240121 What I learned in my studies this morning 4*

Publishing is late.
Marcus didn't write each day.
Why should I? Because . . . .

Today's Meditation(s):

Well, because I want to. Sometimes (e.g. yesterday) I miss / skip a day.  Yesterday was a skip.

I realized, laying in bed, that I had not done the day's entry.  Could I have done it? Sure.  I could have picked up my phone and forced something out, but I've done that too much and wanted to correct my error.

It seems to me that publishing a poor entry is a bigger sin than postponing publication until I can produce something worth reading.

So. There you have it. 

Fin.

Yeah, yeah. Just kidding.

Anyway . . . so . . . yeah . . . um . . . Consolations.

Thinking forward to when my dad passes and trying to find ways to help comfort my mom in the aftermath, I considered buying a physical copy of Seneca's Consolations today. (I already have the Kindle version).

Unfortunately, she's not a philosopher at heart.

Philosophy, the specialized effort of examining life and ideas in detail, is not for everyone.  Well, to be more precise, it is for everyone, if they choose to pursue it, but most don't.

The Consolations, like other Stoic thoughts about grief, contains advanced ideas that often trouble beginners.  I worry that she might read a passage like Epictetus' famous lines . . .

. . . and think that this approach is not for her.

What?!? I'm supposed to just give them up, accept it, and move on? To tell myself they are worth no more than a cup or a pot? 'They're gone and that's it.  Oh well, where's the TV remote?'

That's disrespectful. That's an insult to their memory. There's no way I could, or ever would, want to do that!

And such was my reaction when I first read those lines, too. Then I learned. Then I thought. Then I worked through what he was really saying and have tried to bring it inside, that I might use this lesson when my dad leaves us.

I wish I'd known about it when my son died.

The Stoics are not saying your child (or wife or father) is worthless. They are not saying that you should feel nothing. They aren't even saying 'Don't be sad.'

Grief over the loss of a loved one is unavoidable. It just happens, boiling up from the primeval root of our psyche and coming upon us without the ability to deny it.

But the initial flush of grief can be acknowledged while being simultaneously minimized. Eliminated? No, but controlled.

I've seen people who let their grief run roughshod over their life. It's not a desirable state. So many things in their life, which they must eventually return to, become more severe because they ignore them in the meantime.

Wallowing is not a good look. I've been there and done that, but now I see that it's possible and desirable to accept it, to let it pass through me, coming out the other side and changing me in the process, but never owning me.

It's something I could not have properly considered even a few years ago. It's something I wish I could pass on to my loved ones by osmosis rather than long practice.