Traveling in South Australia at the moment and getting caught up on my reading. I have enjoyed several great books, including Hans Rosling’s Factfulness (highly recommended, by the way) and this one by John Truant. The title can be annoying but, if you walk around every day on eggshells, nervous about making a mistake or looking stupid, then you should read this.
As I was reading through it, and as luck would have it, the Daily Stoic came out with a wonderful piece about how you don’t really have an excuse for not being the best man or woman you can be. I was also reminded of how many people search for excuses for their poor behavior, or for their choices, on the basis of some imagined conspiracy of the universe against them (be it racism or ageism or sexism, or what have you).
The universe? My goodness – how we can stretch to find people or things or an entire universe to blame for what we do or what we have failed to do.
Look, the universe is very big and you, my friend, are very small. In fact, you’re so small and so insignificant in the big picture that you don’t even register to the eye of the cosmos. The universe was here before you were born and will be here long after you’re gone, and your life is barely a blip on its vast, vast radar (f even that!).
If your life is to matter, it’s not going to matter to the universe. It’s up to you make your life matter in the only way you can: by doing things that make a difference to you, to those around you, and to those whose lives you touch.
Time is short. You have exactly NOW to do whatever it is you’re here to do, or to let the inexorable passage of hours and days and years kill your potential like fruit left to die on a vine.
The universe doesn’t hate you, but it doesn’t love you, either. You’re just an atom in its infinite workings. The universe doesn’t care if you live, die, suffer, or thrive. Whatever your life here will mean is up to you.
Stop worrying so much about what others think and start being who you’re supposed to be. It’s time to do some epic shit.
The Daily Stoic reminds us of how Freud was so very fond of Shakespeare. In fact, he frequently turned to Shakespeare’s plays for analogies. In one of Freud’s essays on personality types, he explains how nearly every person imitates–on a smaller scale–the pathology of Richard III.
And in case you don’t recall Dick the Third’s particular brand of malevolence, suffice to say that Shakespeare didn’t just assume the pathology of 15th-century English politics but instead wondered what was wrong with a man who plotted to kill everyone, including family members, who stood between him and “his” throne (kinda like some politicians today, when you stop to think about it. Memo to The Donald: Re-Read this play. Vladimir is in it.)
In short, Shakespeare concluded that, when we come to believe that we have somehow been deprived or slighted by nature, we feel somehow justified in becoming inordinately and murderously angry. We assume ourselves to be entitled to special treatment or exemption from the rules.
Freud wrote:
We all think we have reason to reproach Nature and our destiny for congenital and infantile disadvantages; we all demand reparation for early wounds to our narcissism, our self-love. Why did not Nature give us the golden curls of Balder or the strength of Atlas or the lofty brow of genius or the noble profile of aristocracy? Why were we born in a middle-class home instead of in a royal palace?
Since we weren’t given these things, does that automagically excuse us from being decent, from being a self-disciplined, contributing member of society?
Nope. In the end, it is nothing but ridiculous, impotent rage.
Okay, so your parents didn’t give you everything you wanted; So, someone you loved cheated on you; So, you’re not as tall or as pretty or as athletic as other people around you seem to be.
Is that an excuse to be a jerk? To not utilize your other talents and appreciate your other
Old Markie Arelius
blessings?
As Marcus Aurelius liked to quote from Euripides, “Why should you feel anger at the world? As if the world would notice!” Or, to quote Johnny Truant, “the Universe doesn’t give a flying fuck.”
And it’s certainly not going to give you reparations because Fortune was not as generous as it could have been.
What is is. What matters is what you’re going to do. No excuses. No anger. Take responsibility for your life and live it. Right now. Today.
