The Stoic Present: So Slender an Object

Don't panic before the picture of your entire life. Don't dwell on all the troubles you've faced or have yet to face, but instead ask yourself as each trouble comes, "What is so unbearable or unmanageable in this?"  Your reply will embarrass you. Then remind yourself that it's not the future or the past that bears down on you, but only the present. Always the present, which becomes an even smaller thing when isolated in this way and when the mind that cannot bear up under so slender an object is chastened.

Marcus Aurelius, The Emperor's Handbook 8:36

The stoic mindset is rooted in the present. The present is, after all, the only place where we can exercise mastery over what is in our control. The past is fixed and untouchable. The future is unknown. As one of my go-to Seneca quotes puts it, "These two things must be cut away: fear of the future, and the memory of past sufferings. The latter no longer concern me, and the future does not concern me yet." How much of our present stress is actually found in the present? Our worries come from an imagined future. Our shame comes from a past we can not change. If we put those intrusive thoughts aside and examine the present moment, what are we left with? I'd wager that 99% of the time, whatever distress remains is manageable. 

I used to live under the burden of the future. For years I doubt an hour went by in which I didn't create some calamity in my head. That toxic habit contributed to an anxiety/depression spiral that nearly killed me. It took additional years of practice to learn to stop damaging myself that way. Even now, I'm a very skilled doom predictor. Thankfully, I'm able to recognize and dismiss these fantasies as what the are, a piss poor use of the human mind.

Marcus Aurelius had similar issues. In Book 7, the emperor admonishes himself in quick succession with three statements:

• Wipe out the imagination.
• Stop pulling the strings.
• Confine yourself to the present.

It seems Aurelius was more than capable of imagining his own bad endings. He probably had a lot of help from historical examples, being the Roman emperor and all. Aurelius kept reminding himself that panicking before the tyranny of the future was foolish, because nothing he foresaw was real. He needed to stop what-if-ing and pay attention to the present, where he could actually affect change.

Thoughts of the future are a subtle trap. It doesn't do us any good to pretend tomorrow isn't coming, after all*. But we don't just think, "I need to do x and y before tomorrow, and not forget to bring z." Instead, we create stories and invest emotionally in them. We live out fights at work that never come to pass. Our pulse races at imagined rejections. And worse yet, by pouring energy into these fantasies, our mind often writes that effort off as work actually done. We check the box on a confrontation with our spouse that never happened, only to rage all the more when the thing we never addressed happens again!

Live in the slender present. Drop the heavy stress of your imagination and do the lighter work that's here for you in the real world.  It's freeing because, in the present, we find that we're capable people. And by doing the work of the present, we prepare ourselves for the actual future that will arrive. That's the best we get; the chance to fully participate in our own lives.

*Yes, we Stoics often take time to recognize that we could die at any instant, but it's still our duty to fulfill our tasks until the real end comes.

The Stoic News Cycle

Whenever some disturbing news is reported to you, you ought to have ready at hand the following principle: News, on any subject, never falls within the sphere of the moral purpose.

-Epictetus' Discourses 3.18.1

Urgency fuels so much of modern life. We need to know that, have that, or respond to that now. Alerts vibrate phones 24/7 and it's unlikely any of us make it through the day without someone saying, "did you hear about..." Without the right response to this environment, it's easy to get our blood pressure rising.

Epictetus's quote up top is pretty definitive. News, by its very nature, does not concern our moral purpose. From a stoic point of view that's rather obvious. I still found it striking. I guess the constant bombardment of modern media has left me a bit blind to my habituated response. It's very easy to play along with the narrative of urgency and concern that is spouted every day. To the stoic mind, however, all news is indifferent news.

Epictetus continues, "can anyone bring you word that you have been wrong in an assumption or in a desire? -By no means." No one can see into your inner thoughts. They can't tell you if you're acting through virtue or vice. For us Stoics, virtue is the only good and vice the only evil, so where's that leave news? News is indifferent, firmly in the camp of thing we can not control. 

And Epictetus doesn't pull punches. He goes on to say, "but he can bring you news that someone is dead. Very well, what is that to you? That someone is speaking ill of you. Very well, what is that to you?" His point is that no news, however personal, can dictate your judgments for you. In the case of news like the death of a friend, only you can decide how to respond. In the case of someone else disparaging you, that vicious act is on them. It's their evil, why would it affect you? The stoic viewpoint doesn't extinguish the significance of such events, it simply frees us to respond appropriately to the news.

