DISCOURSE AND DISCLAIMER:

A STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS

First, and foremost, this whole site is a work in progress and will be getting attention at unknown intervals.

Purpose

Zenoan (zee-nohn) is a site dedicated to my personal study of Stoicism. As I continue to study this subject, I am constantly introduced to new words, ideas, people, and so on, as well as reminded of knowledge forgotten. Like the prominent figures from Stoic antiquity, I do not claim perfection over these practices or even mastery. Nor am I a scholar, but instead a self-guided student who will not always appropriately demonstrate the content or justly credit sources. I do not own this knowledge or its sources, only the domain and its structural elements.

This was inspired some years ago when others showed interest in learning about Stoicism, and I was surprised to find that it was not common knowledge. Since Stoics are not evangelists, it was not something I had previously spoken or written about myself, and likely contributes to the lack of awareness in the public consciousness. I had also originally challenged myself to boil down these lessons and learnings to a very simple and rudimentary introduction while still holding enough substance to be enlightening. No easy feat for a subject that has been reflected upon and uncovered over thousands of years. The original writing was hosted as an unlisted page on one of my other sites, but in my self-reflection I decided it would be an enjoyable project to move it to its own domain. Something I do from time to time to express myself creatively.

What's in a name?

As the main text of the site has stated, Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy founded by Zeno of Citium in ancient Agora of Athens around 300 BC, originally called Zenonism. Therefore a student of Zenonism would have been a Zenoan. Not to be confused with Zenoan Puzzlement or Zeno's paradoxes, which relate to Zeno of Elea (c. 490—430 BC). It is believed that Zenonism was later renamed to Stoicism to prevent the idolization of its founder, which goes against Stoic decorum.

Stoicism derives from Stoa Poikile, ancient Greek for "painted porch," which was a prominent colonnade available to the public where Zeno shared his teachings. "Ism" is used to identify a system of beliefs, and therefore "Stoicism" is roughly translated to the school of the porch. When purchasing this domain, things like "stoic", "stoicism", and "paintedporch" had already been acquired by others, so Zenoan was both available and relative to the subject matter. I also own Zenonism.com. I have concerns that it is going against the renaming of Stoicism. I also have concerns that the name is confusing and difficult to remember for some, as is the case anytime a different language is used. I do appreciate that it is only 6 letters long and it is a phonetically pronounceable word, that hopefully balances some of these concern. I also find amusement in the paronomastic nature of "Zenoan," "Zeno," and "Zen."

Symbolism and identification

When standing up a site, one often thinks of branding. The first step in branding is a logo. When thinking about how I wanted to design the logo, there is no known Stoic symbol or identifier, because Stoicism is not a religion and does not promote cult-like behavior. In recent years, some Neo-Stoics have tried to come up with their own symbols with various meanings behind them, reportedly not in an attempt to self-identify, but to remind themselves to keep their Stoic practices in the forefront of their minds. Afterall, many believe symbols to be a powerful source for conjuring one's will. Thankfully, I am not trying to define a symbol for all of Stoicism or any related movement.

Surely, an ancient Greek column or colonnade would be an apt symbol for a Stoic, since it is named thus, afterall. I may return to this symbolism later, but I was not excited by anything I could come up with. I just kept imagining the back of a US penny or a single Greek column. I just couldn't visualize a unique aesthetic of it at the time of writing this. Uniqueness is a key component to design and branding. It doesn't matter how original or aesthetically pleasing your design is if someone has thought of it earlier. A common constraint I find myself wrestling with. Perhaps a simplified meander or Greek key would have sufficed.

If we look back to Zeno, as I did for the name of this site, he himself could have been the symbol, or other famous Stoics such as Marcus Aurelius, in iconography or bust form. There also is a fair argument that the stereotypical imagery of an ancient philosopher or Stoic sage may be the closest to the ideal of Stoicism. An interesting thought I may return to, but there is the counter argument that it glorifies those individuals.

Some scholars believe a clenched fist inside of a palm, perhaps similar to a fist and palm salute, would have been an important gesture to Stoics. I'm not really sure how I would capture that. Others speculate any reference to memento mori, mortality, or death, would be an apt symbol that a Stoic would embrace, and indeed is imagery I often enjoy.

