Hello.
I had a somewhat frantic Monday morning.
I had a work meeting (took the call right from my couch instead of my desk, so that I can easily supervise the repairs going on in the next room) while I also had a technician inspect the washing machine in my bathroom. It was pretty loud, chaotic, and well... wet lol.
My washer went on the fritz last Saturday, it stopped draining water. It decided to break down mid-cycle, so I had to drain water manually using a cup lol! And then I had to wring everything before loading them into the dryer.
Still, I remained calm. And since my whole bathroom floor was already wet from the great front load flooding (lol), I simply used the special occasion to give the bathroom tiles a good scrubbing. So I got my laundry done and my bathroom's spanking clean. I win, ha!
This morning, the technician came to fix the washer. Turns out the machine was clogged all thanks to a bunch of coins, hair clips, and hair ties. Okay, I'm the culprit behind the hair ties, guilty. I do sometimes forget them in my pockets, oopsie. But I am definitely not responsible for the coins and hair clips: 1) I never use hair clips and never will lol; 2) I don't really carry coins with me anymore. They must have been left behind by the previous tenant? Alas, there really is no sense in blaming others. It is my washer now, after all.
The technician fixed the clog and got the washer working again. I carried on with my work call and I cleaned the bathroom mess afterwards. And I did a load of laundry over lunch. Everything was resolved and life moved on.
I love this little washer anecdote.
It seems like nothing and it is pretty much nothing but to be honest, if this tiny fiasco happened some years ago, I am quite sure that I would have reacted much differently. These past few years, it just feels like no matter what happens, I am confident in my ability to find my calm.
Maybe it's because my hormonal imbalance is finally finding its long-lost rhythm (lol) within my system after years of PCOS treatment, going with somewhat healthier eating habits that I can live with, and finding joy in my chosen form of regular exercise; or it's just me getting older and growing tired of expending negative energy on trivial (and not so trivial) matters; or it could be a result of all that reading on absurdism, existentialist thought, zen buddhism, and stoic philosophy. I must have taken to heart whatever it is I found so amusing in texts written long before this modern life came to be. All these might be true, especially that part about growing old and weary haha.
Yesterday I met up with old friends.
One of them majored in philosophy for both her undergrad and graduate studies. I have always been amused with how her mind works, especially with how she moved from philosophy to anthropology to an MBA to development work. I asked her which philosophical thought influenced her the most, she said it's Wittgenstein's work on language. My friend claims that she can no longer fully remember her philosophical training, but I can tell that she has integrated all of it into both her personal and professional lives. No matter the depth of crisis, this friend of mine remains calm, rational, and steady.
I do love my friends.
Today is just another Monday, and at the same time, today is unlike any other Monday.
When I was younger, I mostly impatiently waited for the weekend. I let weekdays passively roll by while anticipating nothing else but the weekend. I loved Fridays and Saturdays and mostly dreaded Sunday evenings and Monday mornings. Now at this stage in my life (it's not necessarily about age), I can appreciate any random day, even a Tuesday lol.
Prior to learning philosophy, I have largely devoted my reading life to fiction. And I love that I was able to do that; and I thank myself, the people, and circumstances that allowed me to develop said reading life.
These days, however, I feel like I have this need to reread the same old set of philosophers over and over before I can move on to the next.
This year, I am ready to make that huge leap into my next set of philosophers, encouraging myself to attempt to study more challenging texts beyond my current reading comfort. But before I do so, I just want to soak up everything there is within my current reach. As Seneca suggested, "What is the point of having countless books and libraries whose titles the owner could scarcely read through in his whole lifetime? The mass of books burdens the student without instructing him, and it is far better to devote yourself to a few authors than to get lost among many."
