Dear Readers,
Here is the latest Monday Muse with a meditation from the Dying Every Day series (apologies, no audio this week), a perennial reminder, insight, and a recommendation to consider.
Be wise and be well this week!
💀 Dying Every Day
The Dying Every Day series delivers meditations on the art of living (and dying). Each meditation provides a quote, a selected passage (from an original Stoic text), and a daily exercise to contemplate.
“If virtue promises good fortune, peace of mind, and happiness, certainly also the progress toward virtue is progress toward each of these things.”
— Epictetus, Discourses
Selected Reading
In this week’s meditation, we explore the art of virtue through a selected reading from Seneca.
Let this once be clear, that there is nothing good except that which is honorable, and all hardships will have a just title to the name of “goods,” when once virtue has made them honorable. …
Socrates, who recalled the whole of philosophy to rules of conduct, and asserted that the highest wisdom consisted in distinguishing between good and evil, said: ‘Follow these rules, if my words carry weight with you, in order that you may be happy; and let some men think you even a fool. Allow any man who so desires to insult you and work you wrong; but if only virtue dwells with you, you will suffer nothing. If you wish to be happy, if you would be in good faith a good man let one person or another despise you.’
No one can accomplish this unless he has come to regard all goods as equal, for the reason that no good exists without that which is honorable, and that which is honorable is in every case equal.
+ Adapted from On the Supreme Good
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Daily Exercise
Consider reflecting on what it means to be virtuous (and what might stand in the way). How can you begin or continue to progress toward embodying virtue in daily life?
📌 Perennial Reminder(s)
Before we can sensibly ask whether and how virtue can be taught, then, we need to discuss what exactly virtue is and why we should care about it. These days the word has acquired a rather old-fashioned connotation, …
The ancient Greco-Romans focused on four so-called cardinal virtues, understood as character traits, or behavioral inclinations, that ought to be cultivated and used as a moral compass to navigate our lives.
Plato is the earliest source to articulate the virtues, and the Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero considered them central to the contuct of our lives. […]
Source: The Quest for Character by Massimo Pigliucci (via In Search of Wisdom)
💡 Perennial Insight(s)
Moral education — the training of heart and mind toward the good — involves many things. It involves rules and precepts—the dos and don’ts of life with others — as well as explicit instruction, exhortation, and training.
Moral education must provide training in good habits. Aristotle wrote that good habits formed at youth make all the difference. And moral education must affirm the central importance of moral example. It has been said that there is nothing more influential, more determinant, in a child’s life than the moral power of quiet example. […]
Source: The Book of Virtues by William J. Bennett
🛋️ Perennial Reflection
This week’s passages reminded me of the age-old debate between theory and practice. The Stoic philosopher and teacher Musonius Rufus was once asked: “Is practice or theory more important?”
Musonius responded,
Suppose there are two men, one of whom has sailed many times and has already piloted many boats, and the other of whom has sailed few times and has never been a pilot. Suppose the one who has never been a pilot can speak very fluently about the theory of navigation, and suppose the other speaks poorly and incoherently. Which would you hire as a pilot if you were sailing?
Understanding what virtue is and why it matters is essential. However, one must be able to put virtue into practice.
“Where and when should we practice virtue?” one might ask. Everywhere and always. As Seneca put it in a letter to Lucilius, “Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for kindness.”
📖 Perennial Book(s)
This week’s book recommendation is The Art of Virtue by Benjamin Franklin. (You might also consider Walter Isaacson’s Benjamin Franklin: An American Life.) Franklin's writings focused on the philosophy of living well. His concern was moral excellence and how, with practice, we can develop the necessary habits to live a virtuous and fulfilling life. (Read Franklin’s 13 Necessary Virtues.)
“Most people naturally have some virtues, but none naturally have all the virtues. To acquire those we want and secure what we acquire and those we have naturally is the subject of any art. It is as properly an art as painting, navigation, or architecture. Suppose a man would become a painter, navigator, or architect. In that case, it is not enough that he is advised to be one, …, but he must also be taught the principles of the art, … and thus regularly and gradually, he arrives by practice at some perfection in the art.”
— Benjamin Franklin, The Art of Virtue
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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,
J.W.
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