9781945186240

Then depart, with a good conscience, as if you’d done it, embracing the
obstacles too.
48. Remember that when it withdraws into itself and finds contentment
there, the mind is invulnerable. It does nothing against its will, even if its
resistance is irrational. And if its judgment is deliberate and grounded in
logic . . . ?
The mind without passions is a fortress. No place is more secure. Once
we take refuge there we are safe forever. Not to see this is ignorance. To see
it and not seek safety means misery.
49. Nothing but what you get from first impressions. That someone has
insulted you, for instance. That—but not that it’s done you any harm. The
fact that my son is sick—that I can see. But “that he might die of it,” no.
Stick with first impressions. Don’t extrapolate. And nothing can happen to
you.
Or extrapolate. From a knowledge of all that can happen in the world.
50. The cucumber is bitter? Then throw it out.
There are brambles in the path? Then go around them.
That’s all you need to know. Nothing more. Don’t demand to know
“why such things exist.” Anyone who understands the world will laugh at
you, just as a carpenter would if you seemed shocked at finding sawdust in
his workshop, or a shoemaker at scraps of leather left over from work.
Of course, they have a place to dispose of these; nature has no door to
sweep things out of. But the wonderful thing about its workmanship is how,
faced with that limitation, it takes everything within it that seems broken,
old and useless, transforms it into itself, and makes new things from it. So
that it doesn’t need material from any outside source, or anywhere to
dispose of what’s left over. It relies on itself for all it needs: space, material,
and labor.
51. No carelessness in your actions. No confusion in your words. No
imprecision in your thoughts. No retreating into your own soul, or trying to
escape it. No overactivity.
They kill you, cut you with knives, shower you with curses. And that
somehow cuts your mind off from clearness, and sanity, and self-control,
and justice?