Alain de Botton on The Volcano

Thanks to the volcano, we remember that we are the play-things of forces of destruction which can at best be kept at bay but never vanquished. We may enjoy local victories, a few years in which we are able to impose a degree of order upon the chaos, but everything is ultimately fated to be shredded back to a primeveal soup. If this prospect has a power to console, it is perhaps because the greater part of our anxieties stems from an exaggerated sense of the importance of our projects and concerns. We are tortured by our ideals, and by a punishingly high-minded sense of the gravity of what we are doing. A volcano hundreds of miles away invites us to live with the sense of awe and generosity of people who never allow themselves to let the thought of death slip too far away.
 
Early in the morning on the fifth of February AD 62, a gigantic earthquake rippled beneath the Roman province of Campania and in seconds, killed thousands of unsuspecting inhabitants. Large sections of Pompeii collapsed on top of people in their beds. Attempts to rescue them were stopped when fires broke out. The survivors were left destitute in only the soot-covered clothes they stood in, their noble buildings shattered into rubble. There was horror, disbelief and anger throughout the Empire. How could the Romans, the world’s mightiest, most technologically sophisticated people, who had built aqueducts and tamed barbarian hordes, be so vulnerable to the insane tempers of nature?

The suffering and confusion – only too familiar today in the wake of the Icelandic volcano – attracted the notice of the Roman Stoic philosopher, Seneca. He wrote a succession of essays to comfort his readers but, typically for Seneca, the consolation on offer was of the stiffest, darkest sort: ‘You say: ‘I did not think it would happen.’ Do you think there is anything that will not happen, when you know that it is possible to happen, when you see that it has already happened...?’ Seneca tried to calm the sense of injustice in his readers by reminding them – in the spring of AD62 – that natural and man-made disasters will always be a feature of our lives, however sophisticated and safe we think we have become. We must therefore at all times expect the unexpected. Calm is only an interval between chaos. Nothing is guaranteed, not even the ground we stand on.

If we do not dwell on the risk of sudden volcanic explosions and pay a price for our innocence, it is because reality comprises two cruelly confusing characteristics: on the one hand, continuity and reliability lasting across generations, on the other, unheralded cataclysms. We find ourselves divided between a plausible invitation to assume that tomorrow will be much like today, and the possibility that we will meet with an appalling event after which nothing will ever be the same again. It is because we have such powerful incentives to neglect the latter scenario that Seneca asked us to remember that our fate is forever in the hands of the Goddess of Fortune. This Goddess can scatter gifts, then with terrifying speed watch us choke to death on a fishbone or disappear along with our hotel in a tidal wave.

Because we are hurt most by what we do not expect, and because we must expect everything (‘There is nothing which Fortune does not dare’), we must, argued Seneca, hold the possibility of the most obscene events in mind at all times. No one should undertake a journey by plane, or walk down the stairs or say goodbye to a friend without an awareness, which Seneca would have wished to be neither gruesome nor unnecessarily dramatic, of fatal possibilities.

Alain de Botton is the author of many books including 'How Proust Can Change Your Life' , 'The Art of Travel' and 'Essays in Love'.  His most recent work 'A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary' is published by Profile Books.

Comments

[Sergio Lissone]

But this approach is just offering "free anxiety - forever", with no upside - just a sense of lingering insecurity. It would make more sense to keep all highly unlikely disasters out of mind (in other words, assign these rare disasters an appropriately rare amount of thought). Far more common and painful are the kinds of personal disasters that are caused by poor personal choices and thinking patterns; these are almost always avoidable by learning and following good habits from a young age. Violence, crime, low self esteem, depression, addiction and being a bad parent are all caused by bad thinking habits we develop as we grow up, and if they are not reversed, then the brief and intense fear, panic and loss caused by a natural disaster pales in comparison to the drawn out torture of a life lived badly.

[Desiree]

Favorite phrase? "Calm is only an interval between chaos." Hard, however, as a neurotic-enough mother, to embrace Seneca's admonition to expect everything. But then again, the consolations of philosophy are all bittersweet.

[simon quick]

Alain, a great reminder that the most important word in our language, and all too often too casually uttered, is 'goodbye'!

"See you", is optimism per se! Spoken, with far too much surety and without the hope that should really accompany it!

[sabine]

The past days, I tried to imagine a world without planes. Our economy would change, our food habits...
Maybe people would notice more details of the world surrounding them, if they travelled in a slower pace?

[Auntiezanna]

I wonder when it was that there were no airoplanes in the sky? it is the first time in my life I have experienced clear blue skies and no vapour trails and constant bird song, I am savouring this moment.....