ANZ LitLovers LitBlog

I’ve been meaning to write about this book for a while.  Reading Kaggsy’s EOY post referencing stoicism was the catalyst for me to finish off the last couple of chapters and do it.

And while I would be the last person to make suggestions about New Year’s Resolutions because *chuckle* I’ve never ever kept any of mine and have now given up entirely, it does seem to me that our increasingly angry, entitled, time-wasting world could do with taking up some of the ideas in this book…

I rarely read self-help books, but Brigid Delaney  Reasons Not to Worry, How to be Stoic in chaotic times, interested me because I like two schools of philosophical thought: one is utilitarianism, exemplified by Peter Singer’s practical ethics which have actually influenced my behaviour (see the books I’ve read here); and the other is stoicism, which I discovered at university when I read the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (161 to 180 AD).  Meditations lives by my bedside, where often just the sight of it reminds me of its principles, enough to restore a calm frame of mind.

These basic principles are listed in the Introduction:

1. Acknowledge that you can’t control much of what goes on in your life.
2. See that your emotions are the product of how you think about the world.
3. Accept that bad things are bound to happen to you from time to time, just as they do to everyone else.
4. See yourself as part of a larger whole, not an isolated individual; part of the human race, part of nature.
5. Think of everything you have as not your own, but simply on loan, that one day will be taken back.  (p.5)

Since your own character is one of the few things you can control, there are four virtues to cultivate:

1. courage
2. self-control
3. wisdom, and
4. justice.

Anyone can (try to) cultivate these virtues, regardless of their circumstances.  The pursuit of good character in ancient times excluded no one: man, woman, slave, freeperson, black, white. They believed that it was human nature, achievable with practice and commitment.

Delaney is not a philosopher, she’s a lawyer-turned-journalist but she has been much more serious about stoicism that I have ever tried to be.  She wrote this book to share the Stoicism learning journey that she undertook with a friend called Andrew. For her, it turned out to be very helpful during the pandemic. As she says, we all know people who went to pieces during the lockdowns, and yet some of us thrived.   She had practised the techniques of Stoicism so that much of it was second nature to her.  I just bumbled my way through…

In Part I; The Essentials, she begins at the end.  That is, by discussing the fact that death is inevitable.  We will all die, some of us sooner rather than later, and none of us know when it will be.

We all go through it sooner or later — that first shocking death of a friend or family member.  And we all have our first brush with our own mortality.  When we do, something shifts — like being told a terrible secret that we’re all in on, in the end.

It is both the most shocking and most natural of things to know that we — and everyone we love — are going to die. (p.26)

It is shocking because in our culture we pretend that we will never die, never grow sick or get old.

Our culture and these times run on the algorithm of youth, a torrent of constantly moving images in our social media feeds that glorify the trivial, the next, the silly, the surface, the hot take, the meme, the shocking, the zeitgeist.  (p.26)

Our culture encourages us to think that death is exceptional, instead of encouraging us to accept that our time is finite and that we should live well, and not waste a second.

Delaney tells us that the ancient Stoics, who lived in perilous times and had a much shorter average life span than we do, practised negative visualisation.  That is, they imagined someone they loved dying so that the time they had with that person was incredibly precious.  Many of us did just that (unwillingly) during the pandemic before we had the vaccine, but while thinking of our own deaths and the deaths of those we love may prepare us better for the shortness of life, it really isn’t something I want to do. But the principle of identifying what we love and recognising that we do not have control over it is something I can do.

I’ve shared this picture before.  It’s my back garden, quite a bit leafier now than when this picture was taken.  I love looking out of my French windows and rejoicing in the fact that here in suburban Melbourne I can see nothing but greenery.  But that house on which the light is shining is destined to be pulled down for 2-storey townhouses that will overlook my garden, and the neighbours whose trees are there on the RHS have already told us that they’ll be cutting them down soon.  There is nothing I can do about either of these events that will be catastrophic to my view.  I cannot control this impending loss.  What I can control is my reaction to it — prepare myself so that I don’t get angry about it — and most importantly, cherish my view while I have it.

To work out what really matters, Delaney offers the control test, with a handy diagram on page 48 to clarify what Epictetus says about what’s really under our control:

‘Some things are in our control and others not.  Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and in a word, whatever are our own actions.  Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and in one word, whatever are not our own actions.’ (p.48)

(That’s “one word” in Ancient Greek, I guess!)

Delaney interprets this as being our character, the way we treat others and our actions and reactions.  This doesn’t mean that we should simply shrug our shoulders and move on.  I intend to plant more fast-growing tall trees on my side of the fence.  The ancient Stoics were people of action: political leaders, emperors and soldiers.  But they knew that whatever their efforts, they could not control the outcome.

There is much more to this book and the way stoicism can be applied in the 21st century, but I will conclude by sharing the Table of Contents, to give you an idea of why you might want to get a copy of it for yourselves.

Contents

Introduction
Who were the Stoics?

Part 1 THE ESSENTIALS

How to … be mortal
How to … work out what matters
How to … cope with disaster
How to … be relaxed
How to … be good
How to … be untroubled

Part 2 LIFE AND ITS ABSURDITIES

How to … be calm
How to … be moderate
How to … be on social media
How to … be happy with what you’ve got
How to … beat FOMO and comparisons
How to … beat anxiety

Part 3 CRUNCH TIME

How to … grieve
How to … die

Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Further Reading
About the Author

You might enjoy watching Brigid Delaney in conversation with Tim Tilley.

Author: Brigid Delaney
Title: Reasons Not to Worry, How to be Stoic in chaotic times
Publisher: Allen & Unwin, 2022
Cover design: Design by Committee
ISBN: 9781743310496, pbk., 295 pages
Source: personal library, purchased from Benn’s Books Bentleigh $26.99