Ask Epictetus

ASK EPICTETUS: Is there any medical reason why a man or woman needs to wear underwear? — MICHAEL IN LADSON,

DEAR MICHAEL LANDON:  What! The smith will clean his iron tool of rust, and will have instruments made for the purpose, and even you will wash your plate when you are going to eat, unless you are absolutely foul and dirty, and yet you will not wash nor make clean your poor body? ‘Why should I?’ says he. I will tell you again: first, that you may act like a man, next, that you may not annoy those you meet. You are doing something very like it even here, though you are not aware of it. You think you deserve to have a scent of your own. Very well, deserve it: but do you think those who sit by you deserve it too, and those who recline by you, and those who kiss you? Go away then into a wilderness, where you deserve to go, and live by yourself, and have your smell to yourself, for it is right that you should enjoy your uncleanness by yourself. But if you are in a city, what sort of man are you making yourself, to behave so thoughtlessly and inconsiderately? If nature had trusted a horse to your care, would you have left it uncared for? Imagine that your body has been committed to you as a horse: wash it, rub it down well, make it such that no one will shun it or turn from it. But who does not turn from a man who is dirty, odorous, foul-complexioned, more than from one who is bespattered with muck? The smell of the latter is external and accidental, that of the former comes from want of tendance; it is from within, and shows a sort of inward rottenness.

‘But Socrates rarely washed.’

Why, his body was clean and bright, nay, it was so gracious and agreeable that the handsomest and noblest were in love with him, and desired to recline by him rather than by those who were perfect in beauty. He might have never washed or bathed, if he had liked: I tell you his ablutions

Why, nature did not make even those lower animals dirty who associate with men. Does a horse or a well-bred dog wallow in mire? No, it is only the pig, and greasy geese, and worms and spiders, creatures the furthest removed from human society. Do you then, being a man, choose to be a wretched worm or spider, lower even than the animals that associate with men? Will you never wash, be it how you will? Will you not cleanse yourself? Will you not come clean among us that you may give pleasure to your companions? What! do you enter our temples, where custom forbids spitting or wiping the nose, in this condition, a man of filth and drivel?

 You ask. ‘Do you call on us to adorn ourselves?’

Far from it, if it be not with our natural adornment of reason, judgements, activities, and the body only so far as to be cleanly and give no offence. If you hear that you must not wear scarlet, must you needs go off and spread filth on your cloak, or tear it in half?

‘But how am I to have a beautiful cloak?’

Man, you have water, wash it. Here is a young man worthy to be loved, here is an old man worthy to love and to be loved, one to whom a man is to hand over his son to be instructed: daughters and young men will come to him, if it so chance, and for what? That he may discourse to them on a dunghill? God forbid. All eccentricity springs from some human source, but this comes near to being inhuman altogether.

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DEAR BEN OWEN:
What then should a man have in readiness in such circumstances? What else than “What is mine, and what is not mine; and permitted to me, and what is not permitted to me.” I must die. Must I then die lamenting? I must be put in chains. Must I then also lament? I must go into exile. Does any man then hinder me from going with smiles and cheerfulness and contentment? “Tell me the secret which you possess.” I will not, for this is in my power. “But I will put you in chains.” Man, what are you talking about? Me in chains? You may fetter my leg, but my will not even Zeus himself can overpower. “I will throw you into prison.” My poor body, you mean. “I will cut your head off.” When, then, have I told you that my head alone cannot be cut off? These are the things which philosophers should meditate on, which they should write daily, in which they should exercise themselves.

ASK EPICTETUS:  What’s the best thing to do when someone insults me for being myself? My hair has been bright blue for the last two semesters of college. I like it. I’m young, and my family is letting me express my “wild” side while I’m in school.

Six months ago I went to meet my ex-boyfriend’s mother, and the first thing she said to me was, “You’re one of my son’s phases, right? Boys don’t actually bring girls with blue hair home to Mama.” Abby, it was with my ex’s encouragement that I dyed my hair this bright color.

