Building Communities

Being a New Yorker, some of my friends nicknamed me a traitor when I whispered my support of the Montreal Impact instead of the hometown Red Bulls earlier in the season. The Red Bulls have the hometown advantage and are much more relevant to my daily social life. Thirteen matches into the season they are certainly the better team, standing on top of the MLS Eastern Conference while Montreal struggles to break through the middle of the table. And the ultimate checkbox of picking a team, I even prefer the Red Bulls navy to the Quebec blue of the Impact. What does the Impact possibly have that the Red Bulls don't?

Montreal is fortunate to have a football team run by management that cares about the city and tries to understand the people that come to see the Impact games. The management understands that Montreal is a fickle mistress with rapid francophone mood swings, just as the city has shown last weekend when Montreal booed their own Davy Arnaud at home after he missed a scoring opportunity in the game against the Red Bulls. The Impact front office has been relentlessly courting this mistress right from the beginning, flushing her with special care and spectacle, and in the process the Impact is building a community that will reach and surpass the fans of teams like Seattle, Portland and Philadelphia in their fervor.

Stade Olympique filled to the brim.

The ticket office has made it a point to entertain Montrealers with spectacle, filling up all of the 60,000 seats in Stade Olympique during their home opening game against the Chicago Fire. That set the record for the most attended game in Canadian history that night, but they refused to stop there and set an attendance record again in the game against the LA Galaxy. Numerous promotions to fill up any remaining seats, as well as trying to engage the fans online through discounted tickets for Facebook fans and offline trough pre-game celebrations in the "Defense of the North."

Jesse Marsch certainly understands his duties to the city, and has made an effort to learn French, possibly learning lessons from the drama happening at the Canadiens. He's also made it a point to be honest with the media, praising the team when it deserves to be supported despite unfortunate losses (such as the 1-0 loss against RSL) and being incisively strict when the team painfully underforms (the 2-0 loss to Toronto). There is no marketing or spin to his answers, only honesty to the fans. Nick de Santis further enforced this honesty in his talk with reporters following the signing of Marco di Vaio. It struck me how he emphasized the importance of getting a designated player that fits into the longterm strategy of the team, but also getting somebody that enjoys Montreal and will be happy to be there (echoed by the trades of Ching and Fucito this season, who clearly were not interested in playing in Quebec). The team is careful about doing due diligence and finding players whose families will be happy in the city and will become integrated into the community at large.

This is a stark contrast to the environment in New York, where it's sometimes difficult to think of the Red Bulls as a New York team because of their location. Christopher Dobbens at Total Footblog discussed some of the problems following a trip to a Red Bulls against San Jose. Even though Harrison, NJ is geographically close to the city, it's temporally distant because of how frustrating it is to commute to Red Bulls Arena. The players on the team have continued to be drama queens and thugs, with Henry pouting incessantly, Marquez being the team's tantrum child and most recently Conde getting arrested. Finally, with no physical location in the city, the Red Bulls don't have any real visible presence. Inundated with advertising for the Mets, Yankees, Knicks and Rangers, New York City can be a lonely place for a Red Bulls fan. On a daily bases I see more Red Sox caps than Red Bulls gear, in a city that despises Boston. Even among fans there's an existential crisis because of distrust to the faceless corporation looming behind the Red Bulls, and a strong nostalgia for the New York Cosmos. There will likely be a mass exodus to the ranks of the Cosmos if that team is ever formed, especially if they build a stadium on the West Side of Manhattan at Pier 40 like the rumors claim. So much for community.

The Red Bulls may have beaten Montreal twice this season, but that's irrelevant. The Impact is genuinely a team that is in and of the city. Home is where your heart is at, and the Impact certainly feels more like home. 

Toronto 2 - Montreal 0

Montreal puts up their second squad on the road and beats the best team in the Eastern Conference 2-0. Montreal puts up their first squad and loses to the worst team in the MLS 2-0. Sloppy on the offense and scared on the defense, Montreal was ineffective despite being a man up throughout the match due to a red card on Toronto's Eckersley early in the match.What happened?

It looks like somebody on the Toronto team actually looked at replays of Montreal's games and discovered the flaw in their opponents' game. The Impact has no idea what to do with the ball when it is at their feet. The heavy passing seen during the first leg of the games against Toronto at Stade Olympique was not a reaction to Toronto's defensive strategy. That's how Montreal always plays the ball, too afraid of attacking with the ball. It's like a slowed down middle school tiki taka style without any progression into the final third of the field. Whenever an Impact player receives the ball, they either stop moving or slow down before passing it off again. Any acne-speckled middle schooler playing FIFA deep into the night can tell you that stopping movement in the midfield is death.

