You might be wondering what a peddler of life force is doing in a text
about Stoicism. And yet. When Alain begins his reflection with that strange
advertisement “The great secret to success, for just two dollars !”, he
doesn’t mock it, nor does he bother to expose it. He listens. He looks deeper.
He asks:
Why does it work?
Why do some people truly feel transformed after meeting a charlatan?
And more than that,
why can the emptiest of speeches sometimes produce real effects?
That’s when we step into Stoic territory.
Because behind the smoke of words, behind the promises of power or success,
there may be something simpler… and more true: a man regaining his confidence,
a woman learning to steady her attention, someone who, for the first time,
dares to believe they have agency over their life. It’s not the fluid that
acts. It’s the mind. And that’s where Alain joins his old Greek companions.
Because what did Socrates say, at the entrance to the temple of Delphi? “Know
thyself.”
Nothing more,
nothing less.
The only real secret,
written in plain sight all along.
“When I go to catch a train, I always hear people saying: ‘You only arrive at such-and-such an hour. What a long and boring journey!’ The problem is that they believe it; and that’s precisely where our Stoic would be entirely right in saying: ‘Eliminate the judgment, and you eliminate the harm.’
If we looked at things differently, we’d come to see a train journey as one of the keenest pleasures. If someone unveiled a kind of panorama where you could see the colors of the sky and earth and the rushing scenery, like on a giant wheel whose center lies deep on the horizon—if such a spectacle were put on, everyone would want to see it. And if the inventor also managed to recreate the trembling of the train and all the sounds of the journey, it would seem even more beautiful.”
Yet all these wonders, the moment you step onto a train, you get for free, yes, free, because you're paying to be transported, not to see valleys, rivers, and mountains. Life is full of these vivid pleasures that cost nothing, and yet we hardly enjoy them. There ought to be signs in every language, posted everywhere, saying: “Open your eyes, take some pleasure.”
To which you reply: “I’m a traveler, not a spectator. An important matter requires me to be here or there, as soon as I possibly can. That’s what I’m thinking about; I’m counting the minutes and the turning wheels. I curse the stops and the idle employees who push luggage without an ounce of passion. I’m pushing mine in my mind; I’m pushing the train; I’m pushing time itself. You say it’s unreasonable, and I say it’s natural and inevitable, for anyone with a little blood in their veins.”
Certainly, it’s good to have blood in your veins. But the creatures who have triumphed on this earth are not the most hot-tempered; they are the reasonable ones, those who save their passion for the right moment. The fearsome fencer, for instance, is not the one who stamps the floor and lunges before knowing where he’s going — it’s the calm one, who waits for the opening and then strikes through it like a swallow.
In the same way, you who are learning to act: don’t push your carriage, since it moves without you. Don’t try to push along majestic, unshakable Time, which carries all the universes from one moment to the next. Things ask for nothing but your gaze to seize you and carry you along.
One must learn to be good to oneself, and a friend.