The Daily Stoic - Scott Thompson on Epictetus and Approaching Life with Laughter

Episode Date: April 9, 2022

Ryan talks to Scott Thompson about his introduction to Stoicism after hearing Ryan on the Breakfast Club, the humor that he finds in the teaching of Epictetus, the striking similarities between tragedy and triumph, and more.Scott Thompson is a Canadian born comedian and actor. He is best known for being a member of the comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall and for playing Brian on The Larry Sanders Show. At an early age, Scott found comedy as his way of coping with and overcoming the traumatic events he experienced throughout his life. In high school, Scott was a witness to the 1975 Centennial Secondary School shooting and subsequently developed PTSD at a time when therapy and mental illness was considered taboo. He came out as gay during the AIDS epidemic. In 2009, Scott was diagnosed with cancer and underwent several rounds of chemotherapy. He is no stranger to enduring and embracing hardships and truly embodies “amor fati.”The Jordan Harbinger Show is one of the most interesting podcasts on the web, with guests like Kobe Bryant, Mark Manson, Eric Schmidt, and more. Listen to one of Ryan's episodes right now (1, 2), and subscribe to the Jordan Harbinger Show today.Ten Thousand makes the highest quality, best-fitting, and most comfortable training shorts I have ever worn. They are a direct-to-consumer company, no middleman so you get premium fabrics, trims, and techniques that other brands simply cannot afford. Ten Thousand is offering our listeners 15% off your purchase. go to Tenthousand.cc and enter code STOIC to receive 15% off your purchase.Kion Aminos is backed by over 20 years of clinical research, has the highest quality ingredients, no fillers or junk, undergoes rigorous quality testing, and tastes amazing with all-natural flavors. Go to getkion.com/dailystoic to save 20% on subscriptions and 10% on one-time purchases.Talkspace is an online and mobile therapy company. Visit talkspace.com and get $100 off your first month when you use promo code STOIC at sign-up. That’s $100 off at talkspace.com, promo code STOIC.As a member of Daily Stoic Life, you get all our current and future courses, 100+ additional Daily Stoic email meditations, 4 live Q&As with bestselling author Ryan Holiday (and guests), and 10% off your next purchase from the Daily Stoic Store. Sign up at https://dailystoic.com/life/ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailCheck out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, 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. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoke. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stokes. Something to help you live up to those four Stoke 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 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 kodopaxi, 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 discuss 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.

Hey, it's Brian Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I am just packing up my stuff right now. I'm heading to Ole Miss tomorrow to give a talk to the football team. Their Lane Kiffin has been a supporter and booster of the books over the years. He read Ego is the enemy and it resonated with him. It's been an awesome supporter. So it's always cool for me to go talk to people who are great at what they do.

And I'm looking forward to talking to people in this program. I've got a flight of Dallas and the Dallas to Memphis meant and then drive from Memphis to Oxford. But I'm hoping to give a good talk to sort of walking through my mental process, packing up the stuff that I need. I'm just working on the slides.

Now I'm excited about that. And you might wonder like why I do that. Why do I go give those talks? Why do I do these interviews? Well, I saw a piece from the New Yorker about a month or so ago, and I'll just read it to you. It was by a writer named Ivy Knight and it said, the comedian Scott Thompson likes to listen to the Breakfast Club

podcast while driving in Toronto. One day during the darkest part of the lockdown, the self-help author Ryan Holiday was a guest. The episode was about stoicism and Thompson's attention was peaked and he heard Holiday quote, epic teetus. He remembers it as, we all have to die, but do we have to die ballin'. That was it for me Thompson said on a recent Zoom call. It hit me like a shot to the heart.

He ordered the incoheritian epic teedis to still a advice manual. And when it arrived, he made a cup of tea, sat down with his two cats, rusty, and dusty, and began to read. It's a lovely piece. And I've been a fan of Scott Thompson forever. If that name isn't ringing a bell, for whatever reason, just Google it and look at a picture of him, and you'll immediately recognize who I'm talking about, at least if you're of my generation, or a little bit older. He was one of the stars of Kids in the Hall, the amazing sketch comedy troupe,

which I remember watching all the time on Comedy Central. He was on the Gary Shanling show. He's been in everything over the years. And he's a great actor and a hilarious comedian and also my guest on the podcast today. And that encounter, this wonderful conversation we had we would have never been possible, had I not gone on the breakfast club.

And when I saw this article, I texted Charlottesman and I just said, man, look, look at what you did. You made this happen. You changed this dude's life by being the intermediary in which I could talk about stosism on your platform. So when I go talk to someone somewhere like Ole Miss or when I do these shows, it's because I've won it's cool and I love talking about it

and it doesn't hurt as far as selling books, but I've been amazed at the people who were introduced to stoses and through these things. I remember I gave a couple years ago at an accounting firm in the, a huge publicly traded accounting firm in the CEO, sat down with me and we had a little conversation before and said, how did you hear about Stosis? Why did you want me to come talk? And he said, why I read an article in Sports Illustrated that said, football teams were reading your book.

And that's why I wanted to check it out. All of which is to say, this was a lovely set of coincidences that brought me full circle with someone that I grew up watching. I thought was hilarious. And we have a super deep dive into stoicism. Like one of the best conversations I've ever really had about stoicism, I think. I had a Scott. He was just so earnest and fun and into it. And it was lovely. And I'm just really excited to share this conversation with you.

He's got an amazing story. You can follow Scott on Twitter at Scott Thompson underscore and he's also working on this sort of short film about stoicism that I saw a preview of. So stay tuned for that. Enjoy. I think you're gonna love Scott as much as I did and of course he's a pro and a showbiz vet and he knows he knows how to he knows how to connect and he just absolutely does it in this episode. I can't wait to share. Where are you based? Right now I'm in Toronto.

Oh, okay. Nice. Where are you? I live right outside Austin, Texas. Oh, we were just there. Oh, you were? Yes. We were there for South by Southwest. Oh, I wish I had known. We should have linked up. Yes up. Yes, we the kids in the whole documentary was screened. Oh, that's so funny. Yeah, I mean, it did some stand up for the first time in quite a while.

And we did some Q&As and us, you know, we went as sort of a latchkey kid. So I spent a lot of time watching kids in the hall, the reruns were on Comedy Central when I was a kid, and I would come home and watch it, and my parents had no idea. But I just, it sort of seared in my memory from like a chunk in my childhood is just sort of always being on. Uh-huh.

