Zorro's Stoic Lesson
Will you give your opponents what they want?
The other day I was rewatching The Mask of Zorro (1998) with my daughter, a movie I have seen at least twenty times since childhood. I love this movie. Rewatching it for the first time in a few years was not only fun but eye-opening. There’s a lot of deep stuff happening in Zorro that you miss because of the incredible sword fights and action scenes.
There’s this unforgettable scene late in the film where Zorro is disguised as one “Don Alejandro”. He is sitting in the presence of his sworn enemy, Captain Love, who does not know this Alejandro character is Zorro. His quest is to kill Captain Love and avenge his brother. Love knows something is off about the man in his office, so he tries to rattle Alejandro, by slamming a jar on the table between them…a jar containing the preserved head of Zorro’s slain brother. “Alejandro” has been training for this moment since his journey began, and I don’t mean the coming duel with Captain Love.
This moment is one where he’ll require immense self-control and delayed gratification. Zorro does not give Captain Love what he’s looking for in an emotional response. It’s a Herculean effort. Zorro has not learned from his mentor how not to feel, instead, he has learned how to channel feelings.
After this confrontation with Captain Love concludes, Zorro walks out of the room and cracks his cane over his leg. Breaking it in two.
His rage is real and valid. Just watch the video above. Yikes!
Stoicism is often criticized as being a philosophy devoid of emotion, or one that robs human beings of their humanity by promoting the suppression of feeling. While this view is common, it is incorrect nevertheless.
What Stoicism promotes is the abiding reality of emotions and a recognition of their power. Are our emotions who we are or are they something else? Stoicism, through its many teachers and contributors, invites us to treat emotion like a visitor or guest. One of the passions knocks at the door. Anger. Fear. Sadness. Lust. We answer the door and assess the intentions of our visitor. Are they really who they say they are? Is this Anger at our door actually Jealousy in disguise? The possible scenarios are many.
Stoics test perceptions. It only takes a few moments to do so. Someone cuts you off in traffic, and in that split second when the offense occurs, you make a calculation as to whether that person saw you and chose to wrong you…or you conclude that perhaps that they didn’t see you, and had no ill will. So you don’t explode in anger by honking the horn, cursing, and frightening the passengers in your own vehicle.
Life happens very fast. Stoic attitudes about emotion help us to become better processors of the rapid-fire information hitting us every few moments. Think about Zorro seated across from Captain Love and how quickly the situation turned from annoying to enraging in just a split second when the jar hit the table.
If we’re getting better at this, we become more like what Marcus Aurelius described as the ideal in Meditations,
“To be like the rock that the waves keep crashing over. It stands unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it.”
Zorro had finally become like the rock. Because he had worked tirelessly to develop self-control, dispense with drunkenness, and learn to count to ten before reacting. He could now also analyze his opponent, Captain Love, and know his true intentions.
By making it through this situation, Zorro “Don Alejandro” knew that his secret may well be compromised, but Love could not prove it unless Alejandro overreacted to his cruel stunt. He chose not to make it easy for Love.
But his anger never left him, nor should it. Zorro chose when to let his anger have its moment. Anger is a natural response to evil and injustice. We all should know Anger’s number if we need to call. But it cannot be coming over uninvited.
Every day you’ll fall short. And for every day, there is a tomorrow.
Have a great week my friends.
Thanks for reading Geeky Stoics! I have a lot more to say about Zorro, so expect another email on the 1998 masterpiece starring Anthony Hopkins and Antonio Banderas very soon. In the meantime…
BTW: If you enjoyed the speech I gave on Power, Politics, and Pop Culture from last week’s email, that video is premiering now on YouTube.
Could go throw it a Like and Comment? We’re excited to see this go up and have another fun public speaking video to share with you in March.
One of my favorite movies! Great insight