Humainologie creative dialogue November 24 on Hope, Courage, and Mortality

“Don’t ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.” – Michelle Obama

“One of the most important things you can do on this earth is to let people know they are not alone.” – Shannon Adler

“If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.”

- Emily Dickinson

What keeps you going? At our dialogue on Wednesday November 24, each participant is invited to share their own wisdom and experience on how they have made it through the most difficult times they have faced in life; how they make the most of each day; and their way of thinking about old age and mortality. Our topic is Hope, Courage, and Mortality. Here are some questions to help start your engines of creative dialogue:

1. Please share your wisdom gained from a particularly difficult experience you went through. How did you survive? What surprised you about it? Did you benefit from the experience in any way?

2. Each day is a gift, and the gift has to be used on that day. How do you make it through the day? How do you make the most of each day?

3. Is there something – a particular philosophy or religion, for example – that sustains you in the face of your own awareness of mortality? What thoughts about old age and mortality have you had that you could share with us?

Before the dialogue, I’ll send you my synopsis of Atul Gawande’s book Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End. Gawande, a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, believes that the medical profession has failed to develop a coherent and helpful way of thinking about the end of life and how to provide the kind of support that increasingly frail and elderly people most need. He wrote this book to help professionals and the rest of us deal with that challenge.

One thing that has kept me going since I was a teenager is the wisdom of the Stoics. The Daily Stoic is currently a favorite of mine. As just one example of the insights I find helpful, I have appended the November 8 entry below, in which the reader is advised to think of herself or himself as simply an actor in the role of herself or himself. Imagine that! You can develop a relationship with your “self” that is essentially the relationship of an actor to the role he or she is playing. This is very similar to the concept of “non-identity” found in that TED talk “5 Hindrances to Self-Mastery.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-079YIasck

Here is the Zoom link provided by Shinobu::

Topic: Humainologie Dialogue Session Time: Nov 24, 2021 06:30 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada) Every week on Wed, until Dec 29, 2021, 9 occurrence(s) Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89600374916?pwd=OXg2dkF4NEtsMmNzSkdRdW1kdUV5UT09 Meeting ID: 896 0037 4916 Passcode: 12345

Arthur

Here is the November 8 entry from The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday:

Actors in a Play

“Remember that you are an actor in a play, playing a character according to the will of the playwright – if a short play, then it’s short; if long, long. If he wishes you to play the beggar, play even that role well, just as you would if it were a cripple, a honcho, or an everyday person. For this is your duty, to perform well the character assigned you. That selection belongs to another.”

Epictetus, Enchiridion, 17

Marcus Aurelius didn’t want to be emperor. He wasn’t a politician who sought office, and he wasn’t a true heir to the throne. As far as we can tell from his letters and from history, what he really wanted was to be a philosopher. But the powerful elite in Rome, including the emperor Hadrian, saw something in him. Groomed for power, Marcus was adopted and put in line for the throne because they knew he could handle it. Meanwhile, Epictetus lived much of his life as a slave and was persecuted for his philosophical teachings. Both did quite a lot with the roles they were assigned.

Our station in life can be as random as a roll of the dice. Some of us are born into privilege, others into adversity. Sometimes we’re given exactly the opportunities we want. At other times we’re given a lucky break, but to us it feels like a burden.

The Stoics remind us that whatever happens to us today or over the course of our lives, wherever we fall on the intellectual, social, or physical spectra, our job is not to complain or bemoan our plight but to do the best we can to accept it and fulfill it. Is there still room for flexibility or ambition? Of course! The history of the stage is littered with stories of bit parts that turned into starring roles and indelible characters that were expanded in future adaptations. But even this begins with acceptance and understanding – and a desire to excel at what we have been assigned.