I That is me you see in the rumbling and roil. The timid soul; that is me. You see, A fettered disposition, tamed, me, silent to fervent, Teeming, and lost. You! The shout echoes. Damn You! I shout, Again. The best of my years passed, you say. Protest against that. You used to rumble. Has the shake of the pan dropped you? Before we return to sediment, fight, Fight the erosion with the strength of the storm.
The Stoic
Most efforts of examining the Stoic Philosophy are centered around the examination of Marcus Aurelius’ journal or the letters of Seneca.
While valuable, these paths have been tread. No one can do it as succinctly or popularly as Ryan Holiday; praise be to him, oh lanky genius of stoicism.
This letter is different. This is creative practice and examination matching the poetic and the stoic, hence the name.
The poem above is about momento mori (remembering that you will die) and the struggle of amor fati (the love of fate).
An aspect of Stoic practice not often examined is the struggle to not struggle. The disinterested temperament is difficult to achieve, but oh so valuable. Coming towards your own life objectively, rather than subjectively, takes work.
For the smallest piece of practical advice I can give here is this: Reaction is instinctual, a reflex, out of your control. Action is effort, and that is within your agency.
The Poetic
Manifest destiny and America, the gold rush, Oregon or bust. Tenacity is in all of these.
But there is struggle. Fettered is chained just as much as unfettered means free. But here, the chaining is more of a ballast than it is binding.
The shake of the pan is of course gold. The gold is ideal life and the shaking of the pan is the unyielding passage of time. Fighting against the difficulties of life is not un-stoic. In fact, it is so verifiably a key part of stoic practice.
The key is to not be governed by the rumbling and roil.