The Daily Stoic - Everything Is A Kind Of Dying | A Little Better Every Day

Episode Date: January 29, 2024

Marcus Aurelius knew this, but he didn’t let it get him down. In fact, he found some reassurance in it. “When we cease from activity, or follow a thought to its conclusion,” he observed, “it is a kind of death.” But this doesn’t harm us, he pointed out. In fact, we look forward to many of these cessations and conclusions. “Think about your life,” he said, “childhood, boyhood, youth, old age. Every transformation a kind of dying. Was that so terrible?”--In today's Daily Stoic Journal reading, Ryan explores the Stoic idea of bettering oneself with small steps every day by reflecting on quotes from Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius.The Stoics and future generations kept the idea of Memento Mori close by with jewelry, writing, art, and music because death doesn’t make life pointless—it makes life purposeful. They were trying to remember: We can go at any moment. We must not waste time. And that’s why we decided to add to the rich history of Memento Mori with our Memento Mori medallion, signet ring, and pendant—each reminders we must live NOW, while there is still time. ✉️ 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.

I remember very specifically I rented an Airbnb in Santa Barbara. I was driving from San Francisco to Los Angeles. I just sold my first book and I've been working on it and I just needed a break. I needed to get away and I needed to have some quiet time to write. And that was one of the first Airbnb's I ever started with. And then when the book came out and did well, I bought my first house. I would rent that house out during South by Southwest and F1 and other events in Austin. Maybe you've been in a similar place. You've stayed in an Airbnb and you thought to yourself, this actually seems pretty doable.

Maybe my place could be an Airbnb. You could rent a spare bedroom. You could rent your whole place when you're away. Maybe you're planning a ski getaway this winter or you're planning on going somewhere warmer. While you're away, you could Airbnb your home and make some extra money towards the trip. Whether you use the extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun,

your home could be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca. Welcome to the Weekend Edition of The Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these Stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend when you

have a little bit more space when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another Sunday episode of The Daily Stoke Podcast. I've said this a lot of times, but I think it's true. I think it's important. One of the best ways to understand the present moment is to study the past. Because when we study the past, our guard is down. We can see a bigger picture. We can see human beings doing human things instead of doing things that piss us off or make us afraid or threaten our identity or challenge our partisan ideas or beliefs about

the world. During COVID, I raved about this book, The Great Influenza by John M. Berry, who I've had on the podcast. Fascinating book. I read this great book. Actually, let me pull it up here because I recommended it recently.

Polio, An American Story by David M. Aschinski, which I believe won a National Book Award. That was fascinating. And so I was very excited to see a book about the Antonine plague. Marx really is, as you'll hear about it in an episode we have coming up, and you'll hear in today's excerpt,

you know, catches a bad break. He's not in power very long. And this starts to be signs of something coming from the far eastern edges of the Roman Empire, probably brought back by his stepbrother and co-emperor Lucius Verus. And that becomes the Antonine plague, which ravages Rome for at least a decade, potentially more. There's even still outbreaks of it during Commodus's reign many years later. So this is the defining event moment of Marx's release is

Rain. It changes everything. Justice COVID changed everything. Justice the Spanish flu changed everything. Of course, we tend to forget these pandemics or epidemics shortly after they happen because they were so unpleasant, they were so divisive, they were so scary, we were so powerless over them. I really love this book. It just came out. It's called Pax Romana. If you've heard of the phrase Pax Romana, that's the age of Roman peace. Actually, Seneca coins this phrase, another Stoicism connection. But this book is called Pax Romana, right, the Roman plague, and it's called The Plague That Shook the Roman World.

It's by Colin Elliott, a college professor at Indiana, and he and his publisher were nice enough to bring us an excerpt of that book. This is chapter six from that book, an empire exhausted. And it's about not just the plague itself, but the darkest moments of that plague. And I think you're really gonna like this book.

I have an episode with Colin coming soon, which you should definitely listen to also. And I love bringing these excerpts on a nice Sunday morning. Listen and enjoy. Check out the book, Pax Romano, The Plague, that shook the Roman world

and get it anywhere books are sold. And I hope you enjoy this one. This podcast is brought to you in part by Audible. Every year offers us the opportunity to get closer to the best versions of ourselves. No matter where you are on your well-being journey, Audible is there for you. They have an ever-growing selection of stories to inspire, sounds to soothe, and voices that have the potential to change your life. Sometimes we need a little encouragement to truly spark change in our life. If you need something a little more than someone simply telling you to be more positive,

check out Don Miguel Ruiz's The Four Agreements. He dissects how people impose limitations on themselves that rob them of true joy and provides a simple to follow code of personal conduct to start living life more freely. Get closer to the best you with Audible. Explore a wealth of well-being titles like Bestsellers, New Releases, and Exclusive Originals. Listen now on Audible. Chapter 6

An Empire Exhausted No one could have known that the economic challenges and social strife that multiplied under Marcus would cascade into crises that would permanently restructure Roman society. An era was ending. Mighty as Rome was, it lacked any man-made mechanism to arrest the evolution and transmission of pathogens. No emperor, pronouncement, or institution was powerful enough to alter the empire's changing ecological context.

