How to Be a Stoic (2016)

>Trying to give up desire? Then what would motivate you do do anything at all?

This is a very poor reading of the Stoic philosophy, and a direct contradiction Epictetus' instructions (Long quote ahead, but it's essentially a direct response to this sort of criticism, so I think getting it all out at once is worthwhile):

>To the rational animal only is the irrational intolerable; but that which is rational is tolerable. Blows are not naturally intolerable. "How is that?" See how the Lacedaemonians endure whipping when they have learned that whipping is consistent with reason. "To hang yourself is not intolerable." When, then, you have the opinion that it is rational, you go and hang yourself. In short, if we observe, we shall find that the animal man is pained by nothing so much as by that which is irrational; and, on the contrary, attracted to nothing so much as to that which is rational.

>But the rational and the irrational appear such in a different way to different persons, just as the good and the bad, the profitable and the unprofitable. For this reason, particularly, we need discipline, in order to learn how to adapt the preconception of the rational and the irrational to the several things conformably to nature. But in order to determine the rational and the irrational, we use not only the of external things, but we consider also what is appropriate to each person. For to one man it is consistent with reason to hold a chamber pot for another, and to look to this only, that if he does not hold it, he will receive stripes, and he will not receive his food: but if he shall hold the pot, he will not suffer anything hard or disagreeable. But to another man not only does the holding of a chamber pot appear intolerable for himself, but intolerable also for him to allow another to do this office for him. If, then, you ask me whether you should hold the chamber pot or not, I shall say to you that the receiving of food is worth more than the not receiving of it, and the being scourged is a greater indignity than not being scourged; so that if you measure your interests by these things, go and hold the chamber pot. "But this," you say, "would not be worthy of me." Well, then, it is you who must introduce this consideration into the inquiry, not I; for it is you who know yourself, how much you are worth to yourself, and at what price you sell yourself; for men sell themselves at various prices.

>For this reason, when Florus was deliberating whether he should go down to Nero's spectacles and also perform in them himself, Agrippinus said to him, "Go down": and when Florus asked Agrippinus, "Why do not you go down?" Agrippinus replied, "Because I do not even deliberate about the matter." For he who has once brought himself to deliberate about such matters, and to calculate the value of external things, comes very near to those who have forgotten their own character. For why do you ask me the question, whether death is preferable or life? I say "life." "Pain or pleasure?" I say "pleasure." But if I do not take a part in the tragic acting, I shall have my head struck off. Go then and take a part, but I will not. "Why?" Because you consider yourself to be only one thread of those which are in the tunic. Well then it was fitting for you to take care how you should be like the rest of men, just as the thread has no design to be anything superior to the other threads. But I wish to be purple, that small part which is bright, and makes all the rest appear graceful and beautiful. Why then do you tell me to make myself like the many? and if I do, how shall I still be purple?

The Stoics do not say to desire nothing, only to desire those things which you can actually obtain, for as long as you can actually obtain them. Since Virtue is dependent only on one's own reasoning, and is therefore always available to everyone (Modern psychology has added some exceptions to this rule, but only of an exceptionally rare nature), it is the sole "Good" worth always pursuing, and other things which are sometimes within our reach and sometimes not are "Preferred Indifferents", which we choose to desire when we can have them (when we are willing to pay their price) and to not desire when we cannot, because it is in their nature to not be ours forever:

>With regard to whatever objects give you delight, are useful, or are deeply loved, remember to tell yourself of what general nature they are, beginning from the most insignificant things. If, for example, you are fond of a specific ceramic cup, remind yourself that it is only ceramic cups in general of which you are fond. Then, if it breaks, you will not be disturbed. If you kiss your child, or your wife, say that you only kiss things which are human, and thus you will not be disturbed if either of them dies.

