Wet on a Rainy Day

Image by John Gilchrist. CC BY-ND 2.0

In April of this year I began biking to work. It's quite the privilege for me since, until recently, arthritis had stopped me from doing all but the most basic or necessary of physically demanding tasks. Thankfully, medication has arrested and reversed a large amount of the harm that arthritis had done over the past few years. I'm also doubly fortunate that the city of Portland has a bicycle rental program, and that the entire fleet is made up of electric bikes. These e-bikes allow me to take the seven mile trip to work, since it would not be possible for me to cover that same distance with my own bike. Portland is a hill covered city and my knees and hips can no longer overcome the local terrain without the assistance that an e-bike provides. Someday soon I hope to get one for myself, but for now the rental program provides a real benefit.

It's hard to overstate how important these bike trips have become in my life. The Stoic goal is to be fulfilled at every moment no matter our circumstances, but we all have environments that are better suited for us, both as humans and as individuals. For me, turning a relatively passive car trip into a physically and mentally engaging bike ride is a true gift. There are, of course, long term health benefits that come from upping my weekly cardio activity, but what I actually notice in the day to day is that I arrive at work invigorated and that those endorphins accompany me through most of the day. I have also been quite intentional in using these trips as a form of meditation. Ideally, I attempt to stay present in the moment. As I ride, I take in the city: appreciating the neighborhoods and the people I see, feeling my breath and my physical effort. When I allow my mind to wander, I try to focus on philosophical themes such as connection and unity, basically all the cosmopolitan aspects of the Stoic worldview. But this Thursday it was raining, and I found myself needing to do some real work to keep my mind where I wanted it.

When I woke that morning, I knew that rain was possible. The ground outside was wet from evening showers, but as I prepared for the day, it was never more than misty outside. As a Portlander, I have a fair amount of rain gear. I have multiple rain jackets. My biking shoes are waterproof. I even have a pair of water repellent pants specifically meant for rainy day bike riding, but I don't know where they are. When the arthritis stopped me from riding I put them away somewhere. The past few months have been unusually dry so I had yet to seek them out (Which reminds me that I still haven't found them. I'll probably start looking as soon as I finish writing this). When the time came to decide bike or car, I chose bike. As I said, it was only misty at present. I knew it was possible that the rain would pick up as I was biking, but I really wanted the benefits of that ride. So I went for it. Ten minutes later I was soaked.

Specifically, my pants were soaked. All the rain gear worked as intended. The denim of my jeans also worked as nature intended, it absorbed every drop that hit them until they were fully saturated. I found this distracting. The zen of bike riding rapidly became an irritation which I found less than satisfying. I was probably disturbed for around five minutes before I fully noticed the situation and decided to tackle it. What was my problem? It wasn't that it was raining. I like rain. Even in my irritated state, I was enraptured by the refreshing, earthy scent of the rain. The morning was a bit windy and gusts would blow the rain into my face, and on tree covered streets that same wind would shake harder showers down on me, but I just found that invigorating. Still I was annoyed. Why? And that's when I noticed myself imagining other people's opinions of being at work with wet pants. I wasn't upset at being rained on, I was upset at being seen as someone who had been rained on.

Once I saw my problem clearly, I quickly overcame it. After all, why be concerned about another person's opinion of me? It would be one thing if a person were disappointed in me due to immoral actions or some such, that would be instructive, but I was imagining thoughts about wet blue jeans. Who cares? I can do my work in wet pants. I can be a good person in wet pants. There's nothing about the wet or dry nature of any of my clothes that affect my character or even my usefulness to the people I'd engage with once I made it to work. Was I really going to let the opinions of others, imagined opinions at that, sap all the joy out of my bike ride that morning? What is wrong with being wet on a rainy day? After clearing those thoughts out of my head, I still had fifteen minutes to enjoy my ride and take in the uniqueness of that particular morning.

I found the ride instructive. In many areas of life, my understanding of what is and is not important guides me away from irritation, no matter if the negative opinions are real or imagined. But in this novel moment, old habits once again led me down the wrong path. I'm glad that I was observant enough to recognize I was going astray. And I'm grateful to have the skill to quickly find my way back to right thinking. Hopefully that rainy bike ride made me all the more skillful, so that I can more consistently keep on the proper path.

Being Better: A Review

Being Better: Stoicism for a World Worth Living In is a necessary and essential addition to our modern Stoic discourse. The authors, Kai Whiting and Leonidas Konstantakos, masterfully express the heart of Stoic philosophy; a philosophy that is humane, community focused, and action oriented. The book challenges us to examine our moral principles and to allow that examination to reshape our approach to others and to the world as a whole. I see Being Better as an antidote to a variety of misguided approaches to Stoicism, but to be clear, the book is not written as a polemic against anything. It is a positive presentation of a life philosophy that is concerned with life; your individual life, the life of your community, and the lives of every being that inhabits this earth. I wholeheartedly recommend this book and it is my hope that it becomes one of the first books to which new Stoics are exposed.

