Wisdom applies to all stages and objects and qualities and is content,
Is the certainty of the reality of things, and the excellence of things.
All or any is best,
It is not what you anticipated, it is cheaper, easier, nearer,
The closest, simplest things, this moment with you.
Nothing is better than simplicity. I find myself always looking for simple things made by simple people for simple people. These trifles are registers, explanations, confirming, justifying.

The commonplace I sing,
We pass through days—like eras—of the commonplace,
But the commonplace is grand, too!
How much is disregarded because it is commonplace,
Yet is greatest because it is commonplace;
Ever the most precious in the common,
Truly, what is commonest, readiest, cheapest, nearest to us, is often the profoundest.

The divinest blessings are the commonest, bestowed everywhere,
The real blessings of life are mostly within reach of all,
Not distant caverns, cataracts, foreign cities, costumes, ceremonies, are any more wonderful than what is common to you,
Near you now, and continually with you.
To think how much pleasure there is from looking at the sky, from poems, or the beautiful maternal cares,
The common day and night, the common earth and waters.

Will you seek afar off?
You surely come back at last,
In things best known to you finding the best, or as good as the best,
In folks nearest to you finding the sweetest, strongest, lovingest.
I discover the best hardly ever at first, sometimes suddenly bursting forth, or stealthily opening to me, perhaps after years of unwitting familiarity, unappreciation, usage,
(Subtly and unaccountably, my mind is sweet and odorous within while I clean up and grease my boots.)

What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easiest, is me,
One whom, if you would meet, you need not expect to meet an extraordinary person,
One in whom you will see the singularity which consists in no singularity,
Whose contact is no dazzling fascination, nor requires any deference,
But has the easy fascination of what is homely and accustomed,
Of something you knew before, and were waiting for.

Sleeping under the sunlight, sleeping under the moonlight, content and silent there at last,
The earth, that is sufficient, I do not want the constellations any nearer,
I know they are very well where they are,
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.

I have charged myself with contentment and triumph,
To live a more serene, calm, philosophic life,
A cool, gentle, (less demonstrative,) more uniform demeanor,
Reticent, far more reticent.
My life, upon the whole, is toned down, flowing calm enough,
A melange of loafing, looking, sitting, traveling—
A little thinking thrown in for salt, but very little.

Generally undemonstrative, very little of a talker,
I often shy at controversy, repartee, even conversation.
I never quite go off about things—am not explosive, extravagant,
Yet capable on emergencies of the strongest emotions, resolution, and even hauteur,
When expected to talk loudest and best, apt to remain perfectly silent,
Unless something must inevitably be said, that cannot be left unsaid.

Backward I see in my own days where I sweated through fog with linguists and contenders,
Now I have no mockings or arguments,
I’m not much good in an argument,
(Much better satisfied to listen to a fight than take part in it.)
I hear the bawling and din, amid the changing schools, theologies, philosophies, 
Yet walk silent among disputes and assertions;
Reach’d at by divisions, jealousies, recriminations on every side,  
I never argue, dispute, or hold a cross-questioning bout with any human being.
Showing the best and dividing it from the worst, age vexes age,
While they discuss I go bathe and admire myself.

But I reject not the disputers nor anything that is asserted,
If there’s anything I pride myself on, it’s my toleration, intellectual hospitality—
I like to give the biggest meanings to people, things, events, that I can.
This is my contention: not to make wholesale comparisons, draw rigid lines, put everybody into a scale, try every man by a tape measure;
I take in all the fellows—omit no one—seeing that they are all necessary to the scheme.

Here the profound lesson of reception:
Men and women and the earth and all upon it are simply to be taken as they are,
None can be interdicted, none but are accepted,
There is to be nothing excepted,
Their traits are facts in nature the same as facts in the landscape, in mathematics, in chemistry,
To be taken calmly and in a spirit of latitude, not criticized and found fault with.

Done with reviews and criticisms of life, animating now to life itself,
My gait is no faultfinder’s or rejecter’s gait,
I take with entire self-possession whatever comes,
I moisten the roots of all that has grown,
With neither preference nor denial.

I have a good deal of the feeling of Epictetus and Stoicism, or try to have. Epictetus is the one of all my old cronies who has lasted to this day. He sets me free in a flood of light—of life, of vista. (But I am clear that I include and allow and probably teach some things Stoicism would frown upon and discard.)
Epictetus’ “Description of a Wise Man”:
He praises nobody,
Blames nobody,
Nor ever speaks of himself.  
He looks on his own wishes as betrayers,
His appetites are always moderate,
All his desires depend on things within his power,
He transfers all his aversions to those things which nature commends us to avoid.

