
Feeling not so great about being in the world right now? Uncertain and anxious about the future?
Older cultures have left behind maps and guides for living in uncertain times, whether it be through texts, philosophies, religions or letters.
Ancient civilisations didn’t have to deal with emergent AI or the scale of the climate crisis or the internet, but so much wisdom they left behind can be adapted for whatever comes our way. It is as Roman emperor and practising Stoic Marcus Aurelius said: “Look back over the past, with its changing empires that rose and fell, and you can foresee the future too.”
I relied on the ancient philosophy of Stoicism to get through lockdowns and the pandemic – particularly in the early days before vaccines. And post-2020, in our current hellscape, I have found that the framework provided by Stoicism is more important than ever.
In my new book The Seeker and the Sage, a troubled journalist is given an assignment to interview a mayor in a community run according to Stoic principles. Over three days she grills him on how Stoicism can help us deal with the problems of 2025.
As the journalist discovers, the maps drawn in the past can help us navigate the present and the future.
How to deal with threats and uncertainty from AI
Aurelius advised to know reality, to not shirk from it. “The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.” In today’s era this means being real about the threats from emerging technology and having a plan B, if and when your work becomes obsolete. (The same goes for government – as well as being prepared to regulate, they also need to have an alternative with regard to universal basic income or some other form of income support, should AI create mass unemployment.)
But it’s not just preparing for a future where our work is eroded and mechanised – it’s also deciding for ourselves how much decision making we want to retain.
For Stoics, one of the most important aspects of being human is our ability to think rationally and the capacity to develop wisdom.
We must guard, protect and strengthen our critical thinking and not give it up easily just because we can’t be bothered constructing an essay, an email, a birthday party speech, eulogy or a condolence card.
By exercising rational thinking, and thinking for ourselves, we are able to judge and make choices in a way that best serves our own interests and those of others.
Handing over our critical thinking to a machine is to also hand over one of the few things that is within our control – the ability to think for ourselves.
How to handle political conflict
“We are bad men living among bad men and only one thing will calm us – we must agree to go easy on one another,” wrote Seneca thousands of years ago.
Basically, we are screwed unless we find a way to coexist with each other. When social cohesion frays, when the left no longer speaks to the right and vice versa, there cannot be a healthy dialogue about how to govern society in the best interests of everybody.
Stoicism developed in times of unrest and upheaval – and those that lived through those times saw that no gains could be made for society as a whole, if people were engaged in never-ending conflict.
This also includes the conflicts in our own heads. The Stoics devoted time and energy to establishing a baseline of calm in their own lives, to minimise reactivity and anger. They knew better decisions could be made if they did not come from a place of anxiety, anger and hate.
Economic insecurity
To count on continuing economic and material prosperity and not prepare for poverty is unwise, according to the ancient Stoics.
Seneca – once one of the richest men of his time – practised fasting and intentional discomfort as a means of habituating himself to material loss.
Seneca writes that one should “set apart certain days on which you shall withdraw from your business and make yourself at home with the scantiest fare”. The goal is to “establish business relations with poverty,” so you do not suffer twice when you lose all your money and possessions.
The first suffering is the loss of money, but the second suffering is being unable to endure the loss. The latter we can prepare for.
Financial collapse on a global scale or on a personal level through job loss, bad investments or scams should be viewed not as a hypothetical situation but as something that is likely to happen to you in your lifetime. Rather than feeling anxious about this, you should use the good times to prepare for poverty.
Leadership
If we feel things sliding into madness (at whatever level we are operating at – or even what we see on the news), the best thing we can do, the thing in our control, is to be different and to be better.
Stoicism elevated four virtues above all others: courage, wisdom, temperance and justice. Stoics believe that there are not many things in our direct control – but we can control our own characters.
And all of us, no matter what our circumstances, have the ability to be more wise, more just, more courageous and more moderate (or temperate).
Modelling these virtues through our own behaviour is contagious. We cannot control other people, but we can be the type of person we want to see in the world.
A world run by people of poor character is in many ways a reflection of the collective. But we can change the collective by changing and improving our characters, and valuing a good character in others.
“Don’t explain your philosophy. Embody it,” said Epictetus.
• The Seeker and the Sage by Brigid Delaney is published by Allen and Unwin, out now
