Seneca wrote to his friend Lucilius about an afternoon at the arena. He had ended up there during the interval shows, in which condemned men were set against each other without any protection, purely for entertainment. What struck him most was not the cruelty on the sand but what happened to the crowd, and to himself: he went home greedier, more ambitious and harder than he had arrived. Mixing with a crowd, he wrote, never leaves nothing behind. His conclusion was not that you should withdraw from the world, but that you should know what you expose yourself to, because character is not immune to company.
You cannot choose your surroundings, and yet they change you. Where does it end with you are responsible for your own judgments?
What the crowd did and what was shown: not his. Where he went and how long he stayed: his. This case sharpens the teaching at a point that is often made too easy. Your judgments are yours, but they are formed by what you put next to them every day. Whoever does not choose his company and his screen time does not entirely choose his character either.
From which company, which timeline or which programme do you come back harder than you went in? And what stops you from doing it differently tomorrow?
Yours, Not Yours · A Stoic practice ground · All cases