24/07/2021 Email – David Santana – Outlook

Don’t Stuff Your Emotions Down

Daily Stoic <info@dailystoic.com>
Sex, 23/07/2021 09:47
Para: D <davidsantanase@hotmail.com>

The popular image of the Stoic is of the unfeeling beast. The tough person,
gritting, gutting, it out.

But this is wrong.

Just look at the story we have of Marcus Aurelius, consumed with grief.
After the death of one of his favorite teachers, a young Marcus could barely
drag himself out of bed. One of his attendants tried to rouse him from this
seemingly un-Stoic state, thinking it was the right thing to do, but
Antoninus Pius, Marcus’s adopted stepfather, stepped in and stopped him.

“Let him be human for once,” he said, “for neither philosophy nor the
empire takes away natural feelings.”

This is an important counterpoint to the Stoic mythology of the superman,

the unfeeling, invincible, immovable philosopher robot. Of course a Stoic
grieves! Of course they love and favor and get knocked down by life. A
Stoic gets scared, a Stoic mourns, a Stoic worries.

A Stoic feels.

There must have been many such moments in Marcus’s tragic life. He lost
multiple young children. He lost his wife. He lost Antoninus. He lost
Rusticus. He lived and led through a terrible plague. We know he cried then
too. Who wouldn’t?

If he had stuffed those emotions down, it wouldn’t have made him tougher.
It would have hurt him. It would have been to swallow emotional poison
that would have made him more irritable, more vulnerable—vulnerable to
the straw that would eventually break the camel’s back. No, it was good
that he felt these things, processed them, and worked through them.
https://outlook.live.com/mail/0/inbox/id/AQQkADAwATY3ZmYAZS1mNDAzLTc1MjktMDACLTAwCgAQAMqvkEWKgAdEnJI5%2Bzpk9jg%3D 1/2
24/07/2021 Email – David Santana – Outlook

What a Stoic does try to do is to not be carried to excess by any of these

natural feelings. We try not to be enslaved or destroyed by them.
Antoninus intervened and gave Marcus the space to mourn the loss of a
dear teacher who had just died because that was a perfectly reasonable
response. Now, if a year later, or even a month later, Marcus still wasn’t
getting out of bed? You can imagine Antoninus would have intervened
there too, but on the same side as the attendant this time, because to allow
death to ruin the lives of the living is not natural or human either.

It’s OK to let it out sometimes, don’t feel bad if that’s what you need. Life
can be a bit of a pressure cooker at times, and like an actual pressure
cooker, you’ve got to hit the release valve every so often so that the whole
thing doesn’t explode in your face. You’re only human. So be human—not
just once, but all the time—and let yourself feel.

Listen to Today's Podcast

View This Email in URL

Unsubscribe | I only want to receive Saturday Stoic Review emails | Update your profile

906 Main Street #274, Bastrop, Texas 78602

https://outlook.live.com/mail/0/inbox/id/AQQkADAwATY3ZmYAZS1mNDAzLTc1MjktMDACLTAwCgAQAMqvkEWKgAdEnJI5%2Bzpk9jg%3D 2/2