Toronto must've realized this, because during the first half anytime an Impact player received a pass, there was a set of Toronto midfielders chasing him down like a pack of greyhounds hunting down a frightened rabbit. Not surprisingly, many of these ended up in fouls that interrupt Montreal's passing flow, bad passes that were quickly intercepted or straight out turnovers as the Montreal player fell down on the ground looking bewildered for a foul call from the referee while Toronto trucked down the field.

This raises the second problem with Montreal's timid passing game. Not only does it create easy opportunities to sow fear, uncertainty and disorder on the Montreal midfield, but it doesn't create any innovative attacking opportunities. Even at the top of the box, Impact players would pass the ball instead of spinning around and taking a shot. The only player on the team who has the courage to do that is Felipe. Throughout the season I was curious why Marsch decided to play him every minute of the season despite no results and the relentless fouling; then I noticed that he was the only one making that top of the box gunshot while actually being on target. Most of the time the goalie would catch it, until Felipe finally scored in Kansas City and he was saluted as a hero for it, nominated by MLS for goal of the week.

He ought to be be saluted as a hero, because he provides a bit of diversity that is an incredibly stale attack. Nearly every one of the Montreal goals this year has been from a left field cross into the box. The game plan seems to be to pass it to Ubiparipovic (or Neagle or Mapp depending on who is on the left), have him run to the endline and cross it into the box while praying that Corradi is there to head it in. It's a great strategy until Toronto FC, and soon after everybody else in the league, realizes that putting a body in front of our left midfield completely shuts down the majority of Montreal scoring opportunities. I lost count of how many corners or throw-ins resulted from Toronto effectively placing a man in front of Ubiparipovic and Mapp.

Montreal needs to diversify their portfolio of attacking strategies. Currently our offense shows almost no through passes or counterattacks. When we do manage a counterattack, the team slows down at the top of the box to make a pass, allowing for the defenders to catch up and block the pass or pile into the box. Hopefully Marco di Vaio coming in as designated player will fix the problem, but the service will have to become much more aggressive to make the investment in him pay off.

Good job Toronto, you guys deserve the win. Best of luck in the finals.

On Stoicism

Things that lie outside my mind, have no hold on my mind whatsoever. - Marcus Aurelius

When people live their lives without any order, they are bound to find themselves mired in unhappiness. Philosophy's main use to society has been to provide people with a set of guiding principles, which they may use in their daily lives in order to find happiness. Just as there are very different personalities among people, there have sprung up numerous philosophies and religions trying to explain our existence and guide our actions. These range from the ancient Cynicism, Epicureanism, Christianity to the modern Nihilism, Existentialism and Communism. The vast majority of these attempt to convince us that happiness can be only achieved through working for each other (Communism), or by rejecting the material world by focusing on the realm of the spirit (Christianity). Despite there being billions out there who believe in one of these philosophies, the majority of the world continues to live miserable lives that are "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short" (Hobbes). Whether we are living in destitute conditions in Africa, or in plush conditions of suburban United States, the human race will always find reasons to be miserable. At no point do we stop to think about the logic behind our actions; we rationalize them by believing that if everybody agreed with our views on life everything would turn out well. It's madness to expect that despite doing the same thing repeatedly we will somehow receive a result different from unhappiness. (Einstein).

The flaw of the most influential philosophies is that they rely on at least one of the following logical flaws: altruism, spiritualism and proselytism. All of these are logical mistakes, because they are attempts to forcefully change the materialism of the world instead of molding to it. Instead of being like water that takes the shape of the cup, these philosophies try to make the water shape the cup itself. Stoicism is a philosophy that provides a path to happiness by avoiding these pitfalls through emphasis that logic is more than a tool for mental exercise, but rather is the study of living. Instead of creating arbitrary guidelines of what is good and bad, Stoicism argues that the virtuous path can be learned from observing the world around us. Stoicism also teaches that happiness is entirely dependent on understanding what is within your control as a rational being. These two ideas are brought together by the emphasis that practice of philosophy in daily life is often more important than philosophy itself. Happiness, and moral virtue, can only be achieved through embracing nature, control and work.

