by Jason Ball
We hide behind euphemisms (they passed away, lost their battle, kicked the bucket). We chase every new fix that may extend our lives a little longer (taking vitamins, eating ‘clean’, not eating at all for extended periods). We expect miracles from our doctors (and blame them when they fail to do the impossible).
In Marcus’s eyes, death was nothing to be feared:
You should always behave like your next breath will be your last. If there is a god of some sort, you’ve got nothing to fear anyway. If there isn’t (or they simply don’t care about us mere mortals) then forget them. We’ve evolved to deal with all sorts of challenges, why assume this all falls apart at death? You’re probably more ready to face your end than you realise. (Book 2, Meditation 11)
He returns to this a couple of meditations later:
When you really look at it, death is about as natural as things get. You might as well fear the sun coming up. In fact, death is not just a natural event, it also helps keep the whole of nature working by recycling much-needed atoms. (Book 2, Meditation 12½)
Fundamentally, Marcus saw death as just another natural event (same as birth). He dwells less on the thought of an afterlife and more on the idea that all of us are made up of atoms and that, when we die, our atoms will simply disperse to join all the other atoms in the universe around us.
But while he was fine with the idea of dying, it did lead him to emphasise that it’s important to act while we can, not to hesitate or wait for the ‘right’ moment (which may never come). We see him caution himself repeatedly against wasting time worrying about what others may think and do when he could be getting on with making the world a better place.
All those books you plan to read. Those tabs you have open for later. That bucket list of experiences to try before you die (someday, maybe). Do it now while there’s still time. You’re a long time dead. (Book 3, Meditation 14)
Let’s face it, none of us knows when our time will come (or, for that matter, when those around us will breathe their last). You may have decades of good health ahead of you. You may die before you get to the start of the next chapter.
Now, of course, you could play the numbers game. You could justifiably say, ‘Well my dear old grandmother lived to ninety and died doing the tango with her latest boyfriend.’ And because you share some of her genes, you might see this as a reason to put off doing this or that – there will be time later (mañana, mañana…).
The reality might be quite different.
While you may prefer not to think about your death (or the deaths of your loved ones), it will not change its inevitability. Ignoring it, however, may mean you spend less time and effort cherishing others. You may say ‘I love you’ less often than you could (or avoid saying ‘I’m leaving you’ when you really should). You might put up with shitty jobs that suck the very life out of you. You might never say, ‘Screw it, let’s go to Bali.’
In Marcus’s world, the pervasive presence of death served as a reminder to live. It acted as a source of motivation for the Stoics to do the very best they could with what they had for as long as they had left. It inspired Marcus to fully engage with the world around him.
If all this talk is making you uncomfortable, it could be that you simply fear death. To a greater or lesser extent, many of us do. Here, again, the ever-pragmatic Marcus has some advice:
OK, let’s park the whole philosophy thing for a minute.
You’re afraid of dying, I get it. Try this for size: Think of all those old people who staved off the Reaper for longer than most but are now pushing up daisies. Are they better off than those who didn’t manage ‘a good innings’?
Sure, they got a few more years of work. A few more years of hanging out with tolerable people. A few more years encased in a failing body.
Maybe that’s a good thing. But still, they all ended up dead just like everyone else.
When you think about the 13.8 billion years to date and the probable infinity of years to come, there’s not much difference between a centenarian with a weak bladder and a baby that doesn’t make it out of the hospital. (Book 4, Meditation 50)
Maybe this feels a little brutal. But in our over-medicated age, there is often the sense that we should try to eke out our existence for as long as we possibly can, no matter what that may mean for the quality of our lived experience. For Marcus, this would be a bad deal. He would say that we should do what we can while we can so that, when the time comes, we’re ready to die with no worries of things left undone.
He would also tell us to take the long view. For Marcus, birth and death are all part of a cycle. We are made of atoms. When we die, our bodies will break down and these atoms will become part of something else. While this is not a vision of an everlasting soul and a wonderful afterlife, it does give us all a sense that we are part of something far, far bigger.
He best sums this up in Book 8:
We all die.
When I pass, my children will bury me. In time, their children will bury them or see them go up in smoke. It’s always been this way.
Thousands of years of smart people, arrogant people, downright odd people – where are they now? All those geniuses, gone in a flash, some forgotten, some remembered as heroes and legends.
So think about how your wonderful, complex body will one day be broken down into its atoms and scattered. Your little life extinguished and everything that makes up your body recycled by the universe. (Book 8, Meditation 25)
Death is ultimately a fundamental part of life. Rather than simply look at it as the end of something, we can instead view it as a way to help us begin to live better.
Making it work for you – five key questions
If you knew that you wouldn’t live to see your next birthday, what would you do differently with the time you have left?
Are you prepared for death – both your own and the death of those around you? How could you be better prepared?
What’s the least rational belief you hold about death? How can you challenge it?
