It is by playing it safe
that I’ve been risking
my life
but now that I’m taking risks
I finally feel alive.
Tag: personal growth
Reading Marcus Aurelius: Don’t Forget that You’ll Be Forgotten
In Meditations1 in general, but especially in Book 7, Marcus Aurelius keeps reminding us that, no matter who we are and no matter what we do, sooner or later, we will be forgotten. My favorite quote summarizing this is:
Close is the time when you will forget all things; and close, too, the time when all will forget you.
– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
But when one reads this as a standalone quote, one can may come to various conflicting conclusions. So, let’s look at the other quotes and see what we understand from them.
How many whose praises were once widely sung are now consigned to oblivion; and how many who sang their praises are now departed and gone?
– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Everything material disappears very swiftly into the universal substance, and swiftly too every cause is reabsorbed into the universal reason, and very swiftly the memory of everything is buried in eternity.
– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
On fame: Look at the minds and see what they are like, and the sort of things that they flee from and those that they pursue. And reflect, too, that just as sand dunes are always drifting over one another and concealing what came before, so in life also, what comes earlier is very swiftly hidden by all that piles up afterwards.
– Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
And in another place, he says, “How many a Chrysippus, how many a Socrates, how many an Epictetus has time already engulfed.” And then, he also says things like, “In no time at all both you and the wrongdoer will be dead…”
So, what does it mean for the Stoic to remember that he’ll be forgotten? It is to be aware of his mortality and embrace it.
Some may say here, of course, that every adult on the planet knows that he’s eventually going to die. Yes, that is true; however, even with that knowledge, most live as if they’re never going to die. That is what separates the Stoic from the rest. As Ernest Becker puts it in The Denial of Death,2 “Everything that man does in his symbolic world is an attempt to deny and overcome his grotesque fate.” Conversely, we have the Stoic who wakes up every day and takes the pill that reminds him of his impermanence.
For the Stoic, freedom really begins when you stop desiring to be remembered, when you stop being afraid to be forgotten. That’s when you stop caring about the opinions of others and start living for yourself, doing good for its own sake.
To become a Stoic, one must first remember that he’ll be forgotten.
[1] Here I am again, revisiting Marcus Aurelius, reading Meditations. The last time I opened Meditations and shared quotes from it was years ago. But there’s something about this book that makes you want to pick it up again (and again). No wonder interest in Stoicism has spiked in recent years. A book that was written 2,000 years ago that is packed with great advice and a philosophy that comes in handy in the 21st century. (Although, in a book I read recently — The Tragic Mind by Robert D. Kaplan — I came across a passage that said Stoicism is a philosophy suited for slaves. This is, of course, something to think about… but later.)
[2] Becker, Ernest. The Denial of Death. The Free Press, 1997.
Unstructured Reflections on Life: Normative Adversity
Normative adversity. — There are certain challenges (and obstacles) in life that we are, from the day we are born, expected to face. In most cases, it’s only a matter of time until we do so. Common challenges like family disputes and conflicts with romantic partners, job loss and other workplace issues, academic challenges, stress, aging, and life transitions like getting married or becoming a parent — they are called “normative” adversities precisely because they are normal (and predictable). Even if one takes preventive measures, he is bound to undergo (most of) them eventually. [Note: An excessive amount of preventive measures to keep normative adversities at bay, such as a zero-risk lifestyle, will only keep the person from living a fulfilling life. It’s fine if one is careful, as long as he isn’t too careful.] Although many such “normal” challenges are consequential, they are not (and shouldn’t be) too much to bear (in normal conditions). Society expects us to deal with them without making a lot of noise. Nonetheless, at different times in our Sisyphean pursuit of happiness and security, the boulder we continuously roll to the top of the mountain (or occasionally carry on our shoulders) gets heavier and heavier and heavier. Splinters of anxiety, bits of worries, flecks of inconveniences, and failures pile up and congregate to eventually form a massive crisis. We burn out. We halt. We fall. We lose. We are tempted to give up and let go of what we’ve been trying to achieve for so long. We ask ourselves, “Will I survive this one, or is this the end of the road for me? Will I be able to overcome this awe-inspiring, terrifying obstacle? What am I trying to hold on to? What am I trying to prove? Is it really worth it?” We almost always almost give up but don’t. This is when we remember that what we’re facing, even though it’s overwhelming, isn’t anything that is outside of the normal. Millions of people have experienced in their own way what we are experiencing now in our own way. It is a part of life, of the way the world works. So, even though the challenges we’re grappling with may seem or even are crippling, they’re bearably crippling. As long as there’s something to hold on to, they are like quicksand we can pull ourselves out of. But there are no guarantees, of course. We can purchase all the insurance plans in the world (health insurance, car insurance, home insurance, travel insurance, life insurance, etc.) and take all the security measures in the world (bodyguards, CCTVs, alarm systems, etc.) and still feel insecure. Why? Because nothing can protect us from life’s uncertainties. There’s no certainty of the future for anyone, and misfortunes are keen to knock on our doors. However, if we listen to our human spirit, we will know that it is not afraid, it wants to put up a fight, it wants to carry on. And, here, we can already hear the incantation of Samuel Beckett’s words in our hearts. First, the quote from The Unnamable that says, “I can’t go on. I’ll go on.” [Even when it’s impossible to go on, when all hope is lost and the future is uninviting, we have no other choice but to take a step into the next moment. We’ve always been sliding downhill on the arrow of time, from our past towards our future, haven’t we? There’s only one direction. And we can imagine that the arrow of time extends downwards, not upwards or horizontally, because the future is the force of gravity that’s pulling everything down…] Second, another Samuel Beckett quote. This one is from the story called Worstward Ho, and it says, “Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” And I hope that, to no one’s surprise, the answer is always to keep on trying. The answer is to own it, face our fears, turn challenges into meaningful experiences, and transform boring tasks into caves we can explore, seas we can dive into. Understanding the concept of normative adversity and accepting it — that most of the challenges we face are normal — is the (only real) way to cope with our day-to-day struggles. We have the same unique challenges as the rest of the world population, and we must deal with them our own way. “When you have done this,” Schopenhauer writes, “you will order your expectations of life according to the nature of things and no longer regard the calamities, sufferings, torments and miseries of life as something irregular and not to be expected but will find them entirely in order, well knowing that each of us is here being punished for his existence and each in his own particular way.” [Note: we shouldn’t take punishment as the sad fate of every man here. Disagreeable things are the seasonings of life. Whether we like it or not, we must be a little masochistic to be able to enjoy being human. They say, “No pain, no gain.” The destination may be paradise for everyone, but the journey is for the few, for those who are ready to get hurt while paving new paths — the risk-takers and adventurers.] So, briefly put, what are we saying here? When it comes to normative adversities, all we need to do is take responsibility, deal with them (calmly), and carry on.
Bored Absurdist 