Reasoned Life Book Chapter.

In the desert

I saw a creature, naked, bestial,

Who, squatting upon the ground,

Held his heart in his hands,

And ate of it.

I said, “Is it good, friend?”

It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;


But I like it

Because it is bitter,

And because it is my heart.”


-Stephen Crane


There I was at the end of my rope, thinking I would pray for deliverance, something unique and beneficial for just me. I could use some help, feeling long on truth and short on providence. We’ve all hit that low-water mark at some point in our lives, when providence seems far away and no solution seems probably. I wanted some kind of divine intervention in my life, something of a surprise, and I thought, like some say, that I might use my force of will to precipitate something of a miracle in my life. But I remembered others who had suffered through unemployment, eviction, car repossessed by the bank, and other maladies. I thought to myself, “am I any more deserving?” I could make the case of my unique qualities, but I know too, those other people had their own unique qualities. They suffered, and there was no justice or judgment visible to the naked eye in their sufferings. Never mind what they did behind closed doors. So I abandoned the case of my own unique and deserving qualities. In that, there was kind of an embracing of despair, but not to the extent that I could not appreciate the sunshine, or enjoy the company of my peers.

It wasn’t that I deserved it, or didn’t deserve it, as I was not aware of any kind of view of a cosmic balance with my end coming up on the low side, but that it was just a collision of various things at around the same time that all coincided in somewhat of a downturn in my life on many fronts. And think of it that a downturn or setback in one aspect seems not so significant if everything else is going on fairly well, or if some of the trees bare fruit, we might not turn our backs on the orchard entirely, but set aside time maybe to work with those less productive trees. However, this time, it was a lot of unproductive trees in my orchard of life, and I was seemingly at their mercy, powerless, without a quick way to providence. Therefore, without a nearby solution, I could anticipate or wish or hope for a further solution, something to carry the day that was before entirely unanticipated, something like maybe a rich uncle that I had never heard of, or a bank error in my favor, or something of that nature.

It was hard times, and a softened person might be just right to pass through a tough squeeze between the proverbial rock and hard place, might squeeze to fit just right and get through. A soft person can fit through, like the proverbial sapling that bends, as opposed to the mighty tree that breaks in the wind. Tough money, tough love, sickness of family members, and house repairs: seemingly everything its own insurmountable situation, but the rub that none were pressing particularly hard on a given day, not pressing into some undesirable course of action, but pressing to an extent nonetheless. It was worry enough, in its totality, without one thing coming forward to dominate, and enough that one might be robbed of his peace.

I felt it was a necessary acceptance of a hard reality. To be in denial, or even maniacally happy in the face of tough times is unreasonable, but here I could bring my reason with me without feeling too down in the balance. I could be in the middle of whatever, and all that mattered essentially, in my mind, was my opinion on the matter; I could self-talk my way into a rage or a depression, or I could bend in that breeze, and when the torment has passed, I come back to a straightened, upright form, just like the little sapling. I had observed the contrary state, where ordinary things are obsessed and made objects of intense worry and doubt. People could go through their lives perpetually unhappy, yelling in traffic, being rude to strangers, and generally growing the fruits of their own internal worry tree. We could obsess and drive ourselves around in mad circles over the least of things. Or we could be more honest and true to reality, true to our own internal state, and true to our long-term well being. We could retain our reason, and in that, retain our perspective and our mood. Indeed, if the person cleaning the floor in your house hates that task, then something is out of line. Maybe someone else in the house might actually not hate the task, might even take pride in the job every time after its finished. There might be someone who can step in when another is tired, our act when another is unsure. But if it were you cleaning the floor, and you hated it; conditions would suffer, and if the floor didn’t suffer, then surely the mindset of the cleaning person would suffer as time went by.

Just wondering, I was, if something from without would improve my situation, with no easy fix readily at hand. It was mid-morning in a little town with exactly one traffic light. I was driving along near the entrance to the road that lead to my own house, making my way homewards, and I looked to the sky, but not only then, I felt some of the worry slide somehow within. In the stark light of the morning, things felt clear, unfettered, that scales had been removed, all the unnecessary trapping and little details had melted away, and my table was not empty, quite, because on it sat only the truth, and no extra baubles or things to distract. Sometimes and some circumstances, to supposedly as it is said, “to have nothing”, can be a blessing because there is nothing borrowing the attention, and all the of the extraneous is melted away, so that only the truth can be seen.

One could separate out each thing and take it for something not totally bad, but going bad, getting progressively worse, but not at the fail-safe point yet. There was cold comfort that the day was nothing and there was also no solutions at hand for things to come; its like being forced to waited for a prolonged failure, knowing it was coming and watching it in slow-elapsing, but being otherwise powerless to stop it.

