The Daily Stoic - More Often Than Not | Ask Daily Stoic

Episode Date: October 28, 2022

The Stoics were not perfect. Nothing illustrates this more than Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. Why would Marcus have to write reminders about not losing your temper or not wasting your time if he was not guilty of those very things? Why would he remind himself that the people he was going to deal with that day would be meddling, ungrateful and dishonest if he didn’t struggle dealing with those types of people? Why did he have to remind himself that doing the right thing was better than trying to be remembered? Would he remind himself of the importance of discipline if it came naturally to him?✉️ 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 Facebook 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 Stoke Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. 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. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life.

But on Fridays, we not only read this daily meditation, but I try to answer some questions from listeners and fellow stoics who are trying to apply this philosophy, whatever it is they happen to do. Sometimes these are from talks. Sometimes these are people who come up to talk to me on the street. Sometimes these are written in or emailed from listeners. But I hope in answering their questions, I can answer your questions, give a little more guidance on this philosophy.

We're all trying to follow. More often than not. The Stoics were not perfect and nothing illustrates this more than Marcus Reelius' meditations. Why would Marcus at Relius' meditations. Why would Marcus at Relius have to write reminders about not losing your temper or not wasting your time if he was not guilty of those very things? Why would he remind himself that the people he was going to deal with that day would be meddling and ungrateful and dishonest if he didn't struggle dealing with those very types

of people? Why did he have to remind himself that doing the right thing was better than trying to be remembered? Why would he remind himself of the importance of discipline? If it came naturally to him, he wouldn't. He catalogued these reminders because he fell short of the principles and virtues they embody. Quite regularly, in fact, it's not an admission of guilt, it's an admission of humanity. It's important that we realize that stoicism is not about being a saint or trying to become one. The standard to which a stoic holds themselves isn't whether or not they always focus on things and they're a control because no one has ever managed to successfully pull

that off. The standard, the thing that makes you a stoic, is what you do when you've slipped when no one is looking. Do you try to focus on what's in your control more often than not? Even when it doesn't obviously benefit you, even when it's hard and focusing on the things you don't control seems easier, do you put in the work to be more present, more often than not, to be kind, to be ethical, to be virtuous? That's really what stoicism is about. And the fact of the matter is that most people aren't even trying, and the ones who are, they're not very good at it. So if you can consistently, regularly, even on average, manage to put some of these stoic practices to work in your life,

then you are crushing it. More often than not, if you can do the kind, the ethical, the virtuous thing, more often than not, then you are in very elite company. We don't despair of a goal because we are not perfect," Epicthida said. We strive to get closer to it each day. We strive to get better each day. And this, as Marcus might have written to himself, is your reminder of that. Hi. Hi. This is in regards to the discussion on Monet of the Circle to Concern.

So academic classics has received a lot of criticism for its historical racism and its role in perpetuating racial oppression in the education system, as a contributor to the disciplines of philosophy and classics, is that something that inform your contributions in any way? Yeah, so I'm interested, there's this discussion now in a lot of universities, particularly, there's one going on at Howard University right now, which is disbanding its classics department.

They're saying it's not political, it's budgetary, but I'm trying to set up an interview with a great classics professor there who wrote an article in the Washington Post sort of defending the classics department. And then there was an interesting piece from Cornell West about the role that the classics play in sort of lifting people up, as well as their role sort of pushing people down, right? I think one of the interesting things about the classics is that obviously this we're talking sort of primarily about the West here, but you can make the same argument in the East with their classics, which is that classics are, in a sense, our shared history,

our shared myths are shared works. They're the works that were celebrated for long enough that a large percentage of the population is familiar with them, and then they've shaped because of that familiarity, they've shaped future generations. Now, these works are not always representative, they're not always the best, but they're what we share. And so, I think that role is, I think that role is important. We sort of have the text that have shaped us. But Machiavelli talks about this as well.

