Science is, even today, measuring and trying to make sense of the
interconnectedness of things.
A reaction here, has a reaction there, but why? It is measurable,
confirmed by science, and only now penetrating the edge of scientific
thought.
Seemingly unconnected, far-flung elements of the universe effect one
another, almost like the Butterfly Effect. The Butterfly Effect
states that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings produces unforeseen
effects a world away.
Science has basically observed it, and has measurable proof.
At work are “dimensions”, strings that hold dimensions of the
universe together that we are only now becoming but dimly aware of.
Another writer on a blog post of all things described the universe,
or the emerging concept of the universe as “a two-dimensional
hologram”. But the prismatic qualities of the hologram promise a
number of new dimensional aspects of the universe, all previously
unknown.
And in all this talk of death and depression, we can look at
staggering numbers, stillborn babies, drug-addicted youths, depressed
and suicidal teenagers; behind the numbers we can imply a commonality
in the condition, the same way some people ham-handedly postulate
that all adults have bipolar disorder, or that all children are
autistic. We may chase the tail of these aspects around the
shirttails of everyone, and in that, we either lose faith in
humanity, identify something lacking in modern life, or, perhaps,
fall into grim, reserved acceptance of seemingly common maladies.
Our lasting legacy of death might itself appear two-dimensional, for
man to be made to disappear beneath the top soil, down, down into the
grave, and in that respect, science is just now getting a glimpse of
what is real and true, and not just the smaller principles of the
universe.
I had that moment of larger awareness when I realized no other
person I could point to seemed deserving of hardship, and so often
the more fortunate seem to have it by chance than planning or effort.
If there were a galactic balance of fortune, I am not and was not
aware of it; I could only but observe. I know what I had seen, as
there is the old line about “there is no suffering that is not
common to man”, and think of even Bible stories like Job, in which
poor Job suffered so much within and without, seemingly losing
everything: his wealth, home, children, and the respect of his wife.
One could note that it was a punishment for the eternal enemy to keep
Job’s wife alive after she had given up respecting him, that her
jeers and other manners would be a torment to the man, and that on
top and after all of the other.
In the midst of his trials, he was asked to forsake his principles,
his faith in God, and contrastingly, he was also told he had sinned
against God, though he had not. He went to neither concepts and
retained his faith through it all, despite his suffering and the
disputing of his so-called friends. One could see his faith was not
based on his wealth or anything material, but in something above all
of that, and no amount of earthbound trickery or tragedy could shake
him. Of course, if your faith is built on good fortune, then you
surely think less on it when times are worse. As was my sight lines
on that sunny morning, that my faith was not in good fortune, but in
a guiding principle, which is in my case the Hebrew Lord of Hosts,
Yahweh.
One could take the Coronavirus Pandemic as an ultimate reminder of
our commonality, with the mass infections, mass-shutdowns and the
huge vaccination campaign. Why, simply the tonnage of resources
devoted to developing the vaccines among the several companies
amounts to enough of a commonality, without pointing to more than a
million dead, or untold millions having been infected at least once.
There were trucks filled with bodies in hospital parking lots:
mass-infection, widespread sickness, the threat of death made more
prominent, and a large more pervasive fear of infection. We had but
to witness the lobby areas of buildings where people with paper masks
went to and fro, or glimpse empty parking lots. And as a
psychological curiosity, we have something of a lost generation that
missed an entire year of schooling, and then after, sat behind
plexi-glass and paper masks to be instructed.
We look at separate stars in one sky: maybe that’s more us,
separate people united by conditions, swimming along in the same
stream or in the same fishbowl, figures on a common field contending
life among various other forces. Aurelius uses the stone in the
stream analogy quite a bit, noting a single person, himself, as a
stone in the stream, and he is but to sit in the stream. But think
too that the stone is worn smooth, shaped by its experience, as it
sits somewhat obstinate. Aurelius tells us that the eroding and
shaping of each of us is part of us being made more and more with
time, to conform and co-exist with nature.
Look at the conduct of the stone in the stream. It is still, not
moving, which I mention as being obstinate. But it is there and in
the stream, so it is not wholly separate, and there in lies so much
of the science of Aurelius. He proposes a guiding principle in
charge, and various forces acting on the world proper, and he
proposes that this is common to all people. Remember, we’re there,
in the stream, being acting upon, and we erode worse when we flail,
just like the story of the sapling and the mighty large tree, we can
bend or break. The stone can seem to have something almost
approaching Eastern wisdom in its inactivity, its passivity, which,
passivity, Aurelius reminds us can be good or bad.
The finer point would be too somewhat passively take action, or not
figuratively cloudy the waters when doing something in life. There
are so many of us now in this ecosystem, so many to sit in the cloudy
water wondering which person messed it up this time. Consider too,
that so much of the world was yet unknown in the good emperor’s
day, and his empire owned or controlled much of what was known of the
world at the time.
