Three techniques for dealing with loss.
These are how I’ll bear leaving this place.
This is my last day at the home we’ve loved for 23 years. Tomorrow we’ll leave our 150 acres, 10K of ski trails, an 1810 farmhouse, and my writer’s cabin... for a two-bedroom apartment.
I skied from house to cabin and complained of the commute when the snow wasn't great. Building trails satisfied my soul's need to get close to the land; I literally lost a tooth in the effort. Five books got written in that cabin. A farm family hayed the meadow for 55 straight years. The outhouse behind the cabin had great privacy. We heated mostly with wood. Beavers down in the swamp had their own relationship with wood.
Friends wonder if I’ve lost my mind. But the move makes sense. We’ll be next door to my wife’s twin sister, and a mile’s walk from the Dartmouth College Green. The apartment is very nice.
But it will take the same rhetorical tools that I wrote about in my latest book to keep my heart from breaking. I’ll name three.
1. Analogical thinking.
That’s Aristotle’s name for taking two seemingly unlike things and declaring them the same. The more unlike, the better. It’s where our tropes come from. In my case, I’m declaring the apartment a luxury hotel. It’ll even have room service (Dorothy promises to bring coffee while I work).
And our apartment life in a college town will become a trip. Then someday when I’m ready, I may declare the place home.
2. The future tense.
I’m determined not to mourn or regret. Instead, my life ahead will be filled with choices. Aristotle called this thinking “deliberative rhetoric.” It focuses on the future, and its persuasive power comes from the audience’s sense of the “advantageous”—what they want or expect. Even our memories can be put into the future tense. How will we remember this beautiful place, and how lucky we were to get to steward this land?
3. Soul philos.
Philos is the obligation you have to a friend or loved one. In this case, the friend is my Aristotelian soul. Soul philos has to do with distinguishing between my soul’s true needs and what Aristotle calls my “appetites.” I’ve bought an e-bike to replace my truck, will join the rowing club, look forward to skiing on Dartmouth’s beautifully groomed trails…and will continue to write. The change will spark new ideas, as change always does.
But, yeah. I’m a little sad. I turn 70 the day after tomorrow, and aging already brings loss. But as the Stoics like to say, I’m responsible for my own emotions. (Frankly, hearing Stoics prate about responsibility conjures up some violent emotions; but they’re right of course.) And I’ve found that my conversations with my soul have helped lead to greater happiness than I ever felt in my youth.
Here's to helpful tropes, the future, and our noble souls.
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