ataraxia
understand what can be and
what can’t be controlled
Today in the Guardian, Brigid Delaney, a onetime columnist for Guardian Australia, posted the story, Six ways to make your life easier and more peaceful – by using stoic principles asked the question:
“ … how could I still be informed while staying sane? Could I feel at peace when there seemed be an increasing amount of global instability?”
And she answered, “Then, I discovered the ancient Greek and Roman philosophy of stoicism.“
According to wikipedia, “Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy that flourished in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. The Stoics believed that the practice of virtue is enough to achieve eudaimonia: a well-lived, flourishing life. The Stoics identified the path to achieving it with a life spent practicing certain virtues in everyday life such as courage or temperance and living in accordance with nature.”
The article was interesting and worth the 5 minutes that the website decided it might take me to read it.
I really liked her section being relaxed.
Relaxed is something I have always aspired to.
Relaxation is something I rarely find.
I guess I should have been a runner.
Not a jogger.
But a runner.
A sprinter.
As Sam Mussabini says in the movie, Chariots of Fire, “... a short sprint is run on nerves. It’s tailor-made for neurotics.“
Ms. Delaney writes under the heading, Be Relaxed:
The Greeks had a word for the state of mind we need to cultivate to remain calm: ataraxia.
Ataraxia is a state where you are free from distress and worry. Ancient philosophers believed achieving ataraxia created an emotional homeostasis, where the effect wouldn’t just be a more stable base-level mood, but one that would hopefully flow out to the people around you.
If you are more tranquil, you will be less likely to react or combust if something doesn’t go your way.
Imagine that your flight is delayed because of bad weather. You could react and take out your anger and frustration on the airline staff (who have no power to change the weather) or you could accept that the situation is out of your control – and remain calm and chilled.
With ataraxia, not only do you not ruin your own day, you avoid ruining other people’s too. In a tranquil state you may even make better decisions.
Ideally, someone in a state of ataraxia is not gripped by high emotions – such as lust, envy or fear. Rather, they have used the control test to understand what they can control, and what they can’t.
I had to look up how ataraxia is pronounced.
Say anorexia but swap Atar for Anor and you’ve got it.
Can’t wait until I tell someone I am embracing ataraxia and wait for them to want to check my weight.
I really like that last sentence.
Ideally, someone in a state of ataraxia is not gripped by high emotions – such as lust, envy or fear. Rather, they have used the control test to understand what they can control, and what they can’t.
More to the point, the last part of the last sentence.
… understand what they can control, and what they can’t.
I am not sure that those Stoic fellers in ancient Greece ever met Dutch people.
I won’t say that the Dutch part of me isn’t happy unless I am worrying about something whether I can control that thing or not but I will say, it sure feels like it sometime.
If nothing else to worry about, there is the weather.
And if the weather is nice, then, like the joke goes, Calvinism is the concern that someone somewhere in the world is having a good time.
Ataraxia.
… understand what they can control, and what they can’t.
In his book, That Time of Year (Arcade Publishing, New York, 2020), Garrison Keillor wrote:
My classmate Margaret Keenan, who became a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst. She didn’t claim to heal people but to lead them toward some sort of understanding. I never heard her speak with contempt or derision about anyone, not even Death, whom she saw coming a long way off and met with serenity.
She didn’t claim to heal people but to lead them toward some sort of understanding.
That, for me, was about the best description of therapy I had ever read.
Lead them toward some sort of understanding.
And one of those things needed to be understood is what we can control and what we can’t.
Accept that the situation is out of your control – and remain calm and chilled.
I am not good at this.
Also if I am making that effort to remain calm and chill, forces outside my control seem to demand that I make an effort at gaining control of out of control situations whether such control is possible or not or maybe even if advisable or not.
Sometimes a level of plausible deniability is a good thing.
But I want to try.
And I will try.
I will shoot for achieving ataraxia.
A level of ataraxia that creates an emotional homeostasis, where the effect wouldn’t just be a more stable base-level mood, but one that would hopefully flow out to the people around me.
Ataraxic I guess.
Why not?
Hey, after the beach, who wants to go for a beer?
No Haiku For You 