I've had a lot of time to think about my daughter, who's arriving in a few short weeks. My wife and I have dealt with some rough news from doctors, received more information than was really helpful, and lived with the constant joy that at each check-up the little girl has been doing the best we can hope for. I could easily feel weighed down right now, if I had been constantly inflating the weight of what I know with my images of the worst outcomes. Why would I do that? I can instead find joy in all the moments we've had knowing our daughter even in the womb. I can take information and prepare for the future in a reasonable way. I can love my daughter, knowing that love doesn't require me to protect her from an imagined future. In fact, such an approach deprives my daughter and wife of my presence. I'd be spending my thoughts on a dream life. Neither dreams nor nightmares deserve my investment. Love asks me to be fully present now.

I think there's more here than I can find time to say. I suppose I'll return to it later. In any case, Discourses 3.18 is worth a read. It's definitely modern advice, even if it's from around 60 C.E. 

Citizen of the World

Let us take hold of the fact that there are two communities — the one, which is great and truly common, embracing gods and humans, in which we look neither to this corner nor to that, but measure the boundaries of our citizenship by the sun; the other, the one to which we have been assigned by the accident of our birth.

-Seneca

The ancient Stoics were the first known Western philosophy to advocate cosmopolitanism, the idea that we are citizens of the world. They insisted that rational beings are bonded through our similar needs and goals and, therefore, we should live for the well being of all. Stoicism is meant to expand our affection for one another until there is no one who is "other." Epictetus states in Discourses 2.10 that a Stoic will, "hold nothing as profitable to himself and deliberate about nothing as if he were detached from the community, but act as the hand or foot would do, if they had reason and understood the constitution of nature, for they would never put themselves in motion nor desire anything, otherwise than with reference to the whole." The Stoic perspective is a communal and universal one. Many of our exercises, e.g. The View From Above, serve to bake that all encompassing worldview into our mind. It is, therefore, the duty of every Stoic to reject the constant othering that society perpetuates and instead accept all people as they are.

When we consider ourselves "right," we consider ourselves better. At least, that's what online conversations about opposing political parties, religious views, and the like seem to suggest. Did you know that everyone else is an idiot at best, evil at worst? Twitter and Facebook sure do. We live in a world that comes together through exclusion. Stoics are not meant to think that way. We should not believe ourselves better, we should believe ourselves blessed.

Actually, I'd prefer to call myself fortunate, but blessed made for decent alliteration. I am fortunate to be practicing a philosophy that brings such contentment. Not everyone has the same foundation to stand on. Marcus Aurelius told himself to, "begin each day by telling yourself: Today I will be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness - all of this due to the offenders' ignorance of what is good and what is evil." Stoics believe wrong action comes from ignorance of a better way.  Ignorance is unfortunate, and sometimes tragic, but it's not worth disparaging those who are ignorant. In fact, Epictetus considered forbearance of others intimately linked to Stoicism's central tenets.

Let me state once again the basic rule of our philosophy: the greatest harm a person can suffer is the loss of his most valuable possession, his Reason. The harm he creates for himself is not transferred to others. Therefore, there is no reason for others to become angry because a person commits a crime against himself.

Discourses 1.18.1-10

I address this because there is a tendency among armchair philosophers to build up their "wisdom" by disparaging others. Practicing Stoics should be outside of that conversation. Aurelius said, "People exist for the sake of one another. Teach them then, or bear with them." Bear with them. It isn't even a high calling. We're not being asked to hold a Free Hugs sign. We're being asked to live as Stoics.

The ideals of Stoicism are perfectly suited for the world in which we're living. They've just been sadly under utilized since 300 B.C.E. Stoic cosmopolitanism demands more than lip service. Stoics engage with the world. Our philosophy was born in the public square, and it's meant to stay there. That engagement has to stem from virtue. We're not meant to be protesters waving signs in people's faces telling them they're wrong. We're meant to be building something true and lasting; adding to the well being of our local and global community. Find contentment in wisdom itself, not in the tangential belief that Stoicism means you're on the right side. Bear this life as a Stoic.