Neither Heaven Nor Hell

Telos

Telos?  I 'll give you my telos.

The illustration is lifted from my daughter's favorite children's book, Diogenes by M.D. Usher.  I think her kindergarten teacher was a little taken aback last year when she took it to school with the request that it be read before the whole class.

Kindred Parts

"Whether the universe is a concourse of atoms, or nature is a system, let this first be established: that I am a part of the whole that is governed by nature; next, that I stand in some intimate connection with other kindred parts." (Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, X.6)

Dancin' Circles around the Sun

Someone has been reading the Discourses.

Disregard what don't concern you, don't let disappointment turn you
Avoid adopting other people's views 

Know what you can and can't control, don't let envy take a toll
It's nothing more than weather passing through 

When your back's against the wall, when you're headed for a fall
The tables set to make a run Dancin' Circles Round The Sun 

Through action wisdom is revealed and too much talk is like a shield
In silence lies the keys to how we grow 

When focused on the truth at hand, the critics try to make you bland
But they don't understand what they don't know 

Make your own cracks in the sky, grit your teeth and learn to fly
And when the right thing has been done, you'll be Dancin' Circles Round The Sun 

Forgive the ones who meant to harm you, don't let superstition charm you
Conform your wishes only to what's real 

Your reputation doesn't matter, let idle gossip chirp and chatter
No one else can tell you how you feel 

In between the masks you wear, wash your face and comb your hair
You're not hurting anyone Dancin' Circles Round the Sun 

Your mind cries out to God alone, please send me someone I can own
Your soul says son you're walking on thin ice 

Possession in the broadest sense, compounded by coincidence
When all it takes is one roll of the dice 

In between the good and bad, think of all the fun you had
It's the same for everyone Dancin' Circles Round The Sun 

Evolution comes in fits, it stops and starts, it coughs and spits
Picasso and Mile Davis come to mind 

True artists, bold unbridled passion, no concern for fad or fashion
Sexy beasts in love with woman kind 

Bend the rules until it breaks, stand your ground until it shakes
That's the way to get things done Dancin' Circles Round The Sun
Hey, sod convention let's have fun Dancin' Circles Round the Sun

There is no why.

First Lessons

A previous generation understood the experience in terms of a little red haired girl and a boy atop a pitcher's mound but it is a lesson as old as time.

Young girls are the first to teach young men that "some things are outside of your control."

Good Intentions

Good intentions, amongst the human race, nothing is more plentiful, but a good man or woman is hard to find.

Most members of the human race are born with the former, the latter is the result discipline, hard work, and a willingness to be thought ill of by strangers, who do so with the best of intentions, and misunderstood by friends.

I wouldn't presume to be good myself but I have grown in my awareness of how deep my own runs.  That awareness is just enough that I hold suspect all my own best intentions, and most of those of the people I love and trust most.

Happy Thanksgiving

It is a good time to remember just what it is you are thankful for.

DB Cooper Day

Today is my birthday but the celebration is postponed until tomorrow.  It started as a compromise but it became something a little more serious.

My bride likes to celebrate birthdays and for the first twelve years of marriage she was content to make sure that I celebrated her's, and then the children's.  No harm there, all good fun.

As the kids got a little older, it wasn't enough to celebrate four birthdays however, she tried to rope me into the whole ordeal.  It was important for the kids, she thought, to learn to give through marking my birthday.

I don't want my birthday celebrated and I have to ask you, dear reader, to trust me when I say that it is not because I have a fear of growing older or having my life slip away unawares.  It just don't like arbitrary celebrations.

Today is the anniversary of my birth and, though I am an adult, there is cake a presents.  For what?  To commemorate the fact that I have not died yet?  What if I'd spent the last year lying in bed, eating Oreo cookies, and pleasuring myself?  Would we still celebrate that?

They love me.  I get it.  Can't we all just shut off the lights when we leave the house or close your bedroom door so the rescue terrier isn't tempted to turn your stuffed animal into his chew toy?

Add Facebook to the mix and I have maybe hundreds of people, prompted by algorithm to wish me a happy born day.  People I have not seen in twenty-five years or more wishing me a happy birthday.  Yes, their intentions are innocent.  They are, each and every one of them, more generous human beings than I.

