Taking My Sentence, Philosophically
In 1979, the playwright and poet Václav Havel was asleep in bed when the state police barged into his home and arrested him. He was not surprised—Havel was a prominent member of the Committee to Defend the Unjustly Prosecuted, a human rights movement that brought to light cases of people unfairly persecuted for speaking against the dictatorship. Overnight, he became a political enemy of the state. His books and plays were banned from the public domain, and he was sentenced to prison on charges of subversion. While serving his sentence, Havel was permitted to write a single-page letter to one person a week. He chose his wife, Olga, as the only person to write to, and for the next four years, compiled a stack of dispatches that later became Letters to Olga. In one correspondence, Havel wrote, “I find myself in a radically new existential situation, and the first thing I have to do is learn to live with it, which means finding a completely new structure of values and a new perspective on everything—other hopes, other aims, other interests, other joys.” With his freedom stripped and luxuries no longer available, his metric for what constitutes a good or bad day was calibrated, and over time, achieved an “inner freedom and a new mastery over myself.” Havel made a list of resolutions for which he aimed to achieve before he is released from prison: “To remain at least as healthy as I am now…reconstitute myself psychologically…write at least two plays…study the entire Bible thoroughly…improve my English...learn German at least as well as I know English.” Summarising his experiences and how it brought vital hope to his life, Havel said, “I’m taking my sentence, as they say, philosophically.”
Taking one’s circumstances philosophically, finding the good in the bad, and in the process, developing a fresh perspective to life, achieving inner freedom and mastery over one’s self—that’s the idea for today.
The Meaning of Sacrifice
The psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl once had an elderly man seek treatment for severe depression that sparked from the death of his wife two years earlier. Realising he could not help him medically, Frankl posed a philosophical question. “What would have happened” Frankl asked, “If you had died first, and your wife would have had to survive you?” “Oh!” the elderly man replied, “for her this would have been terrible; how she would have suffered!” “You see,” Frankl said, “such a suffering has been spared her, and it was you who have spared her this suffering—at the price that now you have to survive and mourn her.” Upon hearing this, the elderly man said nothing, shook Frankl’s hand and left. “In some way,” Frankl wrote in Man’s Search For Meaning, “suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”
So What?
In the mid-1950s, Andy Warhol developed a deep attachment to the celebrated author, Truman Capote. He wrote Capote dozens of fan letters at a time, showed up to all his readings, sent him expensive gifts, and moved to the same neighbourhood in New York just to be closer to him. Eventually, the two did meet, and while Capote tolerated Warhol to an extent, the feelings were not mutual. Realising Warhol was odd, overly persistent and his affection bordering on obsession, Capote severed the relationship. Sad, depressed and almost dead from a broken heart, Warhol could not bring himself to love someone anymore. Then, in June 1956, Warhol wrote, “I was walking in Bali, and saw a bunch of people in a clearing having a ball because somebody they really liked had just died. And I realised that everything was just how you decided to think about it. Sometimes people let the same problems make them miserable for years when they should just say, ‘so what.’ That’s one of my favourite things to say. So what?” Unable to reach your goals—so what. Didn’t get the job—so what. Experienced heartbreak and pain—so what. “I don’t know how I made it through all the years before I learned how to do that trick,” Warhol continued. “It took a long time for me to learn it, but once you do you never forget.”
Blend Optimism With Reality
On September 9, 1965, while flying a mission over North Vietnam, James Stockdale’s plane was shot down by North Vietnamese forces. He parachuted into enemy territory, and shortly after was captured and taken prisoner in Hỏa Lò Prison—notoriously known as Hanoi Hilton—the worst of the prison camps in North Vietnam. Stockdale spent seven years in prison, of which four were in solitary confinement and three in leg irons, and was frequently subjected to physical and psychological torture. Seeking universal principles of greatness for his book Good To Great, the author Jim Collins interviewed Stockdale, wanting to understand how he survived those gruesome years. “I never lost faith in the end of the story,” Stockdale said, “I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.” Collins then asked him, “Who didn’t make it out?” “Oh, that’s easy,” Stockdale replied, “The optimists. They were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.” You need to blend optimism with realism, Stockdale said. You need to confront your circumstances, no matter how unpredictable or uncontrollable they might be, by saying, so what? You need to take your sentence, as they say, philosophically. “This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”
Everybody Has Some Choice
In 1903, George Bernard Shaw wrote the play Mrs. Warren’s Profession, centred on the relationship between Mrs. Kitty Warren, a successful businesswoman who made her fortune running a chain of brothels, and her daughter, Vivie Warren. Upon discovering the true nature of the business, Vivie expresses disdain, questioning her mother’s morality, hypocrisy and double standards towards women and economic survival. Feeling misunderstood and bitter to her daughter’s confrontation, Mrs. Warren said, “Do you think I did what I did because I liked it, or thought it right, or wouldn’t rather have gone to college and been a lady if I’d had the chance? Not likely! What’s a woman to do?...I had to live and take care of myself.” “Everybody has some choice, mother,” Vivie replied, “The poorest girl alive may not be able to choose between being Queen of England or Principal of Newnham; but she can choose between rag-picking and flower-selling, according to her taste. People are always blaming circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.”
