Update to “I Seem To Have Misplaced My Values”

Original Publication Date: 2018–06–01

Several weeks ago, I wrote about a number of changes to my beliefs about God, my sexuality, and my career. I didn’t mention it in the post, but around the same time a number of ethical beliefs and values important to me also started to crack. The fact all these beliefs were changing at once and very quickly was disorientating and stressful. It was a scary, all-consuming problem. I’d structured meaningful parts of my life around particular values and suddenly everything felt empty and hollow. Foundations I’d spent years building cracked and crumbled over the span of mere weeks. It was hard to focus on anything else. As a result, areas of my life that should have been unaffected started to feel empty and pointless.

Thankfully, the writing process went a long way in easing what was effectively an existential crisis. Good advice from friends helped. Philosophy perhaps helped more. I’d flirted with the Stoicism of the ancient Greeks and Romans in the past, but this time I committed to it in full. The philosophy relies on a fundamental distinction between things we can control and things we cannot. Crucially, Stoicism is an agnostic philosophy. All that matters to Stoics is that the universe is deterministic and follows the rational order of cause and effect. This is important to me; if I can help it, I would prefer NOT to pin my philosophy on fleeting and inconsistent flashes of A Greater Being. I don’t want to build my life on a house of cards.

In any case, Stoicism resonated with me. It provided an ethical and motivational framework I could lean on. While I’d made some initial attempts at engaging with the philosophy in the past I’d found it somewhat boring. It felt too obvious. Now, however, the words of the Stoics seem deeply insightful.

(I won’t describe Stoicism in this post, but the introductory “Stoicism for Beginners” book I read is here, if anyone’s interested. I thought it was both well-written and practically very helpful.)

Rediscovering Stoicism has allowed me to put spirituality on the backburner, to some extent. Maybe I’ll end up believing in God at some point. Maybe I won’t. As a friend pointed out, I don’t have to figure everything out right now. I can focus on matters more under my control, and deal with the future when it unfolds.