However, in our own day the Coronavirus might be the stream, and
ourselves the stone, when fear, death and disease run rampant and our
common mortality is laid bare. To be too passive in such an instance
seems to forsake precautions, but truly to be acted upon by the
stream is to indeed take precautions. One could run oneself mad with
circular logic in such an instance, and that among the concerns
against infection and possible early demise; we were shown so much of
the changes of the world, and that simply to burn television air
time. Nevertheless, the stone is indeed acted upon by the stream so
there is a low-level of response to the outer world dictated by the
stone analogy, and we simply react, not totally unlike anyone else,
but with marked passivity.
And in that, we’re not saying that death is an unnecessary evil or
anything of the kind, for all that lives eventually dies, but we’re
not bidden to bring about our own end without some kind of necessity
bearing. The Stoic is not suicidal or hopeful of death, per se, but
rather acknowledging the inevitably of death.
There is a genre of art, things called “vanitas” and “memento
mori”, reminders of death that we are to bare before our eyes to
keep reminding us of death, so that at some point, hopefully we’re
desensitized enough not to dread it, but realize it is an expected
and thusly necessary function of life. This is as if to say, “to
all things: a beginning and an ending”.
Death of course, in the modern financed and legally-entangled world
requires planning, and there are estate specialist attorneys and
probate judges to deal with, always seemingly a family member coming
forth with questions of inheritance or final wishes. Probably the
most Stoic thing I’ve encountered regarding death is the “pre-paid
funeral” and the impetus to reserve cemetery plots before one’s
passing. Even in that, modern man lives financed and finances his
own death early, and industries are built around that, as part of the
endless pursuit of funding from the world at large. Indeed, an odd
moment it might be for a man or woman to choose his own burial
casket, maybe even run his hands across the surface.
Death and finance reminds me of another aspect of this marked
honesty in Stoicism, and that is how to profit from downturns when
you are sure a downturn is coming. There were tales of stock deals
and so forth by congress members, people who knew what legislation
was coming, and anticipating how it would effect the markets. One
prominent congressman supposedly made millions in the weeks prior to
many of the Coronavirus lock-downs pervading the nation in 2020, and
then the tapping of the national crude oil reserves. It seems to be
illegal “insider trading”, using privileged information for the
purpose of trading, but this is of course, an instance of profit
generated by a foreseen downturn.
Stoic passivity does not mean we do not react at all, but rather act
within reason, acting on that anticipation. A Stoic stock trader for
instance, does not deny the approach of downturns but makes ready,
and that’s the entire point of “remembering the inevitability of
death”. The Stoic does indeed react, but in the name of preserving
his peace of mind, he prepares himself. Why else the marked
negativity of remembering death? Such is all for the sake of
preparation, and tempering oneself in the face of reality.
Stoicism is at bottom, just a system of thought, or taken that way,
where Aurelius hinted that it seemed to explain the universe at
large. By contrast, the other Stoic figures of his time were
preoccupied with human conduct, rules of conduct, rather than systems
of science. However, with only hints from Aurelius, he is quite
clear that pretty much everything in the universe, including the
ruling principle, is interconnected, and some ways, one and the same.
Existence, and death being a fact of existence is like a
legionnaire’s tattoo that we all bear. Inscripted and conscripted
to come screaming into this world, we are, and many will leave just
as toothless and fearful as the were when they came originally.
Consider Marcus. In a republic where there is a representation of
the people in leadership, we so often expect and maybe even deserve
some sort of reflection of ourselves in our appointed leaders, though
only nepotism explained the appointing of Marcus Aurelius, the good
Stoic emperor, and not so much other. But an orphan Stoic
philosopher, probably quiet, soft-spoken, gentle, somehow for the
era, either reflecting the time, but maybe more aptly, time
reflecting him, and with only illusions of love and incursions from
the barbarians to the north to deflect.
How much might Marcus have reflected the attitudes and general
demeanor, the running line of talk, of the Rome of his day, and in
turn how much might his own actions have influenced the people? It
seemed his son was quite opposite of him, a brutish fighter and
hunter, seemingly of choice the opposite of his father. I could
imagine Marcus sending the lad outside to make his own play while the
good emperor was at study, but might there have been some reaction of
the boy, something of making like karmic amends for his father’s
remarkably gentle qualities?
Such is our interconnection, that one soul might establish a balance
when taken with another, and its not as much a rebuke, as the balance
seems not overly judgmental, and placid and blank as the average
nighttime sky. Or in one family, one soul might establish a sense of
balance with another, particularly between children and parents, or
between siblings. That is to say, if one were overmuch something,
the other acts as a counterbalance. This is our cosmopolitan thread
of connection, that these balances are somewhere in the mind observed
and acted upon most often without our conscious realization.
