Making plans, and cancelling them
On Stoicism and subtle pandemic losses.
I was meant to move back to Sydney this month, but instead I have moved into my father’s office. For the past five months, I have been working from the dining room table with the temporaneous nature of someone in between apartments, but it seems the only real estate I’m securing right now is a desk at the far end of the house. The day before relocating, I walked into the lounge room and announced I would be staying at my parents’ place for the rest of the year. My sister’s boyfriend, Tom, who was the only one in the room, said it appeared I didn’t really have a choice.
There are the obvious losses felt from this pandemic era, and then there are the subtle ones. One of the more ambiguous losses of this time is the postponing of life transitions. On the surface, they seem too trivial to complain about. The high school graduate misses out on a gap year. The bride postpones her wedding again. But as these losses add up, so does their collective weight and it becomes harder for each of us to carry them. It’s bearable to postpone a hope, a dream, a transition, for a year. Postponing it for two or three becomes an entirely more crushing thought.
As I’ve spoken to friends over the last few weeks, it seems there is an increasing sense of despair hovering over us like a lingering, darkening cloud. No matter what direction we choose, we can’t seem to walk out from underneath it. And I think what we’re all reckoning with is this enduring state of waiting. Last year felt like a once in a lifetime event. This year it feels like we’re sitting around waiting for our lives to start. We may have accepted masks and QR codes as part of our ‘new normal’, but this era of not knowing is something I, at least, haven’t entirely reckoned with. Maybe temporarily, but not in an ongoing sense. Intellectually understanding something is also different to really living it. And as we wait for the vaccination rate to reach 80 percent, as we wait to see how other vaccinated countries handle the Delta variant, we sit underneath this lingering, darkening cloud, learning how to live with it. Hoping to find a little more sunlight.
Stoics believe that we should see ourselves as always hovering between a free and a determined state; able to control certain events, at the mercy of others. In other words, pandemics happen but you control the way you respond to it. It was with this knowledge, that I found myself driving to the local bookstore to purchase Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. The store was shut due to restrictions, but the owner said I could buy it online. I stood out the front and placed an order on my phone. Two minutes later, she opened the door and handed the book over.
Stoicism is a philosophical school of thought that was born in Ancient Greece and later flourished in Ancient Rome. It was the dominant philosophy of the Ancient World but at the end of the twentieth century, it experienced a revival. Thousands of people now call themselves modern Stoics, and it isn’t hard to see why it’s regained traction. The overwhelming ambition of Stoicism is to remain calm and courageous in the face of great adversity. As my dad said, Stoics are “tough” and “stick to the task at hand”. The private thoughts of Aurelius, a well-known Stoic and the sixteenth Roman emperor, were never intended for publication, but two thousand years later, his advice on managing adversity and daily living feels as relevant as ever. Much of what Aurelius is asking himself in Meditations are the same questions many of us are asking ourselves in this moment. What virtue has nature given me to deal with this situation? What am I capable of? What am I not capable of? What do I owe others? How can I cope?
In many ways, Aurelius writes of his own limitations and questions how he can work within the parameters of those limitations. In a climate when we’re expected to keep every news cycle in our heads, where parents are meant to juggle homeschool and work, where many of us are disillusioned but simultaneously projecting our highlight reels online, it feels refreshing to hear someone say no. You don’t have to do it all. You can’t. There are things within your control, and things beyond your control. It is your job to decipher between the two, and use what you have available to you to manage.
One of the most popular slogans of Stoicism is that fear does more harm to us than what we are afraid of. Anxiety flourishes in the gap between what we fear might happen and what we hope could happen. Aurelius and other Stoics, such as the writer and politician, Seneca, believed that when you address those fears and imagine what life would look like if they came true, you realise you will cope. It’s a backwards way of looking at things, and perhaps a negative one, but Stoics see it as useful and necessary. It’s why Seneca, who owned multiple villas filled with expensive furniture, often drank lukewarm water, ate stale bread, and slept on the outhouse floor. The act taught him that if he lost everything, he could cope. It reacquainted him with his own resilience.
A few days ago, I walked out of my new office and into the kitchen to have a conversation with my aunt. She has three children in their early twenties, who are missing twenty-first birthdays and gap years and the spontaneity that comes with the passport of early adulthood. They are making plans and postponing them and they don’t complain but their mother can see it hurts. As she spoke, I was reminded of a line from Meg Mason’s novel, Sorrow and Bliss: “Everything is broken and messed up and completely fine. That is what life is. It’s only the ratios that change.” The youth of this pandemic era have had to deal with the alterations and compromises we make in this life much earlier than many of us ever had to. And what has become obvious, my aunt said, is the incredible amount of resilience this generation has harnessed. The generation that was branded self-entitled and delicate have managed - and are managing - to cope with the subtle losses of this time.
I am no more a Stoic than when I first picked up Meditations but I have learned that existing through adversity is sometimes enough. As Aurelius wrote, one should approach adversity in the same way a headland deals with a wild swell. The waves beat against it, but it stands tall. As we live through this era, it may feel like we are sitting and waiting for our lives to start but as we continue to cope, we evolve, much like a headland is slowly changed by the tides around it. As Aurelius wrote, “Whenever something happens that might cause you distress, remember to rely on this principle: this is not bad luck, but bearing it valiantly is good luck.” Or as Dave Chappelle once said, “Play the whole game.” The ratios changed on us in 2020 and, this year, they changed again. In a way, the ratios will always change. By confronting our fears about this moment - that our futures are uncertain, that we will never know - perhaps we are learning how to cope in an environment we have always had to live in and will always have to live in. This doesn’t remove the lingering, darkening cloud, but perhaps it delivers a little sunlight. If only for the morning.
Related (and unrelated) recommendations:
I’ve recently read and loved Fake Accounts by Lauren Oyler, Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason and, obviously, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. If you’re in need of an easy, escapist read that is both sad and funny, I highly recommend Sorrow and Bliss.
I am aware this feature, ‘The Anxiety of Influencers’, was published months ago, but I finally read the entire thing and cannot get it out of my head. An English professor spends a few days in a Los Angeles TikTok clubhouse. An absolute must-read if you missed it.
A few weeks ago, I reviewed Tyler, The Creator’s new album for GQ Australia. If you want to read more of my words, you can find the review here.
For those in need of joy (!!) Sydney-based DJ Ayebatonye Abrakasa has been posting regular ‘Blends 4 The People’ from the safety of her living room. Here is one of my favourites.
This Refinery29 article on beauty, TikTok, and ‘That Girl’.
Since I last wrote, this profile on Lil Nas X was published in The New York Times Magazine. It is so well-written and also delightful.
The Daily’s podcast episode on Simone Biles. I also recommend their episode on the breakthrough infections occurring in the US. It addresses some of the uncertainty I have written about.
Earlier this year, I wrote a 15,000 word essay exploring the impact the pandemic is having on women’s mental and physical health. It is part of Future Women’s next book, a collection of essays called Work. Love. Body. The book will be on sale in early September, but it is available for pre-order now. My essay covers some of the subtle losses I have written about today.
Snoh Aalegra’s new album, ‘Temporary Highs In The Violet Skies’ has been on high rotation this month. If you like a bit of soul, it’s for you.
By the time you receive this newsletter, Kanye West’s new album may have been released. At the time of sending, it was not on streaming services but consider this a PSA.
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