A Guide to the Good Life : The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (22 page)

O
NE DOWNSIDE
of being old is that we live in the knowledge that our death is in some sense imminent. In our youth, we delude ourselves into thinking death is for other people. By our middle years, we understand that we are going to die, but we also expect to live for decades before we do. When we are old, we know full well that we will die—maybe not tomorrow but soon. For many people, this knowledge makes old age a depressing stage of life.

The Stoics, however, thought the prospect of death, rather than depressing us, could make our days far more enjoyable than would otherwise be the case. We examined this seeming paradox back in
chapter 4
. We saw that by imagining how our days could go worse—and in particular, by contemplating our own death—we could increase our chance of experiencing joy. In our youth, it takes effort to contemplate our own death; in our later years, it takes effort to
avoid
contemplating it. Old age therefore has a way of making us do something that, according to the Stoics, we should have been doing all along.

Thus, the proximity of death, rather than depressing us, can be turned to our advantage. In our youth, because we assumed that we would live forever, we took our days for granted and as a result wasted many of them. In our old age, however, waking up each morning can be a cause for celebration. As Seneca notes, “If God is pleased to add another day, we should welcome it with glad hearts.”
⁴
And after celebrating having been given another day to live, we can fill that day with appreciative living. It is entirely possible for an octogenarian to be more joyful than her twenty-year-old grandchild, particularly if the octogenarian, in part because
of her failing health, takes nothing for granted, while the grandchild, in part because of her perfect health, takes everything for granted and has therefore decided that life is a bore.

A
MONG THE VARIOUS
philosophies of life, Stoicism is particularly well suited to our later years. For most people, old age will be the most challenging time of life. A primary objective of Stoicism, though, is to teach us not only to meet life’s challenges but to retain our tranquility as we do. In addition, old people are more likely than young people to value the tranquility offered by the Stoics. A young person might find it baffling that someone would be willing to settle for “mere tranquility”; an octogenarian will probably not only appreciate how precious a thing tranquility is but will realize how few people manage, over the course of a lifetime, to attain it.

It is in part for this reason that Musonius counsels us to take up Stoicism while we are young: It is, he thinks, the best way to prepare for old age. Someone who has acted on this advice will be unlikely, as he gets older, to complain about the loss of youth and its pleasures, his body growing weak, his failing health, or being neglected by his relatives, since he would have “an effective antidote against all these things in his own intelligence and in the education he possesses.”
⁵

If someone neglected to study Stoicism in his youth, though, he can always take it up later in life. The aging process might prevent us from, say, boxing or solving differential equations, but only rarely will it prevent us from practicing Stoicism. Even those who are old and feeble can read the Stoics and reflect on
their writings. They can also engage in negative visualization and refuse to worry about things that are beyond their control. And perhaps most important, they can take a fatalistic attitude toward their life and refuse to spend their final years wishing, pointlessly, that it could have been different than it was.

On a Good End to a Good Life

W
HAT MAKES OLD AGE
a miserable thing, Musonius says, usually isn’t the frailty or sickness that accompanies it; rather, it is the prospect of dying.
¹
And why are people, both young and old, disturbed by the prospect of dying? Some are disturbed because they fear what might come after death. Many more, though, are disturbed because they fear that they have mislived—that they have, that is, lived without having attained the things in life that are truly valuable. Death, of course, will make it impossible for them ever to attain these things.

It may seem paradoxical, but having a coherent philosophy of life, whether it be Stoicism or some other philosophy, can make us more accepting of death. Someone with a coherent philosophy of life will know what in life is worth attaining, and because this person has spent time trying to attain the thing in life he believed to be worth attaining, he has probably attained it, to the extent that it was possible for him to do so. Consequently, when it comes time for him to die, he will not feel cheated. To the contrary, he will, in the words of Musonius, “be set free from the fear of death.”
²

Consider, by way of illustration, the last days of the Stoic philosopher Julius Canus. When Caligula, whom Canus had angered, ordered his death, Canus retained his composure: “Most excellent prince,” he said, “I tender you my thanks.” Ten days later, when a centurion came to take him to be executed, Canus was playing a board game. Rather than complaining bitterly about his fate or begging the centurion to spare his life, Canus simply pointed out to the centurion that he, Canus, was one piece ahead in the game—meaning that his opponent would be lying if he subsequently claimed to have won. On the way to his execution, when someone asked about his state of mind, Canus replied that he was preparing himself to observe the moment of death in order to learn whether, in that moment, the spirit is aware that it is leaving the body. “Here,” says Seneca approvingly, “is tranquility in the very midst of the storm.” He adds that “no one has ever played the philosopher longer.”
³

Those who have lived without a coherent philosophy of life, though, will desperately want to delay death. They might want the delay so that they can get the thing that—at last!—they have discovered to be of value. (It is unfortunate that this dawned on them so late in life, but, as Seneca observes, “what you have done in the past will be manifest only at the time when you draw your last breath.”)
⁴
Or they might want the delay because their improvised philosophy of life has convinced them that what is worth having in life is more of everything, and they cannot get more of everything if they die.

A
T THIS POINT
, readers might conclude that the Stoics were obsessed with death. They counsel us, as we have seen, to
contemplate our own death. They tell us to live each day as if it were our last. They tell us to practice Stoicism in part so we will not fear death.

Besides being seemingly fixated on death while alive, the Stoics had an unfortunate tendency to die in an unnatural manner. The Greek Stoics Zeno and Cleanthes apparently committed suicide,
⁵
and Cato unquestionably did so. It isn’t clear how Musonius died, but while alive, he was an advocate of suicide. In particular, he advised old people to “choose to die well while you can; wait too long, and it might become impossible to do so.” He added, “It is better to die with distinction than to live long.”
⁶

Furthermore, many of those Stoics who did not commit suicide outright did things that hastened their death. When it seemed that death was near, Marcus refused to eat. Seneca behaved in a manner that brought on a death sentence when he could have avoided doing so, as did the Stoics Thrasea Paetus and Barea Soranus. After hearing about how these Stoics met their end, readers might conclude that anyone who loves life and wants to die a natural death would do well to avoid Stoicism.

