The funny thing is, I was more fearful of death when I was young than I am now, with probably no more than fifteen years left to me. To some extent it's because I've already run the race, crossed the finish line, and am now catching my breath.
Spending your life just trying to prolong your existence is no excuse for not dying. I see so many people graduate from school, a school intended to teach how to seek comfort and security, and immediately retire from real life. No need to worry about the Sioux. We have people to fight those battles. No need to try to achieve greatness. We have people for that, too.
I like your philosophy and I intend, god willing, to have the same outcome. I'd rather catch my breath than wonder where all the time has gone. Thank you.
Greetings from Athens! I can't wait to listen to your podcast episode with The Stoa Letter to find out about your AI company and get your take on Jünger's combat philosophy!
Last week included two significant events, the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi on October 4th and the Anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto on October 7th, 1571 when the combined naval forces of Europe crushed the Turkish fleet in the Gulf of Corinth and delivered the first major setback to the Ottoman Empire.
I'm with an all-men group who spent a week on a Plutarch retreat, touring Greece and visiting significant sites, battlefields, and museums relevant to Plutarch and the great men about whom he wrote. We drove over the modern bridge that crosses the Gulf of Corinth and saw the site of Lepanto. Those European Christians sailors, led by Don Juan of Austria, invoked the aid of Lady Mary when they sailed into battle, and when they lept into what were a series of hand-to-hand combats on the wooden decks of their galleys--the last time naval battles were decided this way rather than cannons. Your Stoic mindset is fully harmonious with these Christians sailors and warriors.
St. Francis also smiles at death, as you can see in the text of his Canticle of the Sun, the first poem in a European language:
The Highest, all powerful, good Lord,
Yours are the praises, the glory, the honour, and all blessing.
To You alone, The Highest, do they belong,
and no man is worthy to mention Your name.
Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures,
especially Sir Brother Sun,
who brings the day; and you give light through him.
And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendour!
Of you, The Highest, he bears the likeness.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,
in heaven you formed them clear and precious and beautiful.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind,
and through the air, cloudy and serene,
and every kind of weather through which you give sustenance to Your creatures.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water,
which is very useful and humble and precious and chaste.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
through whom you light the night and he is beautiful
and playful and robust and strong.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Mother Earth,
who sustains us and governs us and who produces
varied fruits with coloured flowers and herbs.
Praised be You, my Lord, through those who give pardon for Your love,
and bear infirmity and tribulation.
Blessed are those who endure in peace
for by You, The Highest, they shall be crowned.
Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death,
from whom no living man can escape.
Woe to those who die in mortal sin.
Blessed are those who will find Your most holy will,
for the second death shall do them no harm.
Praise and bless my Lord, and give Him thanks and serve Him with great humility.
You would have admired St. Francis's balls, Sam--in Egypt he walked unarmed through enemy lines from the Crusader army to the Islamic army and met with the Muslim Commander, who gave him a respectful hearing and sent him peacefully back to his own lines.
Excellent. I will have to remember the tale of Spotted Horse as I do the words Tecumseh wrote "When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way.Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.”
Imagine a mainstream ethos of deep, thorough savagery that permeated the mentality of our culture? Where this approach was applied equally to thought and action? The result would be a radically open, intelligent culture, in touch with both material realities as well as the unknowable elements of human existence.
In some places, we readily witness the opposite in the form of fear.
Sam, great essay. Memento Mori comes to mind. Of all the stoic and Latin phrases I know and mantra this one seems to be the most powerful. It also seems that this might be the greatest of the lessons. I try and take the power of death away by the amount of life I live. I often ponder my demise. My exstguishing. I also ponder that of those closest to me. My wife, children and parents. Some may Sat morbid but I believe this falls into that savage category. I wonder if true savagery isnt in what one is willing or capable of doing but of one's true understanding of what Nature is capable of. As always thanks for your work.
You're very welcome, David. I agree on all of your points. It can be morbid if done morbidly, but if done with the right intention there are few more decompressing and refreshing things imaginable. I really like your last point about what we are capable/willing to do versus what nature is capable/willing to do. I very much want to see both as combined as opposed to competing, and I now need to think on this further. I appreciate this.
