8 ms·

>Exercise: Sit in a comfortable chair, close your eyes, and, for 15 minutes, meditate on all the things you could lose: your job, your house, your savings, and

>Exercise: Sit in a comfortable chair, close your eyes, and, for 15 minutes, meditate on all the things you could lose: your job, your house, your savings, and so forth. Then brood about living in a homeless shelter. really roughly this is what stoics do, yet somehow they come to the conclusion "actually, what was i fearing? Proceed with adventure"...

konschubert 8y ago
I think people are just different. To some, thinking through the worst case scenario is a way to face and overcome their fears. To others, it's a way of instilling fears.
- Zelphyr 8y ago
  I think the idea behind the exercise, from a Stoicism standpoint, is to mentally expose yourself to the fear of being homeless (or whatever about the exercise creates anxiety for you). Eventually you desensitize yourself to that feeling and begin to realize it wouldn't be as bad as you think. This is also an aspect of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).
  - selestify 8y ago
    Umm... seeing how the homeless live, it really would be as bad as I think. Probably even worse, since I don't see all of it.
    - Fricken 8y ago
      Most homeless people are suffering from a cocktail of problems with abuse, mental illness and drugs. If you woke one one morning to find yourself on the street with ragged clothes and empty pockets in a foreign city, but you still had your wits about you, you likely wouldn't be there for long.
      - vkou 8y ago
        Yeah, it's because I would figure out how to call someone I know to come and get me. You don't end up homeless when you have someone to call to come and get you. You end up homeless when you've burned through that bridge.
        robotrout 8y ago
        Hopefully that's not the only reason. Even absent of help from a friend, you likely wouldn't be there for long.
        vkou 8y ago
        Depends on the economy, the cost of living, my health, and my skills. Those factors are not under my direct control. Some of them may have been in the past, but not in the present.
        aidenn0 8y ago
        Roughly 3/4 of homeless are homeless for less than a year.
        pbhjpbhj 8y ago
        Because they die, or because they find a home, or ...?
        aidenn0 8y ago
        because they find a home. Think about how many people in the US are living hand-to-mouth, where any disruption can cause them to fall behind on rent. Those people make up the majority of people who have been homeless recently. They are homeless for the time it takes them to save up a deposit and find a place to live.
        vkou 8y ago
        Most of them are in a better state then alone in a strange city, with nothing but the clothes on their back. They often have jobs, and may be living on couches or in a car, or have a bank account, or social support (Not enough to keep them in a home, but something.) The homeless that are sleeping rough for 9 months tend to stay homeless. It is a horrible way to live, and it breaks you down really fast.
    - xamuel 8y ago
      >seeing how the homeless live Except you only see the ones who are visibly homeless, so how do you know?
    - manigandham 8y ago
      That's just an example, it's not about actually being homeless but about losing everything you have. It's not as bad as you think, and as long as you're healthy and free, you should be able to rebuild.
    - strken 8y ago
      Most of the homeless are couch surfing, living out of cars, etc. In one sharehouse I lived in, we had one guy on the couch and another in a tent in the back yard, both of whom were acquaintances going through a rough time. As far as worst cases go, while it would suck to have to sleep on someone's couch, it's honestly not that bad.
    - DoreenMichele 8y ago
      Being without a home sucks and is logistically annoying and aggravating to a significant degree. But a lot of the misery of most homeless people is due to the intractable personal problems that landed them there to begin with. It does get compounded by social stigma. For me, the social stigma and the very real problems that caused was the worst part of being homeless for 5.7 years. A lot of homeless people sleep in a tent. That's what I did. Some people do that for fun and call it camping.
  - cardiffspaceman 8y ago
