Men Without Hats?

My first love in music was surely determined by the times. New Wave synth-pop ruled the airwaves, in what they called the Second British Invasion. Typically, however, I found myself something out of the ordinary. I found Men Without Hats.

These fellows had that one big hit single, and were then ignored. I have stuck with them to this day.

Anyone who remembers Reagan remembers this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM4okRvCg2g

A few years later, I found their second album at a shop in Penrith. This tune became an anthem for me:

Time has come for each of us to decide
To follow blindly or to step out of line
The party is over it has been for years
Let's use the water to wash up, not for tears
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjOozX2qpMs

Written in 5/1993

We've been told lies. We've been herded around
Taken for rides, told that this is the one
We've learned all the steps and where do they lead
Right back to zero or not far I believe

Making history as we open our eyes
And no one's quite sure so we  improvise
And wherever it leads us is wherever we'll go
I'd dance forever if they'd let me, you know

Wearing our hair up in anger we cry
The revolutions dead it went out in style
The children are learning much faster than we
Soon they'll be older but then again, so will we

Time has come for each of us to decide
To follow blindly or to step out of line
The party is over it has been for years
Let's use the water to wash up, not for tears

Seems such a pity
It seemed we had the same dream
And thinking of things past
You sang first I sang last
You sang first I sang last
You sang first I sang last


 

Epictetus, The Handbook 18: Working with the Playwright

Remember that you are an actor in a play, and the Playwright chooses the manner of it: if he wants it short, it is short; if long, it is long.

If he wants you to act a poor man you must act the part with all your powers; and so if your part be a cripple or a magistrate or a plain man.

For your business is to act the character that is given you and act it well; the choice of the cast is Another's.

—Epictetus, The Handbook, Chapter 17 (tr Matheson)

I never had the gift for acting, but I remember those who did, and I also remember that they would often grumble about the difficulty of following the Director’s instructions.

I always had the dream of recording music professionally, though I was hardly skilled enough to do so. Yet I always wondered about the influence the Producer had in making a record.

I did once have an opportunity to actually make a bit of money from writing, but I had to stare straight in the face of an Editor. I pondered about the difference between what I had written, and what someone else wanted me to write.

Director, Producer, Editor. Was life really meant to be filtered by the seller at the expense of the artist?

I was drawn very early on to a caricature of Stoicism because it seemed it was a philosophy that would help me to get my way. Two things were wrong with that assumption. I thought it was about me, and I thought it was about a certain sort of way.

First, a philosophy shouldn’t be about what is convenient to me, but about what is right for me. I needed to conquer my own selfishness.

Second, I needed to stop thinking about philosophy as something that helped me to succeed in the world of competition, and more as something that helped me be fulfilled in the world of cooperation.

If you are an actor, a musician, or a writer, you know full well how hard it to swallow that ego. It means recognizing that what I am doing is part of something bigger than me, and I can be just as free and creative doing my part well, while also allowing everyone else to do their part well.

So it is in life, as informed by the Stoic principle about what is or is not within my power. There is absolutely no need for me to play God in order to be happy, and it isn’t necessary for me to order and direct every aspect of my world. It is simply enough for me to be content with what has been given, and to order and direct myself.

I have come to suspect that there is a far greater freedom and dignity in respecting that the world will be as it will be, than struggling and straining to make it in my own image. At the very least I have learned the freedom of humility, and the dignity of genuine responsibility.

If I struggle to live a long or prosperous life, a life of wealth, honor, or power, I’m not actually being a great man at all, because I am stubbornly worried about managing all the external conditions. In doing so, I’m neglecting the only thing Nature needs me to do, to direct my own soul, to get my own house in order, to play the role I am given, whatever it may be, with excellence.

Written in 11/2001

Epictetus, The Handbook 17: Not the Event, but the Judgment . . .

When you see a man shedding tears in sorrow for a child abroad or dead, or for loss of property, beware that you are not carried away by the impression that it is outward ills that make him miserable.

Keep this thought by you: 'What distresses him is not the event, for that does not distress another, but his judgment on the event.'

Therefore do not hesitate to sympathize with him so far as words go, and if it so chance, even to groan with him; but take heed that you do not also groan in your inner being.

—Epictetus, The Handbook, Chapter 16 (tr Matheson)

I don’t do well during the holidays, not because I am by choice a curmudgeon, but because I am by condition subject to the Black Dog. I need to consciously prepare myself for the waves of pain, and learn to use my judgment to face my feelings.

