Temperance

Hypomnemata

Do you eat to live, or live to eat? I eat to live!

******

a) do everything for a reason and pay attention

b) recall, pleasure is a vice; "we Stoics hold that pleasure is a vice" (Seneca, Letter 59)

c) eating for pleasure is a vice

d) eating to live is a virtue

e) recall, virtue is the sole good

f) virtue brings joy - a good spirit eudaimonia ("the wise man is never deprived of joy" Letter 59)

****

Thoughts

I was a fat kid. My dad constantly hounded me about my weight. He served in the Army and later the Air Force, from 1945 until about 1950. I must have heard him tell me a thousand times, "do you eat to live or live to eat?" He tried to get me to do push-ups and sit-ups every day, but instead, I usually was doing lateral pulls of the freezer handle to reach for another Fat-boy (ice cream sandwich). I loved playing basketball with my friends and dad, but I also loved to eat.

My dad was a strict fitness buff. Every day for breakfast: oatmeal and whole wheat toast. Every day: calisthenics, push-ups, sit-ups, toe-touches, bi-cep curls. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays were basketball days. He would come home from teaching at around 4:00pm, and then we would be at the basketball gym by 4:30pm and we would play one on one basketball for about 90 minutes. After showering, Mom would have a nice meal waiting for us and we'd say prayers around the table (kneeling of course), then if the person who was praying didn't bless the food, we'd sit in our chairs and someone would bless the food, then we'd eat.

The meals weren't so much an issue for me, but the time between meals were. And I think that is what my Dad observed of me and why I was overweight. When I went in for my physical check in 5th grade, ahead of the football season, the doctor asked about my eating habits and instructed me to cut back on calories. He noted and told me, that I had an excess amount of "blubber" - that is the word he used - "blubber." My first thought, was, "my gosh, he's saying that I am the the size of a whale!" And he would not have been too wrong - I probably was the size of a small whale!

By the time I turned 15, I finally hit my growth streak and I thinned out considerably. I played a lot more basketball, I took up running, ran in the track meets and became an avid runner into my 20's. My eating habits didn't change too much, but the running kept me fit. It would seem I just delayed my lessons on temperance.

Later in college, when I had a heavy class load, with studying and work and little time for anything else, I started packing on the pounds. I went from about 175 lbs. my freshman year of college to about 230 lbs. my senior year. By the time we settled into our first home and I started my career, I finally had time to work on shrinking my waistline. But again, I took the exercise route instead of addressing the root cause of my lack of temperance. I knocked off about 30 lbs. and stayed there until about 2006. Then I found a "life hack" for managing my temperance of eating. It was called the Shangri-la diet and dictated that the person should consume tasteless calories, which has the effect of lowering the set point of my "feeling full" factor in eating. I lost another 20 lbs. or so and kept the weight off. It would seem I hacked my temperance.

But the pounds came on again, slowly. However, they never would spike to the point I was my senior year in college. Rather, I found myself in a constant cycle of exercise, skip lunch, eat a big dinner, then ice cream, then go to bed, weigh myself in the morning (then groan) and repeat the whole process. There were streaks of time when I was very diligent in eating healthy and exercising, but stress and other factors strained my discipline and I gave in.

Since 2017, I have settled into a very sustainable routine of limiting my eating and focusing on more healthy calories and minimizing the sugary and salty kinds of food. In fact, for one entire year I resisted eating any ice cream at all. Alas, I eventually gave in and had a little ice cream and now I eat it sparingly. I have not been over 190 lbs. in a few years and as of the beginning of 2021, I've been maintaining my weight below 185 lbs.

But despite all the journey, when I honestly reflect on my practice of temperance, I still feel there is much to work on. Just as Marcus told himself to give up his thirst for books, I feel the need to give up my thirst for empty calories. How can I switch from desiring sweets and snacks to desiring virtue? Marcus similarly prodded himself that a Stoic would take pleasure in living in agreement with nature.

In Moral Letters 59, Seneca has reflected on the very weakness I suffer. In a word, I suffer from complacency and I do not not grasp the knowledge with firmness of hand (see Sellars, p. 71).

why is it that folly holds us with such an insistent grasp? It is, primarily, because we do not combat it strongly enough, because we do not struggle towards salvation with all our might; secondly, because we do not put sufficient trust in the discoveries of the wise, and do not drink in their words with open hearts; we approach this great problem in too trifling a spirit. But how can a man learn, in the struggle against his vices, an amount that is enough, if the time which he gives to learning is only the amount left over from his vices? None of us goes deep below the surface. We skim the top only, and we regard the smattering of time spent in the search for wisdom as enough and to spare for a busy man. What hinders us most of all is that we are too readily satisfied with ourselves.

