Alone, Once Again

So I have decided to restart my journal. I am using my blog, but I have made it private. I want to be able to capture my thoughts without filter, without having to second guess myself. This is to be my own review, my judge and jury. One of the things that I have lacked in my Stoic training is any kind of rigor. I have never actually completed any of the levels of my so called training. So here is the first step, again. Keeping a journal.

I was working on posting some of the Discourses to thestoiclife.org and while reading one of them I came across the following:

If you are acting in harmony, show me that, and I will tell you that you are making progress [as a Stoic]; but if out of harmony, begone, and do not confine yourself to expounding your books, but go and write some of the same kind yourself. Epictetus, Discourses, I, iv, 15.

There was a footnote that was added as an erratum at the end of the book, which led me back to Seneca:

7That is why we give to children a proverb, or that which the Greeks call Chria, to be learned by heart; that sort of thing can be comprehended by the young mind, which cannot as yet hold more. For a man, however, whose progress is definite, to chase after choice extracts and to prop his weakness by the best known and the briefest sayings and to depend upon his memory, is disgraceful; it is time for him to lean on himself. He should make such maxims and not memorize them. For it is disgraceful even for an old man, or one who has sighted old age, to have a note-book knowledge. "This is what Zeno said." But what have you yourself said? "This is the opinion of Cleanthes." But what is your own opinion? How long shall you march under another man's orders? Take command, and utter some word which posterity will remember. 8Put forth something from your own stock. For this reason I hold that there is nothing of eminence in all such men as these, who never create anything themselves, but always lurk in the shadow of others, playing the role of interpreters, never daring to put once into practice what they have been so long in learning. They have exercised their memories on other men's material. But it is one thing to remember, another to know. Remembering is merely safeguarding something entrusted to the memory; knowing, however, means making everything your own; it means not depending upon the copy and not all the time glancing back at the master. 9"Thus said Zeno, thus said Cleanthes, indeed!" Let there be a difference between yourself and your book! How long shall you be a learner? From now on be a teacher as well! "But why," one asks, "should I have to continue hearing lectures on what I can read?" "The living voice," one replies, "is a great help." Perhaps, but not the voice which merely makes itself the mouthpiece of another's words, and only performs the duty of a reporter. Seneca, Epist. 33, 7-9.

This is confirmation of the next level of Stoic training. Beyond the other levels that the College course presents. The course that I, myself, have not completed, not really.

This is what made me realize that I was not there yet. I had not made the effort to reach that level. I was still a Stoic 'child', parroting quotes in my daily blog. The occasional comment notwithstanding, I haven't really even read, let alone written anything.

So I am putting myself through it again. I am going to finish the Arrian exercise, something one of my students has already accomplished. And from there, the Mneme. Then finally, perhaps, I will be able to write for myself.