As a child and younger man, holidays were full of joy, even magic. Now, Christmas just reminds me of a lost son, who passed right before. Halloween reminds of my lost love, just because her birthday fell at the same time. Easter reminds me of my Nana, to whom I never got to say goodbye.

Now I could moan and squirm, or I could try to wish it all away, and I’ve done that too many times. That’s what Thanksgiving used to be for. Or I could rethink the whole situation. I have now learned, over the years, that pain cannot simply be ignored. But it can be managed, and it can be transformed into healing. I can learn to take the responsibility to make the wrong things right, both for myself and for others.

I don’t usually control such feelings, but I can determine how I can think about them, and what I can do with them. Nothing that ever happened to me was ever in itself right or wrong, but how I estimate its meaning and importance is absolutely everything that will make it right or wrong for me.

How many times have I listened to someone’s life crushing experience, or he has listened to mine, and while we can understand the loss, we simply cannot empathize? This isn’t because it doesn’t matter, but rather because different things mean very different things to each of us. I can learn to respect that in someone else, even if I have not lived it as he has.

If I understand the source of distress, I can be prepared to meet it. Repression never works, since the force will simply go elsewhere, like all those times we yell at the kindest person at work because a spouse was heartless.

Instead, I can learn to mold it, to shape it, to rebuild it into something of use, to make joy out of pain, to make love out of hate. Pain has a certain emotional energy to it, one I imagine we all recognize. I can in my mind’s eye take that energy and harness it for the sake of something else, something that will bring contentment over misery.

This is hardly abstract metaphysics. It’s about hard practice. I have never told the story to anyone, but I once ruined yet another Thanksgiving for my family by running off to feel sorry for myself. I emptied my bank account to go on a good bender, the best one yet. Stumbling to my next watering hole, I ran across a woman crying on a park bench. She wasn’t young or pretty, but I was drawn to her. We chatted in the wind and the snow, and I learned that she had the exact same intentions I had, to wash away memories.

I honestly do not recall what I was thinking, but I called a cab, took her to the Star Market that hangs over the highway in Newtonville, and I did what I could to buy her the equivalent of a Thanksgiving meal. We took the cab back to her home in Watertown, and I made sure her family took care of her and the grocery bags.

No, it doesn’t end like a Frank Capra film. Her burly and tattooed son invited me in, in a very kind way, but I barked some dismissive comment. I went straight back to being rude, selfish, and downright miserable.

Yet that moment has stayed with me for many years. I have long forgotten her name, and I have no idea who that family was, but what I do recall is that small moment, however brief, in between one self-loathing and another, where I just took how poorly I felt and tried my best to turn it into something right.

Distress never needs to deny us the opportunity to love and to be happy. It can actually give us even more of an opportunity to love and to be happy. I hope to do it better the next time. 

Written in 7/2004

Epictetus, The Handbook 16: A Banquet Fit for the Gods

Remember that you must behave in life as you would at a banquet. A dish is handed round and comes to you; put out your hand and take it politely. It passes you; do not stop it. It has not reached you; do not be impatient to get it, but wait till your turn comes.

Bear yourself thus towards children, wife, office, wealth, and one day you will be worthy to banquet with the gods.

But if when they are set before you, you do not take them but despise them, then you shall not only share the gods’ banquet, but shall share their rule. For by so doing Diogenes and Heraclitus and men like them were called divine and deserved the name.

—Epictetus, The Handbook, Chapter 15 (tr Matheson)

It took me many years to fully grasp how deeply obsessed our world is with acquisition and consumption. I had always seen greedy people, of course, and I had promised myself that I would never become like that, but I needed to be able to step outside of the whole set of social assumptions, to look at them from the another perspective, to recognize how thoroughly we define ourselves inside by what we conquer or achieve outside.

The grabbing and fighting over trinkets we see every year during the Thanksgiving shopping season may rightly seem barbaric to many of us, but I suggest it is just a rougher looking form of what we also see in business, politics, law, or advertising. Produce, compete, acquire, consume, and repeat.

Now I’ve observed some followers of Stoicism wonder if there can be some form of Stoic social teaching to alleviate such problems of greed, and I’ve been told by various Socialists, Marxists, Greens, Libertarians, or Anarchists that my insight means I’m well on my way to embracing their politics.

