“Do not give up in disgust or impatience if you do not find action on the right principles consolidated into a habit in all that you do. No: if you have taken a fall, come back again, and be glad if most of your actions are on the right side of humanity…..Remember too that philosophy wants only what your nature wants: whereas you were wanting something unnatural to you. Now what could be more agreeable than the needs of your own nature? This is the same way that pleasure trips us: but look and see whether there is not something more agreeable in magnanimity, generosity, simplicity, consideration, piety. And what is more agreeable than wisdom itself, when you reflect on the sure and constant flow of our faculty for application and understanding?” Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 5, 9 (Hammond, 2006)
Is it just me feeling it, or do any of you feel like you’re falling too? Falling from, falling out of, falling away, falling over, just losing the plot somehow and becoming full of doubt, despite being optimistic and feeling positive. I’ve spent years studying and adding to the instruction manual of life since it was handed down to me by all the caring loved ones who came before. I’ve made it over quite a few hurdles and coped through various upheavals so why now when my life appears to be relatively calm, do I feel overwhelmed, worn out and ground down by the spaces and times we’re existing in. I need to make sense of it all and find out why I’m falling because of how I’m feeling. I need to reconnect with people and the world we live in, instead of feeling discombobulated and out of sorts. I feel a renewed desire to mix with humans like me, or not like me, it doesn’t matter what we have in common, just being part of something bigger is enough, together on the same journey to wherever we’re going. The intersubjective gap needs to be filled and maybe Stoic cosmopolitanism will help.
As I hurtle towards sixty years of being on this planet, I don’t think about getting old. I feel like thirty-year old me except with more experiences, memories and wrinkles. But the situation all around me is very different to the way it was thirty years ago, and my brain is finding it difficult to adapt. I find myself yo-yoing between desiring to learn and yearning to unknow. We are endlessly bombarded with stuff and I’m constantly wondering how much value there is in most of it. I’m tired of looking stuff up, Googling, searching, trawling, digging, uncovering, following, reading, listening, fretting, analysing and trying to understand. My smartphone is always with me because I want to be connected but I don’t want to do everything online. I’m distressed about world suffering, and I keep searching for resolutions and an end to the devastation of the others. It’s alarmingly overwhelming at times. And worse still, it’s addictive, and I can’t exist without my phone. It’s an admission many of us need to own up to instead of just blaming and victimising our young folk for constantly staring at their phones. Often, I have no choice but to be continuously connected with the lump of programmed metal in my pocket, but I feel I need to take responsibility, use all the Stoic virtues to get a grip on the situation and figure out the value of this attachment. I’m so grateful for the benefits digital technology and machine intelligence can create for us, but there must be a balance.
Wisdom is the virtue I call on first because it helps me to realise I must think, figure out if there’s a solution, then take the necessary action available. When I really think long and hard about my phone, I realise it’s not the phone I’m anxious about, it’s the contacts in it. Phone numbers traditionally used for ringing and speaking to people have now morphed into life forms. Instead of ringing a number and hearing a familiar voice answer me, I can see photos, read their stories, watch them on video calls, listen to their recordings, and at the bare minimum this is a two-way relationship. Such a relationship can expand further, and I can connect with hundreds of other people on internet platforms and phone applications. It’s mind-blowingly incredible but maybe just a bit otherworldly sometimes, especially when one of your contacts leaves this earth and you’re wondering whether to delete that number or keep holding on to it as long as you’re able.