Wow, are you from Texas? No, I'm from California. Oh, okay. Okay. There's this, there's a sketch. I was trying to, I'm from California. Oh, okay. Okay. There's this, there's a sketch. I was trying to, I don't know if you're in it, but it's my favorite kids in the whole sketch. I was trying to find it.

I've wanted to show it to my, my kids. I think they're just old enough to get it now. But there's, it's like, it's like in a waiting room for a doctor's office. Yeah. And he sits down. Is it you? You sit down on the couch and it makes a farting sound? No, is this the one where I'm in a waiting there's one that there's no real words. I don't speak. Okay. I just imitate everybody

No, no, so this one the the person if it's not you as someone they sit down on the couch and it makes like a farting sound You know like when you sit on leather and it makes a sound. Yeah. And everyone looks at him and he goes, no, no, no, it wasn't me, it was the couch. And they go like, sure, sure it was. And so then he tries to recreate the sound on the couch to prove that it wasn't him. And he goes to increasingly absurd, much more embarrassing lengths to prove

that the couch made the sound and not and that he didn't fart in front of all these people. And I think about it every time I sit on a couch. Now, I guess you don't have squeaky couches and you have really soft couches. No, you know what I'm saying? Like anytime you move a piece of furniture and it makes that sound. And you know, it's a fact of life. Yeah, that's not me, definitely not me. The only fart joke I ever made in the Kids in the Hall

was the one with the Queen, because it's a common family and she farts. And that's the only fart joke I've ever made in my life. Because I thought, I'm only gonna make one fart joke and that's gonna be about the Queen of England having a fart. That's a pretty good one. It felt like a good one, because I thought, I'm just gonna do it, fart joke and that's going to be about the queen of England having a fart. That's a pretty good one. It felt like a good one because I thought,

you know, I'm just going to do it because it's the furthest fall from grace, you know, though it should make bigger comedy with furthest, when someone falls the furthest, you know what I mean? Like in terms of power. That's like mathematical. It always makes the biggest charge.

It's kind of a stoic idea too, like how that we're all equal at that level, right? And yet, our mortification is higher because we're somehow expected to not do those things. I think there's an epictetus line about like imagine the Queen having sex. It's weirdly takes them down to size a bit. Yes. So if you have someone like, let's say who has very low status,

like a homeless person, ranking and raving, and they far, that's not really funny. It's sad. Yeah, it's the Queen of England, and she's doing a problem, you know, a walkabout, and she's celebrating something and she farts, it's hilarious. Well, and it's also funny because all the people around her

would have to deliberately not notice and pretend that it didn't happen, and so the pretence of it's also funny because all the people around her would have to deliberately not notice and pretend that it didn't happen. And so the pretence of it's... And of course if it's someone that's low status, everybody is allowed to mock them and ridicule them. Yes. And then it becomes sad and tragic and not funny. And the end is all very thin line between those two things. When what's more humiliating, farting or being the person who, by nature of their job, has to pretend that they didn't smell a fart, right?

Like, there's this great thing that comes to us from Epictetus, so I want to get into it because I know he's your guy. Oh, yeah. Epictetus works in Neuros Palace, right? His boss is Neurosekrateri. And he tells us this story about basically somebody sucking up to Neuros' cobbler to make, you know? And I just, I love the humiliation,

the self-imposed humiliation of like sucking up to a guy who makes shoes for the emperor because it's good for your job. So no matter how powerful you are, you're like, oh man, I love your shoes. I love the image of that so much. That's the reason I fell in love with Epictetus is because he was funny.

I don't have anyone funny like that. I want to talk about the Stokes and Humor too. My fate, to go to your queen thing though, one thing I also think about all the time is on comedians and cars, Jerry Seinfeld and Brian Regan were talking about, you know, you know when you go into someone's bathroom, they're like, oh, you got to jiggle to handle a little bit at runs, you know, the thing. And Brian Regan asks, who do you think the most powerful person in the world that's been told

that is? And so he imagines like the queen asking to use your bathroom and then having to say like you got to do it. And everything really. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is the idea that at the end of the day, we're all equal before the running toilet

or airport security or weather delays, or you know, that it all cuts us down to size. So that's what I love about comedy is that it's the most democratic art form. It democratizes everybody. It brings everybody down to the same level in it. And it lets us all realize that we're all basically doing the same thing. We're all pretty much the same. We're all pretty much trying to find the right and the same thing. We're all pretty much the same, we're all pretty much trying to find the right the same stuff. Unless you can get away with slapping the comedian in the face on national television, right? Well, then of course, we know that fame and power trump everything. That's for sure.

I also know that I don't have to weigh in on this controversy. The whole time I'm looking at that going, oh God, do I have to weigh it? And then I read this quote by Marcus Aurelias, which is like, you don't have to weigh it on anything. I don't know if that's what he said, but I thought, and that hit me and I went, I don't know what needs to know until I've really thought it out. Well you don't need to have an opinion. I think that's one, that's one way.

Although sometimes I feel like people in the stoicism community misunderstand that to me and that if you have an opinion about something, you're somehow not being stoic, right? So I think the idea is, if the opinion is causing you distress, you're doing something wrong, if you're laughing at it because it's absurd or it's teaching you something, or it's part of your job to have an opinion about it.

Yeah, that's the thing. That's a tricky thing with a comedian, especially a comedian like me, is that is my job. Yes, to react. And my job is to see all these things that are happening in culture and to have an opinion on it. But what I've realized is that, yes, that's true, but I don't have to have it immediately.

You don't have to have it immediately, and it shouldn't make you miserable whatever the opinion is. So that's what it was. Yeah, that's the quote because I kept going, it's making me miserable. I'm just agonizing over what's actually happening and what actually did happen that night and what it was really about. And I was agonizing about like, what do I say, I don't need to until I've completely thought it through. Yes. And then I can write it out, but I don't need to like react. I don't want to go in hot.

