The Short of It:
The fear of losing comes from the joy of having.
13. avoiding shame.
Favor and disgrace are as one’s fear. Dignity and disaster as one’s person.
What I mean to say of favour and disgrace is this: -Disgrace is the lower place, which [they] who [win] and [they] who [lose] equally fear; so that (in the struggle for place) favour and disgrace are (only important) in proportion to one’s fear (of failure).
And what I mean by dignity and disaster being as one’s person is this: -What renders me liable to great disaster is my person; so that if I had no person (body, personal importance), what disaster could I have?
So then, if, for the sake of dignity, one seeks to make [themselves] ruler of the world, [they] may be permitted, indeed, to rule it temporarily; but if, for love, one seeks to make [themselves] ruler of the world, [they] may be entrusted with it (for ever, or [they] may trust [themselves] to the world for ever).
13. ‘Loathing Shame.’
13.1 Favour and disgrace would seem equally to be feared; honour and great calamity, to be regarded as personal conditions (of the same kind).
13.2 What is meant by speaking thus of favour and disgrace? Disgrace is being in a low position (after the enjoyment of favour). The getting that (favour) leads to the apprehension (of losing it), and the losing it leads to the fear of (still greater calamity): -this is what is meant by saying that favour and disgrace would seem equally to be feared.
And what is meant by saying that honour and great calamity are to be (similarly) regarded as personal conditions? What makes me liable to great calamity is my having the body (which I call myself); if I had not the body, what great calamity could come to me?
13.3 Therefore [those] who would administer the kingdom, honouring it as [they honour their] own person, may be employed to govern it, and [those] who would administer it with the love which [they bear] to [their] own person may be entrusted with it.
13. Loathing shame.
13.1
“Favour bodes disgrace; it is like trembling. Rank bodes great heartache. It is like the body.”
13.2 What means “Favor bodes disgrace; it is like trembling?”
Favor humiliates. Its acquisition causes trembling, its loss causes trembling. This is meant by “Favor bodes disgrace; it is like trembling.”
13.3 What means “Rank bodes great heartache, it is like the body?”
I suffer great heartache because I have a body. When I have no body, what heartache remains?
13.4 Therefore who administers the empire as [they take] care of [their] body can be entrusted with the empire.
The Long of It:
When we accept favor from others, we are at their mercy when they withdraw it (disgrace).
The same goes for our physical bodies. Being alive makes us feel good but puts us at the mercy of the world.
Therefore, the most trustworthy politician is the one who is not afraid to put themselves at risk. Since they do not accept favor from the world, they are not at the mercy of it.
-TB