“My hunch is Stoicism simply put into words what nature once freely provided”
To which I would add that nature is offering vital lessons every moment, and it is for the observant being to extract and articulate those insights so they, and others, can benefit.
Sam, well first of all, the painting by Osmar Schindler is just stunning both in the technical demonstration of his ability to paint and the subject. One could get lost just trying to figure it out. Justice was meted out on the field of battle between The Sword and Spotted Horse. The Sword learned the hard way it ain’t over til it’s over. His band of warriors seem unimpressive, they should have honored Spotted Horse for his brilliance and bravery and let him go, instead they hacked him to death. Hmmm. Spotted Horse in saving his wife, left a legacy. Maybe she was pregnant, maybe she would become pregnant later by another Crow warrior. The line hopefully of warrior ethos continued. It is interesting likely because of all your early life’s near death experiences in combat that you are old beyond your years. I guess seeing death early and in violent context does that, most people if they see death at all it is some poor old dude or dudette laid out in Sunday finery in a silk line coffin at the local funeral home. There they hear the oldsters saying “where’d he get that blue suit, did you know he had a blue suit? He looks good, they done a nice job on him…” Ugh. Better to be Spotted Horse, the day and life finished giving the last full measure. He saved his wife, killed a dumb sum of a bitch who figured wrong, and off to Valhalla. (Okay mixing cultures…you get the drift) Do you think the sun was shinning? By embracing the Stoic life, the first steps toward Damascus are taken, (there he goes again, mixing shit up again) but when people see a stoic, they are left mostly confused and always in awe. Why does he live that way? Hopefully they change, pick up the mantle and embrace stoicism as well. It has to start somewhere. Cold and hot like tired are just another feeling. Stoicism is a mindset, it leaves cold, tired, light and dark out of the equation. Anyway, all this is food for thought. We had an early hard frost last Thursday, I didn’t prepare properly, and lost the all the wild flowers, I blamed Mother Nature, am still mad at her, but it is really all on me, I didn’t lay out the cheese cloth to protect them. Lesson learned. The dead brown leaves and flower heads a stark reminder, we can only control so much. But, now it is time to look forward, what to lay out as seeds this coming March in the melting snow. I could cry in my beer or call America Meadows and get the same mix and double down. Face death with a smile. Mother Nature may have won this round, but she is screwing with an old and very cranky US Marine Corps Infantry Officer and I have her name….
I enjoy this mixing of cultures, it is one of my favorite ways of viewing history and the present. The Sword did indeed learn the hard way. Counting coups is a fascinating window into human psychology. It makes it more likely you will die needlessly, and yet it was the highest honor. Evolutionary theory would lose its mind trying to justify this—if it were to increase ones mate value, little good does it do if one is dead. Anyway, thank you for the thoughts, for you have also left me with some good bits to chew on. Keep those flowers safe; nature almost got my figs but I was fortunately one step ahead of her, at least for now.
I think so much of the moralizing and pearl clutching we see in the culture these days is in such opposition to the idea of this savagry and is certainly at odds with stoicism. It's like, the weaker we get, the more we fear even the minor threats. However, when we are strong, we welcome the worst that life can throw at us and we relish the challenge.
Ironically, so much of our culture is savage, as in mean, spiteful, and vindictive, nothing regarding the honor of what you describe. It's like they know they're missing something and replaced it with the wrong savage.
I'm here for this. We are built for a world that we have suppressed, and people are subconsciously expressing it in the worst way because they never learned to express it in the best way.
I'm working a piece that is tangential to your exact point here, and it's based on my own experience. I know many, including myself, who joined the military in the realization something was "off". It is a theme I can riff on endlessly because it signifies something profound.
My grandfather died nearly 20 years ago of pancreatic cancer. Once the prognosis was terminal, he said his goodbyes to everyone, often maintaining a dignified strength in the face of their anguish.
