Figs in winter and the idea of an art of living

Epictetus teaches us how to enjoy people and things while they are with us, rather than regret them when they are no longer

Image from myrecipes.com.

“So if you long for your son or your friend at a time when they aren’t given to you, you’re longing for a fig in winter, believe me.” (Epictetus, Discourses, III.24.87)

Figs are one of my favorite fruits. The common edible fig’s scientific name is Ficus carica, a plant native of the Mediterranean and western Asia. Figs are in season twice a year: during the first few weeks in June, and then again between August and October. That’s it. Which means that if I crave fresh figs in December or January I’m a bit of a fool. I’m even more of a fool if I don’t take advantage of the right season and manage to have my fill of figs when they are actually around.

This is the metaphor that the first century Stoic philosopher Epictetus uses to explain to his students why they should not regret their loved ones when they are longer around, but should very much pay attention to them when they are. The idea applies to everything in life: relatives, partners, friends, but also the stages of our own life—from childhood to old age—and of course for everything we think we possess, in terms of material objects.

Indeed, Epictetus tells us that nothing is really ours. Not things, and certainly not other human beings. Speaking of the flamboyant Cynic philosopher Diogenes of Sinope, he says:

That’s why [Diogenes] used to say, ‘Slavery became a thing of the past for me after Antisthenes set me free.’ How did Antisthenes set him free? Listen to what he says: ‘He taught me what’s mine and what isn’t. Possessions aren’t mine. Relatives, family, friends, fame, familiar places, familiar patterns of life—he taught me that none of these are mine.’ ‘What is yours, then?’ ‘The use of impressions. He showed me that this is something I have that’s unimpeded and unconstrained. No one can obstruct me and no one can compel me to use impressions except as I wish.” (III.24.67-69)

What on earth are “impressions”? In Stoic psychology—which happens to agree with much modern cognitive science—an impression (phantasia, in Greek) is a pre-cognitive judgment originating from our previous experiences or our subconscious thinking. For example: cats are nice, or cats are selfish; the square root of 9 is 3, or the square root of 9 is 4.

Impressions can be given “assent” (Gr., sunkatathesis): the confirmation, at a cognitive level, of the impression: cats are indeed selfish animals; the square root of 9 is indeed 3. (Obviously, one can deny assent to other impressions, like that cats are actually nice, or that the square root of 9 is 4.)

Finally, if we give assent to an impression this generates an “impulse” (Gr., orgē), a movement of the will toward action that we feel precisely because of having assented to a given impression. For instance, if I decide that cats are selfish animals I won’t get one at home. If I am taking a math test and I assent to the proposition that the square root of 9 is 3 then that’s what I’ll write down. And so forth.

The causal chain connecting these three phenomena looks like this:

impression > assent > impulse

The impression is involuntary. The assent, however, is the result of reflection (at least in individuals who are prone to reflect on things, otherwise it’s implicit), and so the impulse is also voluntary, the outcome of a specific combination of impression and assent.

It becomes clear, then, why Diogenes and Epictetus think that the most important gift human beings have received from Nature is the ability to properly assess, or use, impressions. Literally everything else we do in life depends on it! Every considerate decision we make is the result of our judgment, that is, of whether we give or deny assent to whatever impression we are considering. That’s how we decide to apply (or not) to a given job; to get married (or not); to buy a house (or not); etc., etc., etc..

The portion of the Discourses from which the two quotes above are pulled, book III, section 24, is entitled “On the necessity of not being attached to things that are not up to us.” I am using the splendid annotated translation by Robin Waterfield, which in my opinion is currently the best one on the market.

Epictetus here is at his best. The dialogue with his students, recorded by one of them—Arrian of Nicomedia—is fresh and dynamic. The master engages in his usual sarcasm while not pulling punches while exhorting his pupils to live a good life.

Some of the lessons are hard to stomach, at first. For instance, one of the students says that  a friend he has left behind (presumably to go to Nicopolis, in northwestern Greece, to attend Epictetus’s school) was unhappy: “But I’ve parted company with him, and he’s in pain.”