Yes. And most of the things that you end up regretting as an artist, a person, creator, a comedian, or whatever, are the snap judgments that you made that you expressed before you had a chance to see how it would play out or what you really thought. And now it's on Twitter on the record forever. Yeah, exactly. And so that's where I'm at right now just thinking it through knowing that there's so many things that are going on and there was so much going on that night that I'm still not quite there in terms of making it funny. Yes, I really just see tragedy. Yes, that is the other part as you get more empathetic and understanding a lot of the

things that would have previously pissed you off or previously taken you down a rabbit hole, you can see that a hurt person is doing that. That's right. I know what my real beliefs are about what happened. And right now, if I told you them, it would be, I would be in trouble. And so I will only say that when I have it formulated completely, correctly and hilariously, so that if I do get into trouble, it's the trouble that I want to get into, not because I went in on on hot.

Yes, I love that. I understand some things that there are things that I think about it where I go, I don't think anybody else is really thinking this part, but I'm not quite ready. So let's go back to your introduction to stoicism. Obviously, I know this story, but what walked me through how you get introduced to Stoicism? Well, it was at the very beginning of the pandemic, and I was alone. And I would go out to my car, and I would just park different places in the city, and just listen to radio and stuff. And I was listening to the Breakfast Club, and I think it was you

that was on, right? And you were talking about epictetus, and I was already parked, and I heard it, and you said, we all have to die, but we have to die bawling. And that just hit me. Like a slap to the face on an Oscar broadcast. Like it almost brought me to my knees and it luckily it didn't because I was driving. And I'm not very good driving on my knees. I know the things better on my knees, but certainly not driving. And I just thought, I gotta hear the rest of this. And I just listened to it and I thought, wow, that's me.

It's like, my whole life has been, I react everything. And everybody is just loves to watch me react. And it's also part of my comedy. And I think it's what makes me a good comedian because I do react instantly. But I thought, I'm tired of being jerked around by my emotions. Like, my emotions have always been, they've been my, I don't know how to explain it like that. They've led me, I've never been in control of them. And in a maybe as a child, I fell in love with the whole idea of tragedy and recovering from violence and recovering from trauma. And I just thought, enough already.

I don't need, yeah, we're all gonna die and I wanna go to, when I die, I want to be, I wanna have dignity. I don't know what, why? Cause I don't know why it hit me so much. I've been trying so hard, I've been doing therapy, I've been in therapy many times, I've read lots of self-help books,

but never anything until that moment really hit. And I think it might have also been because it was from someone from 2000 years ago, not you, but you know, you're an old soul, I think. And it just hit me like, oh, this person I can listen to, and you were talking about epictetus. You guys were talking about it. I mean, I just thought, who is this person? I need to know this guy is because you're saying

that he was a slave and that by the time he got out of actual physical bondage, he was already free in his head. And I thought, that is exactly what I want. I have never been free in my head. I have been in bondage my whole life and to my emotions. And I've just let myself be joked around like a puppet. And I said enough. And I can still be a good comedian.

And I'm at an age where I just go, I need to have control of this. I need my emotional reaction to things cannot be entertainment any longer. You know what's interesting is that I had a similar reaction to Epic Titus who I was introduced to as far as the Stokes go first although I ended up reading Marcus Reyes. But when I read it, I was like, how has this been kept from me my whole life? Although I was only 20, but it was like, what do you mean? How are these not the people we're talking about all the time? How are these not the sort of secular saints of our world? It's like, this is exactly what I needed.

Yeah. And you're lucky you found it at such a young age. And I didn't find it until I was almost 60. And I just thought, I hope he sounds like he's funny. And then I started reading at the end of the career and I went, oh, this guy is hilarious. He really made me laugh. And then I thought, you can't even read it right.

It's just too much. And he's lame, you know, and I thought, and I kind of fetishized my pain in over the years, like, go on, fuck, I suffered so much. Why do I have to go through such fire? And why do I have to have such horrible things happen to me over and over again? And then I just went, well, it has to happen to someone.

And so it might as well be me, because I obviously can take it. So, and I also, there's another thing about it that I'm really, it's something that never that never was never part of like modern psychology was, he can talk about the gods and it sounds so old fashioned and ludicrous and silly, but that's what I needed. I needed to have someone that actually believed in God or gods or something spiritual as well. And because nowadays we live in a world where people mock that. You know, we've tried to destroy religion,

which is insane, you can't really. And then we've created a new secular religion, with all the same tenets of religion, except with one thing missing, God, which is just an incredibly stupid thing to do. We create religion without God. Okay, that sounds like it's going to work. And so that

was it for me. And I just started reading that. And it was just everything was a revelation when I would read him. I was just, go, this is the guy for me. This is the one I was in therapy. And I told my therapist I'd fallen in love with a philosopher. And that was it. You know, because I thought if this man can find happiness in himself, after a life of physical bondage, and then to be released, and he's lame from being beaten, and he was as happy as when he was in bondage as when he came out, that is the secret of life, and I want to know that. And you're right, like why does everyone not talk about him? Well, it's funny that you got introduced to Stoicism

from the Breakfast Club, like a hip-hop morning show. And I got introduced to Stoicism. I was at a conference, you know who Dr. Drew is? Of course, I've done this show, yeah. Yeah, of course. So when I was in college, I went to a conference that Dr. Drew put on that was sponsored by Trojan Condoms. That's where I got introduced to Stoets

to buy Dr. Drew at that thing. So you never, you never know where you're gonna find the thing that you're like, that's what I needed the whole time. Yeah, yeah. And I was like in such, it was so difficult. The pandemic has been very, very difficult for so many of us. And I was like, in such, it was so difficult, the pandemic has been very, very difficult

for so many of us. And I was alone. And the kids in the hall had just started our reboot. And everything I had been dreaming up was coming true. I've been waiting for so long. That's all I ever wanted. 25 years, I'm like, we need to come back.

I need, I have so much more to do. Yeah. And then it happened and then the pandemic hit. And I just thought, oh, man, I cheated again. And then I had to have an operation on my hand. So it was, that was it. I go, this is going to be rough. I live alone. I'm in a lockdown. Let me try and know was rough. I'm in this country went really hard on the pandemic. And there's a lot to unpack there and I'm not quite ready to weigh in on what really happened in Canada. But I just thought if I had to get through this, I'd need something else. And because I had to have my right hand, my hand started falling apart from injuries when I was a child and other things. And so I couldn't use my hand anymore and I couldn't write.

