The Consolations of Philosophy – Alain de Botton

The Consolations of Philosophy – by Alain de Botton
Date read: 9/8/18. Recommendation: 7/10.

An introduction to some of the greatest thinkers including Socrates, Epicurus, Seneca, Montaigne, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. Botton wraps each philosopher in the context of consolation for a different human struggle (Seneca = consolations for frustration). If you’re already into philosophy, it’s an interesting format you’ll find both strange and engaging. If you’re not, it provides an accessible introduction to the subject without requiring a college course on abstract thought.

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Consolation for Unpopularity

Priority to be liked, rather than speak the truth. Laugh at modest jokes.

Socrates ultimate example of how to maintain confidence in an intelligent position which has met with illogical opposition.

Philosophy provided Socrates with convictions and rational (not hysterical) confidence when facing disapproval.

Philo, love; sophia, wisdom.

Not only the hostility of others that prevents us from questioning the status quo. Also, because we associate what is popular with what is right.

"We stifle our doubts and follow the flock because we cannot conceive of ourselves as pioneers of hitherto unknown, difficult truths." AB

Socrates encouraged us not to be unnerved by the confidence of people who fail to grasp complexities and formulate their views without rigour...established views don't necessarily emerge from faultless reasoning, but centuries of intellectual muddle.

Truth produced by intuition is like a statue without support.
Truth supported by reasons and an awareness of counterarguments ie like statue anchored by cables.

"If we are prone to burst into tears after only a few harsh words about our character or achievements, it may be because the approval of others forms an essential part of our capacity to believe we are right." AB

Two powerful delusions: we should always or never listen to the dictates of public opinion. Instead, strive to listen to the dictates of reason.

Consolation for Not Having Enough Money

Epicureanism suggests we are as bad at intuitively answering 'What will make me happy?' as 'What will make me healthy?'

Epicurus viewed philosophy as a tool to help us interpret distress and desire and help us avoid acting on immediate impulses and instead investigate rationality of our desires (rather than enter into mistaken schemes for happiness).

Sober analysis calms the mind.

Objects mimic in a material dimension what we require in a psychological one. The way we're enticed by commercial enterprises is by the sly association of superfluous objects with other, forgotten needs.

By understanding our true needs, excessive levels of consumption are destroyed by greater self-awareness and appreciation of simplicity.

"Mankind is perpetually the victim of a pointless and futile martyrdom, fretting life away inf fruitless worries through failure to realize what limit is set to acquisition and to the growth of genuine pleasure. [But at the same time] It is this discontent that has driven life steadily onward, out to the high seas..." -Lucretius

Consolation for Frustration

Expectations vs. Reality - We best endure those frustrations which we have prepared ourselves for and understand and are hurt most by those we least expected and cannot fathom.

Seneca's view of anger: Not from an uncontrollable eruption of passions, but from a basic error of reasoning.
-Frustrations are tempered by what we understand we can expect from the world.
-Greatest furies spring from events which violate our sense of the ground rules of existence.

"Rage is caused by a conviction, almost comic in its optimistic origins, that a given frustration has not been written into the contract of life." AB

"We must reconcile ourselves to the necessary imperfectability of existence." AB

"Not everything which happens to us occurs with reference to something about us." AB

Worst-case scenarios:
"If you wish to put off all worry, assume that what you fear may happen is certainly going to happen." Seneca
*bad things will probably happen, but they probably won't ever be as bad as we fear.

Wealth:
"Stop preventing philosophers from possessing money; no one has condemned wisdom to poverty." Seneca
-Stoicism (Seneca specifically) considers wealth a preferred thing. Not an essential thing or a crime.

"The wise man can lose nothing. He has everything invested in himself." Seneca

We might not be able to change certain events, but we are able to choose our attitude, which provides a sense of freedom.

Consolation for Inadequacy

"We ought to find out not who understands most but who understands best." Montaigne

"If I come across difficult passages in my reading I never bit my nails over them: after making a charge or two I let them be...If one book wearies me I take up another." Montaigne
-Wisdom doesn't require a specialized vocabulary, only makes an audience weary
-Writing with simplicity requires courage

"However modest our stories, we can derive greater insights from ourselves than from all the books of old." AB

Consolation for Difficulties

Pain is a natural, inevitable step on the way to anything good/fulfillment.

"The most fulfilling human projects appeared inseparable from a degree of torment, the sources of our greatest joys lying awkwardly close to those of our greatest pains." AB

Nietzsche was striving to correct the belief that fulfillment must come easily or not at all, a belief ruinous in its effects, for it leads us to withdraw prematurely from challenges that might have been overcome if only we had been prepared for the savagery legitimately demanded by almost everything valuable.

Philosophy = voluntary living in ice and high mountains

"The ice is near, the solitude is terrible–but how peacefully all things lie in the light! how freely one breathes! how much one feels beneath one!" Nietzsche

"Don't talk about giftedness, inborn talents! One can name all kinds of great men who were not very gifted. They acquired greatness, became 'geniuses' (as we put it) through qualities about whose lack no man aware of them likes to speak: all of them had that diligent seriousness of a craftsman, learning first to construct the parts properly before daring to make a great whole. They allowed themselves time for it, because they took more pleasure in making the little, secondary things well than the effect of a dazzling whole." Nietzsche

Endurance:
"Fulfillment is reached by responding wisely to difficulties that could tear one apart." AB

"Not everything which makes us feel better is good for us. Not everything which hurts may be bad." -AB

On the Shortness of Life – Seneca

On the Shortness of Life – by Seneca
Date read: 5/4/17. Recommendation: 9/10.

If you're looking to dive deeper into the works of Seneca, this is a great follow up to Letters from a Stoic. I read the Penguin Great Ideas edition. It's a collection of three essays filled with plenty of brilliant insight that Seneca is so well known for. 

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews.

My Notes:

Life is long if you know how to use it. But one man is gripped by insatiable greed, another by a laborious dedication to useless tasks. One man is soaked in wine, another sluggish with idleness...

You will find no one willing to share out his money; but to how many does each of us divide up his life! People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing which it is right to be stingy.

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...You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire.

How stupid to forget our mortality, and put off sensible plans to our fiftieth and sixtieth years, aiming to begin life from a point at which few have arrived!

Everyone hustles his life along, and is troubled by a longing for the future and a 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 hast tried everything, and enjoyed everything to repletion.

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.

But nobody works out the value of time: men use it lavishly as if it costs nothing.

The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today.

Of all people only those are at leisure who make time for philosophy, only those are really alive. For they not only keep a good watch over their own lifetimes, but they annex every age to theirs. All the years that have passed before them are added to their own.

We are excluded from no age, but we have access to them all; and if we are prepared in loftiness of mind to pass beyond the narrow confines of human weakness, there is a long period of time through which we can roam. We can argue with Socrates, express doubt with Carneades, cultivate retirement with Epicurus, overcome human nature with Stoics, and exceed its limits with the Cynics.

Honors, monuments, whatever the ambitious have ordered by decrees or raised in public buildings are soon destroyed: there is nothing that the passage of time does not demolish and remove.

But life is very short and anxious for those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear the future.

It was nature's intention that there should be no need of great equipment for a good life: every individual can make himself happy. External goods are of trivial importance and without much influence in either direction: prosperity does not elevate the sage and adversity does not depress him.

Never have I trusted Fortune, even when she seemed to offer peace. All those blessing which she kindly bestowed on me – money, public office, influence – I relegated to a place whence she could claim them back without bothering me. I kept a wide gap between them and me, with the result that she has taken them away, not torn them away.

Let us pass on to the rich: how frequently they are just like the poor! When they travel abroad their luggage is restricted, and whenever they are forced to hasten their journey they dismiss their retinue of attendants.

No man is despised by another unless he is first despised by himself.

What you need is...confidence in yourself and the belief that you are on the right path, and not led astray by the many tracks which cross yours of people who are hopelessly lost, though some are wandering not far from the true path. But what you are longing for is great and supreme and nearly divine – not to be shaken. The Greeks call this stead firmness of mind 'euthymia', but I call it tranquility.

If you apply yourself to study you will avoid all boredom with life, you will not long for night because you are sick of daylight, you will be neither a burden to yourself nor useless to others, you will attract many to become your friends and the finest people will flock about you.

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.

Avoid those who are gloomy and always lamenting, and who grasp at every pretext for complaint...a companion who is agitated and groaning about everything is an enemy to peace of mind.

People are more cheerful whom Fortune has never favored than those whom she has deserted.

Let us aim to acquire our riches from ourselves rather than from Fortune.

In this race course of our lives, we must keep to the inner track. (minimalism)

So we should buy enough books for us, and none just for embellishment...Excess in any sphere is reprehensible.

Should Nature demand back what she previously entrusted to us we shall say to her too: "Take back my spirit in better shape than when you gave it."

For by foreseeing anything that can happen as though it will happen he will soften the onslaught of all of his troubles, which present no surprises to those who are ready and waiting for them, but fall heavily on those who are careless in the expectation.

It is too late for the mind to equip itself to endure dangers once they are already there.

Nothing happens to the wise man against his expectation.

So we should make light of all things and endure them with tolerance: it is more civilized to make fun of life than to bewail it.

We must indulge the mind and from time to time allow it the leisure which is its food and strength. We must go for walks out of doors, so that the mind can be strengthened and invigorated by a clear sky and plenty of fresh air.

Letters from a Stoic – Seneca

Letters from a Stoic – by Seneca
Date read: 2/13/17. Recommendation: 9/10.

Introduction to Penguin Classics edition. Perhaps the most highly regarded/referenced work of Stoic philosophy along with Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Go straight to the source. It's a classic and one of the most important works you'll read. 

See my notes below or Amazon for details and reviews. 

my notes:

Introduction in Penguin Classics:
Supreme ideal is usually summarized in ancient philosophy as a combination of four qualities: wisdom (or moral insight), courage, self-control and justice (or upright dealing). It enables a man to be 'self-sufficient', immune to suffering, superior to the wounds and upsets of life.

Letter II:
You do not tear from place to place and unsettle yourself with one move after another. Restlessness of that sort is symptomatic of a sick mind. Nothing, to my way of thinking, it better proof of a well ordered mind than a man's ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his own company.

To be everywhere is to be nowhere. People who spend their whole life traveling abroad end up having plenty of places where they can find hospitality but no real friendships.

A multitude of books only gets in one's way. So if you are unable to read all the books in your possession, you have enough when you have all the books you are able to read.

You ask what is the proper limit to a person's wealth? First, having what is essential, and second, having what is enough.

Leter III:
Think for a long time whether or not you should admit a given person to your friendship. But when you have decided to do so, welcome him heart and soul, and speak as unreservedly with him as you would with yourself.

For a delight in bustling about is not industry - it is only the restless energy of a haunted mind.

Letter V:
Let our aim be a way of life not diametrically opposed to, but better than that of the mob. Otherwise we shall repel and alienate the very people whose reform we desire; we shall make them, moreover, reluctant to imitate us in anything for fear they may have to imitate us in everything.

People should admire our way of life but they should at the same time find it understandable.

Letter IX:
What difference does it make, after all, what your position in life is if you dislike it yourself?

Letter XII:
The man who looks for the morrow without worrying over it knows a peaceful independence and a happiness beyond all others.

Letter XV:
Without wisdom the mind is sick, and the body itself, however physically powerful, can only have the kind of strength that is found in person in a demented or delirious state. So this is the sort of healthiness you must make your principal concern. You must attend to the other sort as well, but see that it takes second place.

So continually remind yourself, Lucilius, of the many things you have achieved. When you look at all the people out in front of you, think of all the ones behind you.

Letter XVI:
No one can lead a happy life, or even one that is bearable, without the pursuit of wisdom...

[Philosophy] moulds and builds the personality, orders one's life, regulates one's conduct, shows one what one should do and what one should leave undone, sits at the helm and keeps one on the correct course as one is tossed about in perilous seas. Without it no one can lead a life free of fear or worry.

Epicurus: 'If you shape your life according to nature, you will never be poor; if according to people's opinions you will never be rich.' Nature's wants are small, while those of opinion are limitless.

Letter XVIII:
Set aside now and then a number of days during which you will be content with the plainest of food, and very little of it, and with rough, course clothing, and will ask yourself, 'Is this what one used to dread?' It is in times of security that the spirit should be preparing itself to deal with difficult times.

If you want a man to keep his head when the crisis comes you must give him some training before it comes.

Security from care is not dependent on fortune - for even when she is angry she will always let us have what is enough for our needs.

For no one is worthy of a god unless he has paid no heed to riches. I am not, mind you, against your possessing them, but I want to ensure that you possess them without tremors; and this you will only achieve in one way, by convincing yourself that you can live a happy life even without them, and by always regarding them as being on the point of vanishing.

Letter XXVII:
Of this one thing make sure against your dying day - that your faults die before you do.

Letter XXVIII:
Though you cross the boundless ocean, whatever your destination you will be followed by your failings.

Socrates: "How can you wonder your travels do you no good, when you carry yourself around with you? You are saddled with the very thing that drove you away."

You have to lay aside the load on your spirit. Until you do that, nowhere will satisfy you.

As it is, instead of traveling you are rambling and drifting, exchanging one place for another when the thing you are looking for, the good life, is available everywhere.

I do not agree with those who recommend a stormy life and plunge straight into the breakers, waging a spirited struggle against worldly obstacles every day of their lives. The wise man will put up with these things, not go out of his way to meet them; he will prefer a state of peace to a state of war.

Letter XLI:
No one should feel pride in anything that is not his own.

Suppose he has a beautiful home and a handsome collection of servants, a lot of land under cultivation and a lot of money out at interest; not one of these things can be said to be in him - they are just things around him. Praise in him what can neither be given nor snatched away, what is peculiarly man's.

Letter LV:
Soft living imposes on us the penalty of debility.

The place one's in, though, doesn't make any contribution to peace of mind: it's the spirit that makes everything agreeable to oneself. I've seen for myself people sunk in gloom in cheerful and delightful country houses, and people in completely secluded surroundings who looked as if they were run off their feet.

Letter LXIII:
When one has lost a friend one's eyes should be neither dry nor streaming. Tears, yes, there should be, but not lamentation.

Would you like to know what lies behind extravagant weeping and wailing? In our tears we are trying to find means of proving that we feel the loss. We are not being governed by our grief but parading it.

Even a person who has not deliberately put an end to his grief finds an end to it in the passing of time. And merely growing weary of sorrowing is quite shameful as a means of cutting sorrow in the case of an enlightened man. I should prefer to see you abandoning grief that it abandoning you.

Letter XLV:
What is death? Either a transition or an end. I am not afraid of coming to an end, this being the same as never having begun, nor the transition for I shall never be in confinement quite so cramped anywhere else as I am here.

Letter LXXVII:
No one is so ignorant as not to know that some day he must die. Nevertheless when death draws near he turns, wailing and trembling, looking for a way out. Wouldn't you think a man a prize fool if he burst into tears because he didn't live a thousand years ago? A man is as much a fool for shedding years because he isn't going to be alive a thousand years from now. There's no difference between the one and the other - you didn't exist and you won't exist - you've no concern with either period.

As it is with a play, so it is with life - what matters is not how long the acting lasts, but how good it is.

Letter LXXVIII:
A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is.

What's the good of dragging up sufferings which are over, of being unhappy now just because you were then?

In the meantime cling tooth and nail to the following rule: not to give in to adversity, never to trust prosperity, and always take full note of fortune's habit of behaving just as she pleases, treating her as if she were actually going to do everything it is in her power to do. Whatever you have been expecting for some time comes as less of a shock.

Letter LXXXIII:
So-called pleasures, when they go beyond a certain limit, are but punishments...

Letter XC:
We were born into a world in which things were ready to our hands; it is we who have made everything difficult to come by through our own disdain for what is easily come by. Shelter and apparel and the means of warming body and food, all the things which nowadays entail tremendous trouble, were there for the taking, free to all, obtainable at trifling effort. With everything the limit corresponded to the need. It is we, and no one else, who have made those same things costly, spectacular and obtainable only by means of a large number of full-scale techniques..

Letter XCI:
We should be anticipating not merely all that commonly happens but all that is conceivably capable of happening, if we do not want to be overwhelmed and struck numb by rare events as if they were unprecedented ones...

One thing I know; all the works of mortal man lie under sentence of morality; we live among things that are destined to perish.

A setback has often cleared the way for greater prosperity. Many things have fallen only to rise to more exalted heights.

In the ashes all men are leveled. We're born unequal, we die equal.

Letter CIV:
What good does it do you to go overseas, to move from city to city? If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you're needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.

But travel won't make a better or saner man of you. For this we must spend time in study and in the writings of wise men, to learn the truths that have emerged from their researches, an carry on the search ourselves for the answers that have not yet been discovered.

Letter CV:
Envy you'll escape if you haven't obtruded yourself on other people's notice, if you haven't flaunted your possessions, if you've learnt to keep your satisfaction to yourself.

Besides, to be feared is to fear: no one has been able to strike terror into others and at the same time enjoy peace of mind himself.

Never to wrong others takes one a long way towards peace of mind. People who know no self-restraint lead stormy and disordered lives, passing their time in a state of fear commensurate with the injuries they do to others, never able to relax.

Letter CVII:
Everyone faces up more bravely to a thing for which he has long prepared himself, sufferings, even, being withstood if they have been trained for in advance. Those who are unprepared, on the other hand, are panic-stricken by the most insignificant happenings. We must see to it that nothing takes us by surprise. And since it is invariably unfamiliarity that makes a thing more formidable than it really is, this habit of continual reflection will ensure that no form of adversity finds you a complete beginner.

Letter CVIII:
He needs but little who desires little. He has his wish, whose wish can be to have what is enough.

Letter CXXII:
No need to do as the crowd does: to follow the common, well-worn path in life is a sordid way to behave.

Letter CXXIII:
Nothing need arouse one's irritation so long as one doesn't make it bigger than it is by getting irritated.

Until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are. We've been using them not because we needed them but because we had them. Look at the number of things we buy because others have bought them or because they're in most people's houses. One of the causes of the troubles that beset us is the way our lives are guided by the example of others; instead of being set to rights by reason we're seduced by convention.