He says the problem with history, the problem with classics, is that they're sort of so distant and often so unclear that they can be abused or manipulated to further whatever agenda one wants, right? So the Nazis can draw on a Mussolini can draw on ancient Rome just as the founders of the United States can draw on ancient Rome. We did a Daily Stoke email the other day about Thomas Jefferson looking at slavery in Roman times. And he talks about how, you know, Rome's slaves were gifted.

And he said, you know, in America, he says, show me an epictetus. Like show me a black epictetus is what he's saying. And so he's using Rome's slave, he's contrasting American slavery with Roman slavery to justify the servitude and torture of imported African slaves to the Americas. What I think is so interesting about what he's doing there is he's actually missing the point, which is that the reason there's an epictetus in Rome is that slaves in Rome were allowed to read and allowed access to books and allowed some social advancement. And in fact, in America, slavery, chattel slavery is even more oppressive and even more

of an evil. All of which is to say, I think the classics are the classics and there's always, they have always been abused as much as they've been used. And I think we have to ask ourselves, are we using them or abusing them? And to me, that's what makes them good or bad. The fact that historically they've been abused does not make them worthless,

just as the fact that Darwin's theory of evolution has also been used to justify eugenics and other horrible things, that doesn't make evolution any more or less true. It is what it is and then people have done stuff with it. So that's sort of where I come down. Great, thank you. Gary, what do you got for us? Hi, Ryan. You all right? Yeah. Yeah, it's just about how the Stokes feel with fear. How would they respond to fear? Well, the four virtues for the Stokes are courage,

temperance, justice, and wisdom. So I think you could argue that the core virtue of the Stokes, the core skill is how does one combat fear? The Stokes would say fear is natural, fear is real, fear is instinctive, but where the philosophy comes in, where the training comes in, where the practice of Stoicism counts,

is helping us override those fears. So I think like a brave or courageous person is not someone who's without fear, they're as they say someone who's transcended that fear. So we talked to really about sort of wrestling with trauma. I think it goes with all these negative emotions, you face them, you come to terms with them and then you make use of them.

Yeah, cool. Okay. Fan Deca. Hi, Ryan. Hi, I me? Hi. I can. How are you doing? Doing great. Good. Thanks. So, these are the passage that I've kind of been going over in the daily story.

Okay. And it's on the 24th of February. February or May. Yeah, February. Okay. And it's called the real source of calm. Yeah. So, three, keep in mind that it isn't the one who has it in for you and takes a swipe that

harms you. But rather, the home comes from your own beliefs about the abuse. And that's the beginning of the paragraph. But I think what I've been struggling with that paragraph in particular is how to distinguish between objectively identifying harm that's been inflicted on you versus having a narrative that says that home is kind of, it's your perception of what happened. And particularly in instances where, you know, these groups of people who are

prejudiced against, and maybe it's my interpretation of them, the paragraph, but I've been kind of struggling to interpret then how do you identify all, you know, like isolate genuine home as opposed to home that's that's self-imposed through perception. So, I think that this is a great distinction you're making and it's one that the Stoics make. So, for the Stoics, the events are objective and then our perception of harm is subjective. So that's not to say that, you know, if you stab someone, they don't bleed. It's to say that our opinion of what this means in our life, how we decide to react to it, this part is up to us.

So I'll give you two stories. Epic Titus were told has this fancy lamp in his house, and it's stolen. Someone breaks into his house, and it's stolen. Someone breaks into his house and he steals lamp. The next day he says, I will go. He says, you can only lose what you have. I'm going to go by myself a cheaper lamp.

