Death is a problem that pretty much everybody by definition has to deal with, right?
That one and taxes.
In fact you can evade taxes, but so far at least, you cannot evade death.
So philosophers have been talking and thinking about that for a long time
I come to that issue from a stoic perspective.
Stoicism is an ancient philosophy started out in Greece in the 3rd century BCE,
Eventually, it became popular and moved to Rome and spread during the Roman Empire.
And the Stoics I think had an interesting combination of points of view on that.
On one hand they adopted what was also Epicurus perspective of it
Which is, it is not relevant to be afraid of death because
as Epicurus famously said 'where you are she is not and vice versa', right?
in order to be afraid of death as an experience, this implies that we are
somehow there to actually have that experience and since for the Epicureans
as well as the Stoics, we're not there anymore then there's nothing to worry about.
You might worry about how you get there, and the last moment before you get there,
but certainly not what happens afterwards
Now this is fine as far as it goes ,
but it's not enough to have a comprehensive view of death.
I think that the Stoics went significantly further than the Epicureans
and they did go further in a way that it's interesting to today's audiences.
For instance, the Stoics very much talked about suicide under certain permissible circumstances.
Epictetus refer to suicide as the open door.
When things really become unendurable you have the open door
You always have to possibly to go out, right? And finished with things.
This may sound like the Stoic had a casual attitude toward death -- they did not.
Epictetus immediately added that you know, this is the last resort.
What that does, it it does--
that open door offers you a way out now that means that if you're if you
decide to stay you work at it hard you don't have a you don't complain about it
It's your choice, right? You're not- you're not going outside.
You're not committing suicide.
So now you decided to engage in their world, okay engage in their world.
Become, you know, the best person that you can deal with the problems both your
own and society's in the best way that you can.
The Stoics did omit of suicide under certain circumstances.
One of which was in fact very relevant to to discussion contemporary discussions.
about end of life support.
So if you are in fact suffering of a terminal disease as it turns out apparently as
Zero of Citium, the founder of Stoicism did suffer for number of years enemy
and he eventually decided to commit suicide.
This is something the Stoics have no problem with,
they think that it's a way to end your life in a dignified way.
There are also of course issues of honor.
People like Seneca committed suicide,
or Cato the Younger committed suicide in order to make a point politically.
That one is probably more framed on- in today's society,
particularly because unfortunately we have experience in
the last several years of people who abuse that sort of way out
and commit acts of atrocities.
Not only committing suicide, but bringing with them a lot of people.
That's something that the Stoics would not have condoned
Suicide is a personal thing about you and how you deal with the world and how you relate
with the world you don't bring out other people.
So there are those those
interesting perspectives that I think are still valuable today but one of the
things that lots of people miss about death and suicide and which was very
clear in the Stoics is that you can use that as that- that opportunity,
that option as a contrast with your normal life and it makes you, and it is,
and it makes you appreciate what you have.
Say, well you know there is the oblivion over there,
and I always have an opportunity or possibly to go there
in fact eventually I will have to go there, but there is no hurry!
One of my favorite quotes from the Epictetus,
that of course I'm going to mangle a little bit goes something like this,
If I have to die today, I'll die. But if I don't, I'd rather go for lunch.
Because it's lunchtime, right?
So it's a nice-- it shows, by the way, a sense of humor the particularly Epictetus had
in a number of these things, and it's like you know put things in perspective.
One of the reasons the Stoics insisted on practicing constantly
sort of mild self-imposed conditions of harshness.
Things like going out in the cold under-dressed.
Or don't eat-- starve yourself for a day or two or something like that.
They didn't do it because there were masochists
Its not like 'oh I enjoy doing this earth thing to myself'
The idea was you remind yourself of what's good about clothing of what's good about
having food. You enjoy the things that you have much better if occasionally,
in a mild, controlled way, you remind yourself that 'you know what I could lose that.'
Not everybody has that.
There's people out there who actually are cold, who actually do go hungry.
And I think that death and possibly suicide
played the similar, of course much larger, role.
You enjoy your life, you appreciate what you have
and your role in society, much better.
And you worry less about what's going to happen
if you know that there is this constant possibility of taking the door.
The open door is always there.