The Daily Stoic - Be This Kind Of Person | Ask DS

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

In matters of law, Cato was a stickler. In matters of principle, Cato was uncompromising. His opponents found him exhausting. Even some of his friends thought he was impossible.Yet as we wrote about recently, people who bumped into him in the street were always surprised. By how nice he was. By how low key he was. There was the man who struck Cato in the baths, not aware of whom he was fighting with, only to be unceremoniously forgiven by the great Roman he had assaulted. There were the local dignitaries who didn’t notice the powerful politician in their midst, and were gently reminded that future visitors might not be as easy-going as Cato. Again, few would have described the meticulous Cato as low maintenance, but in an important way–which is to say, ironically in unimportant things–he was. We should follow this example.---And in today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan addresses questions after a talk he gave to employees at the new Austin Public Library about how he curates his bookstore, the importance of having a physical space for books, the huge benefits that reading out loud provides for your brain, and more.You can watch the full speech and Q&A on the Daily Stoic YouTube channel here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUY7igobTqY ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. Well on Thursdays, we not only read the daily meditation, but we answer some questions from listeners and fellow stoics. We're trying to apply this philosophy just as you are. Some of these come from my talks. Some of these come from zoom sessions that we do with daily stoic life members or as part of the challenges. Some of them are from interactions.

I have on the street when there happened to be someone there recording. Thank you for listening and we hope this is of use to you. Be this kind of person. In matters of law, Cato was a stickler, and matters of principle, Cato was uncompromising. His opponents found him exhausting, even some of his friends thought he was impossible. Yet, as we wrote recently, people who bumped into him in the street were always surprised, by how nice he was, by how low-key he was. There was the man who struck Cato in the baths, not by how nice he was, by how low key he was. There was the man who struck Kato in the baths, not aware of whom he was fighting with, only

to be unceremoniously forgiven by the great Roman he did assaulted. There were the local dignitaries who didn't notice the powerful politician in their midst, and were politely reminded that future visitors might not be as easy going as Kato. Again, few would have described the meticulous Kato as low maintenance, but in an important way, which is to say ironically in unimportant things he was, and we should follow this example. In a world of carons, we must get better at shrugging our shoulders at messed up orders at restaurants.

In a world of endemic understaffing and labor issues, we must be patient with customer service, including the folks who work at Daily Still if they're doing the best they can. Coming out of the logistical and supply chain crisis of the last few years, we have to get better at waiting, at dealing with delays, at not getting instant gratification. Antoninus was a powerful example for Marcus Aurelius in this regard. Marcus saw his stepfather running for the office of consul actually earning the votes that the emperor could have simply demanded as a matter of course. He saw him going into the private homes of his

friends like an ordinary citizen. He watched Antoninus joke around and be joked about. He watched him deal with a frustrating customs agent as if he wasn't all powerful and above such inconveniences. He watched him go about his life without much fuss or entitlements. It doesn't matter who we are, what our job is, how big our bank account is, how prestigious our family is. It doesn't matter how much we paid for our ticket, how much in the right we are, or that the customer is always right. Stoic is low-key, a stoic must be patient, a stoic must be forgiving, a stoic acts respectfully but does not demand respect or special treatment for anyone.

When we think of sports stories, we tend to think of tales of epic on the field glory. But the new podcast Sports Explains the World brings you some of the wildest and most surprising sports stories you've never heard, like the teenager who wrote a fake Wikipedia page for a young athlete and then watched as a real team fell for his prank. Diving into his Wikipedia page we turn three career goals into 11, added 20 new assists for good measure. Figures that nobody would, should have believed. And the mysterious secret of a US Olympic superstar killed at the peak of his career. Was it an accident? Did the police screw up the investigation? It was also nebulous.

Each week, Sports Explains the World goes beyond leagues and stats to share stories that will redefine your understanding of sports and their impact on the world. Listen to Sports Explains the World on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Sports Explains the World early and add free on Wondery Plus. early and ad-free on Wondering Plus. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke Podcast. I had the incredible honor of being invited to address all of the employees in the Austin Public Library system back in October of 22. If you haven't been to the new library that they put in downtown Austin, it is incredible. It was, I mean, it should be incredible

considering what they spent on it. It was very delayed and very over budget, but I mean, just even the room that I was speaking in was pretty epic. I think the whole talk is up on YouTube, I'll make sure I link to it in today's show notes. But this is me answering some questions from one of my favorite groups of people in the world. Ibraryans, they're

doing the Lord's work certainly here in Texas where they're fighting all sorts of censorship and meddling and, you know, just nonsense from people who watch too much Fox News. Different story. That's neither here nor there. Here is me answering some questions on stoicism, writing, and book banning in Texas. So I guess not really another story. Thanks for having me out APL to your staff development and appreciation day. And I'm excited to share a little snippet of our Q&A.

