So maybe Marcus Aurelius isn’t for you. Seneca is a bore, and you think Epictetus needs to get a clue about life. If Stoicism has failed to capture your imagination, I have one last prescription for you. The Obstacle is the Way, by Ryan Holiday, is the penicillin that cures whatever could possibly ail you. Stoicism for the modern age, and written for anyone who can look at problems in their life as challenges or obstacles. If you can do this, Holiday argues the world becomes yours. I’d like to think he is right. Holiday makes it easier by illustrating the travails of numerous historical figures overcoming their own problems in novel and simple ways. (Simple does not mean easy.) The treatment is simple: use perception, action, and will to overcome any thing that stands in your way.

We all have the same twenty-four hours in a day that every great man or woman of history has had to accomplish their goals. Yet most people look at their goals daily and say “Tomorrow”, “It’s too hard,” “If only I had…” or “If X wasn’t in my way,” etc.. These are bullshit stories we tell ourselves to make us feel better about our failures. Do not accept them and they no longer have power. “There is no good or bad without us, there is only perception. There is the event itself and the story we tell ourselves about what it means (p.22)” Embrace the challenges that enter your life, and you will get better at facing them, and soon the problems that seemed to loom so large will be molehills in the rearview mirror.

As it turns out, this is one thing all great men and women of history have in common. Like oxygen to a fire, obstacles become fuel for the blaze that was their ambition. Nothing could stop them, they were (and continue to be) impossible to discourage or contain. Every impediment only served to make the inferno within them burn with greater ferocity. (p. 4)

Here in the twenty-first century, we are given so many blessings and technologies that make life seem easy. One can get everything and anything at the press of a button on a screen. Yet as soon as things don’t turn out the way we expect, we are stopped on a dime. We don’t know how to proceed. We have become weak with the blessings of the future. It doesn’t have to be this way. The blessings in our life can make life easier, but they should not be crutches we rely on as they can be taken away at any time. When things don’t go your way, realize the opportunity you have to succeed and be prepared to act.

Once you have a good grasp of reality and realize the advantages that come with even the worst of positions, one must act. Break the problem down into parts and crack away at them one by one. Theodore Roosevelt once said, “We must all either wear out or rust out, every one of us. My choice is to wear out.” Will you wear out or rust out?

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Eventually with consistent driven action, one must reach their goal eventually. It does not matter if you eat the elephant nose to tail, or hoof to spine.

Pragmatism is not so much realism as flexibility. There are a lot of ways to get from point A to point B. It doesn’t have to be a straight line. It’s just got to get you where you need to go. But so many of us spend so much time looking for the perfect solution that we pass up what is right in front of us. (p. 101)

The will to continue when everything stands in the way is the mark of a stoic and a success. We always have control over our mind, it is the one thing that can not be taken away from us, by fate, governments, obstacles or anything. How we react and feel about any given situation is the most important thing. Life will not turn out like we hoped or expected. Pain is inevitable; you will get knocked on your ass. Do you have the inner strength to get back up and brush yourself off? Do you have the humility to undertake everything you do with effort towards your goal, knowing that the path is hidden from us, except for that next step?

The rules of the game are simple, life will throw challenges at you. How you respond to them will probe the temper of your soul. Make it strong, and keep pushing forward. If you only accept from the universe what you want, eventually it will be given it to you.

“Nothing can ever prevent us from trying. Ever (p. 123.)”

The Obstacle is the Way

Meditations, the personal diary of Marcus Aurelius, the last of the great Roman Emperors, embodies the ideal of the philosopher king. Stoicism is defined to its core.

The scary thing is that the world almost lost this treasure. Aurelius wished for his diary to be destroyed after his death. As it was merely thoughts he wrote for himself, this was a simple wish. However, humanity is lucky that this man’s personal philosophy escaped the fires of destruction.

When most people hear the word philosophy, they run for the hills out of fear of stuffy old white men expounding theorems that don’t make sense. Meditations is not that kind of philosophy. Instead, it is a blueprint for living well, for being a good person, and for facing all the obstacles that will come forward in your life.  What is more, it is easy to read. Aurelius did not write this for academics or others, but for himself in simple words.

