Meeting the Moment Today

Your everyday mindset

Your everyday mindset must be Stoic.

Neither too serious nor too frivolous.

This is well put by Musashi:

The mindset in the Way of combat must be no different from one’s normal state of mind. In the course of your daily life, and when engaged in strategy, there should be no change whatsoever in your outlook. Your mind should be expansive and direct, devoid of tension, but not at all casual. Keep your mind centered, not leaning too much to one side, swaying serenely and freely so that it does not come to a standstill in moments of change. Consider this carefully.

Book of Five Rings

At times, playful. At others, intense. The Stoic is calm, but not merely. Their mind is adaptable and can take on the shape of whatever the situation requires.

Is it a time for levity? Then the soul is light. A time for gravity? Then it is appropriately somber.

The Stoics meant this literally. The soul expands and contracts with emotions:

Distress is a contraction of psyche which is disobedient to reason, and its cause is a fresh believing that some evil is present toward which it is appropriate to <be contracted. Delight is an elevation of psyche which is disobedient to reason, and its cause is a fresh believing that some good is present toward which it is appropriate to> be elevated.

Stobaeus

Cited in the excellent Margaret Graver Stoicism and Emotion.

Negative emotions, passions, disorder the soul. This is a physical, not just a cognitive, happening.

Good emotions order the soul: wish, caution. And what is ordered is harmonious – ready to meet the moment.

But for each person, when they approach their life from the right distance, neither too close nor too far away, their mind is consistent. The way of combat is no different from the way of love.