Become Unconquerable | Stoic Philosophy
Bound upon me, rush upon me, I will overcome you by enduring your onset: whatever strikes against that which is firm and unconquerable merely injures itself by its own violence. Wherefore, seek some soft and yielding object to pierce with your darts.
Seneca. When do you feel conquered? Are you conquered when your country gets taken by another country? Do you feel conquered when an enemy takes your house and the rest of your possessions? Or when you’re thrown into prison with your hands and feet tied together? Or perhaps when someone snatches away your prospect of dating the person you like?
It’s probably different for every person to what extent circumstances evoke a feeling of defeat. The ancient Stoics produced a treasure trove of wisdom on becoming unconquerable. They believed that people cannot be conquered by anything external, as long as they don’t give away the power over their faculties. The only way external things can influence us is when we, ourselves, let them. If we feel that something has defeated us, it’s us defeating ourselves on account of it. If we want to become unconquerable, we don’t need to conquer the world but ourselves.
This video explores Stoic philosophy on how to become unconquerable. The way we estimate external things decides how they influence us, not the things in themselves. If we attribute a high value to something, there’s a risk that we develop a desire for it. If we then encounter what we desire, we feel elated, which is, of course, a great feeling. But when we somehow can’t get what we want, we don’t feel so great. And thus, we’ve put our emotional state at the mercy of outside circumstances.
Say you really fancy someone at work or school, and you manage to approach and arrange a date with that person, you’ll be in the clouds. But when this person cancels the date last minute, you’ll be disappointed and possibly upset. Even though things like flaking, rejection, or being dumped are prevalent in dating, the way people respond differs immensely. Some just shrug it off and continue their lives. Others become resentful and seek revenge.
But if rejection evokes a strong emotional reaction within us, we could say that this occurrence has conquered us. It has the power to influence our emotional state and possibly influence our actions significantly. The same goes for insults. If some petty insults breed days of resentment, then the insulter has successfully conquered the insulted. But there are much more severe manners in which we let people conquer us than insults or rejection.
An example is a form of manipulation called blackmail. A commonly used form of blackmail is the prospect of one’s reputation being destroyed. Many people are very attached to their reputation, so they might easily succumb to such blackmail. And if this happens, the blackmailer has conquered his target.
Another example is interrogation accompanied by imprisonment and even torture, which was common practice in the Roman Empire. The effectiveness of these methods depends on how attached someone is to one’s body and how much pain he’s willing to suffer. The Stoics say that we always have a choice, even in such horrible circumstances. If we knuckle under the actions of our torturer, we’ve made a choice to be conquered by him.
But if we refuse to give in despite the severity of the torments, the torturer may damage our bodies but fails to defeat us. In the discourses of Epictetus, a vast collection of lectures by the 2nd-century Stoic sage, we see Epictetus repeating over and over again how one’s ability to choose (or “moral choice” as translated by some scholars) can never be taken away.
In every situation, no matter how terrible, we have a choice to maintain power over our actions or to submit to the circumstances. Epictetus explains this power by telling how he’d react when a tyrant threatens him: If he says, “I will put you in chains,” I reply, “He is threatening my hands and my feet.” If he says, “I will behead you,” I answer, “He is threatening my neck.” If he s...