You want to hurl your phone at the ground and watch it blast to pieces when you hear it ring. You're on the tram going home after a stressful day at work, and still need to take care of some chores before you get to relax, and the last thing you need is another task in the way.
It's your partner. Just what you need. You love them, but you two have been wading through some rough waters lately, encountering problems that should have been addressed earlier on. You haven't had a chance to tell them yet, but you feel as if some time apart is needed in order for you to be the best people for each other and to preserve your relationship's long-term potential. You answer, with the intention of expressing this as well as possible with the energy you have left.
But moments later, the voice on the phone trails away and transforms into a blur. Your ears start ringing, and your stomach almost falls out of your body. You quietly stumble away from the more crowded middle car into a quiet row of seats in the back, still on the line, and collapse into the nearest one. Your partner has already decided on next steps before you had a chance to express your own thoughts, which is to end what you have for good -- no alternatives. You knew that it needed repairing, but not that it was unsalvageable from the other end. You continue to listen and present your point of view, but the words you say don't mean anything. Deep down, you agree, but it took until this moment to see it. The you from your body slowly dissipates, and it's as if a tape recorder takes your place.
That is, until you take a deep breath. In that moment, the full-speed train of emotions slows as you remember that, fundamentally, your ex-partner is simply a human. Since there are billions of other ones out there, it must be possible that one of them can fill the role in your life they had for you. They are, in some sense, replaceable by the fact that they are human, and that they are certainly not the only one. You cannot control the fact that you have lost them, and you must focus only upon that which you can control.
You finish the conversation, step out of the tram, and then calmly walk back to your apartment.
For many of us, such a seemingly composed reaction to a tragedy may feel strange. It is healthy to be in touch with emotions, both good and bad. Good ones can be enjoyed for their own sake, while bad ones may be telling us something about how we relate to some particular aspect of the world. And if there is any situation in which we should have no trepidation about letting emotion flow through, it would be in knowing that a relationship with someone important will be permanently altered. Instead, this person seems to detach from their emotions. They have a salient initial reaction to hearing the news, but then go on to think through why they don’t have to feel so strongly.
There are times when everyone needs to try and put their feelings aside, but we might be concerned about a person who is able to be so robotic in such an emotionally charged situation. And if the character can detach from their emotions in this case, does that mean they will try to avoid feeling those of other people all the time? Would we want to be around someone who is in some way unwilling or unable to empathize with our feelings?
But if we were to ever observe someone with seemingly no reaction to emotional stimuli, we don’t necessarily know why they are detaching, or why they are always trying to sort out their emotions. And if we peer a little deeper, detachment, in fact, can actually point to a particularly vested interest in the well-being of others and one’s self. Detachment, I think, can be a really crucial tool to fully participate in the human experience. To understand why this is the case, we need to take a brief stroll down the road of Stoic philosophy.
You see, the lives of Stoics were more or less completely centered upon detachment. They were keenly aware of how human emotions and feelings could disrupt one's rational faculties -- which they valued greatly -- and subsequently bring great suffering. To deal with their emotions, the Stoics thought scrutinously about what in the world was under their control and what lies beyond. Other people and the actions they take, for instance, are not under our control (though we might sometimes influence them indirectly), while in contrast, we are always able to play with our own. Their solution was to rigorously channel effort only to the aspects of life that were under their control. Emotions happened to fall into this category; the fact that one could, on occasion, disregard and push past them meant that they were conquerable, so being able to fully control what emotions was merely a skill to be mastered. So even if they could feel emotion, they detached from it.
The Stoics tried to control most emotions and feelings, whether they were good or bad. At the onset of anger, which could cause you to act against your principles, Stoic thinker and Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius urged one to step back and reflect on the broader context that caused the anger to arise in the first place. If it was brought on by the actions of another person, he would take note of the fact that no one is perfect throughout the day, and that he could never be sure about the motives of others. With this kind of meditation, the anger would gradually dissipate. The same caution was also necessary for positive feelings, such as pleasure. Epictetus, another well-known Stoic, warned one to not get “carried away” with it, for it could also cause a person to see themselves as overly capable and make them act against the principles of reason. Just as with the person at the beginning, feelings could be restrained with enough effort.
The Stoics were never miserable. They recognized that it was their reactions to the unfolding of reality, but not reality itself, that brought forth all suffering. By seeing themselves in control of their emotional reactions, they were able to nullify their negative impacts. Existence may have been a perpetual struggle for others around them, and it seems the Stoics had the secret sauce to repel against the forces that bring one down.
