The Stoics on What to Do When the World Feels Broken

Whatever your politics, wherever you are in the world, perhaps we can all agree that at this moment in time, things feel a little divided and unsettled.

Nations at war, politicians hurling vitriol, citizens snarling at one another online — all against a backdrop of ecosystems quietly disappearing from the planet, never to be seen again.

24-hour news cycles only compound the angst such events might cause. Turn on the TV, look at your phone, and you’ll likely find another catastrophe ready and waiting to grip your attention.

The carefully packaged content, incentivized and thus designed to trap your eyeballs, keeps you locked in a perpetual state of anxiety for more information. You consume it like seawater, knowing it will never quite quench your thirst, but unable to control the urge to drink…

As the 20th-century philosopher Hannah Arendt laments in her collection of essays, Thinking Without A Banister:

What is most difficult is to love the world as it is, with all the evil and suffering in it.

How are we supposed to focus on our own lives and wellbeing, when it seems remiss not to consider events elsewhere? How can we cut through the endless notifications of impending doom? How can we joyfully go about our days, with so much strife in the wider world?

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Stoic philosophy offers some solid guidance here.

With his famous dichotomy of control, for instance, Epictetus tells us to attach our wellbeing only to what we can personally control. Do not let wider circumstances dictate how you feel, Epictetus urges; instead, recognize they simply form the environment in which you’re operating, and focus your energies on what you can do, within that environment, to live a good life for yourself and others.

But perhaps this seems a little quick: we cannot simply ‘turn off’ our anxiety about the future or our compassion for others.

The Stoics don’t ask us to ignore our feelings, however; they just want us to reframe them constructively.

Our horror towards a catastrophic news story is perfectly natural, Seneca reassures us. In his discussion of Stoicism and emotions, he describes such reactions as ‘first movements’. Shock, fear, angst — these are all natural physiological reactions that simply happen to us, and over which we have no control.

The crucial point — for both Epictetus and Seneca — is what we do next.

Do we let the ‘first movement’ snowball into an irrational, uncontrollable, life-destroying emotion of hopelessness, rage, despair? Or do we attempt to rally our feelings under the banner of sound judgment?

Marcus Aurelius offers sage advice for how we can temper unsettled feelings, writing in his Meditations:

Do not disturb yourself by imagining your whole life at once. Don’t always be thinking about what sufferings, and how many, might possibly befall you. Ask instead, in each present circumstance: ‘What is there about this that is unendurable and unbearable?’ You will be embarrassed to answer.

The future might feel dangerous or bleak, but it’s also ultimately unknowable. We’ll handle what happens when it happens; it’s the present that needs us right now.

We can bring our attention back to the present by asking: am I actually in danger at this moment? Do I face a truly insurmountable task right now? Marcus thinks we’ll be “embarrassed” to answer — because, in the majority of cases, we’ll be forced to acknowledge that we’ve been carried off not by reality, but by our untethered, unhelpful, unnecessary imaginings about the future.

This sense of embarrassment is echoed by the great writer Toni Morrison, who in a 2015 essay for The Nation urges that our response to crises should have, as the essay’s title has it, No Place for Self Pity, No Room for Fear.

Morrison recalls how her own disillusionment with the world provoked a swift rejoinder from a friend: we must not be cowed when things don’t go our way. In fact, that’s precisely the moment we must get to work.

In a rousing series of passages, Morrison writes:

I am staring out of the window in an extremely dark mood, feeling helpless. Then a friend, a fellow artist, calls to wish me happy holidays. He asks, “How are you?” And instead of “Oh, fine — and you?”, I blurt out the truth: “Not well. Not only am I depressed, I can’t seem to work, to write; it’s as though I am paralyzed, unable to write anything more in the novel I’ve begun. I’ve never felt this way before…” I am about to explain with further detail when he interrupts, shouting: “No! No, no, no! This is precisely the time when artists go to work — not when everything is fine, but in times of dread. That’s our job!”

