【每日斯多葛】9月6日

September 6th

THEY CAN THROW YOU IN CHAINS, BUT . . .

“You can bind up my leg, but not even Zeus has the power to break my freedom of choice.”

—EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 1.1.23

It was said that Epictetus walked with a permanent limp as a result of being chained up as a slave. Two thousand years later, James Stockdale also had his legs chained in irons (and his arms bound behind his back and pulled from the ceiling, repeatedly wrenching them from their sockets). Future senator John McCain was in that same prison, subjected to much of the same abuse. Because his father was famous, McCain was repeatedly offered by his captors a chance to abandon his men and be sent home early. He too held tightly to his freedom of choice, declining to submit to that temptation even though it meant a loss of the physical freedom he must have ached for.

None of these men broke. No one could make them sacrifice their principles. That’s the thing—someone can throw you in chains, but they don’t have the power to change who you are. Even under the worst torture and cruelties that humans can inflict on one another, our power over our own mind and our power to make our own decisions can’t be broken—only relinquished.

9月6日

他们可以把你锁上镣铐，但是……

“你可以绑住我的腿，但就连宙斯也没有能力摧毁我选择的自由。”

——爱比克泰德，《论说集》，1.1.23

据说，爱比克泰德因为做奴隶时曾被锁链束缚，后来终身跛行。两千年后，詹姆斯·斯托克代尔的双腿也曾被铁链锁住（他的双臂被反绑在背后，并被吊到天花板上，一次又一次把关节从关节窝里硬生生扯脱）。后来成为参议员的约翰·麦凯恩也被关在同一所监狱里，遭受了许多类似的虐待。由于他的父亲很有名，俘虏他的人曾多次提出让他抛下自己的战友、提前回国。麦凯恩同样牢牢守住了自己的选择自由，拒绝屈从于这种诱惑，尽管这意味着他必须继续失去自己必定无比渴望的身体自由。

这些人都没有被击垮。没有人能够逼迫他们牺牲自己的原则。关键就在这里——别人可以把你锁上镣铐，却没有能力改变你是谁。即使面对人类能够彼此施加的最残酷的折磨和暴行，我们对自己心灵的掌控，以及我们自己作出决定的能力，也无法被摧毁——除非我们主动放弃它。