How to Stop Making an Elephant Out of a Fly — The Ancient Greek’s Way for Radically Changing Your Perspective
A Platonic, Epicurean, Stoic, and Cynic practice on reinvigorating your life
The Platonists, Epicureans, Stoics, and even the Cynics had practical exercises for gaining perspective.
Their aim was to achieve the greatness of soul and inner peace and show how delusional and absurd our problems are. They focused their minds completely and imagined their souls literally taking flight into the universe. Once high above, they contemplated the infinity of time and space, nature, and all its surroundings. With practice, they freed themselves from their corporeal desires, things like food, sex, glory, wealth, and a larger perspective of existence.
The practice is meant to get us thinking about our existence and see the trivialities of our problems.
Contemplate the infinity of space and time
Lucretius teaches us that the mind has the ability to take mental flight, in infinite space and infinite worlds. Lucretius is asking us to experience what astronauts experience when they look at earth from space.
Since space stretches far beyond the boundaries of our world, into the infinite, our mind seeks to sound out what lies within this infinity, in which the mind can plunge its gaze at will, and to which the mind’s thoughts can soar in free flight.
We don’t need to travel to space. We can use our imagination. Take yourself out of your life right now and see yourself flying into the universe, toward the stars, outside the limits of the earth. Now, look down on life.
Contemplate nature and the physical world
For the Stoics and Epicureans, the goal of philosophy was peace and serenity. To this end, they contemplated nature and everything found within it:
[T]hey attentively explore the earth, the sea, the air, the sky, and every nature found therein…. Their bodies remain on earth, but they give wings to their souls, so that, rising into the ether, they may observe the powers which dwell there.
They ask us to imagine the beauty of nature. See in your mind the mountains, river streams, the sun hitting your face, rolling hills, and animals traveling in herds. Look up at the vast skies. As Plato says,
Embrac[e] the entire earth in [your] vision.
See the cycle of life from birth to death, humans, and animals being born and dying, making room for the next.
‘Look from above’ at the spectacle of myriad herds, myriad rites, and manifold journeyings in storm and calm; diversities of creatures who are being born, coming together, passing away. –Marcus Aurelius
Contemplate the absurdity of human affairs
The Cynics were known for their deliberate shamelessness, like masturbating and having sex in public, and not caring for social norms.
That may seem a bit much to wrap our heads around. But, they teach us to take a bird’s eye view of mankind and observe how pitiful and weak we really are.
They illustrate this with the story of Charon.
He was known as the ‘ferryman of the dead’ because his job was to carry the souls of people who recently died across a river that divided the world of the living from the dead. One day, he takes a day off work. He wants to see what the living are up to on earth. So, he goes up to the surface from the underworld and piles up several mountains on top of each other to get a better view of the earth.
All he sees is an existence of pain and suffering. He says,
If only humans could get it straight from the beginning: that they’re going to die; that, after a brief stay in life, they have to depart from this life like a dream and leave everything on earth behind, then they’d live more wisely and die with fewer regrets.
Charon urges us to focus on what’s important and stop pursuing vain desires, things that won’t matter at our death beds. Life is short and death comes to us all and when we least expect it.
Final reminders
This practice requires that we use our imagination and concentrate.
It’s not something we can just read and think will work. It requires constant meditation, self-talk, and journaling, all things ancient philosophers practiced.
