Seneca on How To Remain Calm Amidst a Sea of Troubles

Life is a sea of frustration: we can’t seem to find our car keys when we’re already 20 minutes late for work, we pour a bowl of cereal only to discover we have no milk.

How do we react when things don’t go our way?

Most often, with flames of anger and red-hot rage. 

We hurl our coach cushions while we desperately search for our keys; we curse the cruel universe (and our inconsiderate roommate who never refills anything) for making us have to go to the grocery store first thing in the morning.  The most minor mishap can send us into a tantrum, though we should be far more mature for someone of middle age.

Why do the smallest, most insignificant things possess the power to make us so angry?

According to Seneca, father of Stoicism, anger is not an explosion of uncontrollable passions— it’s the result of an error in reasoning.  We rant and rave when our expectations collide with reality.  For example, when we were expecting to spend our Saturday soaking in the sun only to learn that the weather forecast predicts gray skies and relentless rain.  Or consider the romantic arena: we only pout and lock ourselves in our room when our husband forgets our anniversary because we expected him to romance us with extravagant gifts, a diamond necklace perhaps, or two round-trip tickets to Tahiti.

In his ever-edifying The Consolations of Philosophy, Alain de Botton suggests anger isn’t an inextinguishable wildfire— it can be contained.  According to Botton, who famously finds solutions to contemporary problems in the wrinkled pages of art, literature and philosophy, Seneca’s stoicism can stamp out our embers of exasperation before they burst into full-blown flames of rage.  Rather than expect too much from the world, we would be wise to lower our expectations and take a grimmer view of reality.

To illustrate his point, Botton uses one of Seneca’s acquaintances, Vedius Pollio.  A wealthy man from ancient Rome, Pollio lived in a world of grand gardens, gold-gilded palaces, extravagant feasts, and elaborate frescoes.  Like many rich men, Pollio was accustomed to getting his way.  When one of his slaves dropped a tray of crystal glasses during a party, Pollio was so enraged that he ordered him to be thrown into a pool of lampreys.  

Was Pollio’s reaction a tad bit extreme?  Of course: most of us wouldn’t toss someone into a pool of eels for such a silly mistake.  

So why did something so trivial (a bit of broken glass) catapult a dignified man of refined manners and good breeding into such a blind rage?

His anger seems disproportionate to its cause.  Certainly, a man of his class could have replaced the crystal.  With the commanding wave of a hand, Pollio could have had one of his hundred servants come and sweep up the shattered dishes.  Logically, there’s no reason a few broken glasses had to ruin the revelry of the evening.

However, Botton argues there’s rationale behind Pollio’s seeming irrationality: “Pollio was angry for an identifiable reason: because he believed in a world in which glasses do not get broken at parties.”  In other words, his reality (my clumsy slave tripped and smashed my precious crystal) didn’t meet his expectations (my party will proceed smoothly).  

If we want to be calm and generally content, we must learn to expect less of life.  Rather than expect circumstances to unfold according to our carefully-orchestrated plans, we should rip a page from the Stoic survivalist handbook and prepare for the worst to happen.  If— like Pollio— we’re hosting a dinner party, we should anticipate things will not go smoothly: guests will arrive that didn’t RSVP, we’ll run out of champagne, our guests will inevitably have trouble finding topics of conversation and suffer a few awkward silences as they nibble crackers and brie.

Ultimately, Stoicism suggests we relinquish rose-colored romanticism and accept reality.  No matter what, our time on this planet will be filled with rude people, interminably long lines, stolen credit card information, delayed flights, flat tires, and human stupidity.  If, as Botton writes, we reconcile ourselves to life’s necessary imperfectability, we’ll be less angry (and less likely to fling a helpless servant into a pool of lampreys). 

