December 31
Take away your opinion about what seems to hurt you — and you stand on the surest ground.
Meditations VIII,40 (freely rendered)
Listening mode
Take away your opinion about what seems to hurt you — and you stand on the surest ground.
A sentence can occupy you for an entire evening, though it had barely ten words. Someone said you were always so very thorough. Whether that was meant appreciatively or as a dig can no longer be told for certain from the tone. You try anyway: the look that went with it, the little pause before, who else was in the room.
By this point, what hurts you is no longer the sentence. It is the version you have made of it, and that version is more detailed than anything that was said. It contains a verdict on you and an intention on the other person's part. You supplied both.
Leaving this addition out is harder than it sounds. For it doesn't feel like an opinion but like attentiveness, almost the opposite of naivety. And whoever leaves it out also gives up the kind reading. What remains is a sentence you no longer interpret, neither praise nor dig.
The next morning it comes back to you. You can still hear it almost word for word, more thoroughly than anyone else has probably kept hold of it.