In his final couple of days, he laid in his favorite chair, unconscious and breathing shallowly. My grandmother broke on what turned out to be the final day and begged him to get up. I watched him claw his way back from another dimension, open his eyes, and tell her that it was okay- that HE was okay, that he was ready, and that it was time to let him go. The transfer of strength was clear to see.
He died several hours later.
You’ve masterfully described a very powerful why, an ideal to aspire to. Can I be ready when my moment comes?
This is a profound moment. I've known a few friends who ended their time here in a similar manner, pulling themselves out of their bodies attempt to allow them to die without undo pain and misery. They lean into it for the good of others, not themselves. I appreciate you sharing this.
I started reading and I immediately thought of Jeremiah Denton and his leadership of his fellow POWs. I knew one of those POWs and he also exemplified this stoicism. A more recent warrior who exemplified stoicism and the conquering of the fear of death was the 26-yr-old Jordanian pilot captured and executed by ISIS in 2015. He stood perfectly upright and still as a fire enveloped him, never flinching or uttering a sound, as if he was meditating and leaning into death. He beat all those ISIS militants watching.
These are powerful examples. I remember the video of the pilot and wondering if I would have the courage to face it as he did. There is much to think on here. Thank you for the thoughts.
Great essay, as always, and just what is needed on any given Tuesday!
I just wanted you to know that I am getting into Once an Eagle and agree it is something special. Also, saw a few-year-old movie called “Hostiles”, that’s right up your alley.
This essay reminded me of a scene in 1979 film by Bob Fosse, “All That Jazz” and the five stages of death (anger, denial, bargaining, depression and acceptance).
The funny thing is, I was more fearful of death when I was young than I am now, with probably no more than fifteen years left to me. To some extent it's because I've already run the race, crossed the finish line, and am now catching my breath.
Spending your life just trying to prolong your existence is no excuse for not dying. I see so many people graduate from school, a school intended to teach how to seek comfort and security, and immediately retire from real life. No need to worry about the Sioux. We have people to fight those battles. No need to try to achieve greatness. We have people for that, too.
I like your philosophy and I intend, god willing, to have the same outcome. I'd rather catch my breath than wonder where all the time has gone. Thank you.
Oh, and I am getting my second wind...
Greetings from Athens! I can't wait to listen to your podcast episode with The Stoa Letter to find out about your AI company and get your take on Jünger's combat philosophy!
Last week included two significant events, the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi on October 4th and the Anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto on October 7th, 1571 when the combined naval forces of Europe crushed the Turkish fleet in the Gulf of Corinth and delivered the first major setback to the Ottoman Empire.
I'm with an all-men group who spent a week on a Plutarch retreat, touring Greece and visiting significant sites, battlefields, and museums relevant to Plutarch and the great men about whom he wrote. We drove over the modern bridge that crosses the Gulf of Corinth and saw the site of Lepanto. Those European Christians sailors, led by Don Juan of Austria, invoked the aid of Lady Mary when they sailed into battle, and when they lept into what were a series of hand-to-hand combats on the wooden decks of their galleys--the last time naval battles were decided this way rather than cannons. Your Stoic mindset is fully harmonious with these Christians sailors and warriors.
St. Francis also smiles at death, as you can see in the text of his Canticle of the Sun, the first poem in a European language:
The Highest, all powerful, good Lord,
Yours are the praises, the glory, the honour, and all blessing.
To You alone, The Highest, do they belong,
and no man is worthy to mention Your name.
Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures,
especially Sir Brother Sun,
who brings the day; and you give light through him.
And he is beautiful and radiant in all his splendour!
Of you, The Highest, he bears the likeness.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,
in heaven you formed them clear and precious and beautiful.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind,
and through the air, cloudy and serene,
and every kind of weather through which you give sustenance to Your creatures.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Water,
which is very useful and humble and precious and chaste.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Fire,
through whom you light the night and he is beautiful
and playful and robust and strong.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Mother Earth,
who sustains us and governs us and who produces
varied fruits with coloured flowers and herbs.
Praised be You, my Lord, through those who give pardon for Your love,
and bear infirmity and tribulation.
Blessed are those who endure in peace
for by You, The Highest, they shall be crowned.
