Stoic Meditations

"An important place to begin in philosophy is this: a clear perception of one's own ruling principle."
Philosophy is intimidating. Where does one start? With books? With lectures? With the sale of your worldly possessions?

None of these things. Epictetus is saying that one becomes a philosopher when they begin to exercise their guiding reason and start to question the emotions and beliefs and even language that others take for granted. It is thought that an animal has self-awareness when it is able to fully recognize itself in the mirror. Perhaps we could say that we begin our journey into philosophy when we become aware of the ability to analyze our own minds.

Can you start with that step today? When you do, you may find that from it you really come alive - to paraphrase Socrates - that we can live lives that are actually worth living.

(Socrates's actual quote is, "The unexamined life is not worth living.")

"Another has done me wrong? Let him see to it. He has his own tendencies, and his own affairs. What I have now is what the common nature has willed, and what I endeavor to accomplish now is what my nature wills.
Abraham Lincoln occasionally got fuming mad with a subordinate, one his generals, even his friends. Rather than taking it out on that person directly, he'd write a long letter, outlining his case why they were wrong and what he wanted them to know. Then Lincoln would fold it up, put the letter in the desk drawer, and never send it. Many of these letters survive only by chance.

He knew, as the former emperor of Rome knew, that it's often easier to fight back. It's tempting to give them a piece of your mind. But you almost always end up with regret. You almost always wish you hadn't sent the letter. Think of the last time you flew off the handle. What was the outcome? What was the ultimate benefit?

"Hold sacred your capacity for understanding. For in it is all, that our ruling principle won't allow anything to enter that is either inconsistent with nature or with the constitution of a logical creature. It's what demands due diligence, care for others, and obedience to the gods."
The fact that you can think, the fact that you can read this book, the fact that you are able to reason in and out of situations - all of this is what gives you the ability to improve your circumstances and become better. It's important to appreciate this ability, because it is a genuine ability. Not everyone is so lucky.

Take a little time today to remember that you're blessed with the capacity to use logic and reason to navigate situations and circumstances. This gives you great power to alter your circumstances and the circumstances of others. And remember that with power comes responsibility.

"You are not your body and hair-style, your possessions, but your capacity for choosing well. If your choices are beautiful, so too will you be."
It's that line the movie Fight Club: "You are not your job, you're not how much money you have in the bank. You are not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet." Obviously our friend Epictetus never saw that movie or read the book - but apparently the consumerism of the 1990s existed in ancient Rome too.

It's easy to confuse the image we present to the world for who we actually are, especially when media messaging deliberately blurs that distinction.

You might look beautiful today, but if that was the result of vain obsession in the mirror this morning, the Stoics would ask, are you actually beautiful? A body built from hard work is admirable. A body built only to impress others not nearly so.

That's what the Stoics urge us to consider. Not how things appear, but what effort, activity, and choices they result from.

"Today I escaped from the crush of circumstances, or better put, I threw them out, for the crush wasn't from outside me but in my own assumptions."
On tough days we might say, "My work is overwhelming," or "My boss is really frustrating." If only we could understand that this is impossible. Someone can't frustrate you, work can't overwhelm you - these are external objects, and they have no access to your mind. Those emotions you feel, as real as they are, come from the inside, not the outside.

The Stoics use the word hypolepsis, which means "taking up" - of perceptions, thoughts, and judgments by our mind. What we assume, what we willingly generate in our mind, that's on us. We can't blame other people for making us feel stressed or frustrated any more than we can blame them for our jealousy. The cause is within us. They're just the target.

"People seek retreats for themselves in the country, by the sea, or in the mountains. You are very much in the habit of yearning for those same things. But this is entirely the trait of a base person, when you can, at any moment, find such a retreat in yourself. For nowhere can you find a more peaceful and less busy retreat than in your own soul - especially if on close inspection it is filled with ease, which I say is nothing more than being well-ordered. Treat yourself often to this retreat and be renewed."
Do you have a vacation coming up? Are you looking forward to the weekend so you can have some peace and quiet? Maybe, you think, after things settle down or after I get this over with. But by viewing 'peace and quiet' in terms of externals, how often do you actually achieve the peace you seek?

The Zen meditation teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn popularized a famous expression: "Wherever you go, there you are." We can find a retreat at any time by looking inward. We can sit with our eyes closed and feel our breath go in and out. We can turn on some music and tune out the world. We can turn off technology or shut off those rampant thoughts in our head. Ultimately, what is inside will provide us peace. Nothing else.

"What is it then to be properly educated? It is learning to apply our natural preconceptions to the right things according to Nature, and beyond that to separate the things that lie within our power from those that don't."
A degree on a wall means you're educated as much as shoes on your feet mean you're walking. It's a start, but hardly sufficient. Classical education is a gem, but still only as valuable as the person committing to it. Many forget that they ought to focus on the one thing which lies within their control: themselves. A surviving fragment from the philosopher Heraclitus expresses that reality:

"Many who have learned
from Hesiod the countless names
of gods and monsters
never understand
that night and day are one."

Just as you can walk plenty well without shoes (though they're nice), you don't need to step into a classroom to understand the basic, fundamental reality of nature and of our proper role in it. Begin with awareness and reflection. Not just once, but every single second of every single day.

"Eat like a human being, drink like a human being, dress up, marry, have children, get politically active - suffer abuse, bear with a headstrong brother, father, son, neighbor, or companion. Show us these things so we can see that truly have learned from the philosophers."
Plutarch, a Roman biographer as well as an admirer of the Stoics, didn't begin his study of the greats of Roman literature until late in life. But, as he recounts in his biography of Demosthenes, he was surprised at how quickly it all came to him. He wrote, "It wasn't so much that the words brought me into a full understanding of events, as that, somehow, I had a personal experience of the events that allowed me to follow closely the meaning of the words."

This is what Epictetus means about the study of philosophy. Study, yes, but go live your life as well. It's the only way that you'll actually understand what any of it means. And more important, it's only from your actions and choices over time that it will be possible to see whether you took any of the teachings to heart.

Be aware of that today when you're going to work, going on a date, deciding whom to vote for, calling your parents in the evening, waving to your neighbor as you walk to your door, tipping the delivery man, saying goodnight to someone you love. All of that is philosophy. All of it is experience that brings meaning to the words.

"Hurry to your own ruling reason, to the reason of the While, and to your neighbor's. To your own mind to make it just; to the mind of the Whole to remember your place in it; and to your neighbor's mind to learn whether it's ignorant or of sound knowledge - while recognizing it's like yours."
If our lives are not ruled by reason, what rules them? Impulse? Mimicry? Habit? As we examine our past behavior, it's sad both how often this is the case, and how damaging it can be to our lives. There is considerable risk in not acting consciously or deliberately but instead by forces we did not bother to evaluate. Food, money, relationships - these are just a few of the arenas reason can help us become all that we hope to be. While reason is not all that a person is, use it as a tool to judge the external world wisely and govern oneself ably.

"Your mind will take the shape of what you frequently hold in thought, for the human spirit is colored by such impressions."
If you bend your body into a sitting position every day for a long enough period of time, the curvature of your spine changes. A doctor can tell from a radiograph (or an autopsy) whether someone sat at a desk for a living. If you shove your feet into tiny, narrow dress shoes each day, your feet begin to take on that form as well.

The same is true for our minds. If you hold a perpetually negative outlook, soon enough everything you encounter will seem negative. Close it off and you'll become closed-minded. Color it with the right, positive thoughts and your life will be dyed the same.