What is Stoicism? Why Stoicism?

Emperor Marcus Aurelius

Hello to you, our friendly visitor from India or beyond, and thank you for taking your interest (and time) in reading this introductory post. Before we start our journey towards building an active Stoic community in India, I believe it is important to clear a few few things up. And that's why, we need introductory posts like this, that can help you learn more about Stoicism (assuming that you're not familiar with it already) in a few minutes.

I don't consider myself competent enough for the job, let me be frank, but I still take the liberty of doing it, because of my passion for Stoicism. I hope you'll forgive me for the mistakes I make in this post.

What is Stoicism? 

Stoicism is a philosophy, and by philosophy, I refer to a way of living our lives, rather than dwelling on obscure and uselessly complicated ideas on the nature of reality, the meaning of life and raising paradoxes rather than solving them.

Of course, I'm not really against the ardent and passionate students of philosophy as an academic discipline, but it's just that, non-philosophers don't find much use for Kant's concepts of noumenal and phenomenal realities, Schopenhauer's Will and Representation, or the Hegelian methods, for example. I rather adhere to the practicality of philosophy in everyday lives of common men and women, a practice that Socrates had conceived.

And Stoicism is a philosophical school founded by one of Socrates's intellectual descendants, Zeno of Citium (pronounced Kitium), as a way of dealing with life's problems more efficiently, thereby turning ourselves into more efficient individuals that we all are meant to be. It is a philosophy for everyone and anyone, because its ethics is easy to follow and implement in our lives. It is simple, but subtle, and from this simplicity, comes the aura of elegance that makes Stoicism a grand way of living and prospering. Atheists can see it as a replacement for conventional religions, many of which are rooted in violence and superstitions. Theists can find solace in the fact, that Stoicism is perfectly compatible with their religions, since it doesn't dismiss any belief system outright. This is what makes Stoicism so special.

In fact, Stoicism is very similar in its aspects, to the Samkhya Yoga mentioned in the Bhagwad Geeta.

This is a very transhumanistic way of looking into Stoicism, but I believe Stoicism is, and will always remain, a philosophical system or tool for one singular purpose - boundless and infinite expansion of our efficiency as human beings.

A brief history of Stoicism 

Zeno of Citium

After the death of Alexander the Great, mainland Greece was in a restless state, thanks to the endless wars Alexander's successors fought, over his large empire extending from the Aegean shores to the north-western provinces of India. This is regarded as the Hellenistic age in history, and it saw the development of four major (and several minor) schools of philosophy, all of which claimed to have descended from Socrates's philosophy.

These were:

• Epicureanism, founded by Epicurus 
• Stoicism, founder by Zeno
• Scepticism, founded by Pyrrho
• Cynicism, founded by Socrates's disciple Antisthenes

In addition, several smaller schools, such as the Dialectic school of thought, the Cyrenaic school (an extreme version of hedonism) etc developed gradually.

All these schools promised to provide meaning to their students' lives, and help them prosper as better individuals. Their methods differed wildly, however.

The founder of our school of thought, Zeno of Citium, was initially a merchant who worked in his father's business. concepts of noumenal and phenomenal realities, Schopenhauer However, following a shipwreck at the age of 26 (according to some sources), Zeno turned up in Athens. While visiting a bookshop there (selling scrolls, rather than modern books, obviously), he read a book on Socrates, and wondered where he could meet a man as wise and learned as Socrates was. The owner of the shop suggested him to visit Crates, an influential philosopher in the Cynic school of philosophy.

Zeno visited Crates, and got introduced to Cynicism. The Cynics advised a total return to the primitive state of man, that predated society itself, a state that was free of social norms, standards, restrictions etc that man has imposed on himself. One of its most famous teachers, Diogenes, famously lived inside a tub in the open market.

In fact, the word Cynic is related to the Greek word Kynikos (dog), because the Cynics indeed advised their followers to abstain from following social protocols and rules, and live freely. Although this definitely had much wisdom in it, the approach didn't particular appeal to Zeno, because of its extreme ideology.

As such, Zeno is known to have studied at several other schools of thought, and was influenced by a number of them. Then, he developed a philosophy himself, that came to be known as Stoicism.

The word Stoicism is derived from the Greek Stoa Poikile, which refers to a painted porch or colonnade that was situated in the northern side of the Athenian market or Agora.

Following Zeno, his student Cleanthes led the Stoa, but it was under the great logician Chrysippus that the Stoic school truly blossomed. In the later years, the ethical part of Stoic philosophy prospered greatly, under the four great stalwarts of Stoicism hailing from the Roman empire, namely Seneca the elder, Musonius Rufus, Epictetus and emperor Marcus Aurelius. But the rise of Christianity and the beginning of the dark ages caused Stoicism to take a hit. It wasn't until the late Renaissance period that interest in Stoicism rejuvenated itself.

Why Stoicism? 

The purpose of Newstoa is to revive and spread Stoicism, for sake of betterment of human lives. In this age of gadgets and devices, we are rooting and overclocking pretty much everything. But no matter how optimized and efficient our smartphones are, their users, aka we ourselves, are not performing very well ourselves.

Whenever someone insults us, we get agitated and take the bait. When we face personal loss and tragedy, we break down. When we rise to success, we become engulfed by pride, thereby allowing ourselves to get plunged back into the depths of misery and anguish. Aren't we so predictable, my friends? Aren't we like robots, rather, and run as per the programs that natural selection and evolution have collectively installed inside us?

A reconstruction of the Stoa Poikile

This is why Stoicism is important. It is not the only way to improve ourselves, but it's a very efficient way to do so. And unlike those commercial meditation courses or self-help programmes, it doesn't cost a dime to be a Stoic. Nor does it take any serious commitment to become a Stoic, as it usually does in the case of joining spiritual movements, or changing your religion.

Learning Stoicism is easy, but mastering it is hard. But no matter how little Stoicism we manage to apply in our lives, we can always see some improvement. At least, in my personal case, that has been the truth. 

Conclusion 

And now, let me share a secret with you all. I myself know very little about Stoicism, to be honest. I am a novice student of the philosophy, and I am still learning to apply it properly. This is why we created this blog, to help each other in the process of becoming better Stoics.

Individually we are weak and confused, but collectively, we can make it happen. That's another way of putting Linus's Law ("Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow") into words, from a societal perspective.

If you are a practising Stoic, please consider sharing your thoughts and experience with us. We'll do the same, and thus, everyone will reap the harvest.

If you are not familiar with Stoicism, and would like to know more about it, please visit http://newstoa.com/ and check out the massive library of free eBooks on Stoicism, that the members of Newstoa have collectively written. An especially helpful and free-to-download-print-and-share resource is the Stoic Handbook, that Erik Wiegardt, one of the founding members of Newstoa, has written. It is available here: http://newstoa.com/books

And obviously, stay tuned for more articles to come. 

"Happiness is the good flow of life"
 - Zeno