The first step towards becoming a virtuous person is to look at the material world around us for guidance on what is moral. Instead of rejecting the physical universe as a cage in which our souls were trapped at birth, Stoicism looks at the natural world as a teacher that instructs us how to live through example. The ancients believed that life was organized in a hierarchical order of importance, starting with the lifeless earth, moving up to animals which are distinguished by their desire to live, and then onto humans who are distinguished by their ability to reason with their minds. The higher orders, in addition to the properties that distinguish them from the lower creatures, also inherit the characteristics of the orders below them. Therefore by studying the world around us we can formulate a set of virtues that are, as Marcus Aurelius puts it, "in accordance with nature". The big leap of faith required is to accept that everything that occurs in accordance with nature must be good, which is justified by the argument that if nature was not good then nothing would have any meaning, but because we are studying philosophy in order to find meaning, we are automatically assuming that there is meaning and therefore the universe has to be good. In this way, analogies to the natural world become essential to Stoic rhetoric and beliefs. In fact, Epictetus argues that all education has no meaning beyond bringing our understanding of what is "reasonable and unreasonable in alignment with nature" (Epictetus, 8). The emphasis on observation of the natural world is the Stoic adaptation of the Socratic method, which focuses on using indirect paths to dissect large and complicated concepts into simple and easily digestible ideas, extrapolating our judgement of these pieces onto the original debate. The Stoics saw the Socratic method as the key tool to understanding nature; Epictetus used Socrates so often as a role model in his lectures that the Greek is by far the most mentioned person in the Discourses. Marcus Aurelius often repeats the Socratic method by emphasizing that philosophy is to "see things in their true nature, analyzing them into matter, cause and relation" (Aurelius, 115). 

The most important observation made by the Stoics is that the natural world exists in what modern scientists call 'dynamic equilibrium'. This is the idea that everything in the universe exists on a standard point of equilibrium around which there are always infinitesimally small, but quantifiable adjustments being made through constant movement around that point. The Stoics observed things like erosion on cliffs and noticed that while a cliff is stable at any point in time, over long periods of time due to accumulated changes it will shift its equilibrium position, and therefore will change its form. Modern science reinforces this belief through numerous examples of dynamic equilibrium across biology, chemistry and physics. When water freezes not all of it becomes ice, but some remains in the form of liquid water and at that equilibrium there are particles that are constantly changing form from liquid to solid. The sinusoidal movement of photons of light can be described as dynamic equilibrium, as the photons oscillate around a point. Biological ecosystems, both plant and animal, also exhibit dynamic equilibrium by rapidly returning to their original state after a significant disturbance (such as a forest fire). The conclusion that the Stoics drew is that because nature is generally stable but also constantly changing, we must also focus on being stable but open to change. Because the purpose of reason is to "establish what is true and eliminate what is false" (Epictetus, 20), we must be disciplined in the beliefs we know to be true, but also flexible enough to change our position when we determine something to be false. Part of the reason why Roman Stoicism is so different from the philosophy practiced by Stoicism's Greek founders Zeno and Cleanthes 700 years earlier is that the philosophers were not reluctant to change when their opponents posed better arguments; the ultimate goal is not to be right, but to determine the truth. Seneca and Epictetus often quote Epicurean philosophers to show how they agree and disagree with their statements. Stoicisms' success among the ancients is in accordance with Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, which is also based on dynamic equilibrium, because survival is reserved for those most adaptable to the necessity of change.

This principle of dynamic equilibrium was applied heavily by the Stoics to explain death, something that was very important for the ancients. They lived lives that were not only much shorter than those today, but were also much more volatile and dangerous due to diseases, wars and natural disasters. Trying to find meaning in it, the Stoics explained death as something we should not be afraid of, because it is a process in accordance with nature. Marcus Aurelius, who wrote his Meditations late in his life, often talks about death reminding himself that he should not be afraid of it. Death is a change that's happening all the time, and "change is the delight of the universal nature."(Aurelius, 88) In fact, Stoics go beyond to say that it is wrong to perceive death as a rare event that occurs only once, but rather life is a rare event that occurs only once in a sea of death; death, or rather lifelessness, is the state of equilibrium in the universe and each birth is a dynamic event that temporarily oscillates away from this state. "We are wrong in holding that death follows after, when in fact, it precedes as well as succeeds" (Seneca, 105). This perspective makes every one of our decisions limited by the rare resource of time, giving quantifiable value to each one of them; therefore the meaning of life becomes to make life meaningful. The actions we do throughout our lives are therefore meaningful, because in accordance with the principles of dynamic equilibrium, "what we do in life, echoes in eternity" (Gladiator). A modern analysis of this is done in the series Battlestar Galactica, where the robot Cylons decide to forsake their ability to resurrect when they die; it makes every choice more valuable, because they can't come back to repair the consequences of their actions, therefore giving meaning to their lives.

