The Same River Twice

 

I heard about a reemergence of stoicism this this morning on NPR.  Apparently there is real interest in this philosophical school of thought that dates back to the 3rd century.  Given the current state of the world I can see why.  In case you forgot, Stoicism, as a philosophy is opposed to the belief that everything is the way it's supposed to be and will work out just fine.  It emphasizes accepting reality and examining one's judgments and thoughts. The ultimate goal is to direct your thoughts toward what you can control.

That ability to accept the things you can control and not waste energy with what you cannot has been around for a long time.  Easy to see why.  It's attractive because we all would like to be able to easily make that distinction.  Not so easy in reality.  

Some folks think that a stoic is one who stays calm and faces life's challenges  in a serene state of consciousness.  To be a stoic about that which causes great anxiety can also be deceptive. Nevertheless, many of these ancient philosophies retain their appeal and can come in handy for the introspective.

Philosophy, as a subject was very popular when I was a young college student.  I remember taking an Intro class that was a fairly useful survey of centuries of thought.  The text was a real doorstop of a book that was heavy to lug around.  The professor was a real character too.  Roy Beaumont was his name's I recall.  Mr. Beaumont was a burly Texan with close cropped hair that wore the same suit most every day.  He lectured, occasionally cracked a joke, and wasn't particularly interested in making any student friends.  Beaumont was rumored to have a particular skill that I never saw.  As the story goes, he apparently had the ability to bounce a chalkboard eraser off a talkative or disruptive student's forehead with his back turned to the class. I believe he could do that, though I never saw it myself.

One September afternoon when setting up my classroom for a new school year, I chanced to think of Mr. Beaumont while placing new erasers in the chalk tray.  Just for fun I would grab one, wheel around and fire it at an empty seat near the back of the classroom.  Of course I would never do this in reality, but I wondered just how difficult it would be to imitate Ol' Beaumont.  I soon concluded this was a skill that I needed to sharpen if I was to compete with the champ.  

The thick philosophy book  from that intro course sat on my bookshelves for years before I eventually sold it back to a used book store. During my last couple of years of college, Existentialism became hugely popular. My peers were reading Sartre, Camus, Nietzsche snd the like.  I recall some of those studies and how many of my contemporaries were reading the novels of Herman Hesse.  But I also never forgot the lessons of the early Greek philosophers like Heraclitus. "You can never step in the same river twice, for fresh waters are ever flowing upon you."