The Stoic Handbook, 2nd Edition
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Introduction
The Philosopher
Everyone can be a philosopher. Everyone. We all have that ability. We
were born with it. Human beings are rational, thinking, reasoning
creatures, and Nature has made us that way. As Nature created the giraffe
to reach higher and the cheetah to run faster and the bull elephant to be
stronger, so did it create the human being to be wiser. Potentially.
In ancient Greece, the birthplace of philosophy and philosophers, a
person was known as a philosopher by their way of life, not by their
academic credentials or scholarly publications. Philosophy was a highly
valued topic of conversation and thought, but more importantly it was an
ideal to be embraced and practiced. Life was lived better with
philosophy.
The same could be and should be true today, only most of us can’t be
bothered. We use just as much of our reasoning ability as we have to and
no more. Year after year, we struggle to feed ourselves and our family,
pay the mortgage, keep the car running, wear nice clothes, and, if there’s
any time or money left over, we spend it on countless distractions and
mindless diversions that contemporary society is only too happy to offer.
And as we get older, we don’t gain in wisdom, we only gain in weight.
It’s always been like this – for most people. We accept this priceless gift
of higher intelligence as our birthright, which it is, then we spend this
inheritance on grabbing and grasping at far more than we really need. At
the end of the day, when the weary mind is ready to rest we let it drift
away by watching yet another episode of our favorite TV show or
cheering on a millionaire athlete to score another goal. Acquiring what
we need to live on this planet is not difficult, but we have made it so, and
our awesome intelligence is obsessed with a
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life of consumption and
endless busy-ness.
That’s normal. At least it’s normal in that it’s common. Still, there have
always been a few who make the effort to rise above the common herd
because they are so amazed by our reasoning faculty and the promise of
wisdom that they choose to develop a noble mind rather than wallow in
the mud of accumulation. They choose to live closer to the gods than to
the beasts in the barnyard. These people we call philosophers, lovers of
wisdom.
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But, as soon as we decide to pursue wisdom, that’s when the difficulty
really begins. Everyone can be a philosopher. Everyone can be wise. But
how is it done? What is the best way to achieve humanity’s highest goal?
Unfortunately, finding the path, let alone walking upon it, is not that easy.
It should be, but, like so much in our contemporary world, the pursuit of
wisdom has become unnecessarily complex. If we study philosophy at
the university we’re at the mercy of the professionals, the academics, and
it’s been 2000 years since they cared anything about our goal. If we study
wisdom with the theologians, another problem arises. Faith. Sooner or
later, religions deliberately turn their backs on the pursuit of truth and the
exercise of reason and require the mind to believe in faith. That’s why
religions are called faiths – Jewish faith, Christian faith, Muslim faith, et
cetera.
So what do we do, and why should we be bothered? Hardly anyone else
gives a damn, so why should we? What does wisdom promise that makes
it so great, and who wants to be a philosopher anyway? It sounds boring
and hard.
The Promise
Hitchhiking through the Carolinas in the Deep South in 1964, I couldn’t
help but notice the sharecropper’s shacks lining old country roads for
miles and miles through tobacco and cotton fields. The shacks were
occupied by dirt poor people working like slaves, a hundred years after
abolition, from sunup to sundown, earning a wage that was barely
enough to stay alive. There were no luxuries here. Children were barefoot
by necessity, and shoes were worn only for Sunday school, if they were
worn at all. Everywhere one looked there was depression and gloom.
Almost everywhere.
Every couple of miles there was a sharecropper shack that was different.
It was built the same,
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probably by the same builder, but it didn’t look the
same as the shack on either side of it. The unpainted, cracked, and dirty
clapboard siding was painted with whitewash, not regular paint, mind
you. That would be too expensive. This was cheap, white paint mixed
with water so that a gallon might paint one whole side of the house.
There would be flour sacks dyed a bright color and cut for curtains
instead of faded newspaper or nothing at all. The front yard would be
picked up and raked, and flowers would grow in flower beds by the front
door. And to one side, or peeking around back, there were always
vegetables growing in a weeded garden.
