What Remains When Fortune Turns

I write this from a couch that is not my own, in the home of my internship supervisor, in a country not my own. Just last Sunday the flat where I kept my belongings burned. It was an accidental fire, the previous landlord had not installed her TV wall socket properly, not something I could tell. I returned after the smoke cleared to rummage through the remains. The black tar like smoke imbued its plastic poison into every crevice of my belongings. I have lived for years as a minimalist; nearly everything I owned fit into a single suitcase, I had to ditch that suitcase and everything in it when I realized there was no way to remove the terrible scent. The gives my friends gave me, the priceless leather bag i've cherished this year, the stuffed animals entrusted for me to hold. All gone. 

In the days after, I wandered Hong Kong in an unsettled state. In a barbershop window I saw a small stuffed animal that was the exact one my girlfriend had given me. It had been lost in the fire. I stood next to the windowsill and wept for no reason. When I called home, I learned that the car I drove every day had been sold without my knowledge. That was the last straw. What I own now fits into a backpack and a tote bag.

We speak of possessions as if they were inert. But never realise they are emotional anchors. Objects that carry sentimental or practical weight hold us in place. When they are cut away, we become emotionally unhinged.

Boethius understood this severing. In The Consolation of Philosophy, he writes that personal possessions — jewels, offices, even other people — can be taken at any moment. I had read the line before without believing it.

In Boethius's Consolation, he speaks with his visitor Lady Philosophy. She says:

Consider where Boethius stood when he wrote those words. He had lost his possessions, his office, and his liberty. He was imprisoned in Pavia on a charge of treason, awaiting execution. A much grimmer situation than me indeed. Yet he was able to find solace in the absence of fortune. To him, bad fortune is not proof that the world is cruel. For a person trying to live well, fortune is a test. A capable man should not resent being caught in Fortune's fight, any more than a soldier should resent the trumpet that calls him to battle. That moment of trial is when courage can bring wisdom. That is why virtue is called virtue - it does not yield when pressed. You cannot control the wheel, but you can control what you make of its turning.

That brings me a measured comfort. There will always be more turns of the wheel. I just hope when future turns occur I will be ready.