II.16. On the Gap Between Knowing and Doing

The last Discourse in this volume is the one Epictetus could have begun with. You know all of this, he says. So why do you not live it? This lecture closes the loop on everything the Enchiridion has taught.

Where does the good lie? In a person's will. Where does evil lie? In the will. Where is the neutral region? In what lies outside the will's control.

Well then, does any one of us remember these principles outside the lecture-room?

Does any person practice by himself, answering facts the way he would answer questions? For instance, is it day? "Yes." Is it night? "No." Are the stars even in number? "I cannot say."

When money is shown to you, have you practiced giving the proper answer: that it is not a good thing?

Have you trained yourself in answers like this, or only to meet tricky arguments?

Why are you surprised, then, that you do well in the area where you have practiced, and make no progress where you have not?

Why does the public speaker, though he knows he has written a good speech, has memorized what he has written, and brings a pleasant voice to his task, still feel anxious in spite of all this?

The reason is that merely giving his speech does not satisfy him. What does he want? To be praised by his audience.

He has been trained to give the speech. He has not been trained when it comes to praise and blame.

When did he hear from anyone what praise is and what blame is, what the nature of each is, what kind of praise must be sought, and what kind of blame must be avoided? When did he go through this training?

Why, then, are you still surprised that he is better than others in what he has been taught, and on a level with the common crowd in what he has not studied?

He is like the singer with the lyre, who knows how to play, sings well, and wears a fine tunic, but still trembles when he comes on stage.

Though he has all this knowledge, he does not know what the crowd is, or its shouts or mockery. He does not even know what this anxiety is that he is feeling: whether it depends on himself or on another, whether it can be quieted or not.

So, if people praise him, he leaves the stage puffed up. If they mock him, his poor bubble of pride is pricked and sinks.

Very much the same is our position. What do we admire? Outside things.

What are we anxious about? Outside things.

Still, we are at a loss to understand how fears or anxiety get hold of us. What else can possibly happen, when we count coming events as evils?

We cannot be free from fear. We cannot be free from anxiety.

Still, we say, "O Lord God, how can I be rid of anxiety?"

Fool, have you no hands? Didn't God make them for you? Sit still and pray, then, that your nose won't run. Wipe your nose, rather, and don't accuse God.

What do I draw from this? Hasn't God given you anything for the region of conduct? Hasn't he given you endurance, greatness of mind, courage?

When you have these strong hands to help you, do you still look for someone to wipe your nose?

We do not practice this conduct, nor pay attention to it.

Find me one person who cares how he is going to do a thing, who is interested not in getting something, but in living up to his true nature.

Who is there, when walking, who is interested in the walking itself, or when thinking a matter through, is interested in the act of thinking, and not in getting what he is planning for?

Then, if he succeeds, he is lifted up and says, "What a fine plan that was of ours. Didn't I tell you, brother, that if we have thought a thing out it is bound to happen?"

If he fails, he is low and miserable, and cannot find anything to say about what has happened.

Which of us ever called in a prophet to help him live up to his true nature? Which of us ever slept in a temple of dreams for that?

Name the person. Give me just one, so I can set eyes on the one I have long been looking for, the one who is truly noble and of fine feeling. Young or old, give me one.

Why, then, do we wonder any longer that, while we are quite at home in dealing with material things, when we come to show ourselves in action we behave badly and poorly?

Why do we wonder that we are worthless, cowardly, unable to endure, failures all around?

If we kept our fear not for death or exile, but for fear itself, then we would practice to avoid what we think evil.

As it is, we are smooth and fluent in the lecture-room. If any small question comes up about a point of conduct, we are able to follow the subject through by logic.

Put us to the practical test, though, and you will find we are miserable shipwrecks.

Let one distracting thought occur to us, and you will soon find out what we were studying and training for.

The result of our lack of practice is that we are always heaping up terrors, and imagining things bigger than they really are.

When I go on a voyage, as soon as I look down into the deep, or look around on the sea and see no land, I am beside myself, imagining that if I am wrecked I must swallow all this sea. It never occurs to me that three quarts are enough.

What is it that alarms me? The sea? No. My judgment about it.

When an earthquake happens, I imagine the city is going to fall on me. Is not a tiny stone enough to knock my brains out?

What, then, are the burdens that weigh on us and drive us out of our minds? What else but our judgments?

