This Will Sustain You
Each of us goes to work every day and deals with obstacles, with difficult people. We deal with stress at home. We have responsibilities in our community. Some of us have other problems still: A divorce. A looming bankruptcy. Maybe we’re on deployment. Maybe we’ve just done a stint in jail.
In 1513, Machiavelli was in a tough spot that few would envy but many can relate to. He was in exile. He had been stripped of his livelihood and social status. His country was a political mess. He was unsure of his next move.
What did he do? He did what Seneca did in a similar position. He did what Marcus Aurelius did in the camps of the Roman frontier. He did what Zeno did after his shipwreck. Machiavelli found a way, as Marcus said, to “wash off the dust of earthly life.” He found it in books.
Machiavelli writes,
“When evening comes, I return home and go into my study. On the threshold I strip off my muddy, sweaty, workday clothes, and put on the robes of court and palace, and in this graver dress I enter the antique courts of the ancients and am welcomed by them, and there I taste the food that alone is mine, and for which I was born. And there I make bold to speak to them and ask the motives of their actions, and they, in their humanity, reply to me. And for the space of four hours I forget the world, remember no vexation, fear poverty no more, tremble no more at death: I pass indeed into their world.”
We have talked so many times about the importance of having a reading practice, of returning to philosophy when you find yourself adrift or lost. This is why. It can sustain you. It can reassure you. It welcomes you with open arms, builds you back up, guides and repairs you.
So whatever is happening in your life, whatever you’re going through, when you return home today, go as Machiavelli did into the proverbial study. Cross the threshold into the world of books and ideas and the greats of history.
Rest and recharge in it. Let it make you brave
