Hey,
Welcome to Stoic Snippets,
The philosophy track that is short in length but not in depth.
Chrysippus was one of the earliest Stoic founders.
He pointed out that one of the most harmful and pervasive traits of the human mind could be encapsulated by the following line.
The anchovy which is found at sea at Athens,
Men despise on account of its abundance,
And say that it is a poor man's fish.
But in other cities,
They prize it above everything else,
Even where it is far inferior to the attic anchovy.
In this line,
Chrysippus was able to dissect human nature with just his pen,
But he used it with the precision of a scalpel.
So much of what we value is based on how scarce it is.
This is the law behind the invisible hand of the free market,
Supply and demand.
When things are deemed unimportant,
Rare things are held to high esteem.
Sometimes that is correct,
Like when an individual is the best at their job,
They can demand a higher wage,
Because there are just fewer of them.
However,
When we subscribe to this supply and demand concept all the time,
We can find ourselves acting irrationally and craving items we don't even want,
Or need for that matter.
If you need an example of this,
Look no further than the toilet paper crisis of Covid.
Despite every country manufacturing their own toilet paper,
People believed that there would be an import shortage.
The result?
The average price of toilet paper went up by 25%.
Not because the product was 25% better,
But because people perceived it to be rarer.
Now we do the same thing with jewellery,
Fashion,
Art and cars too.
We forget to pay attention to what is inherently valuable,
Or even the value that it presents to us,
And we look instead at what others value something as.
Sadly,
This is a common trait.
We are social creatures,
Or pack animals,
So often we think as a herd.
We want what others want.
We forget what we want.
We judge our achievements against those around us.
We continually compare and despair.
The issue is we use the wrong yardstick,
Instead of measuring what we value based on what is perceived to be rare,
We should value what brings us joy in our life.
Instead of wanting something because others want it,
We should think about whether it serves us.
In both instances,
If we want to be happy,
We need to break away from this group think,
And take the time to work out what we value,
Not blindly follow others and what they value.
If we fail to do this,
We may chase things that bring us no happiness just because others do,
And we may ignore the things that serve us just because others don't.
We need to be strong and stand against the invisible hand of the market,
As well as the tricky hand of social psychology.
As Chrysippus points out,
We need to be honest about which anchovy is really better.
I would go further and say we have to ask whether we like anchovies at all,
And do they really deserve to be on pizza more importantly.
That's all for now,
I hope you've enjoyed this.
If you want to learn more,
Then check out my new course on Stoicism,
The first episode is all about Chrysippus,
I think you're going to love it.
See you there.
