December 14
Unhappy am I, because this has happened to me? No — happy am I, because I remain unbroken by it: neither crushed by the present nor afraid of the future.
Meditations IV.49
Listening mode
Unhappy am I, because this has happened to me? No — happy am I, because I remain unbroken by it: neither crushed by the present nor afraid of the future.
After bad news, there is sometimes an evening when you are surprisingly composed. You take care of what needs doing, call whoever you have to call, and even eat something. Perhaps you are surprised at yourself. Perhaps you are also a little proud.
That pride is understandable. But it turns your composure into something you now possess, and can therefore lose. The next morning you check yourself: is it still holding? The fear that the event itself barely stirred is now directed at you. You dread the moment when you give way after all.
Being unbroken, then, would mean something other than never wavering. Rather, that a weak day doesn't immediately stand as a verdict on all the days that follow. You can cry one day and open the post again the next, without the one disproving the other.
Composure is hard to keep in storage. Often you only notice it afterwards, when it occurs to you that for an hour you were thinking about something else.
