Daily Advice 12.16.20

[readoldthings]

 The main focus of this blog is going to be Seneca's On Providence until I make my way through the whole thing. Every sentence is gold.

Flee luxury, flee enfeebling good fortune, from which men's minds grow sodden, and if nothing intervenes to remind them of the common lot, they sink, as it were, into the stupor of unending drunkenness. The man who has always had glazed windows to shield him from a drought, whose feet have been kept warm by hot applications renewed from time to time, whose dining- halls have been tempered by hot air passing beneath the floor and circulating round the walls, - this man will run great risk if he is brushed by a gentle breeze. While all excesses are hurtful, the most dangerous is unlimited good fortune.
 

I really think that this is the condition in which we find ourselves these days. Today on my Facebook account, a picture came up that I took on this day 3 years ago. I was living in California, and the largest wildfire in the state's history had just broken out. Over the next few months it would burn 280,000 acres. Then when the winter rains finally put it out, they caused a series of enormous mudslides which killed another 20 people in the hills near Santa Barbara. 

The debate then and now is-- Did this happen because of global warming or because we don't cut down enough trees? 

The answer, of course, depends upon whether you voted for Donald Trump or Joe Biden. 

Well, again, that was 3 years ago. Not that long, really. And now we're in the middle of a pandemic which has-- supposedly-- caused an excess of 200-300,000 American deaths. Whose fault is it, and what can be done about it? Again, the answer depends upon whether you voted for Donald Trump or Joe Biden.

Maybe we're all wrong, though. Maybe the Thomas Fire happened because these things happen. And the Coronavirus is happening because these things happen. 

Maybe the reason we're so shocked by it all, and so desperate to find some cause, someone we can pin it on, and something that can make it stop is because we've just been through about 80 years of unprecedented good fortune-- an era of peace and prosperity unprecedented in human history. 

Maybe we've all been enfeebled by all of this good fortune, and sunk, as it were, into a stupor of drunkenness-- from which the gods are now, slowly, painfully, awakening us.

Comments

[witchofthebough]

Thank you so much for posting Seneca's work. While I'm unsure if I'm a strict Hellenist or Neoplatonist, I find myself very influenced by their works. I commonly ponder about the excesses of fortune, and this quote has given me a lot to chew on. If we lived lifestyles that are actively in accordance with Nature and not distant from it in a home with what we now see as necessary: heating, cooling, electricity, etc., would we be less surprised when disaster strikes in Nature? Would we understand more that, at times, living is a struggle and we have to move through it versus blaming it on a figure who has become a cultural icon for things they actively have no part in?

I also wonder if we all abided by the simplicity of honesty and the understanding that we are all humans with limited capabilities, would we expect so much reality-defying action from our leaders and ourselves? Would we be able to move past their lack of leadership and be able to take right action into our own hands? Since I'm American, I can really only speak about issues of America, so I hope you don't mind (as I don't know where you're from,) but in America, I really feel like much of the identity of American culture and success is based on symbolism and the ideas of being an American versus what Americans actually do. As Americans, it seems we suffer from an excess of programming and symbolism, and a lack of honesty with ourselves that could help provide the rationality we need to see through problems and avoid scapegoats.

However, seeing as the philosophers talked about these concepts thousands of years ago, it's no wonder these issues rise with humanity as our society does. Humans have always thought very symbolically and creatively, as is shown by the variety of mythos our ancestors gave us in our culture and lore. It's not very easy to delineate as a society when symbolism is needed to propel us forward or if it's logos, as they can have varying psychological effects, and humans can be ultimately unpredictable.

Anyways, I hope you don't mind this comment! I just think it's very neat you're reviewing and posting Seneca and found myself thinking about what you posted as I scrolled DW yesterday at work. I hope you continue enjoying your reading, and I wish you luck.

[readoldthings]

This is a great comment, thank you.

I think this is an excellent point:

If we lived lifestyles that are actively in accordance with Nature and not distant from it in a home with what we now see as necessary: heating, cooling, electricity, etc., would we be less surprised when disaster strikes in Nature? Would we understand more that, at times, living is a struggle and we have to move through it versus blaming it on a figure who has become a cultural icon for things they actively have no part in?

I used to work and live for long stretches of time in the wilderness. One of the first things you realize is that every single day is different from the one before it. Our standardized industrial days are completely alien to the natural world and its rhythms. Necessity requires that I live in a more or less ordinary suburban house these days, but I find that the simple practice of getting outside under the trees every day is a key to my mental health.

"Mental health"-- there's an interesting term. "Mind" is another name for "psyche," which means "soul." "Health" is defined as a condition of wholeness, from which the word is derived. So I might have said "Getting outside under the trees every day is the key to wholeness of soul" and been just as accurate!

I'm going to need to think about your comments on America and the American mind. I'm also American. One thing that occurs to me-- I'm American also, by the way-- I've been all over this country, and it really is not one country. The northwest, the northeast, the midwest, the true west; NorCal, SoCal, Texas... they're all totally different worlds, inhabited by totally different people. I honestly see "America" as more of a religion than a nation. There is essentially nothing-- not religion, race, ethnicity, history, geography-- that unites all 330 million of us, and so we have to produce a shared identity and impose it by any means necessary to keep the country from flying apart. Other than that... I don't know. The state of the nation and what we might call "the problem of America" troubles me a great deal.

