Antinous is the true stoic of us. If anyone would rate the four stoic virtues, Antinous would clearly come out on top.
Antinous wears a better social mask; he's friendly, agreeable, likeable.
If there's something that is going for Lucilius, then that would be that he's got his emotions on close range. Too close, according to himself.
We have come up with all sorts of explanations of the differences that are most of the time quite amusing. Probably genetics, and the role we played in our early teens seems to have colored these parts of our personalities.
A lot of things about personality are on a flip-side scale; on one hand, and on the other hand, and everything can be both good and bad, and there's no real value judgement to a personality trait, or so the common wisdom goes.
But here's something where the stoics, and the ancients before them, knew: that some scales are absolute. More is just better. And that insight is underlying the concept of the stoic virtues: fortitude, prudence, justice and temperance.
Fortitude
Fortitude, strength, the ability to endure the necessary hard times and do what must be done during challenges that life unavoidably entails.
"Are you samurai?" is a question we ask each other sometimes, after having had a stab at the playstation game "The Ghost of Tsushima" where the phrase gets thrown around a lot.
We say it like a; "wht the f*ck, how hard can it be?" and a "stop complaining, and get it done!"
Are you samurai?
To some extend it works. And it reminds of that some of the ghosts we face and that are stopping us from showing the strength needed in everyday life is more in our minds than real.
Prudence
Prudence, the ability to step back and think about the course of action and make cold-headed decisions. In latin, the word is prudentia, and this virtue is sometimes just translated as wisdom.
So the ability to back off, let go of anger, giving up short term wants or silly cravings of recognition, and clearly see what path is best.
Lucilius, as said above, especially can feel the sting of anger and get carried away by emotions. And it's dangerous. Suddenly he might have said something, let something slip, that gets a life of it's own.
Once upon a time, allegedly, there was a tribe in the arctics, that had the concept that they had a soul that always walked beside them, a kind of mirror-spirit of themselves, that they called the bigger man.
They themselves were just the little man, consumed and dragged into the petty things of life.
But when something happens, we (and they) can always ask what the bigger man would do.
Do we feel assaulted? Then we ought to ask ourselves: what would be the little man's response? And what would the bigger man do?
Justice.
Justice is about doing the right choice, of having an adequate sense of right and acting in accordance with the laws and what's right.
So not trying to cut a shorter path that isn't right, doing evil for short term games, and accept the just laws that govern human interactions and act in accordance with one's values.
Do the right thing.
Temperance.
Temperance is knowing what is enough, knowing how to control oneself, one's emotions and one's wants.
There's more to temperance. As anyone striving to financial freedom knows, moderation is an absolute necessity to walk this path. Someone who cannot temper his appetites will always want more, and thus never becomes truly rich and never reach any kind of significant freedom.
Being In The Arena
The virtues are learned in the arena, with other people, while we are trying to achieve something difficult and of value.
The arena provides the training ground needed for freedom.
We suspect that it's much harder to chisel out the virtues if one is too deep into a propped-up otium.
The world and its challenges, correctly taken on, train us in fortitude, temperance, prudence and justice.
Venus punishes Psyche with a task (more precisely to get water from a high rock guarded by dragons).
That's why, according to a more hardcore attitude, we should thank the gods for the misfortunes they throw in our way.
If one should be able to truly enjoy freedom, we suspect that one better be trained, and keep on training, and embrace the training opportunities the arena throws in one's direction.
Farewell,
//antinous&lucilius
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