Monday is OK

Stoic at Minecon

I'm at Minecon in Las Vegas. Minecon is a celebration of a single game, Minecraft, which allows you to shape a private world and then lose your works to exploding monsters. This in itself requires a stoic outlook! The convention is also a testbed of all the sage advice I've written about on Stoic Saturdays past. 5000 attendees plus the rest of Vegas makes for many um...social situations that need to be navigated.

I hope to write a longer post about this weekend's adventures. Today I'm limited by time and the phone on which I'm typing this. All I can say is, stoicism has shaped this event into something fun, lively, and instructive. Also, Minecraft nerds rule.

Stoicism and the Blues

Today I have got out of all trouble, or rather I have cast out all trouble, for it was not outside, but within and in my opinions.

-Marcus Aurelius

I had a rough couple of days this week. I've dealt with depression on and off (mostly on) since about the age of twelve. A few days ago, it came back full force. And yes, I know that technically depression needs to stick around for a couple weeks to be a medical depression, but it's so much easier to package the full continuum into a single term. Anyway, what a great test of my stoicism!
 

Stoicism demands that I have a clear understanding of what I control and what I do not. I've mentioned before that Stoics consider even my own body as outside my complete control. That principle isn't very hard to apply to aches in my joints, but things get murkier when it comes to my emotional states. Where do emotions fall on the control spectrum? They're so closely related to the all important stoic will. Epictetus listed the things in my control as: opinion, pursuit, desire, and aversion. There's definitely an emotional component to such terms as pursuit, desire, and aversion. So how should I treat my emotional state during depression?
 

My emotions are indifferent when they are not coupled with my opinions. This is completely my own thought, I can't back it up with Stoic quotes and such (maybe I'll be able to in the future). Still, look at this Aurelius quote: Today I have got out of all trouble, or rather I have cast out all trouble, for it was not outside, but within and in my opinions. Opinions come up a lot in Stoicism. This makes sense, opinions are formed by all the aspects of our mind that Stoics find important, like the will and reason. So the question becomes, where do my emotions meet my opinions?

I believe that my depression arrives prior to my negative thoughts. By which I mean, my brain becomes chemically imbalanced and it makes happy thoughts oh so hard to generate while stressful thoughts flow like water on a downhill slope. As such, my emotional state would be indifferent, neither virtue nor vice. My emotions are simply part of the environment I find myself in. On the other hand, if I  couple my emotions with my opinions, I am moved towards desire or aversion. In that case, my emotions become part of a process that is either virtuous or not.

If this is a workable concept in Stoicism, then treating my depression as an indifferent should led to tranquility. I'm happy to report it did. Not instantly, but my depression lasted days, not weeks. It worked like this: One day I wake up and basically feel muted. The world is sepia, with all the emotional color drained out of it. Half a day later, I start the standard process of building my thoughts on a scaffolding of depressed emotions, leading to an even darker place. Thankfully, I have developed a habit of reviewing Stoic quotes and the like. I begin questioning the nature of my depression. I decide that my emotional state is outside my control. As such, I refuse to predicate my approach to the world on my present emotional state. I fulfill all my duties, listen to and accept good advice from my wife, surround myself with good friends, and basically continue life without paying attention to my dull internal world. Within 48-hours, my chemical imbalance corrects itself. This is record time.

So that's what Stoicism did for me lately. I'm curious if other practicing Stoics have a different view of emotions and, if so, you'd be willing to share your wisdom. I'm always looking for a more stoic approach to Stoicism. 

Stoic Triage

For we ought to have these two principles in readiness: that except the will nothing is good nor bad; and that we ought not to lead events, but to follow them. "My brother ought not to have behaved thus to me." No; but he will see to that: and, however he may behave, I will conduct myself toward him as I ought. For this is my own business: that belongs to another; no man can prevent this, the other thing can be hindered.

-Epictetus

 This Stoic Saturday post will be short. I usually write them early but this weekend has been about enjoying time with my wife, going to a great Amanda Palmer show and, today, brewing an American Stout.

This week I've been dwelling on principle one: Stoic morality. I think most people have run into Hamlet's version, "there's nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." There's probably a difference between the stoic will and generalized thinking, but why nitpick? The point is, I've been working on internalizing the Stoic view of the world.

In the Discourses, particularly in Book Three, Epictetus really pushes constant attention to principle one. Over and over, he asks his students to apply a simple rule to every situation, is this thing before me independent of the will, or dependent? If it's independent, he says to "throw it away." As I understand it, Epictetus is telling me to toss these things into the Indifferent category. That concept was covered well by Michael Daw in a recent post, I suggest checking it out. If something is dependent on the will, then I'm given a choice. Will I act with virtue, the only good? Or will I act out of vice, the only bad? This way of approaching situations is on the face of it, simple, and also very powerful. I find that performing stoic triage on events frees me to apply my energy towards fixable problems. I could say a lot about that, but I seriously need to start brewing. Happy Saturday, all.

Occupy Long-term Thinking

...we can't afford to simply indulge the passion of our differences. Not anymore.

- Lawrence Lessig

I was planning on writing a well thought out post about the Occupy movement, American polarization, and the necessity of thinking long term. Instead, I've been drinking wine with my wife and refreshing Twitter to see what's happening in Oakland. So here's what I've decided to pound out.

 

I like the passion of the Occupy movement. The majority of its participants stand much closer to my cultural comfort zone than do Tea Partiers. So I root for the political engagement that Occupy is stimulating. Unfortunately, I also recognize that passion is almost inevitably short-sighted. At least one  major supporter of the Occupy movement is proving as much through a conversation with Lawrence Lessig.

In Something More Than Polarization, Lessig reviews an online conversation he's been drawn into with David Zirin of The Nation. The whole conversation is worth a read, but my summary is this: Zirin thinks that the Tea Party is the enemy and can not be engaged while Lessig asserts that all Americans should come together to demand political reforms that will free our government to listen to the People.

Ok, I just deleted a paragraph of ranting. It concerned my abhorrence of solidarity built on a foundation of Us v Them talk (no, I was not referring to the Tea Party). Anyway, I recommend the article. That is all.