One Hand Clapping

In my current shallow wading in various philosophies,I am consistently presented with a purported truth: That whatever is going on outside of my control that I allow to cause me some emotion is a waste of my time.  The literature is replete with people going through some fairly serious shit (both positive and negative) and simply deciding that since whatever is going on is not in their control, they aren't going to let it affect them or, more accurately, their sense of peace. Being angry or afraid or sad or disturbed is not going to change anything except to make us miserable. Therefore, our true choices boil down to

(a) Be in a shitstorm and be miserable about it; or,

(b) Be in a shitstorm and ignore it.

Neither of these affect the shitstorm a whit so of the two you'd just as well not be miserable about it, especially since your emotions are really the only part that you can do anything about.

I have been practicing the high points of this with frankly rather hit-and-miss results. This is not unduly upsetting partially because letting it upset me would, in point of fact, be another fail; but also mostly because even the greats had to learn it the hard way, and some never completely grounded the concepts.

The Buddha went through the first part of his life as a wealthy wastrel rich-bitch covered up in extravagance and hot women, all of which he thought was important to him. He revised this view and after some work had his first brush with nirvana, which turned out to be recognition and understanding that literally nothing matters, everything changes outside our control, and nothing has identity/self. Roughly 40 years of wandering around barefoot after grasping this freedom from everything, he entered final nirvana^* and stopped existing at all.

Jesus spent between one and three years turning the other cheek and preaching to everyone to live in this moment and apart from the world and let tomorrow take care of itself, some very Stoic-sounding thinking. Given the high-tension times and geography, of course, this resulted in him being roundly ignored practically everywhere he went. He finally lost his temper one day and, against his own advice, started whacking the sleeping bear of established authority with a stick. Proving the point, this not only didn't change anything, but in fact got him nailed to a chunk timber within 24 hours as a handy and graphic visual aid to guide other potential enemies of the State. Meanwhile, the universe, history, and the established order he was banging on about continued to crank along for another couple of centuries without so much as a hiccup and with barely a mention of him at all.

Stoic giant Marcus Aurelius, the ever-insightful philosopher-king of the Romans who is usually depicted as loftily gazing off into some tranquil distance, in fact owned a buttload of slaves, was able to expertly surf the vicious and literally homicidal Roman political system for years, and spent a considerable amount of his time when he wasn't writing his "Meditations" trying to find new ways to exterminate Christians. Or at least the ones in Spain, for some reason.

Seneca, another huge force in the history of Stoicism, blindly worked for Nero, who was, by any measure you care to name, a psychotic freakshow. This wasn't undertaken to try to curb Nero, but was because he (Seneca) didn't want to lose his position or riches in spite of his ruminations about how none of it really mattered. Seneca's later Stoic writings take on an almost "well, should'a seen THAT coming" flavor once the ever-dangerous whackadoo Nero finally unwound on  him, stripped him of everything, and eventually executed him.

Anyhow, I'm thinking that when even THESE guys have bad days in which they are a piss-poor Stoics (or proto-Stoics), I can probably just give myself a break and get on with doing better next time.

For example, the tribulations of Jesus and Epictetus highlight my life-changing trial: I just noticed (well for the first time this week anyhow) that practically no one reads this blog. I think it's clear that in historical terms, my reaction to this not-unexpected epiphany puts me right up there on the misery level usually occupied by 40 days of satan wrestling in the desert, or day to day life as a crippled 2nd-Century Roman slave. Seriously, this is Millennial-level suffering inflicted by this important first-world problem, and it will take all my tools to deal with it.

1. Can I anything about it? No.

2. Therefore, should I pay any attention to it? No.

3. Will it affect my writing?  No.

Solution: Delete that damned Statcounter account and don't worry about it.

Whew. Practically a cat-o-nine-tails enhanced, barefoot hike to Golgotha there. But I managed it.

Damn I'm good.

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Footnotes:

^{[*] In the Buddhist religion, "nirvana" isn't heaven or anything like it. It translates from the Sanskrit as "blow out", as in "to blow out the candle". Buddhism is in fact an extreme form of the "nothing matters" philosophy in which letting everything go (including self) is how one finally breaks free from the grinding, eternal, and ever-changing despair of the wheel of reincarnation. One simply ceases to exist. In short, nirvana is peace in annihilation. The Buddha was purportedly the first to do just that, and now nothing remains of him but his dharma (teachings) to guide others in their quest to also escape the cycle of eternal rebirth. Nirvana as eternal obliteration is a rather more cold-blooded, hard-core philosophy than most Westerners think it is, and differs almost 180 degrees from the eternal-life-seeking Judeo/Christian/Muslim religions.]↩}