Neurostoicism is the practice of the use of every adversity to advantage. One of the genius ideas of Stoicism is to view every obstacle as a means to progress and wisdom. What if I said that every negative event that has ever occurred to you may be used to your advantage? With Neurostoicism it can be. Here is a thought experiment. Imagine yourself 100 years in the future. AI runs everything. All humans live in virtual and physical environments where their every need, want, and desire is fulfilled without the need to do anything. Now, imagine yourself in this “paradise.” Look at the person you become. If you could have whatever you want without effort, what is your motivation? What is your work ethic? What are your goals? Where is your drive? Are you driven to accomplish anything? Or are you immersed in any virtual reality of your yearning? Are you obese, and unable to control your appetites? Do you give in to every fetish? Who do you take care of when then is an automaton to take care of everyone? Do you even want to have a spouse when every companionship and intimate need is met by technology? Do you want to have children that would distract you from your pleasures? What a burden. What would the feelings be of a person in such a reality. If I developed as a pleasure obsessed fanatic, would I feel the same? What would stop such people from becoming a version of the Emperor Nero who did whatever he wanted? He killed his wife, and had his minions kill his mother, the great Stoical philosopher Seneca, and whoever else he wanted and confiscated their property. He indulged every desire. We may not be able to legally murder people in the future. But why would you not do whatever you wanted? Are you that self-disciplined? Do you exercise in this brave new world? Why would any sane person torture themselves when the same result is available with a pill? Why do anything when bliss is available with the flip of a switch? Would you have the same values and skills? No, obviously not. If we reach that point, that is undoubtably the extinction of our species. If there is nothing to work for, we would lose our humanity.
What if we made the thought experiment simpler. What if at every challenge you ever experienced it had instead been resolved in your favor by some power-would you be the same person? There is great doubt that you would be. Look at your life now. Is it not obvious that every challenge you have ever faced was an opportunity to become a better person? Life is a sublime classroom where all that happens is a lesson. We should accept all that happens to us as an opportunity to learn with pleasure. You should love your fate. We should choose challenging experiences that have the potential to make us grow in skills and resilience. But most people would choose pleasure over pain. This is a real problem for the future, and it is a problem right now. We are already deep in the process of the debilitation of humanity. Think about how flabby and lazy contemporary humans would look to our hunter gatherer ancestors. They made everything they needed and found what they ate. If they found nothing, they starved. Idiocracy is here. We are staring down an ongoing slow action extinction event. Over my lifetime, Americans have gotten less educated, lazier, fatter, and more spoiled. I blush to compare the course work and institutional expectations that I experienced versus that of my daughters. We live in a culture of low expectations, and the results show it. We live in a materialistic mass media culture. Everyone wants the good life without hard work. Mass media feeds this, we see seemingly effortless wealth through media. Neurostoicism seeks to counter this by building tools and environments that continue to challenge and make people grow, playing the refining role formerly enacted by the reality of survival and evolution. We need to build physical and virtual realities that challenge us and take the task that was formerly performed by Nature, and consciously enhance ourselves. We as humans need to ensure that we continue to live life just as if our lives depend on it, because in truth they do. We need to figure out how we can be BETTER than our ancestors. Not lazy and worthless. The only way this is possible is if we make a choice to challenge ourselves in increasingly demanding environments. Educational systems do this somewhat, but not nearly enough. This is also decreasing. We must hunt ourselves. Not literally, but cognitively. Excellence is never chosen, it is forced. It is forced by pressure. We must make sure we are in the best physical shape possible. Moreover, Neurostoicism asserts that we must enhance ourselves by every healthy means as much as possible to maintain control of ourselves and our environments.
“The wise man is in want of nothing, and yet needs many things. On the other hand, nothing is needed by the fool, for he does not understand how to use anything, but he is in want of everything”
-Chrysippus
Now, we need to do a writing exercise. Write down every experience you have had that may be viewed as negative or to be a disadvantage. Make a list. Did something happen at your birth? Were you born healthy, or unhealthy? What about your early childhood? What happened? Were your parents loving or not? Were your parents separated, or did they stay together? If you could have chosen different parents, would you? Why? Was there mental illness or drug abuse in your family? Were you abused or well taken care of? Were you rich or poor? Did your family move around or stay in one place? Overall, was the family situation stable or not? How did you handle adolescence? How do feel about your physical appearance? Have you experience any bullying? Did you experience any violence? What was the quality of your education? What was your relationship with other children and young adults? Were you ever dumped? Was there money to pay for your education? Did you experience any crisis? I am guessing that there were some crises. How was your later health? What happened in your early adulthood? Did you have romantic problems? Have you experienced financial problems? Did you not get a degree, job, person, or object you wanted? What happened later? List it all. Every negative thing that has ever happened to you. Then, take the list and next to each item, write down how this was a positive, learning experience for you. I guarantee that there exists a positive interpretation, so find it. Recall, we are purposely here focusing on disadvantages. Why? Because we want a list countering the perception of them as disadvantages, and in fact as being advantages. That is the desired result. Clearly, if we can transform every disadvantage to an advantage, we are empowered. Next, meditate on the positive evaluation and any learning opportunity inherent in it. Go over and over this. Make it a regular practice. Keep a journal with this exercise. Everyone experiences sorrow, loneliness, heartbreak, depression, self-doubt, hopelessness, and many other negative emotions. It is how we use these experiences that matters. This is what is meant by the obstacle is the way. When you have done this, you will have mastered an important skill in Stoicism. We must cherish our hardships. They make us who we are. We also need to anticipate obstacles so that we can prepare and plan for them. Neurostoicism is the practice of the use of every adversity to advantage.
