Stoic Grit and Resilience
The Stoics argue, contrary to popular belief, that resilience and grit depend on strong social supports. Marcus Aurelius paints a chilling image in the Meditations: Without each other, individuals are like severed body parts strewn on a battlefield. They can’t function well or at all. Social connection works through shared reason and through emotions, which are themselves kinds of cognitions. Seneca’s Letters, based on an intimate epistolary relationship with young Lucilius, exemplifies the important role of emotional attachments for good living. Hierocles pictures bringing distant others into one’s orbit through repeated acts of empathy and imagination. In Hercules Rages, Seneca shows that grit depends on more than physical strength or inner toughness. In the face of a horrific tragedy, Hercules learns that to sustain his heroic courage he needs mercy that he can’t show himself. Others must model it for him. He must lean on them for his own sanity and strength.