This is what philosophy promises. It doesn’t matter so much about your
race or place in society as it does the responsibility you take for building
and maintaining a noble character. You take what you have been given
and do the best you can. Even if you were born in a sharecropper’s shack,
you can make it a happy and lovely home. You were born with the ability
and the choice to become great, to become great with wisdom, and
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regardless of all else that befalls you there is always one thing that is in
your power – the nobility of your character.
Seneca, the great Roman Stoic, said that only a fool would go to buy a
horse and carefully examine the saddle and riding tackle but ignore the
horse. It’s the same for you. The circumstances surrounding your birth
and place in this world are your saddle and riding gear. The nobility of
your character, that which is inside of you, is what really matters. This is
what philosophy promises, what Stoic philosophy teaches, and what The
Stoic Handbook is all about.
The Stoic Tradition
Stoicism is a living philosophy. What that means is that Stoic philosophy
is more than just great thoughts organized into a complete and coherent
vision of reality. It is first and foremost a philosophy to live by, a
practical application of ancient wisdom, a way of life and a guide to the
choices one makes in this life. And from its beginnings, it was the only
philosophy addressed to all human beings – regardless of gender, race, or
social class. Even women and slaves were welcome to follow this path, to
be treated as sisters and brothers, a notion considered laughable by other
philosophers who, along with Aristotle, classified them somewhere above
brute beasts and below free men.
Stoicism is alive. The reason it is still alive after more than 2300 years is
because it is universally adaptable and available to people of every color,
class, and culture. And something else: it evolves. As the human race
learns and grows, so does our philosophy. It evolves because of the
strength and conviction of the Stoics themselves. Stoics have a tradition
of independent thought, and we like it that way. We of the Stoic school
do not follow a tyrant, as Seneca said.
This is not to say that
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we have an eclectic hodgepodge of assorted ideas
collected here and there. It is not. Its inner core of orthodoxy moves very
slowly, glacially, expanding and refining with the ages. Its foundation is
secure, because it is built upon the power of a single idea:
The goal of life is to live in agreement with nature.
That is our motto: live in agreement with nature, live according to nature,
live in harmony with nature. Zeno of Citium, the founder of our school,
coined the phrase and concept, but he wasn’t working alone. He was
following a path already begun by two of the greatest thinkers in the
western world, Heraclitus and Socrates. Zeno is the Father of the Stoic
school, and Heraclitus and Socrates can rightly be called its Grandfathers.
But before we take a look at this great history, let's address some
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).
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The Best Quote
describing our place in history
that I have ever seen. EW
Unlike Epicureanism, which quickly froze into a fixed dogma, Stoicism
developed, and became more complex, comprehensive, and plausible. It
forms a system of interconnected doctrines confirming and supporting
each other. Plato, Aristotle, and Epicurus never managed as much; and
the Stoics' successors in the history of philosophy have produced nothing
more comprehensive and systematic.
Professor Terence Irwin, Classical Thought (Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 181.
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FAQs
The following are frequently asked questions I have been asked or have
asked myself.
Q. What is Stoicism?
A. Stoicism is a wisdom philosophy. What that means is that it's a
philosophy about how to live life and live it well. Our philosophy was
founded in Athens, Greece, about 2300 years ago by a man named Zeno.
After studying with the Cynics for several years, he studied at Plato's
Academy, then started his own school at the central market in Athens.
Zeno started his school by standing on a porch in the market and talking
to anyone who happened by. In time, he had a regular group of men
standing and talking philosophy there with him. The porch became his
school. The word for porch in Greek is stoa, and the men who met there
to talk philosophy soon became known as the men of the porch, or Stoics.
Stoicism became the preeminent philosophy of ancient Greece and Rome
and flourished for nearly 500 years. It reemerged as a popular philosophy
in the Renaissance when people returned to reason rather than faith to
find answers about how to live. Today our philosophy and those who live
by it are alive and well all over the world. See www.thestoicregistry.org
Q. Is it true that Stoics repress their emotions and feelings?
A. No. This is an old misunderstanding. Emotions and feelings are
normal and natural, and sometimes they're even essential to our survival.
