Hey all.
As promised, the newsletter is back after my week off.
I never broadcast my plans on social media, but I went on holiday to Center Parks over here in Ireland.
It was great, just what we all needed. Swimming every day, loads of activities and even a few beers.
Here’s a picture of me enjoying a nice tasty beer. I don’t know why they added a slice of orange, but it’s the closest I’ve been to a cocktail in a long time.
I’ve been interested in Stocisim for a while, and during my holiday I started reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (Emperor of Rome). It’s one of the key pieces of literature of Stocisim and is available for free here.
I was only a few pages into the introduction when I found myself reflecting on the meaning of something.
How the brain works
The book explains a concept which talks about how the brain works, more specifically how our previous experience, history and previous behaviours impact how we behave today.
It’s not too dissimilar to how Freud suggests that “personality develops during early childhood and that childhood experiences shape our personalities as well as our behavior as adults”.
In the introduction of Meditations, it says this…
They compared the new-born soul to a sheet of paper ready for writing. Upon this the senses write their impressions, and by experience of a number of these the soul unconsciously conceives general notions or anticipations.
This immediately gave me an image of how to represent how we as people, and our personalities are built up.
When we are young, we start with a blank piece of paper.
As we grow, as we experience things - some of those things get noted down on that piece of paper.
It could be anything which was significant to you.
Perhaps you got in trouble for something as a child.
Perhaps some traumatic event happened.
Perhaps it was something positive and it made you feel great.
Whatever it was, it could have made its way onto that piece of paper.
And as you get older you add more and more to that piece of paper.
Perhaps you had a bad experience as a teenager or as an adult - it gets added.
Perhaps you did something you weren’t proud of - it gets added.
Perhaps someone did something to you, and it stuck with you - it gets added.
Over time that piece of paper is getting more and more added to it.
One way you can visualise that piece of paper is as a list or series of sketches of everything significant that you experienced.
And ultimately this piece of paper represents you and the way you see the world.
The introduction then goes on to explain that now every time you come across a new situation you refer back to this piece of paper and decide how to feel or behave.
More specifically, the book says…
Ideas and inferences artificially produced by deduction or the like were tested by this ‘holding perception’
It’s like that piece of paper, which is a sum of your experiences, is the manual by which you live.
For lightheartedness's sake, let’s visualise this as a flow chart like the one I found below.
And this makes sense right?
You are built up from the sum of your experience, and in turn, those experiences influence the decisions and behaviours you make today.
The problem with the piece of paper
Now I think the piece of paper is a lovely way to represent how we develop over time, and how we refer back to that piece of paper when presented with new scenarios and events.
It just makes sense.
And it is true, we are a sum of those experiences and those experiences influence our behaviours today.
But there is a problem.
And that problem is this…
Once that piece of paper is full, how do we draw on new experiences?
Let’s assume we were Kevin McCallister and our mum and dad left us at home to go on holiday. Imagine that while being left home alone two guys, calling themselves the Wet Bandits, tried breaking into your house and you had to survive by setting inhumane traps which resulted in grievous bodily harm to others.
Now I don’t know about you, but that would take up significant space on my piece of paper.
Now fast forward many years later, you’ve had counselling to come to terms with those experiences.
What happened to the representation on the piece of paper? Did you erase it? Did it just disappear?
No, it is still there, it is still a part of you.
So what happened?
The solution
Now I'm not saying I’m smarter than Marcus Aurelius, the former Emperor of Rome. But I will ask you to consider this, did Marcus have a PhD and 2 masters? Was Marcus able to use his Dr title when booking travel and managed to get a free upgrade at a Premier Inn? Well, I did..!
But the ‘paper’ representation is flawed in the idea that once the page is full you can not add new experiences without erasing existing experience.
One way we can visualise ourselves is that instead of a piece of paper, we are given a series of transparent sheets when we are born.
We start with one transparent piece of paper. We add any significant events to it.
As that piece becomes full we add a second sheet on top of it.
We can still see the underlying experiences but we are able to continue to add new experience to that second sheet.
When Kevin McCallister experienced being left home alone, he started a new sheet of transparent paper and scribbled a lot onto it. Many years later when Kevin McCallister started seeing a counsellor, he took another sheet and overlaid it onto this pile of experiences. He was still aware of the trauma he faced earlier in his life, but he could write new experiences on top of it.
And this is like us all.
We never erase our past, or forget our experiences. We simply try to add more into our lives, into our being, to enable us to grow.
And this, I believe, is how we should view ourselves.
So what does this mean?
It means the introduction to Meditations by Marcus Aurelius which explains that the soul of a baby is like a blank piece of paper which gets filled over time, is a great way of visualising ourselves.
But it also means if we accept that the pieces of paper are transparent - then we can continue to grow, we can continue to learn and we can continue to change over time.
So, give yourself permission to add another sheet of transparent paper to the stack of papers you already have. Accept what is scribbled on the underlying layers, but also be assured you can continue to write out new rules to live by and continue to add new experiences which influence you in the future.
Fin.
I hope this newsletter was as meaningful to you as it was to me. I think it’s a great way to represent yourself and how to understand your behaviours. And importantly, how you can continue to grow.
Wishing you all a great weekend.
Best, John
Outstanding. My parents and nephew have just spent the week in Center Parks in Nottingham. They loved it although it was pissing it down all week ha. I'll have a read later. Hope you and the family are well.