Required Reading: Letter 10: On Living To Oneself
“Avoid the many, avoid the few, avoid even the individual.”
Do not take this as a chance to shy away from people only to think and act out evil; this is not the way to live to oneself but rather even in your solitude, think of Good. For as Seneca shares “The only benefit that solitude confers—the habit of trusting no man, and fearing no witnesses,—is lost to the fool; for he betrays himself.”
An unwise man cannot be trusted to be alone! For his thoughts are not yet pure; it takes an immense use of power and restraint on a daily basis to still one’s thoughts and weed out all negativity; yet this journey calls for deliberate investigation of one’s inner dialogue; inner drama to know when you as Director are to cast out the Actors; embrace the Protagonist and battle the Nemesis.
Imagine how tedious such a task is; now, add on another individual; a few of them; the many who would compound such thoughts with suggestions of their own wherein in one’s waking hours, he or she is bombarded with ideas, inclinations to do things consciously or unconsciously. Hence, the call to live to oneself. Guard your soul and commune with self in whom God dwells and pray boldly; first for a sound mind and for good health; first of soul and then of body.
Do not let this man off from this task of frequent prayer every minute of the day; for as Crates states as told by Seneca: if you commune with yourself, you must “Pray be careful and take good heed; for you are communing with a bad man!”
Now, the affirmative to that would be: ‘If I am communing with myself and in prayer to the gods, I am communing with a good man!’ Most times when we are alone, it’s because we are sad, depressed, mournful, fearful, not joyful; hence, we open ourselves up to base desires, corruptible thoughts and passions that fill our being with vice; our inner thoughts if publicly displayed, will make us candidates for the asylum; to quote the thinker “Speak, and live, in a way; and see to it that nothing keeps you down.” And in your solitude, “Live among men as if God beheld you; speak with God as if men were listening”. Now, who can be ashamed of that! Farewell.
Word of the day:
Solitude (noun): aloneness, isolation, seclusion, loneliness, remoteness (The Oxford American Desk Dictionary and Thesauraus 2nd Edition).
Quotations:
“I do not know any person with whom I should prefer you to associate rather than yourself.”
“Know that thou art freed from all desires when thou hast reached such a point that thou prayest to God for nothing except what thou canst pray for openly.” -Athenodorus
“Call boldly upon God; you will not be asking him for that which belongs to another.”
Questions:
1) Do you often commune alone?
2) How are you feeling when you do? Sad, depressed, mournful; or joyful.
3) Do you utter words when you commune (soliliquy); or just sit in your thoughts?
4) What do you pray for; what are your pre-dominant thoughts when you are alone?
Activity:
1) Take time to be alone and write down your thoughts.
2) Sit quietly, close your eyes and just let your thoughts flow (don’t stop or try to stop them).
3) Begin to write one page in your journal first thing in the morning; as soon as your alarm goes off.
