A Guide to the Good Life

by William Braxton Irvine

  Really, you have lots to be thankful for.” She would listen to my reaction and, after a moment of reflection, she would usually respond affirmatively: “I suppose I do.” The exercise in negative visualization seemed to take the edge off her distress, if only temporarily.

  Time after time during this period, I was struck by how natural and appropriate it is to invoke Stoic principles to help someone cope with the challenges of old age and ill health.

  I mentioned above that the stroke made it dangerous for my mother to drink regular, unthickened water. Being denied water made her, quite naturally, start to crave it. She would ask me in a pleading voice for a glass of water, “not thick but from the sink.” I would refuse the request and explain why, but as soon as I finished my explanation, she would ask again, “Just a glass of water. Please!” I found myself in the position of a loving son who was continually denying his elderly mother’s request for a simple glass of water.

  After enduring my mother’s pleas for a time, I asked the nurse what to do. “Give her ice cubes to suck on,” she said.

  “The water in the ice will be released slowly, so there is little danger that she will aspirate it.”

  As a result of this advice, I became my mother’s personal ice man, bringing a cup on each visit. (“The ice man cometh!” I would call out on arriving at her room.) I would pop a cube into her mouth, and she would, while sucking it, tell me how wonderful the ice was. My mother, who in her prime had been a connoisseur of fine food and drink, had now become a connoisseur of ice cubes. Something she had taken for granted her entire life—for her, an ice cube had merely been the thing you use to cool a beverage worth drinking—was now giving her intense pleasure. She clearly enjoyed this ice more than a gourmet would enjoy vintage champagne.

  Watching her suck appreciatively on ice cubes, I felt a tinge of envy. Wouldn’t it be wonderful, I thought, to be able to derive this much pleasure from a simple ice cube?

  It is, I decided, unlikely that negative visualization alone would enable me to appreciate ice cubes as intensely as my mother does; unfortunately, it would probably take a stroke like hers to do the trick. Nevertheless, watching her suck on ice cubes has been quite instructive. It has made me cognizant of yet another thing that I take utterly for granted: my ability to gulp down a big glass of cold water on a hot summer day.

  During one visit to my mother, I encountered the Ghost of Christmas Future. I was walking down the hall of the nursing home toward my mother’s room. Ahead of me was an elderly gentleman in a wheelchair being pushed by an attendant.

  When I got close, the attendant got my attention and said, pointing to her charge, “This man is a professor, too.” (My mother, it turns out, had been telling everyone about me.) I stopped and said hello to this fellow academic, who, it turned out, had retired some time before. We chatted for a while, but during our conversation I was haunted by the thought that in a few decades’ time I might have this conversation again, only then it would be me in the wheelchair and it would be some younger professor standing in front of me, taking a few moments out of his busy day to talk to an academic relic.

  My time is coming, I told myself, and I must do what I can to prepare for it.

  The goal of Stoicism, as we have seen, is the attainment of tranquility. Readers will naturally want to know whether my own practice of Stoicism has helped me attain this goal.

  It has not, alas, allowed me to attain perfect tranquility. It has, however, resulted in my being substantially more tranquil than was formerly the case.

  In particular, I have made considerable progress in taming my negative emotions. I am less prone to anger than I used to be, and when I find myself venting my anger at others I am much more willing to apologize than was formerly the case.

  I am not only more tolerant of put-downs than I used to be but have developed a near-complete immunity to garden-variety insults. I am also less anxious than I once was about the disasters that might befall me and in particular about my own death—although the real test for this, as Seneca says, will be when I am about to take my last breath.

  Having said this, I should add that although I may have tamed my negative emotions, I have not eradicated them; nor is it likely that I ever will. I am nevertheless delighted to have deprived these emotions of some of the power they used to have over me.

  One significant psychological change that has taken place since I started practicing Stoicism is that I experience far less dissatisfaction than I used to. Apparently as the result of practicing negative visualization, I have become quite appreciative of what I’ve got. There remains, to be sure, the question of whether I would continue to be appreciative if my circumstances changed dramatically; perhaps, without realizing it, I have come to cling to the things I appreciate, in which case I would be devastated to lose those things. I won’t know the answer to this question, of course, until my Stoicism is put to the test.

