How to Live in Times of Upheaval: The Categories of Desire

Quote from Godfrey

Re post #12 graphic: also include PDs 15, 21, 26 and 29, in addition to 30.

FYI:

15. Natural wealth is both limited and easy to acquire, but the riches incited by groundless opinion have no end. ὁ τῆς φύσεως πλοῦτος καὶ ὥρισται καὶ εὐπόριστός ἐστιν, ὁ δὲ τῶν κενῶν (kenōn < emptiness, void) δοξῶν εἰς ἄπειρον ἐκπίπτει.

ἄπειρον = infinity "no-limit"

Limited in this PD is ὥρισται which includes the connotation of "limit (one thing according to another)"

"Easy to acquire" reminds me of the 3rd line of the tetrapharmakos.

I like the connotation of ὁ τῶν κενῶν δοξῶν εἰς ἄπειρον ἐκπίπτει. Those based on empty beliefs εἰς ἄπειρον ἐκπίπτει. ἐκπίπτει has a meaning "to fall out, fall down" but also to be cast ashore or suffer shipwreck, to be driven out or banished, etc. εἰς ἄπειρον "into infinity." So, to me, this has the underlying meaning of having an empty desire for limitless wealth is like being banished to search for satisfaction in your wealth into the infinite void with no end in sight forever.

Quote from Godfrey

At the moment, I haven’t got much further than compiling this list. And of course many of the questions will only apply to a particular type of upheaval, and the answers will be different for everyone and in each situation.

I would like to emphasize Cassius' famous phrase: "Don't be a Stoic in disguise!"

The point is not to ask what's in my power and what is beyond my capabilities and to examine everything that comes to my mind according to this procedure. The key is to actually focus on what's important in life, what does have priority and what is established by nature as the foundation of life.

1. everything that natural, either necessary like to stay hydrated or 2. a tasty soft drink derived from that need what one could call not necessary. 3. Not necessary desires which are not to focus on.

I like this classification because it gives positive statements what to pursue. I know there is space for interpretation and to some degree in modern consumer society there is plenty of food, drink and clothing available. But perhaps this is exactly the trap: Thinking the easy things don't matter because they seem to be too easy to achieve!

In your case the message could be: Focus on a healthy diet, focus on your corporeal well-being, focus on your social interactions. Strengthen the foundation. So you don't get distressed by what's going on on the screens. The direct response you receive is that you (hopefully!) have plenty of food, drink and shelter as well as friends available and that is it what is first and what matters foremost.

This is to experience in our everydays lives. As the natural desires usually give a direct response related to our senses, hopefully this can be a strategy to go skip the abstract fears in one's head.

(I've just mentioned the very essentials of life, but this doesn't mean to not focus on other pleasurable experiences. This is just a personal preference.)

Fill yourself up with the fullness of pleasure, so the emptiness of the world cannot enter!

Quote from Godfrey

Re post #12 graphic: also include PDs 15, 21, 26 and 29, in addition to 30.

Thanks Godfrey... I updated it

Quote from Titus

The point is not to ask what's in my power and what is beyond my capabilities and to examine everything that comes to my mind according to this procedure. The key is to actually focus on what's important in life, what does have priority and what is established by nature as the foundation of life.

I would agree that for the most part; however, the Stoics have no monopoly on what is usually ascribed to them:

Quote from Epicurus, letter to Menoikeus

whom do you consider is better or more powerful than one who holds pious beliefs concerning the gods; one who has absolutely no fears concerning death; one who has rationally determined the τέλος of one's natural state; and the one who grasps that, on the one hand, good things (namely pleasures) are both easily attained and easily secured, and, on the other hand, evil things (or pains) are either short in time or brief in suffering; someone who laughs at Fate which is introduced onto the stage of life by many as the mistress of all things? For that person, even though some things happen by necessity, some by chance, and some by our own power, for although necessity is beyond our control, they see that chance is unstable and there is no other master beyond themselves, so that praise and its opposite are inseparably connected to themselves.