Taking Comfort in Stoicism

When thing take a turn for the worst, no philosophy helps me like re-reading the writings of Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius.

I had a dream last night that I was at a bike show (about bicycles, not motorcycles), talking to a distance rider, when, after a long conversation, I noticed that his one arm ended just this side of the elbow. He had a prosthetic, but nothing fancy, just something to help him grip the handlebars. And I felt so sheepish for whining about my trivial issues.

What, then, is to be done? To make the best of what is in our power, and take the rest as it naturally happens. (Epictetus Discourses B I, Ch I)

We have to figure out what's in our power to control, then stop griping or trying to fix what's not in our power to change. It is what it is. So, right now, I can't change the fact that I had this surgery and that things went wrong. That's in the past where I exercise no control. But then we have to learn to affect what we can control with courage. I can control my behaviours: how well I do my painful stretches and care for my wonky arm, and I can certainly control my attitude, but most importantly, I can control my perception of things (which will, in turn, affect my attitude and behaviours).

Before I get to controlling perceptions, be aware the tricky part isn't actually changing how we see things, but that earlier bit: knowing what's in our power to control. Does it makes sense to rally against powerful interests in order to shift energy consumption in order to save the planet? Is saving our habitat actually within our control? Likewise, in this situation, does contacting my MPP about the problems with the current health care system, which I've done, actually do a hill of beans to change anything? It's harder than it looks to have the wisdom to know the when to accept our lot and when to have the courage to fight for change. We have to take a chance and fight for what's right, yet not hang on to the outcome, not have any expectations that our actions will see results in our lifetime.

A recent interview with contemporary Stoic author, Massimo Pigliucci, sums it up well:

We should very much try to change things for the better, that’s the whole point of the Stoic discipline of action, and that discipline is connected to the virtue of justice. But we should also be rational about it, and understand that sometimes things go our way, and at other times they don’t. We have varying degrees of influence over external events, but the only things truly under our control are our judgments and actions, for which we are morally responsible.

My disposition leans towards fighting anyway, so I'm more likely to need to be reminded to accept those things so obviously outside my limits. It is what it is.... It is what it is....

To change our perception of things, we just need to be grateful for what we have and remind ourselves of those worse off than us. Regularly imagine the worst thing possible happening, and consider how you could cope with it, and then we'll be ready for anything.

No prospect of hardship comes to me new or unexpected I anticipated it all and have rehearsed it in the privacy of my mind....And so a wise person gets used to future misfortunes, and what other people make bearable by long suffering he makes bearable by prolonged thinking. (Seneca Letters from a Stoic 76)

I'm very good at preparing for the worst when it comes to big things. I had a new will drawn up last September and showed my kids where to find all the important documents, just in case. But it's the minor annoyances of life that we sometimes overlook and allow to build up until we're in a tizzy.

When stretching is painful, and I note an ounce of self-pity because I haven't prepared myself for the unexpected pain, then a quick mental image of Franco playing Ralston in 127 Hours can do the trick to help me get over myself and recognize how minuscule my troubles really are - and how much much worse they could be.

We're also advised to remind ourselves that if this were happening to an acquaintance, we wouldn't be so affected by it, so it's silly to be affected by it when it happens to us.

For example, when our neighbor's boy breaks a cup, or the like, we are presently ready to say, "These things will happen." Be assured, then, that when your own cup likewise is broken, you ought to be affected just as when another's cup was broken. Apply this in like manner to greater things. Is the child or wife of another dead? There is no one who would not say, "This is a human accident." but if anyone's own child happens to die, it is presently, "Alas I how wretched am I!" But it should be remembered how we are affected in hearing the same thing concerning others. (Epictetus The Enchiridion 26)

I know if it happened to another, I'd think, "It's unfortunate and frustrating, but it's not the end of the world, for heaven's sake!" This too shall pass. Just thinking like this, a little each day, affects our attitude towards things, makes us less upset at minor annoyances. And that in turn affects our behaviours, making us far more patient and understanding with one another.

If we can affect our perception of things, then we're well on our way to want what we have and not want what we don't, and actually be content for a moment - that is, when we can remember all this!