In my phone my people are closer to me than ever, so I’ve fallen into my lifelong repetitive pattern of worrying about them or being fearful of them. By appealing to the virtue of wisdom, I can see I’m making category mistakes and I’m being illogical. Firstly, none of my phone contacts have asked me to worry about them and none would want me to be afraid of them. Secondly, thinking and willing good for them is caring and loving, but hyper fretting about them serves no purpose. If I appeal to another of the Stoic virtues, justice, it becomes clear I could be completely misjudging my contacts’ needs whilst greedily feeding my ego or insecurity. I’m falling a very long way away from the target labelled true love or real compassion. I may have no control over where the arrow lands but that doesn’t mean I can’t aim to hit the goal and watch where it goes to see if I can take a better aim the next time. Wise words spring to mind –
“One sort of person, when he has done a kindness to another, is quick also to chalk up the return due to him. A second is not so quick in that way, but even so he privately thinks of the other as his debtor and is well aware of what he has done. A third sort is in a way not even conscious of his actions, but is like the vine which has produced grapes and looks for nothing else once it has borne its own fruit….” Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 5, 6 (Hammond, 2006)
Moving on to the virtue of temperance, which can sound a bit puritanical so often within Modern Stoicism is replaced with self-control, I need to take control of what I can change to reduce dependency. However, this is a sticky one because I’m a parent, so if my phone is charged, I can be constantly connected with my now adult offspring. Surely that’s how to best love and care for them by ensuring I’m available to help them at any time. But maybe not and I need a big helping of Stoic courage, the virtue that helps us get over ourselves and transcend our weaknesses. I need to revisit something that helped a lot when my children were transitioning from childhood to adolescence –
“The wind scatters one year’s leaves on the ground…so it is with the generations of men. Your children are no more than ‘leaves’…all these ‘come round in the season of spring’: but then the wind blows them down, and the forest ‘puts out others’ in their stead. All things are short-lived – this is their common lot – but you pursue likes and dislikes as if all was fixed for eternity.” Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 10, 34 (Hammond, 2006)
I’ve often wondered why my mother tongue doesn’t have a word for children who have reached adulthood and maybe now I realise why. They say leaves never fall far from the tree so I must stop sweeping and gathering, and let the wind keep blowing in accordance with nature. Even leaves that don’t fly away may be picked up by the birds to rebuild empty nests.
Like our lives the seasons come and go, and thankfully autumn or fall is a very Stoic time of the year. For those of us eager to learn more and join Stoics on the psychological and philosophical path to eudaimonia, Stoic Week is a great place to either start or return to. I might feel like I’m falling, but failing isn’t going to happen. The ‘I’ can make all the difference and I shall be hoping to regain my equilibrium and get myself back up again. Stoics keep going despite falling behind sometimes, and thankfully these days there are no Stoic gods around to pass judgement on folks who get a bit off track along the way. Phil Yanov, the organiser of Conversations with Modern Stoicism, restores my faith in the wonders of tech for communication and Brittany Polat over at Stoicare reminds me that care of self is just as important as care of others. Instead of running up the stairs of Tim LeBon’s Stoic Elevator to Level 5 I can pop back down to Level 1, get out at each floor and take stock. I shall welcome the warm wisdom Eve Riches adds to the Stoic Week exercises, and of course Donald Robertson’s calming words of meditation. The Modern Stoicism team offers a wealth of resources for anyone keen to learn about the path to eudaimonia.
After many years of soul searching, I haven’t found one philosophy for life to be a panacea. I try and take a moderate and eclectic approach, loving philosophy as therapy for the soul and a source of wonder. Some purists may say this is cherry picking and shows a lack of commitment or attachment, but I don’t want to become totally dependent on any ism or one specific practice. I have witnessed the devastation obsession or addiction can wreak. Stoicism offered a security blanket for my soul when I needed it most and it’s always there now, I just pull it up tighter and tuck in the edges sometimes. My body is more determined to meet its own needs much of the time, but I take interventions to try and stay healthy. Not only living in accordance with nature but being immersed in it is my idea of heaven. My spirit is a different matter, bursting with life and always wanting to soar. Flitting and fluxing between the Apollonian and the Dionysian, as it dances its way through each day, falling in and out of love it keeps me alive and free.
“When she created us, nature endowed us with noble aspirations, and just as she gave certain animals ferocity, others timidity, others cunning, so to us she gave a spirit of exalted ambition, a spirit that takes us in search of a life of, not the greatest safety, but the greatest honour – a spirit very like the universe, which, so far as mortal footsteps may, it follows and adopts as a model…. Seneca, Letters from a Stoic, Letter CIV 23 (Campbell, 2004)
Alison McCone’s life was transformed following her first encounter with Modern Stoicism in 2012 whilst undergoing training in Logotherapy and Existential Analysis. On a voluntary basis she now works to help people cope with life challenges and realise their full potential. She would like to complete an MPhil but is currently doing philosophy independently at many places including the London School of Philosophy, the Sadler Academy and the Viktor Frankl Institute of Ireland. She is devoted to her soul mate of 42 years and her 2 adult sons.