But it is important to realize that the Stoics did not do this only for themselves. Although the Stoics thought it was imperative to live according to nature, to bravely face any emotion that the events of the world forced upon them and eventually detach, they did this in order to tend to obligations they had for others.
A crucial principle in the Stoic code of living that I have often seen get left out of contemporary discussion is oikeiōsis -- a person’s journey of learning what in life, outside of themselves, would be worthy of making one’s own, even if it can never belong to them in the same way that thoughts would. Early on in life, we recognize that we have control over our hands, our thoughts, or our bodies in general. We can use our body to perform athletic feats, to write, or do any other actions that promote individual and collective well-being. So it is only right that we see our bodies as belonging to ourselves and the means by which we can actualize a worthwhile existence. Detaching from certain mental content, such as emotions, was a way to make the most of one’s body’s ‘time’ in the world. But the Stoics also needed others to live fulfilling lives. Whether it was farmers bringing food to the market, or parents who helped bring them up from childhood, the Stoics would not have achieved the presumably comfortable living standards they enjoyed without help. Since others were part of what made a life so valuable, the Stoics saw it as paramount to see people around them as worthy of belonging to them in some way.
By making others ‘their own’, the Stoics meant that they should regard the interests, dreams, and well-being of others their own. Many of us have experienced this progression, and are engaging in oikeiōsis ourselves. Our years of infancy are spent experimenting with our bodies -- crawling, walking, touching hot stoves, -- and becoming accustomed to them, claiming them, perhaps unknowingly, as our own. As we are socialized, we discover that there are also other people with their own bodies. We are taught in preschool not to hit one of our classmates in an attempt to obtain the toy that we want but they happen to be playing with, because that would be causing harm to their body. And if we are to take an interest in their well-being, harming them would not be conducive to it. So we treat them well.
In oikeiōsis, this ‘sphere’ of caring should only continue to expand through one’s life. As we get older we may travel, perhaps first to new parts of our community, then to other cities in our country, and if we’re fortunate enough, to other continents and cultures completely different from our own. All along the way, one should come to see how everyone is capable of enriching the human experience, and take humanity’s well-being and interests at large as our own.
Oikeiōsis may be best illustrated by the diagram below; we begin life by seeing our body as our own, and overtime, we want to draw the other circles closer to our own. We want to be able to treat our family as we would ourselves, our fellow citizens as we would our family, our countrymen as our fellow citizens, and so on.
But these can coexist. Just as one can detach from negative feelings by orienting focus to what lies within one’s control, a person can detach from the negative feelings they share with another person. As good Stoics, we would want to be aware of the pain that our friend feels from having her bag stolen on the train, and do what is within our control to improve the situation. We cannot go back to the past and our actions in a way that would have caused events to play out differently. We must, instead, accept that emotions may be clouding our ability to meaningfully move forward from the situation, and take action, perhaps first by reporting the theft, cancelling credit cards, and then by going to get a new bag from the mall. Or perhaps, we must first simply listen to our friend’s frustration in order to most effectively move forward. In either case, when engaging in oikeiōsis, we are taking the feelings of those we care about as our own, trying to detach from negative ones, and finding concrete ways to deal with our circumstances. But during all of this, we are also trying to deal with our own emotions and problems. If we are too distracted by our own problems, our headspace will be clouded, so our ability to help others will be greatly diminished. This means that we must first be sufficiently detached from our own problems in order to be there for others to the fullest possible extent.
I think this coexistence is the perfect embodiment of the beauty present within Stoic philosophy. Of course, we can’t (and shouldn’t) always detach from emotions, but in doing so when needed, we are disconnecting from the world in some sense, but we do this in order to connect to it in another way, for detachment allows us to enhance our experience of reality as well as that of others.
The word ‘Stoic’ may usually bring to mind a figure apathetic towards all emotion and one that is disconnected from the world around them. Depending on the context, such a mental image can cast Stoics in a negative light. But if we think of them as detaching in order to be fully present for others, it can be seen fundamentally as a conscious act of care. The person in the beginning detaches so that he can continue to be there for others in their life in spite of what's just taken place. Detachment, seen sometimes wrongly as a complete lack of care, can work as a beautiful way of providing support for one’s self and others.