This is what I need to recall and rehearse until I have 'muscle memory' and have grasped the wisdom of temperance:

a) do everything for a reason and pay attention

b) recall, pleasure is a vice; "we Stoics hold that pleasure is a vice" (Seneca, Letter 59)

c) eating for pleasure is a vice

d) eating to live is a virtue

e) recall, virtue is the sole good

f) virtue brings joy - a good spirit eudaimonia ("the wise man is never deprived of joy" Letter 59)

The reason I go through the above thought process is to remind myself that I need to connect daily choices with a life choice of choosing the sole good: virtue. My mind is short-circuited into thinking empty calories will bring joy, when in fact, they do not. In the same Letter 59, Seneca notes;

These objects for which you strive so eagerly, as if they would give you happiness and pleasure, are merely causes of grief.

...

all these men are led astray by delights which are deceptive and short-lived – like drunkenness for example, which pays for a single hour of hilarious madness by a sickness of many days, or like applause and the popularity of enthusiastic approval which are gained, and atoned for, at the cost of great mental disquietude.

As I conclude this essay on temperance, I have made a much more concerted effort to mind what I eat. I have taken the time to educate myself on better eating habits by focusing on the 'why' and 'how.' At this point (April 10, 2021), I am 17 days into this focused effort of mindful eating and I feel much more disciplined and happy! The changes I have made seem to have me eating simply to live, rather than living to eat. I don't think of food as much and my cravings have subsided greatly.

Quotes

And give up your thirst for books, so that you do not die a grouch, but in true grace and heartfelt gratitude to the gods (Meditations 2.3).

In any given material circumstance what can be done or said to soundest effect? Whatever that is, it is in your power to do it or say it - and make no pretence of 'obstacles in the way'. You will never cease moaning until you experience the same pleasure in making an appropriately human response to any circumstance you meet or face as the hedonist does in his indulgence - a response, that is, in keeping with man's constitution. Because you should regard as enjoyment any action you can take in accord with your own nature; and you can do that anywhere (Meditations 10.33).

Although there are many pleasures which persuade human beings to do wrong and compel them to act against their own interests, the pleasure connected with food is undoubtedly the most difficult of all pleasures to combat. We encounter the other sources of pleasure less often, and we can therefore refrain from indulging in some of them for months or even years. But we will necessarily be tempted by gastronomic pleasures daily or even twice daily, inasmuch as it is impossible for a human being to live without eating. Consequently, the more often we are tempted by gastronomic pleasure, the greater the danger it presents (King, 'Lectures and Sayings,' p. 74).

To keep himself blameless and free from such errors one should by constant practice accustom himself to choosing food not for enjoyment but for nourishment, not to tickle his palate but to strengthen his body (Lutz, 'Musonius Rufus: The Roman Socrates, p. 119).

When someone asked him how one can eat in a manner that is pleasing to the gods, he replied: If one eats as one ought and politely, and indeed with temperance and restraint, won’t one also be doing so in a manner that is pleasing to the gods? (Epictetus, Discourses 1.13.1).

Consider who it is that you praise when you praise people dispassionately: is it those who are just, or unjust?—‘Those who are just.’—The temperate or the intemperate?—‘The temperate.’—The self-controlled or the dissolute?—‘The self-controlled.’ —You should know, then, that if you make yourself a person of that kind, you’ll be making yourself beautiful; but if you neglect these virtues, you’re bound to be ugly, whatever techniques you adopt to make yourself appear beautiful (Epictetus, Discourses 3.1.8).

a reason for wishing to be wise, if the wise man is never deprived of joy. This joy springs only from the knowledge that you possess the virtues. None but the brave, the just, the self-restrained, can rejoice (Seneca, Moral Letters 59).

Temperance controls our desires; some it hates and routs, others it regulates and restores to a healthy measure, nor does it ever approach our desires for their own sake. Temperance knows that the best measure of the appetites is not what you want to take, but what you ought to take (Seneca, Moral Letters, 88).

Citations & Further Reading

https://modernstoicism.com/the-musonius-rufus-diet-by-kevin-vost/

Aurelius, M., & Hammond, M. (2014). Meditations.

Epictetus, ., Hard, R., & Gill, C. (2014). Discourses, fragments, handbook. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Musonius Rufus, C., C. Musonius Rufus, C. Musonius Rufus, and Cora E. Lutz. 1947. Musonius Rufus, "The Roman Socrates". New Haven: Yale University Press.

Musonius Rufus, C., Cynthia Ann Kent King, and William Braxton Irvine. 2011. Musonius Rufus: lectures & sayings. [United States]: Createspace.

Seneca, L. A., & Gummere, R. M. (1917). Ad Lucilium epistulae morales: London: Heinemann.