Another of the virtues derived from studying nature is temperance, which was one of Marcus Aurelius' core virtues. Marcus Aurelius emphasizes that any hindrance to the physical fitness of an animal will result in its demise, and therefore anything that hinders the mental fitness of a rational being will result in the person's demise. (Aurelius, 76) Therefore things like alcohol, food and sex should all be taken in moderation and only up to the point of necessity. He goes as far as to describe food as a rotting carcass and sex as nothing more than the rubbing of two tissues that results in convulsion and expulsion of a mucus. Epictetus argues that men should generally remain chaste and be like wolves, who have sex only once a year when the females are in heat. Epictetus makes it a point several times throughout the Discourses that students should limit their education to what they need in their lives, and not be distracted by the idea of knowing everything there is to know. Similarly, students should not be distracted by their pride of mastery in a subject, lest they will "become slave to these topics, rather than their masters." (Epictetus, 24). Epictetus uses this theme of becoming a slave to things when you desire them beyond rational proportion because he himself was a slave in Rome before he was freed and later became a teacher of Stoicism. Nature is once again used to explain work-life balance; Seneca observes that a mind that works too much and a mind that doesn't work at all are both deplorable because they are misaligned with nature, "nature will tell you that she made both night and day"(Seneca, 36) or in other words "rest is also a part of battle." (Fate/Night). 

Finally, the Stoics use nature to emphasize that the human mind is the most important characteristic of our species and therefore the most noble thing to do is to increase our ability to think rationally. Compared to other animals, there are many creatures that are stronger, faster, more courageous and more resilient than us, but there is no animal that is smarter than humans. Intellect is the niche given to us by the gods, and therefore it is our duty to cultivate it like a farmer cultivates his land. The Cylon Brother Cavil in Battlestar Galactica hits this on the spot when he talks about how "people should be true to what they are, we are machines, we should be true to that, we should be the best machines the universe has ever seen" (Lay Down Your Burdens); similarly humans are rational creatures, therefore we should be the best rational creatures the universe has ever seen. The Stoic observation is that reason is so inherent to the human condition and so important to the pursuit of happiness that "every soul is deprived of the truth against its will" (Epictetus, 140). This concept is an echo of Plato's teachings, and implies that remaining unenlightened is a form of imprisonment not only on the mind and spirit, but on the person's entire existence. Seneca discusses how men should never dress gaudily or poorly, because both are vain attempts to detract attention from his mind and onto how he looks. Marcus Aurelius talks about how language should never be florid or deceitful, because these are tactics to distract people from the clarity of his thoughts. There is a constant emphasis on improving your abilities of reason through education; "associate with people who are likely to improve you, welcome those whom you are capable of improving, the process is a mutual one: men learn as they teach" (Seneca, 43). Epictetus argues that liberal education is not liberal because we are free to choose to learn whatever we wish, but because it gives us liberty and sets us free from misconception and lies by tuning our reasoning abilities and bringing them in line with nature. Conversely, men who do not act to improve on their knowledge are eternally cursed, because "all foolishness suffers the burden of dissatisfaction with itself" (Seneca, 54), something that was also emphasized by St. Augustine who learned from the Neo-Platonists that "the punishment of every disordered mind is its own disorder" (Augustine, 15).

The Stoics believed that the only things that should impact a person's happiness are those that are strictly within the control of his or her mind.  If we begin to assign positive or negative value to things that are outside our control, then we are bound to be unhappy when these events occur against our benefit. However, if we assign positive or negative value only to things that are always entirely within our control, such as "strength and honor" (Gladiator), then we will always be in control of our happiness. We are slaves to whoever controls the things we desire or fear, therefore if we desire and fear only things that we control, we are our own master and are therefore free (Epictetus, 83). This concept is so essential to Stoic understanding of happiness that Marcus Aurelius elucidates it within the first page of the Meditations. His explanation is the most clear and succinct among all the writings of the Roman Stoics.

