Time

As part of my effort to increase my knowledge of Stoic philosophy, I just completed reading On the Shortness of Life by Seneca. As with nearly all of my philosophical readings, it will require rereading.  

It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. 

On the Shortness of Life

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

When we reach a certain age, we can look over a life extending back to that blurry time when facts mingle with fiction. We can try to linger over certain periods that stand out because something meaningful was happening: sports, college, first dates, vacations, first jobs, people that made an impression on us, books, sights, sounds, etc. Our memories are full of disconnected events that are recalled for a variety of reasons. The odd thing about time is that it flows forward at the exact same rate whether we are 5, 15, 30, or 80. Rich or poor. Famous or unknown. King or slave. Time is a constant regardless of how it seems to us to flow fast or slow. Whether we waste it on meaningless pursuits or fill it with significant endeavors is up to each of us. And we each know how to identify our wasted time.  

I spent half my life chasing women and getting drunk. The other half I wasted.

A Walk in the Woods 

We can't go back, and the amount of time left in the "jar" is unknown. When we are down to that last bit, clinging to the sides, you can bet it will not be the best of the time that was allotted, but we will work to scrape out every last bit. If we will only look at these present days and see them as precious as those final ones.  

Unfinished painting from 15 years ago...

What we can do today is guard our time to make sure we are using it wisely. Not that we treat each day as if it were our last, but that we treat each with the full awareness that it could be. Our days should be filled with a proper amount of meaningful activities, and simply getting things done, while avoiding the popular "killing time" as if there were such a surplus. I'm including this unfinished painting because of all the ways I have spent my time painting seemed the most fulfilling. I stopped painting and now I look back and wish I had continued to work at it. Lost time can't be found... 

In the end, our time is the most valuable of possessions and each of us is given only a certain number of hours, months, and years.  

Exposition on the curse of deferring life by the act of waiting for something to happen:

And waiting means hurrying on ahead, it means regarding time and the present moment not as a boon, but an obstruction; it means making their actual content null and void, by mentally over-leaping them. Waiting, we say, is long. We might just as well--or more accurately--say it is short, since it consumes whole spaces of time without our living them or making any use of them as such. 

The Magic Mountain

Thomas Mann

Don't wait for anything: vacations, promotions, elections, pensions, revolutions, etc. Live this day and consume and digest it completely. Keep well.

Postscript:
As a result of my entry about time and the quote from Thomas Mann, I picked up my old brushes and, instead of waiting for the right time to start painting, I started to paint. 

Six Blocks (24" x 30")

Judgments

5. What disturbs men’s minds is not events but their judgments on events. For instance, death is nothing dreadful, or else Socrates would have thought so. No, the only dreadful thing about it is men’s judgement that it is dreadful. And so when we are hindered or disturbed, or distressed, let us never lay the blame on others, but on ourselves, that is, on our own judgments. To accuse others for one’s own misfortunes is a sign of want of education; to accuse oneself shows that one’s education has begun; to accuse neither oneself nor others shows that one’s education is complete. 

The Manual of Epictetus

All we have as human beings is our judgement and our will. Judgement to provide how or if we should respond to events and our will to apply our judgement. Many of life's problems are based upon poor reasoning that leads to poor judgement and the misapplication of our wills. How often, in the process of making a decision, do we take the time to clearly assess why we are pursuing a course of action or, all to often, a course of thought? We allow our minds to revel in irrational memories or travel down well worn routes of resentment. 

48. The ignorant man's position and character is this: he never looks to himself for benefit or harm, but to the world outside him. The philosopher's position and character is that he always look to himself for benefit and harm...

The Manual of Epictetus 

The above, along with fully understanding what is in our control versus out of our control, is a major concept. Entry 48 of The Manual ends with the statement: In one word, he keeps watch and guard on himself as his own enemy, lying in wait for him. 

City of Delusions: the more successful the less livable...

We have to treat ourselves as containing two minds, one we can control and one that if not contained will undermine us. And I don't just mean putting ourselves into situations, or making grand decisions that will lead to our ruin. The way we interpret the world with this irrational mind will lead us to live deluded lives blaming others for our misfortune when, in the end, we are responsible or, often the case, no one was responsible. Bad luck? Fate? The objective should be to ensure our thinking is based upon reason and the proper weighing of facts rather than emotion or delusion. It takes conscious effort to filter through things and draw well reasoned conclusions. We have to be on constant guard for the demon of irrationality that exists within each of us. The demon of irrationality doesn't only exist in large things, but spends most of its time guiding us into self-delusion over the smallest matters that keep us from leading good lives. Keep well.

Difficulties

Difficulties are what show men's character. Therefore when a difficult crisis meets you, remember that you are as the raw youth with whom God the trainer is wrestling.

