A Guide to the Good Life : The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (13 page)

Notice, too, that the advice that we be fatalistic with respect to the past and present is connected, in a curious way, to the advice that we practice negative visualization. In engaging in negative visualization, we think of the ways our situation could be worse, and our goal in doing so is to make us value whatever we have. The fatalism advocated by the Stoics is in a sense the reverse, or one might say the mirror image, of negative visualization: Instead of thinking about how our situation could be worse,
we refuse to think about how it could be better
. In behaving fatalistically with respect to the past and present, we
refuse to compare our situation with alternative, preferable situations in which we might have found or might now find ourselves. By doing this, the Stoics think, we will make our current situation, whatever it may be, more tolerable.

M
Y DISCUSSION OF FATALISM
in this chapter and of negative visualization in
chapter 4
might make readers worry that the practice of Stoicism will lead to complacency. Readers might admit that the Stoics will be unusually satisfied with what they have, whatever it may be—a blessing, to be sure. But won’t the Stoics, as a result, be terribly unambitious?

In response to this concern, let me remind readers that the Stoics we have been considering were notably ambitious. Seneca, as we’ve seen, had an active life as a philosopher, playwright, investor, and political advisor. Musonius Rufus and Epictetus both ran successful schools of philosophy. And Marcus, when he wasn’t philosophizing, was hard at work ruling the Roman Empire. These individuals were, if anything, overachievers. It is indeed curious: Although they would have been satisfied with next to nothing, they nevertheless strove for something.

Here is how Stoics would explain this seeming paradox. Stoic philosophy, while teaching us to be satisfied with whatever we’ve got, also counsels us to seek certain things in life. We should, for example, strive to become better people—to become virtuous in the ancient sense of the word. We should strive to practice Stoicism in our daily life. And we should, as we shall see in
chapter 9
, strive to do our social duty: This is why Seneca and Marcus felt compelled to participate in Roman
government and why Musonius and Epictetus felt compelled to teach Stoicism. Furthermore, the Stoics see nothing wrong with our taking steps to enjoy the circumstances in which we find ourselves; indeed, Seneca advises us to be “attentive to all the advantages that adorn life.”
⁶
We might, as a result, get married and have children. We might also form and enjoy friendships.

And what about worldly success? Will the Stoics seek fame and fortune? They will not. The Stoics thought these things had no real value and consequently thought it foolish to pursue them, particularly if doing so disrupted our tranquility or required us to act in an unvirtuous manner. This indifference to worldly success, I realize, will make them seem unmotivated to modern individuals who spend their days working hard in an attempt to attain (a degree of) fame and fortune. But having said this, I should add that although the Stoics didn’t seek worldly success, they often gained it anyway.

Indeed, the Stoics we have been considering would all have counted as successful individuals in their time. Seneca and Marcus were both wealthy and famous, and Musonius and Epictetus, as heads of popular schools, would have enjoyed a degree of renown and would presumably have been financially comfortable. They therefore found themselves in the curious position of people who, though not seeking success, nevertheless gained it. In
chapters 14
and
15
we will see how they dealt with this predicament.

On Dealing with the Dark Side of Pleasure

T
O ENGAGE IN
negative visualization is to contemplate the bad things that can happen to us. Seneca recommends an extension of this technique: 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.”
¹

According to Seneca, Epicurus, a philosophical rival to the Stoics, also practiced poverty.
²
His goal in doing so, however, appears to have been different from that of Seneca. Whereas Seneca wanted to appreciate what he had, Epicurus wanted to examine the things he thought he needed so he could determine which of them he could in fact live without. He realized that in many cases, we work hard to obtain something because we are convinced that we would be miserable without it. The problem is that we can live perfectly well without some of these things, but we won’t know which they are if we don’t try living without them.

Musonius takes this technique one step further: He thinks that besides
living as if
bad things had happened to us,
we should sometimes
cause
them to happen. In particular, we should periodically cause ourselves to experience discomfort that we could easily have avoided. We might accomplish this by underdressing for cold weather or going shoeless. Or we might periodically allow ourselves to become thirsty or hungry, even though water and food are at hand, and we might sleep on a hard bed, even though a soft one is available.
³

M
ANY MODERN READERS
, on hearing this, will conclude that Stoicism involves an element of masochism. Readers should realize, though, that the Stoics didn’t go around flogging themselves. Indeed, the discomforts they inflicted upon themselves were rather minor. Furthermore, they did not inflict these discomforts to punish themselves; rather, they did it to increase their enjoyment of life. And finally, it is misleading to talk about the Stoics
inflicting
discomforts on themselves. This creates the image of someone at odds with himself, of someone forcing himself to do things he doesn’t want to do. The Stoics, by way of contrast,
welcomed
a degree of discomfort in their life. What the Stoics were advocating, then, is more appropriately described as a program of voluntary discomfort than as a program of self-inflicted discomfort.

Even this clarification of the Stoics’ attitude toward discomfort, though, will leave many modern readers puzzled: “Why should we welcome even minor discomforts when it is possible to enjoy perfect comfort?” they will ask. In response to this question, Musonius would point to three benefits to be derived from acts of voluntary discomfort.

To begin with, by undertaking acts of voluntary discomfort—by, for example, choosing to be cold and hungry when we could be warm and well fed—we harden ourselves against misfortunes that might befall us in the future. If all we know is comfort, we might be traumatized when we are forced to experience pain or discomfort, as we someday almost surely will. 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. Alternatively, voluntary discomfort can be thought of as an insurance premium which, if paid, makes us eligible for benefits: Should we later fall victim to a misfortune, the discomfort we experience then will be substantially less than it otherwise would have been.

