Cicero, On Living and Dying Well.
In the last decades of the Roman Republic, Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BCE), statesman, lawyer, and esteemed orator, was engaged with a social and political world in crisis. Reflecting on the challenges of living and dying well, he penned On Duties to his son Marcus studying in Athens, for an uncertain future that lay before him.
Central to Cicero’s humanism is the notion of action in accordance with nature. The confusion around us is often no greater than the turmoil within as we struggle to obtain some fleeting state of happiness. Contentment for Cicero however has as much, if not more, to do with understanding in what ways I can be of benefit to others, as in what I might gain for myself. While not disparaging wealth and the right to private concerns, he reminds his young son that “nature gives priority to shared well-being.”
Picking up on this point, we may say that if we wish to be happy, we must learn to see our words and actions as contributing to a larger goal, and that my choices today, at every moment, are part and parcel of a greater whole. That larger goal and greater whole is both the the love I accord myself by living a dignified life and the gift of service that only I can make for the improvement of society. When my thinking and decisions are habitually in line with these ends, my life will reflect something of the stability and beauty of nature.
Much of the dysfunctional behavior on display today can be traced to a human propensity to grasp emotionally at perceived immediate gains without considering their long-term affects, as well as, to a lack of character that surrenders habitually to the pressures of the moment and the unreasonable demands of others. More pronounced still are lives mired in mediocrity, the byproduct of thinking and acting without a compelling and transcendent purpose. An enormous amount of energy can be spent on pointless activities, all the while it’s one step forward, and two (or three) steps back on a road to nowhere.
Eutaxis, from the Greek says Cicero, is knowing how to arrange words and actions in their proper place. If you want to get ahead and be happy, learn to order your life through your choices so as to maximize effectiveness towards these two ends—living with personal dignity and making a contribution towards the improvement of the world. This means not only that there are proper and improper occasions for an action, which necessitates discernment, restraint, and temperance, but also that “the activities of life should be arranged so as to match and fit with one another.”
Grasp therefore that every choice is either a chance to move towards a greater state of wellbeing, or as just mucking-up a grand vision. In this, is living and dying well.
