If Elon Musk Were a Stoic
Short of the long: If Elon Musk were a Stoic, he'd pour every ounce of his being into creating a class of the most efficient rockets ever assembled.
If Elon Musk had a Stoic mindset he might wake up every morning and do certain things to further his practice of Stoicism. Chief among them might be reminders that he will most likely come across many people that will try to steal from him; not just his money, but his time and attention. He may also choose exercise, fortifying his body in an attempt to stave off death as long as possible so that he may continue to fulfill his purpose as long as possible. Or he may choose to voluntarily submit himself to discomfort; be it a cold shower, or bath, or a physically intense experience like wall sits or endurance running. He may otherwise choose to do nothing at all, clearing his mind of any thoughts or distractions that would impede his ability to pursue peace and a tranquil mind. But no matter the activity, if Elon Musk were a practicing Stoic he would actively participate in the beginning of his day, if only to remind himself of the most important Stoic principle: that every effort he gives that day will be aimed at fulfilling his purpose, one that must be geared towards helping others first. Other than that, he’ll act as virtuously as possible and review each day for failures, planning and executing improvements incrementally.
Sympatheia is the Stoic concept that everything in the Universe is connected and relies on everything else. In that, Stoics believe we have a natural affinity for all other things in the Universe because we know we couldn’t exist without everything doing what everything is supposed to do. It is an extremely useful tool for a number of reasons but serves best as a reminder of our place in the grand scheme of things, that we are infinitesimally small relative to what else is out there. It’s then bolstered when coupled with the notion that Stoics believe true happiness can only be derived from helping others in support of the common good. Marcus Aurelius mentions the “common good” over 80 times in Meditations, stating as clearly as possible,”the fruit of this life is a good character and acts for the common good.” Ergo, it’s not all about what you do, but why you choose to do it at all.
What intrigues me most about Elon Musk‘s life are his motivations. How is Elon Musk supposed to serve the common good with the resources he has at his disposal and how might those have changed as his wealth has grown. To a Stoic, the question is easy to answer, but given Mr. Musk's activities over the past couple decades, clearly showing what his interests are, he has never clearly defined the motivations behind those activities. While an act can appear selfish or benevolent depending on the biases of the viewer, it is the actor's subjective motivation that carries the true charge, which we’ll never know here. No, Mr. Musk‘s true motivations for his many efforts will only ever be reconciled with himself, but I wonder if there might be a way to motivate him so that we all may benefit best. I think so…by letting him be him.
How best could humanity benefit from Elon Musk and just how should he tailor and focus his efforts to best serve the common good? Sure, he undoubtedly has a massive collection of assets, both tangible and intangible. Of course, both these assets should be exploited without a care as to their ultimate disposition until they are both spent fully. Whereas use of his tangible assets can be easily imagined through distribution, that is certainly not the best possible version of their use. I would argue everything Elon Musk owns should be used in furtherance of his intangible assets, which are nothing more than his ideas. Not his intelligence, but his ideas; and specifically, the one all of us can get behind: space exploration.
From the beginning of our existence as a species we have sought answers. We have done a pretty good job answering questions about things that may impact our existence like natural disasters and diseases. Questions about the aim of our existence and purpose, by their nature, may never be answered. Should they even be asked, especially in light of the limited information we have about our place in the Universe? The knowledge humans had about our planet and other life forms at the beginning was near nil. What we know today about our environment is massive and growing at unprecedented rates. Of course, it would be naïve to ever expect us to know it all, let alone any of it really. But even in our fallacy of knowing, the pursuit itself has revealed answers that have allowed us to either control for or avoid perils that may befall us from external events. Case in point: never before in history has such a large population of so many people around the world come together to solve a global pandemic like it did four years ago during Covid. But while we have gained an impressive amount of knowledge of our own planet and the things on it, we are still near nil in the pursuit of knowledge of the Universe around us.