There is no problem, really, but I have as much right to my curmudgeonly ways as everyone else has to their thoughtless traditions.  I merely need to remind myself, "There is no why" and move on.

When the wife and children have conspired together, one is compelled.  How does one react when faced with a meaningless exercise when participation is outside of one's own control?  Fill it with meaning.

Consequently, part of my annual "spiritual" practice has been the celebration of D.B. Cooper Day.

For those of you too young or too preoccupied to remember, DB Cooper was/is a criminal.  There is no legal excuse for his actions but, speaking of morals, his error was much smaller.  We he did he accomplished with a degree of excellence that few humans can ever hope to attain in their own vocations.  Despite his crime, this is what makes him worthy of reflection every November 24th.

The brief version from Wikipedia:

D. B. Cooper is a media epithet popularly used to refer to an unidentified man who hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft in the airspace between Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, on November 24, 1971, extorted$200,000 in ransom (equivalent to $1,170,000 in 2015), and parachuted to an uncertain fate. Despite an extensive manhunt and an ongoing FBI investigation, the perpetrator has never been located or positively identified. The case remains the only unsolved air piracy in American aviation history.^[1][2][3]

The suspect purchased his airline ticket using the alias Dan Cooper, but because of a ^[1][4] The discovery of a small cache of ransom bills in 1980 triggered renewed interest but ultimately only deepened the mystery, and the great majority of the ransom remains unrecovered.

news media miscommunication he became known in popular lore as "D. B. Cooper". Hundreds of leads have been pursued in the ensuing years, but no conclusive evidence has ever surfaced regarding Cooper's true identity or whereabouts. Numerous theories of widely varying plausibility have been proposed by experts, reporters, and amateur enthusiasts.

While FBI investigators have stated from the beginning that Cooper probably did not survive his risky jump,^[5] the agency maintains an active case file—which has grown to more than 60 volumes^[6]—and continues to solicit creative ideas and new leads from the public. "Maybe a hydrologist can use the latest technology to trace the $5,800 in ransom money found in 1980 to where Cooper landed upstream," suggested Special Agent Larry Carr, leader of the investigation team since 2006. "Or maybe someone just remembers that odd uncle."^[5]

As for me, I hope we never see Ol' D.B. Cooper again.

Here are the important parts.

• No one was ever put at risk except Cooper himself.  There was no real bomb.  He did not hit or abuse anyone.  He did what he felt he needed to do, and he was a gentleman about it.
• He kept his mouth shut.  Maybe this is because he died in the jump, but I am inclined to think he lived at least a bit longer.  As coach said about sportsmanship, "Win like it happens everyday."
• He was excellent.  His plan shows creativity and originality.  He was fit.  He was smart.  He did what he knew with professionalism and style.  He stuck it to the man without hurting a soul.

Could we all do what we believe needs to be done with such intelligence, daring, and, yes, virtue?  We should all try to be as excellent as Mr. D.B. Cooper.

Does it matter that his excellence was demonstrated through the breaking of the law?  Through stealing money from an airliner?  Through transgressing the property rights of Northwest Orient Airlines?

Not to me.  If you think you can become a better human being without transgressing some social norms, I'd wonder if you've put much critical thought into what it means to be an excellent human being and the limits of culture and civilization.  An excellent racehorse is not like every other race horse.  An excellent hunter is not like every other hunter.  An excellent homo sapiens is not just like every other homo sapiens.  Just don't put anyone else at risk in the process.

So on the 24th of every year, ,my family celebrates D.B. Cooper Day.  The month before the 24th of November is spent reflection upon what disciplines I might undertake in the next twelve months that would make me a more excellent human being, and only rarely things that I want to accomplish by those disciplines.  Embracing disciplines are within my grasp.  Knowing what will come out of them is not.  I write the goals down in a notebook, and tell no one.

The purpose of keeping my goals a secret is because it avoids the tenancy to seek praise for good intentions.  Don't praise me for committing to loose fifty pounds, but you might notice that I do not use the elevator on even numbered months, eat a simpler diet, and maybe have lost thirty.

Don't praise me for taking an aggressive stance toward improving my own mental health, but a careful observer might notice that I seem happier and more relaxed since I started journaling through Epictetus' Discourses or Marcus Aurelius' Meditations.

