The Bare Cupboard

The Bare Cupboard

“Tecum habita et noris quam sit tibi curta supellex.”
Live with yourself awhile and you’ll learn how little equipment you have.
Persius, Satire 4.52

Persius knew what most of us spend our whole lives avoiding.
If you sit long enough with your own soul, really sit, without noise or screens or the comforting illusion of busyness, you will discover how empty you are. The cupboard rattles because there is nothing inside it.

Most people never reach that silence.
They stuff every waking moment with distraction so they never have to confront the truth of what they are. I used to think that was laziness. Now I know it is fear.

Because once the noise stops, the excuses disappear.
And then you see yourself.
Not the version you perform for others, not the resume or the mask or the curated life.
Just the raw, empty interior.

Persius was mocking the Romans who pretended to be wise, pious, or disciplined. Their cupboards were as bare as ours.
The same cowardice.
The same vanity.
The same spiritual flab.

I learned this sitting alone in my own house in Albany, no TV on, no phone buzzing.
Just the sound of my breathing and the slow realization that I was not who I thought I was.
All the confidence I projected, all the hardness I tried to cultivate, it crumbled the moment no one was there to witness it.
Take away the audience and most men collapse.

Self-examination is not noble.
It is humiliating.
It strips away every delusion you have about your character.

You start asking questions you never wanted answered.
Why do I react the way I do?
Why do I run from responsibility and chase comfort?
Why do I pretend to be strong when I know I am weak?

The answers are simple and brutal.
Because the soul, left untrained, turns soft.
Because virtue does not grow without labor.
Because most of us have been living off the fumes of other people’s strength, inherited habits we never earned.

Sit with yourself in silence and you will learn the truth:
You are not disciplined.
You are not wise.
You are not as courageous as you pretend.

And none of that is an insult.
It is the beginning of sanity.

Persius wanted his readers to feel the sting.
He wanted them to know that the moral cupboard is empty unless you fill it.
And filling it requires honesty, not comfort.
Effort, not emotion.
Repentance, not self-esteem.

Our age hates this kind of reflection.
We drown ourselves in noise because silence would expose the hollowness.
We preach self-love because self-examination would ruin the fantasy.
We build identities instead of characters.
We collect experiences instead of virtues.

Sit alone for one hour and you will see why.
There is nothing in the cupboard.
You are weak.
You are untrained.
You are spiritually hollow.

But that emptiness is not the end.
It is the doorway.
You cannot rebuild a house you have never inspected.
You cannot strengthen a soul you refuse to look at.

Persius was right.
Live with yourself awhile and you will learn exactly what you lack.
And that knowledge, painful as it is, is the first honest tool you will ever own.

The cupboard is bare.
Now you can begin to fill it.