A Stoic Resurgence

In reading a few other blogs lately, Stoicism has come up a few times, and I'm seeing it in a few books I've been reading lately too.  Maybe it'll stick this time.

In Robin Hanson's blog discussing why middle aged people are most pessimistic, I suggested that maybe it's a point in life where we know too much horrible crap happening in the world, and it's making us miserable.  And we're just before a point in which we've found a way to cope with the unending tragedies that are part of being alive.  Maybe my cohort will become happier in a stoic manner - once we get our heads around how little control we have over the world, accept that many of these problems aren't ours to solve, and develop a tranquility around it all.

On Stoic Environmentalism

I'm doing the Stoic Week thing this week.  It's just a matter of contemplating specific quotations each day.  Even though I studied them years ago, and teach about them even, and maybe should have figured this all out long ago, I'm still stuck on the first reading.  I'm a slow thinker.

Here's the reading from yesterday - a little bit from the Encheiridion of Epictetus:

Some things are under our control, while others are not under our control. Under our control are conception [the way we define things], intention [the voluntary impulse to act], desire [to get something], aversion [the desire to avoid something], and, in a word, everything that is our own doing; not under our control are our body, our property, reputation, position [or office] in society, and, in a word, everything that is not our own doing.

First of all, how is desire under our control?  I wonder if desire is the best translation here because I can't control what I desire to have or avoid at all. I can only control whether or not I act on that desire.  And with a bit of practice, maybe I might be able to stop some of my desires, or desensitize myself from aversions.  But desire is pretty automatic; we desire or are repelled in an instant.