The Modern Art of Stoic Joy
How foolish the ancient Stoics seem to our world-weary eyes. In an age when the average westerner has unfettered access to booze, sex, drugs, travel—and the limitless diversions of TV, film, and the internet—why would anyone consider the abstemious values of the Greek and Roman Stoics?
Yet that’s exactly what William Braxton Irvine urges us to do in A Guide to the Good Life: the Ancient Art of Stoic Joy. Irvine employs a very personal account of his search for a cohesive understanding of the Stoics. More important, he reveals how Stoicism can be updated to serve contemporary readers who are seeking a viable philosophy of life.
According to Irvine, enlightened hedonism is the
“default philosophy” for the average westerner.
Despite differences of religion, politics, gender and
age, enlightened hedonists are joined in a common
pursuit: to satisfy what are, ironically, insatiable
desires. In one of the best sections of his book,
Irvine makes a good case that our insatiability—along
with many other human traits—is a product of
evolution. While they once may have served us well,
these traits are now obsolete. Furthermore,
enlightened hedonism ensures our lives are wasted on
trinkets and diversions. And to Stoics both old and
new, a wasted life is the ultimate sin.
The modern Stoic (or New Stoa as others would have
it) can employ a number of strategies to extricate
herself from our cultural hedonism, including two
that are well articulated by Irvine. Negative
visualization is a technique in which you imagine
the loss of significant possessions in order to
gain appreciation for what you already have. A
second exercise—letting go of the past and
present—provides another means to centre yourself
in the here-and-now. Four or five other methods
are offered, all of them based on the insights of
the ancient Stoics and adapted by Irvine for
contemporary readers.
While all this may appear to be a tad dreary and
depressing, take heart from Irvine’s all-important
subtitle: the ancient art of stoic joy. The
ultimate goal of Stoicism is to achieve a state of
“tranquility”—better translated as joy, or bliss, or
the ecstasy of being.
If that sounds somewhat “eastern” in its
philosophical orientation, so be it. Throughout the
book, Irvine reveals the common bond between Stoicism
and certain types of Buddhism—a subject I explored in
my last novel, The Good Lie. Both
emphasize present-mindedness. Both direct our
attention to the few areas where we possess real
power and freedom: on setting personal goals,
asserting our will power, managing our behaviour
with one another.
The universe is large, but we are small. Time is
infinite, yet our lives pass in a flash. Stoicism
offers a way to approach these unalterable facts of
life—and Irvine’s book illuminates a path that leads
to dignity and self-respect.