I just closed the final page on Laura Hillenbrand’s stunning recount of Lieutenant Louis Zamperini’s long and brutal World War II experience in her 2010 bestseller Unbroken. Louis was an accomplished Olympic runner before entering the Army Air Force. He crashed while serving as a bomber in a rickety, unreliable B-24 in the Pacific theater, and embarked on an unimaginable set of terrifying events for the rest of the war. Relying on his physical training, resourcefulness, and humor, Louis survived 47 days in the ocean on a tiny raft, circled by leaping sharks, with no food or water; was captured and tortured as a POW for two years; and swallowed into alcoholism and PTSD after coming home. Ultimately, Louis found forgiveness and healing in the embrace of an evangelical community and his own family, which provided meaning, structure and love.
Louis was driven to the limits of human endurance and extremity of conditions. Traditional Stoics believe, like Seneca, that “those apparently vicious events that form part of providential fate should in fact be welcomes with open arms” (Sellars, pg. 102). Why? One part of the answer is Seneca’s answer that disasters are not misfortunes, so much as “virtue’s opportunity” (Prov. 4.6), for us to build our moral character and sustain our integrity as rational beings. Stoics physics, describing a rational, benevolent, and providential consciousness that results in the deterministic Fate we experience, also includes our own ability to ‘co-join’ or shape some outcomes. When Louis smacks the massive shark on the nose, he is solving the problem right in front of him; he is acting Stoically to lean into his situation with areté, grace, and virtue and co-fated to influence the outcome. By the way, Louis lived until 96 years old!
We all have our own dramatic storylines, our ocean of sharks. That is why the Stoics threw us a life vest: philosophy as a way to keep our head above the waves and our hearts still scanning for land. Resilience, growth, and a good life in the face of what we can’t control and acting with intelligence and virtue in those situations where we can. We salute you, Louis, and Veterans everywhere.
With gratitude and respect,
Kathryn,Todd, Derrick