Mendocino, Epictetus and Uncle Sean
Poking around in the history of a natural harbor, the teachings of a Roman philosopher. And, Uncle Sean O'Cofaigh RIP.
I always love arriving home, back in San Francisco.
Though, Mexico City and Oaxaca City - at least in the neighbourhoods where I stayed - have more to be proud of than San Francisco. At least on first impressions from strolling the streets and chatting with business owners.
It’s amazing how ideologies can trump obvious outcomes in city management. While living in San Francisco today is not as bad as all of the media headlines - and Irish and UK friends visiting this summer loved their stay commenting “you live in an amazing city” - it’s hard to feel proud of San Francisco right now with the state of homelessness and professional crime enjoying the ideologies of San Francisco’s leaders.
With just one night at home, surf gear scattered all over the living room floor, I repacked for a mystery weekend away up the coast with Carolin :)
A Rollercoaster in the Redwoods
We drove and drove, from highway, to two lanes, to one lane. Winding across wine country hillsides, barren brown fields and into redwood forests. And then popping out onto the coastline of Mendocino County, where the coastline crags like it’s Ireland or Scotland.
I loved the mystery in where we were headed - secrecy on the destination holding out - until we pulled into an elegant home tucked on a Mendocino cliff side, Harbor House.
What a treat! A quaint coastline house perched on a cliff and converted into a small hotel, and with a two Michelin-starred restaurant oriented around sustainable local produce - including seaweed. (See this Mendocino Voice article)
With the name Harbor House, and overhearing of a ‘rollercoaster’ for loggers a hundred years ago, courtesy of waiting staff, I had to look up the history of the area, a small town called Elk perched on the cliffs, population 350 or so.
This California Parks and Recreation article shares the 3,000 year history of those cliff tops, the Pomo people living from the land and ocean, before the arrival of Russian and Aleutian fur trappers, and the Spanish missions (catholic Franciscans), with logging oriented around a lumber mill as the modern town was built in 1864 (source: Wikipedia article).
The ‘rollercoaster’ was a reference to logging chutes sending timber flying down the cliffside into the beautiful natural harbor that was set out in front of us.
It was a lazy weekend in beautiful sunshine, and the treat - for a recent surf traveler - of fine dining, of the finest sheets I have slipped into in a hotel, and of the most desolate coves that I have swum in in California.
Epictetus
Years ago, via some of the early bloggers, I first observed the revival trend in ‘Stoic’ philosophy.
It was back in London days that I first bought a copy of Marcus Aurelius Meditations, and then soon into my San Francisco days, I bought (and did not fully read, once again) a copy of Seneca’s Letters.
In the book clearing process of Rumschpringe (that I wrote about in first ep. of Life Notes), my hand pulled out of the pile a modern compilation of the writings of the first Stoic philosopher Epictetus, ‘The Art of Living: The Classical Manual on Virtue, Happiness and Effectiveness’, put together by a Northern Californian author and musician, Sharon Lebell.
Now if I say ‘Stoic’, you might think ‘stiff upper lip’ or ‘thick skinned’. With the speed and complexity and melodrama of the modern world (perhaps it was the same in roman times?), it’s the simple tones of common sense, a modicum of discipline and elimination of drama, that had Epictetus resonating for me again.
To share a few favorite under-linings…
“If you attempt to adopt the affairs of others as your own, your pursuits will be thwarted, and you will become a frustrated, anxious and fault-finding person.”
“If it concerns anything outside your control, train yourself not to worry about it.”
“It’s much better to die of hunger unhindered by grief and fear than to live affluently beset with worry, dread, suspicion and unchecked desire.”
“Spiritual progress requires us to be highlight what is essential and to disregard everything else as trivial pursuits unworthy of our attention.”
“Your happiness depends on three things all of which are within your power: your will, your ideas concerning the events in which you are involved, and the use you make of your ideas.”
And for this one, I wrote in the margin: “Enough said. Mantra!”:
“Attach yourself to what is spiritually superior, regardless of what other people think or do. Hold to your true aspirations no matter what is going on around you.”
