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;void(0)) In the movie, "Apocalypse Now", the narrator/protagonist describes a scene that takes place somewhere deep within the war zone. There is carnival music and bursts of bombs light up the tropical night sky. Suddenly a helicopter descends from the sky and settles upon a lighted stage which is surrounded by packed bleachers of chearing Americn soldiers. The helicopter lands, the music changes to up tempo Disotheque music, the door opens and out pops a Sixties TV host look-a-like along with a group of Playboy Bunnyesque dancing girls. With this the beleaguered soldiers go absolutely berserk. The camera focuses beyond the makeshift stadium to a group of Viet Namese with their fingers gripping the fence and staring, bewildered, at the bizarre spectacle. The narrator/protagonist's voice comes in soft and monotonous under the noise of the music, chaos and bombs: "Charlie (the Viet Cong) didn't get much R and R (rest and relaxation). He was dug in too deep. His idea of great R and R was a bowl of cold rice and a little rat meat." To some his comment may have been somewhat racist and demeaning (as many of the movies about Viet Nam were at that time) it was also meant to be critical of the American soldiers of that era. Several passages throughout the movie seemed to comment on the burgeois and "soft" mentality of the American soldiers. We were not prepared for a protracted engagement. We needed various forms of "entertainment to sustain us because money and material comforts mean more to us than true dedication to a cause, as seemed to be the case with the enemy. The message was that our own comfortable lifestyle will soon spell our very destruction. Some years back while contending with some difficulties of my own I was introduced to the Stoic movement of about the Third Century B.C. The philosophy was started in Athens, Greece, by the philosopher Zeno. Some other teachers of the movement were Epictetus, Fredrick the Great, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius. It combined much of Eastern philosophy with the thought of Plato and Socrates. There are many aspects of their thought in that of the early Christians. It taught that happiness lay in conforming our will to the Divine Reason, which governs the universe. They felt that "externals" or people, places and things cannot bring us true happiness. Only we can make ourselves happy. The same concept applies to pain and suffering. They believed that the Divine Reason cannot make us endure than we are capable of taking. They believed that each of us contains a "spark" of the Divine Reason within us and this takes the form of our ability to think rationally and clearly. They practiced a daily regimen of logic, debate, meditation, and problem-solving to keep their reasoning faculties functional. Epictetus, one of the foremost teachers of the philosophy said that his curriculum was not meant to teach a person to spout off all kinds of philosophic principles while sitting off in some ivory tower. His idea of an ideal student was not a person "able to speak fluently about philosophic principles as an idle babbler, but about things that will do you good if your child dies, or your brother dies, or if you must die or be tortured --- Let others practice lawsuits, others study problems, others syllogisms; here you practice how to die, how to be enchained, how to be racked, how to be exiled." In other words, the stoic philosophy is practical and applicable to everyday life. Next month we will go into some more of the Stoic practices and concepts that could be useful in today's very trying times. Oh yeah, don't forget your autographed copy of “The Ackee Chronicles”. Tony VanSluytman - the Author  Newsletter Directory The Aton Project - Home Page Tony VanSluytman info Tony VanSluytman - the Author | Return Home | The BOOK DOCTOR | The BANYON NETWORK | The Banyon Buzz Newsletters | The Aton Project Newsletters | Contact Us | |
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