There are the things we fear that we should, and the things that we should fear but don’t.

Most people fear dying. Most people don’t fear, don’t care, that they are living a kind of death.

Agrippinus, one of the great Stoics of Nero’s time, refused to compromise his belief or to keep a low profile even though it put him in danger of running afoul of that tyrant. He wanted to be the “purple thread” as we’ve talked about it, even if it was safer to be black or white or grey. He would have liked the lyrics to that great Alice in Chains song, the one that goes: “If I can’t be my own, I’d feel better dead.”

Indeed, he eventually died for it, as his incorruptible father had before him.

There are things in this life worse than death. Living a bankrupt, cowardly life is one of them. Being a patsy or a stool, a Vichy-enabler or a faceless member of the mob is as well.

You have to repeat that in your head, again and again. You have to fight, you have to fight. You don’t want to be like that faceless, nameless person that Seneca mentions was dealt a withering retort: You are pleading for your life, but how is the way you’re living any different than being dead?

If you can’t be your own, if you refuse to be your own, what’s the point? That question is rhetorical. You can be your own. So choose to be. And don’t compromise or appease those who want to bully you into anything different.