Correct responses to circumstance

A model of control and influence

Yes, that’s a tarp in the woods. The woods are off to the right of the LHH. It’s how I deal with the leaves that I can’t just blow into the woods directly, in particular in the backyard. The backyard is fenced in, so even though there are woods on all sides, I can’t just blow the leaves back into the woods like I can in the front yard. What I do is blow the leaves into big piles, then use a rake to push all the leaves onto the tarp, then use the tarp to drag the leaves into the woods. This image is from just after I emptied a big load of leaves back into the woods. TLW and I finished most of the leaf removal for the fall this weekend - I may need to go out and do a last bit of tidying up, but the big effort is done. I forget who told me about using a tarp like this - it was not something I came up with on my own - but it’s been a huge time saver. 

Yard work like this is very satisfying. You can work at it for a few hours and when you stop, you can see the impact you have had. It’s immediately evident. It fills my need for agency and self-efficacy - to know I have control over this corner of the universe, even if most of the universe remains stubbornly out of my control. 

This past week I had a number of students cut class on Wednesday because they were upset about the outcome of the election. The news has assured them that the outcome of the election was existential and that a Trump victory would be catastrophic for them. The catastrophizing that has surrounded this election is deeply unfortunate. I do think there are real dangers in the world, and I think the president has the ability to shape some of our ability to hold those dangers at bay, but I think they are mostly foreign policy-related dangers. Foreign policy is where the president has the most independence of action. Most of his domestic efforts are highly circumscribed by the complex of checks and balances from the internal structure of the federal government, and the layers of checks that are part of the federal system itself. I do not expect us to be plunged into some sort of Handmaid's Tale dystopia. A much more realistic threat to my students is war as a result of incompetence at the presidential level. Unfortunately that incompetence has been ongoing for most of my adult life. People are inadequately focused on that threat, and too focused on imaginary threats unlikely to come about. 

Regardless, the movements of the federal government are beyond the control of college students, or most of us. Maybe the few who are engaged in the Game of Thrones competition at the national level have some control, but even then I think those people are surfing the waves of power, and have relatively little control over the waves, any more than a surfer does. As we all know, if you choose to play the Game of Thrones, the most likely outcome is you will have your head chopped off at some point. This leads me to consider what the correct response is to things beyond your power to influence or control?

Whenever I consider this question, I am brought back to one of my favorite passages in Niccolò Machiavelli’s book The Prince. It’s a quote I have referenced more than once in this newsletter because it reflects my thinking. 

I hold it to be true that Fortune is the arbiter of one-half of our actions, but that she still leaves us to direct the other half, or perhaps a little less. I compare her to one of those raging rivers, which when in flood overflows the plains, sweeping away trees and buildings, bearing away the soil from place to place; everything flies before it, all yield to its violence, without being able in any way to withstand it; and yet, though its nature be such, it does not follow therefore that men, when the weather becomes fair, shall not make provision, both with defenses and barriers, in such a manner that, rising again, the waters may pass away by canal, and their force be neither so unrestrained nor so dangerous. So it happens with fortune, who shows her power where valor has not prepared to resist her, and thither she turns her forces where she knows that barriers and defenses have not been raised to constrain her.

Machiavelli’s own life was determined largely by forces beyond his control. He surfed them for a time, but then the wave crashed around him and brought him down. He wrote The Prince, for which he is largely remembered, in an effort to reverse the effects of those forces and to get back up on the wave instead of beneath it. Even after Fortune turned against him, he still managed to live the life of a minor aristocrat, and wrote several books that have had a lasting effect on Western culture. 

I think the lesson Machiavelli teaches is that much of our lives are controlled by forces well beyond our control. To imagine that we have control over them is to overstate our own importance. To imagine we have control where we only have influence or worse, no control at all, is to damage our sense of agency. It leaves us feeling helpless. Instead, rightly judging the boundaries of control and influence can help us develop our sense of agency and ability to act in the world.