He who fails to obtain the object of his desire is disappointed, and he who incurs the object of his aversion wretched. If, then, you confine your aversion to those objects only which are contrary to the natural use of your faculties, which you have in your own control, you will never incur anything to which you are averse. But if you are averse to sickness, or death, or poverty, you will be wretched. Remove aversion, then, from all things that are not in our control, and transfer it to things contrary to the nature of what is in our control. (Epictetus The Enchiridion 2)

The sooner we can accept that some pain and suffering is part of life, and that death is coming for all of us, the sooner we can get on with things and enjoy each day.

And then we can use these seemingly unfortunate events to a greater purpose by using them for self-improvement, like bombarding parliament with letters of concern about the state of our ER departments, or, more to the point, by acclimatizing ourselves to greater troubles. Look how much I can tolerate!

With every accident, ask yourself what abilities you have for making a proper use of it. ....If you are in pain, you will find fortitude. If you hear unpleasant language, you will find patience. And thus habituated, the appearances of things will not hurry you away along with them.  (Epictetus The Enchiridion 10)

Aurelius predated Nietzsche's, "What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger" somewhat with this bit:

Everything which happens either happens in such wise as thou art formed by nature to bear it, or as thou art not formed by nature to bear it. If, then, it happens to thee in such way as thou art formed by nature to bear it, do not complain, but bear it as thou art formed by nature to bear it. But if it happens in such wise as thou art not formed by nature to bear it, do not complain, for it will perish after it has consumed thee. (Meditations 10)

This won't consume me. I was formed by nature to bear it!

So, that one day when my daughter changed my dressings and the blood shot out from my side a little like this:

I was a little traumatized that we had to catch it all in the sink - not just woozy, but made quite afraid to take the bandages off again. But I'm still healthy and active, living and breathing and using my arm a little more every day. And, like my dream reminded me, some people don't even have two hands to work with. I'm very much one of the lucky ones!

Then again, I lieu of reading the Stoics, it helps just to keep this song in mind: 

Upset Them at Your Peril

I wrote this back in 2014, but waited to retire to publish it.

Professor Edward Schlosser wrote an interesting piece in Vox about, in part, the power his students have to call the shots these days.  I can attest that it's at best, defeating, and at worst, absolutely terrifying.

First of all, to clarify, my students are typically a delight, but the current system is fostering behaviours that are a serious concern.

I have had some students, 15-19, insist that we have to do something fun on their birthdays.  When I rejected their proposals, it might take several days of arguing at the start of each class before I can convince them it's really not going to happen.  I have to help them get their head around the amount of learning that would be lost if we went off-curriculum every time it's someone's birthday.  I have to help them get their head around the fact that there are other people affected by the decisions we make.  But I also have to, unfortunately, sternly reinforce the novel idea that I alone get to choose what we do each day based on the curriculum guidelines.  They don't get to decide because they might choose what's most fun over what's most educational every day.  Some people are outraged by that reality.

I have had a few students blatantly rude to me, even lying about me to a VP.  When that happens, I call home to discuss the seriousness of it.  In the past few years, calling home has become a growing part of my job, even for kids over 18, for work unfinished, for absences, for work of poor quality, for any questionable behaviour.  There's no point when it's up to the students to take responsibility for themselves and find a solution to their own problem any more.  It's all for the parents and teachers to work out together.  We're treating them like children for longer, and they're responding by acting like children longer. Anyway, sometimes when I call home, it's reinforced that the student has a condition that makes them behave like that, and I'm negligent for not reading their files thoroughly (even if I have).

Then my question becomes:  if someone does something horrid, but it's due to a condition, is it still his/her fault?  With whom does the responsibility sit, or do we just accept bad behaviour because people can't help it anymore because of all their conditions?

It's the Of Mice and Men problem.  If someone's out of control, but can't be helped or stopped, what do we do with them?  But beyond that dilemma, to what extent are we creating these conditions so our kids get special treatment, because I'm not sure it's unusual that about a third of the kids in my school have some kind of documented problem we must accommodate.  By law.  This sometimes means test, exams, and even the literacy test is read aloud for them, and someone writes down their answers, and they're considered literate.  A ridiculous number of high school grads can't actually write for themselves anymore.  They don't have to learn how.  They have to be given scribes - their own personal adult to read and write for them.  Learned helplessness anyone?

Tra la la.

Anyway, it might not seem like such a horrid thing, lying about your teacher to admin, but it could cost me my job if the VP believed some of her stories.  That's a huge concern these days.  It can just take one student to undo decades of work in a career.  Just. One. Student.

