In his short new edition of How To Be Free, A.A Long observes the relative ease he had translating Epictetus from ancient Greek into English. This is because, he says, Epictetus’s “conversational manner and short sentences suit our modern idiom.” According to Long, Epictetus avoids complex sentence structure and needless verbosity. Better still, he tended to use simple, direct metaphors and diction for which there are accessible everyday equivalents.
This is high praise to both Epictetus and his dutiful scribe/student Arrian. If we were to flash forward two thousand years, it’s unlikely that many of today’s working philosophers would pass this test. They’re inscrutable and unreadable today—imagine how they’d read across the vast gulf of time.
Marcus Aurelius and Seneca and Epictetus, on the other hand, knew that clear writing was a reflection of clear thinking. Marcus was writing in Greek, to himself, and still managed to produce beautiful, inspiring words that endure to this day. Seneca was such a brilliant epigramist that his one-liners and epigrams were taught to Latin students for centuries. Epictetus was usually speaking extemporaneously to students, yet his words roll off the page. Each of them has had enormous impact and changed millions of lives (in addition to their own) as a result.
Richard Feynman’s line was that if you can’t explain something simply, you don’t understand it. That’s a good rule. It’s worth thinking about today for our own writing, thinking, and speaking. Don’t let yourself get away with sloppy, half-baked thinking. Avoid exaggeration and insist on clarity in your conversations. Don’t make lazy assumptions. Annunciate. Care about your word choice—but don’t be pretentious. Be direct. Be simple. Take your time. Don’t rush if you don’t have to. Insist on getting things right. Learn how to tell a good story. Hold even your journaling to this higher standard.
Because it matters. To yourself. And to the world.
