📮 Neither Good, Nor Bad

Letters to a Young Seeker (Vol. 17)

Meditating Monk by Henri Matisse (1903)

Dear Fellow Traveler,

Discerning between the “good” and “bad” is an essential task in life. According to the ancient Greek biographer, Diogenes of Laërtius, the Stoics defined wisdom as knowing what is good (virtue), bad (vice), and indifferent. But strangely, one of the most challenging things in life can be to recognize that most things are actually neither good nor bad.

The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius observed in Meditations (or notes to himself) that “if you are afraid of something, … you think that it is going to be bad for you, when in fact, since it is neither virtue nor vice, it is neither good nor bad.” Interestingly, neither good nor bad appears several times in Meditations (and across other wisdom traditions).

As humans, we are wired to categorize and label. Our minds project these categories onto the world for a simple reason: It makes it much easier to get around. But like most things — it has its benefits and downsides.