Keep positive: be a Stoic

There's handy book, too, for daily reference

Cited by many of the world’s great and the good as the go-to book for, well, meditation – on one’s own life and how to live it – Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations is a gem. He was a Roman emperor and he wrote down his thoughts as a memorandum for himself while he ruled. It’s couched in the language of Stoicism, to which philosophy he fully subscribed.

To be a Stoic – ah there’s the rub – is my daily hill to climb. It’s not easy – a set of principles by which to live never ought to be – but I find, like Marcus Aurelius, struggling with how to be a good ruler, of himself first, then of his empire (he ruled from 161CE to 180CE), it is the closest I can get to understanding my place in an implacably indifferent universe, to accept that my time is limited and to try to live what Stoics understand as the virtuous life.

Here is Wikipedia on the origins and basic tenets of the core ideas. It states: ‘Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy that flourished in ancient Greece and Rome. The Stoics believed that the universe operated according to reason, (i.e. [to them] by a deity) which is immersed in nature itself. Of all the schools of ancient philosophy, Stoicism made the greatest claim to being utterly systematic. The Stoics provided a unified account of the world, constructed from ideals of logic, monistic physics, and naturalistic ethics. These three ideals constitute virtue which is necessary for “living a well-reasoned life”, seeing as [we] are all parts of a logos, or philosophical discourse, which includes the mind's rational dialogue with itself.

‘Stoicism was founded by Zeno of Citium around 300BCE, and flourished throughout the Greco-Roman world until the 3rd century CE, and among its adherents was Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Along with Aristotelian term for logic, the system of propositional logic developed by the Stoics was one of the two great systems of logical thought in the classical world. It was largely built and shaped by Chrysippus, the third head of the Stoic school in the 3rd century BCE. Chrysippus's logic differed from the prior sense of the term ‘logic’ because it was based on the analysis of propositions rather than terms.

‘Stoicism experienced a decline after Christianity became the Roman state religion in the 4th century CE. Since then, it has seen a number of revivals, notably in the Renaissance (Neo-stoicism) and in the contemporary era.^’

For myself, the question of ‘reason’ ruling the universe is a human conceit. Rather than reason, I would substitute chance, allied to what human ‘logic’ would describe (and has, extensively through mathematical theory) random events, unknowable (to us). Hence χάος (it is better to use the Greek word, precisely because, to my mind, we cannot begin to fathom the entire universe, much though it is laudable and virtuous to try).

Again, for me, it really doesn’t matter in the broad scheme of things. I can – and frequently do – marvel at the natural world I that can literally grasp in my hand: trees, plants, the growth of an oak from an acorn, birdsong, birds themselves, tiny successors of dinosaurs, the domains of fungi, bacteria, viruses. It is all so exquisitely beautiful in and of itself. It is more than sufficient to try to find a way to fit into this myriad explosion of life (and even the geology of vast, slow moving time) rather than to control or, worse, exploit it. Seen in this light, the recent pandemic had a terrible beauty as well, reminding each of us of our innate frailty – and mortality.

For the record, I was brought up to be a CofE Christian but, as I grew toward adulthood, I began to question the existence of any kind of ‘prime mover’. For me, to quote Stephen Hawking ‘I believe the simplest explanation is, there is no God. No one created the universe and no one directs our fate. This leads me to a profound realisation that there probably is no heaven and no afterlife either. We have this one life to appreciate the grand design of the universe and for that, I am extremely grateful.’

He also said ‘Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up.’

Hawking was, of course, first and foremost a cosmologist and as well as profound thinker. I passed him one day in the street in Cambridge and, I hope, bent my head slightly as I did, in acknowledgment of one of his many other observations on life that ‘we are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the universe. That makes us something very special.’

However, I profoundly disagree with two of those remarks of his that, first, we can [fully] understand the universe; I would qualify that with ‘we can merely continue to seek to try’. Second, his perhaps inevitable hubris in believing our unique intellect allows us, to my mind, a fatal flaw in thinking we are ‘very special’. Look where that’s got us. Time to reset the dial on that before it’s too late, not just for the planet – it has survived far worse than a single species’ efforts to destroy its very existence – but for the sake of our descendants.

I grow ever more content in my life’s journey within and without stoicism – but not, I hope, complacently – reminding myself daily that each life may strive to be well lived. But, equally, I am mindful that can only take place if we constantly remember, and act in the knowledge, that we are a social animal, like our primate cousins. We are at our best when we are working together, not apart. Accordingly, we must react with kindness and understanding when it comes to others, whatever their peccadilloes or worse. Needless to say, that includes the millions and millions of all the other species we share our home with. If that sounds like some form of Buddhism, so be it.

I am an atheist but that does not mean I do not appreciate that the best of religious thought offers up the same hope as mine, as a Stoic. The problem, of course, is that all philosophical thought can be twisted into something dark and dangerous. The mere belief that a better life beckons after death has created the opportunities for people to act egregiously during their own short, solitary, brutish lives. One has only to look at the Middle East where three religions are at war – as they have been for well over a thousand years – to witness where an intolerant interpretation of – in these cases – texts, written for very different times, lead.

I will end where I began, with Marcus Aurelius. He wrote (and, remember, this was for his own eyes at the time): ‘The safety of life is this, to examine everything all through, what it is itself, what is its material, what the formal part; with all thy soul to do justice and to say the truth. What remains except to enjoy life by joining one good thing to another so as not to leave even the smallest intervals between.’

This week: Tim indulged in watching the Brokenwood Mysteries on U, a free streaming service (it has ads) that appears to be hoovering up a lot of excellent world produced TV. It’s currently showing all the old Bergerac episodes, first aired on the BBC. Unlike Bergerac, which is pure bubble gum TV as we like to say in our family, the Brokenwood Mysteries, set in New Zealand, provide 90-minute episodes of twisting plots, topped with some pretty good, and understated, comedy. Check them out; there are 12 series, 90 minutes an episode, so 72 hours of viewing to relish. The series is far superior to the superficial, often silly, Midsomer Murders, by the way.

Quote of the week: Evelyn Waugh wrote in his novel Decline and Fall: ‘Too late, old boy, too late. The saddest words in the English language.’ I am minded of what’s now is being said – albeit with a degree of pusillanimity –about the 18-month old genocide taking place in Gaza. Last week, Canada, France and the UK finally expressed ‘strong words’ about actions some members of Israel’s Government stated publically it would take back in 2023. Too late for thousands of starving children; too late for the hundreds of thousands of dead and wounded. Or, take these words into your heart:Martin Luther King Jr once sagely said ‘In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.’

Music of the week: Sergei Rachmaninov’s First Symphony, composed when he was just 24 but which had a disastrous first performance in St Petersburg under the baton of Glazunov, the composer, who was probably drunk and who was working with an under-rehearsed orchestra. As a direct result, Rachmaninov withdrew the score and it was not recovered until after his death in 1943. It is broadly agreed now that the work is a masterpiece and it is performed regularly. There is an excellent 1990 version on Virgin Classics, with Andrew Litton and the Royal Philharmonic, which also contains the composer’s haunting Isle of the Dead symphonic poem.