"If something does not make a person worse in himself, how could it make his life worse? Universal nature would not have allowed this to pass whether through ignorance or because she lacked the power to put it right. She would never commit such a sin as let good or evil fall to good or bad people alike without distinction. Now death and life, fame and obscurity, wealth and poverty, fall to good and bad in equal measure, being neither honorable nor shameful in themselves; and so it follows they are neither good nor bad." (Aurelius, 13)

 All of these things that we value so much in our daily lives, especially in the modern culture where celebrities are portrayed as heroes, the Stoics consider to be absolutely meaningless and without value, to the point of calling them "indifferents" because we should be entirely indifferent to them. These indifferents are generally things that have a huge component of randomness due to what we would call fate, St. Augustine called it that which is beyond our ability to explain in his Confessions.  Both good and evil people receive them at random, and therefore it would be irrational of us to put any value in them, since it would be irrational for evil actions of evil men to result in rewards or the good actions of good men result in punishment. In addition, no matter how much effort we put into receiving or avoiding them, things like wealth or poverty, health or illness, fame or obscurity, power or weakness and life or death may not occur in our favor simply because it was not written in our destiny. As an example, no matter how much you exercise and eat well, there is still a chance that you will develop cancer or have a genetic disease; these are things that beyond a certain point you simply can't control. Therefore the Stoic solution is to do whatever is within our reasonable ability and be content with having done that, remaining indifferent to the result. I went running every day and ate well throughout my life, whether I develop a cardiovascular disease is now within destiny's hands.

An obvious argument against this mindset is why should we do anything at all regarding these indifferents, if we are supposed to be indifferent to them; wouldn't it be morally equivalent to try to be lean and to try to be fat, if health and illness are both indifferents? This awakens a practical point in how the Roman Stoics perceived the indifferents. The early Greek Stoics believed that all the indifferents were equal, but noting the above argument which was posed against them by the Epicureans, by the time of Cicero, the Romans have devised a category of indifferents called "preferred indifferents." These are indifferents that happen to be in accordance with nature because they enable a creature to survive in the world; since the desire to survive is something humans inherit from the animal order we should always prefer actions towards preferred indifferents rather than the "unpreffered indifferents," as long as these choices don't compromise our virtues. It is obvious that in most situations wealth and health are going to be beneficial to our survival, and therefore we should be thankful when we receive them. "It would not be fitting for a man to spurn things that are fitting for a man"(Aurelius, 40). In fact, this is the Stoic perception of interaction between humans and what religion would call the divine; whether nature, fate or the gods, their role in human life is to randomly distribute these indifferents. Because they are the ones distributing them, any preferred indifferents that we receive are not our property; "what fortune has made yours is not your own, but belongs to fortune" (Seneca, 47). If we are so lucky to have received preferred indifferents, we should not put value in them nor become attached to them since we are bound to eventually lose them, but thank the gods for having received them and move on with our lives.

If we are not to receive preferred indifferents, we should not see this as punishment or misery, but instead as an opportunity given to us by fortune to practice our Stoicism. All misfortune is just a trial of our moral fortitude, because "in bearing misfortune nobly there is great fortune" (Aurelius, 33). The final conclusion of the Stoics is that suffering isn't something that we should groan and complain about, because it is either not as great a suffering as we imagine it to be and we will recover from it, meaning that we had the strength to survive it and all that complaining was meaningless, or the suffering is so great that we don't have the strength to survive it, and we will die whether we complain or not (Seneca, 132). "I must die, but must I die bawling? I must be put in chains - but moaning and groaning too? I must be exiled; but is there anything to keep me from going with a smile and self composed?" (Epictetus 7). Whenever you think you're miserable, it's essential to look on what is within your power and to make the best of it, because nature always gives to you what is most fit for you at that moment. This attitude of submitting yourself to destiny may trouble the modern mind because it has strong hints of determinism; what's the point of living if what happens to us tomorrow has already been decided by nature? It is better not to look at determinism as a concrete entity, but as a more flexible system. Each action makes our future actions more likely to be aligned or misaligned with nature. The model shows that even though what happens to us may already be decided in the past, how we react to these events hasn't and that's why choice and personal freedom remain important.