Stoicism is not overtly religious, often obfuscating any reference to god(s) down to nature, but the original philosophers likely were religious and would mention the gods in conversation either due to this religious aspect or common lexicon at the time. Like when Epictetus said, "You can bind up my leg, but not even Zeus has the power to break my freedom of choice." Zeus would have been a common god among them, whose symbol was that of a lightning bolt or bull, the latter something that Epictetus was known to use in metaphors. Perhaps a bull then could be a good symbol, but a bull has many other traits, such as stubborness, associated with it. It is also a very common representation.

One could argue that the Stoics had a strong kinship to Lady Luck herself, the Roman Goddess Fortuna (Tyche in Greek), whom they used as a metaphor for destiny. As was often the case with goddesses and gods of old, she governed over many things and had many associations. Perhaps her most common symbolism though was the wheel, often accompanied by a star or asterisk above it, which she would spin at any given time to change the direction and fortunes of individuals unbeknownst to them. As Stoicism is highly concerned with gracefully enduring both misfortune and fortune alike, the wheel is a strong symbol and could even lend itself to the many allegories of the helmsman of a ship weathering any storm. A ship, storm, or calm harbor are other imagery of note.

Continuing to pull on the "luck" thread, the rhoa (pomegranate fruit) is a powerful symbol in ancient Greece and across many religions. Believed to be the fruit of the Tree of Life, and the fruit that Hades used to lure and then trap Persephone in the underworld, the rhoa has strong symbolism in mythology and lore indeed. More prevalently, though, it is a symbol of luck that is still used today in house christenings and new year resolutions. This symbolism of luck lends itself to Fortuna's wheel, and was ultimately the inspiration for the logo I went — a halved pomegranate to make the shape more obvious, with a basic wheel instead of the more realistic membrane. This design is also free of any cult of personality that may be present with a design heavily leveraging any person or god, which I may already be guilty of with the name.

I am not the first to think of this, per my research, but I hopefully was able to reimagine the idea in a unique enough fashion. I considered layering in more elements, such as a kotinos or laurel around it, and a star similar to Fortuna's or Metis's symbols, but I am a fan of more simple designs (which makes the challenge of uniqueness even greater). The Titan goddess Metis was another idea due to Stoics allegorizing her as the embodiment of prudence and wisdom, one of the Four Cardinal Virtues. Her symbol is an eye, similar to Ra or the evil eye with a star above it.
From a stylization standpoint, I am limited by my own capabilities. Having scratchpad brainstormed on my notebook, I would have preferred to go with a similar style, unfortunately I lack the dexterity and fortitude for hand drawn art. This led to the cleaner vectorized style that exists today.

The font I used for the logo is based on the archaic wax-friendly Phoenician alphabet, which later became the Greek and then Latin alphabet, with a modern English twist for readability. There is little ingenuity in these letterings, as I believe they are common practice when designing for an ancient Greek tone.

Color is another important element of symbolism, branding, and identification. Pomegranates come in multiple colors, but that was where my mind initially led me. All of the colors are of a darker red or purple hue, colors that I often find have legibility challenges. There is also the consideration of color psychology. Red is the color of the gods, it is passionate, invokes love, lust, hunger, anger... all things that a practicing Stoic would know are constructs of their own mind. The color of the logo or symbol would ideally influence the colors of the rest of the site too. I am very undecided on the palette for now, and will likely continue to experiment.

I also considered perhaps coloring the "an" at the end of "Zenoan" a different color to highlight "Zeno" for subject clarity. Likewise, I considered making the blossom end into a golden crown, even considered detaching it in the design originally, but that would hold no significant relevance to Stoicism, and could contribute to a more authoritative feel, and reminds me of the holy-grenade.

There are more things I need to consider, like the favicon, voice, and so on.

Structure and design

I have always wanted a simple design for this site. Something that doesn't detract from the words. The initial design was supposed to be remniscent of a word processor on desktop, and the constraints of mobile make designing even simpler. As a designer, I am a fan of minimalism, and often struggle with desktop designs because I find the overly large canvas difficult to balance. I also often struggle between balancing content, design, and programming, which is why many of my sites will lean heavy into one of the three. I also feel as a designer that I am obligated to make different designs for everything, which is a self-imposed constraint that I am trying not to hold myself to for this project. The structure is still in flux, but likely will evolve and borrow from different things I've done in the past so that I may focus more on the content. As of right now I am writing in an IDE, which is less-than-ideal and lacks a lot of the quality of life features in a standard word processor today.