Existential Errands: Finding Life’s Meaning in Spam Emails and Grocery Lines

You ever sit there staring at your inbox, watching thirty-seven unread sales pitches pile up like dry leaves, and suddenly wonder who in blazes gave these strangers a key to your head? Oh, every blessed afternoon, Earl. Last week we were fretting over peach tins in the checkout aisle, wondering about our tiny mortal lives, but this morning it was nineteen emails about discounted guttering. From a lad called Chad who claims he misses me. Now, I know how that sounds. But hang on. You open that screen fixing to find a note from your cousin, and instead it's some phantom company hollering that your warranty is expired. It makes a man grip his coffee mug like he's trying to choke it.

It makes you feel completely hollowed out, doesn't it? Like you're just a vessel waiting to be shouted at by people selling patio sets. I sat there with my brew, cat purring on my knee, and felt pure dread. That's where the old-timers had it right, Bridget. Epictetus, back in ancient Rome, he was born a slave and knew a thing or two about what you actually own. He laid down a simple rule: some things are up to us, and some things are not. Ey up, well Chad and his guttering are definitely not up to me. Though heaven knows I wanted to send him a right scolding. And that, friend, is where you lose your peace. Epictetus said you can't control what blows across your porch.

You can't stop the train whistle at two in the morning, and you sure can't stop a robot from sending you ten thousand flyers for cheap vitamins. The only real estate you own is the six inches between your ears. It's easier said than done, though, chuck. You open the junk folder, and it feels like twenty strangers have marched right through your front parlour with muddy boots on. You feel violated over a coupon! Because you handed them the switch. Stoics call that external noise adiaphora — things indifferent. That spam isn't good, and it isn't bad. It's just electrons rattling down a wire. The spike in your blood pressure? That's entirely your own manufacture.

You're spot on, you know. I gave a marketing robot the power to ruin my morning biscuit. We treat an unread notification like a depot fire alarm. Marcus Aurelius was running an entire empire, fighting off plagues and rebellions, and he wrote in his journal: "When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest." He was fixing his mind before breakfast. So Marcus would've just looked at an email marked URGENT FINAL NOTICE and taken another sip of tea. Swear on my tackle box, he'd have hit delete without blinking an eye. Deleting an email shouldn't be an act of war; it should be as natural as sweeping dust off the porch floor.

You don't get mad at the dust for blowing in from the holler. You just sweep it. That changes the whole feel of it, doesn't it? Instead of feeling besieged, it's just weather. Just weather. You don't holler at the rain for wetting your hat. The trouble starts when we believe the world owes us a clean screen and total silence. That's pure vanity. It's like my cat, Jasper. When a bluebottle fly gets in the kitchen, he doesn't have an existential crisis about the state of the universe. He either ignores it or snaps it up, and goes right back to napping by the kettle. Animals have got that figured out. When you let an automated sales pitch ruffle your feathers, you're handing your liberty to an algorithm written by a teenager in California.

Right then. So next time Chad writes to tell me I've won a plastic shed, I shan't grumble. I'll just breathe, bless his digital heart, and tap the little dustbin icon. And keep your peace right where it belongs. Well. That is about the size of it. Night night, sleep tight, chuck. Delete the lot.