Stoicism & the Belly of the Whale
"This booklet is for anyone who feels like they have no path forward. It’s for anyone who is disappointed in the person they've become. It’s a guidebook for what to do next when you would rather do nothing at all. It is a strategy for getting off the floor."
I am a regular lurker on the r/stoicism subreddit (on Reddit) and I’ve noticed that I will often see a post that looks something like this: “Hey, I don’t know a lot about Stoicism but I’ve heard good things. Recently, my girlfriend ripped my heart out and stomped it flat and now I don’t leave the house anymore. What did the ancients say about that?” Or maybe, “Hi, everyone. My name is u/cuddlepuppy and I was recently laid off and I’m about to lose my car. What’s the Stoic fix for that?” When I see those, I’ll pop in and try to say something helpful, but it never feels like enough. These people have big issues and there’s a limit to what they are going to get out of a Reddit post. I suspect they know that, but maybe they are so far down in a hole, they’ll try anything.
More recently, while going through some tough times of my own, it occurred to me that what these people needed wasn’t a word of encouragement and a quote from Meditations. What they needed was a plan. A process. Something they could hold onto at a time when maybe it was hard to even think straight. Something light enough for a wounded mind to consume, but meaty enough to provide some actual nourishment. And, most importantly, something that addressed the entire problem, end to end. Something that might not only get them through the current crisis but prepare them for the next one. I know that’s what I needed.
Now, I am nobody’s sage, but I’ve seen some stuff. I know what it feels like when you hit the bottom so hard, you bounce. I know what I missed when it got too dark to see my next step. I also know how hard it can be to take your own advice, even when you have a pretty good idea what it is you are supposed to be doing with yourself. So, to organize my thoughts, I embarked on a project to craft something that might help other people with theirs. Maybe, if I could write a guide that would help people like “cuddlepuppy” deal with unexpected and brutal disappointment, I might find some salve for my own wounds.
And so, now, we have this. This is me helping me by trying to help you. The more I work to make each of these chapters useful to other people, the better I drill them into my own thick skull. If I do this well enough to help someone over a rough patch, it might be sufficient to help me get my own act together. I very much hope you find some peace within these pages because that would mean that I have managed to find a clue.