The Impact of Family (LIM Part 5)

Posted on October 18, 2012 by Chris

In that last post, I listed a few of the “indifferents” that I thought were clearly ones that I can be dispassionate about. But there are some “indifferents” that I might have some trouble having a detached perspective about.

The first of these is family. How can family be an indifferent? Historically, I have based a large portion of my happiness on my family. I love my wife deeply, she completes me. My children are my pride and joy. I owe my parents so much because of their guidance and their giving to me. My family is a positive in my life, not an “indifferent!” But isn’t that positive influence on my morale, my well being, and my life the very reason why I need to remember that they have little to do with my virtue, my excellence?

The Hatfield Family…Don’t they look happy?

Actually, there are three major reasons that family is placed squarely in the indifferent column.

Reason #1 is that the concept of family can never live up to the reality. That unabashed positive family image is straight out of a Pleasantville Utopia (I really did enjoy the movie Pleasantville, by the way). A great number of people have problems with their family. They think they are not loved like they should be by family members. They are disrespected by their children, and cheated on by their spouse, or beaten by their father. Most of us expect our family to be pleasant to us…just because they are family. You expect your wife to be in the mood for sex when you are, or at least at the same rate as you are (e.g. every other day vs.once every two weeks). Your parents are intrusive in your life. Your children NEVER listen to you. Many expect family to be a perfect refuge from the rest of the world, but isn’t that an unrealistic expectation? Eventually, your family will disappoint you. This is not a negative statement about family, it is just the cold hard facts. The world around you, including your family, is not here to please you all the time. Your fellow human beings, including your family (and no matter how noble they may be), will err, they will sin, and sometimes they might just outright betray.

Don’t get me wrong, there are many, many joys to be had from family. I am very fortunate to have the family I have. So, if you are fortunate to have a family like mine, with such an overwhelmingly positive effect on your life, you still cannot escape the second and third reason that keeps family in the “indifferent” column of a Stoic philosophy.

Reason #2 is suffering: Your family will suffer. Some of them may suffer more than you, and some of them will suffer through your suffering. Your own struggles are one thing, but through your family, you will live theirs. They will get sick, they will be betrayed, stolen from, attacked, etc. For every family member, there is an emotional clone of you out there waiting to be tortured or tried.

Reason #3 is impermanence. In the end, every member of your family will part from you. Some of them will move away forever. Some of them will die before you. On the day of your death, you will part them all, and your parting will most likely make all of them sad, even if they hated you throughout your life.

So what is a Heroic Stoic to do? Is it all just a waste of time, an illusion, this family thing? As for me, I am aware that I cannot control my family. Giving birth to my children gives me know guarantee that they will respect my wishes. Marrying a wife guarantees me no love in return…the choice to love me, to please me, etc. is hers alone (as well as the choice to leave me, give up on me, etc.). My parents will someday be gone. My brother, my children, anyone in my family may be gone in the next minute. Being aware of this makes me a better man, a more tolerant husband, father, son, or brother.

I owe my family my service, adoration, and love, and they allow me the opportunity to improve myself by hopefully offering them an example, and knowing that the joys of their presence can be gone in an instant allows me to enjoy them all the more.

…and thus Stoic Joy through awareness and moderation.

Living in Moderation (LIM) Part 4 – The 3 “Knows”

Posted on October 17, 2012 by Chris

So, to have tranquility, I need to be aware of three things about the “indifferents” of my life:

Know what they are
Know that they are impermanent
Know that pursuit of them will not bring me happiness

So, let’s figure out #1. OK, so what are the “indifferents?” For me, here are some easy ones:

Wealth
Status/Reputation
Health
Survival or mere life
Physical Appearance
Popularity
Talent/Ability

Joe Theismann: had lots of talent…then he suffered a career ending injury.
CLICK PHOTO to see the top 25 Career Ending Injuries

I’m sure there are many more I can add to this list. All of these things listed are nice to have. However, every single one of them is largely out of my control and have no guarantee of being around tomorrow. I can appreciate them when I have them, and certainly can maintain them as best I can, but I shouldn’t obsess over them.

Right?

Living in Moderation Part 3 (Enter Zeno)

Posted on October 15, 2012 by Chris

To truly experience something, is to know whether it is right or not. Many a soldier has gone into a war waving their flag for king and country. Then, they experience the brutality, the insanity of killing, maiming, and butchering others…all for the sake of some far off ideology they only marginally understand. All warfighters come back different. They don’t all come back peace-niks (like me), but they all come back different.

