Saturday, March 28, 2020

A Stoic consolation from the pages of Ecclesiastes and Marcus Aurelius.


Many people have a "wrong view" of the Stoic philosophy.  They think of the attitude as detached, emotionless, or defying the emotions, being "all tough and junk".  However the truth is much more skewed.

There is above all, a consolation for Stoics, which stands as almost a religious principle.

All that happens is according to nature.

This is the Stoic way of tamping-down emotions, trying to see everything as a natural function, even death, and therefore not react badly or severely.  Even death itself is a natural function, for just as we were all born, so to do we all someday die.  This was earlier written by Solomon, the realization that life is only temporary, and we can all expect our own end at some point.

The trick is not to ignore things, but to put our everyday lot into the proper perspective.  It was also Solomon who said, "time and chances happens to them all", "there is a time and a season for everything under the sun".  This includes the ordinary functions of life, which of course, include death.

But the Stoics have a "nuclear button" for helping to steel themselves against the storm of life:  negative visualization, which means that the Stoic imagines the worst case scenarios, as a way of preparing himself in that eventuality.

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