We want our leaders to be strong. We want our heroes to be tough. We don't want them breaking down constantly. We don't want them whining. We certainly don't want them to be powerless over their emotions.
Does that mean he was weak? That he was pathetic? That he was not in command of himself? No, not at all. It means he was human. It also means he wasn't repressed or all too worried about how he would look. Frank O'Conner, the biographer of the Irish revolutionary Michael Collins would note that Ireland's great hero was not above or beyond tears. "If I had recorded all the occasions when he wept I should have given the impression that he was hysterical," O'Conner writes. "He wasn't; he laughed and wept as a child does (and indeed as people in earlier centuries seem to have done) quite without self-consciousness."
So it went with Marcus Aurelius too. There's nothing wrong with getting things out with a cry every once in a while (dwelling in self-pity is something different). There's nothing wrong with feeling overwhelmed (letting that feeling prevent you from taking future action is different). There's nothing wrong with tears of grief (never leaving your house again is different).
The Stoics were human. Most great men and women were. If they were made of stone, what would there be to admire? What courage or discipline would be required? No, they were not weak because they had emotions, they were strong because even though they sometimes lost control of their emotions, they themselves never lost control of what was important and what they had to do.
Follow along as Ryan visits the birthplace of Stoicism in Athens—where Zeno once taught beneath the legendary Stoa Poikile. Joined by writer and cognitive-behavioral psychotherapist Donald Robertson, the two tour the ancient ruins, explore the deep roots of Stoic philosophy, talk about the surreal experience of standing where it all began, and share updates on their latest writing projects.
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