Latin Proverb of the Day

Rem actam agis.
(Plautus, Pseudolous 260)

Pron = rehm AHK-tahm AH-ghis

You are doing something (that has already been ) done.

Comment: This is either a scolding (you are doing something that’s
already been finished!), or this is a humbling reminder.  As much as I
love creative and
ingenious activity, it reminds me that the vast majority of human
activity is a repeat, a cycle, a circle, a pattern that we keep
repeating.  Until we learn.  So that we can learn.  So that we can
point a finger and say:  look, this is wisdom.

So, sitting around (our computers) and repeating proverbs is something
that has been done before.  :)

Bob Patrick

Vitia nostra regionum mutatione non fugimus.
(Anonymous)

Pron = WIH-tee-ah NOS-trah ray-ghee-OH-noom moo-tah-tee-OH-neh nohn
FOO-ghee-moos.

We do not flee our errors by a change of locations.

Comment:  I remember some school changes while I was growing up:
moving from AL to GA and then from GA back to AL,  from middle school
to high school, from high school to college, and from college to
graduate school.

At each of those transitions, some thought occurred to me that the
change of location would be nice.  Whatever troubles I had at the
time, so I thought, would vanish with the new setting, and I could
“start all over”.  That never materialized of course, because, as I
would learn, and as this proverb asserts, the change of location
doesn’t make our errors, our problems, our anxieties, our worries, our
griefs, our hatreds and fears go away, nor are we able to leave them
behind.

They are our stuff, and they move with us.

At some point, it began to dawn on me that it was not the physical
move that mattered.  It was the interior moves that mattered.  Face
the fear.  Own the hatred.  Dissect the worry. Feel the grief.  Take
responsibility for the error.  And slowly, sometimes dramatically, the
interior landscape begins to change.

Bob Patrick

Iuvenile vitium est regere non posse impetus.
(Seneca, Troades 250)

Pron = you-when-EE-lay WHI-tee-oom ehst REH-geh-reh nohn POHS-seh
IHM-peh-toos.

It is an error of youth not to be able to control one’s impulses.

Comment:  Ah, that’s because:

Adults don’t overeat.
Adults don’t drink too much.
Adults never spend too much money on things they cannot afford.
Adults never have indiscriminate sex.
Adults never say things they regret.
Adults never lose their temper.
Adults never feel jealous or envious.

Of course, you understand the absurdity of these statements, and so, I
hope, the absurdity of a long-held notion that young people are so out
of control.  No more so than many of their adult counterparts.

The issue, it seems to me, for all human beings, regardless of age is:

1) To feel our feelings.  No one gives out brownie points for
suppressing the actual notice of our own feelings, passions or
emotions.  Not only do we not get brownie points for suppressing our
feelings, passions and emotions, we get sick if we do.

2) Once we feel our feelings, to start an internal dialogue about what
they mean, and how to express that meaning in our lives in a way that
help.

Ways that help us, help others (or at least don’t hurt others).

3) Recognizing our own feelings enables use to see others more deeply,
humanly, compassionately.

I am clear on this:  we cannot extend one more ounce of compassion to
another that we have not first allowed for ourselves.

And, with reference to this proverb:  any adult who finds a young
person too impetuous, or out of control with regard to a particular
feeling, emotion or passion is telling you that he/she hs not been
honest about that feeling, emotion or passion in his/her own life.

Bob Patrick

Laboribus vendunt dei nobis omnia bona.
(Anonymous)

Pron = lah-BOH-rih-boos WHEN-doont DAY-ee NOH-bees OHM-nee-ah BOH-nah.

By the struggles of being human, the gods sell us all good things.

Comment: Let’s consider our lives for a moment.  What is the last
significant struggle that you faced?  (Significant means–it got your
attention.)  What did this struggle have you face in your life?  What
change did it invite you to (whether you accepted the invitation or
not)?  How did that struggle make an expansion of your life, of your
vision, of your perception of the world possible?  Did that struggle
in some minor or major way rattle the real you loose from your ego for
a moment (or longer)?

These are the gifts of the gods, the good things that the divine in
and around and among us has to offer us, and they most often come in
the midst of a struggle.

Bob Patrick

Nec piscatorm piscis amare potest.
(Robert Burton, 1577-1640, English writer)

Pron = neck pis-kah-TOH-room PIS-kiss ah-MAH-ray POH-test.

The fish is not able to love the fisherman.

Comment: If I am driving (a little fast), I cannot love the police car
with the radar gun out in a hidden bend in the road.  If I am a
teenager walking down the hall at school, I cannot love the teacher
who is standing the hall looking for someone to bust for a clothing
violation.  If I am a server in a restaurant, I cannot love a haughty
customer who is criticizing everything I do.

Point: if you want love from others, you cannot go fishing for
them–that is, try to hook, hurt, harm, harass and harrowing them.

You must honor them.

Bob Patrick

Nudo detrahere vestimenta quis potest?
(Plautus, Asinaria 92)

Pron = NOO-doh day-TRA-heh-reh wes-tih-MEHN-tah kwis POH-test.

Who is able to take away the clothes from the naked?

Comment: This is the equivalent of You cannot get blood out of turnips, or you cannot give what you don’t have, or more bluntly: youll get it when I have it.

There is some real honesty in this kind of saying.  For those who would try to do what they really have no ability to do, it is an invitation to be honest about that.  For those who would abuse the poor or those caught in a bad place, it is a warning to see more clearly.

If a man or woman is naked, you cannot take his/her clothes because of a debt owed to you.

I’ve had to confront a student or two recently about missing work or lack of effort (at all).  I think it was the right thing to do, given the circumstances, but reflecting on this proverb leaves me wondering:   due to circumstances that I know nothing about, are they left with nothing to give, nothing to draw on?  Are they the “naked” that I am asking clothing from?  The bottom line is that I don’t know.
Considering the possibility humbles me.

Bob Patrick

Beneficium accipere est libertatem vendere.
(Publilius Syrus Sententia 48)

Pron = beh-neh-FIH-kee-oom ahk-KIH-peh-reh ehst lih-ber-TAH-tehm WEHN-deh-reh.

To accept a favor is to sell one’s liberty.

Comment: “Beneficium” can be translated as “benefit, kindness, favor”.
And this little insight really does get to the nitty-gritty of many
our human dynamics.

Yesterday morning, for example, NPR did a story on the recent arrest
and pending trial of a Mississippi man accused of killing civil rights
workers 30 years ago.  It’s just the latest of several trials like
this, where justice is finally having it’s day in one of the worst
periods of our history.  At one point, the reporter asked the
rhetorical question:  why did local authorities not prosecute these
men way back then?

I found myself responding out loud to the radio.  ”Because those “in
authority” had too many connections with the accused!”  I had in mind,
among other things, these benefits, favors, etc that Publilius speaks
of.

The really deep cut of this proverb is this:  when I do an act of
kindness, a favor, offer a benefit, is it really an act of goodness,
kindness, generosity?  Or, is it a quid pro quo?    Make that
distinction, and the liberty either vanishes (because it was a quid
pro quo that comes with the expectation of a return favor), or liberty
remains in tact because one human being offered, out of his/her
freedom, real goodness, to another.

It’s that simple. When I do a nice thing for another, do I expect
ANYTHING? If so, it was not a nice thing.  It was a business deal.
And those deals cost something.

Bob Patrick