The Day After: Coming Together with Ancient and Modern Texts and Poems

In the aftermath of a hugely divisive day: Be your higher self because we're all the same. And meander in the rain.

In the aftermath of one of the modern world’s most divisive days, here’s some ancient and modern guidance to help everyone. (Snippets appear first. Read to the end for the full texts and poems.)

Be Your Higher Self

First up is Confucius:

Nobles bring out the best in people, not the worst in people. Petty people do the opposite.

It’s often easy to bring out the best in people who agree with us.

👉Are you working to bring out the best in people you can’t stand?

Marcus Aurelius goes into more detail:

In the morning, tell yourself: I will encounter people who are meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, and unsociable… But the nature of people who do wrong is that they are my kin, not of the same blood or birth, but sharing in mind and a portion of the divine.

👉How do you treat people who (you think) do wrong? As your kin, sharing in mind and a portion of the divine?

In a similar vein, Kipling (“If”) writes that triumph and disaster are both imposters:

If you can dream — and not make dreams your master;

If you can think — and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

👉Are you willing to see past the disguises of triumph and disaster?

Meander in the Rain

The Song-dynasty poet Su Shi (Dongpo) writes that we should hum and whistle even in the rain:

Ignore the pattering of rain on the leaves.

Why not hum and whistle as you meander?

👉When it rains, do you keep humming and whistling? Do you run away or meander?

Finally, Horace warns as not to trust the future, but for him that’s a good thing!

Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the future.

👉What will you do right now to seize the day?

Texts

Confucius is straightforward:

Confucius says: Nobles bring out the best in people, not the worst in people. Petty people do the opposite.¹

子曰：「君子成人之美，不成人之惡。小人反是。」

Marcus Aurelius recognizes that there’s good and evil, but says we should be patient with the meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, and unsociable people we meet, because they are just like us:

In the morning, tell yourself: I will encounter people who are meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, and unsociable. All this has arisen in them because they don’t know good from evil. But I have understood the nature of the good, that it is beautiful; the nature of the bad, that it is ugly; and the nature of people who do wrong, that they are my kin, not of the same blood or birth, but sharing in mind and a portion of the divine.²

Ἕωθεν προλέγειν ἑαυτῷ: συντεύξομαι περιέργῳ, ἀχαρίστῳ, ὑβριστῇ, δολερῷ, βασκάνῳ, ἀκοινωνήτῳ: πάντα ταῦτα συμβέβηκεν ἐκείνοις παρὰ τὴν ἄγνοιαν τῶν ἀγαθῶν καὶ κακῶν. ἐγὼ δὲ τεθεωρηκὼς τὴν φύσιν τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ ὅτι καλόν, καὶ τοῦ κακοῦ ὅτι αἰσχρόν, καὶ τὴν αὐτοῦ τοῦ ἁμαρτάνοντος φύσιν ὅτι μοι συγγενής, οὐχὶ αἵματος ἢ σπέρματος τοῦ αὐτοῦ, ἀλλὰ νοῦ καὶ θείας ἀπομοίρας μέτοχος.

Rudyard Kipling is not brief:

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!³

Su Shi (Dongpo) is pretty hard to translate. My version is somewhere between a translation and a new poem based closely on his. He starts with an introduction which I translate as well:

On March 7, while traveling through Shahu, I encountered rain. My rain gear had been sent ahead, and my companions were distressed, but I alone felt unaffected. Soon the sky cleared and I composed this verse.

Ignore the pattering on the leaves.

Why not hum and whistle as you meander?

With a bamboo staff and straw sandals, lighter than a horse,

Who’s afraid?

With a straw coat I’ve endured misty rain throughout my life.

The chilly spring breeze sobers me up,

slightly cold.

The angled sunlight on the mountain greets me.

Looking back at bleakness I’ve passed,

I return

to where there is neither windblown rain, nor clear skies.⁴

三月七日，沙湖道中遇雨。雨具先去，同行皆狼狈，余独不觉。已而遂晴，故作此词。

莫听穿林打叶声，何妨吟啸且徐行。

竹杖芒鞋轻胜马，谁怕？一蓑烟雨任平生。

料峭春风吹酒醒，微冷，山头斜照却相迎。

回首向来萧瑟处，归去，也无风雨也无晴。

The most famous line from Horace’s poem is “seize the day,” but it’s actually the context that makes the most impact:

Do not ask — it is forbidden to know — what the gods will have given me, given you, Leuconoe, nor should you attempt Babylonian numerology. How much better to endure whatever will be, whether it is lots of winters that Jupiter gives us, or this last one, which now weakens the Tyrrhenian sea against the pumice bluffs. Be wise, prepare your wine, and cut back your lengthy hope into your brief time. As we speak, jealous years have already fled. Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the future.⁵

Tu ne quaesieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi

finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios

temptaris numeros. Ut melius, quidquid erit, pati.

seu pluris hiemes seu tribuit Iuppiter ultimam,

quae nunc oppositis debilitat pumicibus mare

Tyrrhenum: Sapias, vina liques et spatio brevi

spem longam reseces. Dum loquimur, fugerit invida

aetas: Carpe diem quam minimum credula postero.

👉 Carpe diem. Seize the day.

1. Analects 12:16, c. 500 BCE.

2. Meditations 2.1.1, 2nd c. CE.

3. “If,” 1943.

4. 11th c. CE.

5. Odes, 1.11, 1st BCE