There are times when being afraid and running away is the wisest course
of action.
Where the misunderstanding comes from is the Stoic belief that emotions
are based upon a judgment. All of us, including Stoics, have emotional
reactions to events that can cause anger, grief, and fear, but after the
initial instinctive reaction, it is our judgment about the event that either
inflames or cools the emotion. As Shakespeare
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said in Hamlet, “There is
nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Shakespeare was a
student of Stoic philosophy, by the way, and he often used Stoic themes
in his plays.
We believe it is our judgment that makes something either good or bad,
not the thing in itself. If we are unhappy, then it was some judgment that
inflamed the emotions and made us unhappy. Happiness is everyone's
desire, and Stoicism is all about increasing your happiness and living
well.
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Q. What things do Stoics consider good and bad?
A. Only virtue is always good, and only the lack of virtue is always bad.
We do not believe there is any evil in Nature, only in the behavior of
human beings, and that comes about when people deliberately choose
what is harmful to themselves.
You see, we don't believe anyone can harm you, only that you can harm
yourself when you choose not to live according to Nature. But we don't
condemn others for lacking virtue, because they are already punishing
themselves by their behavior.
No one can hurt me, because I alone am responsible for the nobility of
my character - and that is the Stoic's highest ideal, the noble character.
Rich men and women are a dime a dozen, but a noble character is rare
and the greatest of all. Stoicism teaches you how to build a noble
character.
Q. The Stoic motto, “live according to Nature,” sounds good, but
what does that mean exactly?
A. Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, was the first to use that phrase, “live
according to Nature,” and what it means exactly is that Stoics look to
Nature as their guide to life. We believe that Nature teaches us everything
we need to know about how to live well in this world. That is why Stoic
physics is so important. In antiquity, physics was known as natural
philosophy, and by studying nature we come to know ourselves and what
makes us happy and successful and wise.
Later, another great Stoic, Panaetius, expanded the original motto to
include not just nature in general, but also the nature of the individual.
Each one of us has a unique personality, including different talents and
capacities we can develop to achieve our highest ideal. So, living
according to Nature also means to live in accordance with one's own
nature.
Epictetus, a Roman Stoic teacher, said, “If you
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have assumed any
character beyond your strength, you have both demeaned yourself in that,
and neglected one which you might have filled with success.” The wise
live according to both human nature in general and one's individual
nature in particular.
Q. Are Stoics allowed to enjoy such pleasures as good food, wine, art,
music, making love, et cetera?
A. Yes, of course. We are pantheists. The Stoic God is in ALL things. We
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value our reason above all, because that is our special gift from Nature,
but our creator is also in the eyes and ears and nose and taste buds and
kinesthetic sense – as well as in the mind.
Q. Do Stoics believe in God?
A. Yes, in a manner of speaking, but we do not all believe in God in the
same way. All Stoics are pantheists, because Nature is our god, literally,
but you can be an atheist or a deist or an agnostic and still be a Stoic in
good standing. The key to what kind of Stoic you are depends on whether
you believe that the intelligence and processes of Nature are conscious or
unconscious. Is Nature conscious or unconscious? Human beings were
created by Nature and have consciousness. Are we the only ones, or is
our creator also conscious?
The early Stoics believed that Nature was both providential and
conscious. These were the deists, but when Stoicism was adopted in
ancient Rome there were a few who believed that Nature was
unconscious. These were the first Stoic atheists. Today we have Stoics
who are deists, atheists, and agnostics. Such diversity is perfectly
acceptable. The Stoic community has a large tent, and we are tolerant of
disagreement within it.
Q. Do Stoics believe in life after death?
A. We do not believe in any one certain answer to this question. If you're
looking for certainty, there are two ways you can go about it. The first
and most reliable way is for you to die, then you will know for sure. The
second way, one that you may consider less drastic, is to join a religious
group that promises eternal life. Unfortunately, this is a promise that they
cannot prove. If you have faith in a religion, such as the Christians or
Muslims, then they will tell you what to believe about life after death. If
you demand evidence, reason, or proof, then nothing