The Socrates Express

A common Stoic exhortation is to “live in accord with nature.” The organizers of Stoic Camp take this advice literally. The grounds are snuggled in thick Wyoming forest, miles from the nearest town, which isn’t much of a town—just a gas station and three bars.

We Stoic campers gather in the main lodge for orientation. It’s a vast room, with high ceilings and, at one end, a serious fireplace, much needed even though it is late May. There’s talk of snow. From one wall, a giant stuffed elk looks down on us. The lodge’s so-called furniture consists of a hodgepodge of mismatched couches and stiff, plastic chairs—a jarring aesthetic that would displease Sei Shōnagon. If a ski lodge mated with a minimum-security prison, this would be the result.

We’re an odd bunch, we Stoic campers. There’s Greg, a thirty-something digital entrepreneur from New York, and Alexander, a cheery German consultant, and a smattering of grad students from the University of Wyoming: serious young men and women who look pained by existence, by the thought of existence, and who, during breaks, rush outdoors, no matter the weather, and smoke. Then there are us “graybeards,” as we’ve been dubbed: those drawn to Stoicism just in the nick of time.

We gather in a circle, the universal geometry of philosophical jam sessions and group therapy, sipping coffee from Styrofoam cups. A stout, cherubic man calls the meeting to order. Rob Colter is middle-aged, with an impressive paunch, a gray goatee, and quick, probing eyes. He looks like an aging, hipster Santa. When he is conveying something profound, which is often, he gently strokes his goatee.

“Welcome,” says Rob, in a tone that gives nothing away. “If you’ve seen the weather forecast, you know our Stoic abilities will be challenged.” It is late May, yet there is snow in the forecast. Lots of snow. I am concerned. I have packed for spring, not winter, and I have a flight to catch after Stoic Camp.

Rob is as paradoxical as the philosophy he loves. He reads ancient Greek and fly-fishes. He leads a healthy, outdoorsy life, yet also confesses to a “Panda Express problem.” He possesses a deep understanding of philosophy, yet isn’t afraid to confess ignorance, too. “I don’t know,” he says when asked a particularly sticky question. “I’ll have to think about that.” I like Rob.

A few years ago, he detected a surge of interest in Stoicism. “And I thought, well, the Stoic motto is ‘live in accord with nature’ and, hey, we’ve got plenty of nature around here.” He floated the idea of a Wyoming Stoic Camp to his fellow philosophers at the university, who replied, philosophically, “That’s fucking crazy. It will never work, but go ahead and try.” So he did. And here we are.

Rob tells us how he came to love Stoicism. It was the 1990s. He was studying philosophy in Chicago, home to “a real Plato scene.” Rob studied Plato, and his protégé Aristotle, not because he loved their ideas but because that was what serious students of philosophy did. “They were real philosophers, damn it,” he says, pounding his fist for emphasis. Sure, he was aware of others: Epicurus, the Cynics, and, yes, the Stoics, but these were not “real” philosophers, or so he thought.

Different philosophers appeal to different people at different times. Thoreau’s rebellious spirit attracts teens. Nietzsche’s flame-throwing aphorisms draw young adults. Existentialism’s emphasis on freedom appeals to the middle-aged. Stoicism is an older person’s philosophy. It is a philosophy for those who have weathered a few battles, suffered a few setbacks, known a few losses. It is a philosophy for life’s rough patches, large and smalclass="underline" pain, illness, rejection, annoying bosses, dry skin, traffic jams, credit card debt, public humiliation, delayed trains, death. Asked what he learned from philosophy, Diogenes, a proto-Stoic, replied: “To be prepared for every fortune.”

Stoicism, the unlikely progeny of a shipwreck, came of age during a time of great upheaval in ancient Greece and thrived during the rough-and-tumble world of the Roman Empire. Its most famous practitioners were variously exiled, executed, maimed, and ridiculed. Yet as Marcus Aurelius, himself a Stoic, demonstrates, they were also wildly successful.

More recent adherents include American war heroes and presidents. A Stoic thread runs throughout U.S. history: from the Founding Fathers, including George Washington and John Adams; to Franklin Roosevelt, who, when he famously said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself,” expressed a quintessentially Stoic idea; to Bill Clinton, who considers Marcus’s Meditations a marvelous piece of wisdom writing and his favorite book.

“Wisdom” is one of those words everyone knows but nobody defines. Psychologists have struggled for decades to nail down a working definition. In the 1980s, a group of researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin sat down to hammer one out once and for all. The Berlin Wisdom Project identified five criteria that define wisdom: factual knowledge, procedural knowledge, life-span contextualism, relativism of values, and management of uncertainty.