Stoic

2 Comments September 26, 2023 Steve A. Wiggins

Waiting. It’s difficult in the best of circumstances. It’s even harder when dealing with multiple sources of delay. For example: it has been unseasonably cool around here for a few months. Looking at the US weather maps, it looks like we’ve got just about the coolest temperatures in the lower 48. September is usually reliably a month where you don’t need the furnace in these here parts, but that’s not the case now. A slowly moving weather system has blocked the sun for days and our poor old house just can’t warm up. I feel like Noah waiting for some sign of hope. The weather apps all say, “oh, two or three more days…” Endurance, I remind myself. Stoicism. Still, we need some sun about now. But that’s not all.

In addition to wearing three heavy layers and my fingerless gloves (in September—and this will last until May!), I’m also doing my prep for a colonoscopy. In case it’s been a while—that means a liquid diet for a day. I need to wait until this time tomorrow to have anything to eat and my teeth are on edge because the allowable fluids tend to be sweet and I really need something salty with a bit of crunch about now. I see I’m allowed ice pops. But did I mention that it’s cold in here? If it were a normal year at least one of these two things wouldn’t been an issue at this point in time. Nobody that I know of looks forward to a colonoscopy. I know I’ll barely sleep tonight and the whole situation ends up looking downright Dickensian. Chilly, hungry, persistent rain. All I really need at a time like this is just some indication that the following days might improve. Don’t look to the Weather Channel for support. No, rely on your Stoicism. Endure.

The trick I usually use on myself is to dangle a small carrot—lunch will be in just three hours!—to get through a long, chilly day. (You’ll be able to eat something hot…) I suppose giving up caffeinated beverages a few years back (when the last colonoscopy was well forgotten), might’ve been a poor decision. I sure could use a Thermos of coffee right about now. And one of those solar headbands that tricks you into believing you’re getting some sun. Hey, September’s my second favorite month, after October, so shouldn’t waiting be just a smidge easier? I’ve been waiting for September since last November. And still I wait. Such is the human lot in life. Endurance is important, I know. But a peek of sunshine (haven’t seen anything like it for three days) in September—is that too much to ask? Or at least a hot meal. What would Zeno do? (Of course, he did live in sunny Greece…)

6 Comments February 4, 2015 Steve A. Wiggins

Once as I sat in the office of an Ivy League professor of Greek religion, I asked about the myths of the Classical gods. The professor (who knew that I had taught religion as well, but at more like a Noxious Weed League school) appeared genuinely insulted and told me in no uncertain terms that scholars of religion didn’t take that nonsense seriously. The study of “myths” was left to Classicists, not actual scholars of religion. Is it any wonder, then, that we don’t really have a grasp on what the average person believes? Being a blue-collar scholar, I always took seriously what students told me about their beliefs. It wasn’t really a great surprise, then, when my wife pointed me to a story in The Guardian about a temple to the Nordic gods being built in Iceland. According to the story, the modern adherents of Ásatrúarfélagið (thank you unicode) don’t really believe in a literal Odin or Thor or Frigg, but see them as metaphors to help them face the way life is. A millennium after becoming Christian, some Icelanders are apparently getting back to their roots.

There has always been, to me, a fascination with the Nordic gods. These rough-and-tumble deities inhabited the harsh and snowy regions where daily life was often a struggle to survive against the elements. Frost giants were enemies and nobody really emerges as the winner after Ragnarok. In the Bible Yahweh does sometimes come out swinging, but for the most part he seems a deity content to sit on his throne and issue commands. The Scandinavian gods were characters of action. In some sense they seemed to struggle just like the rest of us do. They are, of course, more powerful and as the movie makes clear, Thor has a charisma that more self-righteous deities appear to lack. Lest anyone be ready to run to their priest at this point, please be aware that this too is a metaphor.

On the other side of the equation there are sure to be critics who argue that building a temple to fake gods in this day and age is obviously a waste of human talent and resources. Such are people with no imagination. Religious belief, metaphor or not, has been part of the human psyche from the very beginning. Elsewhere I have suggested that animals show the same behaviors as what we Homo sapiens would declare rudimentary religion. Rationalism has not provided a reasonable alternative to religious expression. Even a Stoic knows to appreciate art, although beauty provides no essential element to simple survival. Simply put, humans enjoy the finer things of life. Perhaps unappreciated since long sublimated, among those finer things are the old Nordic gods. And their return is a kind of resurrection.