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by saminiir
4095 days ago
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I'm not an expert in philosophy, but stoicism is something I definitely look forward practicing to. I just finished reading http://www.amazon.com/Guide-Good-Life-Ancient-Stoic-ebook/dp... and Aurelius' Meditations. The thing most resonates with me in stoicism is the fatalistic outlook. Everything that happens, has already happened and will continue to happen. Eases my anxiety. The negative visualization described in the book is also a powerful technique. It puts one's petty problems into perspective and actually makes you grateful for things you have. Overall, I think the central idea of it is the ability to feel joy - something that can be derived from the state of tranquility rather than pleasure of the senses. And of course, to treat other people to the best of your abilities and at the same time acknowledging how flawed beings we are. |
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“If you do the task before you always adhering to strict reason with zeal and energy and yet with humanity, disregarding all lesser ends and keeping the divinity within you pure and upright, as though you were even now faced with its recall - if you hold steadily to this, staying for nothing and shrinking from nothing, only seeking in each passing action a conformity with nature and in each word and utterance a fearless truthfulness, then the good life shall be yours. And from this course no man has the power to hold you back.”
There is nothing fatalistic about that. Marcus Aurelius didn't sit on his hands and wait for the world to go by, he went out and fought for what he believed in.
Stoicism is acceptance of difficulty, not acceptance of fate; acceptance of what you cannot change but demanding of effort where you can make a difference.
Stoicism is a call to action in the here and now, not a cosy belief in reward in the afterlife:
"In death, Alexander of Macedon’s end differed no whit from his stable-boy’s. Either both were received into the same generative principle of the universe, or both alike were dispersed into atoms." (Book Six, 24)
See also a blog from my alma mater: http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/stoicismtoday/what-is-stoicism/.