putting up with yourself. In such deep darkness, such a sewer
—in the flux of material, of time, of motion and things moved
—I don’t know what there is to value or to work for.
Quite the contrary. We need to comfort ourselves and wait
for dissolution. And not get impatient in the meantime, but
take refuge in these two things:
i. Nothing can happen to me that isn’t natural.ii. I can keep from doing anything that God and my own
spirit don’t approve. No one can force me to.- What am I doing with my soul?
Interrogate yourself, to find out what inhabits your so-
called mind and what kind of soul you have now. A child’s
soul, an adolescent’s, a woman’s? A tyrant’s soul? The soul
of a predator—or its prey?
- Another way to grasp what ordinary people mean by
“goods”:
Suppose you took certain things as touchstones of
goodness: prudence, self-control, justice, and courage, say. If