being stressed
21st january 2014
being stressed is not a nice feeling. it eats you up inside, kills your morale, and it generally makes your day feel like you're fighting a losing battle. and people get stressed for a lot of things. not paying bills, struggling at their work or in their workplace, not being happy about the way they look. the list is endless. but i watched a film the other night which i love and have watched on a number of occasions and it made me realise something. ihe film is 'lucky number slevin'. for those of you that have watched the film you will know what i mean when i say it is great. for those that haven't, what are you doing? go and watch it now instead of reading my dribble on the internet and watching cats fall off things on youtube.
the reason i mention this film is because of the main character: slevin. not so far into the film he reveals he has a condition called 'ataraxia'. he describes it as “a condition characterised by freedom from worry or any other pre-occupation of reality”. read that a few times and tell me that doesn't sound great. it basically means he doesn't get worried or stressed. for example in the movie he is being forced to pay a large amount of money to one gangster, and being forced to kill a man by another gangster. a more than stressful thing to you and me i think you'll agree. but he carries on through the film taking it all in his stride as thought it is completely normal. and i think more people should be like this. not the thinking killing people for gangsters bit, the stress free bit. on the one hand people could argue that it's worry and stress that makes us human, but i think they are missing the point. i think slevin and others like him understand stress. they understand situations when stress normally occurs, they just deal with it in a different way. they don't let it take over their lives.
the epicureans, people that follow the philosophical teachings of epicurus, believe that ataraxia is an essential condition for 'true happiness'. And if they said it, it must be right, right? well i certainly think so.
-dom