On Stoic metaphysics, old haunts, and purpose.
S.R.,
“Soup and Burger is Hell. And we cannot escape.”
J. quipped, recently.
Soup and Burger (henceforth S&B), is, of course, a diner not far south of Union Square, and has long been the site of a weekly ritual of dinner, and conversation, and even before the onset of said ritual has stood on the outskirts of my memory for the same.
The days come, the days go — the seasons change, and while all things are in a perpetual flux, so says our Heraclitus,
“…[w]e step and do not step into the same rivers — we are and we are not…”
Homeric Allegories, B49a (my translation)
S&B has remained a looming spectre, a respite from the whirls of everyday life and its toils, not far from The Strand, where I would spend my teenage years lamenting the lack of time for so many books and pursuits, and even today I might be seen complaining of their prices, and of, still, my lack of time for these same books.
And as to whether or not it is Hell — well, perhaps not Hell, but it does seem that we cannot escape it.
Perhaps it is due to some physical phenomenon — a hitherto unrecognized exertion of gravitational force that we are attracted to it, and subsequently cannot escape.
But it does seem to always be the same sorts of things that occupy us when we are there, if not the exact same things, those of a kind, those of a class.
And force does not account for this lack of differentiation in ourselves and our actions, and it does not seem that we do change.
There is a niche cosmological tenet of the early Stoics, that the universe demonstrates a cyclic destruction and rebirth, where it is consumed in a great conflagration (n.b., the primary element out of which things were composed was fire), and subsequently reconstructed in the same way as it was before, where events and actions of each age would play out as they had before, ad inifinitum.
We can find a precedent for this (the ekpyrosis) in the fragments (or epitomes of those fragments) of Heraclitus:
“The whole is limited and there is only one world. It is begotten from fire and is consumed by fire according to certain periods, for the whole of time. And this arises in accordance with fate.”
Diogenes Laertius, The Lives of Eminent Philosophers 9.8 (my translation)
Such is the inspiration, I’m sure, for Nieztsche’s demon, which I will quote in full:
“What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: “This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, an in the same succession and sequence — even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it, speck of dust!” Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine!’ If this thought gained possession of you, it would change you as you are or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, do you desire this once more and innumerable times more?” would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?”
The Gay Science, 4.341 (Trans. by Walter Kaufmann)
The dramatic quality of the vignette aside, it does raise a valuable question of practical ethics, one which, perhaps, falls outside of any normative ethical theory— if one could guarantee such an eternal recurrence, or at the very least, if this is not true, remind us incessantly of the value implicit in each irrevocable moment, would we live otherwise?
Granted, there is a particular worldview which is presupposed by this question —
One in which perhaps our lives lack meaning as a given, in which the cadence of our lives does not rise and fall in accord with a striving toward a given telos, in which we are deeply, utterly, tragically alone in our journey towards meaning, existing outside of a moral and intellectual and cultural framework, and in which purpose is created, not discovered, and one in which the protagonist writes the narrative, rather than being himself written into the narrative.
These questions are beyond the scope of this piece — it was my intention, rather, to bring it to your attention, and gently remind you of that choice which we make each and every day.
If we take it seriously, and not dismiss it out of hand as a deprecated cosmological position, and treat it rather as an interesting thought experiment, the emotions that it brings to the forefront may be a good indication of our direction — what desires unfulfilled, which suppressed, which sated — though it does not tell us what to do with these, how to listen to them, whether we ought to listen to them. Only an ethical framework can do that — but we are off to a good start merely by asking.
Perhaps we might listen to them, these emotions, intently, plumb them a little, and awake another way of seeing, having some faith in a silent invocation intended only for us ourselves. Perhaps we would do well to trust our intuitions, to follow them, as we would a path inconspicuous on the forest floor, or an alley illuminated by several lights in the distance.
“Midway upon the journey of our life,
I found myself within a dark forest,
For the right way had been lost…”
Dante, Inferno Canto 1.1–3 (my translation)
It all makes a good story, anyhow.
But now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m late for S&B — as I always am.
And always will be.
Farewell.
Sincerely,
George