This understanding of indifferents and how a man should react towards things that are within his control extends to the Stoic understanding of society and how we interact with fellow citizens. Foremost, we should be proud only of the things that we have achieved through our own labor and things that have turned us into better men, namely we should proud only of "that which can neither be given nor snatched away" (Seneca, 88). Therefore things like praise and glory from others we should accept thankfully, but recognize them as nothing more than preferred indifferents. An important point to add is that Seneca and Epictetus both talk about how important it is to accept preferred indifferents, without making a huge display of how we don't care for them because they are worthless to us; doing so is a vain attempt to attract attention. Essentially, the argument is to be true to stoicism by shutting up and being grateful for what you have. More importantly, however, Stoicism teaches us how to deal with elements of society that aren't as full of praise towards us. The core idea is to extend our understanding of what's within our control to interaction with people who may be aggressive towards us. It is entirely within his power and not at all within mine whether he decides to attack me, but it is entirely within my power to not attack in return. Similarly to Christ's "turn the other cheek", Marcus Aurelius repeatedly emphasizes that "no matter what others may say or do, I like a diamond must preserve my own hue," (Aurelius 59) since reason and virtue are the defining characteristics of man, it is our duty to remain within their protective walls. In fact, every time you feel tempted to judge the actions of somebody else, "pass at once to consider what faults you are committing on your own account; as when you judge, for instance that money is a good, or pleasure, fame and the like" (Aurelius, 99).

This is the foundation of the idea that it's impossible for a person to be harmed by others, rather that people are harmed because they perceive themselves to be harmed since they put value in the wrong things, namely indifferents (Epictetus, 228). This idea originates in Epictetus and is often resonated in Marcus Aurelius' writings, and has been reinforced by modern research in psychology that shows that sorrow caused by what we would call harm is proportional to how much we value the things we lost. Marcus Aurelius gives the example of how anybody that feels betrayed should instead look at himself and recognize that the betrayal occurred only because he put too much trust into somebody else, and then put actual value in that trust despite it being controlled by somebody else, which automatically makes it something that you should be indifferent to because it is outside of your control. An example given by Epictetus is how a thief stole a lamp from him; the thief automatically loses because he traded his honor, which is something rare and valuable, for a lamp, which is something common and worthless. Epictetus can also lose if he gets upset about the lost lamp, because he is putting value on the money the lamp is worth; recall that money is an indifferent. However, because Epictetus recognizes the money as an indifferent, he fortifies his Stoicism and therefore manages to turn his "misfortune" into fortune (Epictetus, 70). Therefore all passionate emotions such as anger, hate and fear are forms of clouded judgement where we value indifferents above or below their true worthlessness. Since "anger carried to excess begets madness,"(Seneca, 69) it is something so distant from reason and logic that it should always be avoided by the Stoic. Instead the appropriate attitude towards the transgressor is pity, and the best course of action is to try to correct him of his error, because "the worse a person is, the less he feels it" (Seneca, 102) and it is our duty to try to bring him to a path that is in accordance with nature.

This brings us to the final tenet of Stoicism, which is that all of philosophy is meaningless unless we put it into practice. Tim Ferris cleverly described philosophy as nothing more than "mental masturbation" when we don't make a conscious effort to integrate the truths we learn from philosophy into our daily lives. Marcus Aurelius yells at himself, "no more of this idle talk of what a good man should be, but simply be one!" (Aurelius, 97). The only obstacle to you being a good person who lives in accordance with nature and disregards indifferents is your own reluctance; one must take the attitude of Battlestar Galactica's Saul Tigh "This is the man I want to be, and if I die today, that's the man I'll be" (Revelations). The Stoic needs to have the courage to admit that he was born alone and that he will die alone, and therefore it is entirely up to him to become the man he ought to be. It's crucial to adopt a mindset of introspection, constantly analyzing your own actions and how they relate to the results and to the principles of Stoicism. Only by criticizing yourself are you able to open yourself up to change; like a crab, only by willingly destroying your restricting former shell, will you be able to grow into a new one. In this way, the Stoic uses philosophy to turn himself into the project; all actions in daily life become relevant to whether he is becoming a virtuous person. Epictetus is especially adamant about drilling this point into his students. At one point he describes a student who focuses entirely on logical traps instead of ethics as a bodybuilder who shows off the weights he has instead of his muscles. At another he talks about students of philosophy focusing too much on logic and not enough on ethics, which results with many liars who can tell you exactly why a man shouldn't lie (Epictetus, 245). This point applies to both how we think about the world around us, as well as to how we actually behave within it.