My family, my church and most of my teachers think it’s OK. Is there a social stigma attached to exotically dyed hair? And what’s the best way to react when someone insults me for just being myself? — NICE PERSON IN SPRINGFIELD, OREGON

DEAR MARGE SIMPSON:   Stand by a stone and slander it and see what effect you have.  Yell and curse at that stone and say it has blue hair and is an Epicurean and slander it some more.  What effect do you produce?  None whatsoever.  What will happen to the man who listens like a stone to those that slander him for having blue hair?  Nothing whatsoever. What joy can the slanderer get from slandering a stone?  None whatsoever.  But what if the stone ceases to listen like a stone and listens like a man who trembles in anticipation of what others say about him?   

Ask Epictetus is written by Epictetus and was founded by Zeus!

Ask Epictetus: I am a 23-year-old female who lives with my parents. I saw “The Little Mermaid” for the first time recently, and now I’m very worried.

Ask Epictetus: I have been married for 19 years, but I cannot stay faithful to my wife. I’ve had a few affairs, visit “massage parlors” on a regular basis and feel my wife deserves better. I want to walk away from our marriage.
We have kids who will be affected, and it will hurt us financially, but I don’t feel right staying in a marriage I can’t be faithful to. I haven’t told my wife about this, but I think she knows because we haven’t been intimate in months. We had discussed divorce several times in the past, but that was before the kids. Please give me some advice. — Living a Lie in the Mid-

DEAR LIAR:  The first  difference between the philosopher and the uneducated man is that the latter says, ‘Woe is me for my child, for my brother, woe is me for my father’, and the other, if he is compelled to ppeak, considers the matter and says, Woe is me for myself.’ For nothing outside the will can hinder or harm the will; it can only harm itself. If then we accept this, and, when things go amiss, are inclined to blame ourselves, remembering that judgement alone can disturb our peace and constancy, I swear to you by all the gods that we have made progress.nInstead of this we have come the wrong way from the beginning. When we were still children, if we stumbled when we were star-gazing, the nurse, instead of rebuking us, struck the stone. What is wrong with the stone? Was it to move out of the way because of your child’s folly? Again, if (when children) we do not find something to eat after our bath our attendant does not check our appetite, but flogs the cook. Man, did we appoint you to attend on the cook? No, on our child: correct him, do him good. So even when we are grown up we appear like children: for it is being a child to be unmusical in musical things, ungrammatical in grammar, uneducated in life.

Ask Epictetus:  

While I do not believe in God, I do believe in my God-given right to bear arms and to hunt big game.  I will defend my right to bear arms with my machine gun, and I also long to use this gun to shoot down a bald eagle.  I also believe in my God-given right to extract minerals from the earth and to support oil companies that extract said minerals from Indian burial grounds.  Up your ass with Mobile Gas!

Kilgore Trout—-Flint Michigan

Dear Kilgore Trout:

You say you do not believe in God, nor did you come forth with a question, so let me ask you a question:  if God did not exist would it be necessary to invent him?

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ASK EPICTETUS IS WRITTEN BY EPICTETUS AND WAS FOUNDED BY ZEUS!

Ask Epictetus:

I need your advice on my situation.  What I like, is to have a woman sit on my face and I want her to be in full-seated pink panties.  I know this sounds crazy, but a baby sitter did this to me when I was little and I have wanted it ever since.  My wife won’t sit on my face, she just snorts at me in disgust.  I recently paid a woman to do this but I felt guilty afterwards (we didn’t have sex but I was able to achieve relief this way).  I think of leaving my wife and searching for a woman who will willingly do this.  Do I sound crazy to you?  I can’t help it.  What do you think I should do?

—-Faceless in Seattle

Dear FIS:

If virtue promises happiness, prosperity and peace, then progress in virtue is progress in each of these for to whatever point the perfection of anything brings us, progress is always an approach toward it.

Ask Epictetus is written by Epictetus and was founded by Zeus.