I can hardly deny others their solutions for a better world, but for myself, I have experienced Stoicism as a philosophy that is never built from the top down, but always from the bottom up. I have always thought it best to fix myself before I tell other people how to fix themselves, and I remain perhaps naïvely hopeful that if individuals chose to act with virtue, about the things within our power, the rest would rightly fall into place.

No, I can complain and protest about the greed and gluttony of a fast-food culture, which will produce nothing but resentment from everyone, or I can try to practice justice and temperance myself, day by day.

The image of our behavior at a banquet has long been helpful in keeping my own avarice under control. I was still raised to have good table manners, something I suspect has been skipped over almost entirely by the generation that followed mine, but my interest has nothing to do with the social niceties of how to sip my tea or use the silverware. My interest has to do with the relationship between what I want, what is offered to me, and what I then choose to take.

First, it is within my power to rightly know what I should or should not want, and I need never surrender that power to the pressures of others.

Second, I should never want anything that is beyond what I need, and Nature has made me such that I do not need to ask her to give me more than she offers.

Third, if it is always within my power to choose or not to choose, it is also in my power to take or not to take. The virtuous guest may thankfully accept what is offered, or he may even graciously decline. He may even rise above desire itself.

It is noble to say yes with self-control, nobler still to say no through absolute self-control. This, Epictetus says, is the true state of self-sufficiency of the Divine.

I was recently in awe of my teenage son, whom I expect to always be clamoring to buy and consume more things. We were standing in front of an elaborate sales display, and he calmly asked, “When was the last time anyone turned down a sale?”

“Whenever anyone refuses to be led by the nose,” was my reply, and I was pleased to see that he completely understood. He was perfectly content to buy nothing that day.

Written in 9/2016

Marillion, These Chains

As a reference for Epictetus 15:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjLuzfsRuXE

Everything crashed
His wife left him
He lost all his money
And most of his friends
He lay awake all night
Lonely and desperate
Contemplating starting again

These chains are all your own
These chains are comfortable
Four in the morning
Sat in the kitchen
Keys on the table
Went out for a drive
He didn't know
Where he was going
Didn't know
If he was alive

The dawn was breaking
A new day was rising
Shadows creepin' over the fields
He watched the pink light
Steal across the horizon
He realized
He saw with new eyes

These chains are all your own
These chains are comfortable
This cage was never locked
Born free but scared to be
This cage was made for you
With care and constant attention
This cage is safe and warm
Will you die and never know what it's like
Outside?

—Marillion, "These Chains", from Radiation (1998)

Epictetus, The Handbook 15: Master and Commander

It is silly to want your children and your wife and your friends to live forever, for that means that you want what is not in your control to be in your control, and what is not your own to be yours.

In the same way if you want your servant to make no mistakes, you are a fool, for you want vice not to be vice but something different.

But if you want not to be disappointed in your will to get, you can attain to that.

Exercise yourself then in what lies in your power. Each man's master is the man who has authority over what he wishes or does not wish, to secure the one or to take away the other. Let him then who wishes to be free not wish for anything or avoid anything that depends on others; or else he is bound to be a slave.

—Epictetus, The Handbook, Chapter 14 (tr Matheson)

I have on a number of occasions tried to explain to others, in the most direct ways I can find, that Stoicism is not a philosophy one needs to be terribly gifted or educated to understand. It isn’t the principles themselves that offer me any obstacles, but my own habits and the pressures of social conformity that can make it difficult to practice. I just need to take off the blinders, though that can be easier said than done.

One of my quick summaries goes something like this, and I’m really just paraphrasing what Epictetus says above: “If I make myself dependent on the things I can’t control, I’ll be a slave, and I’ll be frustrated and miserable. If I make myself dependent on the things I can control, I’ll be my own master, and I can be free and happy.”

At those few times when my attempts at an explanation actually sink in, I usually see an immediate response of recognition. “Yeah, that makes total sense, and I’ve heard people say things like that before. They were usually the most humble and happy people I ever knew.” I may then hear a lovely recollection of a relative or neighbor who was surely a Stoic, regardless of whether he had read Epictetus.

The habits of corporate America were already creeping into higher education when I was a student, and I began to recognize certain formulas that were being used to “build the brand”. One of these was what I called the mock interview, where an employee confidently and cheerfully answers a certain set questions to help the consumer see the human side of the company.

