The Sunday Stoic: Episode 212 “On Chaos” with Guest Host Jayce Basques
By: J. Basques
Tags: Luck, Stoicism, Life, Podcast, Philosophy

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to contribute two segments on Steve Karafit’s “The Sunday Stoic” podcast.

Below is a loose transcript of my contribution: “On Chaos.” Slight edits have been made for readability. You can listen to it here.

J. Basques

If you are reading this now, we are both students of the art and science of living a good life. There are no stoic sages in reality, we’ve all gone from espousing stoic virtue one moment and losing our temper or wallowing in self pity the next.

What I’m saying here, is take what I say with a grain of salt.

With that, I wanted to speak briefly on a topic apropos of the experience of being or listening to a guest host: The role of randomness in our lives.

Or rather: “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Chaos.”

It has many names: Randomness, Chance, Fortune, Divine Providence.

The Stoics and just about every philosopher to come since has contemplated the role of luck in life.

How an inexplicable bounce of the ball (good or bad) can dramatically alter our future trajectory.

Stoicism as we know it came about by a chance misfortune; upon review of his own personal catastrophe, Zeno remarked, “Now that I’ve suffered shipwreck, I’m on a good journey.”

I am speaking today because a single man chose to look at his circumstances in a different way.

Zeno would go on to teach that “Man conquers the world by conquering himself,” and “The goal of life is living in agreement with Nature.”

In short, what is your relationship with the world around you?

A world governed by chance.

Ralph Waldo Emerson was a student of this tenet. In his exceptional essay “Self-Reliance,” Emerson wrote: “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events.”

He went on to write that “no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till.”

Whether you are a person of faith, agnostic or atheist, there is a place for you at this table. A person who believes in a God or gods, acknowledges that there is a logic in the ether beyond our comprehension. Another person who rejects a pervasive, premeditating intelligence can acknowledge the existence of miraculous chance events.

How many times have we been thinking of a friend we haven’t seen in years only to get a call from them that moment?

We all agree that we can’t influence this force within nature, and we can all respect each others’ relationship with this Providence.

We can love Chaos. I personally work to inject my life with chance and randomness. At best, we are open to serendipity and face challenges with enthusiasm, at worst, we are flexible and prepared for life’s curveballs.

How can we love and embrace chance?

When a friend offers to pick up lunch and asks what you want, say “surprise me,” and mean it.

Go to Wikipedia and click “Random Article” from the left navigation. And read it.

Search for and follow “Daily Random” from the username MachineBrother on Spotify. A rotating collection of 30 songs selected by an algorithm created by computer scientist Max Hawkins.

Familiarity is comfortable, embracing chance is not.

We fear the unknown: be it in change or death. This fear is natural, courage is unnatural; but so is every skill that we work to improve.

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Next week, I’ll post the transcript from my second Sunday Stoic contribution. Until then, please share your thoughts and keep in touch.