By C.G. Stoppel
Allegan County News advertising agent Karen Allen when she responded to my “What’s new?” saying she was having wonderful evenings reading ancient stoic philosophers’ biographies.
That reawakened memories of studying stoicism from university days, both as a student and later teaching ethics. By the time I walked back to the Church of the Good Shepherd the indigestion was sweeping over me. I still have it.
Surprisingly, three Greeks (Zeno, Epictetus and Seneca) who have been six feet under for about 2,300 years, and a Roman emperor (Marcus Aurelius) who died about 1,900 years ago are more relevant than ever. They gave us some good ideas about how to live during challenging times and find inner happiness.
For one, they suggested we don’t own anything on a permanent basis. Sooner or later it wears out, gets destroyed, sold or, if we outlive it, passed on to someone else. It doesn’t matter whether it is old pillowcases, a flashy car or even real estate; it is never permanent.
My uncle bought a woolen winter coat in the late 1930s and wore it until he died in 1950. It got passed on to me, and every button and thread is present and accounted for. I am sure my great nephew will want it when I fall off my perch.
Nor can we truly own or control anyone else. We can’t own or control most things that happen in the world around us. We can do wonderful or terrible things to entice them into changing their lives to suit us, but we’ll never own or control their hearts and minds.
The stoic philosophers teach that about the only thing an individual can own is their reactions and response to what happens around them.
Here’s an example: How many of us have fussed and complained about the weather this winter? There is nothing we can do about it other than make up our mind how we will respond. We can be miserable and do our best to share that with others, or be like the fellow who turned 100 years old and was asked to explain his secret for a long life.
“I get up every morning,” he answered, “open the curtains and look outside, then tell God that He created the perfect weather for this day.”
It takes patience, experience and prudence to understand what we can and cannot control. We only have control over ourselves, and no one ever does that perfectly.
Mastering the finer nuances of prudence, patience and tolerance is a challenge for most of us. It is too tempting to simply fly off the handle whenever there is something we don’t like. It’s harder to pause, think it through and remain rational.
Those are attributes taught to cadets at Sandhurst Military Academy in England. Their instructors sometimes have to remind them to “Take a Condor Moment.” It’s a phrase based on an a British brand of pipe tobacco Get out your pipe, take your time filling it and while you enjoy it think through what can be done and how you are going to respond.
Sometimes a walk around the block is all we need to slow down and think things through. Sometimes a Condor Moment makes it easier to come up with a creative idea that might work.
The past three years have been challenging for us. When businesses were defined as essential or non-essential and garden centers were closed, too few people were taking a Condor Moment. One day, some of the hotheads drove to the Lansing capitol with their guns. They made their point: they were unhappy.
We saw the same thing Jan. 6 a year ago. We have seen it many times since. It is generally a variation on the theme that people are unhappy and allowing their emotions to jerk all over the map.
My favorites are the videos of the “Karens and Kens” unhappy because they cannot control everything and everyone around them. It is almost fun laughing as they make fools of themselves trying to impose their will on others.
Other videos are less fun when they involve matters of racism or some other form of bigotry. They are ugly and hurtful. Regardless, it is a demonstration of people who lack self-control. Because they are weak they try to bully others.
If we are going to live in a civil society, we need to borrow from the philosophy of the stoics. We find their teachings in the last line of the second verse of “America the Beautiful”: “Confirm thy soul in self-control; thy liberty in law.”
The stoics don’t have all the answers to a happier life. But they do offer good ideas that might make us happier. The danger in their ideas is we can take them too far and disengage from life. That leads to hardcore apathy, meaning we can look right through or step over someone in need. That is a felony violation of the social contract.
Knowing the difference between knowing we can’t control everything and keeping the rest of the world at a distance is a challenge. It takes work and it time-consuming. That’s what I mean about getting a case of mental indigestion.
