You Don’t Actually Need to Have a View on This

There is power in sitting this one out

Amy Shearn
Forge

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Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images

The news of the past few days has inspired a flurry of group texts and confused conversations among my friends and colleagues. And the general consensus is that no one knows how to feel right now.

What are we to make of the fact that the Science-Denier-in-Chief tested positive for Covid-19, after flouting all the advice we hoped everyone else in America would follow and in fact spreading bad information that may well have led to increased spread of the disease? That he is — or isn’t! — or is? — in the hospital? Is this karma? And/or: Is it appropriate to consider how the death of a president could affect the election and/or down-ballot races? And/or: Was the whole thing just a conspiracy?

No one knows how to feel right now. Except Epictetus (50 A.D. – 135 A.D.). That’s right: I think the answer might be found in a philosophy I studied for months earlier this year and wrote about in Forge: Stoicism.

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Amy Shearn
Forge

Formerly: Editor of Creators Hub, Human Parts // Ongoingly: Novelist, Essayist, Person