    Parodied on TV sketch comedy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNx_gU57gQ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNx_gU57gQ4 Occasionally there is a moment where the character extrapolates from some minor failure to dying "homeless, penniless, and alone" and then recovers.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - Kluny 8y ago
    I find it more helpful to examine the fear of being homeless and judge it. If I found myself in that bad situation, would I actually be helpless, or would I find a way to overcome it? Evidence based on my past experience suggests that I'd overcome it; therefore the fear is invalid.
  - philwelch 8y ago
    Most psychotherapy seems like a clinical, medicalized repackaging of wisdom that the ancients already had. (Which is most certainly not to disparage the value of psychotherapy!)
adamsea 8y ago
Using the same tool for different effects.
rocqua 8y ago
The difference is in how you imagine it. Do you imagine it to confirm the horror, or do you imagine it to come to terms with it.
kgwxd 8y ago
Those things never really scared me. Do they also meditate on being sick, in constant crippling pain and come to the same conclusion? I get a stomachache and recognize a bad personality change in myself. I dont imagine id be able to draw on the same mental skills while in that state for prolonged periods.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- pokemongoaway 8y ago
  The buddhists do that and more. For example, recognizing the components of the body to such a degree that even when you see the most attractive person you may become entirely disgusted.
- naasking 8y ago
  > Do they also meditate on being sick, in constant crippling pain and come to the same conclusion? It's more that they reflect on how much worse things could be, in order to instill gratitude and appreciation for what you already have.
- ulisesrmzroche 8y ago
  I think this is a better exercise. I stole it from Seneca. Look at the back of your wrists: see those fragile greenish-blue veins? What if tomorrow - while thinking about some problem with money or love - you trip and fall, and a particularly sharp rock on the ground or a shard of glass on the street cuts one of those thin exposed blue-green veins open?
  - throwawaymath 8y ago
    What is the reaction you're "supposed" to get by thinking about that? I took a moment to think about it and I don't think I got it. My reaction was, "Well then I probably die", but I don't feel particularly different about the present. If that's the thing I'm supposed to feel then so be it, but I feel Seneca intended for some greater profundity, or he would dispense with the mental theatrics. What am I missing? Does it need to be more visceral?
himom 8y ago
I had a sign: Act now or homelessness later. Choose. Homeless shelters here are terrible TBH. I’d rather sleep rough. Living in a van for me is better than a house or apartment because: - no rent, no mortgage - no noisy neighbors sans the phony-“tough,” backwards-hat teenager act - less space to fill it up whth $crap I don’t need - always mobile - able to leap tall buildings in a single bound - dual burner stove and 20 kg propane tank - all Burner, all the time - no lawn to mow - no bills but the basics - it’s really quiet - no neighbor from hell to gas you out smoking, using too much lighter-fluid and cooking with their BBQ right next to a fence below you and screaming/terrorizing/trying to intimidate everyone - indoor nudist as long as I want - volunteers of the blond varietal tested suspension for squeaks; needs more data - able to monitor DIY blinker fluid meters closely
- agumonkey 8y ago
  > leap tall buildings what ? ps: oh, comics
dominotw 8y ago
I saw this documentary on cnbc about modern day slavery on fishing boats[1]. Ppl are promised jobs, entrapped and sold to shipping vessels as slaves where there are worked to death. When someone falls sick or dies from overwork they simply throw the body out in the ocean. I am still traumatized by this documentary, I can't imagine anything worse that could happen to a human being. I can shop at whole foods that does the homework for me but what about Chinese masses that don't give a shit. Why do humans have to reproduce so much and at all costs. fucking sick! 1. https://www.cnbc.com/oceans-of-crime/ https://www.cnbc.com/oceans-of-crime/
- matte_black 8y ago
  Why wouldn’t the slaves just rise up and mutiny against the captain??
