Elf Sternberg

Among the Stoics, it was Epictetus, not Zeno, who said that "To study philosophy is to study how to die." That was one of the quotes that I've always shied away from contemplating too deeply. Nobody wants to study "how to die."

Stoicism tells us to spend a little bit of time every morning, only 30 minutes or so, to think about and, if at all possible, write down your thoughts on the worst possible tragedies the day could bring you: the death of a family member, your home burning down, an automobile accident that leaves your body crippled and your family without your strength. For each notion, you should step back and, as if you were someone else, write down what would be the best response to the crisis.

This exercise is the one that Stoicism's critics charge makes us gloomy people, but it's an unjust accusation. If you sleep eight hours a day, that leaves 16 hours, or 32 half-hours. All Stoicism asks for is one of those in which to plan your day, especially planning around the question, "Really, what's the worst that could happen?"

For the other 31 half-hours, Stoicism recommends that you practice joy. After all, you've already made the decisions you need to make to handle crisis. Worry is in your back pocket now, where it can be ignored. Go out! Enjoy the day! "We are social beings and have a responsibility to make the world a good place for social beings. We are reasoning beings and we have the tools with which to do that" are at the heart of the Stoic program. Do it, embrace it, be made joyful by it.

You might like to read the rather Stoic Life As A Stack of Mental States, in which the author claims that every activity is oriented toward achieving a specific mental state. Even unpleasant activities are geared toward achieving a specific mental state; going to work when you know it's going to be a hard day is, after all, better that worrying about how you'll pay for your next meal; you're seeking reassurance. Whether you're a warm-slippers-and-a-good-book type or a netflix-and-weed type, your evening rituals are a form of comfort. You really might like the whole thing, but the point the author wants to get across is that if you understand what mental state you're after you will probably make better commitments: purchases, outings and appointments which ultimately turn out unrewarding or tedious might be avoided if you understood what you were hoping to get out of them.

What I'm seeing among my mother and her friends is a recurring need to visit the past and process old grudges, over and over. They're not content with the course of their life, with what they achieved.

I believe that many of them lack a sense of integrity, a sense of the wholeness of their life strong enough to handle the slow decline of their bodies. Most of them are divorced. In the classic psychological models, these are people in their fifties through seventies who are still working on the whole intimacy-vs-isolation thing, growth-vs-stagnation, and don't have enough time left to work on integrity-vs-despair, and they know it.

This is what Stoicism is about: knowing this, embracing it, and actively working toward it. Stoicism says you need to see the gaps in your maturity, plan on filling them, and then work on filling them. Stoicism says fate gave us powerful minds, a community in which we live, and a responsibility to make the best possible use of both.

Stoicism teaches that if you do this to the best of your ability, when your time comes, when the body starts to break down and the black raven starts visiting every morning, saying, "Today? Today?" you can look at him and say, "Maybe not today. But I've done good. It will be okay if it is."

Around 7:30pm or so, Omaha worried that there was a helicopter overhead just to the northwest of us, hovering, green and red lights blinking on its undercarriage. I said it looked like it hovered over the grocer's, and we agreed that since she needed a few extra ingredients for tomorrow's dinner I should go to the grocer's and see if I could see anything.

I saw a dead man.

The main arterial road that runs north-south through my town, the aptly named 1st Avenue, which remarkably lines up almost perfectly with the 1st Avenue in Seattle thirteen miles to the north, has a quarter-mile stretch with almost no street lights, no controlled intersections, and rolling terrain. It's a broad, four-plus-one street that in our subarctic winters gets as dark as the inside of a boot. On the east side of this stretch are a series of cheap apartment complexes— cheap because they're the last construction allowed before the Seattle/Tacoma Airport complex's safety zone, so they get all the airport noise. On the west side of the stretch are a few small businesses: A hardware store, a Thai restaurant, a hair salon, and a fairly skeevy dive bar.

Last night a man leaving the dive bar tried to cross this dark, broad boulevard. An older woman with older eyes, driving an older BMW with older lights, didn't see him until she hit him, and he hit her windshield.

The road that leads from my home to the grocer's was open, but the intersection onto 1st Avenue was closed. I parked at the grocer and walked to the bar, a block away. A crowd was watching, just outside the yellow police tape, and there in front of us was the whole scene.

There was the body, lying on the ground, a white sheet over it. Under the bright, temporary crime scene investigation lights I could see blood stains on it. Fifteen feet away the faded blue, boxy sedan, its windshield cracked, sat motionless, pointed away from the victim, skid marks on the road showing where she'd hit the brakes.

I spoke with some of the people there, and they all pretty much agreed on the scenario. People cross that stretch there all the time; they can't be bothered to walk the two blocks to the controlled intersection, then walk back two blocks to get to small businesses. Especially not after a night of drinking, possibly heavy drinking— after all, it's not as if many people are going to work tomorrow.

On the eve of Thanksgiving, I saw a dead man. Two families, the victim's and the driver's, will spend the holiday dealing with the aftermath of one more banal, pedestrian fatality.

I went home and told Omaha what I'd seen. We continued cooking. She made dessert, and I manhandled the turkey as her tendinitis is troubling her. It all seemed so ordinary. So safe. I hope it remains so.