The Antonine plague was not behind all the Pax Romana's problems, but the pandemic gashed Rome's ideological veneer, exposing the underlying fragility of the Roman system. In the end, the real scandal was not the collapse of the Pax Romana, but the fact that it survived so long. Roman soldiers pooled near the Danube in the autumn of AD 170. After enduring the loss of his co-emperor and brother the previous winter, Marcus alone relaunched his war against the Germanic tribes, harassing Rome's northern provinces.

Historian Peter Heather's account of Rome's centuries-long battle with European invaders commences with this moment for good reason. Indeed, unbeknownst to Roman military leaders, Northern tribes had been migrating toward Roman borders in untold numbers. Rome's allies in the region, the Marco Mani and Victuali, among others, were under severe pressures and demanded admission into the Roman Empire for protection. Marcus answered their request with a declaration of war against them.

The war morphed into a series of conflicts historians refer to as the Marcomannic Wars. This name underplays the full scope of the conflict, as more than a dozen different German tribes became involved. One Roman source named the struggle the War of Many Nations, as all the peoples from beyond the Rhine and Danube conspired against Rome. But at least some Romans initially thought the campaign would become something of a cakewalk. Galen, for example, expected Marcus to return to Rome victorious after just one campaign season.

The ferocity and desperation of the Germanic tribes, however, their own territory beset by invaders from still further north and east, pressed them up against Roman boundaries for the remainder of Marcus's life. The ensuing military quagmire so consumed the Emperor's attention that Marcus would not see Rome for a full seven years. Hello, I'm Elizabeth Day, the creator and host of How to Fail. It's the podcast that celebrates the things in life that haven't gone right, and what, if anything, we've learned from those mistakes to help us succeed better. Each week, my guests share three failures, sparking intimate, thought-provoking, and

funny conversations. You'll hear from a diverse range of voices, sharing what they've learned through their failures. Guests share three failures, sparking intimate, thought-provoking and funny conversations. You'll hear from a diverse range of voices, sharing what they've learned through their failures. Join me Wednesdays for a new episode each week. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Afua Hirsch.

And I'm Peter Fragerpen. And in our new podcast, Legacy, we explore the lives of some of the biggest characters in history. This season, we delve into the life of Pablo Picasso. The ultimate giant of modern art, everyone has heard of or seen a Picasso work, or the Picasso brand on something. But a man with a complicated, difficult, personal side too that makes us look at his art in a different way.

He was a genius and he was very problematic. Follow Legacy Now wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge entire seasons of Legacy ad free on Amazon Music or by subscribing to Wondery Plus on Apple Podcasts or the Wondery app. In the thick of this sea of soldiers, Roman and German alike, plague foamed and frothed. Several sources confirm the devastation among the Roman troops. The least reliable of these characterizes the years of the Marcomannic Wars as a time when a grievous pestilence carried away thousands of civilians and soldiers. The more trustworthy Imperial Secretary Eutropius,

writing in the middle of the 4th century AD, interrupts his summary of Marcus' Germanic war with these chilling words. There occurred so destructive a pestilence that it roamed and throughout Italy and the provinces, most of the empire's inhabitants and almost all the soldiers sunk under the disease. Similarly, Flamboyant, the Christian author Jerome says that an outbreak in AD 172 slaughtered the Roman army almost to extinction. These later authors relied on earlier accounts which have since been lost.

And while their interjections are exaggerated and therefore suspect, there should be little doubt that the Roman army, beleaguered by barbarians, suffered concurrent terrors of war and pestilence during the early 170s. A wider crisis spread into social and economic systems across the empire. Supplies of metal, stone, and other goods were disrupted. Food shortages in several regions continued unabated. Violence became endemic in parts of Egypt and Asia Minor. In this chaotic moment, one of Marcus's most capable generals turned renegade and openly

proclaimed himself ruler of the empire. But he was not the only one to go rogue. Many rank and file soldiers also betrayed their allegiances and turned to pillaging and terrorizing their own countrymen. Rampant disease, unending war, the lack of money, the supply shortages, all these things destroyed morale and loyalty in soldier and citizen alike. Gangs of ex-soldiers and runaway slaves proliferated in the countryside like parasites,

devouring the waning resources of an exhausted empire. Eventually, the worst occurred, Marcus himself became sick. After generations of apparent glory, the Pax Romana crashed in one horrific decade. 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. Do you want to hear about the $100 wedding dress that just saved Abercrombie?

Or the tech acquisition that was just like Game of Thrones? Or the one financial equation that can solve climate change? Then check out our Daily Podcast, The Best One Yet, or as we call it, T-Boy. This is Nick. This is Jack. And we pick the three most interesting business news stories every day for the perfect mix.

20 minutes each morning, you're gonna feel brighter. We call it pop biz, don't we Jack? Where pop culture meets business news, and we've done it for over a thousand episodes. Yeah, remember we did the one on Airbnb's party band. They're a party pooper with a purpose. Yeah, remember the one where Airbnb evicted me when we were doing the pot in New York City?

I could never forget it, Jack. Never forget. So whether you wanna kick off a conversation with your buddies. Or you're going for that promotional work. Or you just wanna know the trends before your friends. Feel brighter by starting your morning with us every weekday. Listen to the best one yet on the Wondery app or wherever trends before your friends. Feel brighter by starting your morning with us every weekday.

Listen to the best one yet on the Wondery app or wherever you get your pot. You can listen to the best one yet, ad-free right now on Wondery Plus.