When a man goes away and leaves the friends and the places and the company he is used to, what else is it that weighs on him but judgment?

Children, when they cry a little because their nurse has left them, forget her as soon as they are given a bit of cake.

"Do you want us to be like children too?"

Not at all. I would have you influenced not by cake, but by true judgments.

What do I mean? I mean the judgments that a person must study all day, uninfluenced by anything that does not concern him, whether it is a friend, or a place, or a gymnasium, or even his own body.

He must remember the law, and keep it before his eyes.

What is the law of God?

To guard what is your own, not to claim what is another's. To use what is given to you, not to long for anything if it is not given. If anything is taken away, to give it up at once and without a struggle, with thanks for the time you enjoyed it.

Otherwise, you will cry for your nurse and your mother.

What difference does it make what a person is a slave to, or what he depends on? How are you any better than one who weeps for a mistress, if you break your heart for a small gymnasium, and small colonnades, and favorite young men, and that sort of pastime?

Here comes a man complaining that he can't drink the water of Dirce anymore.

Isn't the Marcian water as good as that of Dirce? "I was used to the other." Yes, and you will get used to this one in turn.

If such things are going to move you that much, go away and cry for it, and try to write a line like that of Euripides, "The baths of Nero and the Marcian spring."

See how tragedy arises when fools have to face everyday events.

"When shall I see Athens again, and the Acropolis?"

Unhappy man, aren't you content with what you see day by day?

Can you set eyes on anything better or greater than the sun, the moon, the stars, the whole earth, the ocean?

If you really understand the one who governs the universe, and if you carry him about within you, do you still long for a handful of stones and a pretty rock?

What will you do, then, when you are going to leave the very sun and moon? Will you sit crying like little children?

What were you doing, then, at school? What did you hear? What did you learn?

Why did you write yourself down a student of wisdom, when you might have written the truth, saying:

"I did a few introductions, and read a few sayings of Chrysippus. I never entered the door of a true student of wisdom. What share have I in the calling of Socrates, who lived and died so nobly, or of Diogenes?"

Can you imagine either of them weeping, or indignant, because he is not going to see this man or that, or be in Athens or in Corinth, but in Susa, as it happens, or Ecbatana?

Does the one who can leave the banquet whenever he wants and play no longer upset himself while he stays on? Doesn't he stay at play just as long as it pleases him?

Do you suppose the person I describe would endure endless exile, or a sentence of death?

Won't you be weaned at last, as children are? Won't you take more solid food, and stop crying for nurse and mother, cries meant for old women's ears?

"I will distress them," you say, "by leaving."

You will distress them? No, you won't distress them. What distresses them, and you, is judgment.

What can you do, then? Get rid of your judgment.

Theirs, if they do well, they will get rid of themselves. Otherwise, they will sorrow for it, and have only themselves to thank.

Man, be bold at last, even to the point of daring, as the saying goes, so you can have peace and freedom and a lofty mind.

Lift up your neck at last, as one released from slavery.

Have courage to look up to God and say:

"Deal with me hereafter as you will. I am one with you. I am yours. I flinch from nothing so long as you think it good. Lead me where you will, put what clothes on me you will. Would you have me hold office, or stay out of it? Stay or go? Be poor or rich? For all this I will speak well of you before other people. I will show each thing in its true nature, as it is."

Stay, rather, in the cow's belly and wait for your mother's milk to fill you.

What would have become of Heracles, if he had stayed at home? He would have been Eurystheus, not Heracles.

Tell me, how many friends and companions did he have, as he went about the world? No nearer friend than God.

That is why he was believed to be the son of Zeus, and was so. Obedient to him, Heracles went about the world, clearing it of wrong and lawlessness.

Do you say you are no Heracles, and cannot rid others of their evils? You are not even a Theseus, to clear Attica of ills?

Clear your own heart.

Cast out of your mind, not Procrustes and Sciron, but pain, fear, desire, envy, ill will, greed, cowardice, passion uncontrolled.

These things you cannot cast out unless you look to God alone, set your thoughts on him alone, and give yourself to his commands.

If you wish for anything else, then with groaning and sorrow you will follow what is stronger than you, always seeking peace outside yourself, and never able to be at peace.

You are looking for it where it is not, and refusing to look where it is.