At Corinth, shortly after the Greek states had appointed him commander against Persia, Alexander went looking for the philosopher everyone was talking about. He found him lying in the sun outside his shelter. The most powerful man in the known world introduced himself and offered to give him whatever he wanted. Diogenes looked up and asked him to move aside a little, because he was blocking the sun. The company laughed at him. Alexander did not. As they rode away and his officers made mocking remarks, he said that if he were not Alexander, he would want to be Diogenes.
Diogenes of Sinope had been exiled from his birthplace after an affair involving the defacing of coinage, and lived in Athens and later Corinth in extreme simplicity, by tradition in a large storage jar. He founded no school but a way of life that came to be called Cynicism. The meeting is dated to 336 BC, when Alexander had just been given command of the campaign against Persia. For the Stoic tradition Diogenes is no side path: he taught Crates, and Crates taught Zeno of Citium. The line from this man without possessions runs directly to the school that would later shape emperors.
Someone who can genuinely give you anything asks what you want. Whatever you answer reveals which box you have placed your happiness in.
What Alexander had to give was wealth, position, safety, influence: all things he could also take back, and which therefore would never truly become Diogenes'. What Diogenes did ask for was the one thing the other man was taking from him at that very moment: his light. Not out of insolence, but because he was being exact.
If someone made you the same offer today, what would you ask for? And how much of it sits in the box another person can hand over?
Yours, Not Yours · A Stoic practice ground · All cases · Questions or suggestions