CHAPTER 1
THE UNSTRAIGHTFORWARD PATH
Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.
—DANTE, THE DIVINE COMEDY: INFERNO, CANTO I
IN EVERY CULTURE WE KNOW OF, WHETHER IT BE SECULAR or religious, ethnically diverse or not, the question of how to live is central. How should we handle life’s challenges and vicissitudes? How should we conduct ourselves in the world and treat others? And the ultimate question: how do we best prepare for the final test of our character, the moment when we die?
The numerous religions and philosophies that have been devised over human history to address these issues offer answers ranging from the mystical to the hyper-rational. Recently, even science has gotten into the business, with an onslaught of technical papers and popular books on happiness and how to achieve it, accompanied by the obligatory brain scans displaying “your brain on…” whatever it is that may increase or decrease your satisfaction with life. Correspondingly, the tools to seek answers to existential questions vary as much as the approaches that have been used—from sacred texts to deep meditation, from philosophical arguments to scientific experiments.
The resulting panorama is truly astounding and reflects both the creativity of the human spirit and the urgency that we obviously attach to inquiries into meaning and purpose. You can embrace any of a large variety of options within the Judeo-Christian-Islamic religions, for instance; or choose one of a panoply of schools of Buddhism; or opt instead for Taoism, or Confucianism, among many others. If philosophy, rather than religion, is your cup of tea, then you can turn to existentialism, secular humanism, secular Buddhism, ethical culture, and so forth. Or you can arrive instead at the conclusion that there is no meaning— indeed, the very search for it is meaningless—and embrace a “happy” sort of nihilism (yes, there is such a thing).
……
So let us explore Stoicism together in a running conversation with Epictetus via his discourses. We will talk about subjects as varied as God, cosmopolitanism in an increasingly fractured world, taking care of our families, the relevance of our own character, managing anger and disability, the morality (or not) of suicide, and a lot more. Other Stoic authors, both ancient and modern, will occasionally supplement what we learn from Epictetus, and sometimes I will gently push back against some of our guide’s notions, bringing up advances in philosophy and science over the intervening centuries and debating what a modern take on Stoicism might look like. The goal is to learn something about how to answer that most fundamental question: How ought we to live our lives?
01 曲折之路：我们如何生活
人生之旅行至半程，惊觉身处幽冥森林，而原先笔直的通 途，早已踪迹难寻。
——但丁，《神曲·地狱》第1章
______________________________________________________________________
尽管文化有世俗、宗教之分，单一、多元之别，但“如何生活”这个问题，不论在哪种文化中都是重中之重。例如，我们如何应对生活的挑战、人生的沉浮？我们如何为人处世、待人接物？最终，我们又该如何做好准备，面对品格的最终考验——死亡？
为解决这些问题，人类在历史长河中创造了数不清的宗教和哲学，有的从神秘学角度出发，有的从超理性视角阐释，给出了五花八门的答案。而如今，科技论文铺天盖地，探讨幸福本质、教人追求幸福的畅销书琳琅满目，能显示“你的大脑正沉迷于”某件能够左右你生活满意度之事的强制大脑扫描应运而生，都表明现代科学也跃跃欲试，想要加入寻找答案的大军之中。
试图解答以上这些存在主义问题的方式千差万别，人们所运用的手段也是五花八门——宗教经典、参禅打坐、哲学论证、科学实验等，林林总总，不一而足。
通过以上方法得出的答案，一方面确实令人惊讶，另一方面也反映了人类的创造力，及其明显迫不及待要去探究意义和目的的心态。举个例子，犹太教、基督教、伊斯兰教中有大量不同教派可供选择，此外你还可以皈依佛教中的某一个宗派，抑或在诸子百家中信奉道家或儒家学说。如若你对宗教不感兴趣，偏爱哲学，你还可以转而研究存在主义、世俗人文主义、世俗佛教、伦理文化等等。当然你也可以得出这一切都没有意义的结论——事实上寻找答案这一行为本身就没有意义——从而接受一种“快乐”的虚无主义（没错，这种思想也确实存在）。
……
那么就让我们一起通过爱比克泰德的语录，与他促膝长谈，从而探究斯多葛派学说吧。我们谈论的话题包罗万象，关乎上帝，关乎世界碎片化背景下的世界主义，关乎照料家人，关乎我们自身的人格，关乎愤怒和缺陷的管理，关乎自杀是否道德，等等。在谈论爱比克泰德的同时，我偶尔也会引用古往今来其他斯多葛派作家的观点，穿插其间作为补充。另外，我有时还会挑出我们这位向导所持观点中我并不认同的部分进行反驳，并提出比它们先进十几个世纪的哲学和科学观点加以补充。此外，我还会通过论证，为你描绘出现代斯多葛派学说应有的模样。我撰写此 书的目的，即寻求“我们该如何度过此生”这一终极问题的答案。
