The self-help philosophy from the classical world

Self-help manuals are big business today (a book called Let Them continues to be a leading best-seller). One of the most interesting self-help philosophies, I’ve found, is Stoicism. Deriving from the classical world of Greece and Rome, the counsel of Epictetus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius encourage us to accept what we cannot change and focus on what is within our control.

A follower of the Stoics recently sent me a video of ‘50 Short Rules for Life from the Stoics’ and it was fascinating to see how aligned these are with Christianity.

Advice

Ryan Holiday, the well-known Stoic author (and populariser) lists practices which monks and nuns must have been familiar with throughout the centuries – and which some of us even absorbed with the penny catechism.

For example: meditate on your mortality: see some good in every person: you have no possessions (we come naked into the world and will thus go out of it): improve yourself day by day: forgive.

‘Interrogate yourself’ is the Stoical version of ‘examine your conscience.’

There are so many parallels with the traditions of Catholic Christianity, where striving for the best outcome was always urged”

Stoical advice strikes me as practical even in our hectic world. Such as – prepare for life’s setbacks: focus on what is essential: don’t suffer imagined troubles: accept ‘without arrogance’ and ‘let go with indifference’.

Aspire to the four virtues: Courage, temperance, justice and wisdom.

You are a product of your habits – so develop good ones. Don’t compare yourself to others but learn something from everyone.

What will happen, will happen:  you can’t control events, but you can control your own responses.

There are so many parallels with the traditions of Catholic Christianity, where striving for the best outcome was always urged, and yet ‘the will of God’ would prevail – and be accepted.

Classical

Early Christianity drew on the classical world, as well as rejecting its cruelties and excesses. St Paul, notably, was a Hellenised Jew and these ancient wisdoms would have been familiar to him. When he said, “suffer in silence”, was he not influenced by Stoical values?

Christianity superseded the classical world, and as Tom Holland writes in his magisterial Dominion, the faith became the source and origin of our entire civilisation. But Stoicism became enfolded within universal Christianity – until it fell out of fashion for seeming too hard, too unbending. The Stoical ‘stiff upper lip’ was condemned as repressing emotion, in mid-20th century.

Yet the Stoical nostrums remain useful and still flourish as a self-help guide for today. Such as: be humble, but don’t be afraid to ask for help; ego is the enemy – stillness is the key; and see beauty even in the mundane.

The railway revolutions

To celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of the railways, the Royal Mail in London has issued a commemorative set of collectors’ stamps, out this past week. Six images illustrate the first working locomotives of the Stockton and Darlington line in Co. Durham, which puffed off under steam in September 1825. The railway revolution which followed brought about huge social changes.

Snobs warned that the general public would get above themselves if empowered to travel anywhere by train; some moralists thought train travel would lead to promiscuity (William Frith’s The Railway Station is said to suggest this.) Tolstoy called the train “the work of the devil” – and caused his heroine, Anna Karenina, to die under a locomotive’s wheels.

Train timetables meant the end of local time – railway clocks had to be co-ordinated – and the closure of coaching inns which had refreshed road travellers, and horses. The train revolutionised letter-writing by swiftly carrying the mail and prompted new kinds of architecture and bridge-building.

In America, the railroads opened up the west, but the ‘iron horse’ also destroyed much of Native American territory.

Ireland’s railways started a little later, in 1834, with the first passenger train between Dublin’s Westland Row (Pearse Station) and Kingstown (Dun Laoghaire). By 1920, Ireland a large rail network covering over 3,000 miles. My Galway forebears regarded the train from Galway to Clifden (1895-1935) as famously scenic. There are still nostalgic feelings for the defunct Tralee & Dingle light railway, and the abolished Harcourt Street line in Dublin, closed down in the 1950s when it was believed that ‘the future is with the car’.

But everywhere, now, the train is making a comeback. It’s a great way to travel.

Justine McCarthy, writing in The Irish Times, has been complaining about the current lack of manners on Irish transport, both train and bus. When everyone has their nose stuck in their phone, humans are possibly less aware of others.

The French have always been more forthright about demanding rights to a seat on public transport, if elderly, infirm or pregnant. They just utter the phrase “priorité, s’il vous plait!” People should be bolder about requesting a seat on a bus or train if their needs are greater: don’t be shy – feel entitled to ask!