The Daily Stoic - Daily Stoic Sundays: Should I Watch The News

Episode Date: March 29, 2020

Ryan discusses the merits of watching the news, and how to tune out distractions, with Steven Pressfield.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stood Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Sunday edition of the Daily Stood Podcast. My name is Ryan Holiday. For over a decade I've been writing and thinking and talking about stilicism and so each Sunday now we're going to be rolling out a special episode that will be either me riffing on a number of topics, maybe me riffing or expanding on an article that I've written or deep diving into an idea that I think's important that I think you'll benefit from. So I hope you like it. Support our sponsors who make this episode possible. And of course, keep studying, keep reading, and thank you. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wonderree's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion-forward.

Listen to business wars on Amazon music, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm here with Stephen Pressfield, the amazing author of the War of Art, Turnin' Pro, Gates of Fire. One of my favorite moments in the War of Art, I think it's in the War of Art, you tell this story about your hard-of-work at a novel. I think you're living in a trailer and central California,

something like this, and you finish the novel and you go over to your friend friends house who's also an author, you like for a congratulations or something. And as you're telling this to him, you can hear on the radio that Nixon has been impeached. And you said you missed all of Watergate. And I love that. And I honestly, I probably think about that once a week because we live in kinds that are as equally tumultuous and divisive and there's more news than ever. And so this idea of like you should be focused on your

work, you should be focused on big picture, you should be focused on your own self improvement, not monitoring the news in real time. How do you as someone whose work requires so much concentration and focus, how do you tune out those kinds of distractions? That's a great question because it's like, I'm like an MSNBC junkie. I know it's on a MSNBC once and you email me like two minutes after.

I just saw you and I was like, no, what's he doing? That's right. You were on with the other person named Holiday, whatever her name is, I forgot it. Anyway, I do believe in being a citizen. We're in our democracy and you do have to kind of you don't want to tune it out. It's a tough, compartmentalization exercise.

When I was doing that other thing, I was, you know, we've talked before you and I about how my bugaboo was never finishing something. And when I was working and I was living in this little house and I was like, I had to finish this book, come hell or high water. And I just, I tuned everything out. And I think back on that year, it was a great year

to have that. I just wrote and read and did nothing else. But I think you do have to sort of balance it, because we are citizens. Sure. As you know, and you know this from the ancient world and ancient Athens, if there was a revolution in the city and you didn't take part when the revolution was over,

they find you. Oh, because, heavy fine. Yeah, because they thought we don't want guys sitting on the sidelines. In fact, the word in ancient Greek or Greek for a person who does not participate is idiotes, you know. And so they wanted, we're in a democracy. At least we once were in a democracy. Not to push back, but I think the problem is, and it doesn't surprise me

that we've internalized this, but people now confuse watching the news with participating. Yeah. And I'm not sure they're the same thing. That's true. Yeah. That's true. So people now confuse watching the news with participating. Yeah, yeah. And I'm not sure they're the same thing. That's true, yeah. That's true. But I totally agree. You know what's interesting?

I bet more people watch the news than vote. Which is a big idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is, you know, sort of a side of... In the ancient world, the big distinction between the Stokes and the Epicurians is that the Epicurians believe you should attend to your own self-improvement. Hey there listeners! While we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast that I think you'll like. It's called How I Built This, where host Guy Razz talks to founders behind some of the world's biggest and most innovative companies,

to learn how they built them from the ground up. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduke Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Codopaxi, as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some of the biggest problems of our time, like developing technology that pulls energy from the ground to heat in cool homes, or even figuring out how to make drinking water from air and sunlight. Together they discussed their entire journey from day one, and all the skills they had to learn along the way, like confronting big challenges, and how to lead through uncertainty.

So if you want to get inspired and learn how to think like an entrepreneur, check out how I built this, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon or Wondery. And the Stokes believed you should attend to your own self-improvement, but you had to be active in politics. And so I totally agree that we have to be active. I think the problem is people have just become news junkies. I'm just not sure watching the news equals being informed.