Praised be You, my Lord, through our Sister Bodily Death,
from whom no living man can escape.
Woe to those who die in mortal sin.
Blessed are those who will find Your most holy will,
for the second death shall do them no harm.
Praise and bless my Lord, and give Him thanks and serve Him with great humility.
You would have admired St. Francis's balls, Sam--in Egypt he walked unarmed through enemy lines from the Crusader army to the Islamic army and met with the Muslim Commander, who gave him a respectful hearing and sent him peacefully back to his own lines.
This is so good. I wrote in my other reply to you that I now have a rabbit hole to dive into. Thank you, Chris.
Excellent. I will have to remember the tale of Spotted Horse as I do the words Tecumseh wrote "When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way.Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.”
This is truly an epic reminder. Thank you, Robert.
Imagine a mainstream ethos of deep, thorough savagery that permeated the mentality of our culture? Where this approach was applied equally to thought and action? The result would be a radically open, intelligent culture, in touch with both material realities as well as the unknowable elements of human existence.
In some places, we readily witness the opposite in the form of fear.
This is an epic thought experiment. The question is what it would take to civilizationally dip our toe in the water?
If I had to choose only one realistic change to the American experience, it would be to mandate service after high school.
Sam, great essay. Memento Mori comes to mind. Of all the stoic and Latin phrases I know and mantra this one seems to be the most powerful. It also seems that this might be the greatest of the lessons. I try and take the power of death away by the amount of life I live. I often ponder my demise. My exstguishing. I also ponder that of those closest to me. My wife, children and parents. Some may Sat morbid but I believe this falls into that savage category. I wonder if true savagery isnt in what one is willing or capable of doing but of one's true understanding of what Nature is capable of. As always thanks for your work.
You're very welcome, David. I agree on all of your points. It can be morbid if done morbidly, but if done with the right intention there are few more decompressing and refreshing things imaginable. I really like your last point about what we are capable/willing to do versus what nature is capable/willing to do. I very much want to see both as combined as opposed to competing, and I now need to think on this further. I appreciate this.
I like this sentence a lot:
“My hunch is Stoicism simply put into words what nature once freely provided”
To which I would add that nature is offering vital lessons every moment, and it is for the observant being to extract and articulate those insights so they, and others, can benefit.
As you are doing with your writing, Sam. 👏
I really appreciate it, Baird. There are few things more enjoyable than observing nature, both within and outside of ourselves. Thank you.
Sam, well first of all, the painting by Osmar Schindler is just stunning both in the technical demonstration of his ability to paint and the subject. One could get lost just trying to figure it out. Justice was meted out on the field of battle between The Sword and Spotted Horse. The Sword learned the hard way it ain’t over til it’s over. His band of warriors seem unimpressive, they should have honored Spotted Horse for his brilliance and bravery and let him go, instead they hacked him to death. Hmmm. Spotted Horse in saving his wife, left a legacy. Maybe she was pregnant, maybe she would become pregnant later by another Crow warrior. The line hopefully of warrior ethos continued. It is interesting likely because of all your early life’s near death experiences in combat that you are old beyond your years. I guess seeing death early and in violent context does that, most people if they see death at all it is some poor old dude or dudette laid out in Sunday finery in a silk line coffin at the local funeral home. There they hear the oldsters saying “where’d he get that blue suit, did you know he had a blue suit? He looks good, they done a nice job on him…” Ugh. Better to be Spotted Horse, the day and life finished giving the last full measure. He saved his wife, killed a dumb sum of a bitch who figured wrong, and off to Valhalla. (Okay mixing cultures…you get the drift) Do you think the sun was shinning? By embracing the Stoic life, the first steps toward Damascus are taken, (there he goes again, mixing shit up again) but when people see a stoic, they are left mostly confused and always in awe. Why does he live that way? Hopefully they change, pick up the mantle and embrace stoicism as well. It has to start somewhere. Cold and hot like tired are just another feeling. Stoicism is a mindset, it leaves cold, tired, light and dark out of the equation. Anyway, all this is food for thought. We had an early hard frost last Thursday, I didn’t prepare properly, and lost the all the wild flowers, I blamed Mother Nature, am still mad at her, but it is really all on me, I didn’t lay out the cheese cloth to protect them. Lesson learned. The dead brown leaves and flower heads a stark reminder, we can only control so much. But, now it is time to look forward, what to lay out as seeds this coming March in the melting snow. I could cry in my beer or call America Meadows and get the same mix and double down. Face death with a smile. Mother Nature may have won this round, but she is screwing with an old and very cranky US Marine Corps Infantry Officer and I have her name….