I have had some students says bigoted or racist things in class and interrupt the class with loud and lengthy rants. It would be rude of me to interrupt (although I sometimes do anyway). If I send someone to the office, they'll come back minutes late with a form for me to fill in explaining what I could do differently to ensure that they're able to stay in the classroom next time.  And they often have a condition causing that behaviour, so we have to be understanding.

And on the student portion of that form, if there's no pre-existing condition, how often do they write "Distracted by personal problems"?  That's the  get-out-of-work-free excuse of the day.  When I was in school we used, "I had a female problem" to death.  What stops us from telling them they have to do the work anyway?  And if the problem is really serious, they might have to write-off the term and try again later.

I have a condition. But I started school in the 60s, and I was told by my mom to try to fit in so the kids don't tease me too much.  I wasn't entirely successful on that front, so I got spit on and beat up a bit.  And I got chalk whipped at my head by teachers for being such a space cadet, zoning out in class like that.  Weird.  Clearly it's NOT the case that I think any of my students deserve that kind of treatment - at all.  But it IS that case that I worked twice as hard in school as the normal kids to overcome my differences because of the attitudes of parents and teachers - and larger society - at the time.  The bullying and violence aren't acceptable, but that attitude might warrant a second look.

I spent a year one-on-one with a guidance counsellor working on basic eye contact with people.  My default is to look at my shoes when I talk - still, but I got much better at making myself lift my chin and look right at people. Whether or not it's comfortable for me to do that is inconsequential.  I was made to take responsibility for how I behave even though it's harder for me to behave "normally," and, because of that pedagogy, I could interact with other people and get my work done as well as most by the end of high-school without ongoing one-on-one support for each assignment.  That kind of support makes sense in the early years, but at some point shouldn't people have to be able to show they can do the work on their own?  I mean, Helen Keller learned how to read and write, and she had a condition or two to overcome.

Now just suggesting, "I think you can write this short quiz on your own in the classroom instead of going to Learning Services," is enough to get a teacher in trouble for not adhering to the student's IEP.  And if they fail the test, we give them a make-up test.  And if they're in the midst of failing the make-up, we might get a call from their scribe because the student doesn't have a clue, and he can't study because he can't find his notes, and he would be uncomfortable asking another student for notes.  And we might even be asked by the scribe if she could just tell the student all the answers, and have him repeat them back to her for her to write down, and then I could take off a few marks because of this special accommodation.  Really.

We're running within a system that drives that kind of rationalization.  If a student fails, it's because the teacher didn't do everything possible for the student.  If students refuse to work or pay attention in class, at no point is it because the students are lazy or maybe even, dare I say, too weak academically to do the work assigned.  Those are horrible things to say even in the face of slothfulness bordering on the absurd, and suggesting either will get the teacher a meeting with admin to discuss inappropriate behaviour in the classroom - the teacher's inappropriate behaviour.

Students today will need to have their behaviours excused forever.  We make accommodations for them rather than get them to learn the skills necessary to better work within society.  They're not being asked to make significant efforts towards monitoring and altering troubling behaviours because that would upset them.  And upsetting people is mean.

This is a startling short-term view - yet another testament to Plato's belief that we are woefully unskilled at the art of measurement: being able to determine the value of things unaffected by their distance.  Near events are given far greater importance than distant events, which is why we have an environmental crisis, a political crisis, and a crisis in education.

I had a conflict with my 10-year-old yesterday because I wouldn't let her see her friends or go outside until her room was clean enough that she could escape from a fire without tripping on toys.  I'll have you know that I am the meanest mom ever!  But I can accept that title because it'll be better for her in the long run to learn how (through punishment of deprivation of all things) to maintain her room now.

My daughter has a whole host of conditions by today's standards, but she still has to clean her room.  Because of OCPD, to name but one, she can't just tidy a bit; she has to take everything out and put it all back in.  I can see why such a routine task is so onerous for her, but she has to figure out how to deal with her own reality.  Being unfettered by chores because she struggles more isn't an option in my house - except, of course, when she completely wears me down.  But, theoretically, if made to clean enough, she might find a way to rid the perfectionistic nature of her cleaning, or she might just tolerate losing lots of playtime to cleaning.  (Yes, we use CBT too.)

We have to take a long view with kids.  And, luckily, my daughter's shrieks of injustice went unheard by any authority over me.  She might have called F&CS, but they're pretty backlogged, so I was able to do the right thing by her.  I had to tolerate some tears and tumults over the course of a morning, but we both survived.  But too many of us are too thin-skinned or sensitive or something to plug our ears and wait for the crying and tantrums and excuses to end and the work to begin.