And so I had to have an operation and they had to rebuild my wrist. And so I was, you know, I was alone in a pandemic. And there was a full lockdown, dead of winter. And I only had my non-dominant hand. And I thought, for me to get through this, I need something else. And that's when you were speaking. And Epitides came along, and that's when I thought, okay, that's what I need to help me get through these six months with my left hand alone. Well, it's interesting that you responded to that specific quote, which I do love because

death, it seems like, has been a, or brushes with with death do seem like they've been a theme through your life. I mean, wasn't there, there was a school shooting when you were a kid? That's when I was 16, yes. What happened? Well, you know, I don't know how, well, when I was 16 years old, a boy behind me, this happy, behind me in class, kid down the street that I'd known for a long time. He came and he killed three and the 17 people were wounded. And he came out of that? Yes. And it was a long time ago and it's a

kind of a story that Canadians have kind of buried because it was too painful and it was before the whole, it was actually the beginning of the whole school shooting phenomenon, but it happened in Canada so it was kind of ignored. But it was a very pivotal moment in my life and it was my class and I was headed for class and I was late. And so you missed it. You missed being, yeah, I was literally like, he was around the corner and I was coming up the hall and I heard it all begin and I'd never heard guns before.

I don't, I thought it was firecrackers and then I smelled the gunpowder and then I thought, oh, it's firecrackers, it's a party. What kind of that? So I was like a good party and then I could smell it. And then I heard screaming. And then I saw blood. And I thought, this is... This is... This party's come up to... And then a teacher saved my life. He grabbed me and threw me in a class. And I hid there for quite a while. Well, it happened around us. And people kept coming in and out. But anyways, you know, it was a bad thing and I do realize,

it's true. I've been stalked by death my whole life. I mean, we all are. I had a lot of things happen as a child and disease and stuff. You had cancer, right? I had cancer, but I had encephalitis when I was 17-year after the shooting. I almost died of encephalitis. And I think those things all, I think a lot of it was because the shooting kind of planted a kind of a seed in me, if that makes sense, a psychological, like a wound that for the rest of my life continued to open and open until eventually it flowered into cancer, I think 40, you know, 35 years later. That's what I believe. And so I just finally just said, enough already. I'm here. I'm a survivor. I'm obviously tougher than I ever thought I was.

And I'm a gay man too, who went through the AIDS epidemic. So that would have been enough. That would have been enough. You know, so I mean, I was fire bombed when I was my first boyfriend. I've had just incredibly wild things happen to me. And I think there must be, you know, and I do believe in God. No, that's, I do. I have, it's kind of embarrassing, I think. It used to be embarrassing. Now, I just accept it. And I just go, there must be, there must be some reason for me to keep it. It's keep almost dying and then come back better. So I might as well get it together

because it looks like I'm gonna be an old man. And if I'm gonna be an old man, I wanna be a great old man, right? I don't to be an old man, I want to be a great old man, right? I don't want to be a cranky old fuck. I want to be that old man that everybody wants to be with. I want to be Gandalf, that's I want to be Gandalf the white, I want to go down, and I want to come back up, and I want to be better. Did you have the sense that death was stalking you or did these feel like unrelated events,

or was it more of a not this again? As you kept bumping into these life or death moments, how did you feel about that? I did feel stopped. I do. I know that at times kind of arrogant in a way, like who am I to be stopped by death? You know, my brother committed suicide when I was young. So I just think there must be a reason. It just felt like, I guess I felt like my sword

to be very, very sharp. And so my metal had to be tested over and over and over again until it was a sharp sword I could have. And then I could wield it with love, if that makes sense. It does. And so I didn't wanna be, I didn't, I was in such a state of anger for so much of my life and I always thought that's what drove my comedy

and there is some truth to that. But I went, you know what, I'm gonna be funny no matter what, no matter even when I try to do something serious, it's always got, it's always funny. So that's nice, no, it can't leave me. It just, I'm at a stage where you can't kill it. You can't kill my humor.

You can't really kill me right now. And when I do go, I will go quiet. I mean, not quietly. I'm not going to, I'm sure I'll be raging and screaming. But I'm going to have, my mother would always say to me, you know, have dignity. Her whole thing was dignity, dignity, dignity, dignity. And I used to mock her.

And now that she's gone, I'm not going to go, yeah, mom, I wish you could save me now. I'm going to try to be like you. I'm going to try to be dignified. It does make sense then that senator that that epictetus would be your guy because all the stoics more or less say the same thing. And it's not like they had it easy, but nobody had it quite as hard as after two years. That's why I had to be the guy that had it the hardest. Yeah. I just could, you know, like everyone loves Marcus Aurelius

and he's an incredible human being, but he had a very, a gilded life. So it was difficult to be my look at. Epictetus and going, that's the guy. That's the one that really relates to me. And so that's why I did it. It was just that you're just somehow ready. Sometimes you're just ready for it.

And also I became consumed the last few years as we all know. It's been just such a cauldron, a society kind of as our culture kind of unravels. It's kind of unraveling. And I thought the thing I need to do is I can't be unraveled. I have to unravel because that's my job is to unravel as everyone's unraveling. And I guess I thought, wow, I'm gonna do this as an old guy. I wanted to be a really famous one. I was young and sexy. I didn't want it to be now. But in that way, I think Marcus speaks to where we are now, sort of overseeing the decline

of the empire. Do you know what I mean? Watching the wheels start to come off of this thing that worked so well for so long. Yes. And I don't think we can stop it. No. Like, this is the thing that's the thing that stoicism really touches me. So I can't control it.

I don't think I can even affect it. All I can do is is law comedy into it as we all kind of go down together. Because that can be, that can also, that's mean your life has to be bad. Because even when things are going fantastically, look at Will Smith, look what happened on Oscar's night, it was the highest moment of his life and the lowest.

And we all have to be so careful of that. Because that's the thing that really got to me was, when the kids in the house started doing this, I realized, oh my God god culture has changed tremendously and Wow, this is gonna be hard for five old white guys to do comedy in this a Even me as a gay man I thought no one gives a fuck anymore. They don't know they don't care what I went through No, the young ones don't even know who I who I am I had to let all that go and say, well, so be it. It's the way it is. They

don't. And that's fine too. And I was consumed with the idea. There's no way I'll be able to get out of this without being canceled. There's no way with the kind of brain that I have, the kind of way that I think. There's no question I'm going to be canceled. And I complete, and then I start going, what am I going to do? And I start thinking, well, I want this to be successful, but it might be a shit show. Our comeback might be a 24-hour cycle. Or it could be, we could be what people are waiting for. It could be, they could say, well, the kids in the hall are what this culture needs right now. Either one are completely fine. Like a disaster or a triumph, I realize now they're the same thing. I'm not equipped for either. Do you know what I mean? I do. I do. I can be happy. Like when I was fighting cancer, it wasn't like I was at my most miserable.