  - samatman 8y ago
    This question is as old as boats buddy
  - rosser 8y ago
    See also: Why didn't the victims of the African slave trade rise up against the plantation owners? Or: Why didn't she fight back? General form: Why don't victims behave the way I think they should, in circumstances I've never experienced?
    - AstralStorm 8y ago
      They did, many times, and were invariably violently put down. Only much later they did succeed. Also remember that it was the most docile that were captured.
      - rosser 8y ago
        ...and many of the rest were killed, because they were resisting, and/or to cow others who might have tried to resist. You're missing the point: telling victims they're victiming wrong (literally, as in, "You're doing that wrong", which is so unbelievably much of this thread) is bullshit. It's especially so if you have no relevant experience on which to make that judgement, and that goes double if your likelihood of having that experience is structurally negligible. Hand-waving about how someone should handle something that has never — and, for practical purposes, will never — happen to you is ludicrous on its face. EDIT: Phrasing
empath75 8y ago
I spent three months traveling through Central America. You really quickly get used to a constant sense of danger — the water and food can kill you, the bugs can kill you, the roads can kill you, the police and gangs could kill you — hell even taking a hot shower there is tempting fate since they have electric heaters in the shower heads and basically no electrical safety standards to speak of. You either have to cower in your hotel in fear or live life. I went hitchhiking in Nicaragua, sledded down a volcano, went cliff diving, etc — stuff i’d never do at home. There’s something to be said for facing down your fear of death and acting in the face of it.
- mobilefriendly 8y ago
  Survivor bias...I wonder if all the people who died hitchhiking or cliff diving feel the same way. We won't know because they're dead.
  - drawnwren 8y ago
    This just isn't true. They felt exactly the same as OP up until the moment they died. A sudden death is, by definition, something that can not be regretted.
    - philwelch 8y ago
      I'm sure some of them felt some amount of regret in the last, terrifying moments between when they realized that they were going to die and when they finally lost consciousness.
    - newfoundglory 8y ago
      Who said "sudden"?
    - dwaltrip 8y ago
      You seem to be assuming the mindset that nothing matters after an individual dies. I'm sure you are not surprised to hear that many disagree with this.
refurb 8y ago
Exactly. Doing this, if anything, makes me incredibly grateful I haven’t lost those things. And at the same time realize that it wouldn’t be the end of the world.
s-shellfish 8y ago
I don't get that impression from the stoics, this sudden 'hmmmph?' clarity that's almost amused at how silly oneself was being. What I do get is that you can fear the worst and live in that fear to the point that it almost feels like you are experiencing what you fear every moment you are not experiencing it. And it either happens or it doesn't. And if it does, well, I don't know. Someone or something fucked up somewhere, but I'm certainly not going to blame myself as though I am lord and master of all events that come to pass, seer of all future events and protector of all ills. Humans share that burden equally, and some feel it more than others. But I think like the stoics, like Zen, you can cultivate a sort of inner strength from that suffering. That doesn't mean pursue suffering to be strong, no no no, not at all. It means you work with what you have. You have pain, use it. Use it to make someone else's life better. You have joy, enjoy it. I'm not sure it's the right philosophy, or way of being, but it's the most clear and present thing I can muster when I feel my feelings. And I think stoicism reflects that. Deep sadness, old wounds, aching pains. Don't use it against yourself to worsen the hurt. If all you can be is neutral, be neutral. If all you can be is Zen, be Zen. If you can be happy, be happy. Don't take some old dead Greek dude's word for how to live your whole life. There are plenty of other Greek philosophers who spoke of happiness, to learn from too.
posterboy 8y ago
Strawman, red herring. If anything, it means, why let fear grow irrationally, rather face it and be content.

