I

March 23rd

THE STRAITJACKETED SOUL

“The diseases of the rational soul are long-standing and hardened

vices, such as greed and ambition—they have put the soul in a

straitjacket and have begun to be permanent evils inside it. To put

it briefly, this sickness is an unrelenting distortion of judgment, so

things that are only mildly desirable are vigorously sought after.”

—SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 75.11

n the financial disaster of the late 2000s, hundreds of smart, rational
people lost trillions of dollars’ worth of wealth. How could such smart
people have been so foolish? These people knew the system, knew how the
markets were supposed to work, and had managed billions, if not trillions,
of dollars. And yet, almost to a person, they were wrong—and wrong to the
tune of global market havoc.
It’s not hard to look at that situation and understand that greed was some
part of the problem. Greed was what led people to create complex markets
that no one understood in the hope of making a quick buck. Greed caused
other people to make trades on strange pools of debt. Greed prevented
anyone from calling out this situation for what it was—a house of cards just
waiting for the slightest breeze to knock it all down.
It doesn’t do you much good to criticize those folks after the fact. It’s
better to look at how greed and vices might be having a similar effect in
your own life. What lapses in judgment might your vices be causing you?
What “sicknesses” might you have?
And how can your rational mind step in and regulate them?