Talking of Which, 05.10.23
Talking of Which, 05.10.23
Stoicism, Warts and All
My monthly miscellany (the second somewhat more self-indulgent half for paying subscribers) continues here…
Stoicism
The Stoic classics contain much wisdom and humour. ‘People are frugal in guarding their personal property, but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy,’ wrote Epictetus, one of many beautifully clear observations in the Stoic canon. For the Stoics, hope was form of evil, pain a wise instructor and anger the wages of expectation. Peace of mind meant planning for and expecting the worst, being content with as little as possible and relying on nobody but yourself for your worldly success. The Stoics also believed that it was not enough to merely know the truth, one has to embody it, and this can only be done through living a genuinely challenging life; ‘I judge you unfortunate because you have never lived through misfortune,’ wrote Seneca, ‘You have passed through life without an opponent—no one can ever know what you are capable of, not even you.’
Indeed. The problem is that, notwithstanding their admirable practicality and (if one is used to illusory, idolatrous Western philosophy) refreshing clarity, the Stoics rely on the power of the mind to overcome hope, anger, pain, fear and desire.1 The works of Seneca, Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus are packed full of mere exhortations. Be a man, be courageous, be sensible, be simple-hearted… yes, yes, it’s all fine on paper, but, as Schopenhauer pointed out, has no more power over our passions than a squirt of water from an enema needle has over a raging inferno. One must go deeper than knowledge of God to overcome suffering, or God will never reveal itself.
Unless your passions are feeble, mild, numbed. Ah, then it works, or seems to. It’s easy to tell yourself to be courageous dealing with an irksome email — try adopting a wise Stoic maxim when your heart is devastated, when you are called on to face death. This is why Stoicism (stripped of its theism) is becoming popular again. Not because of the Stoic’s exhortations to throw yourself into the flames, which are ignored, but because so much of Stoicism is merely formal. Like modern, secular Buddhism, like Eastern mystical practices, like gnosticism and German Idealism, like all the other wondrous ideas of our rootless world, Stoicism is a form of self-satisfying, self help for stupefied selves in a decadent culture of mere forms. Yes, we must know great pain to know great truth, yes the gods, like all good teachers, prefer to burden backs they know will be strengthened by affliction, yes, we suffer more in imagination than in reality; but what of that reality? Here the grim-jawed Stoics fall silent.
The Excellence Boom
Excellence Withers Without an Adversary. So said Seneca, rightly. Who then is your adversary? From whither do you invite pain? Is there someone in your life, someone wiser than you, not afraid to risk their relationship with you by harshly exposing your faults? Do you ask them to give it to you, both barrels? Are you in a situation which demands you raise yourself to it, to find the guts to face it down, deal with it? Or do you live with a partner who makes you unhappy, with a life that drags you down, in a world that muffles your experience of adversity, that prevents you from facing confusion, uncertainty, loss? Do you fight your way out of that world, with reckless generosity of heart, or do you let it muffle and mute your spirit? Can you feel your excellence withering? It feels like frustration. It feels like boredom. It feels like nothing much.
But don’t worry friends, unbelievable pain and suffering are on their way, for everyone, and with it, naturally enough, an excellence boom.
Planet X
When relationships end, ex-lovers all fly off to live together on a beautiful planet with all your lost biros, peanuts, pieces of paper with important information, beloved shirts, misplaced umbrellas and scarves left in restaurants. All the perfect fruit you’ve ever eaten, that made your eyes pop open—the complex, fragrant lemons, the watermelons that were sweet right down to the rind, the buttery mangoes that dribbled jungle gold—it all grows there, on that planet. The vague, freakish, sweet, wrenching flashes of youth and winter sunshine, and the fizz of long-ago thunderstorms, and the voices of long-dead friends—everything good that is lost forever to you lives there still, on a beautiful planet, far away, which, not long ago, collided with a huge asteroid and exploded. Gone forever. Okay?
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