6 Timeless Philosophy Quotes That Will Help You Fight The Coronavirus Panic
The COVID-19 pandemic is in full swing, and widespread panic is spreading across the globe.
Singapore, where I stay, was amongst the first countries to be hit by the virus, so I got to experience the shockwave of fear first hand. Many raced to snatch up essentials such as ramen noodles, rice, and for some reason — toilet paper.
People from other countries mocked us, but when the virus reached their shores they too were quick to empty the shelves to fill their larders.
Perhaps we’re getting a flu-bug confused with a full-blown zombie apocalypse.
All jokes aside, COVID-19 is proving to be a serious problem and not just in the obvious ways. To be sure, the ever-increasing rate of infection and the rising death toll is most apparent and concerning. I’m not trying to downplay the fact that people are literally dying every day from this new disease.
However, what really stood out to me was not the disease itself, but the human reaction to it: the aforementioned senseless hoarding, hostility and outright violence against Asians in some parts of the world, people literally fighting each other over masks, panic bordering on mass hysteria.
The depths of the human mind are something far more insidious than a brainless killer germ. Our collective fear and panic might wind up to be more damaging than the virus itself.
This article is me casting my pebble, an attempt from a lone writer to create a ripple of positivity in this sea of chaos.
Six quotes from long-dead philosophers, echoes of wisdom distilled yet undiminished by the passage of time.
These quotes will not shield you against COVID-19. They are not foolproof magic spells, something to utter vainly in the hopes of warding off evil.
They are something better.
They are timeless life lessons. These quotes are old. They have guided countless men through wars and famine and blights far more virulent than this.
It is my hope that they do the same for you, Dear Reader, a beacon of light in these trying times.
Our Own Minds Can Be Our Worst Enemy
#1 “We suffer more in imagination than in reality”
— Seneca
We humans like to think we’re 100% logical creatures, poised beings of dispassionate intellect.
We’re absolutely not. We make decisions based on emotions, so much so that if the parts of our brains responsible for emotional regulation are damaged, we literally become incapable of making proper decisions.
Marketers focus on the emotional part of the human decision-making process. They emphasize that “people buy things using emotions, then use logic to justify their purchase.”
In my experience, I have found this to be painfully true.
There is nothing wrong with emotions—they are a natural and beautiful part of being alive, of being human. Nobody wants to be an unfeeling robot.
The problem arises when we let our emotions run amok and get in the way of our logical thinking.
A quote that helped me put things in perspective is the one above. Perhaps Seneca’s most famous quote, he wrote it in a letter addressed to his friend Lucilius during his final years.
“There are more things, Lucilius, likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
― Seneca, Letters from a Stoic
Sometimes we let terror get the better of us. We all have primal fears such as that of death and injury, both to ourselves and our loved ones. Having a sense of fear is actually 100% justified and healthy — without fear to protect us, Homo Sapiens would’ve become extinct a long time ago.
Oftentimes though, our fears get blown out of proportion by our imagination. Humans are intelligent and imaginative creatures, and our greatest gift is also our most terrible curse.
Men have a unique ability to keep an eye on the future. We attempt to preempt and predict it, and in doing so we make life better for ourselves. The farmer who is able to anticipate rain grows better crops, the hunter who senses a saber tooth tiger in the path ahead takes another road and lives to hunt another day.
So far, so good, but as mentioned, there exists a dark side. People who do not use logic in conjunction with their feelings, who make decisions solely or primarily based on knee-jerk emotional reactions. That is a very unbalanced individual indeed.
He or she will forever live in the valley of fear because there is no science nor sense to guide his or her actions. They see shadows at every corner, they anticipate danger where there is none and conjure vicious enemies out of thin air. Their imagination, once a proud asset, turns on them like mad dogs on a weak master.
It doesn’t help that in the 21st century, we are constantly being barraged by an onslaught of negative media. Take this coronavirus, for example. One can scarcely go an hour without hearing about it, whether it be through traditional news TV, social media, or well-meaning but frightened friends.
