October 9
Many a bad man is rich, many a good man must go in want; yet I will not trade my uprightness for their gold. For virtue remains and stands firm, while riches belong now to this man, now to that.
Elegies (freely rendered)
Listening mode
Many a bad man is rich, many a good man must go in want; yet I will not trade my uprightness for their gold. For virtue remains and stands firm, while riches belong now to this man, now to that.
It hurts in a particular way when someone with fewer scruples gets further than you. It isn't only about what you missed out on. You had quietly assumed that decency would make itself felt at some point. Now it seems it wasn't even counted.
Perhaps the mistake lies in that very assumption. What you own, you can collect, compare, lose or pass on. None of that works with your integrity. It isn't lying anywhere ready to hand, and you have no store of it. An honest answer from three years ago won't help you with today's temptation.
That is why no one can take it from you. For the same reason, though, you can't rest on it either. What the other person has gained is theirs, for as long as it happens to stay. Your integrity, by contrast, exists only in the moment you act in keeping with it, and mostly when it costs you something.
In the evening you have nothing to show for it. Tomorrow the matter asks you again, as if you had never answered.
