Blog Archives

Behold, Now as Ever (Day 324)

11/20/2019

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

If you’ve seen the present, you’ve seen all things, from time immemorial into all of eternity. For everything that happens is related and the same.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.37

Today's post is kind of… ramble-y? Be advised. :)

The above quote reminds me of a prayer I’ve prayed thousands of times as a kid. Within the Gloria Patri is the phrase, “As it was in the beginning, is now, and forever shall be, world without end.” The undying, unending quality of certain things is a truth that permeates many cultures. This truth can pertain to divine beings, cycles of nature, behaviors of people… some things will be as they are.

I’m not talking about the over-individuated experiences we fill our lives with to make us special and unique. I’m talking about the things that are part of the human experience… not the individual experience. The sufferings and joys that connect us. The ego flare-ups that push us apart. Bouts of selfishness and self-pity… all these things have always been, and will always be.

People have been through all this before, and we’re going through it now, AND we’ll go through it all again (gods be good).

(See y’all tomorrow)

Maxims from Three Wise Men (Day 323)

11/19/2019

For any challenge we should hold three thoughts at our command:
Lead on God(s) and Destiny, to that Goal fixed for me long ago. I will follow and not stumble; even if my will is weak I will soldier on. - Cleanthes
Whoever embraces necessity count as wise, skilled in divine matters. - Euripides
If it pleases the gods, so be it. They may well kill me, but they can’t hurt me. - Plato’s Crito and Apology”

Epictetus, Enchiridion, 53

In the above quote from Epictetus, he points out three core themes needed to move forward in our lives with a Stoic mind. Those theses are:

Tolerance, Flexibility, and Acceptance

Like Cleanthes and Euripides, if you, dear reader, need divine beings to ease the blow of fate, saying that what befalls you is preordained, then by all means, do so. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter if you’re a believer or a non-believer…

… what matters is practicing the practice of acceptance.

If you need to mark something as divine in order to accept it, then please do! Do the namaste thing if you have to… however you get there, just get there. Join me in a together-practice of acceptance.

(See y’all tomorrow)

Four Habits of the Stoic Mind (Day 322)

11/18/2019

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Our rational nature moves freely forward in its impressions when it:
accepts nothing false or uncertain;
directs its impulses only to acts for the common good;
limits its desires and aversions only to what’s in its own power;
embraces everything nature assigns it.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.7

How many times do we boil down “what is” into small, bullet-pointed lists? Look at what’s important and make notes to ourselves with regard to what matters, right? I do…

… and it would seem that wise Marcus did, too!

Throughout his journals he had many small lists of good practices, and habits that he’d hoped to make a part of his life. The above four can be reinterpreted in modern vernacular as:

1 - Accept only what is true
2 - Work for the common good
3 - Match our needs and wants with what is in our control
4 - Embrace what nature has in store for us

(See y’all tomorrow)

Judge Not, Lest... (Day 321)

11/17/2019

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When philosophy is wielded with arrogance and stubbornly, it is the cause for the ruin of many. Let philosophy scrape off your own faults, rather than be a way to rail against the faults of others.”
Seneca, Moral Letters, 103.4b-5a

Focus inward.
Mind the business of your own liberation.

Your faults are in your control.
Others faults are NOT in your control.

Nothing in religion or philosophy grants us the authority to judge one another.
We only have the authority to practice acceptance…

… and the wish that others treat us with such grace.

(See y’all tomorrow)

Hope and Fear are the Same (Day 320)

11/16/2019

Hecato says, ‘cease to hope and you will cease to fear.’ … The primary cause of both these ills is that instead of adapting ourselves to present circumstances we send out thoughts too far ahead.”
Seneca, Moral Letters, 5.7b-8

Hope is good. Fear is bad. Right?

Wrong. BOTH are for suckers. Both hope and fear take us away from the present. Being fully present IN the present is the very soul of acceptance.

Both hope and fear orient our minds to past or future… two places in time where our resources needed to powerfully perform in the present moment are tapped so severely that we’ve little to none left for the present moment. Those resources get spent in a past (that only lives in our minds) or a future (that only lives in our minds), leaving us empty in the very place where our resources are most needed: the present.

Hopes and fears cause want and worry to grow. What’s maddening is that when we step back and look at the relationship between ourselves, hope, and fear, we see that it's the wanting that causes the worrying, and the worrying that causes the wanting.

Hope and fear. Both for suckers…

… and both enemies of the present moment.

(See y’all tomorrow)

Everything is Change (Day 319)

11/15/2019

Image Credit: Monster Ztudio - Shutterstock

No man steps in the same river twice.”
Heraclitus

Stoicism teaches that we can only be responsible for the things within our control, and to abide in a few, what they see as universal truths. One of those truths is this: the one thing we CAN count on outside of ourselves, is change.

Same-ness is only in the mind, as is any over-solidified identity.

Change is inevitable. We have no choice. It’s a fool’s errand to try and resist. There is no need to cry, or scream, or throw a tantrum.

Everything, like the title of today’s post says, is change. Embrace that fate no matter how much it changes.

Practice radical acceptance. Accept that change is the only thing we can count on.

