Stoic philosophy has been enjoying something of a renaissance in recent years. When I was younger I considered philosophy – specifically the arrogant academic mess that often springs to mind with the word nowadays – as more of an ugly step-sibling to the scientific method. If you couldn’t be a scientist, be a philosopher, a navel gazer asking pointless questions. The first practical philosophy I encountered was that of Marcus Aurelius, and this opened the door to the value of philosophy in general. The scientific method is an incredible tool, but a tool nonetheless, and how that tool is wielded, how it ought to be wielded, is a question of philosophy. Scientists ought to be philosophers, and philosophers should be scientists. The Stoic philosopher Seneca captured it best:
“Philosophy is no trick to catch the public; it is not devised for show. It is a matter, not of words, but of facts. It is not pursued in order that the day may yield some amusement before it is spent, or that our leisure may be relieved of a tedium that irks us. It moulds and constructs the soul; it orders our life, guides our conduct, shows us what we should do and what we should leave undone; it sits at the helm and directs our course as we waver amid uncertainties. Without it, no one can live fearlessly or in peace of mind. Countless things that happen every hour call for advice; and such advise is to be sought in philosophy.”
Let’s start with laying out some central principles of Stoicism. A common view of the philosophy is that it rejects emotion, positive and negative, and in some sense that’s true. Much like Buddhists, the Stoics often view pleasure as a potential source of suffering – our attachment to positive emotion and pleasure can ultimately harm us if it is taken from us, or its pleasures fade. Even good fortune, when delivered by external sources, is dangerous to our true well-being – Seneca also remarked that “No man has ever been so far advanced by Fortune that she did not threaten him as greatly as she had previously indulged him.”
Still, that said, Stoicism is not a rejection of joy or positive affect – the goal is a happy life, and that is by necessity one where you are not overly attached to things outside of your control. The pursuit of joy, rather than pleasure, is the goal of Stoicism. As Seneca describes it: “Trust me, real joy is a serious thing. Do you think someone can, in the charming expression, blithely dismiss death with an easy disposition? Or swing open the door to poverty, keep pleasures in check, or meditate on the endurance of suffering? The one who is comfortable with turning these thoughts over is truly full of joy, but hardly cheerful. It’s exactly such a joy that I would wish for you to possess, for it will never run dry once you’ve laid claim to its source.”
The principle of the circle of control is one of Stoicism’s most central tenets. Our focus ought to lie on what is within it – first with control over our own mind, then our body, then our surroundings, and so on. As the circle widens, the power it ought to have over our mood should also diminish – even bodily aches or the behavior of our friends are sometimes outside of our control, and we must learn be ever aware of what we can change and what we cannot. The behavior of the American president, for example, is outside of your control beyond whatever political action is available to you – so to spend your days fretting is wasted energy. Obsession with things outside of our control, whether pleasures or pains, leads to suffering as we are inevitably yanked about by life – worried that we will lose what we have, angry at injustices done to us by others, embittered by the callousness of fate. Epictetus remarked that the invincible human being was “One who can be disconcerted by nothing that lies outside the sphere of choice.” You cannot simply decide not to endure a pandemic, or a recession, or a war – but you can choose how to respond to it to the best of your ability. One of my favourite insights from Epictetus was on the shepherding and loss of things we value – all of these things are given to us by fortune for us to care for, and when they are lost, they are returned. “Never say of anything, ‘I have lost it’; but, ‘I have returned it.’ Is your child dead? It is returned. Is your wife dead? She is returned. Is your estate taken away? Well, and is not that likewise returned? ‘But he who took it away is a bad man.’ What difference is it to you who the giver assigns to take it back? While he gives it to you to possess, take care of it; but don’t view it as your own, just as travellers view a hotel.’
This rejection of attachment can seem callous, and Seneca advised to ‘despise’ fortune – that is, to have contempt for it, look down upon it. But the idea of Amor Fati, or ‘love of fate’, can also be a very healthy one. We all know that life sometimes seems unfair, that bad things happen to good people, and it is easy to feel a sense of great injustice and outrage – but to rage against fortune is wasted breath. Friedrich Nietzche expressed the concept well: “My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendaciousness in the face of what is necessary—but love it.” The ability to lean into the tribulations of life as something that adds to it, rather than degrades it, equips us to face the inevitable.
The Noisy Modern World
Despite the fact that many of the prominent Stoics such as Epictetus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius were writing nearly two thousand years ago, much of their advice speaks as much to us in modern times as it did to their ancient contemporaries. Twitter is often spoken of as the modern world’s ‘public square’, our forum, yet by now it and other social media are widely recognized for their darker effect on our mental health. Seneca observes this of crowds:
“Much harm is done by a single case of indulgence or greed; the familiar friend, if he be luxurious, weakens and softens us imperceptibly; the neighbour, if he be rich, rouses our covetousness; the companion, if he be slanderous, rubs off some of his rust upon us, even though we be spotless and sincere. What then do you think the effect will be on character, when the world at large assaults it?” This global assault, it appears to me, is exactly the effect of social media, a deluge of public opinion, cultivated only by an algorithm that cares about our attention rather than our well-being. Seneca goes on to advise – “Withdraw into yourself, as far as you can. Associate with those who will make a better man of you. Welcome those whom you yourself can improve.”
The Stoics did not encourage becoming a recluse – public life was an important responsibility, a duty that should not be shirked. But it was also recognized as a potential corrupting influence on our character, if we do not take care. This withdrawal into oneself does not mean a rejection of others, but a comfort with ourselves – Jean Paul Sartre remarked “If you’re lonely when you’re alone, you’re in bad company.” Seneca writes “In this sense the wise man is self-sufficient, that he can do without friends, not that he desires to do without them.” In this sense we should all consider, first, whether our use of social media is acting as a substitute for higher quality relationships, and second we should consider whether we can do without them. Addiction to these social technologies is insidious, and often drives us not on the positive affect and good-will delivered by friendship, but by outrage, resentment, and contempt.
