Stoic Life.

Stoicism: Participating in Life.

All of us were created for "the pastorage of a common field."  

contents

Dealing with Negativity

Stoic Virtues

Stoic Practice

Additional Principles

 

.......if the daemon does not match the muse's energy, 

........as if to low on his side, 

........then its like watching a television show

as opposed to participating in life.

But what, the daemon out-pacing the energy of the muse?  Is it possible?  Then, likely you wind up, like a Roomba, self-propelled, without proper impetus.

The proper impetus keeps us in line, as is said, "right reason".

Symmetry between the daemon and the muse, as is said, “right reason”, synchronization with the WORLD AROUND YOU and the WORLD WITHIN.

Otherwise, what do we find, but addictions, or the absence of health, or our freedom haphazardly discarded?

Such, to wit, all things work together for the greater good, just as all around the Christian believer points to God’s grace in glory ahead. Locomotive force, impetus, drive, determination.

“Right reason” is not a pre-written plan, necessarily, though we recommend scheduling yourself, setting times and places on things, but “right reason” is kind of an intermesh with the world around one.

If “right reason” referred to us being deliberate and circumspect, well-thought-out in our actions, then we ignore the possibility that we may be wrong.

Look at the ideals of the Western World, and how these few basic items spawn so many courses of life even within the same land.  It spawns differences.

The daimon/daemon is one’s spirit.

The muse is the art in which we set our sights.

So the daimon, the bow and arrow.

The muse the target.

Synchronicity/living in nature: “right reason”.

 

"The rational being was expressly produced by nature for contemplation." 

 -Ryan Holiday, on the stoic Zeno.

You would walk unprotected through a pile of refuse, would you?  Do you expect or not care if a nail punctures your foot?

By that same token, at some point we become circumspect of touching pots and pans on the stove, lest they be hot, and cause a burn injury to our hands.

Even the child learns the lesson of the hot cook pan early on its life.

Yet as important as our hands, is the “guiding principle”, or our set of values and beliefs, part of our decision making process that guides our hands.

Why, our hands are just tools, but our minds house so much more.  A tool can be good, bad and can be used well, or used badly.  But our minds?

Epictetus in the Enchiridion suggests we guard our decision-making principles as well as we watch out for either a nail in the foot, or a burn to the hand.

Think of today’s opportunities to make bad decisions.  

Health.  

Love.  

Diet.  

Finances.  

Careers.  

So much and so easy to go wrong in today’s world, without a solid base of decision making: 

the mind, the “governing principle”.

Just today I was enticed into the possibility of a bad decision, to be used badly by another person, and supposedly for our own “mutual” amusement.

So often, we make compromises and give away different sorts of pieces of our countenance, we ingratiate ourselves, or almost beg for attention, where none is actually warranted, be it done for a moment of amusement, or because of a stray feeling.

And then that feeling is gone.

Afterward, are your internal governing principles, your code of conduct for your own life–is it intact?

Or have you been robbed of something yet more valuable than a stray glance or a secret moment?  Have you given too much for too little, and in a moment of enticement, such as the old saying, “a moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips”.

We bear the consequences of those moments, as per Karma, the eternal balance of life acts for a given person, that each thing we do has a set of reactions, like a purchase having a cost.  We inevitably pay for all those things that we bring home, and only the most dear really seem to be worth it, and yet, in the karmic balance:

The things we love best always seem to cost so little. 

 

Being Content with What You Have

"One who is disillusioned by poverty has first been deceived by prosperity."

-Marcus Aurelius

"Ostentation" is what they call lavish shows of wealth or ornamentation.

Isn't it the way, people, that the main person that deceives us is our own self.  No one else can tell us such pretty lies:

lies that we desperately hope to be true.

But prosperity often re-centers a person, after he or she doesn't have that to be worried about anymore, not finding the next dollar:

onward to other business.

"Eudaimonia" is what they call good well-being.  And as my college reminds me, well-being refers to many different disciplines that involve our total health, and not just physical, mental, or productivity or anything like that.

Indeed, by many metrics, even financial health falls under the category of "well-being", being part of our overall state of being, our overall mindset and health.

 

 Coping with Negativity

 

You might say, "one handful of dirt from a naysayer is nothing; let them do it, and see if I care or bother over it."  

But what if all the naysayers lined-up together, each to throw his or her own handful of dirt on you?  

You would realize the power of a little negativity here and there, and the idle words of a careless person become a shovelful of earth on a grave.

Solomon wrote that everything has its time and season, its place and purpose.

Such is the way, looking at the hard freeze taking place in much of the United States.  A difficult moment which requires hardiness and forethought has come to us; covering the spigots, putting our plants indoors and so forth.

But it has a purpose, the hard winter.  Some plants require a freeze in their off season.  Such as in Colorado, where snowfalls that melt in spring provide a great deal of the water supply downstream.

And imagine that glowing spring, with flowers, as if they were smiling, themselves.

Solomon goes on to say that there is "nothing new under the sun", that everything that troubles us now, is nothing particularly different that past troubles that the people of the world faced.  We need not complain too bitterly of the cold, but put it into a more linear perspective, and understand that it has happened before.