Aurelius’ philosophy can be boiled down into one statement: “If it is not right, don’t do it. If it is not true, don’t say it. (XII.12)” This is a simple philosophy, but not easy to live. It is something all men and women should strive for, and I continually struggle with it myself. But failing is okay as long as you keep coming back to this idea.

Marcus believed that right action was important most of all. “And thou wilt give thyself relief, if thou [does] every act of thy life as if it were the last, laying aside all carelessness and passionate aversion from the commands of reason, and all hypocrisy and self-love, and discontent with the portion which has been given thee. (II.5)”

What gave Marcus Aurelius the strength to be this virtuous selfless man? No man ruled over a larger empire, nor accessed such wealth as he. He had every opportunity to fall prey to the baser desires of man.  However, these things did not faze Marcus Aurelius. He did not care for the freedoms that could be taken away at any moment. He preferred the inner freedom of his will and intelligence. He always decided how he felt about the things that happened around him, looking for the positive in all. This is the only freedom any of us truly have, the freedom to come to our own conclusions.

“For nowhere, either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble, does a man retire than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquility; and I affirm that tranquility is nothing else than good ordering of the mind. (IV.3)”

Marcus Aurelius shared interesting viewpoints on life and death and time that simplify the problems associated.  He cautions himself “Do not act as if thou [were] going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee. While thou [live], while it is in thy power, be good. (IV.17)” We must always remember that we are going to die, as it is the one thing common to all living creatures. Most people fear this fact, when it should empower people to live the life they want. Life is not infinite but time is.  We should not wish for fame or our name to outlive us, because these are merely idle and pointless treasures as:

“He who has a vehement desire for posthumous fame does not consider that everyone of those who remember him will himself also die very soon; then again also they who have succeeded them, until the whole remembrance shall have been extinguished as it is transmitted through men who foolishly admire and perish. (IV.19)”

His ability to view things from the cosmic perspective gives Marcus Aurelius the ability to truly whittle away the idle pleasures and fears of all men.

“Do not then consider life a thing of any value. For look to the immensity of time behind thee, and to the time which is before thee, another boundless space. In this infinity then what is the difference between him who lives three days and him who lives three generations? (IV.50)”

Living this stoic philosophy is definitely hard work. Most people will not be up to the task, and that is okay. It is not for everyone. I hope to always fall back on the philosophy of stoicism in the trying times of my life.  I need it especially in this day and age that puts so much value on the items and products around us. Consumer capitalism blinds us to the true nature of things. So when I am blinded, I try to remember to look to the true nature of things.

“When we have meat before us and such eatables, we receive the impression, that this is the dead body of a fish, and this is the dead body of a bird or a pig; and again, that this Falernian is only a little grape juice, and this purple robe some sheep’s wool dyed with the blood of a shellfish: such then are these impressions and they reach the things themselves and penetrate them, and so we see what kind of things they are. (VI.13)”

I have both been looking forward to and fearful of writing about this book. This has been such an impressive and imposing tome on my life that I hope I can do it justice. I could write the lessons of this great man for many hours and pages, but that would take the joy out of reading it oneself. I can’t recommend a better book to those who face troubles in their life (i.e. everyone), or who wish to live a better life. There is no greater self-improvement book and if there is a better life philosophy I have not found it.

If you do plan on reading this book, read the Gregory Hayes translation I have linked to. It is not the copy I have, but it is highly recommended as the easiest and simplest translation of the book.

I leave you with a simple wish: “Keep thyself then simple, good, pure, serious, free from affectation, a friend of justice, a worshiper of the gods, kind, affectionate, strenuous in all proper acts. (VI.30)”

Meditations

Never in my life have I read such an infuriatingly hilarious book as Candide. I am not alone in my grievances. Voltaire’s novel is so depressingly funny because it makes a mockery of the Enlightenment philosophy of Optimism. In fact, Candide literally means optimism. Ever single, possible horror this world has is displayed prominently in this short, witty, and surprisingly articulate book.

The story focuses on Candide, a young German man, who lives in a castle under the protection of a Baron. This Baron employs a philosopher named Pangloss who preaches that this is the best of all possible worlds (optimism.) The Baron has a young daughter named Cunegonde, who Candide falls in love with. This is where things go downhill very quickly. Candide is kicked out of the castle and is subjected to such a rapid procession of horrors and losses that would make most people give up the will to live. However, Candide constantly beckons back to his old teacher Pangloss’ idea that this is the best of all possible words.