So many of us are cursed that way, or making it work one piece at a time, all busy patching this or that as needed; its probably a fairly common way to live, and can only be taken one day at a time. The thing was, we were either waiting for these failures, or distracted on some errand, there was that and no real in-between unless something quickly went wrong all at once and had to be dealt with immediately. Surely it was common, that we either fix it or put ourselves at the mercy of someone else, and that too a Stoic way, that to do it oneself caused less worry, no matter how daunting. Personally speaking, I was always surprised when enlisted help actually came through with a win for me, it was something of inherited Stoic principle of “negative visualization”, anticipating the worst scenario in one’s imagination, making a sort of educated projection of failure at every turn, which could leave one in a pretty good mood when it went the other way.

Indeed, when predicting failure and then being proven wrong, one can find oneself all too glad to have been proven wrong; such is the way of winning in either circumstance. The reality of such projections and outcomes are far less skewed either way, and though somewhat even, not a matter such of pure chance. One can study on things.

As far as chance goes, one stymies that by doing a little research, collecting information, and we do not explicitly impart this to the whim of the universe. We also don’t believe the universe entirely indifferent to our plight, necessarily.

In the Stoic realm, we believe in a higher force, a “guiding principle”, almost as if God were thought itself. But who knows, we might be God’s thoughts. Aurelius, as a good Roman of the Imperial era, believed in a cadre of gods with one chief among them, a father figure that had the bulk of power and control. In modern times, Allah and Yahweh are everywhere, and Yahweh in the English-speaking word has the German name “God”, from the word “Gott”. There is something with a plan at work, something higher than man, other than man, and as Aurelius believed, that something dictates rules of nature. And the Stoic believes, without knowing all of it, that nature functions within rules, because the true Stoic learns and has at some point read books and, or listened to lengthy lectures at the Stoa, which was sort of like exclusive Tedtalks of its own day.

But there I was at the end of my rope…..

I felt at once a whole being, I was driving along, almost out of gas, almost out of money, a few empty hours ahead of me. I stared out the truck window at the most beautiful morning sky, and this before rainclouds came.

Everything was coinciding, the rainy weather, the empty hours, the downcast turn of mind, and the feeling of one-ness with nature, to lead me to a reading of Marcus Aurelius. He more than some of the others, espoused some unique scientific ideals, where the others talked more on human conduct. Here I aim to probe some of those things, add to and cast them in a haze of modernity, some 1800 years after the time of the wise old emperor, the man who reminded himself of his own finite nature, mortal, weak and fallible.

-a child of despair, sitting in a world of poo, a world of soil, a world of water, and maybe yet, I could, through some process, emerge and bloom as a beautiful “son flower”, a man child product of the world that was not depressed or dejected, not especially jubilant over mere existence, but not down at all, not to be said to be down, but in bloom, and for whatever it meant, for good or ill, committed at least to being; but so to do the panhandlers beside the road, for a time, commit to being and they are under that same sky, just as Solomon said, “it rains on the just and the unjust.”

We are still those kinds of people, despite a lot of what we’re being told, and sometimes we’re encouraged one way or the other, sometimes rightly or maybe even wrongly lead towards things, but we still have that finite nature, the little space of life-years, and all of it, decrepitude: aging, life events, reminding us of our own limitations. We can be guided or influenced, and in that, we are on a sort of “side quest” of life, with its own emotional arch, its own beginning and end, and that too, vanity? Nothingness? Waste of time? Or is it the substance of life writ large? Is it what makes life worth any undue pain or unhappiness?

Something to make memories. Something to look back on later in fondness.

So we contend, with our own little wants and needs and internal specifications, capacities, and learning, fruits of various practices and advice from our peer group. We contend and go at life by just breathing, and to think so many fight so much harder, and for not that much at all, but to prove they can, and like they say, to “exercise the muscles” just as one might climb a mountain simply “because it is there”.

That doing is its own object of pride, and the job well done is a merit badge, something to be looked back on later. We’ve built our own little resume as time goes on, with our own experiences, either good or ill, our own victories and failures. We might come out of it with a perpetually bad knee, or only a few temporary scrapes.

We need not dejectedly dwell on our limitations, but use them as a guideline for our daily conduct, a sight line or ruler’s edge, a straight edge that shapes our own existence. I mean, really, look around. We’ve seen supposed superhuman individuals in all walks, in sports, science, entertainment, and all of it is very human, despite a certain unusual quality, despite rarity. Perhaps the key is to know how not to make a hard bump against one’s own limitations, but instead anticipate and plan around limitations. Da Vinci and Van Gogh had their own limitations, but they also harnessed their strengths and focused on the work they wanted to do. But Van Gogh suffered greatly for his beautiful art, sitting in the sun for hours, in a fevered state of mind, will painting everyday things like haystacks or farmhouses.

But the point is, it was beautiful art, and Van Gogh, to an extent, not only believed in his own art, but also suffered to an extent. In that, maybe he felt called to realize a unique vision, or impelled to show people something different. In his passion, he was left with not much else, but at least he seemed to hold true to that vision, but then, so did Dr Jack Kevorkian, who killed terminally ill patients. But then I would hate to think I had only one purpose, to boil myself down to one little task, and everything else, even shaving in the morning or mowing my grass, somehow fed into that one task of purpose that hanged over me.

