Stoic Week Ends: I've Said This To Other People, But...

Sometimes in my line of work I have cause to counsel people. If I'm speaking to a person who wants to change something about themselves I often use the byline quoted on the top of this page: first decide who you would be, and then do what you have to do.

I have changed quite a few things about myself (with the help of a lot of people, one of them a professional). What I've noticed is that when I try something new it exposes weaknesses in the old me, and I make more mistakes, not less.

It makes sense. You decide to learn to fly fish and you make more daily mistakes than you did before. You learn to fly a plane and you make seventy total mistakes per day instead of three. It's part of learning.

Physician heal thyself. Why did I think that it would be any different for me?

There is, I have learned, a vast difference between being a serious practicing Stoic and a person who knows a little about Stoicism. My mistake count has gone up. I'm more sensitive to other people, now that Stoic cosmopolitanism has made me more aware of them, and I've learned that sometimes I'm not very kind. It's difficult because I realize that I could have been this way all along had I come to Stoicism earlier. One of the hosts of "The Painted Porch" says as much, I think in Podcast 4. How much better would his life had been had he found Stoicism in his twenties?

But the past is gone. I can't change that. I've felt real personal growth as a result of this process, and that is a thing to be grateful for, not a thing to regret.

Somewhere Epictetus compares himself to a doctor, and he compares we students to suffering patients. There's something to that.

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Image is public domain

Fate Permitting

It’s Friday of Stoic Week (The Painted Porch calls this week the most important week in the Stoic liturgical calendar... tongue in cheek of course). Today’s lesson was about the “Stoic reserve clause.”

A Stoic lives in the here and now. The past is to be learned from but not worried about, because it is beyond our power to control. The future hasn’t happened yet. All we have is right now.

This does not mean that ancient Stoics were inactive; far from it. The 2014 Handbook tells us that Stoics were often thought of as political trouble makers because they always insisted on acting from moral principles. They just realized that the actions we take may bear fruit, or they may not.

So we prepare for the future, but we recognize that our plans may be disrupted, and if they are, they are.

A Stoic says “I’ll see you Saturday, fate permitting.” It's a useful reminder.

There is a parallel here with Christianity and Islam. When I was in Ireland I often heard older country people say they would do something “please God,” or if God pleases. I think that in Islam practitioners often say “Insha’Allah,” or “If Allah wills it.”

Of course if you go around saying “If fate permits it” all the time you may seem strange to other people. That’s fine if you do, but on the other hand it may draw attention to yourself, and that attention might be a replacement for Stoic virtue. In other words you may be doing it to grandstand. On the other hand it might be a nice icebreaker, useful for introducing Stoicism to people. I don’t know.

The Handbook gives us another phrase to use, though: “If nothing prevents me.” I like that.

See you next time, if nothing prevents me.

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Public domain image courtesy of the New York Public Library

My Spotty Record

I haven't been doing Stoic Week perfectly. Last night, out of pure laziness, I skipped the evening meditation. It's not like I didn't have time. Instead of meditating I blew up cartoonish-looking enemies on my tablet computer.

Why wouldn't I do what makes me content and happy? Is it really that much easier to play video games? It's wasted time.

Some Stoic somewhere said something like "A fool is a person who does what he does not want to do."

Time to refocus.

Mike Cernovich And Verbal Jiu Jitsu

Mike Cernovich is one of the most interesting podcasters on the internet. I don't agree with his every utterance, but he is whip smart and he speaks the truth as he sees it. His observations are often very original.

His take on how to manage verbal conflict is especially interesting. You can find it at the itunes store under "Danger and Play Podcast." Look for "The Gentle Art of Verbal Self Defense."

He uses a phrase that seems paraphrased from Epictetus (I think... sometimes I memorize a maxim and then forget who authored it). When somebody lies about him he says "Dude, there's enough true stuff to call me on. Why lie?" Epictetus advises us to use a similar strategy. "It's a good thing he doesn't know me better or he would have had much more to criticise." That's a very liberal paraphrase, but you get the idea.

