I have no way to tell what any of the words that I speak, that are feathered things on the breath of air, how will they be received and how will my chaos be dispersed to the winds. I have no way to control any of that.
Because if wise people, if good people, if people who try to live and act with virtue, if they don't seek public office, if they don't participate in public life, if they don't vote, if they don't speak out, you know what is happening? They're ceding that floor to the people who are not.
How do you not let it change you or make you despair or make you bitter or make you not radicalize you? You know, like how do you how do you sort of stay on the the path? That's what it's kind of all about.
And that his philosophy would ultimately be about freedom and the triumph of the human spirit is a testament to not just his character, but the truth of the ideas he was writing about.
Senica 2,000 years ago in one of his letters is lamenting just people totally missing the point of the Odyssey. And I think it's fascinating to think that 2,000 years ago, people were having these debates about where was Troy, where were the different islands, did it actually happen or not? Just like today, we're like, is Homer really one person? Was he blind or not?
Senica 2,000 years ago in one of his letters is lamenting just people totally missing the point of the Odyssey. He's saying like if what you're debating about the Odyssey is not the philosophical questions, then you're just engaging in culture war nonsense.
Odysius in his odyssey is a reflection of the human undergoing any kind of ordeal, battling their sort of higher self and lower self, you know, the perils of hubris, the impossibility of ever returning home.
We're in the middle of what you would call a moral inversion, where some of the worst people are getting the most attention and getting the furthest ahead. It almost looks like it's a bad strategy to be honest, to try to work hard, to try to do things at the the right pace, right? Everyone's looking for shortcuts. Everyone's seeing scams and sketchiness as as a success strategy, one that you can get away with.
Corruption begets corruption. When other people are lying, when other people are cheating, when you see it happening all around you, people shrug their shoulders. They they say, "What the hell?" Right? We join in because we see other people doing it.
I really believe that just thinking about death that little bit more, especially for a story where we're safe, um it can just enrich every single day because you know in the back of your mind that's coming.
Although other people couldn't hold him to account, he could hold himself to account every day as he sat down and looked at the pages of his philosophy texts and the pages of his journal.
The truth is that virtue is not different than any other skill. You don't have it or not have it. You do it or you don't do it. And you get better at it the more you do it. This is the fundamental insight of Aristotle, that excellence is not innate. It is a habit.
Because you don't want to look stupid, you'll stay stupid or because you don't want to ask for help, you don't get help. Uh or you don't want to look like you want it too badly, so you don't get it.
Ask yourself, am I afraid of death because I won't be able to do this anymore? People in the abstract want to live a long time and then you look at how they spend their days and it's on some of the dumbest imaginable, right? They spend it gossiping. They spend it complaining. They spend it working a job they don't like.
Gouverneur Morris would say that underneath Washington's calm demeanor was in fact incredible passions, and that his first and perhaps his greatest victory was not on the battlefield, but over these very passions.
Stoicism is not something you are, it's something you do, right? It's a practice. John Adams would say that Washington had a great self-command, but that required a great amount of work.
You're going to have moments where comfort collides with your conscience where it collides with your career where there is corruption and temptation and it's probably safer and better to do what everyone else is doing. For Helvidius, philosophy was armor. It was preparation for this moment.
If your choices are beautiful, then you will be beautiful. We are the product of our choices. Beauty can't be separated from the process, from the regiment that creates it.
It's not a principle until it costs you something. We become less just as humans every time we remove ourselves a little bit further from the hand on the fire.
If your muscles are a result of steroids or neglecting your other responsibilities in life. If your physique is a result of starving yourself or actively harming yourself. If you are selfish and fragile and superficial, then you are ugly even if it manifests itself in some kind of temporary physical attractiveness.
If your choices are beautiful, then you will be beautiful. [...] If you are selfish and fragile and superficial, then you are ugly even if it manifests itself in some kind of temporary physical attractiveness.
Plans are worthless, but planning is everything. He understood that you had to plan and anticipate and imagine every contingency. And yet, he also understood fundamentally this other Stoic idea, which is there some things in our control and some things aren't.
Stoicism is not a way for you not to have to care about the consequences of the things that are happening around you. It's not a way to turn inward and turn away from other people, from what's happening in the world, from not having to care.
What he, if you read his speeches, he didn't want to tell people exactly how they should live their lives, but he wanted to help them realize that they had options that they were not even considering.
I didn't really have that why me thing. Maybe it's because I'm Jewish. I'm just sort of always waiting for the other shoe to drop. So in this case, it was three shoes.
philosophy thrives when things are disrupted. It is totally not an accident that great figures like Socrates came on the scene in eras of civil war and major disruption because that's when people start to wake up a little bit and realize like, oh my gosh, maybe this is not the good life.
Socrates, by asking them questions, by teaching them philosophy, helped them realize they had a lot more options than they might have believed they had based on who was in power.
You always have the power to have no opinion. Things are not asking to be judged by you. Don't turn this into something. The fewer opinions you have, the fewer judgments you make, the more you're able to just leave things as they are, the happier you will be, the more productive you will be, the more focused you will be, and the easier you will be to get along with.
Legacy is for everyone but you. This beautiful cemetery, this is for the people who loved those people. It doesn't do them any good. But what of the time they wasted? What of the wrong things they valued? You want to think about how you're spending your time now. Are you living now? Are you appreciating it now?
The stoics believe that there was really no such thing as obstacles. There was only opportunities. Right? This thing is presenting you an opportunity to do something.
You can't be a part-time person of principle. And I say certain things are important and it's not about um loyalty cuz I don't really believe in it as a as a thing... but this was about me and what I thought was the thing that was most resonant with who I am.
You think you're taking revenge bedtime by staying up and scrolling your phone or watching TV or or even reading, which is isn't is hardly a sin. But by staying up late, you are making it harder to get up early.
6mo ago
Underscored — save the words that stop you in your tracks.