The things talked about in this novel should not be funny; laughing at them should make any reader feel guilty. Yet, time and time again, I had to pause while reading this to quell a smirk or laughter at heinous acts of Providence. Rapes, wars, tortures, cannibalism, fires, earthquakes, theft, etc. are all discussed as naturally as the sun rising in the East. I was thrust onwards, by Candide’s eternal optimism to keep reading.

The eventual conclusion to the novel, which does not spoil the text, is that Candide finally finds the best possible world for himself in his work and in cultivating his garden.

Critics have tried for years to figure out what Voltaire was trying to prove by writing this book. Most argued that it was trying to solve mankind’s ultimate question: why an omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent God made a world with a great deal of evil in it? I think this misses the point of what Voltaire was trying to expound. Voltaire was himself a figure of the Enlightenment who hated organized religions of all creeds and flavors.

When the conversation happening to turn into this channel [the clergy], one person said, “If you subtract pride from priests, nothing will remain.” [Voltaire replied,] “Then, Sir, you consider gluttony nothing?” (A Letter from John Moore)

Most of Voltaire’s followers thus took this book to be a denouncement of all religion and benevolent gods. However, I think this simplifies the argument too much that we lose Voltaire’s entire premise. Through the continuous displays of horror and evil, Candide ultimately remains optimistic. In the face of criticism from every man he ever meets, except for dear Pangloss and a hapless soul named Jacques who drowned, Candide believed “all is well.”

Voltaire proved a point that has been talked about by such great minds as Shakespeare, Aurelius, Frankl, and more: that there is no such thing as good or bad but thinking makes it so. This is stoic philosophy at its core, yet no critic seems to come to this conclusion. Good and evil come from the same source in Voltaire’s mind, and it is only your opinion of the event that causes the distinction. Even through all the tragedies of both Candide and Voltaire’s life, he never gave up hope for the goodness of man. Because he believed it so.

We are the creators of our own circumstance, whatever happens to us will happen and there is nothing we can do to stop it. How we react to these moments of change and chaos determine how we live our lives. So live it well, with the knowledge that nothing can hurt you unless you allow it to. No amount of savagery or fate can take the spirit of optimism from your soul, so that you can overcome any obstacle.

Read this book for the wittiness that transcends centuries. Read this book to learn from one of the greatest figures of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution (of which he died before its beginning.) Read this book to laugh at the face of an evil god, and realize you are laughing at yourself. Read this book to realize your life is not that bad. Read this book to help cultivate the garden of your mind.

Candide.

The Hero With 1000 Faces is a book that challenges everything I thought I knew about the world. Joseph Campbell writes remarkable earthshattering ideas in such a simple, fluid and easy to follow manner that I can’t help but scream to myself “Why didn’t I think of that!” Campbell, however, would argue that we all have already thought of these things, they are in our dreams and in our myths. Campbell spent most of his adult life studying comparative mythology of all the great civilizations, and what he found was startling in its simplicity. All of the myths and fairy tales that cultures have told for millennia are based on a simple coherent and equal structure: the Monomyth. It is such a simple idea, George Lucas used it to create Star Wars, and we all know how that turned out.

“The wonder is that characteristic efficacy to touch and inspire deep creative centers dwells in the smallest nursery fairy tale—the flavor of the ocean is contained in a droplet or the whole mystery of life within the egg of a flea. (Hero, pg.1)”

The names, events and places, might change, but the underlying message is the same. All men and women throughout time face the same problems as everyone else, and there is a simple way to solve your problems: by following the journey of the hero.

Not all men and women become heroes, in fact most do not, but we all have within ourselves to be that hero if we only follow the prescription of the monomyth. Campbell broke this circular progression down for all of us to use if we so choose.

Separation or Departure

• The Call to Adventure
• The Refusal of the Call
• The Supernatural Aid
• The Crossing of the First Threshold
• The Belly of the Whale

Trials and Victories of Initiation

• The Road of Trials
• The Meeting with the Goddess
• Woman as the Temptress
• Atonement with the Father
• Apotheosis
• Ultimate Boon

The Return and Reintegration with Society

• The Refusal of the Return
• The Magic Flight
• The Rescue from Without
• The Crossing of the Return Threshold
• The Master of Two Worlds
• The Freedom to live.

