Delphic Maxim 90: Live without sorrow
I’ve set myself the challenge of responding to each Delphic Maxim for 15 minutes a day.
90. Live without sorrow
Heroes that are plagued by sorrow always seem to come to sorry ends. It’s actually hard to think of many of them off the cuff, but Herakles comes mind (even if he is plagued more by guilt and rage than sorrow itself). Herakles loses his temper and kills his own children, a pretty significant character flaw, and this is what condemns him to his famous ‘twelve labours’. In a way, this is a reminder that we should exercise temperance and restraint, but the sadness plagues Herakles for the rest of his life.
Sorrow comes for us at one point or another in life — it’s the condition of life that things come to an end or cause us grief. We don’t live in a utopia or a paradise of eternal youth and immortality, so sorrow is a pretty fundamental part of the human condition. I think the idea that we ‘live without sorrow’ isn’t to say that we go a life without experiencing it, but rather that we don’t live our lives consumed by it.
The Stoics take a fairly unique tack on the issue of sorrow. Seneca, likely following from Epictetus and the Enchiridion, suggests that we remind ourselves each day that we could lose what we have. Stoic philosophers recommended that we recognise life for the ephemeral thing that it is, that at any time we could lose our children (though Herakles didn’t have to lose his so early, if he could only manage his rage). Then, when loss comes to us, we are prepared for it, we are able to deal with it.
I imagine this is why as people get older, they come to terms with the idea of loss, and mortality, and peace seems to settle on them. I shouldn’t suggest that these are the only occasions when sorrow comes into our lives, but in a way it is the main one: it’s hard to think of events other than the loss or suffering of a person that would lead to sorrow. But preparedness and acceptance — especially if it is a natural thing — is one way to live without sorrow.
The Stoics, like the Confucian/Daoist ideas about the way, believed that nature’s course was best followed and not resisted — a boat riding on a river has an easier time going with the current than fighting it. It also gives life momentum and opportunity, rather than paddling frantically against the tide.
Our emotional states tell us something about ourselves. For that reason it’s not sensible to repress them. Feeling sorrow is perfectly natural, but we aren’t built to feel the same thing forever — we don’t want to get stuck in a loop, we need eventually to return to the normal function of life. Living without sorrow involves feeling it when we need to, and then letting it go. Some people argue that our default state of mind is happiness — so the question is whether happiness is closer to contentment or pleasure. A life lived in sorrow robs us of either, so we are best to roll with the punches, let ourselves feel down and sorry for loss, and then dust ourselves off and get on with it.