In some ways, when I'm fighting for my life, I'm at my happiest. Which is what the shooting taught me, maybe not a good lesson, but when I talk about the day of the shooting, I realized that the day was definitely one of the worst days in my life, but also one of the best because I made it. And I'd fallen in love with survival. And that high you get. So I thought, I'm going to be, if I'm canceled, there's no, cancelling is just another word for exile. And I've been saying that if you are a person who seeks the truth, you will eventually be either executed or exiled.

And I went, yeah, that's exactly what's going to happen. And one of those things could happen to me and I completely accept it. And I think the Stokes do speak to where we are now. You're saying like, can you affect or arrest the decline of the empire? Maybe, maybe not. But what you can do is decide can you affect or arrest the decline of the empire? Maybe, maybe not. But what you can do is decide who you are going to be inside that.

Like you can decide am I part of the solution or am I part of the problem? As you said, am I going to unravel alongside it? Or am I going to be dignified and together and make people laugh or made some minuscule contribution to the happiness or improvement of life for the people around me. Yes, because as this empire goes down, another one's coming up. So it's not like the entire planet will be upset. Lots of people will be quite happy. Yes. And also, the decline of Rome took like 700 years, right? So sometimes

we monitor these things within our own, like we make ourselves the center of them in our own sense of time. It's important. Even think like, you know, the British Empire has been in decline since, you know, the mid-1900s. Still nice to live in London. There's still plenty of people with the brave, you know, fun city. Yeah, I know. So like I mean, it's Rome has still been a lot of fun as they were being wiped out, you know, in those German wars. So that's when I decided to book, if I'm a look, let's face it, I'm a war comic,

obviously. For common. So talk to me about humor and the Stokes, because I agree. I think the stokes are funnier than people give them credit for. Oh, God, yeah. Yeah. Well, I think, I mean, I think that a lot of the stokes seem to be actually comedians. And I look at that world that they had and I went, oh, they all seem like traveling

stand-up comics. Yeah. They have a circuit. They go around, you know what I mean? They're put up at different places and then they hang out different people and they maybe sleep with a fan and then they go off to another place. It's all dinner parties. Dinner parties and accolades and what you're swanning around in robes and telling what you think

about the world and I'm like, fuck, that sounds great. Like that just sounds great. It does. And what other, like you think about Epic Titus, if he's not fun, there's a line from Seneca, Seneca says there's two ways to approach life with laughter or tears, right? And you can despair about the whorlbleness of the world

or you can laugh at the absurdity of the world. You think about Epic Titus, you can't get through 30 years of slavery, the broken leg, the evils of Neuros Court, if you're focused on how horrible it is. You'd kill yourself. Yeah. And the other is great. The great story that I like about him, the one that also really stuck with me is about the lamp. Yes, where he gets to. He has this beautiful lamp that he just loves and he probably saved forward. He's like, Oh God, I have enough points now on Amazon to get this lamp. And there's one on SC that's more expensive, but this is the one I want. He gets it and he treasures it and then it's stolen. And he's not upset because he goes like, look, I lost my lamp,

but at least I can go to bed knowing I'm not a thief. That just killed me. I just like, that's hilarious. Like, yeah, I lost my lamp, but I'm not a thief. When he also says that you can only lose what you have, which is such a funny way to describe being fraud. Yeah, and it's true. You don't really have anything in that. That's it. I have what I have my mind and I have the way I react to things. And that's it. I can control one thing how I react. And I've never, ever done that until now.

Ah, the Bahamas. What if you could live in a penthouse above the crystal clear ocean working during the day and partying at night with your best friends and have it be 100% paid for? FTX Founder Sam Bankman Freed lived that dream life, but it was all funded with other people's money, but he allegedly stole. Many thought Sam Bankman Freed was changing the game as he graced the pages of Forbes and Banity Fair. Some involved in crypto saw him as a breath of fresh air, from the usual Wall Street buffs

with his casual dress and ability to play League of Legends during boardroom meetings. But in less than a year, his exchange would collapse. An SPF would find himself in a jail cell, with tens of thousands of investors blaming him for their crypto losses. From Bloomberg and Wondery, comes Spellcaster, a new six-part docu-series about the meteoric rise and spectacular fall of FTX, and its founder, Sam Beckman-Freed. Follow Spellcaster wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Prime members, you can listen to episodes Add Free on Amazon Music.

Download the Amazon Music app today. There's another stoke named a grippin-ness who's exiled and or canceled however you want to say, but he's exiled and there's two things I think from him. One, he's told these exiled, he's forced to go from Rome and he goes, ah, all right, we'll have a nice lunch on the road. Like, I love this love the immediate acceptance of the new situation and then finding, it's almost as if the emperor can take away all my stuff, but he can't deprive me of the ability to joke

about it. Exactly. And he's thinking, although it says that little restaurant along the road that I've never been able to do because I'm so busy with my success. Now I get to have that lovely lunch. Yeah, I get the linger over lunches because I'll be in Excel and that's what I went, oh, fuck, if I cancel, I'll get to linger over a long lunch with my friends. How bad is that? There's a, I was thinking I've seen you in the red sweater, the multi-colored sweater. A group of us also has this thing that he's saying that, okay, so see, your sweater is the exact opposite, but see the white stripe in the middle?

He's talking about a Roman sweater and he's saying, you know, what makes the sweater wonderful is the stripe, right? The part that pops and he says, I want to be the red thread that makes the sweater stand out. And I love that idea too, like that I'm gonna be who I am. I'm gonna laugh at what I think is funny. I'm gonna pursue what I think is interesting. I don't give a shit, if you like it, I don't give a shit if it's not like everyone else.

