (“the Younger”), On Tranquility of Mind, Moral Works.
I don’t think George Carland could have said it better! As with many things of Seneca’s which I’ve read (despite some of his apparently rather shady history), there’s a majestic sagacity to his words here. Nevertheless, perhaps because of my deep regard for Heraclitus and my not wishing to see his wisdom and person slighted in some way, I feel compelled to amend it slightly, taking a clue from Rumi when he said “Since Love has made ruins of my heart, the sun must come and illumine them. Such generosity has broken me with shame.” It’s not Heraclitus vs. Democritus, it’s Heraclitus plus Democritus: both have a view on the singular attitude of a soul unhampered by pointless grief or exaggerated mirth. The view of the realized soul transcends either polarity and lies in a place unknown to the mind, a region which therefore cannot be quantified or labeled. “Yes” to Heraclitus, “Yes” to Democritus, and “Go yet further” to the one who chooses either — go on to the “ruins of love” of which both Rumi and Hafiz sung. Words can’t describe it. Seneca hinted at it by describing two viewpoints on a particular worldly reality. The secret of secrets is joining both views into a single whole perception that lifts the lid off the mind and opens up that limiting tin can to a whole world of raging blue sky.
