Hegemonikon breach
I’ve misunderstood one of the central teachings of Stoicism. I discovered the misunderstanding through suffering. The central teaching in question is “the dichotomy of control”.1
The teaching is based on the following passage by Epictetus: “Some things are within our power (eph’ ēmin) while others are not. Within our power are opinion, motivation, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is of our own doing; not within our power are our body, our property, reputation, office, and, in a word, whatever is not of our own doing”
Even though the concept described in this passage is called “the dichotomy of control”, the word “control” is nowhere to be found. This is a good thing, seeing as the word “control” brings with it some misleading connotations.
The passage is commonly misunderstood in two ways:
Active voluntary control, being able to 100% control your “opinion, motivation, desire, aversion”. This is obviously false, seeing as a lot of ingrained patterns take a lot of rigorous training to get out of.2
Ability to “strongly influence”. This is a problematic interpretation as well, seeing as there are non-internal things you are able to “strongly influence”, including your physical health.
The correct interpretation of “up to you” are “things that are part of your character”.3 You can shift these over time, and once they’re in place, they can’t be stopped by external factors.4
The active-voluntary-control interpretation of the "dichotomy of control has some practical value. While obviously incorrect, it can be used to get more agency. If you believe that all your actions are outside of your control, you create a self-fulfilling prophecy and lose all control. If you believe all your opinions, motivations, desires and aversions are within your control, then this will likely expand your agency. Thus the misinterpretation can act as an empowering self-fulfilling prophecy.
Sensing the agency-empowering nature of the misinterpretation, I chose to adopt it for pragmatic reasons. I held it as a kind of “belief in belief”, believing in it because of the consequences of the belief.5
Hegemonikon, slimming the ego
In Stoic thought, the hegemonikon is the agentic faculty of the mind. It’s the “decision-maker”, “opinion-haver” and “judgment-provider” of the brain.6 While far from modern cog sci, I choose to self-identify with my hegemonikon, again for practical reasons. Identifying with traits makes the traits harder to change7, as such it makes sense to me to slim down my ego.8
I don’t self-identify with things like gender expression, personality traits, sexual issues, and similar. This makes these traits far more pliable, allowing me to grow and change as a person at a rapid rate.
It also makes moments of true vulnerability rare. I can openly9 talk about and analyze parts of myself that most people barely tell their therapists about. Up until a week ago, I thought this was because I’d trained so much at being vulnerable. Now I have a more nuanced view; I think vulnerability training is part of it, but I’ve also come to realize that very few things are truly vulnerable for me.
This openness has allowed me to connect with others, sharing things they recognize but keep hidden. It has allowed me to “open up space” for dialogues on topics not commonly talked about, and it has given me some nice peer review
So, what happened last week? My misinterpretation of the dichotomy of control led to a situation that felt vulnerable for real.10 Suprise suprise!
Hoist with my own petard
I love the idiom in this section title, more info in the footnote. 11
By slimming down my ego to only encompass my conception of the hegemonikon, I reduced the scope of actually-vulnerable things to a minimum. My subjective experience of being in this state was that of being really good at being vulnerable, able to openly share about things that would make most people stammer and shut up.
This all changed last Friday, at borderland.12 Tired from the week, I still wanted to join in on the Friday festivities, consuming an intoxicating substance.13 I then set about looking for deep and meaningful human connection. I started talking to a person, touching on shallow topics, and then I decided to do a deep dive with the question: “so what’s that life struggle you were talking about?”. This was just before the intoxicant’s effects started being noticeable.
The answer was way darker than expected, which didn’t play well with intoxication and general tiredness. I could feel my pulse going up, something I associate with anxiety/panic/going into freeze. I thought “I may be going into anxiety”, which is a highly anxiety-provoking thought.14 I was afraid of “spreading the anxiety”, so I shut up and tried to rein it in, focusing on other things.
I then started talking to a girl. After a bit, she interrupted the flow of conversation to ask me: “How are you feeling right now?”.