True. Which leads to another question of, what can you do as a citizen these days? It's a really flaws in our system, where they say that the American people want a BCD, and then you look at what Congress and the President have been delivering, which is none of that. So it's really, how do you participate?

There's not more choices in the streets anymore. Sure. Maybe it's like we how do you participate? You know, there's not more chances than the streets anymore. Sure, I mean, yeah. Maybe it's like we need more people running for office than, you know, complaining about people who are currently in office. And I think the Stokes would certainly agree that it's about actually, you know,

having some skin in the game. I read this fascinating article a couple months ago that was like in the State Department, the State Department has the access to the best intelligence in the game. I read this fascinating article a couple of months ago that was like in the state department. The state department has the access to the best intelligence in the world, right? And we're facing, you know, we got a Russia problem, we got a China problem, but one of the books that they're passing

to the state department is Thucydides. Like we're reading history of the Peloponnesian War because Spartan and Athens, you know, America, China, the ascendant power, the dominant power. So I think that's maybe something else I would want the listener to think about here, is like getting real-time information is not necessarily the best way to be informed, and that perhaps what we need, or what I would urge people to think about, is like go to the deeper, like I could probably learn more about wrapping my head around

China by reading your novel Tides of War than angry tweets from a bunch of misinformed journalists. You know what I mean? Just why I salute you for doing your reading list every month. Thank you. You know, if people can, you know, I can do it, but other people can do it. They'll be great. But the really hard part is there is, especially if you have smart friends or you're in well-educated circles, there is an immense amount of peer pressure to show that you are up on things. Yeah.

And one of my favorite quotes from Epictetus he says, if you wish to improve, and I think this goes to your point about finishing that novel, it's just be content to be seen as clueless or ignorant on some matters. That's a great one. You never heard that before.

Can you go, I didn't hear about it. Tell me, you know, like, I don't know. You've hardly missed a water gate completely. I can tell you that. Yeah. And here's the thing, you following water gate, I'm not sure it would have changed water gate. I was thinking about this too. It's like,

if you don't know who you're going to vote for, then you should watch the debates. If you do know who you're going to vote for, watching the debates is just crappy entertainment. But it somehow feels like you're contributing. You know, this isn't American Idol. You're not voting, you know, on the phone. And the process goes. The other thing in all seriousness is that when I watch the news or those shows, a lot of it for me is a reality check because we're bombarded with so many lies.

Sure. And so many spun interpretations that if you're not careful, you can start to think to yourself, gee, is that right? Is that really the way to look at this thing? Sure. And so it's great for me to hear certain people articulate

political point of view. And I go, yeah, I agree with that. That's what the reality is. It's hard to know what the reality is. So I'm sure if we lived in Soviet Russia that you'd be so bombarded by provda and his vestia and all that stuff, that you have no you have no choice, but, you know. And which I'm kind of worried that we're getting

to that state. Yeah, no, it's like information is abundant and truth is increasingly rare. Yeah. And I think, yeah, the philosopher's job is to find truth. Yeah. Wherever you can't. Yeah.

But to make sure, yeah, you're not consuming so much information that you lose sight of truth. Yeah. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. If you're looking for some way to wrench some good out of this strange surreal experience that has been the quarantine and the social distancing situation that many of us are stuck in,

I invite you to join us in the Daily Stoke Alive Time Challenge, just 14 days of stoke, inspired challenges and exercises that will help you seize this moment and turn it into some positive. And on top of that, $5 from every order goes to support front line first responders, people who are not as fortunate as us and are struggling to make ends meet in this difficult time.

So check it out dailystoke.com slash a live time. You can do it with me starting March 30th. Of course, you can sign up after as well. But we're going to be doing this over the next two weeks. I think it's going to be wonderful. Check it out dailystoke.com slash a live time. Hey, prime members, you can listen to the daily stoke early and add free on Amazon music, download the Amazon music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery

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