After 50 years of Catastrophism, we are now facing the cliff. What would Seneca do?

 The Raft of the Medusa, a painting by Theodore Géricault (1818). It seems to illustrate how some people feel in the current situation: survival implies throwing other people out of the raft. 

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, the Roman Philosopher, was never a catastrophist, but he understood that in life, you have to expect ups and downs. And that when things go bad, they go bad fast (festinantur in damnum). This is what I called the "Seneca Effect." 

Seneca was a stoic, a person steeped in the views of his times. It was an age when people understood that their control of the vagaries of life was limited. Sickness, ruin, pain, and death were facts of life for people who had no aspirin, no life insurance, and no dentists. In the stoics' view, bad moments had to be accepted and lived as a test of your moral fortitude, not as an excuse to forget one's duties in life. Seneca, just like all of us, had his defects. But when the final moment came, he accepted his destiny with dignity and serenity. 

And here we are, what holds for a single person holds for humankind. We are facing a serious downturn, a decline that could be so rapid to call it a cliff. Half a century after the serious warning of "The Limits to Growth," we not yet falling, but we are on the edge. We start seeing the chasm ahead while the fog of time clears. 

Is this becoming a test of moral fortitude for humankind? If it is, humans are failing it, badly. Humans are dividing themselves into tribes that fight each other, so far only verbally. Some just refuse to look ahead. Others think that, when jumping from the cliff, they'll be able to fly. Others search for someone to blame. 

A mixture of ignorance and aggressivity generates a tremendous wave of hate, at least from what I can see in the comments to another post of mine. These people seem to think they are already on the raft of the Medusa, the French ship wrecked at sea in 1816. Only 15 out of the 146 people stranded on the raft survived. And they did that by throwing the others into the sea and recurring to cannibalism. 

But we are not there yet. There is still space for avoiding the sandbanks. We still can do our duty to live and help others live. Be a good stoic; do not lose hope, and do not fall into cruelty. 

Let it Break -- a Stoic Poem

 

A poem by Claudia Crispolti that could have been written by Seneca or by any stoic philosopher of ancient times. It shows how stoicism is still part of our way of thinking and probably will ever be, no matter what devils our world is presenting to us everyday. (translated from Italian by UB)

 

 LET IT BREAK 

Let things break, stop trying to keep them glued together. 

Let the people get angry, 

Let them criticize you, their reaction is not your problem. 

Let it all fall apart, and don't worry about afterwards. 

Where will I go? 

What am I going to do? 

No one has ever been lost along the way, no one has ever been without shelter. 

What is destined to go will go away anyway. 

What will have to remain, will remain anyway. 

Too much effort is never a good sign, too much effort is a sign of conflict with the universe. 

Relations 

Work

Home

Friends and great loves 

Give everything to the earth and the sky, water when you can, pray and dance but then let what it needs to blossom and let the dry leaves come off on their own. 

What goes away always leaves room for something new: they are universal laws. 

And never think that there is nothing good for you anymore, just that you have to stop holding on to what must be let go. 

Only when your journey is over, then the possibilities will run out, but until then, let it all fall apart, let it go, let it be. 

_Claudia Crispolti _

 

LASCIA CHE SI ROMPA

 

Lascia che le cose si rompano, smetti di sforzarti di tenerle incollate. 

 

Lascia che le persone si arrabbino, 

 

Lascia che ti critichino, la loro reazione non e’ un problema tuo. 

 

Lascia che tutto crolli, e non ti preoccupare del dopo . 

 

Dove andrò? 

 

Che farò?

 

Nessuno si e’ mai perso per la via, nessuno e’ mai rimasto senza riparo. 

 

Ció che e’ destinato ad andarsene se ne andrà comunque . 

 

Ció che dovrà rimanere, rimarrà comunque. 

 

Troppo sforzo, non e’ mai buon segno, troppo sforzo e’ segno di conflitto con l’ universo.

 

Relazioni

 

Lavori 

 

Case 

 

Amici e grandi amori

 

Consegna tutto alla terra e al cielo, annaffia quando puoi, prega e danza ma poi lascia che sbocci ciò che deve e che le foglie secche si stacchino da sole. 

 

Quel che se ne va, lascia sempre spazio a qualcosa di nuovo: sono le leggi universali. 

 

E non pensare mai che non ci sia più nulla di bello per te, solo che devi smettere di trattenere quel che va lasciato andare. 

 

Solo quando il tuo viaggio sarà terminato, allora finiranno le possibilità, ma fino a quel momento, lascia che tutto crolli, lascia andare, let it be.  

 

_Claudia Crispolti _