“You desire to LIVE "according to Nature"? Oh, you noble Stoics, what fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: imagine to yourselves INDIFFERENCE as a power—how COULD you live in accordance with such indifference? To live—is not that just endeavouring to be otherwise than this Nature? Is not living valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different? And granted that your imperative, "living according to Nature," means actually the same as "living according to life"—how could you do DIFFERENTLY? Why should you make a principle out of what you yourselves are, and must be? In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you: while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature, you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players and self-deluders! In your pride you wish to dictate your morals and ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein; you insist that it shall be Nature "according to the Stoa," and would like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal glorification and generalism of Stoicism! With all your love for truth, you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, and with such hypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY, that is to say, Stoically, that you are no longer able to see it otherwise—and to crown all, some unfathomable superciliousness gives you the Bedlamite hope that BECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over yourselves—Stoicism is self-tyranny—Nature will also allow herself to be tyrannized over: is not the Stoic a PART of Nature?... But this is an old and everlasting story: what happened in old times with the Stoics still happens today, as soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise; philosophy is this tyrannical impulse itself, the most spiritual Will to Power, the will to "creation of the world," the will to the causa prima.” - Nietzsche

> The older I get the less wisdom I find in any philosophy that means to teach how we should live and particularly how to avoid pain and unhappiness.

There are two limitations with this proposition. First; most of the useful "philosophies", by which you mean schools of philosophies, and by that we actually mean "wisdom traditions", have already been incorporated into many aspects of the mainstream culture that they are as invisible to us as the pair of glasses we wear. Participated in any Abrahamic religion? You've also made use of Stoicism. Done any CBT therapy? You have practiced being a stoic. Read Hamlet's "there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so", you've heard Epictetus. Quoted the serenity prayer? Quoted one of the central Stoic maxims.

The second issue is parts of any doctrine that gives a didactic, algorithmic way of solving life's problems, are not the bits related to wisdom. Think it like the static data of any tradition, vs the executable bits, in which an on-the-fly heuristic needs to be run to actually approximate the optimal. Wisdom traditions only aim to sharpen the heuristic strategies, not to hand feed ready made solutions, because the problem space is inexhaustibly complex and the environment constantly changes.

The "should" statements you encounter in Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, or Epictetus's Enchiridion etc, are not the ready made answers you should take to heart. They are the example outputs that give you the perspective to train your own heuristic. It increases your chances to recognize the life inputs that Stoic optimizations can be applied to.

The core formulation of Stoicism is actually very simple, avoid agency ascription errors; don't take on anything you don't have control over, don't relinquish anything agency you do actually have. Constantly focus on what you can actually do, not the shoulds, oughts, would haves.

> Pain is useful.

Disease states exist, in which one is stuck in pain that is not useful. Chronic pain, phantom pain, chronic depression etc. They are pain states that have lost their utility.

> I saw perpetually and unconditionally happy people. In a mental asylum.

Likewise, this is a disease state too. Unconditionally happy people cannot survive "in the wild"; it is not adaptive or relevant to be happy in face of all life inputs. That is why mania is equally serious condition as depression, even though one feels more egosyntonic.

> The short of it is: nothing is good or bad, but things can be too much or too little. Where the line is depends or circumstances and is different every time. And the correct answer is mostly only available in hindsight if it is at all

Good or bad already implies too much or too little. E.g the original meaning of "sin" is missing the mark. It is the residual error we have anytime we apply our heuristics.

If the local optimal point was only available in hindsight though, we couldn't have survived as a species thus far (not saying we are missing some better optimum and we will definitely survive). But turns out our strategies have been good enough (and getting better) to make us pretty OK general problem solvers. If our heuristics was so low precision, we couldn't even talk and understand one another, which requires mentalizing the state of mind of the recipient.

Yes, and i think the one to change for this is politics. The divisive state of politics in the last year's (thank you Facebook!) Had taken a toll in a lot of people, and stoicism is a way of dealing with that. I was always kind of a stoic (even before knowing what it was) and while i still discuss politics sometimes I don't bother getting angry or upset at everything I see I'm that field. I don't ignore it, I take note, but don't worry about it. My wife is the other way around, she suffers a lot for things out of her control and I'm trying to teach her to be more rational and less emotional about everything. "What you're worrying about? If there something you can do then do it, if not, stop worrying as it won't help anyone."

It’s the key element of almost every philosophical school though?