Relation to oneself· Adversitynamed middle
Knowing the difference
Axis: Scope of action — Facing the world, should we focus on what is up to us or strive to extend our mastery?
Between accepting what lies beyond us and trying to transform everything, the task is to discern, case by case, what we can change and what we must accept. Neither resignation nor omnipotence: act where we have a grip, let go of the rest.
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Odysseusinferable
Facing adversity, Odysseus neither resigns himself nor claims to bend everything: he distinguishes the two. He acts tirelessly where he has a grip, building his raft, forcing his ruses, but endures what is beyond him, the wrath of , the lost years, the waiting. At the height of his fury he addresses his own heart and orders it to hold. This self-mastery, which distinguishes the changeable from the inevitable, later made him the enduring sage of the .
Odyssey, XX, 18-21 ("Endure, my heart") · Odyssey, V (the raft and endurance at sea) · Odyssey, I, V (the wrath of Poseidon)
Argument
- The shared fault of the two extremes is to fix the boundary of the possible in advance: too narrow for the Stoic, who files almost everything under the inevitable; nonexistent for the Promethean, who admits no final limit.
- Yet this boundary is neither given once and for all nor the same everywhere: it depends on circumstances, on forces, on the moment. Wisdom is therefore not a fixed position, but a judgment to be taken up case by case about what, here and now, depends on me.
- This faculty of deliberating well about what one can do, the ancients called : not timidity, but the art of fitting action to what the situation allows. To act with energy on the possible, to accept without bitterness the irreducible, this is what it aims at.
Therefore So the right path is not halfway between the two wisdoms, but above them: it is discernment that decides, at each ordeal, the share of action and the share of acceptance.
See the pageObjection
- The path of discernment has common sense on its side: who would refuse to « weigh things up »? It is even the position everyone believes they already hold.
- But this obviousness is a trap: it is convenient to file under the « impossible » precisely what change would cost us. We often draw the boundary of the possible where our courage stops, not where our power stops.
- Discernment may then serve as an alibi: it eases the conscience of inaction by naming it clear-sightedness, and of giving up by calling it maturity. The middle way may be nothing but the line of least resistance.
Therefore So discernment, lacking a demand to hold it firm, can degenerate into complacency: a wisdom of façade for those who want neither truly to struggle nor truly to let go.
See the pageObjection
- The path of discernment holds in a single formula: act on what depends on us, accept the rest, and know how to tell the difference. Who would not subscribe to it?
- But it is precisely this knowing how to tell the difference that was the whole question. Where does the boundary of the possible fall? The Stoic draws it close to himself, the Promethean keeps pushing it back: their disagreement is about just this, and discernment settles nothing, it sends each back to his own judgment.
- A wisdom that contents itself with saying « it depends » risks being no third path, but the polite name for hesitation: one avoids choosing by calling it moderation.
Therefore So discernment, as long as it does not say how to draw the boundary, might be only a question rephrased as an answer.
See the page- PrescriptiveExistentialSerenity, or achievement?
Is the good of a life the peace of an untroubled soul, or the active achievement of one who transforms the world and leaves a mark on it?
a good life - PrescriptiveExistentialIs hoping wise?
Is hope, which binds us to things beyond our power, a weakness that disturbs the soul, or the very spring that drives us to transform what can be transformed?
hope - PrescriptiveExistentialMaking peace with what was
The past is what is no longer up to us par excellence: should we accept it fully, even to the point of willing that it was, or stay its prisoner through regret?
the past