So instead of feeling like he's been deprived of something, he decides to see this as an opportunity to downsize and not be so vulnerable to a world where a thief could take something from him. So he's deciding to actually not see this as something he's been deprived of, but in a way that he's been freed. And then there's another story about Frederick Douglass that I forget which book I tell it in. But Frederick Douglass is trying to board a train and they say, no, you have to go to this car in the back. And or it's a stage coach, I forget what it is, but he's told to go in the segregated

car. And one of his white traveling companions says, I'm so sorry that you've been degraded in this way. And Frederick Douglass says, it is impossible for someone to degrade Frederick Douglass. You know, they degrade themselves by trying to do this to me. So the fact that Frederick Douglass was forced to do something, that's objective, right? He is powerless to stop this injustice in one sense. But he decides that it will not humiliate him, because that's inside of his control.

He decides that this won't unmanned him as this won't break him in some way. So I think what we're trying to say in that passage, and again, it's easy to be glib about this, and I hope that's not how it comes off, because obviously it's easy to say these things about most of the inconveniences or indignities of modern life, to be in Frederick Douglass' position

would have been incredibly difficult. But I'd like to look at these extreme examples and watch someone under incredible pressure and stress sort of responding with such dignity and poise and being in such control of themselves. Speaking of which, I see someone in the questions asking about a biography of Frederick Douglass, there is a new one that's pretty good. I'm forgetting who it's by, but there's a, in the last two years, I recommended an email list, but it really does not get better than Frederick Douglass's memoirs.

I think it's my bondage and my freedom. One of the great American texts, one of the great memoirs of all time, just an absolute incredible book that I would very much recommend. Let's do Nathan. Hey, how's it going Ryan? There's a big trend that we kind of have hit on today that I think is something that I always come back to when reading authors is like this balancing of their good, the things that they do accidentally and the negative of just being human,

right, balancing the good, those identities, and being present with them often, right? So I've had some mentors that maybe they'll let me down, or I've disagreed with things that we've talked about, you know, like that was Seneca. What are some practices that you use to kind of keep that in mind? I think this kind of translates a lot in where we are in society right now too, with, you know, even the perception of our own country sometimes. Yeah, there's that thing we say now, whenever something horrible happens, we go, that's not who we are. But, you know, to the Stoics, you sort of are what you do. So I think it's about trying to get the writing or the thinking as in line with

the behavior as much as possible. Sorry to get the behavior in line with what you purport to believe or talk about or think about as much as possible. Do we fall short of course and I'm sure if we had a minute by minute recounting of Marcus's life, we'd see all the times that he violates, you know, his admonitions to himself about controlling his temper or being patient with people or forgiving or concentrating. So, I think it is a constant struggle. I know it's a constant struggle for me. I just try to think, am I making progress day to day? And when I look back, you know, when I look at the last year,

I go, what I have been able to handle the last year, the same way when I was 10 years younger, or 15 years younger, absolutely not. So to me, it's about, are you making progress relative to where you were previously? And that's, I think, really all you can expect. Awesome. Thank you. Someone was asking about,

are there parts of each virtue in the other virtues? So yeah, this is the four virtues coin that we have at Daily Stoic, Courage Justice Temperance Wisdom. I think all the virtues are related, right? Oh, I see someone else has one. All the virtues are related, right? You courage without justice is empty. It's also hard to be just without courage. It's also hard to be temperate in a world of intemperance and access without

And access without courage. And then I would also argue that a good measure of justice is how temperate or moderate were balanced at it. So all the virtues are related and to go to their question about wisdom. Like the Stokes would say courage is how you execute all the virtues. Wisdom is how you know how and how much to apply of each virtue in each situation. So they are helplessly interrelated and intertwined with each other. It's not that life is short, as Seneca says, is that we waste a lot of it. The practice of Memento Mori, the meditation on death,

is one of the most powerful and eye-opening things that there is. You built this Memento Mori calendar for Dio Stoke to illustrate that exact idea, that your life in the best case scenario is 4,000 weeks. Are you gonna let those weeks slip by or are you going to seize them? The act of unrolling this calendar, putting it on your wall, and every single week that bubble is filled in, that black mark is marking it off forever. Have something to show, not just for your years, but for every single dot that you filled in that you really lived that week, that you made something of it.

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