September 6th - If I lost my freedom, would it break me?

September - Fortitude And Resilience

September 6th

They Can Throw You In Chains, But . . .

“You can bind up my leg, but not even Zeus has the power to break my freedom of choice.”

—Epictetus, Discourses, 1.1.23

It was said that Epictetus walked with a permanent limp as a result of being chained up as a slave. Two thousand years later, James Stockdale also had his legs chained in irons (and his arms bound behind his back and pulled from the ceiling, repeatedly wrenching them from their sockets).

Future senator John McCain was in that same prison, subjected to much of the same abuse. Because his father was famous, McCain was repeatedly offered by his captors a chance to abandon his men and be sent home early.

He too held tightly to his freedom of choice, declining to submit to that temptation even though it meant a loss of the physical freedom he must have ached for.

None of these men broke. No one could make them sacrifice their principles. That’s the thing—someone can throw you in chains, but they don’t have the power to change who you are. Even under the worst torture and cruelties that humans can inflict on one another, our power over our own mind and our power to make our own decisions can’t be broken—only relinquished.

WEEK XXXVI (36) - A Hard Winter Training

1st to 7th September

The art of living has three levels of discipline: study, practice, and hard training. Reading the Stoics, that’s study. Trying out the lessons and reflecting on them in this journal, that’s practice. What’s left is the hard training. Epictetus liked to use the analogy of the Roman army’s practice of training hard in the off months of winter so they would be prepared to meet any challenge when they returned to battle in the spring. Seneca would spend time each month exposing himself to tougher than usual conditions. He, too, used a military analogy, pointing to the way soldiers are tasked with hard jobs so they would be strong when the enemy eventually came. What are you doing this week to push yourself beyond mere study and practice?

“We must undergo a hard winter training and not rush into things for which we haven’t prepared.”

—Epictetus, Discourses, 1.2.32

“Here’s a lesson to test your mind’s mettle: take part of a week in which you have only the most meagre and cheap food, dress scantly in shabby clothes, and ask yourself if this is really the worst that you feared. It is when times are good that you should gird yourself for tougher times ahead, for when Fortune is kind the soul can build defences against her ravages. So it is that soldiers practice manoeuvres in peacetime, erecting bunkers with no enemies in sight and exhausting themselves under no attack so that when it comes they won’t grow tired.”

—Seneca, Moral Letters, 18.5-6

“When a challenge confronts you, remember that God is matching you with a younger sparring partner, as would a physical trainer. Why? Becoming an Olympian takes sweat! I think no one has a better challenge than yours, if only you would use it like an athlete would that younger sparring partner.”

—Epictetus, Discourses, 1.24.1-2

Stoic Guidance - Cardinal Virtues

If we were to describe Stoicism in one sentence, it would be this: A Stoic believes they don’t control the world around them, only how they respond—and that they must always respond with courage, temperance, wisdom, and justice.

Summary of Daily Stoic 4 Stoic Virtues.

Wisdom

“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own”

—Epictetus

Wisdom is harnessing what the philosophy teaches then wielding it in the real world. As Seneca put it, “Works not words.”

Temperance / Self-Control / Moderation / Discipline

“‘If you seek tranquillity, do less.’ Or (more accurately) do what’s essential—what the logos of a social being requires, and in the requisite way. Which brings a double satisfaction: to do less, better. Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’”

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.24

Temperance is the knowledge that abundance comes from having what is essential. The Stoics often used temperance interchangeably with “self-control.” Self-control, not just towards material goods, but self-control, harmony, and good discipline always—in pleasure or pain, admiration or contempt, failure or triumph. Temperance is guarded against extremes, not relying on the fleetingness of pleasure for happiness nor allowing the fleetingness of pain to destroy it.

Justice

“And a commitment to justice in your own acts. Which means: thought and action resulting in the common good. What you were born to do.”

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.31

Justice is “the principle which constitutes the bond of human society and of a virtual community of life.”

Epictetus said, “Seeking the very best in ourselves means actively caring for the welfare of other human beings.”

Courage

“Don’t you know life is like a military campaign? One must serve on watch, another in reconnaissance, another on the front line. . . . So it is for us—each person’s life is a kind of battle, and a long and varied one too. You must keep watch like a soldier and do everything commanded. . . . You have been stationed in a key post, not some lowly place, and not for a short time but for life.”

—Epictetus, Discourses, 3.24.31-36

Epictetus was once asked which words would help a person thrive. “Two words should be committed to memory and obeyed,” he said, “persist and resist.”

Courage to face misfortune. Courage to face death. Courage to risk yourself for the sake of your fellow man. Courage to hold to your principles, even when others get away with or are rewarded for disregarding theirs. Courage to speak your mind and insist on truth.