Pay too much attention to that, and even the most logical and calm individual can grow paranoid and fearful. The people who bought out entire supermarkets? They aren’t out of their minds. The people who were suspicious of and hurled abuse at Asians? They aren’t evil racists, veritable born-again Hitlers.
They are people just like you and me — and that’s the scary part.
They are regular folks, normal people placed in extraordinary circumstances. And they’re scared. They’re emotional. And fearful people do illogical things.
#2 “He suffers more than necessary, who suffers before it is necessary.”
― Seneca
Think about it: how many imagined fears have you had?
Now think about how many of those fears actually came true.
99% of your worst fears never materialized, and I bet even the 1% that actually occurred wasn’t nearly as bad as your imagination made it out to be.
When it seems like your whole world is about to collapse around you, breathe in deeply and take a mental step back.
Adopt a broad viewpoint. Ask yourself: “are things really going to hell, or is my imagination running amok and making things 10x worse than they actually are?”
Pay attention to only what is. Ignore what the media says, be heedless of your friend's gossip, and disregard especially the dark imaginings of your over-eager imagination.
Remember, things are never as good or as bad as they seem.
They simply are.
Control What You Can, Ignore What You Can’t
#3 “You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
— Marcus Aurelius
Let’s face it— there is no way you or I can stop this virus.
Sure, we can stay home, isolate ourselves and wash our hands till they’re red and raw, but the fact of the matter is the can of worms is already open. We have no choice but to watch them wriggle.
No matter how much you make yourself sick with worry, no matter how much news you watch or how many rolls of toilet paper you buy, this pandemic isn’t going away anytime soon. Things are going to get worse before they get better.
So why worry at all?
When I was a young fighter (I used to be a competitive mixed martial artist), I remember being beside myself with anxiety months before I even set foot in the ring.
Every single time I signed up for a fight, my imagination would take off. “What if I lose,” I would think to myself. “What if I break a bone, what if the crowd boos as I’m walking out, what if, what if….”
My imagination was playing out scenarios that were likely to happen— but most of them never did! To paraphrase Seneca, I was “suffering more than necessary, because I was suffering before it was necessary.”
I used to think that this obsession somehow gave me an edge. It wasn’t until I read a great book on sport psychology that I realized how damaging that sort of mentality is.
The book posits that it is common for athletes to place undue stress on themselves by worrying about factors they cannot control. Good examples are the outcome of a match and whether the spectators will like them.
Worrying about uncontrollable factors is pointless and self-sabotaging. It takes energy away from things you could be paying attention to, things that will actually make a difference and are within your control, like your training leading up to the match.
The same is true about life.
Like Aurelius wrote in his Meditations nigh two millennia ago, we have power over our minds, not outside events. Many of us erroneously believe wringing our hands and fretting about the future gives us control over it when it couldn’t be further from the truth.
Ironically, the opposite is true.
#4 “Whatever worries you masters you.”
— John Locke, British Philosopher
Instead of worrying about things that are out of your hands (e.g the coronavirus), make sure you’re doing well in the things you can control, such as not going to crowded areas needlessly, keeping your immune system up, et cetera.
When you master yourself, you will find peace, and the rest will fall naturally into place.
Groupthink Is The Enemy
#5 “The mob is the mother of tyrants.”
— Diogenes
There is a legendary story about my personal favourite philosopher, the ever-eccentric Diogenes the Cynic.
Diogenes was an ascetic philosopher in ancient Greece. He lived in a barrel in a bid to teach people the value of living honestly and simply. One day, news came that there was an impending attack by Philip II of Macedon (Alexander the Great’s father).
Everywhere around him, people were panicking. They were patching up the walls, furbishing arms and strengthening the battlements. When Diogenes saw that everyone around him was busy, he began rolling his tub energetically up and down the square. When a curious onlooker asked what he was doing, Diogenes replied:
#6 “I do not want to be thought the only idler in such a busy multitude; I am rolling my tub to be like the rest.”