Being honest, no one watches a man in his mid-forties that closely so most of the goals take place in blissful secrecy.  I've yet to decide a hard rule about sharing the discipline successess or failures after the year has passed.  Perhaps with friend who knows me well enough?  I've got one or two of those.

Yes, and the wife makes a cake for D.B. Cooper Day and this year it will have 42 candles on it.  The children will "Happy Birthday" (though soon maybe we can replace that with the DB Cooper song below... maybe I should learn the chords) but at least the celebration comes with some reflection and expectations for the months to come.  If one is going to bother being alive another year, might as well make good use of that year.

Natural Forces

Homo sapiens is as much a product of nature as the whitetail and the wolf.  Each of us is a natural force.

To the extent there is such a thing as human exceptionalism, it lies in the fact that human excellence is not a matter of genetics but rather it is fostered.  We're not born with it, we make movements towards it.  We can gain wisdom.  We can become courageous.  We can learn temperance.  We can become practiced in justice.

I've know some people born with two strikes against them who went on to be models of human excellence.

We each have the power to live according to human nature, we all have the potential to be excellent sapiens.

If change is called for,

• put down the Coors Lite,
• turn off the television,
• stop praying to be changed,
• bid your former life goodbye.

/sermon

Home is where my hunt is,

"Natural Forces"

I rode across the great high plain
Under the scorchin' sun and thru the drivin' rain
An' when I set my sights on the mountains high
I bid my former life goodbye.

An' so thank you ma'am, I must decline
For it's on my steed I will rely
An' I've learned to need the open sky
I'm subject to the natural forces
Home is where my horse is.

We loaded up in Buffalo
Took 90 South down to Ohio
On 80 West I'm Frisco-bound
An' when I get there I'll turn back around

An' so thank you ma'am, I must decline
For it's on these eighteen wheels I ride
An' I'm underneath the western sky
I'm subject to the natural forces
Home is where my horse is.

And ev'ry year they come to town
An' then drag em on right in the round
And Mr Bradley calls the score
And the cowboy there who tried for more

So thank you ma'am, I must decline
For it's on my three-year-old I ride
An' I've spin an' run an' stopped an' slide [?]
I'm subject to the natural forces
Home is where my horse is.

[Instrumental]

The Cherokee an' the Chickasaw
Creek Seminole an' the old Choctaw
"We volunteered to move!" they say
"And we'll understand, come Judgement Day".

An' so thank you ma'am, I must decline
For it's on this trail of tears I ride
An' I'm under Oklahoma skies
Sometimes at night I hear their voices
Home is where my horse is.

Now as I sit here safe at home
With a cold Coors Lite an' the TV on
All the sacrifice and the death and woe
Lord I pray that I'm worth fighting for

An' so thank you ma'am, I must decline
For it's on my RPG I ride
Till Earth an' hell are satisfied
I'm subject to the natural forces
Sometimes at night I hear their voices
Home is where my horse is.
Home is where my horse is.

Life is Hard

And that is what makes it worth doing.

Whether you are sharpened or dulled by the grit just depends upon your angle of approach.

Shooters, Hunters, and Moral Sentiments

An earnest young man called me earlier in the season to help with a track.

Hunting on family land twenty minutes from my house, he was in the midst of that awkward transition from gun hunter to bow hunter.

His bow was a newer compound, tricked out with stabilizer and sights; his arrows, quiver, and clothes were all top of the line.  He had more than enough gadgets to be successful at his current level of development.

I want him to be successful.  More than that, however, I hope he continues to develop and become ever less a gadget empowered harvester of meat and more and more a hunter.

Traditional bow hunting is like throwing a baseball.  It takes time.  Would we call him a ball player if he needed sights and a range-finder to throw out a runner on second?  It is experience which teaches the hunter to say, "I don't know how far away it is, but when something is that far away, I shoot like this" or "I should not take that shot."

Even with gadgets bow hunting is less precise than gun hunting.  And while our weapons, expertly used, are more lethal and less disturbing to the animal made dead, few of us are experts.  In the hands of a student, and I count myself a student, our weapons are less lethal than the gunpowder alternative.

Using his .22 my son gave me three chances to hit the dot once,
with a bow I could probably have hit the jug twice.

Thanks to hydrostatic shock, gun shot deer rarely survive even an imperfect shot from a hunter using an appropriate cartridge.  A hit yet unrecovered deer feels like a moral failure to the gun hunter, but moral sentiments honed as a gun-hunter do not always apply to the very different act of bow hunting.

