Massimo Pigliucci

But, you know, during the pandemic, for instance, I was reminded one more time that Epictetus and Marcus are right.

Because one day I suddenly collapsed the floor and was brought to the emergency room.

I had absolutely no control over my body.

Nothing.

Turns out to be a rather minor thing.

It was a slipped disc.

And I recovered very quickly and, you know, thanked Zeus for painkillers and stuff like that.

But that was an instant reminder that, you know, although now it's been years that you exercise, you eat healthy and all that sort of stuff.

Suddenly, you wake up in the morning, you're about to go out, and you collapse on the floor with the very intense feeling that you have no control over your body.

Okay, what would Epictetus or Marcus have said at this point?

Well, they would have said, okay, you just run into one of those externals that is not up to you.

The only thing you can do is to accept it and see what you can do about it in order to recover, to handle the situation, etc.,

That's right.

When I was young, as a lot of young people, you kind of think that you're immortal, and

That's, of course, not true, right?

I mean, I have looked up my actuarial statistics, so to speak, sometime recently, and it turns out that for somebody my age and my ethnic background living in New York, you know, there is a certain life expectancy.

And I looked it up and said, oh, okay, so statistically speaking, I have, you know, a couple more decades left.

But that's only statistically speaking.

Of course I could die today.

I could cross the street and a car could hit me and that's the end of it.