It is best to keep an even mind. Be a philosopher, take things easy and take them as they come, adapt to circumstances. “What are yours and destiny’s, 0 universe, (said Marcus Aurelius,) are mine too.” What is good enough for the universe is good enough for me!
It had to be! had to be!—a wonderful philosophy—the feeling that whatever comes is just the thing that ought to come, ought to be welcomed.

As long as the Almighty vouchsafes you health, strength, and a clear conscience, let other things do their worst—that beautiful philosophy! What a pity it is that we do not see more of it, in this world of more imaginary than real troubles—great as the latter are. It is not so much the little misfortunes of life themselves, as the way we take them and brood over them, that causes the trouble. I never admit that men have any troubles which they cannot eventually outgrow.

It were unworthy a live man to pray or complain no matter what should happen,
We must not let our way be blocked—ourselves worried, disturbed—by thoughts of change,
Life is like the weather—everyone has his troubles, disappointments, rebuffs,
Good and bad weather comes back to the question, How do we ourselves feel?
If we are well all is well,
It’s mostly in one’s-self one gets blue, and not from outside circumstances.

I don’t have any blue spells; I like all kinds of days. Nature has not only endowed me with immense emotionality but immense placid resignation to what happens. I never feel unhappy over what is unavoidable.  
I think the greatest aid is in my insouciance—my utter indifference, my going as if it meant nothing unusual, my indescribable style evincing indifference and disdain. I do not worry; I have made up my mind not to worry—not to let even the worst upset me—not to look with dread upon anything.  
It’s serenity most of all—peace in spite of fate—I dare not be otherwise. If I let myself go I’d wear out my resources at once.  

Whatever happens, you must try to meet it with a stout heart. Try and put a brave face against everything that happens. Cast aside all irritating thoughts and recollections. Don’t submit to provocations, irritabilities, black fancies of the superficial day. The more one yields to them the frequenter and stronger they get. One soon falls into the habit of getting low-spirited or depressed and moody—if a man allows himself, he will always find plenty to make him so—until at last they take complete possession of a fellow. See if you can’t wrestle, throw them, and keep ’em thrown.

To find how easily one can abstract his identity from temporary affairs, the trick is, I find, to make much of negatives—
What is this small thing in the great continuous volumes everywhere?
This is but a temporary portion,
Not to be dwelt upon, not to have prominence, not to distress.
The varieties, contradictions, and paradoxes of the world and of life, 
So baffling to the superficial observer, and so often leading to despair, 
Become a series of infinite radiations and waves of the one sea-like universe of action and progress, hospitable to all contrasts of life— 
But the depths are fathomless, and therefore calm. 

Me imperturbe, standing at ease, 
I don’t spend much time wondering whether I should not have been better or might not have been worse, 
I don’t spend much time with regrets for anything, 
Let others deprecate, let others weep for sin, remorse, humiliation, 
I keep no account with lamentation— 
What have I to do with lamentation? 

Of the occasional ridiculous little storms and squalls of the past, I have quite discarded them from my memory, 
Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, less important than I thought, 
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing, 
No fumes, no ennui, no complaints or scornful, querulous criticisms, 
Sorrows and disappointments cease. 

Existing I peer and penetrate still,
Spots or cracks at the windows do not disturb me,
Tall and sufficient stand behind and make signs to me,
I see them and complain not—
What have I to complain of for myself?
I read the promise and witness and patiently wait—a year—a century—a hundred centuries.

We are what the atmosphere is, transparent, receptive, pervious, impervious,
What we believe in waits latent forever through all the continents,
Invites no one, promises nothing, sits in calmness and light, is positive and composed, knows no discouragement,
Waiting patiently, waiting its time,
Not to repel or destroy so much as accept, add, extend, fuse, rehabilitate, complete.

Whist! I am fully content,
Content with the present, content with the past, content with the future—
Let the future care for itself, where it reveals its troubles.
There is no more borrowing trouble in advance,
What can the future bring me less than I have, or more?
Have I not already sufficient to invite sweetest content?

Fluent, luxuriant, self-content,
Secure and content with all,
A holy calm descends like dew upon me—perfect serenity of mind.
Ever with pleas’d smile I may keep on,
With nature’s calm content, with tacit huge delight.

NEXT: CALM SELF-SUFFICIENCY

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