(See y’all tomorrow)

You Choose the Outcome (Day 318)

11/14/2019

He was sent to prison. But the observation ‘he has suffered evil,’ is an addition coming from you.”
Epictetus, Discourses, 3.8.5b-6a

The thing/action/result simply “is”. It’s not personal, or laden with feelings. It’s objective.

How we attach to it, or personalize it, or dramatize it - how it was unjust, or an utter tragedy, or that it was done maliciously - is all on us.

Ryan Holiday, in The Daily Stoic, highlights the lesson of how beginning with acceptance can lead to potential personal transformation by citing the life-experiences of one of my own personal heroes: Malcolm X.

Back when he was known by the surname given to him by the oppressors of his ancestors, Little, Malcolm was tried, found guilty of crimes, and sentenced to prison. Like Epictetus says in the above quote, “He was sent to prison.”

When he was released, he came out educated, pious, and driven to help first his community, and later in life, the civil rights movement and American culture as a whole. To me, that doesn’t sound like someone who, like Epictetus said, “has suffered evil.” That sounds like someone took the resources they had, and chose to make his experience as a man incarcerated as positive as possible.

Regarding acceptance: Holiday notes that it, “... isn’t passive. It’s the first step in an active process toward self-improvement.” (The Daily Stoic, 339)

A wise observation.

May we all have the fortitude to choose to see it that way.

(See y’all tomorrow)

Never Complain, Never Explain (Day 317)

11/13/2019

Don’t allow yourself to be heard any longer griping about public life, not even with your own ears!”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.9

Growing up poor, in a single-parent GRANDMOTHER home, we saw a lot of opportunities to complain. Reflecting back on those times, I don’t recall us doing a lot of complaining about our situation. However, I do remember going over to my more well-off friends’ homes and overhearing the conversations there. What I remember about those conversations in those homes was that there was a lot more excuses and justifications being tossed around for why things did or didn’t go according to plan.

So, does that mean… the more privilege one has, the more time one has to engage in complaining?

The privileged have the blessing to not having their negative states of mind negatively affect their daily lives because they have the “social leeway” to behave in such ways. Hmm, maybe?

Every person, or family is leading their own little micro-empire…

… and as the imperial ruler of yourself, there is no need to make excuses or justifications for the actions you’ve chosen to “benefit the empire” of yourself.

(See y’all tomorrow)

The Strong Accept Responsibility (Day 316)

11/12/2019

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If we judge as good and evil only the things in the power of our own choice, then there is no room left for blaming gods or being hostile to others.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 6.41

Many of us have heard the phrases “the buck stops here” and “passing the buck”. It’s likely we’ve woven them both into our own lexicons of axioms, idioms, and adages. In modern times, these phrases carry connotations of passing blame, letting the next person do something, or to shirk one’s duty… but like all good turns of phrase, they originate from somewhere.

See, the “buck” was a token once used in card games that indicated which of the players was the dealer, and consequently, which of the players was taking responsibility for the hand. Once again, the person with the “buck” was the one that takes responsibility.

Well… just like the dealer is responsible for the card game, and the president is responsible for the nation, as the responsibility-takers of our own lives, we constantly inhabit those positions of authority and responsibility in our own lives.

Since we can only control what’s in our purview of control, and since we won’t be pawning off the responsibility of our lives on anyone else, we become strong. We become the heroes of our own sagas because…

… we learn to ACCEPT responsibility.

Acceptance. Amor Fati. Taking responsibility.

Different species of the same fruit.

(See y’all tomorrow)

It's not the Thing, it's What We Make of it (Day 315)

11/11/2019

Image by Steve Bidmead from Pixabay

When you are distressed by an external thing, it’s not the thing itself that troubles you, but only your judgement of it. A you can wipe this out at a moment’s notice.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.47

There’s not much more I can say about this today. Really, it’s pretty straight-forward. Wise Marcus is right on the money… it’s not “the thing”, but instead, our judgements on “the thing”.

While I don’t have more to say about how acceptance is what empowers us to realize this truth, and to act upon it once realized, I do, however, have an example.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

He spent the majority of his early years preparing for the presidency by holding increasingly more influential positions in politics. Just before turning forty, he was diagnosed with polio, changing his life forever and potentially ending his career.

Polio was “the thing”.

What FDR made of that “thing” was a presidency that could be categorized as one of America’s greatest political triumphs.

What could we be making out of the things that trouble us, that could derail our plans, that steal our health? FDR made a presidency.

(See y’all tomorrow)

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About the Blog

Awakening the desire to explore Stoicism, and how it relates to his existing beliefs, Rev. William committed to working through the text, The Daily Stoic, a year-long journey to awaken the Stoic mind.
How things are structured can be found in the first post.

About the Author

Born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, Rev. William attended Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado where in 2007 he graduated with a degree in Religious Studies, minoring in Psychology. Currently residing in Longmont, CO, he is one of the Priests and founder of Mountain Ancestors Grove. He spends his time playing mandolin (and some guitar), writing, engaging in LGBTQIA+ advocacy and education, community service, and sharing a larger vision of how a polytheist perspective can lead to greater human understanding, acceptance, and gods be good, peace.

A Year of Contemplation