Freedom from the Diving Bell

Sweet Bites for March 21, 2025

Mind Candy is a newsletter on practical philosophy and human flourishment—aka how to live “the good life.” Each month we tackle a new theme.

This month we’re exploring the theme of adversity.

Welcome to another edition of Sweet Bites, Mind Candy’s bite-sized newsletter with thought-provoking finds to send you into the weekend with.

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📚 Wisdom

“The brain defends our flawed model of the world with an armoury of crafty biases. When we come across any new fact or opinion, we immediately judge it. If it's consistent with our model of reality our brain gives a subconscious feeling of yes. If it's not, it gives a subconscious feeling of no. These emotional responses happen before we go through any process of conscious reasoning. They exert a powerful influence over us.“

Will Storr

Source: The Science of Storytelling

🍰 Mini Bite

Jean-Dominique Bauby‘s life would be forever changed on December 8, 1995.

“At first I refused to believe that anything serious had happened. In my semiconscious state following the coma, I thought I would shortly be back in my Paris stamping grounds, with just a couple of canes to help me along.”

After suffering a stroke, he awoke from the coma to discover a world he barely recognized. Instead, Bauby came to understand his life would never be the same.

“You survive, but you survive with what is so aptly known as "locked-in syndrome,”” he wrote in his memoir, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. “Paralyzed from head to toe, the patient, his mind intact, is imprisoned inside his own body, unable to speak or move. In my case, blinking my left eyelid is my only means of communication.”

Overnight, his world was completely transformed. One event and the world he knew was erased. “Not only was I exiled, paralyzed, mute, half deaf, deprived of all pleasures, and reduced to the existence of a jellyfish, but I was also horrible to behold.”

Bauby was suddenly at the complete mercy of others. They bathed him, ensured he had adequate food and water, he even relied upon them for the smallest of things such as closing his door so as to not have to listen to others in the hall. Things he took for granted such as walking—moving—were now relinquished to memory.

“Lameness is an impediment to the body but not to the will,” Epictetus taught.

Even with the horrid condition, Bauby somehow managed to perfect the philosophy of Epictetus, embodying the spirit and principles of the philosophy.

"For there are two rules to keep at the ready-that there is nothing good or bad outside my own reasoned choice, and that we shouldn't try to lead events but to follow them” instructed Epictetus.

Bauby understood something most of us take for granted: the power of our mind.

“My diving bell becomes less oppressive, and my mind takes flight like a butterfly. There is so much to do. You can wander off in space or in time,”

And this was Epictetus’ point, the mind is incredibly powerful but too many of us misuse it. We place our desires in external things, we make ourselves believe we can will the world, we place our worth in the opinions of others.

This is all wrong Epictetus says. First and foremost, we must rely upon ourselves, we must bring our focus back to us, as we are the ones who hold the power. And sometimes it means letting go of what we think we know, the life we know, and learn to embrace the life we must.

These moments, these trials, these tend to be transformative experiences as LA Paul would call them, events that we cannot even imagine how they will change us until it happens.

Yet each of us will at some point encounter these moments. and when we do, we should recall Epictetus’ philosophy. As James Stockdale would write after being a prisoner of war in Vietnam, “I had left the land of technology. I had entered the world of Epictetus, and it’s a world that few of us, whether we know it or not, are ever far away from.”

We each will encounter situations we will not be able to change. There will be external forces to us that we are helpless to control. So we must instead find our way to what we can. And that starts in the mind. Understanding what we do in fact have power over.

Putting his focus on teaching his doctors and the world of his condition, Bauby narrated his memoir one letter at a time. Blinking whenever a letter was pointed to, Bauby would write over 130 pages.

Blink by blink and letter by letter he had someone transcribe his thoughts. “In my head I churn over every sentence ten times, delete a word, add an adjective, and learn my text by heart, paragraph by paragraph,” he would write.

This is the power of the mind, the ability to handle the worst of situations by making the most of them.

“Not to assume it's impossible because you find it hard. But to recognize that if it's humanly possible, you can do it too,” Marcus Aurelius reminded himself.

When we can learn to master our mind, we no longer are beholden to the challenges of life. Instead, we understand challenges are life, and we make the most of those times.

🧘🏻This Week’s Monday Meditation

🦉 This Week’s Wednesday Wisdom

📝 This Week’s Most Popular Note

📰 Article Worthy of a Read

Your sense of right and wrong is interwoven with your personality by Luke D Smillie & Milan Andrejević

For those interested in morality (which we’ll dive into later this year), you can review one of the leading frameworks known as moral foundations theory popularized by Jonathan Haidt and outlined in the article. One of the most influential frameworks used to study morality is moral foundations theory. It proposes that people base their judgments of right and wrong, to differing degrees, on at least five core principles:

• Care (vs harm): are there implications for the wellbeing of others?

• Fairness (vs cheating): are there implications for justice?

• Loyalty (vs betrayal): are there implications for my group?

• Authority (vs subversion): are there implications for social institutions and hierarchies?

• Purity or sanctity (vs degradation): are there implications for protecting what’s pure and sacred?”

📖 Book Recommendation

How to be Free by Epictetus (translation by A.A. Long)

If you’re looking to understand Stoicism, this is a great starting point. How to be Free is a recent translation of Epictetus’ Enchiridion which is a distillation of his teachings by his student Arrian.

Epictetus’ teachings assist people in understanding the distinction of what is and is not within their control, what impressions we form, and the judgments we make, all of which determine the quality of our life.

📚 Wisdom #2

“Nothing has meaning to my mind except its own actions. Which are within its own control. And it's only the immediate ones that matter. Its past and future actions too are meaningless.”

Marcus Aurelius

Source: Meditations 6.32

🎙 Podcast to Listen To

I enjoyed this episode more than I expected to. In the below, Michael Shermer interviews Kurt Gray, whose new book, Outraged, dives into morality and what is driving us apart.

Think someone you know would enjoy these? Hit below to forward and spread the love.

Until next time,

D.A. DiGerolamo

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