Well don't I feel like a horse's patoot.
I released 2 newsletter #038's, and none of you even noticed. So maybe it's actually your fault!! Or maybe you're just too busy with ALLLLLL you got going on to even notice.
Maybe we are ALLLLLL too busy with what we got going on to even notice.
We are all dropping the ball. We are all imperfect. We are all impostors. And guess what, we are all too busy to notice.
We don't care. They don't care. None of it is easy.
I was on a call with someone today who said "well everything is just so uncertain that people need to be more resilient than ever."
Tell me when tomorrow was certain. Maybe when people were hunting for rabbits....and failing....to feed their families. Maybe during the civil war when neighbors were killing neighbors. Maybe during the Great Depression (I guess I capitalize that, right? Or is that showing too much reverence to a really sh*tty time period - where everything was uncertain) when folks were....depressed (that parenthetical made me lose my train of thought....damnit).
Why are things never certain? Someone told me yesterday that if she had her druthers, she would be off the grid raising sheep. That happened for a long time. Like, I dunno, 1,000 years or more from like, 800 AD to 1800 AD. DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY PEOPLE DIED FROM DYSENTERY IN THAT TIME PERIOD? (I just asked Claude: "Roughly 1 billion. Honest range 500 million to 2 billion")
Certainty comes with the added bonus of a lack of progress (and bacterial genocide). And we are just not wired that way. We will emerge from the shell like a baby chick and say "F this shell! I'm movin' out!"
The baby chick doesn't know what's next. The future is uncertain. But that is a hell of a lot better than certainty (especially when considering dysentery's ravage on humankind).
........seriously...ask Claude how many people died of dysentery in that 1,000 year period and the details you get are....shocking.
What defines a human is working with others.
— Meditations, Marcus Aurelius
We have actually come to such a pitch of choosiness that we object to walking on anything other than precious stones.
— Letters from a Stoic, Seneca
What is up to us? Our emotions, our judgments, our creativity, our attitude, our perspective, our desires, our decisions, our determinations.
— The Obstacle is the Way, Ryan Holiday
Rads Take
To go off the grid. To just take care of ourselves. Not sure if there is something more selfish. As a species, we need to keep moving forward. We have the consciousness to consider our impact on future generations as well as our current generation. We benefit from previous generations so the least we can do is pay it forward.
As Marcus says, we must work with others. And the others might be people we know, we are related to, or that will be born in 200 years. In the grand scheme, 200 years ain't that long of a time.
I heard recently there is more time separating a Stegosaurus from a T-Rex than a T-Rex from us. So let's take care of our future neighbors, even if they are a few centuries away.
Seneca in quote #2 is calling us out for being complainers. If it ain't perfect, we reject it. We opt out. We complain. Buck up! Imperfection in externals has commonality with our own imperfection. Our scenarios, our friends, our families, our homes, our jobs, our selves. ALL IMPERFECT. So we have that in common. Which helps us embrace them.
Now, I have talked about embracing uncertainty (last newsletter) and embracing imperfection. Does that mean we should reject perfection or certainty? Of course not.
So we embrace it all?
Yes. That is the essence of amor fati. Move to improve - especially that which we control. But massive tolerance is accepting and moving to embracing it all. Even our limitations are out of our control. Otherwise, we would remove them without a thought. If we can't, well that is the definition of a lack of control.
It's all simple but it's all difficult and it's all right in front of us, plain as day, if we choose to see it for what it is. It's life - the trials and tribulations of every generation. We are not the beautiful and unique snowflake. But we are. Both statements are accurate at once. Temperance helps us balance them.
With quote #3, what is up to us? The list encompasses....well, everything that matters. Everything that makes up how happy we are. It isn't everything. I don't control everything. But I know the difference between what I do and don't - similar to the Serenity Prayer. The Wisdom to know the difference...