It is the experience of bow hunting over gun hunting which teach the young man to recognize how many deer survive the imperfect shot.

  They can live just fine with one collapsed lung, especially if that lung is hit high, decreasing the amount of bleeding the deer experiences.

Deer might still be seen participating in the rut after an arrow passes through the dead zone of a high back shot (above the lungs/below the vertebrae).

Nearly every week I meet a hunter with a story of finding a broadhead inside a deer they kill or scar tissue on the pelt.

An imperfect release, wind, or a branch can throw off a bow shot.  The deer has more of an opportunity to move, even jumping or crouching at the sound of the bowstring.  This is what challenges us to know our prey better, to hone our craft.  This is what forces modern man to move from participating in the shooting sport, which is modern gun hunting, to become a hunter in tune with his prey.

The bow hunter does not have a dispensation to be reckless but must recognize and accept more things are outside of her control.  It means the individual is progressing from harvester of meat to hunter.  When you are a hunter, the prey often escape.  We serve the herd not because we intend to take the weakest and least fit but because the strongest and most fit escape our grasp.

If your interpretation is wrong, your moral sentiment will be flawed.

Far from a Cartesian when it comes to animal welfare, I am not so much of a narrow-minded ape as to think that animals experience pain in the same fashion as homo sapiens. Descartes was wrong, but he was not an idiot.  He merely misinterpreted certain observations of non-human animals.  Who isn't guilty of that mistake?

I have cleaned maggots out of the wounds of apparently calm bovine.  I have burned the horn buds of goats and watched them playfully skip away seconds later.  I have watched bow shot deer walk away with barely a flinch.If you have not been surprised at how different animals experience pain, I suspect you've not spent too much time around animals.

Adam Smith, in his Theory of Moral Sentiments wrote,

Man naturally desires, not only to be loved, but to be lovely; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of love. He naturally dreads, not only to be hated, but to be hateful; or to be that thing which is the natural and proper object of hatred. He desires, not only praise, but praiseworthiness; or to be that thing which, though it should be praised by nobody, is, however, the natural and proper object of praise. He dreads, not only blame, but blame-worthiness; or to be that thing which, though it should be blamed by nobody, is, however, the natural and proper object of blame.

Bow hunting is a moral act and should be done in which a wise bow hunter would recognize as "lovely."

But like any virtue it is gained through time, experience, and failure.  We must first recognize what we do not know, cling tightly to what remains, then maybe we begin to recognize "the lovely," and finally to cultivate it within the self.  

Animals feel physical and emotional pain and we should seek to avoid inflicting it unnecessarily.  The bow hunter, once he has learned to recognize the avoid the irresponsible shot, need not feel guilty about the unrecovered deer.  It probably survived.  It suffered, but not in the fashion or to the degree we're inclined to think.

I regularly hear hunters say, "I respect the deer too much to let it go to waste."  That is a good start, but there is no waste.  If it did not survive, than it fed coyote, fox, raccoon, and any number of species of bird, including the proud bald eagle. There is no waste.  All flesh eats flesh.  We hunt because we are part of the biome, part of the ecological system, so are those coyotes.

We show it respect by what is in our control: making every effort to recover the deer we pursued.

An interview with the author

If we did not fail, we would not recognize the need to develop the resources to improve our character: to become more patient, more courageous, more wise.  Without falling short of our expectations we would not recognize the need to spend more time with our equipment; we would not recognize the need to practice the simple act of standing up in your stand, the mental toughness of waiting to begin a track, the courage to limit your hunting practice so that it is more challenging for you and improving the odds for your prey.

There is no fault in being human.  If hunters were always successful, we'd have destroyed the planet long ago.  I'm no longer a pastor but my contribution as a tracker often feels pastoral.  I meet people whose conscience, by my own flawed understanding, are just a little malformed.  I try to point them in a direction compatible with the human experience of a hunter, which is the experience of an imperfect, earthbound predator.

Working as a tracker has further challenged my ability to accept the things outside of my control (a blog post to come later), but more important than the unexpected challenges has been the unexpected joys.  I have learned from wiser and more experienced hunters, I have been a small part of the education of others.  

Stoic Week 2015

Stoic Week begins tomorrow.

