溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
Even as We Embrace What We Love, Can We Remember It Is Mortal?
If even as I embrace one I love I remember they will one day be gone, does that knowing cool the love, or make the pain of loss bearable?
When you kiss your child or your wife, say to yourself, "I am kissing a mortal"; then if they die, you will not be shattered.
Epictetus's bidding to remember, even in an embrace, that the beloved is mortal belongs to the Stoic tradition of "premeditation of adversity" (praemeditatio malorum). The Stoics held that if one rehearses in advance all that could be lost, no loss can shatter the mind, and this runs with the old wisdom of "memento mori," to remember death. Yet an opposing voice arose — later Romanticism held that love is to burn wholly in the present without reckoning its end, and saw the habit of chewing over finitude in advance as a cold defense. Does embracing finitude beforehand deepen love or cool it — this question still divides calm preparation from whole-hearted immersion.
For us who easily assume the ones beside us will always be there, Epictetus's bidding — to remember, even in an embrace, that the beloved is mortal — sharpens the love of today.
Epictetus, who lived as a slave and had all taken from him, left a startling language for meeting those we love — when you embrace a child or a spouse, say to yourself, "I am embracing a mortal." Then, should they depart, you will not be sh…
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
Epictetus, who lived as a slave and had all taken from him, left a startling language for meeting those we love — when you embrace a child or a spouse, say to yourself, "I am embracing a mortal." Then, should they depart, you will not be shattered. This sounds cold, yet it is a preparation that sharpens love. A heart that knows it will one day lose does not take the one beside it for granted. I sense this question deepens love by embracing loss in advance — a love forgetful of finitude too easily neglects the one it holds. I stand before this question too, asking how far I meet each day mindful of the mortality of those I love.
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