On Grief and Being Human
Believe it or not, the common preconception of a stoic is wrong. Which works nicely with the fact that stoics challenge people to question their preconceptions. I have already used the lame joke that stoics are not Vulcans – they do not seek to suppress emotions. If anything, stoics are incredibly honest about where our emotions come from – and whether that is appropriate. One of my cats died on December 24 th , two minutes to midnight. We saw it coming, he was declining and we were struggling trying to get him to eat and he started seeking the coolness of our bathtub. We had hoped he could make it through the holidays and allow us to give him a death with dignity. Instead, he took a turn for the worst, panted, gasped, and died in my wife’s arms. I will not apologize for writing a post about grieving a cat. He was a member of my family. While the Stoics aimed for a state of emotional tranquility (apatheia), they did no...