I have to smile when I see one of those questions: “If you could pick one thing you wish you could do more of, what would that be?” I then expect one of two answers: “I’d like to do more to help the community,” and “I’d spend more time with my wonderful family.”

I knew a fellow in marketing a few years back who was proudly showing me one of these pieces online, so I finally asked what the Stoic in me always wanted to ask. I asked him why he just didn’t spend more time with his family, if that’s what he really wanted. What was holding him back?

“Well, my work just keeps me so busy, all the hours and all the travel, so I just can’t be with them as much as I want. I don’t really have a choice, do I? But I guess I’m doing it for them, so they can live in a nice house, and the kids can go to a good school, and they’ll have some security when I’m gone.”

For once, I didn’t press the Socratic point, because I judged it would do more harm than good, but I did think about it for myself.

If I think something is the most important thing I should be doing, I should simply be doing it. If I think something is getting in the way of what is most important, I need to leave the obstacle behind.

What is the good I can leave for my family? Love or money? If the latter is getting in the way of the former, I obviously can’t pursue both equally. If something, like the pursuit of a career, is taking control over what I should truly want, then I’m not really choosing my own life, but allowing others to choose it for me.

All of this then makes me honestly ask myself if I really do want mastery and freedom, a life where my control over my own conviction and character come first, or whether I am still hiding under the illusion that I will be happier as a slave to all those things outside of my power.

We all face that challenge, and how we respond to it will make all the difference. Marillion, some of my musical heroes, put it this way:

These chains are all your own

These chains are comfortable

This cage was never locked

Born free but scared to be

This cage was made for you

With care and constant attention

This cage is safe and warm

Will you die and never know what it's like

Outside?

Written in 3/2004

Epictetus, The Handbook 14: Playing the Fool

If you wish to make progress, you must be content in external matters to seem a fool and a simpleton; do not wish men to think you know anything, and if any should think you to be somebody, distrust yourself.

For know that it is not easy to keep your will in accord with nature and at the same time keep outward things; if you attend to one you must needs neglect the other.

—Epictetus, The Handbook, Chapter 13 (tr Matheson)

Being the outsider and the oddball come very easily to me, not out of any virtue, but because my very disposition is that of a gadfly and iconoclast. I’m simply too contrary to conform. Yet I can use this annoying aspect of my personality to my advantage, if only I remember that I shouldn’t avoid being popular out of stubbornness, but out of a deliberate conviction that my merit is not measured by others.

I find that this isn’t just a matter of being indifferent to reputation, but quite often deliberately avoiding it. As Epictetus suggests, we should be very careful about being liked, not because being respected is in and of itself bad at all, but because of the reasons why people might be thinking well of us. All of us have the weakness of being impressed by appearances over content, and by people who put on a good show. Is that what actually made someone pay attention to me? If so, I need to be living more honestly and sincerely.

I always find that I am most drawn to the very people who do not desire recognition. I took my family to a medieval fair recently, where there were rows upon rows of performers and craftsmen, many of them putting on an elaborate show of their skills or trades. The largest crowds gathered around the biggest spectacles, but I found myself drawn to an older, unassuming fellow who quietly worked on a delicate glass painting. I watched and admired his art, and I don’t think he was even aware that I was standing there. He was absorbed in the joy of his work, not in the display.

People will occasionally take interest in my Stoic musings, and perhaps nod in some sort of agreement, but I do think most of us are hardly aware of how radical a transformation of self the Stoic Turn entails. I have had to try and teach myself that all the years of effort at making myself succeed by the measures of things outside of me was not the way to my happiness.

Though hardly with any bitterness or malice on my part, I have had to part ways with many people I love dearly, but who still think that the value of living is in the achieving of status and recognition. This hardly means, however, that the person who pursues a Stoic life is lonely or isolated. It simply means that my relations with others need to flip, such that I am concerned that I myself act with love, rather than the pursuit of being loved.

Written in 10/2015

Epictetus, The Handbook 13: The Price of Freedom

If you wish to make progress, abandon reasonings of this sort: 'If I neglect my affairs I shall have nothing to live on'; 'If I do not punish my son, he will be wicked.' For it is better to die of hunger, so that you be free from pain and free from fear, than to live in plenty and be troubled in mind. It is better for your son to be wicked than for you to be miserable.