But at school, we have to keep them happy during each class or the teachers will be the ones to suffer the consequences.  We can't make demands of them.  I've dumbed down the readings I use because parents have complained about how difficult they are - because they don't learn to really read in school anymore: by that I mean close reading of complex essays.  Nothing may be too difficult because it might be hard on their self-esteem if they can't do it.  And struggling with the challenge of difficult work isn't their forté.

And somehow that's okay.  We are accepting to a fault.

Most worrisome, I have had some students take issue with my lessons because of the "ecology bullshit" I discuss.  During one class a student  demanded that I stop talking about this immediately, and I told him, lucky for him, I was finished with the topic, and we moved on.  Climate change upsets people, so we shouldn't discuss it in school.  For some reason, genocide doesn't upset any of the kids, so we continue to show them the most gruesome videos without complaint - so far.  What I had discussed was in the curriculum, so I felt pretty safe, but it still gave me pause.  Like Professor Schlosser, I worry that I'll teach something that one student can successfully argue shouldn't be taught or said in a classroom, and I'll be gone.  Is it just me, or does that feel a little like a means to keep teachers from really teaching anything controversial of importance?  And I don't write under a pseudonym, so I'm pushing the boundaries a little here - maybe more than is wise, but it's important we turn this around.  But I have a condition that makes it so I don't always understand what's acceptable, so it's okay, right?

Clearly this fear teachers face will not make our education system world-standing, nor will it make our students responsible, well-educated adults.  It might mean classes are more entertaining and less unsettling, challenging, and provocative though.  But getting students to enjoy school and getting students to enjoy learning are two different things.  It's the latter that should be our goal.

Margaret Trudeau on Mental Health

There's a crack in everything.  That's how the light gets in.  - Leonard Cohen  

From CBC Books

I had the fortune of seeing Margaret Trudeau speak on mental health a few days ago.  She told her life story in exactly an hour with great intensity and humour.  She peppered her speech on mental illness with snippets of the stuff I remembered as a child - the hippie skirts then later dancing at Studio 54.  I'm of the age to have wanted to emulated her audacity.  She was the Prime Minister's wife, yet she didn't let that box her into being a stereotype - at all.

She wrote a book a couple years ago, Changing My Mind, which made her plight with mental illness public.  

She talked about the many things that might have triggered her bi-polar condition.  She always had a greater range of emotions, but it was kept in check by her mom who made her life regular: eating, sleeping, and playing all regularly.  But things happened to her that made things worse: a concussion as a child, no regularity at university, pot smoking, loneliness as the PM's wife, post-partum depression, and then profound grief when her son died.  She was "mad with grief."  

On Categorization of Behaviours and Abilities

People are always looking for the single magic bullet that will change everything.  There is no single magic bullet.  - Temple Grandin

Some people are quite upset about the recent change to the DSM that removes Aspergers as a separate category from Autism. Now kids formally diagnosed as having Aspergers are on the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) instead. The WHO advocates using the ICD anyway - where Aspergers is still a separate category; the DSM is more American than universal.  Whatever. I’m more bothered by how the DSM and ICD are set up to begin with.

Why do we want to label things so clearly and with finality – particularly conditions that are largely subjectively determined? There’s something nice about knowing. There’s a relief that you’ve finally figured it out and can move on. But that feeling is illusory and temporary. And I’m not convinced it helps us in the long run to have so many kids labeled with something as if they’re static beings that were completely figured out by a professional figure-outerer. As if that’s possible.

A Stoic Resurgence

In reading a few other blogs lately, Stoicism has come up a few times, and I'm seeing it in a few books I've been reading lately too.  Maybe it'll stick this time.

In Robin Hanson's blog discussing why middle aged people are most pessimistic, I suggested that maybe it's a point in life where we know too much horrible crap happening in the world, and it's making us miserable.  And we're just before a point in which we've found a way to cope with the unending tragedies that are part of being alive.  Maybe my cohort will become happier in a stoic manner - once we get our heads around how little control we have over the world, accept that many of these problems aren't ours to solve, and develop a tranquility around it all.

Then stoicism came up again in arguments about the relationship to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy via Lieter Reports, a N.Y. Times article by Kathryn Schulz about self-help books' suggested dualism of selfhood.