  One other discovery I have made in my practice of Stoicism concerns joy. The joy the Stoics were interested in can best be described as a kind of objectless enjoyment—an enjoyment not of any particular thing but of all this. It is a delight in simply being able to participate in life. It is a profound realization that even though all this didn’t have to be possible, it is possible—wonderfully, magnificently possible.

  For the record, my practice of Stoicism has not enabled me to experience unbroken joy; far from it. Nor have I experiencedthe higher kind of joy that a Stoic sage might experience, a joy at the realization that his joy cannot be disrupted by external events. But my practice of Stoicism does seem to have made me susceptible to periodic outbursts of delight in all this.

  It is curious, but when I started experiencing these outbursts, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of them. Should I embrace my feelings of joy or hold them at arm’s length? Indeed, should I, as a sober-minded adult, attempt to extinguish them? (I have since discovered that I am not alone in being suspicious of feelings of joy.) Then it dawned on me what utter foolishness it would be to do anything other than embrace them. And so I have.

  These comments, I realize, make me sound disgustingly self-satisfied, and boastful to boot. Rest assured that the practice of Stoicism does not require people to go around telling others how delighted they are to be alive or about the outbursts of joy they have lately been experiencing; indeed, the Stoics doubtless would have discouraged this sort of thing. Why, then, am I telling you about my state of mind?

  Because it answers the question you naturally have: Does Stoicism deliver the psychological goods it promises? In my case it did, to a more than satisfactory extent. Having made this point, though, I will in the future do my best to be admirably modest in any public assessments I offer regarding my state of mind.

  Although I am a practicing Stoic, let me confess, in these closing paragraphs, that I have some misgivings about the philosophy.

  According to the Stoics, if I seek tranquility, I need to give up other goals that someone in my circumstances might have, such as to own an expensive, late-model car or to live in a million-dollar home. But what if everyone else is right and the Stoics are wrong? There is a chance that I will someday look back on what I will then term “my Stoic phase” and be both baffled and dismayed. “What was I thinking?” I will ask myself.

  “If only I could have those years back!” I am not the only Stoic to harbor such doubts. In his essay on tranquility, for example, Seneca has an imaginary conversation with Serenus, a Stoic with misgivings about Stoicism.

  When Serenus has been among people with normal values— for example, after he has dined in a house “where one even treads on precious stones and riches are scattered about in every corner”—he discovers within himself “a secret sting and the doubt whether the other life is not better.”11 The above comments make it clear that I, too, have felt this “secret sting.” It doesn’t help that those who think fame and fortune are more valuable than tranquility vastly outnumber those who, like myself, think tranquility is mo
re valuable. Can all these other people be mistaken? Surely I am the one making the mistake!

  At the same time, I know, thanks to my research on desire, that almost without exception the philosophers and religious thinkers who have contemplated life and the way people normally live it have come to the conclusion that it is the vast majority of people who are making a mistake in their manner of living.

  These thinkers have also tended to gravitate toward tranquility as something very much worth pursuing, although many of them disagreed with the Stoics on how best to pursue it.

  When I start having second thoughts about Stoicism, my current practice is to recall that we live in a world in which certainty is possible only in mathematics. We live, in other words, in a world in which, no matter what you do, you might be making a mistake. This means that although it is true that I might be making a mistake by practicing Stoicism, I might also be making a mistake if I reject Stoicism in favor of some other philosophy of life. And I think the biggest mistake, the one made by a huge number of people, is to have no philosophy of life at all. These people feel their way through life by following the promptings of their evolutionary programming, by assiduously seeking out what feels good and avoiding what feels bad. By doing this, they might have a comfortable life or even a life filled with pleasure. The question remains, however, whether they could have a better life by turning their back on their evolutionary programming and instead devoting time and energy to acquiring a philosophy of life. According to the Stoics, the answer to this question is that a better life is possible—one containing, perhaps, less comfort and pleasure, but considerably more joy.