Machiavelli had a Stoic attitude toward life, and I think this set of nested circles demonstrates what he believed. There is a small sphere of our lives where we have control. The Stoics would say that sphere of control is actually limited not only to our selves, but only to how we respond to the world. We have some influence over our bodies, but a great deal of what happens to our bodies is beyond our control. People can hurt our bodies, and our bodies can betray us (Machiavelli likely died of stomach cancer in his early 60’s), but how we respond to stimuli is within our own control. Do we maintain self-control when things go badly? Do we control our vices of pride and self importance when things go in our favor? 

Going back to the Machiavelli quote, he talks about preparing for bad forces when things are good. We have some control over things beyond our most inner self. We can take care of our bodies and it will not prevent death and disease, but it will make it less likely. We can live beneath our means and it will make it less likely that we will become impoverished. We can strive to live virtuously and we will be less likely to be embroiled in the outcomes that tend to follow vice. None of these actions will stop the random forces that Fortune brings into each of our lives. I have friends who have lost young adult children to freak car accidents where the child was doing nothing wrong and could have done nothing to stop the moment except not be there, which is the nature of Fortune. I have family and friends who have died too young from cancer who were otherwise healthy and should have had several more decades of life. There are the forces beyond our control that will come for each of us, sooner or later, because none of us are getting out of this life alive.

I went to my jiu-jitsu class this morning. It starts at 5:30 AM, so I come back to the house around 7, usually while TLW is getting ready for the day. She always asks how class was. This morning I told her it was mostly good, except for one fight I had. My friend John, who has some 15 years of experience, and is about 200 pounds of mostly muscle, eventually had me pinned down in top mount, sitting on my chest with his knees in my armpits. Fighting John for me is a bit like fighting the tide - it’s inevitable that I am going to lose. I was already out of breath (we call it being gassed), when John got top mount. I fought to get loose for a few seconds, but pretty quickly panic set in and I tapped out, even though John hadn’t really done anything other than put some pressure on my chest. I was definitely in danger of being submitted, but at the moment I tapped out, I was still ok. It was my dysfunctional response to the stimulus that caused me to lose in that moment. I took a 10 second breather, then invited John to take the same position again. I lost that match again, but this time not because of my response, but because John choked me fair and square. After I told TLW this, she just shook her head and said, “I don’t know why you keep going back and doing this.” 

There are a lot of answers to TLW, but the one that is most relevant here is that I am trying to strengthen my responses to distress. I wasn’t really in danger. I lost because of my reactions. Perhaps the most valuable thing about the practice of jiu-jitsu is the work you do on your self. Going back match after match teaches you discipline and exercises courage. It exercises virtue. It also gives you some confidence in your ability to influence the world through physical skill, but I think the real value is what it does to you as a person. 

Organizing the world into the things you can control (not very much), things you can influence (quite a bit), and things you cannot influence or control (most), is useful for having healthy responses to life. Confusing these things, things you can control and things you cannot, is a formula for failure. Failing to recognize that there is quite a lot you can influence is a different kind of failure - the kind of failure Machiavelli warned against. When the sun is in the sky is the time to prepare for the storm. When the storm inevitably comes, if you have prepared, you are more likely to survive. 

Living a worthy life is choosing to put your effort into the things you can control and the things you can influence. It is working to improve those things, including your own responses. It’s hard work. Are my students, and many others like them, who see Trump’s election as a catastrophe wrong? I think probably so. I don’t think he will be able to do (or want to do) the things they fear. But let’s say for a moment that they are right. What does this model of the world tell us? We still need to hone our self-control. We will need our self control even more if the world beyond our control and influence has become more hostile. If the world has become more hostile, then it is time to find where we have influence, where we can build the canals to draw away the storm water, where we can build our walls stronger, where we can find higher ground. We have the ability to respond and to prepare if we can retain our composure and self-control. Where is the corner of the universe where we can exert our influence? Let’s get there and expand that influence from there.