A second benefit of undertaking acts of voluntary discomfort comes not in the future but immediately. A person who periodically experiences minor discomforts will grow confident that he can withstand major discomforts as well, so the prospect of experiencing such discomforts at some future time will not, at present, be a source of anxiety for him. By experiencing minor discomforts, he is, says Musonius, training himself to be courageous.
⁴
The person who, in contrast, is a stranger to discomfort, who has never been cold or hungry, might dread the possibility of someday being cold and hungry. Even though he is now physically comfortable, he will likely experience mental discomfort—namely, anxiety with respect to what the future holds in store for him.

A third benefit of undertaking acts of voluntary discomfort is that it helps us appreciate what we already have. In particular,
by purposely causing ourselves discomfort, we will better appreciate whatever comfort we experience. It is, of course, nice to be in a warm room when it is cold and blustery outside, but if we really want to enjoy that warmth and sense of shelter, we should go outside in the cold for a while and then come back in. Likewise, we can (as Diogenes observed) greatly enhance our appreciation of any meal by waiting until we are hungry before we eat it and greatly enhance our appreciation of any beverage by waiting until we are thirsty before we drink it.

It is instructive to contrast the advice that we periodically undertake acts of voluntary discomfort with the advice that might be offered by an unenlightened hedonist. Such a person might suggest that the best way to maximize the comfort we experience is to avoid discomfort at all costs. Musonius would argue, to the contrary, that someone who tries to avoid all discomfort is less likely to be comfortable than someone who periodically embraces discomfort. The latter individual is likely to have a much wider “comfort zone” than the former and will therefore feel comfortable under circumstances that would cause the former individual considerable distress. It would be one thing if we could take steps to ensure that we will never experience discomfort, but since we can’t, the strategy of avoiding discomfort at all costs is counterproductive.

B
ESIDES PERIODICALLY ENGAGING
in acts of voluntary discomfort, we should, say the Stoics, periodically forgo opportunities to experience pleasure. This is because pleasure has a dark side. Indeed, pursuing pleasure, Seneca warns, is like pursuing a wild beast: On being captured, it can turn on us and tear
us to pieces. Or, changing the metaphor a bit, he tells us that intense pleasures, when captured by us, become our captors, meaning that the more pleasures a man captures, “the more masters will he have to serve.”
⁵

In mistrusting pleasure, the Stoics reveal their Cynic bloodlines. Thus, the Cynic philosopher Diogenes argues that the most important battle any person has to fight is the battle against pleasure. The battle is particularly difficult to win because pleasure “uses no open force but deceives and casts a spell with baneful drugs, just as Homer says Circe drugged the comrades of Odysseus.” Pleasure, he cautions, “hatches no single plot but all kinds of plots, and aims to undo men through sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch, with food too, and drink and carnal lust, tempting the waking and the sleeping alike.” And pleasure, “with a stroke of her wand … cooly drives her victim into a sort of sty and pens him up, and now from that time forth the man goes on living as a pig or a wolf.”
⁶

There are some pleasures, the Stoics would argue, from which we should always abstain. In particular, we should abstain from those pleasures that can capture us in a single encounter. This would include the pleasure to be derived from certain drugs: Had crystal meth existed in the ancient world, the Stoics would doubtless have counseled against its use.

Significantly, though, the Stoics’ mistrust of pleasure doesn’t end here. They also counsel us to make a point of sometimes abstaining from other, relatively harmless pleasures. We might, for example, make a point of passing up an opportunity to drink wine—not because we fear becoming an alcoholic but so we can learn self-control. For the Stoics—and, indeed,
for anyone attempting to practice a philosophy of life—self-control will be an important trait to acquire. After all, if we lack self-control, we are likely to be distracted by the various pleasures life has to offer, and in this distracted state we are unlikely to attain the goals of our philosophy of life.

More generally, if we cannot resist pleasures, we will end up playing, Marcus says, the role of slave, “twitching puppetwise at every pull of self-interest,” and we will spend our life “ever grumbling at today or lamenting over tomorrow.” To avoid this fate, we must take care to prevent pains and pleasures from overwhelming our rational capacity. We must learn, as Marcus puts it, to “resist the murmurs of the flesh.”
⁷

As he goes about his daily business, then, the Stoic, besides sometimes choosing to do things that would make him feel bad (such as underdressing for the weather), will sometimes choose not to do things that would make him feel good (such as having a bowl of ice cream). This makes it sound as if Stoics are antipleasure, but they aren’t. The Stoics see nothing wrong, for example, with enjoying the pleasures to be derived from friendship, family life, a meal, or even wealth, but they counsel us to be circumspect in our enjoyment of these things. There is, after all, a fine line between enjoying a meal and lapsing into gluttony. There is also a danger that we will cling to the things we enjoy. Consequently, even as we enjoy pleasant things, we should follow Epictetus’s advice and be on guard.
⁸
Here is how, according to Seneca, a Stoic sage would explain the difference between the Stoic take on pleasure and that of the ordinary person: Whereas the ordinary person embraces pleasure, the sage enchains it; whereas the ordinary person thinks pleasure
is the highest good, the sage doesn’t think it is even a good; and whereas the ordinary person does everything for the sake of pleasure, the sage does nothing.
⁹

O
F THE
S
TOIC TECHNIQUES
I have discussed in
part 2
of this book, the self-denial technique described in this chapter is doubtless the hardest to practice. It won’t be fun, for example, for a Stoic, because he is practicing poverty, to ride the bus when he could be driving his car. It won’t be fun going out into a winter storm with only a light jacket on just so he can feel uncomfortably cold. And it certainly won’t be fun saying no to the ice cream someone has offered him—and saying it not because he is on a diet but so he can practice refusing something he would enjoy. Indeed, a novice Stoic will have to summon up all his willpower to do such things.