An extension of this idea is the "agree and amplify" technique, where you take your opponent's insult to a silly conclusion.

"You're fat."

"What? A weather system blew in to my northern hemisphere and garbled your transmission. Could you say that again? Hey, careful of my gravitational field!"

He also recommends a very stoic keeping of one's wits. Don't get mad. When confronted say "Okay, make your points. You done yet? Get it all out."

Mr. Cernovich's views on gender relations, homosexuality, "geek culture" and the like seem to be moderating, a trend that I like to see. Here we have a man who is molding himself in front of us. He is deliberately constructing a better Mike Cernovich and he is doing it out in the open, warts and all. When his views change he says so and he owns his past behavior.

What more could you want in a human being?

We would be much better off if we followed Mr. Cernovich's example and ceased playing verbal "gotcha" with each other. I write this while holding a brown belt in verbal gotcha, so this is a case of "physician heal thyself."

Today I Greeted The Sun

I'm doing Stoic Week.

Today, as per the manual, I met the sun. I pictured a giant ball of fire millions of miles away, and I felt the gentle light that warms the Earth, a planet which is JUST SO FAR AWAY and no more, and I felt lucky.

I am a very small thing in a very big place. The fact that I exist at all, however briefly, is a thing to be thankful for.

There will come a time when I don't feel this way, but should that stop me from being happy right now? We don't own the future and the past doesn't exist. This is all we have. We can choose to be happy or we can hope that externals will make us happy. Stoics go with option 1.

First say what you would be, and then do what you have to do.

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Public domain image courtesy of the New York Public Library

Take Hozier To Church

"Take me to church; I'll worship like a dog at the shrine of your life. I'll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife. Offer me that deathless death, and good God, let me give you my life."

Not a very Stoic song, but it's beautiful. He really believes what he is saying. He completely prostrates himself at the feet of his lover. She is his salvation, and the only heaven he looks forward to. He puts all his eggs into this one basket.

As Stoics we would advise him against this sort of obsession. We would advise him to take delight in his lover and yet to contemplate a life spent without her. People fall out of love, or disappoint, or die. She's just a person. She isn't the answer to all his problems.

So what is? According to the Stoic Week Handbook, it is virtue, and virtue is:

Wisdom
Moderation
Courage
Justice

Still, there's something very romantic about a risky plan.

I suppose it's the fatalism that appeals. Stoics are taught not to value life too much, so to risk it all on a shaky proposition gets it partly right. Some things ought to be worth chucking it all for, but the deification of a single human being probably isn't one of them.

On the other hand, I am reminded of Christopher Hitchens* who often described his bohemian lifestyle, the lifestyle which likely killed him, with a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay:

My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night;
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends -
It gives a lovely light.

There is a beauty to that. It isn't our way, but it does give a lovely light.

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*He may be referencing Hitchens when he sings that we were "born sick." Hitchens often said that the Christian God has created a world in which "We are born sick and commanded to be well."

Freedom Through Bravery

"He who is brave is free."

Seneca

Dazed111 submitted this quote to the Stoic reddit and it jumped out at me. It makes sense. What is freedom but the ability to act in accordance to your preferences?

Hang on. As I type that I am reminded that freedom is more than that*. Epictetus, while a slave, would probably have preferred not to be a slave, and yet in his mind he was free. He was not free to act in accordance with his preferences, and yet he was still free.

Some Stoic somewhere (I think it was Epictetus) said, in reference to the experience of dying in one's bed, "The battlefield isn't the only place where courage is shown."

Bravery allows us to act despite our fears, and bravery allows us to endure despite our fears. Admiral Stockdale displayed bravery when he was being tortured in a Vietnamese prison. He resisted when he could and he endured when he could not resist. He came out of the experience unbroken.

