The Daily Stoic - The Arc Is Long… But It Bends This Way

Episode Date: November 4, 2020

"When you look at a map of the world from a distance, everything seems smooth. The more you zoom in, the bumpier it gets. Suddenly, mountain ranges leap up at you. Enormous lakes emerge. Vast distances become apparent.In a sense, history is a lot like this, too."Ryan explains what becomes apparent if you take a step back from the day-to-day workings of history, on today's Daily Stoic Podcast.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow Daily Stoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at dailystowach.com. The arc is long, but it bends this way. When you look at a map of the world from a distance, everything seems smooth. The more you zoom in, the bumpier it gets. Suddenly mountain ranges leap up at you. Enormous lakes emerge. Vast distances become apparent. In a sense, history is a lot like this too. Just a handful of generations separate Xeno from Marcus Aurelius. But this span of history includes the rise and fall of Athens and Rome. plagues, tyrants, wars, political violence, tragedy, and so much more.

We've talked about this before. Living through history is no easy thing. It was not easy to be Seneca, whose life span the reigns of five emperors, most of them bad. It's not easy being alive today either. The last three decades alone have included the bursting of multiple financial bubbles, terrorist attacks, impeachments, wars, genocides, and technological disruptions. Given that we live life day to day, all these ups and downs can exhaust us, even break us. They can make us doubt our faith in institutions in our religion and our fellow human beings, which is why sometimes we must look at things as Plato did. Her Marcus Areleus's reminder,

it's best to take a bird's eye view, he said in meditations, and see everything all at once of gatherings, armies, farms, weddings, and divorces, births and deaths, noisy courtrooms and silent spaces, every foreign people, holidays, memorials, and markets. When you zoom out like this, things seem less bumpy, less at odds, less dire, less dissolution in.

Today, one day after the most consequential election in American history, we can pair Plato's view with an expression popular with the civil rights leaders. The arc of history is long, they said, but it bends towards truth and justice. Whatever you think about the direction of your country, however alarmed or worried you are on whatever part of the political spectrum you occupy can be worth noting that the events of the week, the year, even the decade are just a blip. They loom disproportionately large to you

because you are living them because you have not yet gotten the context of the future. Take a breath, take solace in the larger arc. Things actually are getting better. Progress is happening. The world is safer, kinder, smarter than it was when the Stoics were alive than it was even 50 years ago. Does that absolve you of your obligations in the present? Absolutely not. Courage, temperance, justice, wisdom, always, just with a little bit of perspective.

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