My stepkids have arrived home today for a visit, I think it’s appropriate that joy is the topic we’re covering today. Although we differ greatly as to where boundaries should go and what music is considered “good”, there is a definitive joy that arises for me when I get a chance to see them. 

When it comes to joy, there are a lot of people who believe that those folx who are exploring Stoicism are void of this feeling, but that’s the farthest thing from the truth. We aren’t necessarily pursuing cheerfulness, or the standard-issue happiness. No, those trying to live the Stoic life are seeing a deep state of being when they quest for joy. It’s a deep part of our being in the world and hasn’t got hardly anything to do with smiles on faces, or laughs on lips… how we outwardly express our state of being. When times are good, it’s rather easy to mirror happiness in the world, but that’s different from the joy we have at our core, even when times aren’t so good. 

Stoic joy is the kind that offers deep contentment with life, the kind that bolsters us so we can face each quotidian day with Courage, the kind that help us face adversity’s onslaught and get back to our feet one more time than we get knocked down… and the kind that inspires those around you. 

Stoic joy comes from having purpose in life, pursuing excellence, and embracing our duty as “good people” in a greater world. 

It’s a joy that has little to do with one’s pleasant tone, or saccharin-sweet language. 

Now, it’s time to get some burgers with my wife and stepkids.

I’ll… (See y’all tomorrow)

​Ever been talking to someone and thought to yourself, “This dude is a complete dipstick.” or, “Why are they always doing -whatever- wrong?” I know I have, and I’m sure I’ve been the “dude” or the “they” that someone else was referring to after a frustrating exchange with me. It takes a tremendous amount of privilege to look down at someone’s ignorance… and yet, academics do it all the time. Maybe you’ve been trying to fix something with the mechanically inept and said to yourself, “It’s a freakin’ screwdriver, brainiac… its uses are limited. Lefty-loosey, righty-tighty.” Again, it takes a tremendous amount of privilege to look down at someone’s ignorance… and yet, tradespeople do it all the time. Privilege isn’t about money, or success, or anything other than advantages in certain situations… whether we’ve worked to acquire those advantages, or they came free with our being born who and where we are. 

It’s our duty to utilize our own privilege to lift up those without the same privileges, help them awaken and evolve, and to use our power to change the systems that created the privilege-imbalance in the first place. It’s our duty, as people who are trying to live with Virtue, to be understanding and patient with others, with those who didn’t have our advantages or exposure, education, or training, and with those who are ignorant to the nuances of life that we often take for granted. 

Holiday offers that, “The more forgiving and tolerant you can be of others - the more you can be aware of your various privileges and advantages - the more helpful and patient you will be.” (The Daily Stoic, 225) 

Once we’re able to stop overidentifying with our individualized victim-identities, we can become agents of growth and change for the world around us. The individual bee doesn’t matter as much as the hive… and what’s better, the individual bee knows this fact to be true. 

Sadly, we haven’t figured out that truth yet. 

(See y’all tomorrow)  

“Often injustice lies in what you aren’t doing, not only in what you are doing.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.5 

“If you choose not to decide - You still have made a choice”
Rush (Neal Peart), Freewill, Album: Permanent Waves (1980)

“Not doing anything is doing something and choosing to look away is a passive but no less mortal sin.” 
Bill Maher

“I don't believe anything's really inevitable until it happens. We just call it inevitable to make ourselves feel better about it, to excuse ourselves for not having done anything.” 
Lauren Willig

Y’all get the idea, right? 

Guilt isn’t limited to perpetrators in a reality that comes about by complex causality. Once again: Guilt isn’t limited to perpetrators. It’s shared by those who see, who know, who hear and who still choose to do nothing… while culpability may not be shared, guilt, most certainly, is. 

It’s hard to hear, and even harder to accept… as it should. It’s not about just NOT doing bad stuff… it’s about being a force of goodness and Virtue in the world. 

We desperately need it. 

(See y’all tomorrow) 

In my religious life, the practice of honoring/venerating my Ancestors is crucial. Remembering them through story, laughter, and most of all, a lot of love is as important to my outlook on life as is the Wisdom I gain from being in relationship with my wife, Rev. Bee. When I take time each day to sit quietly and reflect on my forebears, each one of them has a sort of “essence” to their memory… a flavor, a scent, a quality about them. Essentially, it’s what’s “written” on their “personal-memory headstones” in my mind and heart. Some of their epitaphs are poignant, accessible, and will remain lovely over the course of time, while others are simply an account of their own personal accomplishments when in life, accomplishments measured on a scale created by the egos of others.

Our deeds write our epitaphs. Who controls our deeds? Who do we SAY controls our deeds? 

Seneca knew what was up when it came to right-living with agency. He asked, “Is it really so pleasant to die in harness?” Maybe… but we need to know what it is we’re harnessed to. Is it Virtuous? Is it Self-serving? Once you know, how will that look on your headstone? In the end, will your work be what takes you out? Before you answer, think about what Russian historian and communism critic, Aleksander Solzhenitsyn said when he noted that, “Work is what horses die of.”  Always remember, you are a human being, not a human doing. 

What are you losing or surrendering in order to have a fancy inscription on your headstone? 

Maybe you see it as a sacrifice? Really? Is it sacra facere? If so, what is it that you’re making sacred? Fame? Superior feelings? Ego? 

Live in such a way that you make your Epitaph worth dying for. 

(See y’all tomorrow) 

​In today’s world, especially in the US, we have ample opportunity to have “all the feels” about all sorts of tragic events: internment camps for children, dragging citizens out of homes and vehicles with no due process, open racism, shocking xenophobia, the school-to-prison pipeline, privatized corporate military… it’s a nigh-endless list of horrors. 

When we hear of these terrible things from friends, either directly or via social media, we feel for the victims of these acts, and sometimes if we’re feeling particularly awakened (or filled with blinding rage), we might even have some feels left over for the perpetrators. We want to make sure we emotionally show-up for the atrocities across the world. We not only want to have “feels” about these things, but we want to have the “right feels”. 

The right feels, however, are only one component of a three part solution to BEING a person of Virtue… not acting like one, or looking like one, or sounding like one, but rather existing as a person of Virtue. If one-third is all we’re doing, we’re only scoring 33% out of 100% as far as our humanity-response goes. 

If you remember, in an earlier post I talked about the Three Orthos: Orthopraxy (right doing or body-rightness), Orthodoxy (right believing or right mind), and Orthopathy (right feeling or emotional-rightness). Armed with all three, we exist in Virtue, in body, mind, and heart. 

Like today’s title says, someone is always dying somewhere… 

… and what are we going to DO about it? 

If we’ve convinced ourselves that our ‘doing’ ends at ‘emoting’, then we ain’t doin’ shit. 

(See y’all tomorrow)