Stoicism over Coffee
My thoughts on a small extract from 'Art of living' by Epictetus.
I have been reading some Stoic Philosophy recently and it has given me a lot to think. I thought I would post a few of my thoughts as I write them in my diary with my black coffee which I am slowly getting addicted to. I am simply writing down what is written in my diary so please do excuse the random thoughts in the middle. I wanted to keep things as real as possible.
Events Don’t Hurt Us,But Our Views of Them Can
“Things themselves don’t hurt or hinder us. Nor do other people. How we view these things is another matter. It is our attitudes and reactions that give us trouble.
Therefore even death is no big deal in and of itself. It is our notion of death, our idea that it is terrible, that terrifies us. There are so many different ways to think about death. Scrutinize your notions about death—and everything else. Are they really true? Are they doing you any good? Don’t dread death or pain; dread the fear of death or pain.
We cannot choose our external circumstances, but we can always choose how we respond to them.” - Epictetus
I find this very intriguing. Right now my brain is firing. Every situation in life when you zoom out would not matter a lot. What I believe is a problem in the world that people take things very seriously which is good. But the dangerous thing is that people take the wrong things seriously. Imagine a person who takes great pride and importance in something like a college event. In their head it would matter a lot, but sadly it does not. So if you lose an event it might hold immense value in your head, but that value is something you have created for yourself. I feel like doing this for everything would make living life pointless. What is the point of life if you have no purpose?
So of course there is wisdom in the fact that our values/ beliefs of things hurt us, however it is also true that our values/beliefs of things make us happy. Today I saw our old car the Ford Ikon. The car in itself is quite average. In the sense that there are many better cars in the world now. But I have attached values to that car because I have fond memories of my childhood and my family in that car. I have nostalgia. At the end of the day true human connection makes you happy and makes life worth living. So in this case me attaching value to the car is a positive case.
What would be bad is if I dwelled on the fact that I don’t have the car right now or cannot relive those memories or I let the car dictate my mood in a way where I feel bad. If I did this I would be focusing on something entirely out of my control and letting it affect my mood which is the one thing in my control. This would be a mistake.
All in all I think there are two ways to look at this.
I am gonna keep this one short and end it here only. I hope this makes you also think a lot and get your brain firing.
Thank you for reading,
Samvit.