Here's a look back at some of the most practical nuggets I have dug up from authors long dead (But of course, I have to say that I do not agree with everything these philosophies proclaim, and I do question their applicability to modern life and its many evolving layers and specific contexts. Nevertheless, there are nuggets here that I would like to attempt to live by):
(It would be quite impossible to list everything since there literally is a lot, so I am just selecting a few from certain chapters of certain books, with the dog-ears I have left behind as my spirit guide lol)
(EDIT: I was planning on also selecting passages from Camus, Nietzsche, Dogen, and Shunryu Suzuki but I am now tired and sleepy... so this journal entry shall solely focus on stoic philosophy. Sleep comes first, ha!)
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| Bed situation during tonight's journaling (& rereading) session. |
Aurelius
On time (categorizations mine)
* That the longest-lived and those who will die soonest lose the same thing. The present is all that they can give up, since that is all you have, and what you do not have, you cannot lose. (Book Two: On the River Gran, Among the Quadi)
* Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. (Book Three: In Carnuntum)
* That everything you see will soon alter and cease to exist. Think of how many changes you've already seen. (Book Four)
* Time is a river, a violent current of events, glimpsed once and already carried past us, and another follows and is gone. (Ibid.)
* Don't try to picture everything bad that could possibly happen. Stick with the situation at hand [...] Then remind yourself that past and future have no power over you—only the present. (Book Eight)
On other people
* Don't waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people—unless it affects the common good. It will keep you from doing anything useful. You'll be too preoccupied with what so-and-so is doing, and why, and what they're saying, and what they're thinking, and what they're up to, and all the other things that throw you off and keep you from focusing on your own mind. (Book Three)
On our words and actions
* How to act:
Never under compulsion, out of selfishness, without forethought, with misgivings.
Don't dress up your thoughts.
No surplus of words or unnecessary actions.
Cheerfulness. Without requiring other people's help. Or serenity supplied by others. (Book Three: In Carnuntum)
* To do harm is to do yourself harm. To do an injustice is to do yourself an injustice—it degrades you. And you can also commit injustice by doing nothing. (Book Nine)
* To speak with the Senate or anyone with the right tone, without being overbearing. Choose the right words. (Book Eight)
On seeing things for what they are
* To always define whatever it is we perceive—to trace its outline—so we can see what it really is: its substance. Stripped bare. As a whole. Unmodified. And to call it by its name—the thing itself and its components, to which it will eventually return. (Book Three)
* Things have no hold on the soul. They stand there unmoving, outside it. Disturbance only comes only from within—from our own perceptions. (Book Four)
Seneca
On solitude and dealing with people (categorizations mine)
* You should not copy the bad simply because they are many, nor should you hate the many because they are unlike you. (VII: On Crowds)
* However, two things must be mingled and varied, solitude and joining a crowd: the one will make us long for people and the other for ourselves, and each will be a remedy for the other; solitude will cure our distaste for a crowd, and a crowd will cure our boredom with solitude. (On the shortness of life)
* We must be especially careful in choosing people, and deciding whether they are worth devoting a part of our lives to them, whether the sacrifice of our time makes a difference to them. (Ibid.)
On fear and living
* And so I commanded myself to live. For sometimes it is an act of bravery even to live. (LXXVIII: On the Healing Power of the Mind)
* Two elements must be rooted out once for all, the fear of future suffering, and the recollection of past suffering, since the latter no longer concerns me and the former concerns me not yet. (Ibid.)
* But learning how to live takes a whole life, and, which may surprise you more, it takes a whole life to learn how to die. (On the shortness of life)
* We shall stir ourselves and not be gripped and paralysed by fear [...] Self-preservation does not entail suppressing oneself. (Ibid.)
* The next thing to ensure is that we do not waste our energies pointlessly. (Ibid.)
