The Reasoned Life Chapter 3, a book I wrote last year....

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.