  I suspect that in coming decades (should I live that long) whatever doubts I may have had about Stoicism will fall by the wayside as the aging process takes its toll. Stoic techniques can improve a life when times are good, but it is when times are bad that the efficacy of these techniques becomes most apparent. If I find Stoicism to be beneficial in my sixth decade of life, I am likely to find it to be indispensable in my eighth or ninth decade. Unless I am an unusual person, my biggest tests in life lie ahead. I will, I think, be glad to have developed an understanding and appreciation of Stoicism before these tests are administered.

  It would be nice to have a proof that Stoicism (or some other philosophy of life) is the “correct” philosophy. Unfortunately, the proof offered by the Stoics is unconvincing, and an alternative proof is unlikely to be forthcoming. In the absence of such a proof, we must act on the basis of probabilities. For a certain kind of person—for a person in certain circumstances with a certain personality type—there are many reasons to think that Stoicism is worth a try. Practicing Stoicism doesn’t take much effort; indeed, it takes far less effort than the effort one is likely to waste in the absence of a philosophy of life. One can practice Stoicism without anyone’s being any the wiser, and one can practice it for a time and then abandon it and be no worse off for the attempt. There is, in other words, little to lose by giving Stoicism a try as one’s philosophy of life, and there is potentially much to gain. Indeed, according to Marcus,12 it is possible, through the practice of Stoicism, to gain a whole new life.

  * * *

  A Stoic Reading Program

  Many philosophical writings are inaccessible to nonphilosophers. This cannot be said, though, of most of the writings of the Stoics. Readers of this book are therefore encouraged to take a look at Stoic primary sources. On doing this, they might discover that their own interpretation of the Stoics differs from mine, and they will certainly discover that in the process of writing this book, there were many nuggets of Stoic wisdom and insight that I had to omit.

  Those wishing to read the Stoics would do well to start with the essays of Seneca, especially, “On the Happy Life,” “On Tranquility of Mind,” and “On the Shortness of Life.” These can be found in Seneca: Dialogues and Essays (Oxford University Press, 2008). Alternatively, they are available in volume 2 of Seneca: Moral Essays, in the Loeb Classical Library.

  (This volume also has the advantage of being small enough to fit into a pocket or purse. Thus, if readers find themselves at a banquet given by nonphilosophers and the talk turns to inappropriate things, they can slip off to a quiet corner, pull out their copy of Seneca, and read.)

  Seneca’s letters to Lucilius also merit attention. There are more than a hundred of these letters, and some are of more interest than others. Furthermore, the letters themselves tend to focus on different topics. In Letter 83, for example, Seneca talks about alcohol; in Letters 12 and 26, about old age; and in Letter 7, about gladiatorial contests. (He describes how, during breaks in the show, spectators would yell out to have some throats cut just so there would be something for them to watch.) Many readers would therefore do well to get a book containing a selection of these letters.

  Musonius Rufus is worth reading for his practical advice on daily living. The only published translation of Musonius that I know of, though, is Cora Lutz’s “Musonius Rufus: ‘The Roman Socrates,’ ” in volume 10 of Yale Classical Studies (1947), which is difficult to buy or borrow. Readers are therefore encouraged to visit my author website (williambirvine.com) for information on how to obtain a copy of Cynthia King’s translation of Musonius’s works. (This is the translation I quote from in this book.)

  Readers wishing to sample Epictetus are encouraged to start with his Handbook (also known as his Manual or Encheiridion).It has the advantage of being short, easily obtainable, and philosophically accessible. In the world of philosophical literature, it stands out as a gem. Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations is also both accessible and readily available. Reading the Meditations can be a bit frustrating, though, inasmuch as it is a collection of disconnected (except for the Stoic theme) and sometimes repetitious observations.

  Readers might also be interested in branching out beyond the Stoics. They might, for example, take a look at Diogenes Laertius’s biographical sketches of the Greek Stoics. The sketches of Zeno of Citium, Cleanthes, and Chrysippus can be found in volume 2 of Diogenes Laertius, also in the Loeb Classical Library. And while the reader has possession of this volume, it might be fun to take a look at the biographical sketch of Diogenes of Sinope, the Cynic. He combines wisdom with humor in a most admirable manner.

