“What is the fruit of these teachings? Only the most beautiful and proper harvest of the truly educated—tranquility, fearlessness, and freedom. We should not trust the masses who say only the free can be educated, but rather the lovers of wisdom who say that only the educated are free.
-Epictetus, Discourses, 2.1.21-23a
To prompt today is simply “For what am I learning or studying (stoicism)?” One would think a man currently attempting to write a blog about an ancient and relatively obscure philosophy and how it applies to his way of life had asked himself this question several times in all of the reading he did to bring him to the desire to express himself to all 6 of you who have read this post. One would be incorrect. The reality is, in reflecting on today’s passage, I realize that, while I am sure that the ideas within this philosophy are both powerful and beneficial, I have not spent any real time reflecting on what I get out of it.
There are some who would say that I simply like to seem like an over-educated know-it-all. This is only partially true. The reality is that on some level I have always known that which Epictetus says in the second part of the passage: The proper harvest of the educated is tranquility, fearlessness, and freedom.
In today’s world, tranquility is something we all seek. Meditation, mindfulness, stress-reduction, resiliency training, spiritual strengthening, are other ways of saying that we are seeking tranquility. Understanding a philosophy, from Stoicism or Buddhism to Christianity and Islam are all viable pathways to inner peace. The second part, putting it into practice, is of course how we build tranquility and simultaneously the harder part. It is a process and one that will take a lifetime of practice and maintenance. But for those who have found it (I am not one of them), it is worth it. A proper harvest.
Fearlessness is not foolhardiness, but the understanding that if we live in accordance with our nature, with the universe, with the Dao or with god… if we live according to the principals to which we ascribe than even the most important decisions simply can’t destroy who we are. The Stoics teach that even death merits no fear; as for each of us, it is an inevitability. Thus, as Stoics, if we are able to truly understand that we can’t control death, then we need not fear it.
Let us take another, less macabre example; claustrophobia (one of MY fears). If I were to be put into a small space, for this thought experiment lets say a small box, in which I was unable to move, but otherwise in no danger. As I am now, I would be terrified. I would have to focus all of my energy on not breathing too fast, or panicking. If you did the same to a Sage, however (that is, one who is a good and practiced Stoic), they would have no fear at all. Because they are more courageous than I? Not necessarily. Instead, they’d have no fear because first, they would be tranquil, and recognize that despite their cramped condition, they are otherwise fine (they have air, are not starving, are in no pain etc.). Furthermore, they would have the understanding that they can’t control whatever got them there, but they can control how they react to it.
Lastly, yet perhaps the most important point was freedom. I look at this as freedom from negative emotions. Freedom from stress (tranquility) because you know the difference between what you can and can’t control. Freedom from fear because you know that some things are inevitable, and that which is not, need not be feared. And a key for me, is freedom from anger, because Stoicism teaches acceptance, not of all things (there is a time to fight, and I time to flee) but of most things. Because if we reflect on our day, our week, our year and if we are truly honest with ourselves, most of the times we got angry, or hurt, or defensive, in the grand scheme of things, it was over nothing. Also, in general, we get mad over thing we can’t control. Why curse and fume at the guy who cut you off in traffic? Did that change his behavior? Could you really have stopped it? Being able to accept things that before would have made me mad: A proper Harvest.