Via negativa.
If you do less, you do the things you do better. You’re not hurried and distracted.
Marcus Aurelius wrote something new about this in Meditations. It wasn’t there last time I read the book:
But we need to eliminate unnecessary assumptions as well. To eliminate the unnecessary actions that follow.
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.25 (Gregory Hays translation)
I make up stuff and take actions because of the made up ideas, not because reality requires me to act.
Strip away opinions that are luxury opinions. I don’t need theme, they don’t improve my life, they don’t directly bear on how I deal with the things that happen around me today.
In fact, I don’t even need to have opinions about a lot of things that happen round me. Yes, these things may be real. (Though I really do not know, because the difference between factual reporting and propaganda is negligible). But they are not relevant to me.
If I don’t have an opinion on something outside my control, I don’t take action on it. Better yet, I don’t get sucked into misery because of my attitude about things outside of my control.
Even having opinions about the things within my control might be superfluous.
Peace of mind is one thing. But being less busy? That would be an immediate blessing.
Watch yourself. If you’re disturbed, you know the reason is because of yourself. Something exists (in or out of your control) that came to your attention and now it bothers you.
Let’s deal with the easy stuff first. Recognize the “out of your control” stuff and allow yourself to not have an opinion. Be agnostic.
Then you can let the “I’m bothered” inflammation heal because you’re not continuing to irritate yourself. And you’re likely do do less dumb shit, like say things about stuff that you know nothing about and will never affect you anyway.
Like politics. The recent election made me toxic. That’s the main reason for the hard boundaries I have placed around the garden of my mind (blocking software like Freedom, for instance). All of politics is out of my control, so there is no reason to have strong opinions. Or weak ones, for that matter. It’s not my job. It might become my job, but it isn’t my job today.
The important change is the deeper meaning of what is happening to me. By that I am referring to strengthening the inside man, the moral character, and by doing so being of value to the community.
In that arena I have moved from lethargic indifference to quiet participant. I have stripped away the luxury opinions of political outrage. Those opinions do me no good and make me a cranky bastard, or no help to others. I’m reminded of Bob’s joking reminder of how not to be helpful: “He was wrong and I told him so.”
That is an example of via negativa in my life today. I am peaceful and, God willing, I can be helpful to those around me so they can see reality, find peace, and help those around them, too.
You would think that this course of action makes me softer, wishy-washy. I am discovering that quite the contrary is happening. There is an inner core of belief that has become clearer, easier to act on. I know why these beliefs are beneficial to me and those around me.
Despite being strongly held, these principles make me more broadly tolerant than before. But without question I am becoming harder in other ways. (I use harder in the sense of describing a hardened warrior. Tough, unafraid, has seen things, realistic, decisive. Anabasis, by Xenophon. Think of those men.)
If I am typical (probably not!), what is the overall impact on national politics? What would be the impact of many people like me, turning inward toward old virtues, from the Stoics and Christianity? Not my problem. That is something I am sure of.
My job: live an honorable life, care for and help my family to the best of my ability, care for friends and neighbors, support actions that are the best for my immediate community as a whole.
Anything beyond that and my impact is diffuse and unlikely to make a difference. My actions (“Save the whales!”) will make so little difference to the perceived problem that they will only serve to increase my dissatisfaction.
I, alone, cannot save the whales. And when I try and fail, I will be unhappy because I failed. So I do things within my control only, for local impact only, and let the impact of those actions ripple outward as they will.
Who know? Maybe this is the cumulative effect of half a lifetime of work on the inner man. All I know is that the path feels right. Do less, do it locally, do it at a foundational level.
And do it slyly, like the fox. 😉