My week living as a Stoic: like a Buddhist with attitude, but hard to do hungover
I’m sure I’m not the only one who is alarmed by the news cycle – things seem to be speeding up, events appear increasingly alarming or catastrophic, people more polarised. Reading Twitter when I wake (particularly news from the US) has become an experience similar to the Mia Wallace overdose scene in Pulp Fiction. Each morning on opening my browser there’s a shot of adrenaline, straight to the heart.
I can’t stop the news cycle, but maybe I can change the way I process it. Would the ancient teachings of Stoicism help?
The Roman Stoics believed that unhappiness was caused by trying to control events that we have little say over. The only thing we can control is our thinking. By practising Stoicism, we cultivate an attitude of “calm indifference to external states”. Virtues such as rationality and courage are prized.
Stoicism is an ancient Greek philosophy that preaches fortitude and self control. It was developed in the thirdcentury BC and has had a revival in recent times with a range of books, online communities and YouTube channels.
Seneca – a great Roman Stoic – lived it. He was forced to commit suicide by his pupil Nero. It wasn’t an easy task. He was so old that his veins wouldn’t open, so he had to call for hemlock to finish himself off. When that didn’t work, slaves brought him to a hot bath and suffocated him by steam.
But during this process he showed great fortitude, and narrated his end to his friends gathered that night for a dinner party. He had been cultivating a stoical approach to death his whole life.
Last week was Stoic Week, an annual online event where people from around the world pledge to live as a Stoic for a week. There are three exercises a day and a discussion board.
I gathered a group of five mates to do the course with and we set up an iMessage group to check in on each other. We also met at a cafe in Surry Hills to discuss the first day’s readings.
The work required for Stoic Week was quite time-consuming and involved. Each day was themed and we had to consider the work of three main Stoics – Marcus Aurelius, Seneca and Cicero.
In the morning there was a text and, for me and much of my group, deciphering the Stoics took up the bulk of time. These were no Zen Koans or wellbeing memes. They were full of clauses and hard to follow. But, after all this homework, did it make the world easier to bear?
It’s good but slightly weird to be talking about this stuff
When I met two of my fellow Stoics for a coffee on the first day, I felt selfconscious directing discussion towards the first reading of the week – a really knotty bit by Cicero. “I didn’t really get it – what did you guys make of it when he said ‘I’m shocked by nothing when it does happen’?”
But then I realised it felt weird because I don’t talk about ideas in this communal, formulated way anymore. I was rusty. But within a few days I felt less weird talking to my small gang about Stoicism, and was kind of sad
The Stoics, who lived with a certain amount of danger, treachery and violence, knew of the darkness in man’s heart.
when the week ended. It’s good to talk about ideas, and properly grapple with them as a group, and not feel like you’re somehow uncool for doing so.
Things are only bad if we think they are bad
On Monday I had a nap and ended up sleeping all afternoon. I felt bad about being lazy and unproductive but, according to the day’s Stoic readings (theme: happiness), my excessive napping is nothing to feel guilty about. In fact, it is value neutral, neither good nor bad.
It reminded me a bit of that line from Shakespeare: “there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”.
Achieving your goals will not make you happy
The Stoic reading on Wednesday was all about relationships.
It provoked a thoughtful response among our group.
“I spend a massive portion of my life chasing the one or two goals that I think will make me finally ‘happy’ – and on some level I’m terrified about what happens if I get there and don’t feel content,” said one of our group.
This has actually happened to me, which is rather depressing when I think about it. Achieving the things that I worked so hard for (writing books is something that springs to mind) didn’t make me any happier. The Stoics say these external goals are unimportant. What we should be trying to cultivate are virtues – such as courage and discipline.
Stoicism similar to Buddhism
As the week progressed, my conception of Stoicism changed. It wasn’t just stiff upper lip stuff, there was a lot of meditations that were about treating others well. A meditation we did for the “community” chapter on Wednesday (called the Circles of Hierocles) felt remarkably like a Buddhist loving kindness meditation.
As philosopher and author Nassim Taleb once wrote on the similarities between the two: “A stoic is a Buddhist with attitude.
“Those details begin with how both systems seek to reduce suffering by helping us to better understand the world and how we interact with it.
“For the Stoic, all happiness is internal.”
Difficult people have been around forever
While Stoicism is about controlling your own feelings, it also extends to dealing with difficult people. The Stoics, who lived with a certain amount of danger, treachery and violence, knew of the darkness in man’s heart. Wednesday’s text started with “meditation” by Aurelius.
“Say to yourself first thing in the morning: today I shall meet people who are meddling, ungrateful, aggressive, treacherous, malicious, unsociable. They are subject to these faults because of their ignorance to what is good and what is bad.”
But Stoicism teaches us that all human beings are our relatives – we are like “two sets of teeth in the same jaw” – and when we meet hostility from others we should greet it with tolerance and affectionate care for them.
One of our group used this technique in dealing with difficult colleagues.
It’s hard to be Stoic with a hangover For our group, the last Sunday morning was the least engagement we had with the text. It was “nature” day and the Stoics were hungover.
“Too hungover. Couldn’t finish the second sentence,” texted Emily. While Trav just texted a photo of a tree in lieu of any discussion.
The week was over but we still had so far to go.