The Discourses

- Epictetus

Each day we are confronted with opportunities to exercise our reason to separate those things over which we have control from those over which we have no control. And then we have the ability to guide our responses to events in either category as they occur.    

How much of our day is spent playing with past difficulties or even creating difficulties where none exist? The past contains lessons around how we might choose to respond to future events, but it does not contain events that can be altered. Past difficulties are nothing to linger over as they become like myths in that with time it becomes difficult to sort out fact from fiction. We are deceived by our memories of the past believing our minds to be like hard drives rather than a personal library of vague associations. Why are these books side-by-side? Because I bought them on the same day. Our energy should be dedicated to the opportunities of the present moment. And I choose that word, opportunities, with some thought. Every moment, not to create to much tension, is an opportunity to exercise our judgement and response. As it was said, don't show me your weights, show me your muscles. Our judgement and will are like weights that we have to keep exercising. 

If we are sitting at a meal with many guests and the dessert is making it's way around the table, it's an opportunity to wait, be patient and allow the others to take their share. When the dessert arrives, there is an opportunity to take one or pass it along. And then, regardless of the choice, not to make a show of anything. Don't announce you don't want dessert or draw attention to your choice simply act and pass it along. Events are like that dessert. We know they are coming around the table and we are going to have to respond when they arrive. We can decide how we will respond--whether we make a show or simply deal with it in a rational way.  

Consider your day to be like a trip to the gym--an opportunity to exercise your Stoic Freedom over difficulties and, equally important, non-difficulties. Keep well.

     

Cogs

A confession. I started this post with the intention of ridiculing the Career Opportunities Group--not very Stoic. The acronym produces the word "cog" as in a cog in the machine: an unimportant person performing some often trivial function in a large organization. I found that funny and went down the path of criticizing business culture and all the energy and intelligence expended to produce services and products that are rather useless--think Candy Crush and having consumer products delivered overnight. I was critical of business types and their efforts at self-improvement, self-inflation, and self-importance, but then had to look in the mirror and fully accept that I have never been more than a cog in the machine as, in the end, 99% of us are. That's how an economy works and most of us feel lucky to be one of those cogs. All that would be fine if there was also a broad understanding of that fact. These CEO's that make 1,000 times more than the average worker are often just replaceable cogs that establish their importance more by their compensation than by their actual accomplishments for the business. 

I don't know what's really in the minds of these business types reading their email as they walk down the sidewalk on a beautiful day. The sad part is if that's all there is, if we walk around spouting business speak thinking we really are performing some meaningful function when in fact we are only mixing up what already exists. Is Amazon really that much more than a Sears catalog? Is the internet, for most of us, much more than the Yellow Pages and the Encyclopedia Britannica rolled into one? Point being, most of us aren't doing anything of much importance, and, on top of that, we ignore our inner life and don't work towards having a clear view of things as they really are.

Tedium is not a sickness brought on by the boredom of having nothing do do but the worse sickness of feeling that nothing is worth doing. And thus, the more one has to do the worse the tedium of all.  

The Book of Disquiet

- Fernando Pessoa

This sounds pessimistic, but only if we deny the fact that 99% of us will live our lives, die, and be forgotten. Is that pessimistic or reality? The question is, once we face this basic human fact, what do we do next? I believe we work to live as best we can with no illusions, that we work to live a good life by using our minds to sift through what is worthy and what is unworthy of this, our one life. 

He does not know what is the true good of man, but fancies, as you do too, that it is to have fine clothes.

The Discourses

- Epictetus

See the man, not the clothes. Stoicism is not fatalistic or pessimistic but rather realistic. We have this one life, and we should live it richly even if it means being a cog... 

Shake out all those things that complicate life like imagining that you are important, that anyone is paying attention or that anyone, other than your close family, friends, and partner, even cares about what you are doing--even then it might just be your partner that cares. Are your friends interested in your trip to Hawaii or the promotion you just got? Not only are they not interested, they likely resent you for any success you may have. (Is Facebook, for many, anything more than a child's tool for bragging about what they did over the summer?) Show modesty in all things, show restraint, let things go, and show a willingness to accept what is: accept your coghood and then move towards having a good, meaningful life. Does this mean you don't better yourself, that you don't work hard, that you don't participate in the world fighting injustice? No, but all those things are done with a calmness, focus, and awareness that we are all, we humans, imperfect beings struggling to be good. Just because you are stuck in the machine at work, a tool of the tool (Thoreau), doesn't mean you have to remain stuck for the remaining time. Life is not short, it's that we waste so much of it (Seneca) on trivial undertakings.

In the end, we need to use our minds, our reason, and see the world clearly. That thing you want and are struggling to achieve will be attained (or not) and then, possibly, there will be another day. Keep well.