APPLAUSE Do you have time for a couple questions? I'll see you later. I've been to bookstore. Yes, I did. I didn't know that bookstore. Oh, awesome. My sister on the side.

And it's a beautiful space. That part of the backdrop is simple, anyway, it's a beautiful space. And I was just struggling in Point and there about how, what you said makes sense. Like every book in there is a curating lecture that I wrote with Strock. I mean, chose a more reason and I was struck by the normus really

of being in there. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I mean, it's funny, you know, people go, well, we wanna support independent retail. Now we want to support some big multinational conglomerate like Amazon. But the truth is, most of those stories just buy their books from publishers, which

are multi-billion dollar conglomerates, and distributors like Ingram, which are multinational conglomerates. And so we just decided, like, let's dispense with all the pretense of that, and let's just actually carry books that we like. But the first thing that happened when you start a bookstore is they go, here's the suggested list of books that you should order from us.

And not just seeing like, what's the point? If people want access to any book, they should go to a library or all books. They should go on Amazon. But if you want to be recommended something that maybe you wouldn't have otherwise thought of, a lot of the books, a painful part about opening the bookstore is like, we get books that the publisher is car cryoreclizing

because they don't sell thousands of copies a year, and they have to wait for them, ask for reprints of them. But if you want to book that, we have actually read, and that I think could change your life. That's the idea. I want to create books that have the potential to change your life or be one of those books, if you book. This is one of the best books that I ever read. Yeah.

So, for all of the cards, if you could make one of the public libraries could have an issue, what would you rather speak, and what do you mean seeking as the individual strikes of the more strict, the public libraries and current views. I'll start with the second part. I mean, if I think about what strengths of public libraries have, it's the space, right? It's the land. This is some of the most valuable real estate in Austin.

This is some of the most beautiful architecture in Austin, it's the space. And as stuff increasingly becomes digital, physical space has a premium in a different way. That's one of the things we thought about in opening the bookstore too, which is like, again, if you're looking for a specific book, you're probably just going to grab it on the internet. If you want to explore, if you want to be exposed, this is the place to do it. My favorite my favorite novelists is John Fontaine, this book called Ask the Dust,

which is maybe the greatest novel ever written about Los Angeles. And that novel, I wrote a story about this a few years ago. That novel came out as published by a small publisher, and then it was lost to obscurity for somewhat strange reasons, lost to obscurity because his publisher also simultaneously in 1933 and in 2004, so like that, publishes a English translation of mine comp.

And Hitler sues them for copyright infringement and he wins in US federal court and bankfruits publisher. And the book is, loses its market and budget, the publisher basically goes under and the book is lost to history. Except there is one company in the Los Angeles Public Library and Charles Pukowski is wandering around there one day and finds it.

He says it's like finding gold in the city dump. And this is the height of Pukowski's fame. and find it and says it's like finding gold in the city dump. And this is the height of the Kowski's fan. He brings the book back. John Fonte enjoys this research. In the last couple years of his life, book sales millions of copies. It's made into a very mediocre movie with Colin Farrell.

But it's a book that never would have had this second life where it not for a library and the physical space of the library. Ever would have had this second life, were it not for a library in the physical space of the library and what connections and events and discoveries can happen inside a library. And to me, that's the magic of the thing about these places. You know what else?

Go for it. Do you ever read out loud? To my children, yes, I read that all the time. I think it's wonderful and fun. And then I read my own audiobooks, which is not so wonderful and fun. And that generally makes me feel like a badminton by the end of it. And I am reminded talking about finding things you could use. I am constantly reminded, as I read my own audiobooks,

how few words I myself have ever heard out loud and thus have no idea how to pronounce them. I learned the reading and I have to look them up on YouTube or whatever to be able to pronounce them. But I love reading out loud. It's such a creative sort of family connection. I don't like listening to books as much, so I prefer to sort of widely read Cologne by myself.