How will you maximise the quality of your life as you age?
Do you understand how death actually happens? (Knowledge is power.)
3
Live In The Now
‘It’s pretty obvious that nothing will better prepare you for putting all this thinking into practice than the situation you find yourself in right now.’
It’s perhaps a cliché to claim that there’s no time like the present. For most of us, this is generally used as a reminder to get off our backsides and do the thing we’ve been putting off for way too long. Asking that person out. Starting that exercise regime. Cleaning hair out of the plughole. But for Marcus and the rest of the Stoics, this had a more literal meaning. As far as they were concerned, there is no time but the present.
Throughout the Meditations, Marcus often seeks to return his focus to the here and now. He repeatedly comes back to the fact that it is pointless either worrying about the past or fretting about the future. He first hits the theme in Book 2:
It doesn’t matter whether you live for three thousand years or thirty thousand, all you really ever have is the present moment, same as everyone else.
You can’t lose the past, it’s already gone.
You can’t gain the future, it’s not here yet (and may never be).
Ultimately, there are two truths in all this. The first is that everything from the beginning of time is just a bunch of repeating patterns – you can keep watching them go round and round, but they’re all the same. The second is that no matter if you die young or old, all you ever lose is the present moment – and even this is not really yours to own. (Book 2, Meditation 14)
Homo Sapiens are, as the name of our species suggests, thinking apes. While many of us hope that others (and if we’re honest, ourselves too) would think a little more and go ape a little less, the reality is that we all spend a lot of time in our own heads. We have big, highly evolved brains that allow us to analyse our surroundings, learn from the past an
d anticipate the future.
This is a good thing – especially when you’re running around the plains of prehistoric Africa trying to eat other creatures while simultaneously attempting to avoid getting eaten yourself. It means you can maximise your survival, make plans to improve your lot and avoid poking that thing that killed poor cousin Ug.
But fast forward a few millennia and we find this essential skill has some downsides.
Many wonderfully caring, empathetic, sensitive people dwell endlessly on the past. They worry about what they’ve done. Specifically, they fret about having done the wrong thing. They regret never taking that opportunity to go backpacking in South America. They fear they’ve caused offence with that thing they said that one time to that person in that shopping queue. And maybe they should have tried that stuff in bed that secretly excited them rather than keeping it strictly vanilla.
Of course, when they’re not eternally replaying the past, they’re fast forwarding to an imagined future. For some, this is a source of worry – will I keep my job, will I ever find love, should I see the doctor about this lump? (Although if it’s the last one, the answer is: yes.) For others, it’s a way to fantasise about a brighter tomorrow (when I win the lottery, when I get that promotion, when I tell my boss to shove it and go live on a beach in Thailand).
The problem is, as Marcus points out, neither the past nor the future really exists. The past is gone. Nothing you can do will change it. You can’t go back and make things follow a different course – although apologising when you’ve screwed up will probably help with the after-effects.
The future hasn’t pitched up yet. More importantly, the future you imagine (for good or ill) will probably be quite different than the one you get anyway. Sure, you can make plans, but there’s nothing to say that those around you will play along (not to mention the wider universe). And all too often, this is simply a way to put off doing what needs to be done right now – as John Lennon wrote, ‘Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.’
For Marcus, the good life is about getting on with what you need to do in the present moment. As he says in Book 9:
What does it really take to be fully human? Precisely what nature is demanding right now. Right. Now.
No delay. No worrying if anyone is watching. Don’t try to boil the ocean, just get started. Small steps. And understand that this is a pretty big deal in its own right. (Book 9, Meditation 29)
There is a simple, powerful lesson in this approach.
Too many of us grasp for the next big thing without ever stopping to focus on what’s happening right in front of our noses. We rush headlong in search of the next job without spending time to get really good at what we actually do. We lust after a bigger, better (way more expensive) house without thinking about what we can do to lead a simpler, more rewarding life right where we are. And we’re quick to swipe right on the next potential lover without spending time getting to know the person we’ve already met (and all their fascinating imperfections).
If we heed Marcus’s advice, we’ll narrow our focus dramatically. We’ll simply do what we need to do in the moment we find ourselves in – letting the past go and avoiding obsessing about the future.
Importantly, however, this is not simply a recipe for a never-ending series of kneejerk reactions. Our lives should still be framed by the overarching narrative of trying to live a good life and doing the right thing. We should focus on reason over reaction (and particularly overreaction).
In doing so, we can begin to have a tangible impact on the world around us. Maybe not in some heroic cure for cancer way (though that would be fantastic) but in a way that would start to allay our fears about what might happen if, when, maybe. We might find that by making small but tangible gains, we can place our problems into a more realistic perspective.
As Marcus says in Book 8:
Don’t freak yourself out imagining the entirety of your life. Don’t dwell on everything that could happen, all the troubles and pain that may come your way. Instead, take each day as it comes and ask, 'What’s so unendurable here?'
