tides Flashcards
(15 cards)
goal of person
To fulfill my social duty—to do my duty to my kind—
I must feel a concern for all mankind. I must remember that
we humans were created for one another, that we were born,
says Marcus, to work together the way our hands or eyelids do.
Therefore, in all I do, I must have as my goal “the service and
harmony of all.” More precisely, “I am bound to do good to
my fellow-creatures and bear with them.”
perfoming duty
Thus, Marcus advises
us to perform with resoluteness the duties we humans were
created to perform. Nothing else, he says, should distract us.
Indeed, when we awaken in the morning, rather than lazily
lying in bed, we should tell ourselves that we must get up
to do the proper work of man, the work we were created to
perform
about death
Elsewhere, Marcus suggests that when we know our death
is at hand, we can ease our anguish on leaving this world by
taking a moment to refl ect on all the annoying people we will
no longer have to deal with when we are gone
doing social duty
Marcus, as we have seen, thought the gods created us with
a certain function in mind. He also thought that when they
created us, they made sure that if we fulfi lled this function, we
would experience tranquility and have all things to our liking.
Indeed, if we do the things we were made for, says Marcus,
we will enjoy “a man’s true delight.”12 But an important part
of our function, as we have seen, is to work with and for our
fellow men. Marcus therefore concludes that doing his social
duty will give him the best chance at having a good life. This,
for Marcus, is the reward for doing one’s duty: a good life.
in a conversation
about other people. When we fi nd ourselves in a group
that is conversing about such things, Epictetus advises us to
be silent or to have few words; alternatively, we might subtly
attempt to divert the talk to “something appropriate
rarely share stoic value
as their value might contemplate our values
, lessen the negative impact
other people have on our life by controlling our thoughts
about them.
He counsels us, for example, not to waste time
speculating about what our neighbors are doing, saying,
thinking, or scheming. Nor should we allow our mind to be
fi lled with “sensual imaginings, jealousies, envies, suspicions,
or any other sentiments” about them that we would blush to
admi
fatalism in other behavior
m, what might be called social
fatalism: In our dealings with others, we should operate on the
assumption that they are fated to behave in a certain way dont forgot taht they can be changedd
biggest side effect of annoying people
m, what might be called social
fatalism: In our dealings with others, we should operate on the
assumption that they are fated to behave in a certain way
lust with a woman
Buddhists might advise him
to imagine her body in the various stages of decomposition
dealing with death
Consider, for example, the advice
Seneca gives to Marcia, a woman who, three years after the
death of her son, was as grief-stricken as on the day she buried
him. Rather than spending her days thinking bitterly about the
happiness she has been deprived of by the death of her son,
Marcia should, says Seneca, think about how much worse off
she would be today if she had never been able to enjoy his
company. In other words, rather than mourning the end of his
life, she should be thankful that he lived at all
displaying grief with others
Epictetus also offers advice on grief management.
He advises us, in particular, to take care not to “catch” the
grief of others. Suppose, for example, we encounter a griefstricken woman. We should, says Epictetus, sympathize with
her and maybe even accompany her moaning with moaning of
our own. But in doing so, we should be careful not to “moan
inwardly.”8
In other words, we should display signs of grief
without allowing ourselves to experience grief
regarding person death
think that they dont need to feel the grief for the long time now .
about anger
We should, he says, fi ght our tendency to believe the worst
about others and our tendency to jump to conclusions about
their motivations
Fame
m. But if we
seek social status, we give other people power over us: We have
to do things calculated to make them admire us, and we
have to refrain from doing things that will trigger their disfavor
