Daily Stoic: What About Now?

 No meditation today, just me working some things out.

Stoicism is a way to keep ourselves on track and focus on what we can do that is important. It has helped me stay on an even keel through the last few months. And I am not ready to quit, because it is helping me be a better person.

But then there are things that are very for me hard to cope with. Things that, according to Stoicism I should let go, insofar as my internal feelings. I can't. I can ignore everything because it hurts. But I can't lament everything because one only has so much they can stand. Stoicism would seem to mean acknowledge it and move on with your own journey. Help if you can.

The large death toll in Türkiye and Syria is devastating. The war in Ukraine is devastating. And, in the age of the internet, the list of devastating things down to painful down to hurtful is so large it can seems overwhelming. Maybe it was easier to ignore the horrible in the age before world wide, immediate communications. 

Now, just the constant barrage of bad news - which sells more than good news - is like a tide that just comes further and further in and never goes out.

(Bit of a change in direction here)

The argument that many people make in times like this is that there is no God. The Stoics disagreed; they said that the work of the Gods (remember - Greek pantheon here, pre-Jesus) is inherently capricious and unknowable. That Stoics must not lament what the Gods do, but to continue on the path to a better self even after they have done something terrible.

Like kill 11,000 dead and counting in a place where they are already millions of displaced due to a war.