The Daily Stoic - Don’t Wake Up and Choose Violence | No Self-Flagellation Needed

Episode Date: June 28, 2024

📓 Grab your own leather bound signed edition of The Daily Stoic! Check it out at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📚 Pick up a copy of Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson at The Painted Porch: https://www.thepaintedporch.com/✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to the daily Stoic early and ad free right now. Just join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. I've been writing books for a long time now and one of the things I've noticed is how every year, every book that I do, I'm just here in New York putting right thing right now out. What a bigger percentage of my audience is listening to them in audiobooks, specifically on Audible. I've had people had me sign their phones, sign their phone case because they're like I've listened to all your audiobooks here and my sons they love audiobooks we've been doing it in the car to get them off their screens because audible helps your imagination soar. It helps you

read efficiently, find time to read when maybe you can't have a physical book in front of you and then it also lets you discover new kinds of books, re-listen to books you've already read from exciting new narrators. You can explore bestsellers, new releases. My new book is up, plus thousands of included audio books and originals, all with an Audible membership.

You can sign up right now for a free 30-day Audible trial and try your first audio book for free. You'll get right thing right now, totally for free. Visit audible.ca to sign up. ["Audible"] for free, visit audible.ca to sign up. Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast. On Friday, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from the Daily Stoic, my book, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance in the Art of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful collaborator, translator, and literary agent, Stephen Hanselman.

So today, we'll give you a quick meditation from the Stoics with some analysis from me, and then we'll send you out into the world to turn these words into works. Don't wake up and choose violence. People say they want things to be calm, they want things to be easy, they claim to want success, they hate stress. But look at their choices, look at your own choices. Do we really mean it?

In one of his letters, Seneca talks about people who plunge headlong into the middle of the flood, referring to people whose lives are filled with the needless trauma and conflict, the busyness and chaos. Sure, a stoic should be able to endure difficult circumstances and a turbulent life, but they would never choose that. No, the wise man, he says, chooses to be at peace rather than at war. Think of Elon Musk, who we have talked about a lot before and happens to follow Daily Stoke on Twitter.

This is a guy with a lot going on. He's got a lot of important work, yet he wakes up most mornings and as the kids say, chooses violence. He picks fights on social media. He inserts himself into culture war issues. He makes strange decisions in his personal life. If you read Walter Isaacson's fascinating

and often horrifying biography of Elon, you get the sense that he simply cannot be at peace and instead chooses the storm, chooses chaos and violence because it's less scary to him than being with his own thoughts or even enjoying his own success. Sure, he's very rich, but the Stoics would have seen this all as very tragic.

We don't need to judge, we should just try to find a better way to do it in our own lives. Each of us needlessly chooses violence in our own way. All of us find ways to plunge headlong into the middle of the flood because we think we're supposed to because we don't have the discipline to stay focused on what's essential. This costs us. It costs us money and happiness. It burns us out. It burns other people out. And it

is no way to live. No self flagellation needed. This is the June 28th entry in the Daily Stoic, 366 meditations on wisdom, perseverance, and the art of living. It's crazy to me that this book is eight plus years old and it's done when it's done. I don't know what I thought it would do but it's been so cool to see stoicism become popular as a result of this. I think it's on the most read list on Amazon right now. It's been so cool to see Stoicism become popular as a result of this. I think it's on the most read list on Amazon right now. It's just been a really cool experience and I like to bring you an entry once a week.