Wherefore begin with little things. Is your drop of oil spilt? Is your sup of wine stolen? Say to yourself, 'This is the price paid for freedom from passion, this is the price of a quiet mind.' Nothing can be had without a price.

When you call your slave-boy, reflect that he may not be able to hear you, and if he hears you, he may not be able to do anything you want. But he is not so well off that it rests with him to give you peace of mind.

—Epictetus, The Handbook, Chapter 12 (tr Matheson)

We spend so much our time and energy trying to make the world conform to our wants. It’s much like cramming the wrong piece into that empty space in a jigsaw puzzle, or if we can’t get it done the way we want, we throw away the puzzle and start a new one. Now how much time and energy do we expend simply on making ourselves right, instead of wanting the world to be right for us?

I am going to have to give up this need to make the world in my image if I wish to find peace. At first, this seems a terribly high price. Upon reflection, I recognize that I’m getting the best deal out there. I’m trading in something frustrating and unreliable for something serene and constant.

I have learned to measure the degree of my own progress in life by observing what I allow to disturb me, and what I am able to give up and rise above. Whenever I am angered by my circumstances, this is the warning bell that I’m not thinking rightly, and the smaller the object of my frustration, the greater the imbalance in my own thinking.

In the past, this passage was one that troubled me, in fact even offended me. Now I know that when I take offense, the problem is usually with me, and so I try to understand before I condemn. I understood the bit about being willing to give up my own security for my happiness. I once wrote “lose your greedom for your freedom” on a classroom chalkboard, and was met with complete befuddlement. No, what troubled me was the idea that I should be willing to bear a wicked son for my peace of mind. As a father, this just didn’t sit right.

I hardly think that Epictetus is telling us that we should let our children become scoundrels so that we can become happy. This isn’t about being negligent to be selfish. Rather, it’s about taking responsibility for what is my own. I can love a child with all my heart, but I can’t make him good. I can encourage him, teach him, try to inspire him, but only he can make himself good, and only I can make myself good. As soon as I allow myself to be destroyed by his choice to be wicked, I am now also myself wicked.

I will never make someone else good by being bad. In fact, if I can keep my own house in order, there is no better way to help others keep theirs in order.

Written in 1/2012

The Only Two-by-Four You'll Ever Need. . .

I was once asked by a parent what I thought the most important things any students, at any age, needed to learn. I think I was expected to give the usual noble but vague statements about finding themselves, or preparing them for the journey of life, or helping them to be successful, but I immediately said that there were two sets of four principles I would like them to learn. This brought on a double-take.

The poor fellow's jaw dropped when I simply listed them. "I'm convinced that a person who truly understands the Four Causes can solve any intellectual problem, and that a person who truly understands the Four Cardinal Virtues can solve any moral problem. He is now set up to live."

I really wasn't trying to be facetious, and I meant it from the bottom of my heart. What else could really matter than both thinking rightly and living rightly?

The Four Causes arise in the Aristotlean, or Peripatetic, tradition, but they are in many ways a culmination of all Ancient thought. If I ask the question "why" something is the way it is, I need to consider four different aspects.

The efficient cause asks where something came from, or what brought it about. It's about agency.

The material cause asks what something is made of, what the parts or components of something are. It's about the building blocks.

The formal cause asks what something is in its identity, how all those parts are put together. It's about the structure.

The final cause asks where something is going, the end for which it is ordered. It's about the purpose.

Think of a house. The efficient causes are the architect and the builders. The material causes are the lumber, cement, plaster, pipes, or wiring. The formal cause is the blueprints and the way all the materials are put together. The final cause is to give someone a place to live.

Notice how often we confuse these different aspects of causality in life.

"He made me do it!" No, he pushed your buttons, but you made a choice. He was the material cause, but your were your own efficient cause.

"I'm not guilty of stealing, because I did it to pay my bills!" Good grief. What you did, the formal cause, isn't justified in this case because of the purpose you did it for, the final cause.

I can only make sense of my world if I can unravel why it works the way it does, and I believe that the Four Causes, and their proper use, are the most important tools we have to do so.

The Four Cardinal Virtues originate from the Platonic, or Academic, tradition, but once again, they are in many ways a culmination of all Ancient thought. How should I live my life? What should guide my choices? Look at what makes us human beings, and we will see what aspects of our nature we need to perfect.

