Stoicism
"Begin each day by telling yourself: Today I shall be meeting with interference, ingratitude, insolence, disloyalty, ill-will, and selfishness- all of them due to the offenders' ignorance of what is good and evil. But for my part I have long perceived the nature of good and its nobility, the nature of evil and its meanness, and also the nature of the culprit himself, who is my brother; therefore none of those things can injure me, for no one can implicate me in what is degrading".
- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations: 2.1
I finished up my previous post entry with the introduction of amor fati and something I called stoicism. Before we dive into stoicism, we should wrap up amor fati.
Nietzsche writes:
"My formula for greatness in a human being is amor fati: that one wants nothing to be different, not forward, not backward, not in all eternity. Not merely bear what is necessary, still less conceal it—all idealism is mendacity in the face of what is necessary—but love it."
Amor fati, is, in a sense, the synthesizing of the Dionysian affirmation ( which we talked about in the previous post ). Amor fati literally means "the love of fate". This whole mindset is at the core of the stoic philosophy. If you have read the quote at the beginning of the post, you have gotten a snapshot of the stoic ideology. In its essence, like amor fati, it encourages the acceptance of life as it is. This acceptance, ( in the case of the quote: of wrong doing ) is achieved by through understanding: "But for my part I have long perceived the nature of good and its nobility, the nature of evil and its meanness, and also the nature of the culprit himself, who is my brother".
Stoicism is a tool to withstand the hardships of life, embracing whatever comes. Marcus Aurelius' philosophy expanded upon stoicism, and is particularly forgiving. He doesn't merely stand bad people; he understands them and intentionally avoids getting mad or frustrated. Stoic belief is not only practical, it also reflects in the metaphysical. Both Seneca and Marcus Aurelius mentioned the "Logos" which they sometimes called "god". In this Logos, every person has a part of the "divine" and serves a purpose. Thus, it is pointless to resent anything ( or anyone ) as long as it does not interfere with your role within the Logos.
While the stoic's cosmological beliefs may be literally incorrect, their teachings are not rendered meaningless without the "logos" backbone. This was only a brief reflection of stoic thought, I would encourage further exploration, as this philosophy helps people around the world to be better.
Amor Fati,
Atlas.
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