This blogpost is part three in a series of five exploring the Stoic psychological tactics that can be used to rediscover joy in your life and is based on William Irvine’s A guide to the good life.
Let go of the past and the present. That’s what fatalism is here. In certain religions and in the Roman Empire it’s accepted that we as individuals and we as a society have a predestined path to walk. In other words fate or as Seneca puts it “it’s a great consolidation that it is together with the universe we are swept along”. The Stoics believed firmly in the Fates and that we are all nothing more than actors in a play that has already been written. Things simply put, are just as they are and “happen as they do happen”. According to Marcus, a good man will welcome “every experience that the looms of fate may weave for him”.
Complaining about the fates
As I said the Roman Stoics like all Romans took it for granted that they had a fate and that they could not escape that fate. For the Romans life was a written play or a fixed race, the plot or outcome was already known to the Gods. (Or to the three Fates to be more precise: Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos)
Now it might seem a bit strange that the Stoics believe in the dichotomy of control and at the same time advocate fatalism. After all, if the future was set in stone already we wouldn’t have control over anything in life now would we.
This is where things get a bit confusing. Although the Stoics believed in the Fates they didn’t practice fatalism with regards to the future. No, they only practiced it with regards to the past and the present. The future was left open until it became the present. They didn’t just sit round moping and complaining that everything was already decided. If things were already decided, complaining wouldn’t do them any good now would it.
Combined fatalism and burning your finger
What the Stoics did do however was combine fatalism with the dichotomy of control. This very instant and everything before it that we know as the past can not be changed anymore. We have no control over the past or the present and thus we should not concern ourselves with it. The fact that the past can’t be changed is widely accepted. But why can’t we change the present? This is again a bit of a mind game. As soon as we act on the present the present is the past.
Stick your finger in a flame and your body will react to it by pulling back your finger even before it hurts. But how long did the neurons take to tell your muscles to contract because of the flame? More than enough time to make the finger in the flame a matter of the past.
We didn’t change the fact that our finger was in the flame, but with some control over things to come (a blister if we don’t cool our finger under running water) we do have some control over the future. It is of course possible to affect what will happen ten years from now, or a week, an hour or even half a second. But as soon as it’s the present it’s our of our hands.
The paradox of ambition
You see, the past and present can never be changed, so why worry about them any longer, they will only make us uncomfortable and distressed all over again without doing us any good. We can learn from the past, but that’s about all it’s good for.
In this regard and combining this tactic with the first two I described you might think the Stoics were very unambitious, being happy with every experience the Looms of Fate weave for them. The truth couldn’t be more different. Seneca was (among other things) a political adviser, investor and play writer. Marcus Aurelius was (aside from a stoic philosopher) the Roman Emperor. You couldn’t get more ambitious than that back in those days. If anything these guys were highly ambitious and achieved great things in their lifetime.
A nice paradox is unfolding itself in front of our eyes it seems. Accepting that the future is already written and being happy and content with the simplest of things. The Stoics believed in living accordance with nature. Humans are by nature a social species and it’s for the best of society that everyone take part and did their social duty. If by fate Marcus found himself the Roman Emperor there is nothing there that prohibited him from enjoying that, the looms of Fate made him Emperor and it was his social duty to perform that task as best as he could. He kept in mind however that all things were temporary and that one day he would no longer be the Emperor, or be alive for that matter.
Stoic Riches
Note also that the Stoics were financially comfortable and that Seneca and Marcus in particular had riches beyond their dreams. That would seem strange if they didn’t care for such things and didn’t concern themselves with what we today can call consumerism. (Getting the latest gizmo’s just because..) Although they did have an income, they hardly spent it and certainly not on those trivial things. It’s through “living below your means” (As is being taught by hundreds of financial blogs and books) that they amassed wealth. Although they didn’t crave wealth it was because of their philosophy that they did achieve this.
Be happy about whatever comes on your path and enjoy it while it’s there, it will be in the past tomorrow. Don’t worry about it however, you can’t change it anyway.
De posts in the Stoic psychological tactics series:
3. Fatalism
4. Self-Denial
5. Meditation
Written by Christiaan
Topics: Zen your Mind