I am a being ruled by a mind. The ability to distinguish true from false, good from bad, is the virtue of prudence.

I am a being with passions and desires. The ability to control, order, and direct my passions is the virtue of temperance.

I am a being of drive and aggression. The ability to control, order, and direct my aggression is the virtue of fortitude.

I am a being who lives with others. The ability to respect both myself and others, to give each their deserved rights and dignity, is the virtue of justice.

 A machine is functioning properly when all the parts are working together in harmony. Now a man is hardly a machine, because he can think and decide, but he too must have all his parts working together in harmony, through his own thought and choice. Consider the aspect of life that must be improved, and work upon that specific power of the soul.

By all means, express these principles using the terms of a different school, or the values of a different culture. Many philosophers, and narrow or smug people in general, like to miss the forest for the trees, mainly because they just like arguing and looking important. There's a good reason the Golden Rule is universal, and there's a good reason the Four Causes and the Four Cardinal Virtues are universal as well. They are hardwired by Nature.

Whenever I am asked to teach anyone anything, from changing a light bulb to writing a term paper, I return back to these ideals, the only two-by-four you'll ever need.

Written in 4/2001

Epictetus, The Handbook 12: Borrowed, Not Owned

Never say of anything, 'I lost it', but say, 'I gave it back'. Has your child died? It was given back. Has your wife died? She was given back. Has your estate been taken from you? Was not this also given back?

But you say, 'He who took it from me is wicked'. What does it matter to you through whom the Giver asked it back? As long as He gives it you, take care of it, but not as your own; treat it as passers-by treat an inn.

—Epictetus, The Handbook, Chapter 11 (tr Matheson)

I remember those early years of the 1980’s, when anything touched by Michael Jackson seemed to turn into gold. The first single off of Thriller was a pleasant duet with Paul McCartney called “The Girl is Mine”, and I recall thinking one day, after I had heard it on the radio for the umpteenth time, that this was an odd phrase. How could anyone really “belong” to anyone else anyway? Isn’t this the sort of thinking that can get us into quite a bit of trouble? I would occasionally think the same thing about other love songs that used that other cliché phrase, “I need you.”

The catchiness of harmless pop songs aside, we do often take such ideas quite seriously. We think we own things, people, or situations, and then in our need for them, are devastated at their loss. The irony is that when I say I own something, I too readily define myself by what I say is mine. I come to depend upon what I possess in order to be myself. I am now hardly the owner, but I am the one owned through my need.

I understand this all too well, because I painted myself into that corner, both personally and professionally. Only a bit of Stoic clarity, to take that Stoic Turn, is needed to avoid so much loss and grief.

Consider that I can never lose what was not mine to begin with. Consider also that the only thing I can really call mine is myself. Put these two principles together, and we have the Stoic solution to loss.

We often think that we balance ourselves precariously between happiness and misery by frantically trying to keep control over the things we think are ours: our friends, family, reputation, career, wealth, amusements, or influence. Yet none of those things ever belonged to us, or were a part of us. Their comings and goings usually have little to do with us.

They most certainly do not define us, or fulfill us. Only what I think, choose, or do is fully my own. All the externals we crave will come and go, and then we grieve. All the internals we neglect can never be lost, and we would be happy if we only depended upon what is truly our own.

This hardly means we do not love others, or give ourselves fully to them. It is our own love we own, not those we love. I need never bemoan the changing state of the world around me, of all the things Nature lent me, because I still possess the good I chose to do. It is in this sense that you can never defeat the Stoic. He owns only himself, and borrows everything else.

Written in 12/2011

The Cardinal Virtues

As a reference for Epictetus 11:

Image: Jacques Patin, The Cardinal Virtues, 1581

In this allegory, fortitude holds a pillar, representing strength. Justice holds the scales, representing balance. Temperance, holds a goblet, representing moderation. Prudence holds a snake, which came to represent wisdom in the Christian tradition, from Matthew 10:16: "Be you wise as serpents."Prudence is often also depicted with a mirror, symbolizing self-reflection.

(4/1993)
 

Epictetus, The Handbook 11: Carrying the Right Tools

When anything happens to you, always remember to turn to yourself and ask what faculty you have to deal with it.

If you see a beautiful boy or a beautiful woman, you will find continence the faculty to exercise there; if trouble is laid on you, you will find endurance; if ribaldry, you will find patience. And if you train yourself in this habit your impressions will not carry you away.

