Dear Modern Lucilius,
The Reaper sharpens his scythe.
He grins at me, malevolently.
Will he get me or my loved ones? Destroy my car? Shake my plane?
My beloved Stoics say that fear is a judgment of an evil that seems intolerable. But Nature made everything tolerable. If it isn’t tolerable, it kills you.
The only evil, they say, is ignorance. And you can change that—by gaining wisdom. Wisdom is gained by learning how to judge correctly.
Apparently, I fear the Reaper because I am ignorant. How do I fix that?
“Judge correctly!”
Epictetus yells from a distance.
“How, teacher? Where do I start?”
Seneca shows up and drops a line:
“Gain something against death every day.”
“What! Come on! How does that work? Do I set a timer to think about death?”
The Reaper explodes with laughter. He’s now very amused. He keeps sharpening his scythe with gusto.
Wait a second. Why is the Reaper always laughing? The waiting is excruciating. Why can’t he just attack already?
If the Stoics are right, it’s all my responsibility. I’m giving birth to the Reaper. Then I’m inviting him to stay—and torture me.
That torture is only real in the present.
I’m not saying he won’t attack, or that I can be free from suffering. He will attack—in the form of misfortune. But attacks tend to shock and move into the past. Now, in the present, I only deal with the effects. And Nature gave me what I need to deal with them.
The fact is: I cannot escape suffering. It’s a fundamental ingredient in this world.
To live, say my beloved Stoics, is to take an oath—an oath to bear mortal burdens.
You leave, or you take the oath. Simple.
If you stay, you will suffer.
“We suffer more in our minds than in reality,”
wrote Seneca.
That’s that.
The Reaper is upset. He sees what I’m doing—and he does not like it. He murmurs something to himself and keeps sharpening his scythe.
Checkmate.
—
—From a forest monk in your time.