On flexibility
* We should also make ourselves flexible, so that we do not pin our hopes too much on our set plans, and can move over to those things to which chance has brought us, without dreading a change in either our purpose or our condition, provided that fickleness, that fault most inimical to tranquility, does not get hold of us. (On the shortness of life)
On leisure
* We must indulge the mind and from time to time allow it the leisure which is its food and strength. (On the shortness of life)
On time
* You are living as if destined to live for ever; your own frailty never occurs to you; you don't notice how much time has already passed, but squander it as though you had a full and overflowing supply—thought all the while that very day which you are devoting to somebody or something may be your last. (On the shortness of life)
* When will vacation come? Everyone hustles his life along, and is troubled by a longing for the future and weariness of the present. But the man who spends all his time on his own needs, who organizes every day as though it were his last, neither longs for nor fears the next day. For what new pleasures can any hour now bring him? He has tried everything, and enjoyed everything to repletion [...] Nothing can be taken from this life, and you can only add to it as if giving to a man who is already full and satisfied food which he does not want but can hold. So you must not think a man has lived long because he has white hair and wrinkles: he has not lived long, just existed long. (Ibid.)
* No one will bring back the years; no one will restore you to yourself. Life will follow the path it began to take, and will neither reverse nor check its course. It will cause no commotion to remind you of its swiftness, but glide on quietly. It will not lengthen itself for a king's command or a people's favour. As it started out on its first day, so it will run on, nowhere pausing or turning aside. What will be the outcome? You have been preoccupied while life hastens on. Meanwhile death will arrive, and you have no choice in making yourself available for that. (Ibid.)
* Putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune's control, and abandoning what lies in yours. (Ibid.)
* The whole future lies in uncertainty; live immediately. (Ibid.)
On possessions
* Why do you seek out so many things? (On the shortness of life)
* Nothing satisfies greed. (Ibid.)
* Excess in any sphere is reprehensible. (Ibid.)
Epictetus
On possessions (categorizations mine)
* Do not attach yourself to them and they will not be necessary; do not say to yourself that they are necessary, and they are not necessary. (Discourses)
* For freedom is acquired not by the full possession of things which are desired, but by removing the desire.
* Keep by every means what is your own; do not desire what belongs to others.
* Why are you insatiable? Why are you not content?
* Why do you give yourself trouble? [...] It is we who squeeze ourselves, who put ourselves in straits; that is, our opinions squeeze us and put us in straits.
* Caution ought only to be used where things are dependent on the will. But if things independent of the will and not in our power are nothing to us, with respect to these we must employ confidence; and thus we shall both be cautious and confident, and indeed confident because of our caution.
* Confidence (courage) then ought to be employed against death, and caution against the fear of death.
* We ought not to be moved by a desire of those things which are not in our power.
* Externals are not in my power; will is in my power.
* There is only one way to happiness, and let this rule be ready both in the morning and during the day and by night: the rule is not to look towards things which are out of the power of our will.
On fear and living
* Do you wish to live in fear?
* Act with firmness and freedom from perturbations.
On our actions
* Generally then if you would make anything a habit, do it; if you would not make it a habit, do not do it.
* Do you praise the just or unjust? The just. Whether do you praise the moderate or immoderate? The moderate. And the temperate or intemperate? The temperate.
On the reality of our nature
* For universally, be not deceived, every animal is attached to nothing so much as to its own interests.
* Nothing is done without cost.
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| Kaimito, my love. Do not let its purple flesh fool you. It was a good kaimito. Thank you, my love (lol). |
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| No shame, no guilt. I had chocolate cake to top off my lechon meal hihi. Yes, I ate that cake right off my lap lol. |
It was a good experience revisiting and typing down all these excerpts (which meant I had to reread certain passages/pages), leaving me with too many questions right before bedtime. Definitely not recommended lol.
I had the period munchies today: I ordered in some lechon (LMAO), one-fourth kilo which fed me both lunch and dinner haha. I supplemented the former with some adlai, salad, a few apple slices, and one big kaimito; and the latter with stir-fried bell peppers and potatoes alongside leftover chicken breast.
No shame, no guilt. Lechon all the way, baby, tee-hee.
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