On the phenomenal, perhaps it could be said everyone possesses some phenomenal quality, whether it is ever revealed or not, some unique talent or skill, whether it is put to use or not, whether it is developed or not. And we all have something, every one of us, whether we ever see it, though sometimes at the oddest times, our talents have a way of finding us, while yet others build something out of seemingly nothing and make a nothing almost a talent, our they build a talent on and on over years, like an athlete training continually, or a painter going through phases.

I could get bogged down in the minutia of self-care and think my purpose was more to keep myself alive than anything else, forgetting some larger purpose, which would be something remotely artistic. Keeping myself alive trumps all, and then, thinking of Van Gogh’s passion and suffering at painting the countryside, sunburns and maybe some dehydration on warm days.

Think of what we are shown, what stays in the global conversation, in a media constantly digesting and agitating.

For instance, the running man or woman who crosses the finish line first, is but one of many that will cross that finish line, such as the way with a marathon through a city course, one finishes first, and we put that person on a pedestal, but so many cross that line in the space of an hour or two.

One of our curses in society is our tendency to put a handful of people above everyone else, and we let everyone else submerge themselves onto a treadmill of a supposedly “dead-end job”, apartment rents and expensive cars that have all of the newest features. And to think what we are sold as life goals, and so many in modernity turning from that, aiming not for a high-paying job, but aiming for free time to enjoy a life. Meanwhile, I’m endlessly in my own thoughts which makes in and of itself neither free-time nor high-paying work, and not really a purpose, but a sort of going on about any and everything under the sun, everything in my view, and wondering of some I’ve never seen nor heard of. But they’ve found free time, perhaps what they call free time, for their own thoughts, but I suspect its something of binge-watching or something, mistrusting the common way, and the work environment being what it is, one can’t blame them for wanting to be home, however.

They sell us so much on phenomenalism in the popular narrative though, in various circles, of sports, the arts, popular entertainment, and so on, even cooking gaining a certain common glamour and entertainment value, and experiences being sold. And of experiences, in the first year of the Covid-19 Pandemic, 3 million people took and completed a happiness course offered by Harvard University through the Coursera online learning platform. One of the happiness truths that came from the course was that experiences such as vacations or social outings were more memorable and satisfying in the long-term than buying things. It begins to hint that, like a glacier coming over the horizon, that many are disgusted and dissatisfied with commercialism. The rise of commercial-free pay streaming television services speaks to that, largely, aside from the general nuisance of sitting through endless advertisements, speaking to people tired of commercially-entangled news networks and things like popular politics.

I was at the end of my rope, that morning, but I wasn’t comparing myself to anyone, per se. The Stoic Seneca would probably have said that comparing oneself to someone else is like trying to rank failures from least to greatest. I didn’t declare myself a failure because I was not a millionaire. I felt something of my true nature, my own little pinpoint on the scale of life, my own little place in the universe, driving along, staring out the windshield at a beautiful mid-morning sky. Objectively, I was accustomed to being without many things, and not wine or other things would make me re-evaluate my self-worth, but rather might make me mistrust myself if I had enjoyed it. I have to think, indeed, in each our own way, we deny ourselves a lot of things, while indulging in so many other things: a victory over Dunkin’ Donuts might be a loss to Breyer’s Ice Cream, or the old fake proverb about the Ding Dongs and the Ho-Ho’s.

So there I was looking at a cloud-strewn sky, rain coming sometime, but not yet, and the pure of the truck engine and the rising heat of a Dog Day morning. Nature was speaking, itself as real as a hammer-squashed thumb, and at once also as comfortable as a fuzzy blanket; and my mind was kind of casually feeling its way, while maybe even looking for patterns in the clouds and other sundry things of no consequence. Meanwhile my questions had an answer somewhere in there that was just waiting to reveal itself like the beautiful cumulus and cumulo-nimbus clouds in the sky overhead.

It was like the old story of the alcoholic that had a clear moment, even in a haze of drink, and the alcoholic could see his life and everything around him clearly, objectively, and without distracting emotion. One could look from the outside at one’s own life, as it were a butterfly pinned to cork on an examining tray under hard light. I say “hard light” rather than “harsh light”, because the key is truthfulness, a workable interpretation of functional elements, a clear appraisal of emotional integrity, and not the “harsh light” which might be taking a uniformly negative perspective on things. One could know the beginning, project the ending, analyze costs and timelines, all at once, if one concentrates.

The clear moment is a valid and valuable novelty in a world of endless entertainment and advertising pitches, and one is best served to listen to it without scrambling for a viewing screen or headphones, but heed the rational word of the universe. But who knows, maybe the rational word of the universe pervades even the deluge of entertainment that comes to us all day, every day. And such is the way, that one can have a clear thought, or clear chain of thought, but also at once be said to be listening to the universe, or heeding the universe, as it were, and I had but to see the sky to feel that compass reset. So much just melted away, and I was just me, myself, renewed, maybe even with some low level of hope lurking just below the surface, without my conscious awareness of it.











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