...she compasseth the whole world, and penetrateth into the vanity, and mere outsie (wanting substance and solidity) of it, and stretcheth herself unto the infiniteness of eternity; and the revolution or restoration of all things after a certain period of time, to the same state and place as before, she fetcheth about, and doth comprehend in herself; and considers withal, and sees clearly this, that neither they that shall follow us, shall see any new thing, that we have not seen, nor they that went before, anything more than we: but that he that is once come to forty (if he have any wit at all) can in a manner (for that they are all of one kind) see all things, both past and future....     -Marcus Aurelius

You Need Some STOIC PRINCIPLES

Wisdom: that true-north of objective right and wrong.  One must have a sense, a realistic marker of when one is at fault or not; then one address the situation.

Fortitude and Temperance enough, whether it’s your fault or not, not to over-react: to assess the situation.

Justice(along with fortitude and temperance): acknowledge the most equitable outcome for all involved, and stand with it, back it and support the effort, whether or not is a gain or loss for you.

 

The stoic virtues listed by Marcus Aurelius.

Some of these are somewhat archaic terms, handed down from the translator George Long, when he translated The Meditations into English many moons ago.

For instance, we might think of temperance, the 20th century American usage, meaning to abstain from drinking alcohol.

But no.

 A virtue is a trait which leads to goodness, not being your best but going towards your best.  Process and journey, and not destination; as is said of the journey and the destination, as it so with virtue-the process of getting there is so much more important than being there.

Wisdom is of course, not necessarily natural intelligence, but maybe also a learned kind of "applied knowledge".  Not necessarily Intelligence Quotient, or an abundance of memorized facts, but maybe some of both, along with some common sense, and life experience.

Justice can mean so much depending on one's politics or religion.  Justice for some is defined by the Creator, as in religion.  Or justice is social equity or economic equality, as per politics.

Temperance is the archaic word last used abundantly in reference to banning alcohol during the 1920's in America.

It's simply moderation or mildness.  Controlling the appetite, the emotions, and whatever else, such that one does not hinder oneself by his own impulses.

Fortitude.  This can refer to resiliency.  Not the ability to be naturally tough, or courageous, but the ability to continue through not being tough, despite that, or doing things that terrify one--as Joyce Meyer notes, one can be afraid to go forward, without shame, and go forward anyway, despite the fear.

 

Putting Stoicism into Practice 

The dousing wasn't the sport; self-improvement, itself, was the sport.

He found some water that was nearing freezing temperature, and it was to be a challenge, mentally and physically for him, to be part of his routine, to contest the thing within his own person, the very cold water....

He further found there would be a gradient of training challenges to that task, a version of cold-water dousing, an athletic training component that's older than the original Olympic games in ancient Greece.

The first time, he felt the water with his toe, less than a minute being dipped in and pulled out, and that was a session: he established his own baseline, his own benchmark, his own bar.

A first challenge, of the toe dipped for a few seconds.

And there would be more milestones in the training, later, a time scale, as he competed against his own best efforts, from one outing to the next, competing against his own prior results(that's what the real competitor does, competes against his own prior best effort, tries to top himself).

*He had the over-all goal of the actual activity itself, in the most simple terms.

*He had the challenge of developing a new challenge to coincide with every new step in his evolution in the process of performing the training:  Training goals.

"Developing a program" is the somewhat stuffy term for giving oneself an appropriate challenge for whatever point he is at in his training.

It was a sequence of challenges that he put to himself, in the name of his own self-improvement, and with that training, would come perspective and self-esteem:

failures would teach him humility,

and victories would teach him gratitude.

 

"It is better to trip with your feet than your tongue." -Zeno  

 

 

All of us were created for "the pastorage of a common field."  

Stoic Greatness of Spirit: additional Principles of Stoicism 

Generosity of Spirit and two models of friendship.

It was one of the ancient philosophers who said, "Man is a political animal."  It was an odd turn of phrase that seems to have struck a chord with many thinkers, but it simply means "man is a social animal".

Man is social, and as Aurelius states, we and our fellows cooperate like a row of teeth or a pair of feet.

Generosity of Spirit means a kind of "active concern" for others: not just worrying from afar, but at times getting one's hands dirty for the well-being of others.  So many of us confine this to a select few people, and indeed, the world gives us enough cause to mistrust others, which prevents us from expanding our own social circles.

I'm talking about help without payment, aid without reward, but to simply know the other person is better off thanks to our efforts.

Before, I've spoken about different models of interaction/friendship.  The "transactional model" and the "sacrificial model".  I have a good friend who believes openly in the transactional model, yet so frequently sacrifices for closest friends.  I've seen some make severe costly sacrifices for "new friends" who are next to strangers, and then later, they are embittered when the good turn is ignored by the false fair-weather acquaintance.

 

Fortune and the Ship of Seneca.

 As we traverse our way, we think long and work diligently—allowing leisure for study, and making our diligence at work.  Precious time, plenty enough to think a matter thoroughly, but a focused, efficient haste for our work efforts.

Riding along on this ship, writing these lines in the hope of aiding the generations of the future, I look up from these humble pages and yell to the others, the crew, the passengers: All fortune is probability. The fish and birds do not live by chance. There is our diligence; the other things are but snares to hold us.

..fortune is but probability! And probability is all about business—without taking time to favor friends.

Our design must be having lived, interestingly, for that is all we carry with us, betimes, and all that impresses us deeply.

The ultimate ‘gift of Fortune’ will be to have lived an interesting life, and behind we leave wisdom bits for those who would tread along our chosen path.