friendship | CW Hawes

On Anger

Let’s be kinder to one another. After all, we’re just wicked people living among wicked people. Only one thing can give us peace, and that’s a pact of mutual leniency.
—Seneca, in “On Anger”

Seneca’s treatise, On Anger, even though written 2,000 years ago, is very much an essay for today.

Over the last 4 years, I’ve observed anger and hate and vitriol on a scale that I’ve not witnessed in my lifetime. Not even the 1960s were as bad.

What the left has done during the Trump administration, I’m afraid has set a precedent for the right to follow during the coming Biden administration. A spiraling cycle of anger and hate and vitriol no matter who is in the White House or who controls Congress.

I’ve seen people publicly say that they no longer wanted to be friends with anyone who supported Trump. And those who publicly said they weren’t friends with anyone who didn’t support Trump.

Politics is a pretty small reason over which to destroy a friendship.

Just think about this: name 10 presidents from before you were born. Presidents are here today and gone tomorrow. Can you name 5 speakers of the house, or 5 Senate majority leaders. Or 10 vice presidents?

Why destroy a friendship, that can last a lifetime, over something so evanescent as politics? In my mind, that is just plain stupid. But then we are living in an age of stupidity.

In the above quote, Seneca hits the nail on the head. We the people are all the same: wicked. Or to be more contemporary, flawed. Not perfect.

If we are to have any hope of living together, we have to extend to everyone — whether we agree with them or not — a pact of leniency.

What does that mean? Leniency is “the fact or quality of being more merciful or tolerant than expected”.

If we exhibited mercy and tolerance in a greater degree than the person we’re extending it to expected — then we are being lenient. And in being lenient, we aren’t saying, I agree with you. We’re saying, I will be your friend even though I disagree with you. Our friendship is more valuable than the individual views we hold.

We are currently at a place where intolerance is destroying the fabric of our society. There is no longer a place for civil disagreement. When in fact we cannot but help disagreeing with each other over something. No two people ever agree 100% on anything.

I’ve become over the years essentially apolitical. After observing the political process for the past 50+ years, I’ve come to the conclusion that it matters little who is in power. President A does things, and then President B undoes them. It’s a case of 2 steps forwards and 2 steps backwards.

But what I do find alarming is the amount of anger I am seeing freely expressed by people in public and on social media. No society can survive if people do not extend leniency towards each other.

Seneca knew this. He was involved in Imperial Roman politics. He had to endure and survive the anger of emperors. Anger that meant instant death if it turned on you. His wise advice regarding anger is something all of us need to heed today.

You can find Seneca’s excellent treatise in a new translation on Amazon.

There is, in addition, a fine abridged version geared more towards practical application, also to be found on Amazon.

I have both, and both are good. They are highly recommended. And who knows? Perhaps we all can become less angered by what is happening all around us and with events in our daily lives, and find a little peace. And who doesn’t want peace?

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, may you enjoy peace in your life!

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In Memoriam: Joe West

Joseph A West
(14 January 1922 – 11 December 2019)

Every now and then someone enters your life and has a profound impact on it, although you don’t realize it at the time. It’s only years later that the impact becomes apparent.

A few days ago, I learned that a friend of mine, Joseph A West, or Uncle Joe to those of us who knew him, passed away in December, a month shy of his 98th birthday.

Reflecting on the four decades that I knew Uncle Joe, I came to realize that if it wasn’t for him I’d probably not be a writer today. I would not have written the couple thousand poems I wrote, nor have had hundreds of them published. Most likely not a single one of my 30 books would have been published and available for sale on Amazon, Apple, Kobo, and other vendors.

In fact I think I can honestly say if Joe West had not entered my life, it would be a very different life indeed. I seriously doubt I’d be a writer.

Way back in 1973 Weird Tales made a brief 4 issue reappearance, and was edited by Sam Moskowitz. I wrote a letter to the editor welcoming the return of “The Unique Magazine”.

Uncle Joe saw my letter, tracked me down (which took a bit of sleuthing on his part, as I was living with my parents and wasn’t listed in the phone book), and called me on the phone to invite me to a meeting of a local group of horror and pulp fiction aficionados. And the rest, as they say, is history.

The first meeting I attended was held in the home of Jack Koblas, the group leader, and Joe introduced us. Jack subsequently became a well-known biographer and historian. Jack also supported my fledging writing efforts and years later said to me one day: “I believed in you when you didn’t believe in yourself.”