This journey is how we all grow and improve. This series of initiations allows betterment and success. Not all Heroes’ journeys follow every step along the way, but this general circle has shepherded all of the great heroes and legends of civilization.

Following Campbell’s ideology, and studies, leads to a realization that humanity is something shared by all people of all times, and that all are connected to life and death. This is psychedelic thinking to say the least, but it is no less than the tenets espoused in Buddhism, Christianity, Norse Mythology, fairy tales, and more. Accepting this connectedness, one feels a heavy burden to raise humanity and the world up to the standards that have come before. This common DNA though becomes more than a burden but a gift that can be tasted and given generously, if one merely follows the way. But to do this one must raise him/herself up to raise humanity. There is something incredibly freeing about that.

Campbell delves deep into the study of dreams, and the works of eminent psychologists as Freud and Jung. Claiming that “Dream is the personalized myth, myth the depersonalized dream; both myth and dream are symbolic in the same general way of the dynamics of the psyche. (Hero, pg.14.)” This connection of dreams to mythology has been severed and forgotten, so many fail to grasp the significance of both. Campbell elucidates the problem most coherently by describing the U.S.

In the United States there is even a pathos of inverted emphasis: the goal is not to grow old, but to remain young; not to mature away from Mother, but to cleave to her. And so, while husbands are worshiping at their boyhood shrines, being the lawyers, merchants, or masterminds their parents wanted them to be, their wives, even after fourteen years of marriage and two fine children produced and raised, are still on the search for love—which can come to them only from the centaurs, sileni, satyrs, and other concupiscent incubi of the rout of Pan, either as in [dreams,] or as in our popular, vanilla-frosted temples of the venereal goddess, under the make-up of the latest heroes of the screen (Hero, pg. 7)

It is hard not to see the truths in these words. But the hope is that all can achieve growth and fulfillment in life. To do this however requires the shattering of ego, something most are unable or unwilling to do. Getting rid of the ideas of good and evil in one’s heart and realizing that these come from the same source, and there is no distinction. Becoming a creator of circumstance is tough work, but it is an admirable goal in the journey of life. Living should not be wasted, and there is no surer way to fulfill life than by becoming the Hero of one’s own journey.

The modern hero, the modern individual who dares to heed the call and seek the mansion of that presence with whom it is our whole destiny to be atoned, cannot, indeed must not, wait for his community to cast off its slough of pride, fear, rationalized avarice, and sanctified misunderstanding. “Live,” Nietzche says, “as though the day were here.” It is not society that is to guide and save the creative hero but precisely the reverse. And so every one of us shares the supreme ordeal—carries the cross of redeemer—not in the bright moments of his tribe’s great victories, but in the silence of his personal despair (Hero, pg. 337.)

My hope is to heed the call of my own journey, and not languish the life that is set before me. I will shatter my ego; embrace the challenges that life and I set before me. The path will be strenuous, but I know that with this blueprint I can achieve beyond my wildest imaginations, and awake the hero within. Will you?

The Hero With 1000 Faces

Kim is a book I can’t help but read again and again. Rudyard Kipling’s portrait of colonial India at the turn of the 20^th century is an up close look at a world that has  been forgotten. This story manages to capture the reader and doesn’t let go. It is a book that delves into topics such as identity, faith, intelligence work, but most of all life itself. The harrowing tale that combines Buddhism, spies, culture, language, trade, identity, and empire. No better fiction exists that shows The Great Game, between England and Russia, in all its glory. This book is an education in and of itself, but more so it is fascinating. The adventures of young Kimball O’Hara (Kim), the orphan son of an Irish sergeant in the city of Lahore, are peculiar but enviable. Kim known throughout as the “Friend of all the World” for his friendship and knowledge of the people and cultures of India is as much Easterner as Westerner. This dichotomy fuels much of the story.