In response to this concern, let me point out, to begin with, that it is unclear that the rate of unnatural deaths among the Stoics was unusually high for ancient times. Furthermore, in many of the cases in which the Stoics did things to hasten their death, it is understandable why they did so. In particular, it is possible that Zeno and Cleanthes, who lived to an advanced age, didn’t so much “commit suicide” as self-euthanize: They might have been incurably ill and might therefore have taken steps to hasten death. (This is what Marcus had
done.) And although it is true that Cato committed suicide while in his prime, he did so not because he was indifferent to life but because he knew that his staying alive would have been politically advantageous to Julius Caesar, the dictator he was trying to overthrow. What we don’t find, when we examine the lives of the Stoics, is individuals who committed suicide on a whim or out of boredom with life, the way a nihilist might.

Furthermore, when Stoics contemplate their own death, it is not because they long for death but because they want to get the most out of life. As we have seen, someone who thinks he will live forever is far more likely to waste his days than someone who fully understands that his days are numbered, and one way to gain this understanding is periodically to contemplate his own death. Likewise, when the Stoics live each day as if it were their last, it is not because they plan to take steps to make that day their last; rather, it is so they can extract the full value of that day—and, hopefully, the days that follow it. And when the Stoics teach us not to fear death, they are simply giving us advice on how to avoid a negative emotion. We are all going to die, after all, and it is better that our death not be marred by fear.

It is also important to keep in mind that the Stoics thought suicide was permissible only under certain circumstances. Musonius tells us, for example, that it is wrong for us to choose to die if our living “is helpful to many.”
⁷
Inasmuch as Stoics, in doing what they take to be their social duty, will be helpful to many, they will rarely find themselves in these circumstances.

Along these lines, let us reconsider Musonius’s comment that old people who know death to be near should consider suicide. This is a case that seems to meet the condition just described: It is unlikely, after all, that others would depend for their well-being on an old and sickly individual. Furthermore, in such cases the question isn’t whether the person will soon die; the question is whether hers will be a good death at her own hands or a pointlessly painful death through natural processes. Besides counseling us to live a good life, Musonius counsels us to end that good life with a good death, when it is possible to do so.

L
ET ME MAKE
one last comment about the Stoics’ views regarding death. We have seen that the Stoics were inclined to take principled stands against powerful people and thereby get themselves into trouble. Why take such stands? For one thing, the Stoics thought they had a social duty to take them. Furthermore, because they feared neither death nor exile, the prospect of being punished for taking such stands—a prospect that would have deterred ordinary people—didn’t deter them.

To many modern individuals, such behavior is inexplicable. They feel this way in part because to them, nothing is worth dying for. Indeed, they focus their energy not on doing their duty regardless of the consequences and not on taking principled stands that could get them into trouble, but on doing whatever it takes to go on enjoying the pleasures life has to offer. The Stoics, I am convinced, would respond to such thinking by asking whether a life in which nothing is worth dying for can possibly be worth living.

Start Now and Prepare to Be Mocked

P
RACTICING
S
TOICISM
won’t be easy. It will take effort, for example, to practice negative visualization, and practicing self-denial will take more effort still. It will take both effort and willpower to abandon our old goals, such as the attainment of fame and fortune, and replace them with a new goal, namely, the attainment of tranquility.

Some people, on hearing that it would take effort on their part to practice a philosophy of life, will immediately dismiss the idea. The Stoics would respond to this rejection by pointing out that although it indeed takes effort to practice Stoicism, it will require considerably more effort
not
to practice it. Along these lines, Musonius observes, as we have seen, that the time and energy people expend on illicit love affairs far outweighs the time and energy it would take them, as practicing Stoics, to develop the self-control required to avoid such affairs. Musonius goes on to suggest that we would also be better off if, instead of working hard to become wealthy, we trained ourselves to be satisfied with what we have; if, instead of seeking fame, we overcame our craving for the admiration of others; if, instead of spending time scheming to harm
someone we envy, we spent that time overcoming our feelings of envy; and if, instead of knocking ourselves out trying to become popular, we worked to maintain and improve our relationships with those we knew to be true friends.
¹

More generally, having a philosophy of life, whether it be Stoicism or some other philosophy, can dramatically simplify everyday living. If you have a philosophy of life, decision making is relatively straightforward: When choosing between the options life offers, you simply choose the one most likely to help you attain the goals set forth by your philosophy of life. In the absence of a philosophy of life, though, even relatively simple choices can degenerate into meaning-of-life crises. It is, after all, hard to know what to choose when you aren’t really sure what you want.

The most important reason for adopting a philosophy of life, though, is that if we lack one, there is a danger that we will mislive—that we will spend our life pursuing goals that aren’t worth attaining or will pursue worthwhile goals in a foolish manner and will therefore fail to attain them.

A
NYONE WISHING
to become a Stoic should do so unobtrusively. This is because those who hear of your “conversion” to Stoicism will likely mock you.
²
You can avoid this sort of harassment, though, by keeping a low philosophical profile and practicing what might be called
stealth Stoicism
. You should have as your model Socrates, who kept such a low profile that people would come to him, not realizing that he himself was a philosopher, and ask whether he could introduce them to any philosophers. Socrates was, Epictetus reminds us, “tolerant of being overlooked,”
³
and those practicing Stoicism should likewise be tolerant.