Hi. So, well, first I'm going to say I've been reading the video, about saying that the lady will do a lot of work. Thank you. All right, so this is our case. Can I get a question for you? As some of the previous areas, please proceed. You might get into the Halloween event for a great lecture, a philosophy, and this is a really good, incredible slide, except you.

Programming for events or things that leadership you have often. That's a great question. Obviously, I think all the time about how do you take philosophy, which most people think they don't need or are not smart enough for, and then how do you take so a philosophy, which has this negative connotation of being an emotionalist, invulnerable robot and having to make that practical to people.

My first book, Onstoses and the Ops because of the way, I probably say the word stoic or mentioned stoic philosophy like all of three or four times because I was very conscious of the fact that it had this sort of headwind. And so I wanted to present philosophy as a solution to somebody's problems, as opposed to an academic discipline or an intellectual thing.

So I think one of the best ways you can popularize stosism is not by talking about stosism itself, but talk about great examples of people acting in accordance with the philosophy, or showing that philosophy is this accessible, usable thing. So I try to do a kids book, I have these two kids books on stosism for that idea. They don't need to know the names of these people or the historical facts, or any of that. They just need to see that actually, hey, yeah,

when your brother steals your toys from you, you don't control that, and you don't even control how you respond to that. And so I've tried to think more about the substance, the actions of socialism, and demonstrating it that way. the substance, the actions of stoicism and demonstrating it that way. But I guess I would try to start there and then, you know, I think Glidey was a great movie. And I think like finding ways into these, I think the reason when someone said, hey, you

should read Marcus Reales and Hepatitis. The reason I went and picked up Marcus Reale's first is that I remembered him as the old guy in the movie climber. And so I try not to judge, I try to go where people are, and try not to judge what the entry point to those things is. And so with Daily Stoke, it's been lot of time, you know, posting inspirational posts on Instagram, making YouTube videos and wheelie holes and stuff on TikTok because like I love books and when I want to learn about something, I think I should really need a book about that. That is not how the vast majority of people think about things. They think about Wikipedia or they think about social media, they think

about video, that can be the entry point to that thing and I know that as I talk to some of the people who go, you know, Marx really is the first book of philosophy I've ever read. They'll tell me that one of my books is the first book that they have read since high school. And I love that. I think our job should be getting people into the ideas by whatever means necessary, or whatever country point is as accessible to them as possible. But I love that you're thinking about that and how I've directly helped us. Let me know.

Anyone else? I'm not sure anybody can't step into the same group of twice and how that relates to work. The first time I read the literacy of Dungeons, I thought it was a loud, loud, funny, and I'd recommend it to people. And then, like, ten years later, I read it, I thought it was a sad span. But the beginning of it relates to, like, and I think about that a lot. And I'm like, all right, and I haven't been ready to read it again, and why I was like, what am I going to think of this? Yeah, you know, it's funny, because Ignatius Ryle is a loser. And it's funny because he's

not aware that he's a loser, and it kind of depends on how do you relate him as a loser, do you relate him as someone who's better than all of the people? I think it depends on where you are, but I was actually just thinking of this the other day because as we've sort of seen down on Bastrop, you revitalized little new things that happened in there. A guy started a hotdog cart on the corner, and I was getting a hotdog one day, I was like, you know what's there?

Here, I have a book for you, and I went, and I got in with Confederacy of Duncins, which I was so excited to, because a few of the others, the funniest people all the time, and then I was just handing it to them, I was like, I hope he's not an assulted. Like, I hope he's not. And it is interesting, like these books

operating in different contexts and depending on where you are in your life at that moment, you get something totally different out of them, which is also why I think this idea of banning books that make us uncomfortable or challenge us, or a controversial or inappropriate or whatever, is so dangerous because what you see in it might be radically different than what other somebody else sees in it. Once you start that process, that's what Fahrenheit 451 is.

He has this very, very politically incorrect passage in the book that I won't read. But he goes, we banned these books because this minority group was offended. We banned these books because this minority group was offended. And the result is there was no reason to read anymore after they got rid of all those books. And so we've never stepped in the right same river twice. And then also everyone else is always stepping into their own river and their own version of the river and coming to it at a different time.

And I think we have to have a lot of empathy and openness and patience with that. But I do think, I still think Confederacy comes in swolves up pretty well and it's pretty something funny. Thank you guys very much. I look forward to sharing. something funny. Thank you guys very much. Hey, Prime Members. You can listen to the Daily Stoic early and add free on Amazon Music,

download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts.