मलम्

The World as Word.

I look at the word.

Stoicism.

Stoa, the Greek root. It reminds me of extensions, in various languages, even code, where the stoi makes hidden figures...

I understand the etymology stems from the "hall" where orators stood or sat, and contemplated aloud after sitting long; in silence, looking in.

Stoic reminds me of stołek [St'Oh'EK] and stoł [St'ew] meaning footstool, and table, respectively, as translated in Polish and in other slight variants of Slovik languages.

That seat, and table, kitchen and workbench like, remind me of Sanskrit texts, heavy with the notion of action in inaction. It has in my interpretation much to do with living through consequences, without actually enacting them. Painting a moving picture with the most dynamic, sophisticated, and time sensitive media, of the mind: while sitting, and doing nothing.

https://youtu.be/FDmPcSWE0WU?si=FRLhlzqyVV9hg8Vw

It reminds, how we carry so much more, inside, than our hands ever will and that through mental exercise muscles in our arms and legs are somehow fortified to endure what, little, by comparison, is allotted... knowing it could be so much heavier, for us, and, or, for others.

Stoicism is perhaps the natural disposition of thinking man. It is why it is felt as tao, a way of life much like Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism are neither philosophy, nor religion, yet nevertheless there is the element of Faith.

I can't help but wonder whether those who succumb to "art" of any sort, are in a way rent stoics, having been unable to hold their internal load, pouring it out instead, in visual, auditory or kinesthetic form. I can't write failed, though that is the term that comes to mind. I write rend, in past tense, as a borrowing of life from Life.

Seeing how the World is ever in that precarious balance of making and unmaking.

The hallmark of the Stoic is to seldom talk, and when silence is broken, the thoughts are drawn from a reservoir of contemplation, a wealth of deep passion and internal suffering. The holy indifference, that whatever is, is as if one step removed from us. The little that is said, emerges like a boa, from the knot in the tree, internally... Slides around the shoulders like a warm muffler, curling about the throat, with tacit acknowledgement that any false movement may result in fatal constriction....

So, it is best perhaps, to sit, still, remembering we will slip from the manacle, soon enough, from one unknown, to another.