A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

[archerships]

I've really been enjoying " A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy" by William B Irvine.  An excerpt:

"We humans are unhappy in large part because we are insatiable; after working hard to get what we want, we routinely lose interest in the object of our desire.  Rather than feeling satisfied, we feel a bit bored, and in response to this boredom, we go to form new, even grander desires.
...
One key to happiness, then, is to forestall the adaption process: we need to take steps to prevent ourselves from taking for granted, once we get them, the things we worked so hard to get.
...
The Stoics...recommended that we spend time imagining that we have lost the things we value--that our wife has left us, our car was stolen, or we lost our job.  Doing this, the Stoics thought, will make us value our wife, our car, and our job more than we otherwise would...remember that all we have is "on loan" from Fortune, which can reclaim it without our permission--indeed, without even advance notice.  Thus, "we should love all of our dear ones, but always with the thought that we have no promise that we may keep them forever--nay, no promise even that we may keep them for long."  While enjoying the companionship of loved ones, then, we should periodically stop to reflect on the possibility that this enjoyment will come to an end.  If nothing else, our own death will end it."

You can read a very nice summary of the book in this three part essay series on BoingBoing:

1.  Twenty-First Century Stoic -- From Zen to Zeno: How I Became a Stoic
2.  Twenty-First Century Stoic -- Insult Pacifism
3.  Twenty-First Century Stoic -- Stoic Transformation

The author was also interviewed by the CBC.

Some related material:

Stockdale on Stoicism II: Master of My Fate

The Five Remembrances of Buddhism:

1. I am sure to become old; I cannot avoid ageing.
2. I am sure to become ill; I cannot avoid illness.
3. I am sure to die; I cannot avoid death.
4. I must be separated and parted from all that is dear and beloved to me.
5. I am the owner of my actions, heir of my actions, actions are the womb (from which I have sprung), actions are my relations, actions are my protection. Whatever actions I do, good or bad, of these I shall become their heir.

Posted via email from crasch's posterous

Comments

[istar.livejournal.com]

I read about this on boingboing and I got the book, but I barely got through the introduction before it seemed insufferably self-indulgent to me. So I stopped reading. But what I learned from it was that it's a good idea to establish one's own personal philosophy of life, and also to spend a small amount of time thinking about negative outcomes in order to enjoy the present moment.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

What self-help/philosophy books have you found helpful, if any?

[istar.livejournal.com]

The books I've read in the past few years that have really resulted in actionable changes in my life, I think, are Women Don't Ask by Babcock/Laschever and Why People Believe Weird Things by Michael Shermer. I'm in the middle of The Queen of Fats by Susan Allport, and I anticipate that this will also result in some changes in my life.

I'll read almost anything that sounds interesting, but I'm more compelled by writing that uses scientific evidence (research, published studies) to support the conclusion.

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Thank-you!

Some books you might enjoy:

Self-directed Behavior
Don't Shoot the Dog
The Power of Reinforcement

The first two are particularly good.

[tinymammoth.livejournal.com]

Master of My Fate changed my life.

One of the reasons I read all of those memoirs from political prisoners is to study how they keep their mental health under extreme conditions. A lot of them do seem to be using Stoic techniques even though they don't identify them as such.

[evelynne.livejournal.com]

This "I could lose you tomorrow" approach bothers me in a visceral kind of way. I feel that sense of loss too deeply and it mars the joy with fear.

What has worked for me is to constantly focus on why I like things and people, every little bit of every little thing. Like a cup of tea, enjoying the warmth on a cold winter morning, the way the steam rises, and the flavor of it. With people, I think to myself and talk out loud (to Poindexter, usually) about things people do that are fun and make me like them. When I get into bed at night I sometimes squeak with pleasure because it feels so good to lie down and rest, and I love the feel of our sheets, and Poindexter is so toasty warm. Stuff like that.

I was gonna write about what I focus on about Poindexter, but that was really nauseating so I skipped it. :)

[crasch.livejournal.com]

Well, the goal of the exercise is to combat the human tendency to become habituated to all the good things in our lives, and therefore to be unhappy with one's lot. By imagining alternate histories, in which you're disabled, your loved ones died, etc, you can appreciate them more now. It sounds like you appreciate life well enough already, so the exercise probably isn't worthwhile for you.

Oughts

[randallsquared.livejournal.com]

I've been reading _Guide_, and while I have found the book very helpful and agreeable, I'm constantly stubbing my attention on his uses of "ought" and "should" -- uses he doesn't seem to feel a need to back up with anything other than assertion. I think there's a lot of room to build a Stoicism without reference to what a person *ought* to do, and I think that's necessary in today's world, where most people do not much agree with the Greeks and Romans about oughts.

Re: Oughts

[randallsquared.livejournal.com]

Well, finishing up the _Guide_, it became clear that Prof. Irvine did not mean "should" and "ought" to have any ethical or moral force; rather, he meant it in the tautological sense that you "ought" to follow this or that Stoic guideline if it happens to be right for you to do so.

It may well be that other people already understand his meaning by that point in the book, but even for those like me who do not, he explicitly declares that he does not think Stoicism is right for everyone near the end, so my complaints were possibly premature.

Thing is, I'm *attracted* to declarations of what one ought to do, as I am attracted to monarchy and duty and pointless heroics. I just don't believe in them. My reactions to that sort of moral and ethical language say more about me than about the author, therefore.