I enjoy this mixing of cultures, it is one of my favorite ways of viewing history and the present. The Sword did indeed learn the hard way. Counting coups is a fascinating window into human psychology. It makes it more likely you will die needlessly, and yet it was the highest honor. Evolutionary theory would lose its mind trying to justify this—if it were to increase ones mate value, little good does it do if one is dead. Anyway, thank you for the thoughts, for you have also left me with some good bits to chew on. Keep those flowers safe; nature almost got my figs but I was fortunately one step ahead of her, at least for now.
I think so much of the moralizing and pearl clutching we see in the culture these days is in such opposition to the idea of this savagry and is certainly at odds with stoicism. It's like, the weaker we get, the more we fear even the minor threats. However, when we are strong, we welcome the worst that life can throw at us and we relish the challenge.
Ironically, so much of our culture is savage, as in mean, spiteful, and vindictive, nothing regarding the honor of what you describe. It's like they know they're missing something and replaced it with the wrong savage.
I'm here for this. We are built for a world that we have suppressed, and people are subconsciously expressing it in the worst way because they never learned to express it in the best way.
Worse, we’ve denegrated the best way as ‘toxic’ when it’s the exact opposite.
I'm working a piece that is tangential to your exact point here, and it's based on my own experience. I know many, including myself, who joined the military in the realization something was "off". It is a theme I can riff on endlessly because it signifies something profound.
My grandfather died nearly 20 years ago of pancreatic cancer. Once the prognosis was terminal, he said his goodbyes to everyone, often maintaining a dignified strength in the face of their anguish.
In his final couple of days, he laid in his favorite chair, unconscious and breathing shallowly. My grandmother broke on what turned out to be the final day and begged him to get up. I watched him claw his way back from another dimension, open his eyes, and tell her that it was okay- that HE was okay, that he was ready, and that it was time to let him go. The transfer of strength was clear to see.
He died several hours later.
You’ve masterfully described a very powerful why, an ideal to aspire to. Can I be ready when my moment comes?
Beautiful piece. Thanks, man.
This is a profound moment. I've known a few friends who ended their time here in a similar manner, pulling themselves out of their bodies attempt to allow them to die without undo pain and misery. They lean into it for the good of others, not themselves. I appreciate you sharing this.
I started reading and I immediately thought of Jeremiah Denton and his leadership of his fellow POWs. I knew one of those POWs and he also exemplified this stoicism. A more recent warrior who exemplified stoicism and the conquering of the fear of death was the 26-yr-old Jordanian pilot captured and executed by ISIS in 2015. He stood perfectly upright and still as a fire enveloped him, never flinching or uttering a sound, as if he was meditating and leaning into death. He beat all those ISIS militants watching.
These are powerful examples. I remember the video of the pilot and wondering if I would have the courage to face it as he did. There is much to think on here. Thank you for the thoughts.
Great essay, as always, and just what is needed on any given Tuesday!
I just wanted you to know that I am getting into Once an Eagle and agree it is something special. Also, saw a few-year-old movie called “Hostiles”, that’s right up your alley.
Thank you, John. I need to check this film out. I am a fan of Ben Foster.
Enjoy the novel and definitely drop your thoughts in a DM, I'm very curious to hear what you think as it progresses.
This essay reminded me of a scene in 1979 film by Bob Fosse, “All That Jazz” and the five stages of death (anger, denial, bargaining, depression and acceptance).
https://youtu.be/HbLSGYd-Ohc
I had never seen this, but it hilarious to hear the five stages riffed on like this.