And so today's quote is from Seneca's Letters Five. Seneca says, philosophy calls for simple living, but not penance. It's quite possible to be simple without being crude. Marcus Aurelius' meditations are filled with self-criticisms, and so are the writings of the other Stoics. It's important to remember, however, that that's as far as it goes. There was no self-flagellation, no paying penance, no self-esteem issues from guilt or self-loathing. You never hear themselves call themselves a piece of crap, nor do they

ever starve themselves or cut themselves as punishment. Their self-criticism was constructive. Laying into yourself, unduly depriving yourself, punishing yourself, that's self-flagellation and not self-improvement. No need to be too hard on yourself. Hold yourself to a higher standard, not an impossible one, and forgive yourself if and when you screw up. I'll say this as a bit of self criticism. It's been interesting I said as I said the book came out eight years ago so I've obviously been studying and

learning a lot about Stoicism since and so one of the weird parts about reading this book back out loud to you guys is I I see things that I wish I would have done differently or that I would have included or that I did know but for whatever reason I didn't make the connection at the time I would have done differently or that I would have included, or that I did know, but for whatever reason, I didn't make the connection to the time I should have put in there. There's a wonderful story about an early Stoic named Cleanthes, who's the successor to Zeno,

that I should have known because I'd read Diogenes Laertes, and I don't know why I didn't include this story in that entry because it goes so well with that quote. Cleanthes is walking through the streets of Athens and he hears a man talking very rudely to himself, like, you know, you piece of garbage, what'd you do? You just sort of, as sometimes we all do when we screw up,

that sort of negative self-talk, although most of the time it's silent. In this case, he heard it and the man was saying it out loud and Cleanthes stopped him and he said, "'Hey, I want you to know you're not talking to a bad man.'" And to me, that captures this idea. Stoicism is strict with ourselves, tolerant with others as Marcus Surilius says, but not so strict with ourselves that we're

being abusive. Because who does that serve? I think what you see in meditations is yes, Marcus Surilius is strict and firm with himself, but he's also building himself up. There's as much positive self-talk as there is negative self-talk. And I think it's worth noting, you know, Marcus was writing post the rise of Christianity, Seneca is writing around the same time as the rise of Christianity, he's born the same year as Christ. They would have been aware of that burgeoning Christian tradition, the idea of original sin, self-flagellation, the idea of abusing oneself literally or physically because one is not perfect, because one has sinned, because one is trying to redeem themselves. I think the stoics are implicitly

pushing back on that. They're saying that isn't the way. The gods don't want that. You don't deserve that. That doesn't help anyone or anything. And I think that reminder is important all these thousands of years later. You're not talking to a bad person. You're not a bad person. You may have made up, you know, as they say in Christianity, hate the sin, love the sinner. That applies to yourself too. And we should be nice to ourselves. We should be kind to ourselves. There's a strictness to Stoicism or treating the body rigorously as Seneca said, but he meant that in terms of like pushing yourself on a walk or a run, trying to lift something heavy, trying to do a little bit more than you can.

He wasn't saying you drive yourself into the dirt. He wasn't saying you, you know, you whip yourself or you pinch yourself or you hit yourself or you talk rudely or meanly to yourself because you're not a bad person and you don't deserve that. And I think it's important that we credit the Stokes with this, that it is a stern philosophy, but not too stern. There's a kindness and a softness to it, especially with regards to ourselves in there.

And that's my message today. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you all soon. Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoke podcast. If you don't know this, you can get these delivered to you via email every day. Check it out at dailystoke.com slash email. If you like The Daily Stoic and thanks for listening, you can listen early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad-free on Amazon Music. And before you go, would you tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey on

Wondery.com slash survey? Have you ever heard of the term nuclear family? The term was coined by an anthropologist in the 1920s to describe the family structure of a straight married couple and their kids. Well now, over a century later, that definition of family describes only 18% of American households. From This Is Actually Happening comes the 82% Modern Stories of Love and Family, a six-part series focused on those who have challenged some of our deepest societal norms by reimagining what love and family can be. From an asexual educator and activist raising a child with two other co-parents to a gay man and the clergy

who chose the path of celibacy and created a unique family unit with his straight best friend. Each episode offers an intimate first-person perspective from those whose family lives have taken different shapes. To listen to the 82% series, follow This Is Actually Happening on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to This Is Actually Happening, ad-free, on Wondry+.