Stoicism

A twisted, broken old tree has much to teach us about life, if we would only stand and pay attention to it for a while.

Scarred, broken, its limbs twisted, its trunk gnarled, the old tree stands in the field like a bloodied boxer defiantly carrying on the fight.  Its beauty has long faded and it no longer stands tall and erect but bent and stooped under the heavy blows that the storms of its life have inflicted upon it.  Deep lines and grooves are imprinted on its trunk like the lines and wrinkles on the face of an old man or woman.  Our life experiences, whether we are man, beast of plant, are etched indelibly into our features and our soul.  Beauty has been replaced now by character and the tree draws you in as you observe it and tells its story with every furrow and gash, wound and weakened branch.  It tells of long, dark days and nights and battles with the elements that elicit feelings of pity and sadness for its condition. Perhaps my thoughts have diffused into the atmosphere and the tree has inhaled them with the air, for my eyes are directed more searchingly about the tree. There is more to its story. It is embattled and old yet it stands firm, roots deep in the earth and rock drawing life from the soil and water.  It has felt the heat of the sun, had birds singing from its branches and easy days of just being alive to the universe.  The hard winters give way to spring when renewed energy and new life flow through it.  It knows that life is a process of changing seasons, of ebb and flow, scarcity and plenty.  So it stands there, that old oak tree, telling its tale of stoicism and endurance and faith in the future.

Nature has much to teach us if we only stop and observe.  Trees have an important lesson to share about acceptance and fortitude.  John Cowper Powys (1872-1963), lecturer, philosopher, literary critic, and poet thought that where life is concerned, we should ‘Accept! Defy! Enjoy!'  This philosophy for living is one that could be ascribed to that tree. Powys believed that stoicism and acceptance are important characteristics to develop for they are the means to a more contented life.  He wasn’t saying that we can’t or shouldn’t change things, quite the opposite, for he firmly believed in our ability to create change.  But there is a right time for action and sometimes we have to just ride out the storm, accept things as they are for the time being, and carry on with courage, enjoying the small pleasures available to us.  Fighting, raging inside about a particular situation can make matters worse and achieve nothing but more suffering and unhappiness.  Sometimes, it is better to bide our time, cope with the prevailing conditions, weather the storms of life and when they subside, act, fight, create change, do whatever needs to be done.  Stoicism is almost an old-fashioned word and idea now but it a useful tool with which to arm ourselves against the inevitable storms of life. 

Happiness is....

      "The more childish and unworldly a person’s disposition is, the more happiness he gets from such simple things as air, water, sun, earth-mould, sand, leaves, bread, butter, honey, or the still more primeval sensation of a certain delicious drowsiness in his own limbs.  

This is what I mean by my recurrent image of the ichthyosaurus. What I am trying to indicate by “the ichthyosaurus-sensation” is nothing less than this simple primeval happiness in the immediate experience of being alive. 

To blink at that mysterious god, the sun; to stare at that equivocal goddess, the moon ; to watch the incredible shapes of the clouds, as they pile up above the horizon ; to observe in early afternoon, a certain yellowish light upon a brick wall; to note a certain dark-blue wave of colour, as it sinks down upon the roofs of a city after sunset; to catch the ink- black silhouettes of bare branches against a November sky, just before the windows are lamp-lit in a roadside village ; to feel the ploughed-up earth under your feet, and a cold wet wind upon your face ; to sit over a fire of wood or of red, coals, thinking the long thoughts of vague race-memories—all these things, belonging to a world of psychic-physical sensations that go back to the beginnings of consciousness, are the stuff of which the secret of life is made."

John Cowper Powys

In Defense of Sensuality