In fact, the whole point of life is to be different than everyone else. That's right. Yeah. Yeah, that's how I feel. Yeah, I want to be the thread. Yeah, you know, the people know that little red thread is pulled out a little bit. Yeah, but you can only look at that thread. And so, yeah, that's what I want to be. And so even if no matter what happens, it doesn't matter to me. I'm going to be happy inside. So when I have to imagine that that your early days in the entertainment business things were not nearly so accepting or out in the open, right? No, no, no, that was very, you know, no, no, there were no, there weren't openly gay men in pop culture and really there were certainly none in comedy. But I'll tell you the one thing was I went, well no one's done this before and that's exciting. I realized when I was young like, okay, this is ugly, like I came out into a war like when I first

came, I came out late which I think in some ways saved my life because I think I'd have been dead of AIDS. But when I came out AIDS hit pretty quickly. And next thing I know, I spent my whole life hating myself for being gay. And then suddenly I told that everything that I feared might be true. Maybe we are disease creatures that need to be killed and everyone wants us dead. So there's a very, very good chance I won't even make 40. So I have nothing to lose. At least we'll jump off this cliff. So I decided, you know what?

No matter what happens, I'm gonna have a life that no one's ever lived before. And that was very exciting to me. Like, well, no one's ever done this before. So I have nothing really to lose. So I'm just gonna jump and see what happens. And there were many years when I had regrets because I thought if I kept in the closet, I could have had a real career. I mean,

I've had a real career, but I could have been a movie star, which is all I really ever want. And then I realized as I got older, look, I would have probably been dragged out in a scandal, and it would have ended in a disaster. And I would have probably died of a drug overdose. So really, it all has worked out. Well, you wouldn't have been, you would have had died of a drug overdose. So really it all has worked out. Well, you wouldn't have been, you would have had to wake up every day, not yourself. And that would have been its own kind of torture. That's exactly it, like going imagine not,

well, and we're not, I'm not gonna go back and then what we talked about early, but imagine not being allowed to be who you really are. Right. And how that tortures you. And then imagine that will eventually come to a head one day in front of the world possibly. Will you buy things that you have tried to bury will come out in a roar and it will break you?

And so this was a, I was saved. I think that is something that people mistake about stoicism, which is this idea that it's about the suppression of emotions or urges. Because if you do suppress it, if you stuff it into a closet or you shove it down, eventually it does come out. And it comes out in a much less controlled way than if you process it and face it and deal with it and talk about. That's right. And so, and that that's it. So I thought I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to be honest about who I am and I'm I'm I'm not going to bury it. I'm going to I'm going to love it. And eventually, and I thought when I was young, well, maybe if I survive, when I'm

an old man, which is kind of happening, I mean, I can, yeah, I'm not old, old, I'm not mentally old, but, you know, chronologically, I am eventually, that's when people will see what I did. And now I'm going, they still might not. Yeah. And it's still all right. Well, that's how I never thought I'd get to. I thought I was like, I was verging on real bitterness. And there's not no verging I was. I was consumed with bitterness that I hadn't gotten my due. And now it's like, who cares? No one cares if you get your due.

Well, you expect like, hey, I'm gonna do this good thing or I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna stay on this path. And eventually I'll be recognized for it eventually, I'll be recognized for it. Eventually, I'll be appreciated for it. But the danger of that, the Stokes would say, is that you don't control it, right? And so you're not, you're just deferring. Instead of going, I want my recognition right now,

which isn't good. You're saying, no, I'm going to be the good person. I'm going to delay my gratification. But you're actually just increasing what you think you're entitled to till down the road. And then, yeah, you are bitter because you're like, I've waited my whole life for this. Where is my face? I know. And then you've created a martyr.

And that's not good. You know what I mean? Like, in that first, and I don't want, I thought, what am I gonna do? Be one of those marty people? I suffered for everyone. I don't know anyone even knew what I'd done. Oh, how boring.

Yes. And punishment for you, too. No one's having less fun than that person. That's right. And no one's thinking about it. No one cares. So that hit really, really hard with me. And so I went, this is my last chance.

This is really the last, it was the last exit off the highway. And I went, okay, I'm taking this one. I'm taking it, that's it. My last chance, because otherwise it's highway, ends and I go off a cliff. Interesting. That was just a good decision. Now, I like the idea, I think about that is,

obviously, the Stoics, their metaphors stop before so much of the modern world. But I do like the idea of off ramps or exits as the, because the idea that you're ever going to get to a place where you just never do it is wrong. It's more like, I've started to lose my temper. Here's how I'm going to get off this highway, right? Or, you know what I mean? I've started to go down this road, but here's the last exit before you end up. I like the idea of like, I'm going to stop myself before this gets worse.

Yeah, yeah. And in many ways, that was the pandemic allowed me to do it in a strange way. Allow me, and I thought, and then part of it was as well, I went, okay, one of the things I'm going to do is I'm going to completely forgive my father for everything that he did that I've hated him for. And I'm going to not only forgive, I'm gonna love him.

That's hard though, right? I come in. That's hard. It's unbelievable, but when it happened, it happened. And then it was beautiful. Now I love my dad, and I even like him. And that just blows, that blows me away. Is he still around?

Yes, he's 90. He's gonna be 93 next week. And he's in long-term care, but, you know, he doesn't have dementia, but he's had a stroke, so he has some damage. But we get along with the house on fire now, and I don't have any anger towards what he did.

I accepted. Talk about last, you didn't have many more exits before you could get there. No, and this was it. I go, what am I going to do? Like, I've never been able to make, you know, I've had relationships, but I've never had any relationship that's gone longer than three years. And I went, that must be part of it is because I've never truly healed the wound of my dad. I've blamed him for everything, his violence I blamed for everything.

And, and then I looked at my own life and I went, okay, I didn't become a violent, physically violent person, but I certainly hurt people with my words, and I certainly hurt myself. So I totally understand why he did what he did, and why he treated me the way he did. And I accept that he grew up in a time that he could not, he had no concept of a son like me. I didn't just come out as gay, came out to the world and he handled it. He didn't really handle it well. But so what? So, it's not that no one could have possibly prepared him for what life brought him. No,

he had five boys. He lost one to suicide. He had another gay one. He had two gay sons. And you know, he just didn't have any concept of what his life was going to give him and he did his best. And that's changed everything for me and for him. And we get along great, which is really get along great. It's funny, it's funny how the pandemic made that possible by forcing, like by slowing everything down, taking everything away. it stripped us, me, especially, it stripped me of the ability to make excuses and to ignore what was obviously there.