And so it goes with living a purposefully deprived life, like a Cynic would. Theoretically, asceticism (see Part 1) sounds like a good idea. Isolate yourself completely from worldly temptations and pleasures, and you can focus on living a virtuous life. However, to experience asceticism is another thing altogether. Thus, it must have happened to Zeno of Citium, the original Stoic.

Zeno! (Actually it’s only a model)

Right around 300 BC, as the story goes, Zeno ended up in Athens as a result of a shipwreck. Zeno had previous knowledge of philosophy because of books that he had read, so when he ended up by this precarious accident to be in Athens…Home of Philosophy!…he asked around to find where great philosophers like Socrates could be found. As luck would have it, Crates (a Cynic, remember from Part 2?), found him instead and took him on as a pupil. Crates passed on to Zeno that the goal of a good life was to live with virtue and excellence.

But somewhere along the line, Zeno was unconvinced that a life of deprivation was necessary for virtue. He considered the pleasures of life that the Cynics rejected as “indifferents.” In other words, while these things were not beneficial in living a good life, they were not necessarily bad either. Incidentally, this consideration of “indifferents” became a cornerstone of Stoic ethics.

In other words, a person could enjoy the “indifferents” as long as she does so in moderation, and that she is aware, that indeed these things are indifferent…that worldly pleasures of wealth, power, prestige, and indulgence are not helpful to you in attaining virtue and excellence. This awareness, I think is what gives the Stoics their modern image as being emotionless and indifferent to the world around them, I suppose.

In a sense, this indifferent Stoic image is true, but not in the simple way that is commonly thought of.

(Zeno photo licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported)

Living in Moderation Part 2 (The Cynics) or Alternately: Doctor No

Posted on October 15, 2012 by Chris

Speaking of Self-Deprivation, the Cynics were masters at such a practice. The Cynics were a philosophy school beginning around 450 BC in ancient Greece. Most famous were Antisthenes, Diogenes of Sinope, and Crates.

The Cynics thought that:

The goal of life is happiness which is to live in agreement with Nature.
Happiness depends on being self-sufficient, and a master of mental attitude.
Self-sufficiency is achieved by living a life of virtue and reaching your highest potential.
The road to living an excellent life is to free oneself from any influence such as wealth, fame, or power, which have no value in Nature.
Suffering is caused by false judgments of value, which cause negative emotions and a vicious character.

What they meant by a life according to nature is to live with the absolute bare necessities. In other words, they lived an ascetic life (a life of self-deprivation). By depriving themselves of worldly desires completely, they draw nearer to to a life of virtue and excellence.

As I said in Part 1, I can see their good intentions, but I think that, in short, they throw the baby out with the bath water by trying to eliminate judgment from the equation. Would you like some food? No. Would you like some shelter? No. Would you like air conditioning? No. Would you like to travel to Hawaii on a vacation? No.

In short, I think that ascetics have the right idea: that material things and excesses do not bring happiness. They certainly lay the foundation for finding happiness. But aren’t they only half-right?

DON’T FORGET TO READ PART 3

Living in Moderation

Posted on October 14, 2012 by Chris

I may one day have to live with nothing…or at least almost nothing. I may want for food someday, I may miss my loved ones someday, because of separation or death. I often imagine my life without some of the good things that I enjoy now. I even make an effort to deprive myself of things “on purpose” (most notably food, sweets) to more fully appreciate them.

Is this enough?

However, I see no reason why I should live a deprived life, and I see no reason why it would make me more enlightened. I strive a to live a simple life, but I do enjoy some things that aren’t simple. Further, I see no reason to live the life of a monk or an ascetic. An ascetic deprives himself of things like food, water, clothes, etc., thinking that by not having worldly wants, then he will be closer to enlightenment, God, the oneness of the universe, etc.

Is this aescetic taking the easy way out?

Beyond a certain level, it seems that having more stuff doesn’t seem to make anyone more or less happy. OK, the studies are conflicting: click here.

In any case, it is the desire for stuff, I think, that gets us into happiness deficit. If my life revolves around getting more stuff, then I think that is when I would be disappointed, regardless of how much stuff I have. The trick is, how much is too much? I think ascetics try to make it black and white: All stuff leads to unhappiness! I think this is a cop out. Real life requires judgment of what is and is not moderation.

DON’T FORGET TO READ PART 2