Schopenhauer on Art as an Antidote to our Greatest Affliction

What is philosophy for?  For many, philosophy is a lofty subject only meant to be studied by tweed-jacketed professors in the university hall.  The word “philosopher” conjures images of men in ancient Greece or Rome who have white beards and wear long, flowy robes.  Philosophy isn’t for ordinary people like mailmen and school teachers— it’s reserved for great intellects like Nietzsche and Socrates and Plato.  Philosophers are a privileged class who have the time to ponder life’s big questions (who am I?/what am I meant to do?).

However, in his charming The Consolations of Philosophy, Alain de Botton argues just the opposite: philosophy is simply the study of how to live well.  A delightful little volume organized by afflictions such as “heartbreak,” “unpopularity,” and “not having enough money,” The Consolations of Philosophy rests on the premise that philosophy is a form of medicine.  The words of a great thinker can have restorative properties.  In this 2000 classic, the irresistibly intelligent Botton sifts through thousands of years of collective wisdom to find the wisest minds’ remedies for our most common problems.  

Do you only have $5 in your bank account, but long for luxurious pleasures such as Birkin bags and champagne-soaked meals at Michelin star restaurants?  A dose of Epicurus will remind you that happiness isn’t always found in the extravagant excesses of materialism.  Have you been driven to the brink of insanity by such tragic events as losing a loved one or such petty frustrations as losing your car keys?  Dr. Botton would write you a prescription for the Stoic philosopher Seneca.

Of all the difficulties in the modern world, loneliness is probably our most widespread problem.  In a recent national survey of American adults, 36% of respondents reported feeling lonely “frequently” or “almost all the time.”  More Americans are spending time alone than ever before.

Why do rates of loneliness run rampant?  Some blame our modern alienation on the advent of social media (after all, why bother with complicated, occasionally dull human interaction when TikTok provides dizzying dopamine-fueled hits of cheap entertainment?); others blame the capitalist rat race for money and status.  Certainly, our sense of isolation only worsened during the pandemic.

Luckily, there is a cure for our loneliness.  If we’re lacking connection in real life, we can find companionship in the fictional worlds of art and books.  Books are medicines for our maladies, slings for our spirits, salves for our wounds.  To read a book— or observe a painting or contemplate a poem— is to see our own lives reflected back to us.  By expressing their particular experience, the artist illuminates an aspect of the greater human experience.  Though Tolstoy wrote Family Happiness using his own experience of marriage, the modern woman who finds herself disenchanted with domesticity can still see herself in Masha’s tale.  Books remind us other people have felt our feelings and thought our thoughts, even if it was many centuries ago.  Referencing the great German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, Botton notes:

“We do have one advantage over moles.  We may have to fight for survival and hunt for partners and have children as they do, but we can in addition go to the theatre, the opera and the concert hall, and in bed in the evenings, we can read novels, philosophy and epic poems— and it is in these activities that Schopenhauer located a supreme source of relief from the demands of the will-to-life.  What we encounter in works of art and philosophy are objective versions of our own struggles, evoked and defined in sound, language, or image.  Artists and philosophers not only show us what we have felt, they present our experiences more poignantly and intelligently than we have been able; they give shape to aspects of our lives that we recognize as our own, yet could never have understood so clearly on our own.  They explain our condition to us, and thereby help us to be less lonely with, and confused by it.  We may be obliged to continue burrowing underground, but through creative works, we can at least acquire moments of insights into our woes, which spare us feelings of alarm and isolation (even persecution) at being afflicted by them.  In their different ways, art and philosophy help us, in Schopenhauer’s words, to turn pain into knowledge.”  

Ultimately, art dispels the illusion that we are alone in our struggles.  The dispirited can discover hope in the Letters of Vincent Van Gogh; the love sick can find solace in sonnets written by a Renaissance man nearly a half millennia ago.  Or as Botton writes, a snubbed suitor can find consolation in Goethe:

“By reading a tragic tale of love, a rejected suitor raises himself above his own situation; he is no longer one man suffering alone, singly and confusedly, he is part of a vast body of human beings who have throughout time fallen in love with other humans in the agonizing drive to propagate the species.  [By reading], his suffering loses a little of its sting.”