These are rough times.
Then again, times are always rough for someone. If not for us, then for someone else. And according to the Stoics, that means they’re rough for everyone. What’s bad for the hive is bad for the bee, Marcus Aurelius wrote. Meaning: we’re all in this together. Our fates are all tied up with one another.
This has always been true, but never more so in our lifetimes than during this pandemic. Worldwide quarantines, hyper-contagiousness, disease vectors on every content—all of this together has made that fact undeniable and relevant beyond simply surviving the virus.
Homelessness isn’t just an unpleasant blight on an otherwise beautiful city, for example; it’s a roiling public health crisis. Income inequality isn’t just an economic debate; in a time when the safety of the many depends on the ability of people to stay at home as much as possible, suddenly it too is a public health crisis.
A Stoic can’t just throw up their hands at these intractable, difficult issues. We can’t just say, “Oh the government has tried and failed, smart people have tried and failed, it must be impossible to solve.“
No, a Stoic needs to respond like Alan Graham did in Austin, Texas. When Alan saw the rising homelessness issue in his city, he didn’t despair. He started helping people, delivering meals through Mobile Loaves and Fishes. But he wasn’t content to just service the problem. He wanted to solve it. So he created Community First! Village, “a 51-acre master planned development that provides affordable, permanent housing and a supportive community for men and women coming out of chronic homelessness.” Within the Village, there is also Community Works, which provides micro-enterprise opportunities to previously homeless people so they can make a living, learn new skills, and build lasting relationships. He’s personally taken hundreds of people off the streets—and he did it with more than just charity. It isn’t just about a roof over someone’s head; it’s about fostering a community. He did it the Stoic way: By empowering them to do it for themselves.
We’re all in this together. Each of us has agency in this life, even through adversity, even when bad times or tough problems have befallen us. Our job as citizens and as leaders is to seize our own agency, and help others realize their own. In this, we help them and ourselves. We help the hive by helping the individual; and by helping the hive we protect ourselves and the people we care most about.
One person can change history. One person can make a difference, for better and for worse. Is this pandemic itself not proof of that? An example of the self-fulfilling prophecy of small thinking, defeatism, and cowardice by leaders across the planet?
For thousands of years, from Zeno and Cleanthes (who were quite poor) to Marcus Aurelius and Seneca (who held great power) the Stoics have fought against the tendency to think small and to give into hopelessness. They have stood up when things broke down. They have tried to do their best to help, to make the world a more just place and to ease suffering where they saw it. Each of us has to do what we can, for ourselves and for our community. That’s not just our job, it’s in our own self-interest.
Because we’re big supporters of what Alan is doing over at Community Village, Daily Stoic is donating $100,000 to help Community Village expand to 500 homes and help take even more people off the streets. Other generous donors and volunteers are helping with this mission and even matching contributions right now. If you’re interested in finding out more or finding a way to contribute, please click here. And click here to donate directly to them.
P.S. This was originally sent on May 14, 2020. Sign up today for the Daily Stoic’s email and get our popular free 7-day course on Stoicism.