Today we have a collision of various worldviews, and that in a
supposed pluralistic nation like old Rome. Lifestyles are made
agendum items for elected officials, and if you disagree morally with
a lifestyle, you simply vote against it. Such is a dangerous way, to
legislate one’s lifestyle, and leave no room for the alternatives.
Somehow freedom has taken a different and dangerously hostile face.
Consider that the old Romans had statues from various religions
side-by-side in the street, and the thoroughfare was a place where
almost anyone could worship. Eventually came the mad emperors who
declared themselves gods, and with them, there was no room for
debate. Many Christians died for not making an oath to the emperor’s
godly nature. Such is the way of tyranny, that it comes down to a
central ideal that is broadcast, spread like manure on a plow-field,
growing only hatred and mistrust of various differences in society.
In America’s modern two-party system, there always seems a
contradictory view, no matter which side is right or wrong, and this
is by nature the dualistic colors of the beast with which Americans
are dealt. When one is right, then the other takes the opposing view
by its very nature, and if they don’t, the organization, they face
labels of false loyalties.
If only the various shades of gray in the intricacies of life were
settled with but a vote, a slip of paper dropped into a box.
However, a reasoned life dictates the comparison of various points
of view. There must be some kind of use of reason, an examination of
various things. We could hold painted glass to the sky and admire
the colors, and we could do this to no end, long after our retinas
had fried into darkness. And often times it would seem in matters of
politics and the plurality that the well-reasoned individual should
abstain from judgment; indeed, the very debate choices may be bad or
lack sense to the reasoned individual.
Consider the following. Conquered citizens of the empire forced by
law to pledge an oath attesting to the godly qualities of the
conqueror. In modernity, this is paled by various concepts of
freedom that we hold dear, but modern political parties nearly
promise this same tyranny through a soft coalescing behind a given
individual in a campaign for national office. At some point, debates
are either settled or set aside for another day and professional
advocates come into play, paid to endorse and defend rhetorically,
not ideas, but people.
We would be better to devote our ideals and actions towards the more
functional things, like procuring food and so forth, and let those
political operatives go ignored, but its their job to get us to pay
attention. Indeed, the reasoned man can maintain distance, even if
the situation necessitated action like the taking up of arms; that
distance is the maintaining of his own reason, his own moral clarity
and evaluations. Such is to say that a good soldier may always
follow orders, but he has to evaluate those orders against standards
of conduct, including his own personally-held standards.
Politics could be likened to a smoky room. Staying inside, in the
debate, chokes one, stifles one, and one may begin to be effected
otherwise. The reasoned individual knows to leave the fray and find
fresh air, such as the old Shakespeare saying that discretion is the
better part of valor.
We have enough basic minutia to worry about, like food and
transportation, to borrow our focus from larger political issues.
But there are times when an issue speaks enough to incite one to
action, and then we have to doubly and trebly evaluate our premises.
Indeed it was said that evil rules when good men do nothing; some
wise man said that, a politician or a rhetorician. But to worry
about the basic necessities is generally cause enough, fresh air, for
any citizen being called to politics.
Imagine the tadpoles sometimes found in freshwater streams. These
seem part of schools or trains, but upon further examination, these
are more independent. Any time you would see them acting in concert,
its a reaction to the current of water, and little else; these retain
some independence. Indeed, each worries of his own feedings and so
forth. That baseline instinctual element of reason can call one back
to coherence, if only on a most rudimentary level. Think of soldiers
of the American Civil War, cut-off from supply chains and beginning
to starve; many found impetus enough to leave the fray, and set down
their guns. And that much has always been common enough to keep men
to a certain baseline dignity, a certain baseline of activity and
judgment in which he would be hard-pressed to do something that
knowingly destroys him.
When Rome burned at Nero’s order, the tide of judgment turned
against him. He blamed others for the burning, but historicity has
held fast. Somewhere something clicked in the minds of the populace,
that whether or not he had the support of an army, he would need to
be stopped sooner rather than later. Had he burned an army barracks,
perhaps he would have fell sooner, to make the matter more clear to
the legions, to bring it into a proper focus.
Simply observe the so called “school” of tadpoles or any fishes,
and watch them all move likewise to a current. This is not blind
“group think” but a reasoned reaction to currents in the water,
and the individual has retained some sort of judgment. Currents will
push the troupe this way or that, and it will seem like they are
moving in synchronous motion, but its the water, a common,
instinctual reaction that pushes them along. It is the baseline of
reason to want to stay alive; its no wonder that with basic needs
cared for, people simply decide they want to die now and then. The
impetus towards survival is not observed.
Need we then also mention a common origin, in order to tie ourselves
together? Was a time there were not nations, nor intermingling
races, but wandering tribes. Even then, they only reacted in part to
a tandem impulse, but kept the survival instinct burning bright.
