210821 What I learned in my studies this morning

Tough jobs should not scare. 

Time will attend to all things. 

Growth in mindfulness. 

Daily Stoic:

I'm fairly good about not worrying too much. Then again, my life is pretty damned good right now so I don't usually have much to worry about. 

Workwise, I have lots of things going on, but only one important project at the moment. I do fret about that one, but it has more of a "procrastinate and hope I can pull it off in the eleventh hour" tone to it than an "oh god oh god I'm doomed I'm gonna lose my job and everyone will hate me" flavor.

Still, I am sometimes uneasy about things.  In recent months, it's shifted for the better though: I think more about my behavior than potential futures. 

Am I being a good person? Am I appreciating my life? Am I taking advantage of chances to be a good father and husband, friend and son? 

These, I think, as they are both productive and focused on the here and now, are a kind of concern Marcus would appreciate. 

Today's Meditation:

Real prayer is about aligning ourselves with goodness and virtue, not seeking advantage or a temporary alteration to the laws of physics in our favor.

Meditation II:

Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, Great are the Myths, beginning of verse 1

Today's Shakespeare:

Richard III | Act 5 Scene 3

From Letters from a Stoic by Seneca, Letter LXV (cont.):

Thursday, I began examining this letter, looking at Seneca's discussion of causation. Today, we'll look at the latter parts of the letter, where he describes the proper relations between a philosopher and their body and then draws the two themes together.

The body is a vessel, perhaps even captivity, for the more important part of humanity: the soul. 

Stoics acknowledge that the body is important because it is the material cause (in Aristotle's terms) of people.  Though a prison for the spirit, we are inseparable from it while we live. 

The body tempts us, tires us, annoys and betrays and enables us.  Many (most?) of our daily desires originate from passions within the body. 

Do we lust for that person's body? Are we tempted by a gorgeous ort of unhealthy food?  Do we procrastinate and skip important tasks to be lazy and relax?  All of these and more arise from bodily impulses. 

Were the soul free of such distractions, it would find virtue easier to attain. That is why Stoic philosophy emphasizes training your mind to ignore the body or, failing that, to control our reactions to it's commands. Unfettered living is better. 

This last is a reference to suicide, an action Stoics deemed praiseworthy if done in the right circumstances, in the right way, for the right reasons. 

At the end, Seneca pulls the two threads together, explaining that the body is the material of our nature and our spirit is our connection to the cause of the universe.

Death is either nothing or a release from the confinement of the body to the freedom of a more expansive existence.  Either way, the Sage knows it need not be feared.