Book Review: The Epictetus Club

My wife has made amazing progress as a cook over our 18 years of marriage. Despite some wonderful meals in her repertoire, she still frequently falls into what I call the fast trap. When turning on the stove top on she reflexively spins the knob to high, and then attempt to ride the wave as she browns burger or sautés vegetables. Scorching is frequently the result and meals burned around the edges a regular occurrence. Dishes also become more onerous for what is essentially nothing more than a habit ingrained overtime.

The fast trap also springs when she does not think of the day’s meals as a daylong endeavor but approaches each meal reflexively in response to hunger. There are days when breakfast begins when a child clamors for it. Lunch preparation begins when she starts to get hungry at mid-day. Dinner is planned when I have begun to hunt through the cabinets, looking for sustenance. When meals are prepared for their speed and not necessarily their optimal taste or texture the family is fed but stress is acute and satisfaction is decreased.

There is a temptation to the fast trap whenever we discover a concept or idea that stuns us with its sense of promise. We want answers quickly. We want serenity now. We want five steps and two weeks to a better tomorrow. Some changes can be made quickly but long lasting change happen more slowly. We can grasp some ideas in a moment but others must sit and roast slowly in the crock pot of an unhurried mind if their full flavor is to emerge. Hope for serenity is smelled before it is tasted and the change in diet takes time to show itself in our overall health.

A few years ago I observed that my monotheism was dying. My moments of unbelief were growing longer and more certain and periods of faith shorter and presented as emotional responses rather than conviction. Disoriented I began to search for something solid about which to orient myself. In some passage of some book somewhere I came across a reference to Epictetus, a stoic philosopher of the second century of the Common Era. As I read his work I began to find hope for an anchored and disciplined life after the death of my god.

By the happenstance of history we have a remarkable corpus of Epictetus’ teachings available to us and I consumed them quickly. Some of it I understood immediately it was easily incorporated into my life. Other bits rattled around in my brain and with sometime I was able to sort them out. The meaning, let alone relevance, of other passages still eluded me. I read college textbooks about the teachings of Epictetus. I began to follow some blogs about contemporary stoic practice. I worked through other ancient and modern authors. I re-read the teachings of Epictetus in another translation thinking perhaps this would help make things clearer. I adopted some stoic practices myself but on the whole I was caught in my own kind of “fast trap.” I thought by turning the heat up higher, reading more words about stoicism, reading more sophisticated analysis of the ancient philosophical schools, that I could make my brain “cook faster” and see the results of a stoic education, if not immediately than quickly, but I was starting to feel a little crisp along the edges.

Reading The Epictetus Club by Jeff Traylor offers a taste of stoicism slowly cooked by an inmate with few books and an excess of time. Concepts that seem largely theoretical are made concrete through clear examples of life leading to and then within a state prison. The genesis of these stories and the desire to escape them are universal to being human: spousal conflict, desire to be a good parent, money problems, seeking a purposeful life, the temptation of shady business practices, worry of what the future holds, the instinct to avoid consequences for our own rule breaking, anger, yearning for respect, and the fear of death. They apply to us all as the author details as he applies the same questions the prisoners face to his own life as a newly minted college graduate beginning a career. The story is told in such a way that applying them to any setting or stage of life is a straightforward task.

Interspersed within compelling narrative the book is organized around ten central lessons taught by inmate “Zeno” that confront basic thinking errors human beings make and offers alternatives to replace them. Complete with exercises and illustrations, the book breaks down Epictetus’ teaching into easily understood bite-sized pieces. It leaves the reader with a slow cook recipie for "what I can work on next" which serves as an outlet other than my fast cooking habit of quickly moving on to another book.  If the book itself is not practical enough, it contains resources for an Epictetus Club program that can be used as a template for stoic practice.  It is not a source of go-to information about the philosopher or the first century but it is an accessible and practical outline of stoic practice.