  Readers might also want to take a look at Arthur Schopenhauer’s essays in The Wisdom of Life and Counsels and Maxims. Although not explicitly Stoical, these essays have a distinctly Stoical tone. Readers might also be interested in the novelist Tom Wolfe’s A Man in Full, in which a character accidentally discovers Stoicism and subsequently starts practicing it. Finally, readers can get some insight into the practice of Stoicism under difficult circumstances by reading James B. Stockdale’s Courage under Fire: Testing Epictetus’s Doctrines in a Laboratory of Human Behavior.

  Enjoy!

  * * *

  Notes

  Introduction

  1. Epicurus, 54.

  2. Seneca, Ad Lucilium, CVIII.4.

  3. American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 3rd ed.

  4. Seneca, “On Tranquillity,” II.4.

  5. Seneca, “On the Happy Life,” IV.4.

  6. Musonius, “Lectures,” 17.2.

  7. Seneca, “On Firmness,” II.1–2.

  8. Marcus, VII.31.

  One

  1. Diogenes Laertius, “Prologue,” I.13–14.

  2. Cicero, V.10.

  3. Cornford, 5.

  4. Navia, 1.

  5. Marrou, 96.

  6. Diogenes Laertius, “Prologue,” I.17–19.

  7. Diogenes Laertius, “Zeno,” VII.25.

  8. Price, 141.

  9. Veyne, viii.

  Two

  1. Diogenes Laertius, “Zeno,” VII.2–4.

  2. Epictetus, “Discourses,” 3.22.

  3. Diogenes Laertius, “Antisthenes,” VI.3, VI.4, VI.12, VI.15.

  4. Diogenes Laertius, “Diogenes,” VI.44, VI.71, VI.66.

  286

  Notes to Pages 31–48

&
nbsp; 5. Diogenes Laertius, “Diogenes,” VI.35.

  6. Dio Chrysostom, “The Sixth Discourse,” 12.

  7. Diogenes Laertius, “Diogenes,” VI.63.

  8. Diogenes Laertius, “Crates,” VI.86.

  9. Arnold, 67.

  10. Schopenhauer, II:155.

  11. Diogenes Laertius, “Zeno,” VII.24, VII.25.

  12. Arnold, 71.

  13. Diogenes Laertius, “Zeno,” VII.5.

  14. Diogenes Laertius, “Zeno,” VII.40.

  15. Kekes, 1.

  16. Becker, 20.

  17. Veyne, 31.

  18. Diogenes Laertius, “Zeno,” VII.87.

  19. Diogenes Laertius, “Zeno,” VII.108.

  20. Diogenes Laertius, “Zeno,” VII.40.

  21. Diogenes Laertius, “Zeno,” VII.117–119.

  22. Marcus, I.17.

  23. Epictetus, “Discourses,” I.iv.3–6, along with the accompanying foot-note.

  24. Arnold, 94.

  25. Diogenes Laertius, “Prologue,” I.21.

  Three

  1. Technically, Epictetus was not a Roman inasmuch as he was not a Roman citizen; nevertheless, the Stoicism he practiced was the Roman-ized form of the doctrine, and for that reason I include him among the Roman Stoics.

  2. Seneca, “To Helvia,” VII.9.

  3. Veyne, 9.

  4. Tacitus, 14.53.

  5. Tacitus, 15.62–64.

  6. Seneca, “On the Happy Life,” III.4, IV.4.

  7. Seneca, Ad Lucilium, XXIII.3.

  8. Having said this, I should add that some classicists refuse to take Seneca’s comments about joy at face value. The philosopher Martha Nussbaum, for example, points out that Seneca, immediately after offering the above advice to Lucilius, goes on to explain what he means by joy: It is not, says Seneca, a “sweetly agreeable” kind of joy; rather, the joy Seneca has in mind is “a stern matter.” See Nussbaum, 400. I would Notes to Pages 49–58