If we have now figured out a lot of our world, why are we not turning more attention to the cosmos? Elon Musk's pursuit of colonizing Mars, while myopic, is still the best opportunity we are going to have in the foreseeable future to pursue the questions we have about our existence. To be clear, people living on Mars are not going to answer questions about why we exist or what we’re specifically supposed to be doing with the energy we have in the pursuit of serving the common good. But the technologies that will be needed to achieve the objective of better and more distant exploration, much like the technologies born from fighting consecutive world wars, should absolutely be exploited from Elon Musk’s dream of being the Martian Romulus.
We have never needed to be inspired or motivated by the prospect of exploring the cosmos more than now. The first space race may have been premised on exploration, but given it was a race against other men, every bit of those motivations revolved around ego. Seeing how globalization did not end ego-driven hostilities in our world, we should not expect the masses to be swayed by governments for support of space travel. Which is a shame. Just as entire nations have supported wars by ensuring their efforts were in line with the purpose of the day, so too could we expect a cause like meaningful space exploration to birth a fervent push towards personal sacrifice. But given most of the answers that have been gleaned from our exploration of space thus far have done nothing but chip away at the tenets of organized religion, we shouldn’t expect governments to advocate for the continued fall of pseudoscience or mass belief in the occult.
But just Imagine for a moment what the world would look like if they did. All the self-created trauma and offense taken by people who don’t face many real challenges could be stifled overnight. Not by callousness or a lack of compassion, but by reminders that personal affronts and personal accomplishments are to be shunned in favor of those that serve only the greater good. The greatest generation obtained the reputation they did because bitching about their lot in life was met with contempt for words of disdain over action to better it. Of course, this doesn’t apply to the many who were refused similar opportunities to serve because of rampant injustice. But let’s not get me started on what the world would look like if Stoic justice were applied to the middle parts of the last century.. Still, the sentiment remains true, complaining amongst the greatest generation would have been tantamount to heresy to the cause.
Governments could certainly support this idea by enacting draconian measures to limit personal freedoms, but besides being wrong, that always has a long-term opposite effect. Similarly, governments are probably never going to restrict commercial interests aimed at making our life easier over supporting something that would cost the most money ever without anything guaranteed to benefit humanity. Instead, governments will continue to support the exploitation of natural resources for our comfort and ease and it will remain our job to refrain from taking too much. But in the meantime, until we can curb our own desires for comfort, Elon should lead us to the promised land.
Until the day I can look up in the sky and tell my child exactly what’s out there the same way I can tell him what’s on, below, or in our planet, it should be all of our duties to pursue that truth. If we do not find ways to get off and away from this planet as quickly and safely as possible, and then be able to relay whatever information received back to Earth, we are going to continue to exist with more questions than answers. So, what should Elon Musk be doing to support this from a Stoic perspective? From the looks of things, he is doing exactly what he should be doing. If one was going to pour their heart and soul into efforts of producing the most efficient rockets possible, it would take massive amounts of money, partnerships, and brainpower to do it. Practically, it would involve many scientists in many disciplines pulled from various organizations, as well as the numerous governments that will be required to support it all. And it would be spearheaded by someone who expects precise precision, to be on schedule, and has no room for inefficiency. Isn’t that Elon Musk?
Each one of his endeavors has been a building block towards the next. Education in money and science helped get his first computer program sold for millions while still in college. That was seed money for X.com and PayPal, which was then sold to fund his dream in the form of SpaceX. Stop there and you’ll see he’s done enough. But then he took over Tesla and began making money hand over fist, which he used to then grab Twitter recently. But don't all these moves and efforts support the idea that he is trying to make as much money as possible to support his dream of living on Mars? I say, go forth and go now, young Elon! Keep making all that money. But make sure it’s all going to SpaceX.
As a Stoic, I must love every activity Elon Musk undertakes because that is what was supposed to happen given where the man has been and who he’s met. I believe I would love him and his actions more if he were a bit more quiet and focused on building those rockets, but he’s doing a pretty good job of playing the role of ground-breaking and slightly crazy scientist just fine.