[violetcabra]

If I may regarding the unity of America:

I agree with the basic premise of the cultural and frankly geographic divides in the United States. Having lived all over the country: from New England to the Deep South to the not-so-deep South to the Great Basin and all up and down the west-coast, with lengthy sojourns in northern Idaho, Maine, Michigan, Florida, Missouri, Upstate New York, Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky and with an endless greyhound trip that defined my early twenties, I agree that there really are radical divisions vis-à-vis the various segments of people who live in this continental landmass.

Perhaps you are correct that what holds us together is a religious notion of 'America'. That said, we do have some common interests to some extent: I think that we all benefit from the fact that hostile foreign governments don't outright own the territory of California. I feel, to bring it back to the Seneca quote, that as a nation we've had too much good fortune. We forget that even mighty nations can fall, and fall to the mercy of hostile foreign powers, and that "divide and conquer" still works as a viable strategy.

I may dislike the culture of California --- both southern and northern --- but I prefer the culture of California to the culture of Imperialists of any foreign nation. The cold, factual military interests that unite the various regions of the United States are, to my mind at least, profound as they are pragmatic and are too often forgotten in the stupor of ending drunkenness inculcated by the excess of good fortune the United States has had vis-à-vis other foreign nations for going on 80 years now.

[readoldthings]

I don't disagree at all. It's only that I was discussing American identity specifically-- it's artificial and basically religious. That doesn't mean that it isn't useful, though, for just the reason you give here. I think that this very issue was addressed early on in the Federalist Papers.

As you know, much of America functions as a network of internal colonies, exploited by the coastal cities. That sucks-- but would it be better for Appalachia or rural Oregon to be external colonies of China or some other great power?

I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't be better to strengthen the specifically religious character of American identity. We already have shrines to the Founding Fathers. Why not burn incense to them and ask for their blessing? Theirs, and that of other American heroes-- we can call them santoamericanos and sell candles with their images in the supermarket.

[violetcabra]

The idea of santosamericanos candles is great! People in Hoodoo practice burn candles to MLK, whose initials of course spell out Malkuth. I've often wondered if Abraham Lincoln, whose initials are of course AL the Name of G-d for the Sphere of Chesed, would be able to work miracles on that level...

[ronp]

I would offer a different view in regards to what we normally think of as excess here in our western world. We hear that quite a bit these days, and there is some valid argument to be made for it, but I would offer an alternative perspective.

I don't know that it is excess that we suffer from, or that there is an excess of anything in regards to material goods, entertainment, etc. Instead, what I suggest is that, as a culture, we are in a state in which we severely lack certain things. What do we lack? Critical thinking skills, compassion, integrity, discernment, just to name a few.

This last item, discernment, really comes into play here, as well as correct and critical thinking. It's not that we necessarily have an overabundance. It's that we lack discernment and correct thinking. Do we really "need" that Ipad, new car, fancy clothes, gourmet coffee? Do we really need all of those rooms in that house we are considering buying, that big of a yard, or all of that genetically modified crap that we eat? Do we really need vitamin water, yet another flavor of gum, or yet another type of natural sweetener that is anything but natural?

You get the picture? Yes...we do have all of these choices, and so much more, but what is lacking is the ability to choose what it is that we truly need, and leave all of the crap that we don't. The markets are driven by consumer want, not consumer need, and consumers seem to want, want, want.....so the manufacturers and markets produce and supply the products to appease those wants. If, instead, we were to change our outlooks and provide ourselves with what we actually need, then the manufacturers and markets would reflect that instead.

Yes...there is excess of a sort, of that there is no doubt. But who is responsible for that excess? Is it truly 'the system', or is it instead the result of 'the people' going along with the system like sheep following the shepherd? If the sheep were to think clearly, they might figure out that the shepherd isn't a good shepherd at all and might perhaps start thinking for themselves.

Although there is a great deal of a type of excess, I would suggest that the excess is in the choices that we have, and most choices offered are bad choices. There is also a severe problem of lack as well. Lack of good judgment, compassion, honesty, integrity, caring, tolerance, acceptance of differences, etc. If there were an abundance of these types of qualities, the ridiculous excesses might, perhaps, dwindle down and a great many of our various problems might correct themselves.

If people chose to consume what was needed instead of everything that was wanted, a great many of these excesses would go away. No one is going to sell 50,000 dollar SUV's if no one is buying, or reality TV if no one is watching. Expensive electronic devices are not going to sell if no one is buying them, nor will they be manufactured if no one is buying. Ridiculous salaries will not be paid to employees for senseless spectator programming if people are no longer being those spectators.

[readoldthings]

Thank you for the meditation!

I don't think that what you're saying contradicts what Seneca is saying here. We do indeed have an excess of material abundance available. But-- and this is the heart of Stoicism-- it is within our power to choose how we relate to that excess.