So perhaps freedom is the ability to detach from our circumstances and remain whole (or happy). Perhaps bravery, then, is the acceptance of the risks required of freedom. Bravery gives us the determination we need to mold ourselves despite our circumstances. Bravery allows action, whether it be a physical action or a mental action.

"First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do." Epictetus said that. That's bravery. That's what will set you free.

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This is not a rhetorical device. It actually did occur to me as I typed.

Punish Your Mind

I saw this on the Stoic reddit and found that it works well.

When you find yourself replaying something over and over in your head, something unpleasant, it can be hard to focus on your work and enjoy your day. One thing you can do is to force your brain to relive the whole incident from start to finish every time it thinks about it.

Say somebody insults you. You worry and worry and are a prisoner of your thoughts. Well fine then, brain. Let's do this.

Recall the incident in detail, start to finish and in real time. Now do it again. And again. And again. Keep doing it.

The pain turns to boredom and the boredom turns to irritation, and eventually you get sick of the whole thing. If your brain relapses repeat until your brain surrenders.

Try it and see if it works for you.

What Is A Modern Stoic?

“Begin - to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.”

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

A Non-stoic Day

You drag into work twenty minutes late because your oldest kid couldn’t find her inhaler.

As you walk through the door you trip on the floormat, because the maintenance people never check to make sure those things are flat.

You walk down the hall and turn into your office and that guy you hate bumps into you and keeps walking without saying he’s sorry.

As you sit down the secretary comes by to ask you to donate to her kid’s jogathon. You feel heat rising to your cheeks as you pull out your wallet and hand her ten dollars, knowing full well that that’s ten fewer dollars you can send to pay down your mounting credit card bill. Just as you turn on your computer your boss shows up and wants to know what the status is on that report. He pointedly looks at his watch.

“It’ll be done when it’s done!” you snap.

His eyebrows raise and he walks away.

That could have gone better.

Now Try This

It’s time to leave. You can’t find your kid’s inhaler.

Can you skip it? No, because if she has an asthma attack she could die without it. So you spend twenty minutes and you find it. You ask yourself how this can be avoided in the future. You decide that from now on the school inhaler will go in the basket by the door. Lesson learned.

As you walk through the door you step over the folded floor mat, then you kick it flat. You tripped on it yesterday and learned your lesson then. Always check the floor mats. You remind yourself that maintenance is overworked and sometimes in their haste they don’t make sure those things are down. People complain all the time. They’ve asked for more help, but downsizing is downsizing… must be tough to be them.

As you walk down the hall that guy you hate slams into you.

“Hey Bill,” you call after him. He turns. “You have a nice day, buddy.” He knows…

As you sit down the secretary asks you for money for her kid’s jogathon. You think about it. It’s good to help kids fund their school, but you’re a bit short this month. You decide that you need to conserve money for your family; that’s the greater responsibility. That said, it’s a good reminder that you enjoy giving money to charity. Maybe next month.

“Sorry, I’m a bit short this month.”

She seems irritated. That must be tough, having to run around begging change for your kid. Whatever. Things to do.

Your boss comes by and looks pointedly at his watch. Since he hasn’t said anything you feel no need to explain yourself.

“What’s the status on that report?” he asks.

“Could I call you about that in ten minutes? I just want to make sure I’m giving you good information.”

“I need it now.”

“I’m pretty sure we’re just waiting on Bill’s stuff. I’ll email you in ten after I check, OK?”

“Well, OK.” He shuffles off to pester somebody else.

You smile to yourself and go about your day.

That’s Stoicism.

Ad Hominem

Ah, the ad hominem! You cover a multitude of sins! You are the prison shank of argumentation. How often in the past have I called your name in my darkest hour and, through you, snatched victory from the jaws of defeat?

Ad hominem, or name calling, is the refuge of the desparate. At least it is for me. Sometimes a discussion turns into an argument, and sometimes and argument turns into a loosing proposition because either I know that I'm wrong or I know that I'm right but I can no longer think straight. At those times I instinctively grope for the ad hominem, and it's always handy.

