What more could you ask for?

I was reading my last post, and it struck me that my 'list' might sound like boasting. It isn't. All I am saying is that through great luck and some effort, I was able to accomplish what so many at my age are still striving for. It isn't that I am ungrateful.

That's not it at all. I am very lucky. I was born in a great country, into a great family. Despite, or perhaps because, of choices I have made, things have turned out this way. I just want to find out why.

It isn't due to dissatisfaction, or boredom, or greed. I have tasted richness and depth and, though rarely, transcendence. I have traveled to some pretty amazing places, accomplished some cool things, eaten some weird food, and met some interesting people. Compared to my day to day life though, all of those things pale in importance.

I am not about to start filling my life with additional goals that serve no purpose besides spending what ever time and disposable income I have left. Having reached this amazing point in my life, I am asking myself what it is all for. What is the purpose of all of this?

I have been lightly reading philosophy, especially Stoicism, and I am well versed in Christian thought. I have read and toyed with atheism. I have had the briefest introduction to eastern religion and philosophy, though what I have learned appears interesting. Though they appear to have much in common, they approach the goal of life in different ways.

A brief overview seems to produce one of five possible answers to my quest.

1. Asking 'What is the purpose of life?' is a false question. It is like asking 'what is the scent of blue?' It sounds like a question grammatically, but logically it is senseless. There is no purpose. Despite our advances in technology, "the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."
2. The key purpose in life is to enrich and protect those things that are important to me. It is to find out what I love and am passionate about, and experience as much of that as possible. Find and embrace beauty and pleasure, avoid pain.
3. Make myself a better person, aiming at the excellence that I was born with. Learn more, get stronger, think more clearly. Study, exercise, write, produce beautiful things for the sheer joy of it.
4. Be useful. Make this world a better place for having been in it. Give my children what I didn't have. Help the poor. Work towards social justice.
5. Prepare myself for the world to come, for my next life, for the hereafter. Cleanse myself of sin/illusion/karma to join with the divine. Get my soul ready for the next great adventure, after I die. 

I will explore these five approaches to finding meaning in my life, likely with frequent sidebars into other topics as they present themselves.

The Spirit of Stoic Serenity Begins

I have started the Spirit of Stoic Serenity study group up, mostly to vet the training modules I am formulating out of Keith's book. We have just corrected the Introduction, and found several Typos, and I even think a few of them are actually following along.


In light of that, I am also participating in the group. I have long felt that I have not been entirely reliable regarding my own studies. While there has been broad application, it hasn't been complete or consistent.


I am posting more frequently to the ISF list now, and having to justify my beliefs and practices is proving to be a good exercise for me.  Here are a couple of the things of value that I have posted lately.


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The following is based, in part, on Becker's A New Stoicism. This list forms the core of my personal practice.

Proposed Core Principles of Modern Stoicism

• Eudaimonistic - identifying the good life or happiness with flourishing, being excellent-of-one’s-kind (i.e. fulfilling the promise of one's nature).
• Intellectualistic - identifying virtue with rationality, carrying out the normative propositions of practical reason. Stemming from this is the affirmation of the formal unity of virtue based on reason.
• Naturalistic - insisting that the substance of practical deliberation be soundly based on facts about the natural world, as explained by the best science we currently have available to us (i.e. Posidonius' continue research into natural phenomena, which led to his rejection of the periodic conflagration)
• Individualistic - emphasizing the possibility and primacy of self-mastery and personal responsibility in light of our interconnection with nature and each other (i.e. Hierocles' concentric circles)

The final three can be seen as the central points of the study Logic, Physics and Ethics.

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Why the Discourses have grand themes can only be speculated. Perhaps the notes were taken sequentially. Like any good educator, Epictetus may have focussed on specific areas, and what we see are Arrian's notes following those classes. From what I have read, and this is open to correction, Arrian's notes were not intended for publication (he was a well respected author and historian in his own right), and after they were 'leaked' he just let them stand.