I preordered Being Better after watching a talk that Kai Whiting gave during one of the many online Stoicon-X events that happened during 2020. I can't recall the talk in perfect detail, but I remember that the lens through which Kai expressed his thoughts on Stoicism was one that aligns closely with what I also value in the philosophy. I have been concerned about a variety of issues within the modern Stoic movement. First, a focus on Stoic exercises and techniques that obscures the underlying reasons for undertaking such practices. Second, the rise of various caricatures of Stoicism, which either inflate certain aspects of the philosophy without acknowledging the whole, or misinterpret the philosophy in ways that lead to harm. Massimo Pigliucci has a multipart series on these issues titled $toicism, Broicism, and StoicisM, if you're interested. It sounded like Whiting and Konstantakos's book would explicitly address areas of our philosophy that I consider essential, but that are often sidelined in daily discourse. Upon receiving Being Better, I was pleased to find that my hopes for the book were met and exceeded. The authors show us a Stoicism built on guiding principles, not rules and checklists. It is not a how-to guide in the standard sense. The authors present a series of meditations on the Stoic view of life and wrestle with the implications of accepting that view. The chapters are framed around a core principle that is explored through both the life of an ancient Stoic, as well as the example of a contemporary individual who has taken actions that align with the principle in question. The chapters end with some questions to ask ourselves as we engage with what was presented. I read Being Better at a quicker pace than my usual as I hoped to review it as soon as possible. I am looking forward to a second, more leisurely read, so as to allow the book to really challenge my own practice. To quote my favorite admonition from Plotinus, "never stop sculpting your own statue."

I highly recommend Being Better to anyone who is interested in Stoicism. In particular, if you are moving beyond life hacks towards the richness of a philosophy of life, if you are seeking to flourish and to help others flourish as well, Being Better is worth your time and attention.

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Being Stoic When You Know the Future

The early Stoics believed in divination. They thought that signs from the universe could be interpreted in order to inform us of future events. I do not believe in divination, but I think that the Stoic view of the practice holds lessons that we can all apply to our lives. The most important of those lessons is this, knowledge of the future never releases us from the obligation to take virtuous actions in the present.

In the second book of Epictetus's Discourses, Chapter Seven is titled, "How should one employ Divination?" Epictetus begins this talk by saying that people tend to use divination when there's no good reason for it. The outcome of this is that, "many of us neglect many of the duties of life." He gives the example of a diviner saying that in the future you must risk your life, perhaps give your life, for a friend. Epictetus says that once you hear that, you have all the information you need. Later in his talk, Epictetus says that many people would fret about this information, or even beg the diviner to find some new signs, to change that future. He points out that all of that is both a waste of effort and a deeply unStoic response.

In Stoicism your death is indifferent, the fact of death, or life for that matter, holds no moral weight in itself. It's how you use your life, or the moment of your death, that makes it good or bad. Epictetus says that when it comes to moral actions, you don't need a prophet, you have yourself. "Have I not within me the diviner that has told me the true nature of good and evil, that has set forth the signs characteristic to both of them? What further use have I, then, of entrails, or of birds?" The diviner's art informs you of indifferent things; will the harvest be good, will you recover from sickness, will war come, or will peace remain? Morality lies in your reaction to or use of these things, and those choices are made by you alone. Epictetus gives us an aspirational example in this regard. "Wherefore, that was an admirable answer which the woman gave who wished to send a boatload of supplies to Gratilla after she had been exiled. To a man who said, 'Domitian will confiscate them,' she replies, 'I should rather have him confiscate them than myself fail to send them."

I may not believe in divination, but I do make forecasts. I have thoughts about the likely outcomes of things that I and others do, and make decisions based on those forecasts. You do as well. It is a matter of considerable importance that we do not avoid virtuous actions because we're concerned that they will be a wasted effort. Virtue is never wasted. Doing right is always right, whether or not our supplies are confiscated.

I found myself dwelling on Stoicism and Divination a bit over a week ago. I was thinking about Riot Ribs as well as the street medics that have been part of the protests here in Portland, Oregon. Riot Ribs was a mutual aid effort that provided free food to the local houseless as well as to protesters. At the same time various street medic groups have been keeping people safe by bandaging our wounds, flushing our eyes, even driving us to hospitals if necessary. I'd watch people bring donations of food, ice and such to Riot Ribs or drop of medical supplies at the first aid tents. On so many nights, the park would be overrun by Portland Police and now Federal Agents, and the cops would destroy the food and first aid equipment. They raid the tents and break things or spray chemical agents over everything; it's a common and continuing occurrence. And yet people continue to bring supplies. Just like the woman in Epictetus's discourse, Portlanders have an "admirable answer" to the whims of fortune. To add to this, Riot Ribs is no more. Some rather horrible people have made the whole effort dangerous to those who served in good conscience, so they had to shut down the project and reenvision it. Still, the kindhearted efforts of the cooks and those that donated remain the right thing to do. The end of a project does not retroactively stain their virtuous efforts.

Good planning is important. We have to have some vision of the future to guide our present actions. But no vision of tomorrow should cause us to do less good today. Virtue is, in actuality, its own reward. Epictetus had a name for those who kept asking question after question about the future, he labeled them cowards. He said they feared consequences. He pointed out that if you came to a fork in the road and asked someone which one to take, you shouldn't wish for an answer of right or left, but for the one that gets you to your destination. The Stoic destination is to do good, to be a virtuous person. There is no circumstance in which we can not enact virtue. And we must enact virtue whenever the opportunity arises. Whether we truly know the future, or only hazard a guess, our present should be focused on doing the right thing.