I felt foolish the rest of the morning, especially when I recalled the artists who had done their work in gulags, prison cells, hospital beds; who did their work while hounded, exiled, reviled, pilloried. And those who were executed…

…This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.

I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge — even wisdom. Like art.

We may be tempted to shrink from an uncertain, divided world. We may want to retreat to our inner citadels and look after ourselves. But, while self-care is important, we must also recognize — with Morrison — that the greatest liberator of fear and anxiety is action.

This is often what’s forgotten about Stoic philosophy, too. Yes, we turn inwards first; yes, we release our attachment to everything outside our personal control; yes, we focus on tempering and improving ourselves.

But that is not the end of the story. Stoic cosmopolitanism demands we work on ourselves so that we can then turn outwards again, and better work on the world.

The dichotomy of control doesn’t mean ignoring the world; it simply means attaching our wellbeing to our own efforts in improving it, by being a good person for ourselves and others.

Rather than feel overwhelmed by unfathomably large and complicated problems, rather than drown in a stream of urgent, turbulent, inexhaustible news, we give ourselves permission to focus our energies on doing what we can to live a good life, here and now.

We are all interconnected, say the Stoics, all part of one world community, and so by actively improving ourselves we improve the world. Action is the great liberator. That action might be political, it might be artistic, it might just be a small act of kindness each day. As Marcus urges us:

Be like a vine that produces grapes without looking for anything in return.

Stoic cosmopolitanism operates on the belief — the hope — that a grand collective of such vines will build a better world, a world more aligned to the rational order of the cosmos (logos).

Describing it as hope might, in a Stoic context, be controversial; but I don’t mean the kind of passive hope that yearns for better times and is devastated if they don’t arrive. Such careless attachment to ‘externals’ is, of course, anathema to the Stoic.

Rather, I mean a kind of background, context-independent faith that motivates and justifies good action. A faith that says: a better life for ourselves and others can emerge only if we each decide to build one, so we should release our attachment to wider circumstances, and focus on finding joy (chara) in our own efforts. A faith that says: good action is its own reward. A faith that says: the ultimate ‘prize’ in our quest for the good life is knowing we’ve done the best we can. Such is the abiding hope offered by Stoic cosmopolitanism, I think.

The great primatologist Jane Goodall offers a similar interpretation of hope in her wonderful work, The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times:

Hope is often misunderstood. People tend to think that it is simply passive wishful thinking: I hope something will happen but I’m not going to do anything about it. This is indeed the opposite of real hope, which requires action and engagement…

Ultimately, over-consuming information isn’t going to produce a hopeful, more empowered version of you. Indeed, the news doesn’t need a hopeful, empowered version of you. But you do. And so does the world.

After all, as the 18th-century Irish novelist Maria Edgeworth puts it,

Those who are animated by hope can perform what would seem impossibilities to those who are under the depressing influence of fear.

Heidegger thought ​personal catastrophe was an opportunity to take stock and return to a more authentic life path​. Perhaps this spirit of renewal applies to society, too…

So take all the time you need. Turn inward. Put down your phone. Collect moments with loved ones. Inhale big lungfuls of air. Recalibrate your wellbeing so that it’s attached less to wider circumstances, and more to your efforts within those circumstances…

Then, when you’re ready, turn outward again with hope, and come back to the world.

What helps calm you in the face of catastrophe?

• Does the Stoic dichotomy of control resonate with you?
• Do you agree with Morrison that catastrophe is precisely the moment we must get to work?
• Or is it entirely permissible to feel gloomy about the future?

To inform your answers, you might enjoy the following related articles:

• The Dichotomy of Control: a Stoic Device for a Tranquil Mind
• The Last Time Meditation: a Stoic Tool for Living in the Present
• Marcus Aurelius: To Live a Good Life, Practice Kindness
• Stoicism and Emotion: Don’t Repress Your Feelings, Reframe Them
• Amor Fati: the Stoics’ and Nietzsche’s Different Takes on Loving Fate

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