Stoic Joy

One of the more interesting books I've read this year is William B. Irvine's A Guide to the Good Life: {The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy}. I picked it up the same weekend I read Seneca's Life is Short. What Irvine is after is twofold: first, a critique of mostly academic philosophers who are unwilling to apply their philosophy to their everyday life, and, second, an argument in favor of adopting Stoicism as a way of life.

One of the reasons I was attracted to studying rhetoric is because I think of rhetorical studies as applied philosophy. I mean, communication problems are obviously ever-present and pressing. Asking myself how to deliver a good speech or write a good letter is, for me, a philosophical and practical query. Asking how delivering a good speech or writing a good letter is connected to living a good life seems natural to me. Irvine thinks everyone would be a whole lot happier if they adopted for themselves a philosophy of life. He argues, for example, that what makes Socrates a great philosopher is not his arguments or conclusions, but "the extent to which he allowed his way of life to be affected by his philosophical speculations . . . integrating his theoretical and speculative concerns into the context of his daily activities." (19) For me, carrying his first point was easy.

As for his argument about Stoicism I can only say, "Almost thou persuadest me to be a Stoic." For the most part, Irvine is ecumenical in his recommendation of Stoicism, arguing that there is no conflict between Stoicism and other religious or philosophical ideas. He pursues Stoic joy as guidance toward living well, as a paradoxical recipe for happiness. Stoicism is a pursuit of virtue for greater tranquility and happiness, and some psychological practices of Stoicism that are quite instructive are:

I. Negative Visualization. This follows from Seneca's notion that misfortune weighs most heavily on those who "expect nothing but good fortune." (65) Therefore, a good practice to adopt is to meditate occasionally on what the worst is that could happen. To ponder how we would feel and what we would do in such catastrophe.

We need to keep firmly in mind that everything we value and the people we love will someday be lost to us. If nothing else, our own death will deprive us of them. More generally, we should keep in mind that any human activity that cannot be carried on indefinitely must have a final occurence. There will be - or already has been! - a last time in your life that you brush your teeth, cut your hair, drive a car, mow the lawn, or play hopscotch. There will be a last time you hear the sound of snow falling, watch the moon rise, smell popcorn, feel the warmth of a child falling asleep in your arms, or make love. You will someday eat your last meal, and soon thereafter you will take your last breath.

Sometimes the world gives us advance notice that we are about to do something for the last time. We might, for example, eat at a favorite restaurant the night before it is scheduled to close, or we might kiss a lover who is forced by circumstances to move to a distant part of the globe, presumably forever. Previously, when we thought we could repeat them at will, a meal at this restaurant or a kiss shared with our lover might have been unremarkable. But now that we know they cannot be repeated, they will likely become extraordinary events: The meal will be the best we ever had at the restaurant, and the parting kiss will be one of the most intensely bittersweet experiences life has to offer.

By contemplating the impermanence of everything in the world, we are forced to recognize that every time we do something could be the last time we do it, and this recognition can invest the things we do with a significance and intensity that would otherwise be absent. We will no longer sleepwalk through our life. Some people, I realize, will find it depressing or even morbid to contemplate our impermanence. I am nevertheless convinced that the only way we can be truly alive is if we make it our business periodically to entertain such thoughts. (83-84)

II. The Dichotomy of Control. According to Epictetus, a Stoic sage, we must decide to concern ourselves with things external to us or things internal to us. Most people focus on and blame externalities, but the Stoic will look "for all benefit and harm to come from himself." In fact, he will give up external rewards offered by the world in order to gain "tranquility, freedom, and calm."

One of the things we quickly realize when we think about internal problems is that there are some things over which we have control and some things over which we have no control. Irvine breaks this down further. There are:

1. Things over which we have complete control (e.g., the goals we set for ourselves, the values we form).

2. Things over which we have no control at all (e.g., whether the sun will rise tomorrow).

3. Things over which we have some but not complete control (e.g., whether we win a basketball game).

According to Epictetus, we should concern ourselves with 1, and not be concerned with 2, and should be careful to internalize the goals we form with respect to 3.

III. Fatalism. "According to Seneca, we should offer ourselves to fate, inasmuch as "it is a great consolation that it is together with the universe we are swept along. . . . If we want our life to go well, Epictetus says, we should, rather than wanting events to conform to our desires, make our desires conform to events; we should, in other words, want events "to happen as they do happen." (102) Irvine's treatment of contemporary psychological therapy on this point is quite fascinating (see pages 213-220).

IV. Self-Denial. Besides negative visualization, "Besides contemplating bad things happening, we should sometimes live as if they had happened. In particular, instead of merely thinking about what it would be like to lose our wealth, we should periodically "practice poverty": We should, that is, content ourselves with "the scantiest and cheapest fare" and with "coarse and rough dress." (110)

"In other words, voluntary discomfort can be thought of as a kind of vaccine: By exposing ourselves to a small amount of a weakened virus now, we create in ourselves an immunity that will protect us from a debilitating illness in the future." (112) The goal is to avoid becoming a puppet or slave to pleasure; pains and pleasures have the power to overwhelm our rational capacity if we are not on our guard. ". . . If we coddle ourselves, if we allow ourselves to be corrupted by pleasure, nothing will seem bearable to us, and the reason things will seem unbearable is not because they are hard but because we are soft." (161)

V. Meditation. Seneca advises periodical meditation on the events of daily living. We have to take stock of ourselves and our daily battle with ailments, temptations, pleasures, &c.

Irvine then takes these five Stoic Psychological Techniques and reviews how the Stoics advised they be applied to daily living. The last section of the book is Irvine's attempt to apply them in his own life over the past ten years or so. It's interesting that he got the idea for living Stoically and writing this book from his reading of Tom Wolfe's A Man in Full, which is a pretty cool novel. The end of the book is a tad long, but hearing a philosopher actually talk about his own life, experiences, and challenges is a nice change of pace. The best thing about the book, though, are the quotations of Stoic philosophers. Indeed, even Irvine suggests reading them instead of him . . .