Because as everything went away, you're like, well, I'm still feeling all these things. Oh, yeah, I'm the problem. Like I'm the source of this. I, the things I'm not dealing with, like you're saying like, oh, I've not been in a relationship for more than this period because of this thing, not because, oh, they're all unrelated situations

that I have no culpability for. It's sort of like, I'm responsible for my choices, my emotions. Yeah. And I'm gonna have to deal with them if I don't want the pattern to continue as it's rooted. And I'm the only real relationship that I've ever been able to negotiate forever is the

kids in the hall, honestly. Because it's five men in a group, in a team, working together for the common goal, which is the way I grew up with my five brothers and we were together. And our goal was to basically escape the wrath of our father. Wow. It's dark when you kind of figure out

how you've been playing the same patterns over and over. Well, exactly. So when I met the kids in the hall, it was like, it was like meeting Epictetus, like, love it for a site. I knew exactly what the rest of my life would be. I went, this is, I didn't even know that I wanted to be a comedian.

I was gonna be an actor and then I saw them and I went, oh, that's exactly what I'm supposed to be. They don't know it yet, but this is the moment that I'm supposed to be in this group and they will eventually accept me. And I will make everything in my power to make them accept me because they have no choice.

This is what the God's want. Yes. The God's want me to go there and I'm going to do that. I like the concept of God's to go to what you're talking about. You know what's like when you read a book about like a politician from 100 years ago, you don't really care whether they're liberal or conservative Democrat or Republican because those words don't mean anything anymore. You know that so much has changed that it's not really partisan anymore. Like, it doesn't matter that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican or FDR was a Democrat because that word doesn't mean anything, right? And right means

nothing anymore. I mean, in the past, once it's in the past long enough, it's ceases to have the same potency that knowing that this person or that person belongs to this party today, right? And I think the God's plural is easier to accept than the specific Christian God or Muslim God or whatever. You're just like, God's just means almost in the 12-step sense of a higher power.

It's just a thing that's not you. It's really to me what the gods mean. Like, Sunday and Sunday and Sunday. They're like all the different kinds of human, all the ways that you can be broken. And they all have a separate god for them. And all the ways that you can be elevated, but they each have a god.

And it just made sense to me. And it's also, it's just creatively more fun. Yes. Like I. I go, do I believe in Zeus? And all of them? No. But it's a lot more fun than thinking of a, of an angry, you know, Abrahamic God or the nihilistic non-existence of anything. Yeah. Right? I like to pitch and miss people with clothes on different outfits. And, you know what I mean? And actions and lovers and all that.

I like that. As a child, I remember when I started reading about the, you know, Greek and Roman and mess, that was another thing where I went, oh, this suits me. I'd never understood it. I remember a class in archetypes where I went, holy fuck this.

This makes me almost horny. I remember when I discovered the Greek and Roman myths, it was horny for it. I think they were always wearing like, I like the way they dressed. I like all of it except they seem to be raping each other a lot. Well, I wasn't. Yeah, even a lot of raping. raping each other a lot. Well, I wasn't. Yeah, he was a lot of raping. I can work that. A lot of toxic masculinity, which turns me on a little, I can't deny it. I'm not against all of it. No, if it's channeled correctly, I'm really, I'm there. I'm absolutely there.

I like little toxic masculinity. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to lie to you, but that or mine, I can't help it. Oh no. My dad beat me. I'm not gonna lie to you. I'm gonna lie to you, but that or mine, and I can't help it. Oh no. My dad beat me, I think, ruthlessly, to try to beat the gay out of me, but he just didn't work. That's all I'm saying. Didn't work, I'm guessing no.

Huh? It didn't work. No, he made me like a rough, that's it. It didn't work. No, no, no, no. But it's true, I like those gods, and their little skirks, and their thigh high boots, and they were jacked. I mean, they were, you know, no, no. But it's true, I like those gods, and they're little skirts, and they're thigh high boots, and they were jacked.

I mean, they were, you know, really jacked. And yeah, they were really jacked, and fighting all the time, and loving, and lusting, and drinking, and that's it. They also seem very petty, they get caught up in grudges, and it's very human. And so, so that's where I'm at.

I like zoom. I got like all of them. So I watched this short film that you made. You got to tell me what the fuck is happening in this thing? Well, you know, well, it's the fourth virtues. I wanted to do something. It's the only I've ever made that I. It's the only thing I've ever made

that I never, that's not a comedy, even though I think it is kind of funny. Yes, I thought it was funny. It was a terrible. You know, I just thought, I made it during a year ago, and no one's ever seen it the first person, and I'm not really a set.

Yeah, because I didn't know, I did it for myself as almost an exercise and keeping myself sane. I thought, can I make a little movie by myself in my apartment with one left hand? Because that's a real cast. Oh, you're right-handed. That's right.

So that's real. I just had the operation, and I couldn't use the hand because the cast went up to here. I couldn't do anything. And so my best friend Paul Bellini, he helped me do. He was the only person I could see during this period and his boyfriend George had just bought a drone. So I thought I'm going to make a little film about the four virtues of stoicism for no reason other than I want to see if I can do it by myself.

I have no technical skill and I'm just going to do it because I need to do it. That's all. And I know that now and I think it's kind of a meditation thing. I can watch it and it just it sets me back. I'm like, okay, I remember what I'm looking for. I want to get to that place where the clouds are just the beautiful weather is just going through me. I relate to the one arm to this. When I was writing my first book, I broke my left elbow and I'm left handed. And just suddenly you realize how dependent you are on doing the things, the way that you've always done them. Yeah. And the whole thing is words.

I call it words because it's all about, you know, the last two, three years, my God, we've just become consumed with cancel culture and all these new words have swand up and there are so many things that change so quickly and drastically and we became, everything became about race and gender and sexuality. And I go, I can't fucking keep up. I can't figure out what to do. I can't figure out what's happening. And so that's why I bought this roll of paper on Amazon,

and I just literally covered my room, this room that I'm in right now. I wrapped it, like like crystal. I wrapped the room in paper, and I spent days with my left hand writing all the things that all those words that are consuming our culture. And I just, and then that was the whole idea. And then I put a little green screen in front of my door and we put the fire on it because I went on my on fire. And I'm on fire. And I can't, I know what's happening. I'm going down. I'm on fire. So, bless you. So, that's what I did. And so, and that's why it has the four virtues.

And I use the old fashioned words too. I didn't want to use the modern words. I thought, it's just much cooler than wisdom. It's so old fashioned, it's weird to use that word, but I liked it. And you know, justice didn't seem to need a change.