konschubert 8y ago

I think people are just different. To some, thinking through the worst case scenario is a way to face and overcome their fears. To others, it's a way of instilling fears.

Zelphyr 8y ago
I think the idea behind the exercise, from a Stoicism standpoint, is to mentally expose yourself to the fear of being homeless (or whatever about the exercise creates anxiety for you). Eventually you desensitize yourself to that feeling and begin to realize it wouldn't be as bad as you think. This is also an aspect of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT).
- selestify 8y ago
  Umm... seeing how the homeless live, it really would be as bad as I think. Probably even worse, since I don't see all of it.
  - Fricken 8y ago
    Most homeless people are suffering from a cocktail of problems with abuse, mental illness and drugs. If you woke one one morning to find yourself on the street with ragged clothes and empty pockets in a foreign city, but you still had your wits about you, you likely wouldn't be there for long.
    - vkou 8y ago
      Yeah, it's because I would figure out how to call someone I know to come and get me. You don't end up homeless when you have someone to call to come and get you. You end up homeless when you've burned through that bridge.
      - robotrout 8y ago
        Hopefully that's not the only reason. Even absent of help from a friend, you likely wouldn't be there for long.
        vkou 8y ago
        Depends on the economy, the cost of living, my health, and my skills. Those factors are not under my direct control. Some of them may have been in the past, but not in the present.
      - aidenn0 8y ago
        Roughly 3/4 of homeless are homeless for less than a year.
        pbhjpbhj 8y ago
        Because they die, or because they find a home, or ...?
        aidenn0 8y ago
        because they find a home. Think about how many people in the US are living hand-to-mouth, where any disruption can cause them to fall behind on rent. Those people make up the majority of people who have been homeless recently. They are homeless for the time it takes them to save up a deposit and find a place to live.
        vkou 8y ago
        Most of them are in a better state then alone in a strange city, with nothing but the clothes on their back. They often have jobs, and may be living on couches or in a car, or have a bank account, or social support (Not enough to keep them in a home, but something.) The homeless that are sleeping rough for 9 months tend to stay homeless. It is a horrible way to live, and it breaks you down really fast.
  - xamuel 8y ago
    >seeing how the homeless live Except you only see the ones who are visibly homeless, so how do you know?
  - manigandham 8y ago
    That's just an example, it's not about actually being homeless but about losing everything you have. It's not as bad as you think, and as long as you're healthy and free, you should be able to rebuild.
  - strken 8y ago
    Most of the homeless are couch surfing, living out of cars, etc. In one sharehouse I lived in, we had one guy on the couch and another in a tent in the back yard, both of whom were acquaintances going through a rough time. As far as worst cases go, while it would suck to have to sleep on someone's couch, it's honestly not that bad.
  - DoreenMichele 8y ago
    Being without a home sucks and is logistically annoying and aggravating to a significant degree. But a lot of the misery of most homeless people is due to the intractable personal problems that landed them there to begin with. It does get compounded by social stigma. For me, the social stigma and the very real problems that caused was the worst part of being homeless for 5.7 years. A lot of homeless people sleep in a tent. That's what I did. Some people do that for fun and call it camping.
- cardiffspaceman 8y ago
  Parodied on TV sketch comedy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNx_gU57gQ4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xNx_gU57gQ4 Occasionally there is a moment where the character extrapolates from some minor failure to dying "homeless, penniless, and alone" and then recovers.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- Kluny 8y ago
  I find it more helpful to examine the fear of being homeless and judge it. If I found myself in that bad situation, would I actually be helpless, or would I find a way to overcome it? Evidence based on my past experience suggests that I'd overcome it; therefore the fear is invalid.
- philwelch 8y ago
  Most psychotherapy seems like a clinical, medicalized repackaging of wisdom that the ancients already had. (Which is most certainly not to disparage the value of psychotherapy!)

adamsea 8y ago

Using the same tool for different effects.

rocqua 8y ago

The difference is in how you imagine it. Do you imagine it to confirm the horror, or do you imagine it to come to terms with it.

kgwxd 8y ago

Those things never really scared me. Do they also meditate on being sick, in constant crippling pain and come to the same conclusion? I get a stomachache and recognize a bad personality change in myself. I dont imagine id be able to draw on the same mental skills while in that state for prolonged periods.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
pokemongoaway 8y ago
The buddhists do that and more. For example, recognizing the components of the body to such a degree that even when you see the most attractive person you may become entirely disgusted.
naasking 8y ago
> Do they also meditate on being sick, in constant crippling pain and come to the same conclusion? It's more that they reflect on how much worse things could be, in order to instill gratitude and appreciation for what you already have.
ulisesrmzroche 8y ago
I think this is a better exercise. I stole it from Seneca. Look at the back of your wrists: see those fragile greenish-blue veins? What if tomorrow - while thinking about some problem with money or love - you trip and fall, and a particularly sharp rock on the ground or a shard of glass on the street cuts one of those thin exposed blue-green veins open?
- throwawaymath 8y ago
  What is the reaction you're "supposed" to get by thinking about that? I took a moment to think about it and I don't think I got it. My reaction was, "Well then I probably die", but I don't feel particularly different about the present. If that's the thing I'm supposed to feel then so be it, but I feel Seneca intended for some greater profundity, or he would dispense with the mental theatrics. What am I missing? Does it need to be more visceral?

himom 8y ago

I had a sign: Act now or homelessness later. Choose. Homeless shelters here are terrible TBH. I’d rather sleep rough. Living in a van for me is better than a house or apartment because: - no rent, no mortgage - no noisy neighbors sans the phony-“tough,” backwards-hat teenager act - less space to fill it up whth $crap I don’t need - always mobile - able to leap tall buildings in a single bound - dual burner stove and 20 kg propane tank - all Burner, all the time - no lawn to mow - no bills but the basics - it’s really quiet - no neighbor from hell to gas you out smoking, using too much lighter-fluid and cooking with their BBQ right next to a fence below you and screaming/terrorizing/trying to intimidate everyone - indoor nudist as long as I want - volunteers of the blond varietal tested suspension for squeaks; needs more data - able to monitor DIY blinker fluid meters closely

