Sympatheia & the View from Above
This week you are learning about sympatheia, a Greek word that means, literally, "feeling with" or "fellow-feeling with everything." The Stoics used it to name their conviction that the entire universe is one living, breathing whole, and that every part of it, from a blade of grass to a human soul to a distant star, participates in and responds to the life of every other part. Understanding sympatheia is worth your time because it changes the scale at which you see yourself: instead of a small, separate creature buffeted by a large and indifferent world, you begin to see yourself as a thread in a fabric that is, at its deepest level, on your side.
Passage
Do you not think, he answered, that all things are united in one?—I do, said the other.—Very well, do you not think that what is on earth feels the influence of that which is in heaven?—I do, he replied.—
— Epictetus, Discourses 1.14.2
Reflection
Epictetus makes the connection vertical as well as horizontal. What is on earth feels the influence of what is in heaven; the parts are in constant dialogue with the whole. This is sympatheia working as a two-way street: you are not only shaped by the whole, you also contribute to it. Your choices, your attention, your character, all of it ripples outward into the body of the universe, however modestly. That gives your inner work a significance it would not have if you were truly isolated. How you govern yourself today is, in a small but real sense, part of how the whole governs itself.
Go deeper
Considering the influence that flows both ways in sympatheia, what is one quality in yourself that, if you cultivated it more fully, would most improve the small portion of the whole you actually touch each day?
Practice
Tracing the Influence
Choose one person you will interact with today. Before the interaction, take two minutes to consider: what am I bringing into this exchange from the wider world around me (mood, stress, energy)? After the interaction, take two more minutes to notice what you sent back out. You are practicing awareness of the two-way current.