Reason

There is one thing that separates us from all other creatures on this planet: our reason. We are able to perceive the world and make rational judgments about it. When we allow irrational thoughts to guide our behavior we are giving up the one thing we have that is truly our own. Where does this reason come into play? In every moment of our lives we are making judgments about the world whether it is how we will interact with one another or how we perceive the world. 

The first step in applying our reason is to clearly define what is in our control and what is outside of our control. We can't change the age we live in, the culture that exists around us, the people that cross our paths every day, the time we were born, or our parents.  As it's said, choose your parents wisely. The list could go on and on, but sitting opposite that list is our mind which we control or can learn to take under our control. We do have to grant there are people who suffer from forms of mental illness that are not within their control, but then, on the other hand, there are mental illnesses that appear to be uncontrollable but when individuals are taught to control their thoughts, their behavior, their actions, they step away from their illness. What is required is an awakening to the fact that much of what individuals see as out of their control is in fact within their control. It is possible to control fear, anger, jealousy, our thoughts, the swirling of our minds can be contained.

Scuola di Atene The School of Athens

What do I mean by the above? When we allow our emotions to be guided by the behavior of others, we are giving up our reason. I will use this word, reason, to indicate that part of the mind within our control. Reason determines how we interact with the world. If we look at our emotions, such as anger, we can often see we are behaving irrationally and basing our responses to the world on the idea we have control over things that are out of our control.

The first step in Stoicism is to turn on our reasoning ability and start to see the world as it really is filtering out everything that is out of our control and focusing on those things we can control. There is also the need to monitor our responses to the world around us. Are they rational? Are they based on what is really happening or are we coloring things with our judgments, our pasts, our wishes, fears, desires, or other emotions? We need to see the world with clarity or we are not living. To not see the world as it is, is to live in fantasy. How many of us allow our brains to be like monkeys jumping from thought to thought never taking the time to regulate the one thing we can control: our minds? The first step in Stoicism, as in Buddhism, is to get control of our minds. No easy task. Keep well.

Emotions

We humans are emotional beings which can lead us to both the most positive AND most negative actions. We, despite what we might allow, are not slaves to our emotions, we can control them, we can, so to speak: get a grip. We should not let particular emotions control our behavior. Our emotions are not our masters. When an emotion arises, we should stop and examine it to determine its origin. 

Anger, for example, is often based upon our inflated expectations around how something should turn out. 

When driving to work, all the other drivers should be aware of our presence and our unbelievable driving skills. Someone passes you on the right because you are going 60 in the passing lane and we unleash a string of curses never mind that we have passed people using the slow lane a thousand times. Anger is often the result of not totally accepting the idea that things don't always go the way we want. When anger rises up, take five seconds and embrace the fact that our position is not based upon reality--things don't always go the way we want. 

Cain slaying Abel by Peter Paul Rubens

When someone succeeds, we diminish their success never addressing our own envy: What kind of a person buys a Rolex? We allow ill will to fester in our hearts without acknowledging that people do work harder than we do, that people are smarter than we are, but that we are still good people leading good lives. We should not allow envy to be the emotion that gets between us and having meaningful relationships with others. Remember the story of Cain and Abel--jealousy overcame Cain and he killed his brother. If he had just stopped and said, "Hey, maybe God isn't a vegetarian." 

We should not be ruled by our emotions whether they are love or hate. Think through your emotions and you will likely discover they are not what you think, but rather the result of poor logic.

You are in love and your love is the only person on Earth for you, the only person on this planet that understands you, that is a fit for you, so you overwhelm them and drive them away. Then you turn to anger and all logic runs away. Better to see that person as one of perhaps millions that you are compatible with and not the one-and-only. Yes, love them, but do not idolize them to the point of having, once again, inflated expectations. 

Take charge of your heart by using the mind nature provided. Keep well.

Questioning Our Judgement

Keeping our judgments from running wild is a major accomplishment. These judgments can alter our perception of the world if we do not hold them up for examination. I am not only referring to how we perceive others, but also how we perceive our own stories that we rarely call into question. We all have little stories in the back of our minds that we repeat over and over until they become a legend about ourselves and we stop questioning them. These stories can come in many types, but the two big ones are either you as the hero or as the victim. Sometimes we weren't as heroic as we thought we were and conversely we weren't the big victim either. We should each examine the stories we tell ourselves and the impact they have on the way we live our lives, the way we perceive who we are. 

And then there is the quick judgement we apply to others not taking a moment to see them as the equals they are. We confuse our judgments with reality. This is not to say we don't judge people and events, but rather that we apply some logic to the process and not simply take the easy route. We don't know the stories of others and we often don't know our own because we have distorted things so much. It takes a lot of effort to discover who you really are, but how many minutes in a given day do we dedicate to actually going through our thoughts and casting most of them aside. Create a new story for yourself and take a few minute to discover the story of another person. You will be surprised. Keep well.