September 22
Someone despises me? That is his affair. Mine: that I do and say nothing that deserves contempt. He hates me? His affair. I remain well-disposed toward everyone — ready to show him his error: not reviling him, not as a display of my patience, but genuinely and kindly.
Meditations XI.13
Listening mode
Someone despises me? That is his affair. Mine: that I do and say nothing that deserves contempt. He hates me? His affair. I remain well-disposed toward everyone — ready to show him his error: not reviling him, not as a display of my patience, but genuinely and kindly.
When someone plainly can't stand you, you often become especially careful around him. You phrase things more precisely, greet him a little more distinctly, and make sure you don't slip up. From the outside it looks like composure.
But this care has an addressee. It is meant to show that his dislike is unfounded, and so it remains dependent on his judgement. Even your friendliness can turn into an argument this way, a silent refutation that he had better notice. If he overlooks it or reads it as calculation, that may hurt you more than the dislike itself.
The two are hard to separate. You don't want to let him dictate who you are, and yet you don't want to prove him right either. A goodwill that isn't meant to prove anything would have to persist even if he sticks to his opinion and you never find out whether he ever reconsidered it.
Perhaps you can tell the difference by a small thing: whether you would give him a helpful tip if it were certain he would never learn who it came from.
