Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Get started
FEATURED STORIES
Ryan Holiday
Jun 1, 2018 · 6 min read
One passage clearly challenged Hemingway more than the others. It comes
at the end of the book when Catherine has died after delivering their
stillborn son and Frederic is struggling to make sense of the tragedy that
has just befallen him. “The world breaks everyone,” he wrote, “and
afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not
break it kills.”
The world is a cruel and harsh place. One that, for at least 4.5 billion years,
is undefeated. From entire species of apex predators to Hercules to
Hemingway himself, it has been home to incredibly strong and powerful
creatures. And where are they now? Gone. Dust. As the Bible verse, which
Hemingway opens another one of his books with (and which inspired its
title) goes:
“One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the
earth abideth forever…The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and
hasteth to the place where he arose…”
The world is undefeated. So really then, for all of us, life is not a matter of
“winning” but of surviving as best we can — of breaking and enduring
rather than bending the world to our will the way we sometimes suspect
we can when we are young and arrogant.
This is wrong. Yes, Stoicism is partly about making it so you don’t break as
easily — so you are not so fragile that the slightest change in fortune
wrecks you. At the same time, it’s not about filling you with so much
courage and hubris that you think you are unbreakable. Only the proud and
the stupid think that is even possible.
Instead, the Stoic seeks to develop the skills — the true strength —
required to deal with a cruel world.
Stoicism is there to help you recover when the world breaks you and, in the
recovering, to make you stronger at a much, much deeper level. The Stoic
heals themselves by focusing on what they can control: Their response.
The repairing. The learning of the lessons. Preparing for the future.
This is not an idea exclusive to the West. There is a form of Japanese art
called Kintsugi, which dates back to the 15th century. In it, masters repair
broken plates and cups and bowls, but instead of simply fixing them back
to their original state, they make them better. The broken pieces are not
glued together, but instead fused with a special lacquer mixed with gold or
silver. The legend is that the art form was created after a broken tea bowl
was sent to China for repairs. But the returned bowl was ugly — the same
bowl as before, but cracked. Kintsugi was invented as a way to turn the
scars of a break into something beautiful.
You can see in this tea bowl, which dates to the Edo period and is now in
the Freer Gallery, how the gold seams take an ordinary bowl and add to it
what look like roots, or even blood vessels. This plate, also from the Edo
period, was clearly a work of art in its original form. Now it has subtle gold
filling on the edges where it was clearly chipped and broken by use. This
dark tea bowl, now in the Smithsonian, is accented with what look like
intensely real lightning bolts of gold. The bowl below it shows that more
than just precious metals can improve a broken dish, as the artist clearly
inserted shards of an entirely different bowl to replace the original’s
missing pieces.
Yet…
The author will struggle with the ending of their book and want to quit. The
recognition we sought will not come. The insurance settlement we so
desperately needed will be rejected. The presentation we practiced for will
begin poorly and be beset by technical difficulties. The friend we cherished
will betray us. The haunting scene in A Farewell to Arms can happen, a
child stillborn and a wife lost in labor — and still tragically happens far too
often, even in the developed world.
The question is, as always, what will we do with this? How will we respond?
Death or Kintsugi? Fragile or, to use that wonderful phrase from Nassim
Taleb, Antifragile?
Not unbreakable. Not resistant. Because those that cannot break, cannot
learn, and cannot be made stronger for what happened.
Those that will not break are the ones who the world kills.
Like to Read?
I’ve created a list of 15 books you’ve never heard of that will alter your
worldview and help you excel at your career.
Wabi
Sabi
25K claps
WRITTEN BY
Ryan Holiday
Bestselling author of ‘Conspiracy,’ ‘Ego is the Enemy’ & ‘The
Obstacle Is The Way’ http://amzn.to/24qKRWR
Follow
AboutHelpLegal