A Simple Choice

“Man conquers the world by conquering himself”
Zeno of Citium

Last post I went mystical as I find myself leaning more into that, but I thought I should do a post on the two beliefs that saved me from myself in my 20s.  Trouble with those truths is their slippery. The more down I was the easier it was to drop them and I wouldn’t consistently grab ahold of them and let them pull me through life until a year ago.  Those two beliefs that pulled me out of that dark pit was first Stoicism and then Existentialism. I want to give the bare essence of both and a little Jung, and we can dive deeper later.

A Stoic Flowchart

Don’t be afraid of the name, Stoicism is not about being unemotional and daunting but about choosing your response to life and being virtuous. It’s  a belief that came about in Greece a few hundred years after Socrates, but Stoics considered their belief to be distilled with his truths and Socrates approved.  Its main focus was the simple belief that you are in control of your responses, and you should stay in control.

You’re not a mindless beast, you can be rational about things.   In order to do this, you must look at life through a flowchart of sorts, before putting negative emotions into anything you should look at the realities.  Can you change that thing that you’re upset about? If yes, then do it, and if not, then stop it! You just said there is nothing you can do. Why be down about something you can’t change?  Stoics felt that life was fated to happen as it does, and all you can control is your response to it. They emphasized not only doing the right thing, but making your whole reason for doing the right thing is that it’s right, and that’s the whole point.  To be rational one must also factor in their emotions and how that will effect you. Good feelings are great to have! You shouldn’t get crazy on excess with them, but what you really got to look at for is all those negative feelings. They can screw life up and they don’t have to – having negative emotions about something you can’t change, at this very moment, is pretty stupid and you my friend, do not have to be that kind of stupid.

Following these simple steps allows you to bring eudaimonia, or flourishing, into your life and we deserve it as we are captains of our ship and no one else is.  See how we can apply that immediately into our life, wherever and whoever we are? Anyone could use it, and that is highlighted by the fact that the two best known Stoics were Marcus Aurelius, the emperor of the Roman Empire and Epictetus, a slave.  

Existential Responsibility

The other main belief was Existentialism, and while Nietzsche saw the similarities by calling himself and others, “We last stoics”, but also railed against them as he saw their reliance on virtue as a defense against being in the world. Both espoused in the power of choosing, but because of that ability existentialists saw that we are responsible for our life.  This responsibility is terrifying and fills us with anxiety, and we do whatever we can to avoid it. So much else in life makes us anxious; we’re all thrust into a life full of suffering and we still must live it until we die. We do whatever we can to not focus on that. Fate is not fixed as the stoics believe, it is in our hands. We are responsible for creating our self and that is terrifying and we often get overwhelmed with the fact it is ours to have. We don’t know how we are supposed to choose and act successfully so we avoid the question. Trouble is, our avoidance is our answer.

Existential Answers to life

Life questions us, “what are you going to do about it?” and your mindset it how you answer that question.  Stoics and Existentialists both answer it in different ways, one as being virtuous and rational and the other feeling that rationality is a defense to combat this absurd life. They both not only answer the same question but have a lot in common; both emphasize choice, only one rationality and the other existential reality. Existentialists felt, and I think they have a point here, that thinking in only rational terms removes so much of the you out of yourself.  The other parts that aren’t rational. Having an objective focus on life does make it easier to live and normally more productive but it takes away the subjective qualities of the person. Depending solely on using our logical side has us stop seeing people as people who can make individual decisions and we often just rationalize their humanity away into a stereotype.

There is no flowchart for the existentialists, unless it was just an arrow that said “just do you”. They saw a focus on rationality as yet another defense against the absurdness of life.  Instead of rationality, existentialists want to instill meaning into life with their actions. Having a blind focus on rationality alienates us from the things that matter. We have a hard time emotionally or spiritually connecting to anything and that, as well as the realities of life, terrify us and twists how we rationalize things.  Using logic and stoic principles is important, but it’s not the whole shebang (unless you, as the stoics did, make it the whole shebang).

Meaning in Action

Finding that meaning means finding something that you live for, that pushes you past rationality because how much you give yourself to that idea.  Existential psychoanalyst Viktor Frankl, who developed his therapy, logotherapy,  from his time trapped at Auschwitz and being separated from his family (who all died), selected a few areas he looked for to help find his meaning. First he echoed the Stoic belief that you can choose your reaction to anything, and at times when that is all you can choose that is paramount. Our surroundings cannot make us choose,  it is only us that have that ability. After that though, we must search for the meaning of our situation. If life is to have meaning at all, we must realize that meaning is in everything, which includes suffering. To understand the meaning we must understand that we always have the chance to better ourselves in any opportunity life throws us into.

Nietzche writes that “he who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.” And finding our why’s normally requires a fundamental change toward life. Those whys can be anything, and you need to grab onto them in any way you can because life is about finding what drives you.  Being rational, or being nonrational, or trying to wisely balance them is all fine and dandy, as long as you are focused on growing into your best and most authentic self. This change, as Frankl says, is to realize “that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.”

Action Living

Living is about action, even if that action is just changing how you view things.  You are responsible for finding the right answer, for yourself specifically, to the questions that life throws at you.  We have rational and factual reasons to do it and we have non rational reasons to do it that come from your intuition or creativity or passion or any part except that logical part . It is something you should just do. Both solutions apply Nike’s motto to life’s problems and are ways to apply a philosophical attitude towards life.  It does not mean that you should keep on doing whatever shitty thing you do, these philosophies aren’t about enabling.  They are about never losing sight that your life is completely in your grasp. These ideas legit saved me when I was depressed and limited in my abilities recovering from a coma. On a much more intense scale, Viktor Frankl used it to save him and others in the death camps. A famous Stoic, Seneca, was able to calmly apply it while facing death when ordered to poison himself by Emperor Nero. There is no life situation too big or small to apply these ideas to, even if they contradict each other at times.

Action Learning

Learning and undergoing psychoanalysis has helped flesh out where I stand in myself and how I can wield all these different ideas together. Jung also felt that the main focus in life should also be to grab onto your individuality. Grab it, but don’t forget we’re all stuck in this together. We are all unique individuals who all weirdly have pretty much the same kind of experiences and have since we became people.  Life hammers us and leaves us with blind spots over our eyes, we always understand our meaning and rationale better when we understand ourselves. Rationality is so important and so is claiming your freedom to choose, but both are a defense, or response, to life. You can twist your virtue and deny yourself your most helpful freedoms unless you work through your complexes and better understand your self. You must look at where you are to understand where you need to go.

Wherever you go you will often find that most philosophies of life run parallel with each other.  What is right for a good life is generally accepted, but sometimes they will turn away and contradict. Even though existentialism and stoicism can contradict each other, I have quotations from both tattooed on me. Life has a lot of things that make sense, and sometimes those things contradict, but that by itself doesn’t make them less right.  It’s a weird world out here, and if something is really helping and ringing true, you better grab hold tight and see where it can take you.

Pics by our neighborhood Gentleman.