There is still time to register and get your free handbook.

What is modern stoicism?
I am so glad you asked.

Writing for the New York Times Massimo Pigliucci describes his daily practice this way,

Nonetheless, I think it is worth considering what it means to “be a Stoic” in the 21st century. It doesn’t involve handling a turbulent empire as Marcus Aurelius had to do, or having to deal with the dangerous madness of a Nero, with the fatal consequences that Seneca experienced. Rather, my modest but regular practice includes a number of standard Stoic “spiritual” exercises. 

I begin the day by retreating in a quiet corner of my apartment to meditate. Stoic meditation consists in rehearsing the challenges of the day ahead, thinking about which of the four cardinal virtues (courage, equanimity, self-control and wisdom) one may be called on to employ and how.
I also engage in an exercise called Hierocles’ circle, imagining myself as part of a growing circle of concern that includes my family and friends, my neighbors, my fellow citizens, humanity as a whole, all the way up to Nature itself. 

I then pass to the “premeditatio malorum,” a type of visualization in which one imagines some sort of catastrophe happening to oneself (such as losing one’s job), and learns to see it as a “dispreferred indifferent,” meaning that it would be better if it didn’t happen, but that it would nonetheless not affect one’s worth and moral value. This one is not for everybody: novices may find this last  exercise emotionally disturbing, especially if it involves visualizing one’s own death, as sometimes it does. Nonetheless, it is very similar to an analogous practice in C.B.T. meant to ally one’s fears of particular objects or events. 

Throughout the rest of the day, my Stoic practice is mostly about mindfulness, which means to remind myself that I not only I live “hic et nunc,” in the here and now, where I must pay attention to whatever it is I am doing, but, more importantly, that pretty much every decision I make has a moral dimension, and needs to be approached with proper care and thoughtfulness. For me this often includes how to properly and respectfully treat students and colleagues, or how to shop for food and other items in the most ethically minded way possible (there are apps for that, naturally).Finally, I pick a Stoic saying from my growing collection (saved on a spreadsheet on DropBox and available to share), read it to myself a few times and absorb it as best as I can. The whole routine takes about ten minutes or so. 

Finally, my daily practice ends with an evening meditation, which consists in writing in a diary (definitely not meant for publication!) my thoughts about the day, the challenges I faced, and how I handled them. I ask myself, as Seneca put it in “On Anger”: “What bad habit have you put right today? Which fault did you take a stand against? In what respect are you better?”

No Do Overs

Live the life you please; just be careful to make sure you're living the kind of life you can be proud of whether you die at nine pm or ninety.

The Anthropocene, a Stoic, and Identity Politics

We're a tribal species, more or less developed in order to interact with 150 others.  We grew up only interacting positively with members of the same tribe.  Others were to be shunned, resisted, or subjugated.

Today we live in a globalized world and a radically different worldview is no farther away than the next cubicle.  The farthest corner of the world is less than an hour away by submarine base ICBM.

Welcome to the Anthropocene.

I bought a tee-shirt thinking it would be great to wear on one of our average 8, monthly 16, or annual 26 mile walks with the terriers.  The day it came I ran it through the wash and without thinking about it started my day.

Driving to the school for flag football practice and a parent/teacher conference, I remembered that the teacher in question is a Creationist.

Now I like this teacher well enough.  She runs a tight ship.  It is elementary school so the science is pretty simple.  I'm glad my child is in her classroom.  She is a good fit for the kind of kid he is.  Ironically, she's doing more for science than my other two kids' teachers are currently.

I'm not above the odd bit of trolling, at least when I think it might have some positive purpose, but I try not to troll in my hometown, or anywhere it is hard to conceive any good resulting.  What is the saying, "don't poop where you eat" or "A prophet is without honor in his hometown."  Luckily the evening was cold and I had a vest in the back seat of the car.

Funny thing is, how it might be perceived never occurred to me when I was buying it.  

I admire those who can take on the Cynic style of life, throwing a culture's subjectivity into its face.  The Stoic difference, however, is that while acknowledging the subjectivity, realizing that meaning is something we create and our creations are by necessity subjective, we see homo sapiens as a tribal species.

We do not exist only as individuals.  We live life together. We have more in common with the dog and her pack than the cat and her solitude.