Whatever their original purpose or method of composition may have been, I have had some degree of success using the following method for learning to practice Stoicism.

1. Studying StoicismGeneral Introductions to Stoicism, John Sellars' Stoicism, The Cambridge Companion to the Stoics, Lawrence Becker's A New Stoicism, etc. This was followed by some studies on specific Stoics, Reading Seneca: Stoic Philosophy at Rome (Brad Inwood), Musonius Rufus and Education in the Good Life: A Model of Teaching and Living Virtue (J.T. Dillon), Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life (A. A. Long), The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (Pierre Hadot)
2. Journal (suggested by Seneca)Nightly reflection on the day's activities, an honest look back on where I succeeded and where I failed to follow Stoic principles. Other interesting notes find their way in there, such as the Four Principles listed in an earlier email.
3. Reading the StoicsSeneca - Stoic Philosophy of Seneca: Essays and Letters (Moses Hadas)
   Musonius Rufus - Musonius Rufus: Lectures and Sayings (Cynthia King)
   Epictetus - Epictetus: Discourses and Selected Writings (Robert Dobbin)
   Marcus Aurelius - Marcus Aurelius: Meditations (Gregory Hays)
   A compilation of the words of the earlier Stoics, The Stoics Reader: Selected Writings and Testimonia (Brad Inwood & Lloyd P. Gerson)
4. The NotebookAs I read the previous books, I 'took notes', writing down passages that meant a lot to me at this time in my life. I considered myself as sitting in a class, trying to understand what I could, knowing that I would be coming back to theses sources time and time again. The Notebook, like the Journal, is an ongoing practice.
5. The HandbookAfter a time, I started reviewing my Notebook entries and organizing them into the categories listed below. I found it interesting where the trends tended to fall. These were written in my own words, as I tried to distill for this time what I was seeing in the notes I had taken. This is very much a time bound project. I plan to come back and redo this exercise in about 5 years.
6. The Written MeditationThis is the practical outcome of the previous exercise. Handbook 'in hand' I periodically review my Journal, and look for areas that I still have work to do. The important thing about the tone of the meditations is that it is in the second person, an additional teacher as it were. Actually I have found that the 'voice' of the Meditation reflects who the person is, and who they admire.

There is more beyond this, but it is still a work in progress for me. 

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One of the key examples of a 'modern' scientific discovery has, in my opinion, led to an important adjustment of some the ancient Stoic approaches. 

The nearly global acceptance of heliocentrism over the last several hundred years has made some of the anthropocentrism of the Stoic writings (i.e. the animals exist for our sake etc.)  less viable. The veritable explosion about data concerning the vastness of the universe has only added to the humbling experience. The universe does not appear to exist for our sake, and it is becoming clearer to more and more people that the earth itself will get along just fine without us, as it had for billions of years before our evolution. 

To me, this only serves to increase the importance of our interdependence. We really only have each other. And at that, for a very short time. It is a sobering thought. And one that informs my Stoic practice directly.

A quote from Dawkins stirs something in me... ""Think of an experience from your childhood. Something you remember clearly, something you can see, feel, maybe even smell, as if you were really there. After all you really were there at the time, weren’t you? How else could you remember it? But here is the bombshell: you weren’t there. Not a single atom that is in your body today was there when that event took place .... Matter flows from place to place and momentarily comes together to be you. Whatever you are, therefore, you are not the stuff of which you are made. If that does not make the hair stand up on the back of your neck, read it again until it does, because it is important."

We share the transient and ephemeral nature of the universe. We are temporary eddies in the flow of matter and energy, clouds of atoms that have formed together. While this thought might make some people feel pointless, to me it is an indication of our place in the universe, because while we may be eddies, we are eddies in a universal stream, and the atoms of the cosmos flow through us, or as Sagan put it, we are made of Star Stuff.

Bracing, but thrilling.