Once I had a formal debate with another teacher in order to show students how it's done. The subject was robots. I was for and he was against. Positions had been assigned by lot.

Now this guy is brilliant. He is a legitimate genius and he's good at debate. I knew I was going to lose. My ace in the hole, however, was that our audience (who would vote to determine the victor) was composed of naive high school students.

I did well enough until both of us had fleshed out our points, and then things turned bad. I don't remember the exact phrasing of the tit for tat, but if we had been boxing you might say he stunned me with an uppercut and then delivered combination after combination before I had recovered. My vision narrowed. My knees wobbled. I was going down.

Then, on the silliest, most abstract line of reasoning possible, I managed to "prove" that my opponent was a communist. Why communist? Because in my 2nd period class we had just covered the Red Scare, so he was a communist. If we had just covered the Boxer Rebellion I might have called him an Imperialist.

After that it didn't matter what he said. The kids were laughing at my jokes. I had turned a far superior opponent into an object of ridicule. I "won."

When the dust settled and the votes were tallied my friend smiled and took the class through my reasoning, and proved beyond any doubt that I didn't know what I was talking about. They were stunned.

"He's right," I said. "I used ad hominem. It was a dirty trick. He won that debate on the merits. I appealed to your emotions, not your reason."

We're still great friends, and he certainly didn't hold anything against me. In fact he complimented me on my audacity, and he said that together we taught the kids something about critical thinking. That's a stoic, friends.

Something that I really appreciate about stoics online is that we call each other out for fallacious thinking. You don't see that much in mainstream media. You don't see pundits calling out straw man attacks or pointedly admonishing their opponents for committing the "no true Scotsman" fallacy.

It might be a more enlightened world if they did. I know that being singled out for fallacious thinking has made me calmer and more measured when in conflict. I don't want to get caught out and embarrassed. I study philosophy, for heaven's sake!

Try this next time somebody launches a name calling attack against you: don't say a word. Understand that your opponent doesn't have anything sensible to throw your way, or they'd be throwing it. Wait for the terrible silence to fall. Let them prompt you into speaking.

"Well?" they might ask, a little baffled. They're confused; this isn't normally how these things go.

"Will you let me speak without interrupting? If not then this is a waste of our time."

They will or they won't. Either way is fine. You still win.

He who gets angry first loses.

More importantly, if you manage to calm them down and you get them to listen, even though they probably won't agree with you, you may plant a seed in their minds that might bear fruit later. If you do it with kindness and a smile you might even be friends down the road. Sometimes you might even get a reasonable reply, and sometimes you might realize that they had the better point all along.

I know that this strategy can work because it worked on me. I am now very suspicious of robots.

Two Stoics Walk Into A Bar

I am a student of stoic philosophy, but I'm not enrolled in a philosophy program. I am what you might call a practical student. I get my wisdom from books and from like-minded people, and I find that it helps me to live a better life. I find that being less reliant on outside opnion and more aware of my own choices makes me a happier and a better person.

I believe in the power of stoicism, kind reader, and I would like to share my stoic journey with you. Don't stop... believing... Could a stoic journey have written "Who's Crying Now?" Possibly not.

The title of my humble blog comes from this:

Michael Connell made this video to celebrate Stoic Week, and I like his take. Here's a fun stoic. Here's a stoic who is enjoying his life. In fact I was so impressed that I almost called this blog "The Laughing Stoic," but it didn't seem to fit me. I'm more of a "Two Stoics Walk Into A Bar" kind of guy.

I would like to add that Tanner Campbell's brand new and already excellent blog, "Epictetus is my Therapist," inspired me to start this one. I'm also interested in podcasting thanks to him. I think that the more stoics we have blogging and podcasting the better. It will make the stoic world richer.

Finally, thanks for your time and attention. I hope that my small contribution to the revival of this philosophy is useful to you.

Maybe my next blog post will be about whether or not "stoic" should be capitalized. As of this moment I have no idea.