The modern world is fraught with something else as well – desire. It has always been a problem, but in this day and age, particularly the relatively wealthy west, we have an abundance of things to want and a sophisticated marketing apparatus to make us want more. Epicurus noted “If you live according to nature, you will never be poor; if you live according to opinion, you will never be rich.” – this concept, sometimes referred to as the ‘Hedonic treadmill’, essentially observes that your opinion of what you need is constantly adapting to be just out of your reach, a dopaminergic desire for acquisition of more. Yet what you truly need, according to nature, is always the same – at its most fundamental, sustenance and shelter. Seneca – himself fond of citing Epicurus – expands on the statement: “Natural desires are limited, but those which spring from false opinion can have no stopping-point. The false has no limits. When you are travelling on a road, there must be an end, but when astray, your wanderings are limitless. Recall your steps, therefore, from idle things, and when you would know whether that which you seek is based upon a natural or upon a misleading desire, consider whether it can stop at any definite point.
The Stoic rejection of pleasure for pleasure’s sake understands this insight into hedonism – enough is never enough when it comes to pleasure. Our dopamine systems, evolved to reward us during the scarcity of our more primitive history, are not well-adapted to the abundance of the modern world. Even civilized society during the Roman Empire was a time of opulence and temptation to those with the means, but today refined sugars, pornography, and endless media are available to us at minuscule expense and unrivalled excess. Except for the very most impoverished, all of us today can access pleasures that Seneca – a wealthy aristocrat – could only dream of, and yet we can also observe that these pleasures are ephemeral and often deadly. As Seneca put it, “The more pleasures a man captures, the more masters he will have to serve.”
Everything is an opportunity
One thing immensely valuable about practising Stoic philosophy is that every challenge, bad outcome, or cruelty of fate is an opportunity to improve one’s character. There are no perfect Stoics – for all his wisdom Seneca was often wrapped up in the viper’s den of Roman politics, and occasionally mused about his annoyances in his letters. All of us are occasionally caught up in our emotions and ambitions, or get upset about things beyond our control. Yet every encounter with misfortune brings a practising Stoic a new opportunity – to train themselves to become more rational, conscious and disciplined. Jocko Willink, a retired Navy seals officer turned author and podcaster, famously encapsulated stoic philosophy in one word: “Good.”
Whenever anyone came to Jocko with a problem, that would be his answer. That simple reflex, in my opinion, encapsulates exactly what Stoicism is all about. Fortunes change, but your response to those fortunes is within your power. Saying “good” to a problem doesn’t mean you have to like it, but rather than lamenting that it happened and inviting the commensurate misery and self pity that comes along with that, why not examine what opportunity this has provided you? Even the most miserable of outcomes allow you to practice Stoic philosophy – when Navy Pilot William Stockdale was captured and tortured during the Vietnam war, he relied on the teachings of Epictetus to bear him through it.
Torture at the hands of the Viet-Kong is a fate far more dire than most of us hope to ever endure – for many of us it’s the mundane frustrations of a late bus, a petty co-worker or a leaky faucet. Yet all of us too will some day need to deal with a debilitating illness, the loss of a loved one, and eventually our own death too. It may sound crass and tasteless to tell anyone to view these tragedies as opportunities, but it is worth remembering that the tools the Stoics offer us can be balms to both the mundane and the deep pains inevitably cast upon us throughout our life. The mundane twists of fate are exactly the opportunities you need in your life to train yourself to face the latter with courage. Make no mistake – some day you will be face to face with genuine misery and loss. Practicing patience, honing your tools, developing your character – these are things that can only truly be done in the face of adversity. Marcus Aurelius noted: “Remember, too, on every occasion that leads you to vexation to apply this principle: not that this is a misfortune, but that to bear it nobly is good fortune.”
No amount of philosophy can cure you of the emotions of anger, or render you immune to pain, but your discipline, reason, and control of your perceptions will some day determine whether you will respond to it with courage, strength and good character, or whether you will falter. If you can view the wait for your late bus as an opportunity to practice patience, or the discomfort of a frigid winter day as the chance to improve your resilience, you’ve taken an external misfortune beyond your control and grasped what you can control – yourself.
A few precepts and practices:
There are a few things you can remind yourself of in your daily life to practice Stoicism:
- Be aware of your circle of control. Whenever you feel angry, or frustrated, or even pleasure, consider whether the source of the emotion is within your control or outside it. If you cannot control it, control your perception of it.
- Voluntarily Discomfort – Cold showers, rigorous exercise, not wearing a jacket on a chilly day. All of these things train you to face discomfort, and prepare you for a time when you may need to exert yourself, or do without hot water or warm clothes.
- Voluntary Deprivation – Much like voluntary discomfort, voluntary deprivation is the act of doing without something you enjoy. Fasting, turning the AC off, taking some time off of a vice like drinking or social media. Remember Seneca’s adage, “The more pleasures a man captures, the more masters he will have to serve.”
- Meditation – Meditating is a means of practiced focus, being aware of incoming thoughts and dismissing them. This practice is immensely beneficial, especially for practicing your circle of control and recognizing which thoughts and emotions are of no use to you.
Works Cited:
Aurelius, Marcus. Meditations: A New Translation. Translated by Gregory Hays. 1 edition. New York: Modern Library, 2003. – Amazon Link
Epictetus, The Complete Works of Epictetus – Amazon Link
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. Letters from a Stoic: The Ancient Classic. Capstone Classics. Chichester: Capstone, 2021. Amazon Link