agumonkey 8y ago
> leap tall buildings what ? ps: oh, comics

dominotw 8y ago

I saw this documentary on cnbc about modern day slavery on fishing boats[1]. Ppl are promised jobs, entrapped and sold to shipping vessels as slaves where there are worked to death. When someone falls sick or dies from overwork they simply throw the body out in the ocean. I am still traumatized by this documentary, I can't imagine anything worse that could happen to a human being. I can shop at whole foods that does the homework for me but what about Chinese masses that don't give a shit. Why do humans have to reproduce so much and at all costs. fucking sick! 1. https://www.cnbc.com/oceans-of-crime/ https://www.cnbc.com/oceans-of-crime/

matte_black 8y ago
Why wouldn’t the slaves just rise up and mutiny against the captain??
- samatman 8y ago
  This question is as old as boats buddy
- rosser 8y ago
  See also: Why didn't the victims of the African slave trade rise up against the plantation owners? Or: Why didn't she fight back? General form: Why don't victims behave the way I think they should, in circumstances I've never experienced?
  - AstralStorm 8y ago
    They did, many times, and were invariably violently put down. Only much later they did succeed. Also remember that it was the most docile that were captured.
    - rosser 8y ago
      ...and many of the rest were killed, because they were resisting, and/or to cow others who might have tried to resist. You're missing the point: telling victims they're victiming wrong (literally, as in, "You're doing that wrong", which is so unbelievably much of this thread) is bullshit. It's especially so if you have no relevant experience on which to make that judgement, and that goes double if your likelihood of having that experience is structurally negligible. Hand-waving about how someone should handle something that has never — and, for practical purposes, will never — happen to you is ludicrous on its face. EDIT: Phrasing

empath75 8y ago

I spent three months traveling through Central America. You really quickly get used to a constant sense of danger — the water and food can kill you, the bugs can kill you, the roads can kill you, the police and gangs could kill you — hell even taking a hot shower there is tempting fate since they have electric heaters in the shower heads and basically no electrical safety standards to speak of. You either have to cower in your hotel in fear or live life. I went hitchhiking in Nicaragua, sledded down a volcano, went cliff diving, etc — stuff i’d never do at home. There’s something to be said for facing down your fear of death and acting in the face of it.

mobilefriendly 8y ago
Survivor bias...I wonder if all the people who died hitchhiking or cliff diving feel the same way. We won't know because they're dead.
- drawnwren 8y ago
  This just isn't true. They felt exactly the same as OP up until the moment they died. A sudden death is, by definition, something that can not be regretted.
  - philwelch 8y ago
    I'm sure some of them felt some amount of regret in the last, terrifying moments between when they realized that they were going to die and when they finally lost consciousness.
  - newfoundglory 8y ago
    Who said "sudden"?
  - dwaltrip 8y ago
    You seem to be assuming the mindset that nothing matters after an individual dies. I'm sure you are not surprised to hear that many disagree with this.

refurb 8y ago

Exactly. Doing this, if anything, makes me incredibly grateful I haven’t lost those things. And at the same time realize that it wouldn’t be the end of the world.

s-shellfish 8y ago

I don't get that impression from the stoics, this sudden 'hmmmph?' clarity that's almost amused at how silly oneself was being. What I do get is that you can fear the worst and live in that fear to the point that it almost feels like you are experiencing what you fear every moment you are not experiencing it. And it either happens or it doesn't. And if it does, well, I don't know. Someone or something fucked up somewhere, but I'm certainly not going to blame myself as though I am lord and master of all events that come to pass, seer of all future events and protector of all ills. Humans share that burden equally, and some feel it more than others. But I think like the stoics, like Zen, you can cultivate a sort of inner strength from that suffering. That doesn't mean pursue suffering to be strong, no no no, not at all. It means you work with what you have. You have pain, use it. Use it to make someone else's life better. You have joy, enjoy it. I'm not sure it's the right philosophy, or way of being, but it's the most clear and present thing I can muster when I feel my feelings. And I think stoicism reflects that. Deep sadness, old wounds, aching pains. Don't use it against yourself to worsen the hurt. If all you can be is neutral, be neutral. If all you can be is Zen, be Zen. If you can be happy, be happy. Don't take some old dead Greek dude's word for how to live your whole life. There are plenty of other Greek philosophers who spoke of happiness, to learn from too.

posterboy 8y ago

Strawman, red herring. If anything, it means, why let fear grow irrationally, rather face it and be content.