—Epictetus, The Handbook, Chapter 10 (tr Matheson)

I have attempted to fix plumbing, an old turntable, my car, and my online bank account without knowing what I was doing, and without knowing what tools I needed to make it right. The worst was an effort at fixing a buzz in the pickup of a Rickenbacker bass guitar. Oh, and my taxes, I forgot about the taxes.

I have also done the same with my own heart and mind. I may recognize that things aren’t right in my soul, but I have no idea where to begin. It’s much like having disassembled some sort of doohickey or thingamabob, and having no clue what I need to put it all back together.

Those far handier in mechanics than I know full well that one need not panic. All that is needed is to know what’s gone wrong, and what tools are needed to fix it.

Now many of us will buy all sorts of expensive tools to help us in our lives. Most of these end up in the garage or in the basement, along with all the exercise equipment, because we didn’t really need them.

All the tools we really need to improve our hearts and minds are already there within us, given to us by Nature itself.

I always start by trying to remember that I am fitted as standard with the equipment necessary to practice the four cardinal virtues.

Am I feeling the desire to control, possess, or consume? I can choose to practice the habit of temperance. This is not self-denial, but the ability to consider what moves my passions with a concern for what is good for both others and for myself.

Am I feeling fear in the face of a danger? I can choose to practice the habit of courage. This is not recklessness, but the ability to consider what threatens me by recalling what is properly my human good, to live with true conviction in action.

Am I feeling the need to be selfish and greedy? I can choose to practice the habit of justice. This is not wastefulness, but the ability to consider that what is good for me, and what is good for others, is never in conflict, but must be in harmony.

Finally, am I feeling confused and without direction? I can choose to practice the habit of wisdom. This is not intellectual posturing, but the ability to know that what is true and false requires nothing more than an open-minded humility about what is real.

No toolkit I can buy will ever beat the one I was already given. 

Written in 12/2011

 

Epictetus, The Handbook 10: Hindrance to the Will

Sickness is a hindrance to the body, but not to the will, unless the will consent.

Lameness is a hindrance to the leg, but not to the will.

Say this to yourself at each event that happens, for you shall find that though it hinders something else it will not hinder you.

—Epictectus, The Handbook 9 (tr Matheson)

One of the greatest obstacles to my living in a Stoic manner has been how I have gone about experiencing pain. I have faced levels of pain, especially the emotional pain of the Black Dog, which I have sometimes thought to be unbearable. I then wonder what I might be doing wrong, and how I’m missing that special trick to turn off the switch.

Speaking for myself, I have never found the switch, and that’s because I don’t think there is one. If I somehow managed to turn off my body, my memories, and my passions, I would certainly no longer feel pleasure or pain, but I would also no longer be human.

Attempts to ignore or numb pain will not remove it, but will simply encourage it to fester.

Nor have I ever known brute force to destroy suffering, as it always seems to cause more, whether in myself or in others.

I believe my mistake has, in typical Stoic fashion, been one of estimation. My assumption was often that pain must define me, but implicit here was also the assumption that I am only a creature of passion.

I began to understand that while pain is indeed a hindrance, and sometimes mightily so, to my body or to my feelings, it need not be a hindrance to my judgment or to my choices.

The question isn’t whether pain is a hindrance, but rather of what it hinders. If I can remember that who I am is far more than someone determined by feelings and appearances, then I can also learn that I must not let myself be ruled by feelings and appearances.

This isn’t just a matter of casting away unpleasant feelings, as that would be another form of denial. Rather, as with all circumstances that are in and of themselves indifferent, but depend for their value on how we make use of them, suffering can become a means for living well. I can mold and transform it if I do not let it define who I am.

This is true of pleasure just as much as it is of pain, and of any other circumstance that we will come across in our lives. Something may hurt or be pleasing, it may be convenient or inconvenient, difficult or easy, and whatever good comes from it will only arise from our willingness to rule ourselves.

That power to order my own thoughts and choices is not itself a burden or a hindrance, but the realization of liberty. When I have followed Epictetus’ advice to remember that I am the only hindrance to myself, I have also managed my greatest moments of peace and contentment.

Written in 12/2011

 

The Serenity Prayer

As a reference for Epictetus 9:

Epictetus, The Handbook 9: Peaceful Happenings

Ask not that events should happen as you will, but let your will be that events should happen as they do, and you shall have peace.