Foremost, humans should only live for themselves, because only our actions are within our control; we can't control what other people want or how they react, therefore we should have no concern with them. In fact, empirically altruism is impossible because as the Stoics observe "people who love what they do wear themselves down doing it; they're possessed by what they do, they'd rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts"(Aurelius, 45). As we know from Maslow's hierarchy of needs, food and sleep are physiological needs that are far more important than the altruistic love and belonging, so if people enraptured by their work are willing to sacrifice even those, there is no question that they will have no time for other people. And therefore, the better we become at creating value, the farther we move from the altruistic requirement of interacting with other people to know what the other may need; in conclusion, as a person reaches the apex of their talent, it will be work purely for yourself. The alternative is to remain altruistic and never reach the zenith of your talents, which reinforces Boris Pasternak's comment in Dr. Zhivago how "gregariousness is the refuge of mediocrity" (Pasternak, 9). The need to work relentlessly towards mastery is exhibited throughout the Stoic works by reminders that mastery only comes from practice and that mastery is not only accordance with nature, but in accordance with the gods, who are in an order above that of mortal humans. The Greek goddess Arete was the ancient symbol for excellence, and the Stoics believed that they must pursue excellence in all aspects of their life, because the skills and ethic learned from working is something that nobody else can give to your or take away from you, and therefore according to Seneca excellence becomes the only thing we can ever become proud of. Because practice is required to achieve mastery, laziness is seen as a terrible weakness and "it is right you should suffer, because you would rather be good tomorrow than be good today"(Aurelius, 73). However, it is important to point out that this ethic of working for yourself is not a selfish one, because anything that benefits you will also benefit the world through a trickle down effect (Epictetus, 49). In effect, it is impossible to do anything for yourself without benefiting society because "what brings no benefit to the hive, brings no benefit to the bee"(Aurelius, 55). For example, you can't become a master accountant without providing valuable services to other people, and conversely you can't hurt people by running a ponzi scheme without hurting yourself by selling your honor (valuable) in exchange for money (worthless). The result is that work (which we control) replaces the indifferents (which we can't control) as the source of our happiness, as Chuck Palahniuk puts it "being tired isn't the same as being rich, but most times it's close enough" (Fight Club, 218). This stance towards work being virtuous is something adopted by Gandhi during his movement in India, as well as the Protestant German and Nordic countries, who happen to be six of the ten happiest countries in the world according to a recent BusinessWeek study.

Finally, Stoicism has to be applied to how we interact with people. Emotions, both those of anger and love, are passions that cloud our judgement and therefore should be avoided. Vegeta's disparagement of his son in  when he says "your feelings will stop you, that's the reason you are weak" would have resonated with the Stoics. We should never expect praise from others for our work, because "an emerald does not become any less luminous if nobody praises it" (Aurelius, 27). Nor should we fall into the trap of socializing for advancement, since we can achieve so much greatness from ourselves there is no need to become depending on others (Epictetus, 27). Similarly, just as we would not ask for things from people lacking in philosophy, we should not socialize with them, because it's impossible to congregate with those who are covered in dirt without also getting some of the dirt on yourself (Epictetus, 153). We should never get angry with people, but instead try to explain the error in their ways. If they are convinced, good job you succeeded; if they convince you that you were wrong, good job you corrected yourself; if you were not able to convince them, then simply put up with them and be thankful that the world is so diverse (Aurelius, 79). A natural analogy for this diversity is evolution; in the same way that genetic diversity allows for a species to survive adverse conditions, diversity in thought also serves a purpose in helping society survive various challenges. We should remain adamant defenders of justice and freedom, because any power or money we could receive in exchange for them are worthless in comparison to these absolute truths.(Epictetus, 197). To sacrifice freedom in exchange for having your life spared is deplorable, because as Battlestar Galactica's Commander Adama puts, "it's not enough to survive, one has to be worthy of survival." All of these are details that can be easily derived from the core tenets of living in accordance with nature and avoiding indifferents; and by giving meaning to these two core principles, the emphasis on working towards excellence becomes another essential guideline, completing the trifecta.