Consequently, the Stoic view of virtue values, or at least accounts for the social as well as the individual.

I am not ashamed of my shirt.  I will happily wear it around town, or on the trail, or even when doing therapy dog visits but Prudence, Temperance, Courage, and Justice are restraints as much as direction. 

The Stoic sees the excellent life as one lived in community.  The individual and the social live together.  I have no problem being myself.  I have no compulsion to throw who I am in the face of others.

Hello, my name is Daniel.  I am an atheist.  I understand some find Darwinian Evolution threatening.  I find it enlightening and sometimes humorous.  I don't understand why is should be conceived as a threat to anyone's worldview since prior to Darwin Christians and Jews widely believed the first few chapters of Genesis were allegory, but I don't feel a need to have an argument over it either.

I can not help it if some find me offensive, but I can control if I am needlessly and sometimes if I am incidentally offensive.  That is, perhaps, more difficult than it has been at other times in our history.  In an age of identity politics, many have been trained to of "know thyself" less as a way less of finding a way toward a satisfying life and more towards knowing whom to embrace or reject.

I am not afraid of being seen as, gossiped about, or treated as if I am an asshole.  Been there, done that, and it didn't matter.

I am not, however, compelled to act like an asshole, even incidentally.  If it is just about expressing myself, that too doesn't matter.

What is prudent?  Will good result?
What is temperate?  Am I sailing between the extremes the social and individual good?
What is courageous?  Am I avoiding folly as much as cowardice?

What is just? Am I treating the other as they ought to be treated?

In this case that is the crux of the matter.  How do our fellow citizens, how does the alien in our midst, deserve to be treated?

Anyhow, it is a nice shirt.  The quality is good and maybe you want to get yours here.

Like a Boss

Flat
tire
at noon,
patiently
embracing Fate's hand
while waiting for the tow to show.

She is casually eating groceries from the trunk.

Weather passing through

Sorry Al, but I think we all end up cartoons "in a cartoon graveyard."  You do, however, have power to decide what kind of a cartoon that you will be.

And if it is too late for that, well take comfort in the fact that everyone who remembers you will soon be dead as well and the cartoon will be forgotten.

It is all just weather passing through.

For the record, I think that guy on the right is lip syncing.

The Taste of Defeat

For what it's worth, getting the shit kicked out of you? Not to say you get used to it, but you do kinda get used to it.

-Jesse Pinkman Breaking Bad "Open House" 

It is easy to dismiss Sly Stallone.  I know I have and, if I am honest, will again in the future.

The thing is, I don't think he cares, and there in is his virtue.

As I type, the taste of defeat is thick in my mouth: sick sheep, failed tracks with the dog, middle-age malaise, too much debt, and too many bills, loosing weight is getting harder, staying in shape as 40 turns into 50, will be harder, insert every other common middle-aged white guy complaint here.

Blah, blah, blah.  I even bore myself, but defeat still hurts.

Yes, I've been blessed but that doesn't lessen the taste of defeat.  Defeat, when it comes, tastes like manure and not even the well aged stuff on your garden.  Defeat tastes like runny manure straight out of the steer's anus.

Still, if you actually try to accomplish something, if you're really out there pushing yourself, pushing the system, pushing against ignorance and the ignorant, you're going to taste defeat.  In the parlance of Sly Stallone, life is going to punch you hard.


Think of Sylvester Stallone.  He really has earned what he's got.  He hit bottom trying to sell the Rocky film.  He's still an action star past the age of 65.  Is he using steroids? I don't see how he isn't.  Is he making great contributions to Western Civilization?  Not really.

Is he living his life without a concern about what some middle-aged, over-educated sheep-herding, dog-training, overpaid babysitter in Minneapolis thinks about how he talks or the quality of his movies?

Yep, and that is his virtue.  That is what he has contributed to those willing to learn from his example.

Sure, maybe Epictetus put it more eloquently but when it feels like your teeth have been kicked in, eloquence is not always the most healing balm.  Sometimes you need to remember the Italian Stallion.

If you wish to make progress, you must be content in external matters to seem a fool and a simpleton; do not wish men to think you know anything, and if any should think you to be somebody, distrust yourself. For know that it is not easy to keep your will in accord with nature and at the same time keep outward things; if you attend to one you must needs neglect the other.  

-The Manuel of Epictetus 13