We’re All Difficult and That’s the Point
How to handle our fellow citizens
Mind Candy is a newsletter on practical philosophy and human flourishment—aka how to live “the good life.” Each month we tackle a new theme.
This month we’re exploring the theme of Morality.
You can catch up on last week’s articles here:
“In a sense, people are our proper occupation. Our job is to do them good and put up with them… Our actions may be impeded by them, but there can be no impeding our intentions or our dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt.”
At the heart of Stoic philosophy is the idea that we are all citizens of the world. While we may not always get a long with each other, we are all part of the larger tapestry that makes up the earth and therefore are all connected.
Each and every one of us experiences frustration, anger, resentment, and hostility towards others. It is a part of being human. We all have our own opinions and preferences, we have our beliefs and values, and they will not always align with those of others.
But this doesn’t mean we should hate our fellow citizen, on the contrary, by doing so, we not only hinder ourselves and our own lives, we’re in essence cutting off a limb.
“It is unspeakably wrong to harm one's homeland,” Seneca writes. “therefore, it is unspeakably wrong to harm fellow-citizens, too, for they are part of the homeland.”
We are all part of a grander whole and we are all “fellow citizens in the cosmopolis.”
“People who have regard only for themselves and turn everything to their own advantage cannot live the best human life,” Seneca writes to Lucilius in moral letter 48. “you must live for others if you want to live for yourself.”
But those other people have harmed us we retort.
Yes, and…? Do we not hold the capacity for understanding? For reasoning? Everyone acts according to their own nature. If they are acting outside of virtue, then it is our job to correct them, if possible.
“When you have to deal with someone, ask yourself: What does he mean by good and bad?” Marcus Aurelius reminds himself.
Marcus Aurelius said we humans are built for one another, “like feet, hands, and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower.” We therefore can instruct and attempt to change the other person, or we can endure them. It is our duty and obligation as fellow citizens.
But they’ve done us wrong, they’ve injured us we say.
Have they? Epictetus teaches that it is our opinions of matters not the matter itself that injures us.
“No animal is more cross-grained or requires more skillful handling than a human being, and none stands in greater need of forbearance,” Seneca writes in On Mercy.
Like Marcus Aurelius said, we have the ability to teach, to change behavior, or to endure. We should not be so quick to anger, or hostile toward our fellow citizen.
In fact, Seneca advises when we become angry with someone, we should pause and reflect upon ourselves. We’ve all made mistakes, we’ve all done wrong. We’ve been led astray by our emotions, by our judgments, by our lack of knowledge. Who is to say the person before us is not also experiencing these same lapses in character or judgment?
“Let's put ourselves in the place of the person with whom we are angry: from that perspective we see that valuing ourselves unfairly makes us angry, and that we are unwilling to tolerate an act that we would willingly commit… No one gauges the other's intention, only the act itself. Yet it's the agent we ought to consider: was his act voluntary or accidental, was she compelled or deceived, was he motivated by hatred or a reward, did she gratify herself or serve another?”
Even if we have made progress, we will continue to make mistakes. It is human. None of us are perfect and we never will be. We must provide ourselves, and others, grace and forgiveness.
We must allow the chance for change.
We could easily attack others out of anger and frustration. But then where does that get us? What change comes from that?
As Seneca reminds, “We treat diseases without anger, and yet this is a disease of the mind, requiring not just gentle treatment but also a healer who is in no way hostile to the patient.”
We must learn to treat others as though they were part of us, as though they are an extension of us, because they are.
We’re all here inhabiting the earth, we’re all fellow citizens, and therefore are but the same strands of a single cloth.
Before you go…
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Until next time,
D.A. DiGerolamo
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