But, perhaps this one is the most apt for Rumschpringe! A jab in the nuts, and a jab that I might have appreciated in my twenties….
“Think things through and fully commit. Otherwise you will be like a child who sometimes pretends he or she is a wrestler, sometimes a soldier, sometimes a musician, sometimes an actor in a tragedy.”
…which pairs well with the cautionary words that followed…
“Make the necessary sacrifices that are the price for the worthiest of goals: freedom, even-mindedness, and tranquility. If however, upon honestly appraising your mettle, you are not fit or ready, free yourself from delusion and tread a different, more realistic road…
…If you try to be something you’re not or strive fir something completely beyond your present capacities, you end up as a pathetic dabbler, trying first to be a wise person, then a bureaucrat, then a politician, then a civic leader. These roles are not consistent. You can’t be flying off in countless directions, however appealing they are, and at the same time live an integrated, fruitful life.”
Finally, if there is one piece of Epictetus to live by, it may simply be:
“It’s so simple, really: If you say you’re going to do something, do it. If you start something, finish it.”
Noted, young Epictetus, noted!
Uncle Sean RIP
We lost Uncle Sean O’Cofaigh of Dingle, County Kerry in Ireland, this week on Wednesday. Uncle Sean was the husband of my Mum’s sister Marian (born O’Sullivan).
Uncle Sean had a wonderful way of pivoting from earnestness to humour, and back again. His eyes and bushy brow would flash up two different spirits within a minute, his gaze signalling total focus and sincere curiosity in your conversation together.
My favorite memories of Uncle Sean go back to maths tutoring when Sean and Marian and my cousins Adrienne and Jennifer lived in Crystal Palace. Uncle Sean had such a passion for the subject, and broke down concepts for me in a way that rejiggled understanding. His earnest enthusiasm rubbed off, the sessions were a turning point, and Uncle Sean lifted me into a new confidence with maths concepts, because he was passionate about them. And, I’m so grateful for Mum and Dad’s resourcefulness to get me that extra help.
Like Mum and Dad, Sean and Marian left Ireland in the first decade or so of their marriage, to live in Zimbabwe and then London. An interesting parallel, on reflection, to think of both couples spending time enchanted by Africa and appreciative of London. And, in an era when the Irish were actively bombing London, and an Irish accent in the streets would raise eyebrows in the timeless tradition of ‘ethnic profiling’.
From afar, in this era where our parents and their generation are ageing and passing on, the days around a death feel quite different.
We’re pulled back into meaningful moments of our past and the heaviness of the realization that we’re all on a track to stiffer everything, diseased cells and an aged last breath (if we’re lucky enough not to be felled in younger years by something more sudden).
One more reminder to seize the day, and seize those moments we have with loved ones young and old.
And especially when they flick from earnestness to humour, and back again, in a minute….
Under The Influence
Fascinating, thought provoking, or both…:
On Grief, At Work. One of my favorite podcasters, the revered tech journalist Kara Swisher, lost her producer to a sudden cardiac arrest at the age of 40 last week. They bring in Esther Perell, a Flemish relationship therapist who specializes in studying the relevance of the primal nature of our emotions, to reflect on how to consider grief within a team in the workplace.
Eric Torenberg Interviews Marc Andreesen. Insights into how one of the world’s richest venture capitalists digs into history to understand how the world was changing in 2016. The episode is a reminder of the complexity and range of intellectual that sits behind great investors, in their search to understand how the world works (and bet appropriately on those viewpoints through investing).
How To Do Great Work, by Paul Graham. Graham’s opening comments resonate closely with the ambitions I’m setting myself in considering my next direction of work: 1. Working in / on a topic of deep interest. 2. Belief in long-term fulfillment from the nature of the work. 3. Probability of getting results. Graham writes:
“The work you choose needs to have three qualities: it has to be something you have a natural aptitude for, that you have a deep interest in, and that offers scope to do great work.”
Noted, noted, noted…!