I came across the following passage reading through Epictetus’ Discourses that intrigued me.
“The soul is like a bowl of water, and impressions are like a ray of light that falls on the water. When the water is disturbed, the ray seems to be disturbed as well, even though it isn’t. Likewise, therefore, when someone has a dizzy spell, it isn’t his skills and virtues that become confused, but the spirit that contains them. When the spirit settles down, they settle down as well.”
-Epictetus, Discourses 3.3.21-22 (Waterfield)
The discourse deals with the material a good person works with, their command center; and what one should primarily work on training, the right use of impressions. Our souls are naturally attracted to what is good and averse to what is bad, and further have the capacity to receive clear impressions. Importantly though, it isn’t that we are attracted solely to what is truly good but also what we regard as good, even if it really isn’t good. Epictetus gives various examples of people regarding other things as being good by saying different people have different currencies; money, young sexual partners, and merchandise being some of the examples of indifferents that people value. He never states in this discourse that those are indifferents but jumps right away to how we should respond to impressions, by subjecting them to the test; “is it subject to the will? No. then discard it.” If we could do this and do it consistently it would be a very impressive feat, but we don’t we have a hard time not judging impressions of things that aren’t subject to the will.
But as things are, we’re stunned and caught by every passing impression, and we wake up a little, if at all, only at school. But then, when we go back outside and see someone grieving, we say, ‘He’s a broken man.’ If we see a consul, we say, ‘A happy man.’ If it’s someone who’s in exile, ‘Poor fellow!’ If it’s someone who’s destitute, ‘What a pity! He doesn’t have enough money for a meal.’
“These, then, are the pernicious judgments we need to eliminate; they are what we should be focusing on.
-Epictetus, Discourses 3.3.17 (Waterfield)
These judgements are in relation to other’s situations, and not subject to our will and should not be judged as either good or bad. That does not mean we couldn’t help the beggar out by sharing a meal or some other kindness, it is in our own reaction to the beggar’s situation that we are responsible for. And if we can get to the point where the only judgements, we form are of things subject to the will we would be free in any situation.
Going back to the opening passage quoted, referring to the soul as a bowl of water and impressions as sunlight. It is our judgements of external things that will cause disturbances. We also have our judgements attach themselves to impressions as we receive them, these come from the way we have habitually judged passed impressions, essentially a result of our current desires and aversions. Our current desires and aversions are the things distorted our soul, making the water turbulent. When we are mistaken, we tend to blame the way things are for our problems, we put value on indifferents. We receive impressions with incorrect value judgements we treat them as if they are true. As Stoics we need to keep in mind it is the state of our soul causing the disturbance the bare impressions relate events as they are, it is our job to examine the impression and strip the value judgements away before giving our assent.