The Last Stoics Standing Are the Elderclowns

The CLOWN is an ambiguous figure. S/he goes two ways. The ELDER clown, wearing the famed double mask of theatre, is a seasoned expert at perfecting dual comic-tragic presentation -- being old enough to have seen all sides of life. A clown (also known as the "wise fool" or "holy fool") is a philosopher. Elder ones are often of the Stoic school. 

Do schools of philosophy match phases of the life span (and maybe also the eras of human civilization)? Infants are still at one with nature, and humanity's earliest mind-body lore is pagan. Beyond early childhood, which schools match which phases of life?

Adolescence: Nihilism (Morality has no factual basis.)

Early adulthood: Existentialism (Life has no inherent purpose, it's up to the individual to create meaning. Wear weird clothes.)

Early middle age: Hedonism (Pleasure is tops. Seize - and share - the most you can get while you can get it.)

Later middle age: Empiricism (with a topping of Rationalism. Face facts, be logical. Top up your pension, slim down your diet.)

Senior years: Stoicism (Acceptance, inner balance, calmly knowing what you can and can't control, and seeing the humour in it all even in the face of death).

At the Philosophy Cafe the elder-philosophers consider themselves the Last Stoics Standing -- while also falling down laughing. 

Visit the Cafe at Just Jests:

https://justjests.blogspot.com/2022/12/chapter-one-epictetus-was-street-corner.html

The Comic in Tragic Times

When people want to look upon their times as tragic, tragic they become, or at least tragi-comic. All times have at least some bad things happen, to at least some of the people. 

In Canada during the COVID pandemic, “countless businesses permanently closed”, according to Mondaq.com (providing data from professional services firms). Statistics indicate that about 40% of couples are considering divorce, and only 53% of people say their mental health is good. Add fear of climate change, war, and price inflation, and you get a picture if not black at least grey.

This is a good time to escape into comedy, humanity's age-old response to tragic realities. Humanity wears two masks, which symbolize the theatrical arts and mirror the good-evil, light-dark dualities of religion. You'd think we'd need the smiling mask more than ever during times of pandemic and war, but it's hard for comics to play their role in a depressed society.

“It's not funny,” protest folks who don't want to be cheered up. 

Add to this the fact that so many groups feel “marginalized” -- while they clamour for compensation there's a feeling that humour is inappropriate. It's vague what they feel on the margins of, but resentment is a free-floating thing. Some people enjoy the pleasure of dis-approving more than the pleasure of approving; so in the Comedy Club called Life, laugh at your peril.

The comedian, whose role was always to play the “holy fool” and look askance at social “truths”, is an emergency responder, a front-line worker whose job is to get out of line. But you've got to be wise to play the fool. 

As a first responder the comic is looking for the funny side of things, but keeps finding hidden sides of miserable things. Life is funny that way -- but you don't dare let your first response be laughter. Too bad, because the pleasure instinct is the survival instinct, as the ancient Stoic philosophers knew.

In ancient Rome they'd sit on a "stoa" (porch) to offer spontaneous philosophy to passers-by. Keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, they advised, way before Kipling did. Don't stress about what you can't fix. Enjoy what's enjoyable. Maybe we need to spend more time on stoas today.

Whatever we do let's not cancel comedy (not censor the comedians and cartoonists). They may be our best therapists, in a time of resentments and obsession with mental illness. Jokes, jocosity and jests probably save more lives than mood medication does. They are mental vitamins.

(For more Stoic wisdom-humour, visit www.justjests.blogspot.com)

Taking the Long View -- climate is long, humanity is short

They tell us to be afraid -- be very afraid -- about so many things.

Especially, now, everyone's afraid about Climate Change.

Me too. But I mean that I fear leaving my coat at home when the weather shifts, losing my scarf, being caught in the rain with no umbrella. I live day to day; they mean Global Warming.

Me too: I fear global hot debate, heated dispute and an international conflagration of all-out war … and then an answering freeze, a pendulum swing to freeze free thought and speech, a chill of mass surveillance, of impolitic policy and impolite police.

Mother Nature's Global Mood Swing won't be changed by us, we can only change the weather of our own lives and communications. An inner calm creates a temperate zone.

They fear Rising Seas.

I fear the sinking slough of despond.

The seas up-rise frequently, geologically speaking. Quaking mountains have often tumbled cities into earthen depths, to be discovered by future archaeologists. Will the next future ones be robots? Artificial intelligence set loose by plague-struck humans arguing about pronouns while civilization collapses?

Again.

So many civilizations are "lost". So many civilities are on the way out, today.

They fear Carbon appearing in all the wrong places.

I fear dying of thirst, while water evaporates from lakes and soil and language evaporates before it, a mindless conscripted vanguard decimated -- one in ten words lost, one in ten shades of meaning -- leaving us thirsting for ways to explain, to understand.

They fear a spread of Climate Poverty.

I fear the litter of bones, dead birds and beasts spread in our wake. But Nature will plough them into the dry soil, re-harvesting the minerals for new life forms to be enjoyed by new viruses making cell-factories operating anew, building life in novel ways.

She'll be okay, Nature. She and atmosphere are partners, able to go about their business just fine without humanity under foot.

Where will we have gone? We can't start again as "primitives": you can only be primal (first) once. Maybe we will pervade ("go on through") as pure consciousness. Per-haps. ("Through luck").

Maybe consciousness is what we descended from in the beginning before beginnings, before time was created by the weather of change.

The Climate is changing? What else would it do?