I sensed inwards, noticing an elevated heartbeat. Music from 3 directions accosted my eardrums, and the panic hit. I felt the world “close down on me”, shrinking and leaving me raw.15 I realized I’d fucked up. In this state, I was in no way able to change my “opinion, motivation, desire, aversion“ at will, breaking my imagined active-voluntary hegemonikon control.
I asked the girl for help. I explained that I was stressed by the loud sound, that I was going into panic and that I couldn’t handle it myself.
This was vulnerable for real. I am used to treating “my hegemonikon” as inviolable. I take pride in my agency and ability to handle any situation. I never go into panic while sober.
Opening up from a position of weakness was a totally different experience than opening up from a position of strength.
She said: “do you have earplugs?”
[…]
Earplugs in, we wandered away over the field. As I was walking, I “came to my senses”, the panic subsiding a bit. This gave me back some agency, and my first impulse was to tell her that I was ok now. Considering this, I realized that I was afraid of being left alone.16 So I asked her to stay with me for some time.
We settled down in the shade of a tree, and she helped me ground myself by paying attention to the texture of the grass under my body. I felt super grateful but didn’t know how to contribute. I said different versions of “thank you” interspered with normal-ish conversation. The fifth time I said it she was like “yes yes, I know you’re thankful”.
Even now, more than a week after the incident, I feel occasional urges to figure out a way to DO SOMETHING for her.17 Some part of me really struggles with receiving unconditional altruism. I’m more used to being on the giving end of that dynamic, having held space for many people.
This incident has led to me finding beauty and potential in being fragile/weak. The potential has broadened my repertoire of social dynamics, making it easier to play around with adopting different kinds/levels of status. It has also enabled me to connect with fragility/vulnerability at a felt-sense/intuitive level, freeing my mind up to go into shenanigans/flirting. But more on that in the future. Maybe.
I thought I’d contribute something original, but then I found this article. It gives the theoretical basis for the misunderstanding. The next couple of paragraphs are based on the article.
Exposure therapy to get rid of phobias, for example.
https://modernstoicism.com/what-many-people-misunderstand-about-the-stoic-dichotomy-of-control-by-michael-tremblay/
There are examples of people using Stoicism to endure torture under the viet cong, stoic-adjacent holocaust survivors and similar. I don’t claim to have reached this level of badassery, I much prefer not to be tortured.
Also, do ingested intoxicants count as “internal”?
This is a bit of dark side epistemology, and it did bite me in the ass. If you use proper epistemics (techniques for assessing knowledge), the strength of your beliefs should match your expectations.
Yeah yeah, not modern cog sci, and basically a homunculus-based model, but please allow me some folk psychology.
Don’t say “I’m a messy person”, say “I sometimes don’t clean up”. By identifying with the behaviour pattern, you fixate it.
I get confused by the terminology. In this sentence I use ego to mean “The parts of my cognitive functioning, behaviour, and ‘personality’ I identify with”. I don’t promise to be consistent.
People find this “cool.” Not sure how this plays with the cool of occlusion. Countersignalling?
In reality, it’s not this simple. I see some male anti-weakness norms playing in, together with autistic tendencies. And probably way more things. But this makes for a more snappy story. Which is ironic because the story is based on accepting things based on consequences rather than likelihoods. Luckily this is but a small bit of dust to be swept under the epistemic carpet.
“hoist with my own petard” is my favourite English idiom, something about saying it in a posh British voice just cracks me up. Translated to modern English it’s “lifted up in the air by my own stick of dynamite”, an ironic reversal of events.
A big burning-man-inspired event
Unspecified for political reasons
I’ve never thought this and then not gone into anxiety. 100% prediction rate.
If you’ve never had a bout of panic, it’s like your conception of the world is removed, limiting your options until you feel like a trapped animal.
I could handle the situation as-is, but I was unable to handle disturbances and planning for what to do later. “I’m alone if I get anxious again” is an anxiety-promoting thought.
She said that it was nice to be there for me while I explored new terrain. But I still feel like I need to contribute more. Sigh. I guess I’ll try to just let this float away into history, learning to accept participating in consensual social interactions where I don’t play a role actively contributing.