The second quote is tricky. In table conversations I used to complain against Merkel and her immigration policy, then against masks and lockdowns, then against the escalation in Ukraine etc. And my wife always challenges me with the argument "how does this impact your life?" (Masks and lockdowns in a sense did impact my life, but in the sense of the Stoics I had no control over them. The bottom line of the Stoics is that you control only your own thoughts and actions and these should be your sole concerns.) I started using my wife's challenge with friends who are much more passionate about Ukraine and devote a big amount of time and energy keeping themselves informed and forming opinions. "I don't want to live in a world in which etc", "I don't want to be an 'idiotes'." (as opposed to 'polites', as explained here: https://mobile.twitter.com/aomenya/status/1555490518846640129) Actually none of the answers really convinced me. What Marcus Aurelius says is actually a summon to become an 'idiotes', to retreat to the 'obscure freedom of a private station', as Gibbon would put it.
The second quote is tricky. In table conversations I used to complain against Merkel and her immigration policy, then against masks and lockdowns, then against the escalation in Ukraine etc. And my wife always challenges me with the argument "how does this impact your life?" (Masks and lockdowns in a sense did impact my life, but in the sense of the Stoics I had no control over them. The bottom line of the Stoics is that you control only your own thoughts and actions and these should be your sole concerns.) I started using my wife's challenge with friends who are much more passionate about Ukraine and devote a big amount of time and energy keeping themselves informed and forming opinions. "I don't want to live in a world in which etc", "I don't want to be an 'idiotes'." (as opposed to 'polites', as explained here: https://mobile.twitter.com/aomenya/status/1555490518846640129) Actually none of the answers really convinced me. What Marcus Aurelius says is actually a summon to become an 'idiotes', to retreat to the 'obscure freedom of a private station', as Gibbon would put it.
ReplyDelete“Man matures when he stops believing that politics solves his problems.”
DeleteNicholas Gomez Davila
Good quotation but at the present moment politics has never been so important since the Second World War, about which we hear far, far too much.
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