Calm in the Middle of Life

Can we be calm while everything still needs doing? Decisions are waiting, people need answers, and tomorrow there will be work again. Walton brings Epicurus and Marcus Aurelius together to explore that kind of balance: alive and active, able to stay with us in the middle of our responsibilities.

First, he gives Epicurus back a face we can easily lose behind a familiar word. When we hear "Epicurean," we might picture someone pursuing refined pleasures. Walton describes a different center to this philosophy: a quiet mind, a simple life, friendship, and desires that don't turn a person into their servant.

He's particularly interested in the picture of Epicurus himself as sensitive and physically vulnerable. Walton doesn't want to portray a hero who came by his calm without effort. He's interested in someone who could feel discomfort keenly and still look for another way to live with it. That brings ancient philosophy closer to us. It speaks to people whose steadiness doesn't come naturally, too.

Let's imagine two people planning their weekend. Both want to have a good day. For the first, good means exactly the right weather, the perfect table, everyone arriving on time, and a mood that doesn't dip for even a minute. For the second, good means spending time together, talking, and seeing something interesting. The second person has preferences too. But their day has more ways to turn out well.

That's the freedom we can hear in Epicurus as Walton presents him. The more conditions we declare necessary for peace of mind, the more guards we have to station around our lives. Will someone be late? Will it get colder? Will they choose a different topic of conversation? Rest turns into supervising our own rest.

And Epicurus's calm doesn't require us to get away from everyone. The book explicitly describes the possibility of maintaining our balance among other people. Limiting our desires opens a door to the world here: we no longer have to demand that it match our plans exactly every time.

Marcus Aurelius brings another kind of experience to this idea. He was a Roman emperor. Walton turns to his reflections as the words of someone who knew responsibility, rather than someone thinking about quiet from a distance. In these pages, calm and action can exist together.

One of his most striking suggestions concerns our habit of gathering every difficulty into a single pile. There's today's conversation, then tomorrow's decision, then the possible consequences a month from now. In our minds, they're already standing before us all at once. No wonder this imaginary mountain seems impossible to bear.

Marcus Aurelius asks us to return to the particular situation. What's actually in front of me now? This action, this explanation, this uncertainty, rather than the whole burden of the future. When the task becomes specific, we can see a specific response as well.

For example, you have a difficult workweek ahead. On Sunday, you're already trying to endure the whole thing. But on Monday, you don't have to live through the entire week in an hour. You need to prepare one piece of work. Then talk to one person. Then see what new information has emerged. Your plan can extend into the future, while your energy works in the present.

Walton notices something else in these ancient writers: they don't make age a reason to stop learning. We can return to our way of thinking even after we've long grown used to calling it our character. "I've always been this way" describes a familiar road. It doesn't yet explain why there can be no other road.

And there's no demand here to become the emperor of your feelings immediately. Even one familiar situation can become a little more spacious. You're upset, but you can listen. You're waiting, but you notice something around you. You don't know the outcome, but you do the part of the work that's available to you.

Another subtle point in Marcus Aurelius helps us distinguish living in the present from abandoning the future. He reminds us that when a future situation actually arrives, we'll meet it with the same ability to reason that we're using now. We carry more than possible difficulties forward with us. Our ability to notice, seek advice, learn, and make decisions comes along too.

In a worried imagination, tomorrow often looks like a place where the difficulties are already enormous and we're completely helpless. This ancient thinker puts the person back into the picture. Perhaps we don't know the answer yet. But an answer doesn't always have to be ready before the question. Thinking about the present step becomes a source of trust in our own ability to take part in life: I don't have to endure everything now in order to be able to face something later.

We've arrived at two connected pictures. Epicurus helps us avoid loading life with countless conditions it must fulfill. Marcus Aurelius helps us avoid loading this moment with every future difficulty. In both cases, there is room for life itself again.

Before the next lesson, let's hear from the book itself. Walton brings together several connected reflections from Marcus Aurelius, and we can hear this calm amid life's demands especially clearly in them. After the reading, we'll return to the mechanism that can take that balance away.