Our Judgments Are Up to Us

Making Plans, Being Frustrated, and Monitoring Our Minds

Man plans and God laughs.

I mention this old Yiddish adage for two reasons. First, because I said that this post would be out on Friday, just after I announced the name change for this newsletter. Life got in the way (and I expect it will continue to get in the way as I prepare for the birth of my first child — which could happen any day now). Second, because I think Marcus Aurelius might have appreciated this piece of Jewish wisdom.

Our plans are often frustrated. We like to map out exactly how things should be, and we think of how all of this is going to work out for us. Again and again, we are left disappointed. Man plans, God laughs.

As we finish our reading of Notebook 7, I want to focus on this theme. How are we to think of plans, of the future, of circumstance and fortune?

It turns out, Marcus has something to say in §68.

Live your whole life unswayed by outside forces and with a wholly joyful heart, even if everyone else if crying out against you and wild beasts are tearing limb from limb this lump of paste that has been caked around you. After all, is there anything in all this that makes it impossible for the mind to maintain its tranquility, or its ability to judge situations correctly, or its facility at making good use of the circumstances with which it is presented? In effect, then, Judgment says to Situation: “This is what you really are, even if opinion makes you seem otherwise.” And Good Use says to Circumstance: “I’ve been looking for you! As far as I’m concerned, the present is always material for rational and social virtue, and in general for the application of the human or divine skill.” The point being that everything in the world is suitable for God or man. And nothing is new or unmanageable, but familiar and easy to work with.

Everything is familiar and easy to work with, Marcus says. Even, it turns out, being torn limb from limb by wild beasts. This calls to mind an earlier paragraph, in which Marcus says that all vice (and in fact everything) is familiar and temporary.

But the part of this paragraph I’d like to discuss is near the end, when Good Use addresses Circumstance. Let’s turn to that.

As we go through life and try to plan ahead — a natural human tendency, and one that in fact is demanded by prudence — we need to plan for one thing most of all: things will not always go according to plan. And we must decide how we are going to respond to this.

There are a range of negative responses: anger, despair, frustration. These are, almost always (perhaps always, according to the Stoics), the wrong ways to respond. What does our anger achieve? What does despair let us do? How does frustration help us pursue our goals? While complete apathy has little to recommend it, the Stoic ideal is that we should be able to recognize these judgments and correct them.

When things do not go according to plan, that means that things are out of our control. But what is not out of control is our response. How we respond is up to us — and so we should try to avoid these negative responses.

If you are unconvinced, think of times when you have been angry. Do you act in a way that you are proud of when give into your anger? Do you see yourself in those moments as someone worthy of emulation or as a person in need of correction? What did your anger help you achieve? What did it lead you to regret? I for one can say that my anger has rarely, if ever, led me to act in the most appropriate way.

Instead, Marcus counsels, we ought to say this to the world: This is what you really are. We should recognize the world for what it is. That is what Judgment says to Situation. And Good Use follows up the thought. Now that we know what the world is really like, when we have accurately judged it, we can make the best use of it. And according to Marcus, we are always in a position to make the best use of it. That is, we are always in a position to act virtuously, even when we are suffering.

Our judgments are up to us. This sounds almost paradoxical — we think of judgments about the world as forming reflexively. Our minds make themselves up, we might say. While on a moment-to-moment basis this may be true, over an extended period of time it is not. Human beings are capable of monitoring their minds, training them to see the world in a particular way. And when we believe that we have made a cognitive misstep, we are capable of critical reflection and revision.

The Stoic ideal, it could be said, is to have a self-critical mind. That is, we want to have a mind that monitors itself and looks for these missteps. Once we have that, we are able to determine how we can live virtuously in whatever circumstances we find ourselves in. We develop this sort of mind through trial and error — in that way, it is just like growing in virtue.

Two Recommendations

Philosophy Tube recently released a video on Stoicism. I would quibble with some of the presentation, but in others way I thought this video was quite well done. It would be worth your time, if you like watching 40 minute YouTube videos.

And, on a completely different note, this song stood out to me recently.