You’ll discover your answer may be a bit embarrassing.
Then remember, it’s not the weight of the future or the past that’s pressing down on you. It’s always the present that really counts.
When you look at it like this, problems become small things. In fact, when you refuse to let things get out of proportion, chances are, you’ll cope just fine. (Book 8, Meditation 36)
As someone prone to blowing things out of proportion, I find this both practical and comforting. My imaginary problems tend to grow and multiply as I project them into the big, scary future. Taking small steps to deal with my real problems right now, however, is something I can get my head around. In fact, if I immerse my head more fully in the present, I don’t have the space to dwell on what could be.
Marcus sums this up beautifully earlier in Book 8 (as well as bringing it back to questions of mortality again):
Don’t worry. Seriously, don’t. Everything is bound to the laws of nature and soon enough, you’ll be a distant memory.
So focus on what you’ve got to do right now. Split reality from fantasy. Do your best. Be good. Stick to the path of an honest, just person. Be kind. That’s it. (Book 8, Meditation 5)
Pretty simple really.
Making it work for you – five key questions
What’s your biggest regret about the past that you should simply move on from?
What daydreams/fantasies are preventing you doing something tangible right now?
What are you putting off until tomorrow (next week, next year, sometime)?
How can you make the world of today a better place (even if only slightly)?
What should you stop reading this book to go and do right now?
4
Too Much Stuff
‘Before today, all your attempts at discovering the good life are likely to have been unsuccessful. You haven’t found it in clever thinking, money, celebrity, sex, drugs or rock and roll.’
There is a modern perception that to be stoic is to be an unfeeling android. It is often bound up with a perceived viewpoint that goes something like: If I’m alright, then screw everything and everyone else. Critics point out that many of those attracted to Stoicism are wealthy, successful people – people who, these same critics claim, are hell-bent on serving their own interests at the expense the world around them.
This is simply wrong.
As Stoicism has climbed the ‘Ooh, that’s kinda cool’ scale in recent years, its most visible new disciples have come to light primarily because of their fame rather than their life choices. And because a philosophy of honest, rational self-reliance doesn’t make for great headlines, journalists have tended to focus on those that take things to the extreme.
So we hear about the so-and-so billionaire who leads a masochistic life of everyday suffering – fasting for much of the day, walking in the snow in flip-flops, taking part in ultra-endurance sports – as one New York Times headline asked: ‘Why Is Silicon Valley So Obsessed With the Virtue of Suffering?’
The reality, of course, is that the vast majority of modern practising Stoics are simply everyday people, doing their best with what the universe hands them. Go to any Stoic meetup or convention and you’ll be surrounded by people from all walks of life, of all ages and of every conceivable political viewpoint. In short, they’re a representative microcosm of the wider public.
So where does this misconception come from?
Well, one of the core ideas in wider Stoicism is that it is important to avoid getting too attached to the things and people around you. This sees its modern expression in the film Fight Club when Tyler Durden claims: ‘The things you own end up owning you.’
When we obsess about the stuff in our lives – particularly the quest for bigger, better, more stuff – our daily existence will inevitably be skewed to supporting our addiction. This, in turn, means we’ll tend to act in way
s that are expedient and self-serving rather than being true to our higher selves.
We see this all around us. People living payday-to-payday who still gorge on two weeks of blowout holiday a year. People trapped in soulless jobs to pay the mortgage on a house they cannot truly afford. People whose sense of self-worth is dependent on the number of followers they have on Instagram.
The Stoics explicitly reject this thinking. But as an intensely practical bunch, they also look to put this into action.
Seneca, one of the richest men of his time, advocated practising poverty – getting rid of all creature comforts for a period and spending time with the bare minimum. This has two aims. The first is to allow us to fully appreciate what we have (you’ll miss it when it’s gone). But more importantly, it also enables us to understand that the kind of stuff we place so much value on isn’t really that valuable after all. We don’t need the BMW. We don’t need the designer jeans. We don’t need the latest smartphone.
Echoing Tyler Durden, Marcus puts it like this:
Don’t lust after stuff you don’t have or you’ll be a slave to your wants and desires. Instead, think about the things you already own that bring you the most joy. Imagine how much you’d want them if you didn’t already own them. But be careful, don’t fixate on them so much that you’d flip out if you were to lose them tomorrow. (Book 7, Meditation 27)
So when we scoff at rich, famous ‘Stoics’ and their attempts to de-bullshit their lives, we need to consider the alternative. Isn’t it better to try to stay grounded and not get hung up on the consumer treadmill rather than blowing it all on expensive cars, designer clothing and a cocaine habit? Or for the other 99% of us, isn’t it better to focus on the simple joys of the present rather than sacrificing 351 days a year to drudge-work simply to get 14 days on a perfect beach?
