17:48 May 08 2021
Times Read: 12
In Greek mythology, characters go through katabasis—or “a going down.” Something forces them to retreat, to experience a breaking point, or in some cases literally descend into the underworld. When they emerge, it’s with heightened knowledge and understanding. These moments are painful but essential. “Although to be driven back upon oneself,” Joan Didion once wrote, “is an uneasy affair at best...it seems to me now the one condition necessary.”
When you study the lives of the Stoics, you see they each went through something like that. Zeno’s shipwreck. Marcus’ early life, which was all but defined by loss. Seneca’s two exiles and the reckoning only after years of service to Nero. Musonius being exiled four times. Epictetus’s violent and depraved master twisting his leg with all his might and crippling him. The circumstances vary but the knowledge emerged with doesn’t.
Scott Hebert perfectly captured it when we interviewed him a while back. At a particularly low moment in life, Scott left his chaotic city life and went to work on a small-scale vegetable farm. With no experience farming and destructive habits to boot, Scott quickly met his breaking point, which he described felt “like fighting a hydra,” a battle with no end. “Eventually you’re struck by the monster,” he explained, “and while you’re lying there exhausted, coughing up your own blood, you reflect on the choices that brought you there,” and you find the only weapons you need.
What are those weapons? The Stoic has four: Courage. Self-Control. Justice. Wisdom. Courage to attack. Self-Control to stay focused, to know your limits. Justice to do the right thing. Wisdom to learn, to see things clearly, to know what the right thing is, what your limits are and what to attack.
Zeno used those weapons to recover from his loss. “I made a prosperous voyage,” he would later say, “when I suffered shipwreck.” Marcus, Seneca, Epictetus—they too fought back, stayed strong, did what was right, kept themselves in check. “If you find anything better” than those four virtues, Marcus said, “it must be an extraordinary thing indeed.” Fortunately, you don’t need to wait for a katabasis or a hydra to find them. As Scott said, “I didn’t have to start a farm, I just needed to look within myself.”
That’s the question for you: Are you armed and ready? Are you looking within?...TheDailyStoic.
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