To which Epictetus responds: “Yes, but why did he regard what was not his as his? Why, when he was enjoying seeing you, didn’t he take account of the fact that you’re mortal, that you’re bound to leave for elsewhere? … Have you been enjoying everything—places, people, lifestyle—on the assumption that they’d be there for you forever? And now you sit and weep because it’s no longer the same people who pass before your eyes and you’re not spending time in the same places.” (III.24.4-5)

Harsh, but true. The student and his friend are committing the figs-in-winter fallacy. They did not pay attention and enjoy each other while they could, and now they regret each other’s absence. It gets worse!

The student now says that he’s always waiting for news from Rome, and Epictetus replies that that’s really a bad idea: “Isn’t it enough for you to be miserable where you actually are? Do you have to let what’s happening overseas and news received by letter make you miserable as well?” (III.24.26)

He has a point. What happens elsewhere is not up to us. Which doesn’t mean we don’t care, but it does mean that to willfully subject ourselves to emotionally disturbing things that we cannot address is perverse. Applied more broadly, that’s why I have suggested elsewhere that perhaps we should go on a bit of a news diet, since most news is not actionable and only functions as a depressant in our life.

What if something terrible happens, insists the student? “What if friends of mine in Rome die?” The response comes immediately: “Well, that’s just the death of some mortal beings. Do you really expect to reach old age without seeing the death of any of those you love along the way? Don’t you realize that over a long stretch of time all sorts of different things are bound to happen? A fever will get the better of one, a robber of another, a tyrant of a third. That’s the nature of the world we live in; that’s the nature of the people who live in it alongside us.” (III.24.27-29)

Now, is Epictetus some sort of a sociopath who doesn’t consider human feelings? Not at all. In the same section of the Discourses he talks about Socrates’ love for his sons, as well as of the importance of being a good person. But he is trying to teach his students the art of living, and for a Stoic that means first and foremost to look at the world the way it really is, not indulging in wishful thinking about how we would like the world to be. He is, in fact, attempting to free the students from the sort of emotional pain that they seem to think is inevitable but that instead is up to them. Stoicism isn’t the only tradition teaching (some degree of) detachment from people and things in order to reduce suffering: both Buddhism and Daoism do the same.

How do we learn the practice of the art of living, though? Epictetus is very conscious that this is a matter of continuous and long-term exercise, like going to the gym:

“How can we train ourselves in this regard? First, the highest and principal discipline, which stands right at the entrance, so to speak, is that whenever you become attached to anything, don’t treat it as something irremovable, but as though it belonged to the same category as a pot or a cup, so that when it gets broken, you remember what it was and don’t get upset.” (III.24.84)

Let’s say you have a favorite mug. In my case, it is one with a bust of Cicero and writing that says: “Appetitus rationi pareat,” Latin for let your desires be governed by reason. One of these days, it will break. It’s inevitable, as it is in the nature of cups to break. I know it will happen, and I am prepared to face the moment with equanimity.

Now, cups are easy, but once we muster those and similar things, Epictetus says, we can graduate to more difficult situations. Like a loved one who dies. I have lost both my father and my mother to cancer, and I can tell you that my experience was very different in the two cases, because I had discovered Epictetus in between them. When my father died I was caught completely unprepared, emotionally speaking. I am a biologist, and I know what his multiple diagnoses of cancer meant. But somehow I refused to take the notion seriously, thinking that it will always be summer, the figs will always be in season. Until, of course, they suddenly weren’t. As a result I wasn’t near my dad when it happened and bitterly regretted it for years.

Some time later my mom went through a similar ordeal (they were both big time smokers…). In the meanwhile, however, I had began practicing Stoicism, and I was prepared. I accepted immediately that this was going to be a one-way street for her, and that I ought to be close by as much as I could manage—both to her and to my family—while it was still possible. The outcome was very different: I accepted that my mother was gone and I was at peace with it. I wasn’t “upset,” as Epictetus put it, not in the sense that I didn’t give a damn, but in the sense that I more or less serenely said goodbye and steered myself to accept the inevitable while still being useful to my surviving family.

So do not commit the figs-in-winter fallacy: be prepared for the fact that everything has its time, and that that time is finite. Which means you need to do your utmost to enjoy the figs while they are in season.