What it Means to Live in Harmony
“Harmony” is a word used most commonly today by musicians. They use it to describe the beautiful order that results when each instrument is playing in sync. However, the concept of harmony goes far beyond musical application. In fact, one could argue that ancient philosophy, especially Stoicism, is all based on the concept of harmony. At the same time music is a great way to explain the concept of harmony and how living in harmony through philosophy should feel, but first, what does the word really mean?
What Harmony Means
The Roots of Harmony
When I interviewed David Fideler, author of Breakfast with Seneca, on my podcast, we had a brief discussion on harmony. The English word stems from the Greek word harmonia, which means “to fit together”. Its Indo-European root word “ar-” means the same thing, along with a plethora of other terms such as rhyme, joint, fitting, ritual, number, ratio, order, best, and art.
Harmony in Stoicism
Stoicism is built upon the concept of the cosmos (developed by Plato), which means “beautiful order”, which is essentially the same idea of harmony (and ar-). They also believed in Universal Reason (or logos), which is thought, word, reason, logic, order, etc. As it relates to their pantheistic god, the Stoics believed that…
