My journey with stoicism, part 1

I was introduced to the concept of stoicism through Dr. Hannibal Lecter. I’ve always appreciated the ideas his stories explored. Not only did I enjoy Silence of the Lambs and the Hannibal TV show, I found it endlessly compelling that a psychopath would reference stoic philosophy in understanding people.

In that pivotal scene, Dr. Lecter says to Clarice Starling, “First principles, Clarice. Simplicity. Read Marcus Aurelius. ‘Of each particular thing ask: What is it in itself? What is its nature? What does he do, this man you seek?’”

While the central conceit is that it takes a predator to catch a predator, it’s also very fitting that a predator might understand people more deeply than people might understand themselves. When you have to go on the hunt, you have to understand your prey. How they move, how they think, what they seek. I was probably sixteen or seventeen at the time, which made the tension behind Hannibal Lecter all the more real and palpable. High school was a hunting ground in its own right, and for the first time in my life, I felt an intense need to understand people. After all, my survival depended on it. And so, my first exposure to stoic philosophy was deeply personal. I could relate to the concept before I knew the concept existed.

Also, because Hannibal was a fictional character, the stoic idea he referenced projected a kind of mythical appeal. It seemed to exist somewhere just outside the realm of belief, like a fantasy about the future. In this fantasy, you can look at people objectively. You can even look at yourself objectively. By following this logic, the fantasy goes, you can figure out who people actually are. All of a sudden, the plot threads converge, the pieces begin to fit, and the heart is revealed.

Of course, as any psychopath will tell you, life is not that easy. No philosophy or school of thought can fully explain the struggles of the human heart. Nevertheless, the claim about simplicity struck a chord. As much as I felt intuitively critical about the idea, I also felt the need to listen to it. The world was changing. There was a war in the Middle East, a surveillance state was taking shape, my parents had lost their jobs, and I was heading to college.

The world seemed to need stoicism more than ever.