—Epictetus, The Handbook, Chapter 8 (tr Matheson)

This is yet another classic Stoic passage, of the sort that the The Handbook is filled with. I do, however, find that it is often very misunderstood.

I read this to a 12 Step group I was leading one day, and I was met with an unexpected and violent backlash. I certainly didn’t think it any different than the Niebuhr Serenity Prayer, but the rest of our group thought differently.

“That’s fatalism! I’m just supposed to sit back and let everything happen, and not care at all? How is that peace?”

I don’t think there is any sitting back here, and there is certainly quite a bit of caring. To “let” things happen hardly means surrendering to them. It is rather all about learning to control myself about all the things I can’t control.  It isn’t about being passive, but learning to be quite active in the right way.

Stoicism has never been about resignation. Stoicism, after all, always defines a man by what he does, and never by what happens to him. The trick is to recognize exactly what can, and should, be done.

At a time when I worked in social services, I had two colleagues, both at heart very fine people, who had very different views on how to solve their problems at work.

The first was always very concerned about changing situations, about making sure that all the right people were in all the right places. If there was a problem, the solution seemed to be that someone needed to be let go. I would always fear that I was on that checklist.

The second often seemed disinterested in the beginning, but I learned that his alternative model was to work with something, and to simply make right from what was given. He didn’t fire people, but made an effort to understand. He didn’t reject our clients or fellow workers, but adapted to them.

That is exactly what love is about. As soon as I say that I will only love under my own conditions, I have immediately ceased to love. Let us not confuse the passion of affection with the promise of commitment.

The world will simply be as it is. I have no control over most of this. Now I might vainly swim against the tide, or I might finally recognize the reality that I will never conquer the Earth. I may have no power over what is given, but I have all the power over what I can give.

I should never be passive, but I should certainly be active by working with and through my circumstances, and never against them.

Written in 3/2002

Epictetus, The Handbook 8: Missing the Boat

When you are on a voyage, and your ship is at anchorage, and you disembark to get fresh water, you may pick up a small shellfish or a truffle by the way, but you must keep your attention fixed on the ship, and keep looking towards it constantly, to see if the Helmsman calls you; and if he does, you have to leave everything, or be bundled on board with your legs tied like a sheep.

So it is in life. If you have a dear wife or child given you, they are like the shellfish or the truffle, they are very well in their way. Only, if the Helmsman calls, run back to your ship, leave all else, and do not look behind you. And if you are old, never go far from the ship, so that when you are called you may not fail to appear.

—Epictetus, The Handbook, Chapter 7 (tr Matheson)

We like to tell people how busy we are, from meeting that deadline at work to getting the children to ballet practice. These are entirely First World problems that come with entitlement, and I suspect there is more bragging here than actual complaining. We seem to think the more occupied we are, the more important we are.

Life will not throw dozens of competing tasks at us, asking us to complete them all as quickly as possible. Life gives us only one task, and that is to live with wisdom and virtue, under any and every condition. Let’s not miss the boat because we are buying souvenirs at the gift shop.

I once knew someone who would regularly say that she “took advantage of every opportunity.” She was baffled and dumbstruck when I asked what she was using these opportunities for. Was it about money, or about fame, or about feeling like an achiever? Or was it about practicing love and justice?

It is a cliché to say that life is like a journey, but the fact is that this is true. It is also a cliché to say that life is about the journey itself, and not the destination, and this is also true. These things are true not in the sickly sweet sense of a Hallmark card, but because Nature has simply asked us to live with excellence, whatever our circumstances may be.

Of all the things we are given, and of all the things we are asked to do, I find that the only way to avoid drowning in anxiety and frustration is to remember why I am here. It is really just about the priorities.

All the trappings and distractions of life, like a career, finding the perfect mate, buying a home, sending the children to just the right school, making the best financial investments, or looking grand in those vacation pictures, are really just the shellfish and truffles. Getting back on the boat means recognizing that I am here only to act with character and conviction, whether I am washing dishes or managing a hedge fund.

Life is going to put all of us in exactly the same place in the end: the grave. In the meantime, what Nature gives us is intended for living well. Let’s be certain we know what that means.

As ridiculous as it seems, I once spent a very difficult week in my life repeating the phrase “selfish shellfish” to myself in order to keep my actions on track. Thank you, Epictetus.

Written in 7/1997