The Daily Stoic - How To Be Free

Episode Date: February 15, 2023

Ruby Doris Smith died at age 25 of cancer. It was an unfair death, concluding a short, unfair life. For two and half decades on this earth – from 1942 to 1967 – she experienced the brutal day-to-day realities of Jim Crow segregation. Yet her tombstone laments none of this. Instead, it codifies into stone one of the most basic principles of the SNCC, the civil rights organization she had been so dedicated and active in during her short life. “IF YOU THINK FREE,” it reads, “YOU ARE FREE.”✉️  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.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stood Podcast early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wondery'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. on music or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom every day life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2000 year old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us dailystow.com. [♪ Music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, music playing in background, musicing a short, unfair life. For two and a half decades on this Earth,

from 1942 to 1967, Ruby Doris Smith experienced the brutal day-to-day realities of Jim Crow segregation. Yet her tombstone laments none of this. Instead, it codifies into stone one of the most basic principles of the SNCC, the civil rights organization that she had been so dedicated and active in her short life. If you think free, it reads, you are free. The epigram had a profound double meaning.

It means first that the young radical activists of the Civil Rights Movement had decided quite simply that they would refuse to be segregated any longer. Rejecting the laws of the day as illegitimate, they sat where they wanted for lunch. They wrote buses as they wanted. They organized and marched and lived as they wanted. And with time, under unrelenting pressure, these laws fell one by one. But the other meaning of the quote is even more important, despite all the injustice and the violence and hatred that surrounded them, these activists strove to embrace the most

freeing force there was. Love. Resetment and reprisal bitterness. Those would have been perfectly understandable emotions for someone like Ruby Doris Smith to have. They also would have been their own form of slavery. Epic Titus, who experienced great cruelty and tyranny during his life in Rome, came to the same understanding.

He realized that freedom wasn't about legal status, although that was important. Instead, freedom was a state of mind. It was a choice. What did it matter if he broke free from his master if he was still ruled by his passions? What good was power if one relinquished the power of the most basic things in life? Thoughts, sires, opinions. He understood that he had to free himself first if his eventual manumission was going to mean something and that that was the chief task in life he would famous as say to do that, to choose to be free, to think he was free.

And so it goes for us. This is our chief task to however dark the circumstances we must free ourselves, to think free just as Ruby Doris Smith and Epic Titus did. Because if you do, you are. And honestly, that's the fundamental idea of discipline is destiny. Self-discipline is the idea of freeing yourself first, freeing yourself from urges and desires, from emotions and all the things that enslave you, whether you're powerful or powerless, it's about seizing control of what Santa

ica calls the greatest empire ourselves, what I say, and the girl who would be free in my kids' book, seizing the empire between your ears. That's what self-discipline is about. That's what I think is so inspiring and amazing about the Civil Rights Movement. It wasn't just the courage, as I was saying recently. It was the self-discipline that allowed them to transform that courage into actionable political change. And we could learn so much from that. It's been an honor to write about. I read about them and courage is calling. And also in discipline and destiny, my argument is that it's the three virtues, courage, discipline, wisdom that allow one to bring that fourth virtue, justice, into the world.

And I do hope you check out the books and happy black history month. So many recommendations I have on this topic. You can check them out at the Painted Ports or just look at the bibliography on discipline and courage. Be well everyone. you