I can thank Uncle Joe for being the one who truly launched my writing career, because he introduced me to Jack and other writers such as Carl Jacobi and Donald Wandrei.

Uncle Joe was an artist and a poet. He drew creepily humorous pen and ink drawings and wrote darkly humorous poems. Everyone loved Joe’s art and poetry and we always looked forward to his hilarious readings of gruesomely funny poems.

My first published poem was in the fanzine The Diversifier, and Uncle Joe graced it with one of his wonderful drawings. An honor indeed!

Aside from his poetry and art, what made Uncle Joe so loved was his kindness and gentleness. To be sure, he had plenty of opinions, but he never let them get in the way of a friendship. He was always supportive and encouraging of other artists and writers.

I will miss him, but he will not be forgotten. His bright smile remains with me.

Joe once told me his favorite book was Rogue Herries by Hugh Walpole. I think I’ll pick up a copy and on his birthday read something that gave my friend pleasure.

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, take time to reflect on, and thank, those who influenced you.

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It’s a Wonderful Life

No, I’m not talking today about the 1946 film directed by Frank Capra. I’m talking about life. About why life is worth living. Which, by the way, is the theme of the movie. We are going to spend a little bit of time today chatting about philosophy. I know, I know. Philosophy. Boring. Bear with me and see how eminently practical philosophy is.

We all have one, you know. A philosophy, that is. We may not be able to articulate its tenets, but how we live our lives tells others what those tenets are. Even if they can’t enumerate specifics either, they know exactly what drives us and what we value.

What we value and what motivates us is in fact our personal philosophy. And if we can’t utter it with our lips, we certainly do so by our actions.

I’ve been interested in philosophy for nearly 50 years, ever since high school, and the one philosopher I continually come back to is the ancient Roman Stoic, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, known as Seneca the Younger.

Seneca was a fascinating individual in his own right. A man often at odds with his own school of thought. A man who was eminently guilty of not following his own advice.

However, where Seneca, in my opinion, redeemed himself was in his old age. There, in his last years, stripped of power, position, and wealth, Seneca embraced his philosophy and wrote the best advice one person could ever hope to give to another. His Letters to Lucilius are short and pithy and cover a wide range of topics. They are very readable and enjoyable today — almost 2000 years after they were written.

What in particular do I like about Seneca? I’d have to say it is his very practical and realistic approach to life. His advice is reasonable and not freighted with pietistic or moralistic sentiment. It is pre-Christian and fits well with those of us living in a post-Christian age. Ironically enough, early Christian morality and ethics were based on Stoic principles.

As an example, let’s take a look at Seneca’s opinion about wealth. According to our philosopher, there is nothing wrong with having money. Even lots of money. The problem comes, according to Seneca, when we try to cling to our money. The solution, he offers, is to live as if we didn’t have any money. In other words, to live a simple life. By so doing our lives won’t be cluttered with the problems one encounters when one has lots of money.

Seneca himself learned this lesson the hard way. At the highpoint of his career he was one of two tutors to the very young Nero. He had tremendous power and was one of the wealthiest men history has ever known. Bill Gates’ wealth would have been casual spending money to Seneca. When Nero became of age and Seneca realized what the Emperor was truly like, our philosopher gave his money to the young man and retired from public life. Seneca went from being in control of the vast Roman Empire to being a humble patrician farmer.

From Seneca, I learned to value life for its own sake. Not for what I have, because tomorrow everything I have might be taken away from me — as it was for Seneca. The small things and the intangible things give value to life. Things like friendship and contentment. And those are found within a person, not without.

No one has friends who is not first a friend to himself or herself. I cannot love another, unless I first love me. I must, first and foremost, love myself and be friends with myself. Only then, am I capable of truly loving and befriending others.

Contentment does not come from without. It comes from within. If I am satisfied with who I am, then I will be satisfied with what I have. And I will be content.

The human being is a reasoning animal, Seneca wrote. And when reason has been brought to perfection in the soul, we fulfill the good for which nature designed us. We live then according to our nature, as reasonable beings. If we are out of control, if we lack contentment, is we lack love for ourselves, then we are imperfect beings and do not live reasonable lives. We are not living, Seneca would say, according to nature.

The goal of philosophy is to bring us to a state of mind where we live according to that for which we were designed. That is, lives marked by reasonable thoughts and behaviors.

This is a wonderful life if we live according to our nature, according to reason. If we are balanced and content, everything within us and around us will be wonderful.

That is philosophy. And why I find it such a wonderful, non-judgmental guide to life. The good life. The wonderful life.

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