An English Clergyman’s Advice for Quarantine | Hacker News Reader

An English Clergyman’s Advice for Quarantine

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If you need a daily pick me up from the drag the quarantine is putting on your life, I would recommend The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday. There is stoic philosophy passage each day with a modern interpretation by Ryan.

Here's todays (May 28)

May 28th

THE FIRST TWO THINGS BEFORE ACTING

“The first thing to do — don’t get worked up. For everything happens according to the nature of all things, and in a short time you’ll be nobody and nowhere, even as the great emperors Hadrian and Augustus are now. The next thing to do — consider carefully the task at hand for what it is, while remembering that your purpose is to be a good human being. Get straight to doing what nature requires of you, and speak as you see most just and fitting—with kindness, modesty, and sincerity.” M ARCUS A URELIUS, M EDITATIONS , 8.5

Imagine, for a second, what Marcus’s life as an emperor must have been like. He would preside over the Senate. He would lead the troops in battle, direct the grand strategy of the army as its highest commander. He would also hear appeals—from citizens, from lawyers, from foreign governments. In other words, like most people in power, he was called on to make decisions: all day, every day, decision after decision.

His formula for decision making is a battle-tested method for doing and acting right—literally. Which is why we ought to try to use it ourselves.

First, don’t get upset—because that will color your decision negatively and make it harder than it needs to be.

Second, remember the purpose and principles you value most. Running potential actions through this filter will eliminate the bad choices and highlight the right ones.

Don’t get upset.

Do the right thing.

That’s it.

Holiday, Ryan,Hanselman, Stephen. The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living (p. 162). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Someone recently recommended a particular philosophy as a more natural fit for westerners than Buddhism or other Eastern religions/philosophies. The reason given was that it originates in Europe which not even Christianity does. I couldn't remember what it was but reading your post I've a feeling it might be Stoicism.

I would highly recommend that book to anyone. It takes literally 60 seconds to read every morning but gives you hours of things to think about.

The letter has nothing to do with quarantine at all, it's just a series of one liner bits of advice of the calibre you find on those one page per day calenders.

While I agree the title is complete clickbait (this has nothing to do with quarantine - it's a letter about depression) dismissing the letter as "advice of the calibre you find on those one page per day calenders" is disingenuous. I found it quite interesting that most (not all) of the tips for coping with depression are exactly what people are told today, almost 200 years later.

Drink loads of wine? :-)

While no longer advertised as such, alcohol is still a common pasttime ingrained in a lot of cultures. In informal advertising (e.g. Reddit memes), weed is a recurring theme and ingrained in a lot of people's daily routines. And on HN, articles and comments about how great psychedelics are make a regular appearance.

I found the letter contents unremarkable, and article that precedes the letter insipid and grating. Other readers rightly point out that the advice is for depression, and the supposed link to "quarantine" is disingenuous.

More interesting than the content of the letter (to me) are the ways it seems to have been altered or even censored in different versions, for example I see the version published by the Independent (ie) in 2013 [1] doesn't mention drink "as much wine as you dare".

When we publish advice like this 200 years later, are we interested in providing helpful advice to modern readers, or are we trying to impart an accurate understanding of what the advice of that age actually was? With trigger-happy editing, we achieve neither.

[1] https://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/health/letter-from-rev-...

As others noted the this has little to do with quarantine and a lot with depression. However, there is a parallel between depression and quarantine, for me personally, it struck very hard, and I found myself questioning the value of my life up to the point where the thoughts of meaningless existence shadowed every good thing that ever happened to me.

Funny to mention but what helped me was Arthur Schopenhauer book "the wisdom of life", it deals a lot with a sense of meaninglessness and ability to overcome that. Do recommend.

I think I could use a little help expanding no 19. "Be firm and constant in the exercise of rational religion. Considering he was a clergyman, whatever did he mean?

The description of Reverend Sydney Smith in the article seem to indicate that he was an intellectual during the enlightenment period. Given that, I would presume that the phrase "rational religion" would mean religion interpretations that would not be in conflict with science and rationality as understood at the time.

I'm highly doubtful if he's referring to 'elements of religion that don't conflict with science'. That would be not until late 20th-century concern.

Englightenment values would have been familiar to many, but I don't think this would have been a big schism among even the elite at the time, with respect to their own faith.

My guess is that 'rational' could be replaced with 'rigorous'. Or possibly, 'rational' meant to include commonly accepted norms and practices (prayer, attendance) and not a lot of the more hyperbolic stuff that was gaining favor at the time (Spiritualism, the Occult) and other non-doctrine and pagan flavors of practice.

Is that like "Intelligent Design"? Where you apologize for religion by trying to explain away the contradictions with shaky logic?

It's more the opposite, "Intelligent Design" seems to be faith dressed up as science. While this would be more faith that doesn't contradict science.

So, you just freely abandon the parts of faith that contradict science? Then why call it 'faith'? Its just 'hunches'.

Are you implying that it is an important part of faith to cling to beliefs for which all observable evidence points to the contrary? It seems a bit hard to understand why one would want to pursue such a practice, so I wonder if I'm misunderstanding your point.

What a neat, concise definition of faith! Despite a cruel and unfeeling universe, to believe in a just God is exactly as you describe.

Yes, that is faith in a nutshell. Every attempt to 'reconcile' faith with science, compromises both and does no service to either.

I'm not a person of faith (not in a dogma anyway). But I can understand that to mean anything at all, faith has to mean a different thing than 'observable confirmation of nature'.

Interesting. I am also not a "person of faith", but I don't use that definition of faith. Most people I've known who value faith, do so in areas where they are not sure one way or another. Generally speaking, faith is something that provides comfort because it gives them certainty for things that are uncertain to the person -- especially for things that can not be proved or disproven. Sometimes I've seen people have a "crisis in faith" because they discover that something they believed to be uncertain (and hence a good candidate for faith based belief) turns out to be quite certain and not what they believe. Usually this is quite uncomfortable for them. Sometimes they are able to continue with their faith by shifting their interpretation of the thing they believe onto something that is still uncertain to them. Sometimes they struggle to find something that will throw doubt on the situation so that they can continue their faith. Sometimes they they abandon their faith. I've really yet to meet anyone who walks into walls because they have faith that they don't exist (or other equivalent situations). I'm absolutely sure that they exist, but I don't think they are very common to be honest.

Well, everybody that believes in truth, justice (and the American Way) is "walking into walls " every day. Its faith that some thinks you believe because they should be true. How does that figure into this?

"Yes, that is faith in a nutshell."

Perhaps it is for many, but it isn't for others.

The materialist view inherent in the antagonist's comments isn't necessarily the only rational view.

Materialism, for example, cannot even explain Life, or rather it seems to promote a mechanical basis for it, wherein a more metaphysical view i.e. that 'life is what is expressed through the material, not the material itself' is a pretty obvious opportunity for explenation.

To make the argument: "There is a God" as the basis for Religion, and then "There is only observable material" as the basis for 'Science' is I think wrong on both fronts.

There's quite a lot in between.

My own, personal view is that Spirituality is utterly rational, at least as rational as a materialist who wants to believe that you and I are merely random bags of particles, bouncing through the Universe, and that we're not really having a conversation, that we're two blobs of particles bouncing our 'fingers' of other blobs of particles, in a completely haphazard, random fashion.

I don't even think the Priest was referring to 'rational' in the sense that we might.

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