Diogenes’s apocryphal stories never fail to bring a smile to my lips. As you can see, Diogenes was a grade-A philosopher troll, but there is a method behind his madness.
Diogenes believed in teaching and living by example and is famous for these philosophical stunts. In this story, he is preaching against groupthink, to not do something simply because everyone is doing it.
Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an irrational or dysfunctional decision-making outcome. Cohesiveness, or the desire for cohesiveness, in a group may produce a tendency among its members to agree at all costs.[1] This causes the group to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation.
— Wikipedia definition of Groupthink
Groupthink prevents people from thinking rationally.
Think about it, regarding the Coronavirus outbreak, how many people are wearing masks because of scientific credence, and how many are wearing them simply because everyone else is doing it and it seemed like the right thing to do?
How many people were in a hurry to stockpile food and necessities because their peers were doing it and they didn’t want to lose out?
Humans hate being the odd one out. It’s hard-wired in our DNA. We want to be part of a group, to belong. We are social animals, and when we were hunter-gatherers just a few thousand years ago (a mere blink of the eye in evolutionary terms) being ostracised from your tribe meant certain death.
In fact, the fear of being judged and ostracized is the #1 fear in America! It comes in the form of public speaking and is way ahead of the fear of death itself.
You may be thinking to yourself — what’s the big deal? What’s the harm in wearing masks and stockpiling necessities?
Yes, the acts themselves aren’t harmful to a large degree. It’s even a little comical to see people panicking and buying endless rolls of toilet paper. What’s harmful is the thinking behind the actions.
Groupthink can be responsible for something as trivial as buying up an entire shelf of toiletries simply because all your peers are doing it.
Groupthink is also responsible for some of the greatest atrocities in human history: genocides, The Holocaust, senseless war, systematic rape and state-sanctioned murder. Countless atrocities were committed by ordinary humans being unquestioningly obedient, regular law-abiding citizens no different from you and me acting as part of a collective. Just following orders.
The time when everyone else is being worked to a frenzy is precisely when you should stop and think. “Am I doing this because it makes sense, or am I doing it because everyone is doing it and I’m afraid to be the odd one out?”
Mark Twain put it across succinctly when he said:
“Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”
Don’t do something simply because everyone else is doing it.
In Summary
Mankind will survive COVID-19, we’ve survived far deadlier epidemics. If the Bubonic Plague and the Spanish Flu couldn’t take us out it’ll take more than this puny virus to put a dent in our armour.
What I am concerned about is the knee-jerk panic response. Humans have come a long way since we were living in caves, yet in many aspects, we’re not that far removed from our bestial roots.
Put a little bit of pressure on us, and we’d still fight each other over resources as trivial as toilet paper and ramen noodles.
It seems comical now, but what happens when more pressure is heaped on?
Like Christopher Nolan‘s Joker chillingly said in The Dark Knight,
“You see, their morals, their code, it’s a bad joke. Dropped at the first sign of trouble. They’re only as good as the world allows them to be. I’ll show you. When the chips are down, these… these civilized people, they’ll eat each other.”
My thing isn’t about combating the virus. I leave that in the capable hands of our doctors and scientists.
I’m a writer, and my shtick is fighting ourselves; or rather, fighting the darker aspect of Man. Lurking beneath the surface, beneath the veneer of civility, lie beings capable of great monstrosity.
It isn’t all doom and gloom, though. We are also intelligent apes capable of great kindness and generosity. As much as I believe in the dark side of mankind I also believe in our tremendous capacity for goodness.
Our minds make terrible masters, but wonderful servants. Avoid groupthink at all costs, our heated emotions must be alloyed with cold logic, and we must harness the powerful and limitless stallion of our imagination, lest it drag us along to dark and twisted places.
I shall end this article with one last Stoic quote:
“It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable.”
— Seneca
The human mind and will are stronger than any virus. It is the one true superweapon on this planet. Only we can defeat ourselves. Only we can help ourselves.
Be unconquerable.
Thanks for reading my story :)