It would be insane to keep doing the same thing while expecting a different result, and it would be insane to ignore the logical conclusions put forth by Stoicism. People who follow no philosophy, follow an incomplete or illogical philosophy or follow a logical one imperfectly are bound to end up miserable, blaming the world around them for their misery. However, Stoicism gives a simple and logical framework of how to adapt to the physical world in which we live and a path which allows everybody to achieve happiness. The first step is recognizing that the world in which we live is not an enemy, but a silent tutor from whom we can learn about how to live; everywhere we look there's a hidden lesson waiting to be uncovered. The second step is to renounce things that are outside of our control and perceive them at their true face value, meaningless at best and dangerous to our happiness at their worst. People who continue to see the indifferents as valuable are like slaves who are carrying their chains and are free to drop them, but don't do so because they are afraid of what life without them would be like (St. Augustine, 107). Finally, it is crucial to take these lessons and apply them to our daily lives, and then use the resulting experiences as an empirical feedback loop to test whether our understandings of what is in accordance with nature is correct or how we ought to modify them. These three steps of Stoicism are deceptively simple, because they are extremely difficult to implement; they require immense discipline and conviction, which is why it was the favored philosophy among the militaristic Roman aristocracy during the Republic and the early Empire. However, the diversity of characters who have become the heroes of Stoicism is vast, ranging from slaves like Epictetus to emperors like Marcus Aurelius, indicating that it is entirely within a person's power to adopt this philosophy no matter their disposition. It remains an important question as to what exactly triggers a person's desire to discipline themselves and accept the tenets of Stoicism. The answer may be different for different people, but a recurring theme seems to be people who were faced with what Ryan Holiday and Shawn Shahani call "Fight Club Moments". These are special times when in one way or another you've lost everything, and you realize that all the things you valued weren't as important as you thought they were, essentially setting you free of your bondage to the indifferents; "it's only once you've lost everything, that you're free to do anything" (Fight Club, 70). Whether Fight Club moments are a requirement, or just a common coincidence, to the conversion, one certainly has to be guided towards Stoicism at that specific moment by what may seem to be destiny. If one finds Stoicism too late after their Fight Club moments, it's likely that the philosophy will have no meaningful traction with the person.

It's necessary to conclude by mentioning any possible variations on Stoicism. An imperfect alternative to Stoicism, but one with greater public awareness, is Ayn Rand's Objectivism. It has aspects of the core tenet of Stoicism of using empirical reason to discern between right and wrong; "contradictions do not exist, whenever you think that you are facing a contradiction, check your premises, you will find that one of them is wrong" (Atlas Shrugged, 188). It also has the emphasis on hard work, "the reason that my family has lasted so long is that none of us has been permitted to think he is born a noble, we are expected to become one" (Atlas Shrugged, 89). But it is missing any real reference to the crucial differentiation between which things are indifferents and which aren't. There are some small references to it, the most notable one being the silently repeated emphasis on the difference between having money and making money, but these are so muted compared to the rest of the extravagant plot, that it's inconceivable how a novice would be able to notice them without having read the Stoic writings first. And this ends up being the main problem with Objectivism as an alternative to Stoicism, the romantic plot is so hyperbolic to reality and history, that it becomes morally ambiguous with respect to the human experience. You're so caught up in Ayn Rand's attempt to convert you to libertarianism, that you lose track of what you should take seriously and what is tongue in cheek. Stoicism avoids this flawed desire to convert you by emphasizing that Stoicism is a personal philosophy that you have to open your heart to. Meditations was supposed to be burned after Marcus Aurelius' death and we have it only because one of his clerks disobeyed his last wishes; Seneca's letters were meant to be private correspondence between him and a friend; and Epictetus' discourses were private lessons to pupils that were published without his consent or knowledge. In many ways Stoicism is an elitist philosophy, a secret of the 1%, and there is no attempt to preach it to the other 99% as Ayn Rand did with her novels. Trying to argue that Ayn Rand wasn't hoping to convert everybody to Objectivism is invalidated by the fact that the entire goal of the isolationist colony of the industrialists in Atlas Shrugged is to convince the rest of the world that these 'job creators' were right all along. The Allegory of the Cave, as well as the myth of Prometheus, have taught us that after being handed the torch of enlightenment, it is our duty to bring it to the rest of the world; even if we have to sacrifice everything for the truth, because the truth is something that's worth sacrificing everything for. But instead the protagonists escape to a little mountain resort, where they exchange the truth for comfort and greatness for peace. The noble man should be like the wrestler, who stands his ground against his adversaries, and not like the acrobat, who hops around them (Aurelius, 62). Despite these flaws, Ayn Rand's writing does serve very well as a template to analyze how a Stoic may live in the modern world; the character of Howard Roarke in The Fountainhead is for the most part an exemplary Stoic, excluding his sexual sadomasochism, a big no-no for the Stoics. In this way, Stoicism continues to be the only materialistic philosophy that remains simple and practical without falling into the logical traps of altruism, spiritualism and proselytism; it's strength being an openness to innovation based on empirical observations of the modern world.

Sources used:

Aurelius: Meditations, Epictetus: Discourses, Seneca: Letters from a Stoic, St. Augustine: Confessions and several references to Gladiator, Battlestar Galactica, Dragonball Z and various authors.