“It is a great man that can treat his earthenware as if it was silver, and a man who treats his silver as if it was earthenware is no less great.” Seneca the Younger, in Letters from a Stoic
I’m sad to say that, going by Seneca’s description of what makes a great person, I know hardly anyone who is truly great.
Most treat their valuable stuff as silver, and waste enormous resources preserving it just because it’s expensive. They may devote more time and energy to their silver than to their families, nature, or their mind and spirit.
Ironically, many do treat a good deal of their non-valuable stuff (their earthenware) as silver, but they do it for all the wrong reasons. They may do so when it’s convenient, as with toilet paper nowadays; or for fear of future regret, like when we ask ourselves, What if I ever happen to need a blue bowl precisely this hue?
In general, though, we’re more likely to view our earthenware as junk -junk that, eventually, we have no trouble throwing in the trash or giving away to the less fortunate.
Diego, my 26-year-old son, has an IQ of 53 and a diagnosis of autism. He doesn’t have a paying job or pay taxes. He doesn’t have a high school or college degree and reads at a first-grade level.
Yet he comes closest to being great than anyone I know.
He cares about the old stuffed frog his cousin gave him when he was 6 as much as he does about the expensive gold crucifix that hangs from his neck. He appreciates any gift immensely, regardless of its monetary value.
The most extraordinary thing about Diego, though, is that he values people’s time and attention above all else, and he’s infinitely generous with his. He just knows what matters. Perhaps you need to be wired differently, like Diego is, to be truly great.
Do you know any great men or women? What can you learn from them?
This is my second piece for a 30-day writing challenge on a single topic.
Topic: Quotes from Seneca the Younger’s Letters from a Stoic.
Why this topic? Because I can’t get over how timely and brilliant Seneca’s words are -2,000 years after he wrote them.