It is hard to say what this story is about, because it is quite possibly about everything and nothing. This adventure is about life in all of its colors garish, pretty, and dull. It is of affection and emotions unimaginable to many today. When Kim is following the travels of a wandering Buddhist Llama on the search for nirvana in the waters of the “River of the Arrow.” Learning the spy game from Lurgan Sahib, a spymaster of highest respects. Trading horses and spying with Mahbub Ali, the greatest horse trader in all of India. Or catching Russian spies in the hills of the Himalayas with the fearful Babu Hurree. Kipling portrays a world so vibrant and real the reader is transported to the road alongside Kim.

Throughout this novel, Kim is shown to confound others with his identity, as no man is able to place him in a box. He may be an Englishman, sahib, by blood. However, he fits in just as easily with Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, low caste, high caste, no caste, and more:

“Therefore, in one situate as thou art, it particulary behoves thee to remember this with both kinds of faces. Among Sahibs, never forgetting thou art a Sahib; among the folk of the Hind, always remembering thou are—“ he (Mahbub) paused, with a puzzled smile. “What am I? Mussalman, Hindu, Jain, or Buddhist? That is a hard nut.”

This difficult identity of neither East nor West, or any other easy classification makes Kim the ultimate canvas. To make a spy in the Great Game, to embrace the words of an enlightened Buddhist monk or walk with Queens on the roads of India.

It is easy for Westerners now to claim an understanding of Buddhism with the Dalai Llama a well-known celebrity. However, without the imagery and teachings Kipling shared with us through Teshoo Llama we would be at a loss. In this short adventure we are shown all of the tenets of this “Middle Way” and given an appreciation most do not have of their own religions. But this is not the only religion the reader is given an education on; Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, and Christianity (both Church of England and Catholicism) are explored through the lens of India into a vivid image that finds truth in all. As Mahbub Ali says,

The wise man knows horses are good—that there is profit to be made from all; and for myself—but that I am a good Sunni and hate the men of Tirah—I could believe the same of all faiths. Now manifestly a Kattiawar mare taken from the sands of her birthplace and removed to the west of Bengal founders—nor is even a Balkh stallion (and there are no better horses than those of Balkh, were they not so heavy in the shoulder) of any account in the great Northern deserts beside the snow-camels I have seen. Therefore I say in my heart the Faiths are like horses. Each has merit in its own country.

If one would like to learn about the intricacies of the spy game in India, and probably the whole world, Kim is the book to read. The Play of Jewels, now known as Kim’s game, is a game of memory designed to challenge even the strongest of intellects. It should be used by all spy agencies to this day (and probably is.) This game teaches one to take pictures with the mind of the things they have seen in an instant and recall them with stunning specificity. It is a game I would like to practice and get better at myself. In addition, Lurgan Sahib, the spymaster, teaches Kim the skills of observation, disguise, and culture; tests him with suggestion (hypnosis,) and dressing-up. This book looks at the skills of the spy with such rigor that Allen Dulles purportedly skimmed through the book most nights. If the book is good enough for the Director of the CIA, it’s good enough for me.

Where Kipling, and more specifically Kim really thrive though is in the travels along the roads of India, from the Plains to the Hills. Here the reader is given such a beautiful analysis of the varied peoples and landscapes that the sights, sounds, and smells creep into the world with such gaiety that one yearns to join him on the road (even the frigid and steep hills of the Himalayas.)

What this story is really about doesn’t matter. The symbolism, characters, adventures and vivid landscapes make this a book well worth reading even if it were not a historical treasure. Yet it is a masterpiece that better illuminates the beautiful land of colonial India than any book that came before or after. Not a word is wasted, nor a scene unseen. I greedily wish Kipling had written more of this adventure, but it is pure and final in its form.

This book makes me yearn for adventures of all sorts, it reminds me to treat every person with respect and know they have something for me to learn. I have found clarity towards the infinite differences of peoples and religions, and respect all of them for what they are. The journey will hopefully be long, and the lessons learned important. I go forth knowing that , “We be all on one lead-rope…”

Kim

I am writing 2ndhandwisdom as a means to not only remember what I have read and the lessons learned, but to share these things with whoever wants to read. I don’t know where this is going to go, but I certainly hope you all enjoy it. If not I’ll still keep updating it, just so I can remember.

I look forward to sharing the journey to wisdom with you all.

R. Bailey