But that was the, that's the whole reason for it. And I'm not gonna let, I'm gonna put it out there and see what people think. But I don't really care. I just made it because I thought I want to make something to honor epictetus. What is the virtue that resonates with you the most of the four? Is there one that you find yourself coming to over and over again?

Well, I like prudence. I like wisdom. But temperance is the most important balance. I think balance. I've never had balance. That's the one I'm just copy editing. I'm doing this series on the four virtues. I did courage.

I just wrote temperance, which I render as both restraint but also self-discipline. But I agree with the support. Well, it's self-discipline, yeah. Like I just thought, like I've never, I've got to get control of my emotions. I have to get control of my vices.

I have to get control of my anger. And forditude, like the forditude, I wanted people to really focus on it because I wanted it to really, it's not the strength, it's not the quick strength, it's the long strength, I play a long game and I realize I'm playing a long game. That's why I want to take time with this with fortitude because I have the strength, I don't have the physical strength, but I have, you can't, I just, I'm a cockroach. I will, when it's all said down, I'm still here.

Yes. Well, you can't have the kind of career that you've had over the period that you've had if you're sort of of faint heart and easily discouraged. Yes, and I'm never, no, I'm not easily discouraged. And that's part of, like, it's for me, it's like, and I go back to some of these tragedies that happened when I was young is, is, is, is, I don't know, I lost my point. I, I, I did, I lost my choice. Sorry. No, no, the early tragedies did, I imagine they, you, that's, you said this earlier, but that's when you realized you were a survivor. It feels like that's the lesson you took.

Yes, and that I was playing a long game, not the short game. So I may look like I'm losing now, but eventually I will win. Right. And that's just because I will still be standing. You don't have to be the best. You just have to be the hardest to get rid of. Yes, exactly. And I'm not even the most talented or the funniest or anything, but I might be the one that works the hardest and has the most stamina.

Is that sort of what the, I know, a more flashy resonated with you. The idea of just sort of like using all of it, not hating or resenting, just accepting is that sort of what that's meant to you? Yes. Yes. Using all of it, using everything you have. That is the perk of being a creative, right? Is that you do have the ability to so clearly use what's happened to you in your art. Yes, and I'm not saying you have to have tragedy to forge your steel, but it helps. Yeah, it does help. And if you can survive it, you will come out better.

And as a comedian, if you survive it, you will come out a better artist. Well, and I think if you're a comedian or an artist that's never experienced anything, you hit only green lights along the way, you know, you were successful early, et cetera. How are you going to relate to the vast majority of the population for whom that is not true?

Exactly. I don't know who said this, but whatever it is, it's quite wise, is that one of the worst things that can happen to a person is a gilded childhood. Yeah. Okay. And then where do you go from there? Yes. That's true.

That's true. Where do you go when you've had a perfect childhood? How do you feel? Well, that you're like peaking. You don't want to peep when you're a kid. This is the temperance, right? You don't want your kids to have a horrible childhood, and then you also don't want it to be perfect.

It should just be good, but not easy. Like we are seeing now the fruits of a generation that was overly coddled. Yeah. And that's absolutely true. And that's its own tragedy. Well, because you're not very resilient and you also take everything personally because

it feels like, why is this happening to me after my whole life has not been this thing? That's right, and me too is like as a gay man, my age, I realize, I've got it for the young ones that are coming up that I'm so jealous of because I became consumed with jealousy on how easy they have it. But I thought, well, it's not gonna help anyone if I'm a bitter old queen. I have to be that funny, you know what I mean? That funny gay uncle that everybody wants to be with.

So in order for me to be helpful and useful, useful, I wanna be useful to this new generation, I have to become Gandalf the White. That's such a great, that's such a great, I love the movie. Yeah, no Bruce Springsteen had this thing where he said, are you going to be an ancestor or a ghost to your children, right? And I think that's also true for your community or your industry

or the world. Like, are you this thing that kind of haunts and makes everything awful? Or are you a guide or an, or a mentor figure, you've got to choose, because if you're lucky enough to end up old, or a senior statesman of whatever it is that you do, you then have to choose. Are you going to be that person that's standing beside history and trying to stop it all? you know, yelling get off my lawn, or are you the cool old person that people stop by

and ask for advice? Yeah, I want to be that guy with the Twinkle in the sign. Yes. And that's why it's when Gandalf falls into that pit. And then he comes back up in the next book. And he fights the, is it the ball rock, but you know, the, is it the ball rock? He fights, I don't know, maybe you're not

a Lord of the Rings guy. You're not. I'm definitely not. Oh my God, it's great. But I went, okay, I'm in a big battle. This is a big, this is a profound battle for me and I'm going to win it. And I'm going to, when I come out of it, I will be a different person. And so that was it.

I do. I want to be that guy. And I also think, look at, to be an elder like I want, I can't be walking. I need to wear those clothes I need those robes. I want those white robes just barely touching the ground switching along I want those nice really well. I want those sandals that were made by Seneca's shoe maker. Was it Seneca's? Neuroscoppler. Neuroscoppler. I want shoes from Neuroscoppler. I want the clothes. I just really want to, I really want to run some on around the mid-air rubs. I do. I don't see why I can't. I don't see stopping

you. It's not I'll get the law to go on a talk show in a long white toga. I don't know if you'll get invited back, but you're right, it is not against the lot. It's going to, it'll be a moment and it'll, you know, it'll trend on Twitter for a day and that's all right. And then some kids will pick it up as a, you know, as a way to dress. Well, Sena could said because that is kind of a philosophical thing. You know, suddenly you start wearing weird clothes, you stop shaving, you know, and Sena could says, You start wearing weird clothes, you stop shaving, you know, and Senka says, look, the stoic path is that on the outside, you're exactly the same as everyone else, but it's on the inside, you're different. So maybe you just need to, you need to figuratively put on your robe. I think you're right. Yeah, I can still work. I can still wear Western clothing.

Yes, yes. Because then people think I'm just a cook, but they censored Gandalf energy in the room and they gravitate towards it. They know that I have long white hair and I smoke a pipe. Exactly. They know that. They can tell. They can tell. I love it.

Well, I'm sensing it in this conversation. So I'm so glad we got connected and it's funny. I think sometimes people don't understand, like, you know, why is he talking about stoicism on this outlet or why is he making these videos or whatever, when I hear that, like, you know, I do in this morning hip hop radio show, and then it's reaching this person in Canada

who's had a totally different life than me. I'm like, oh yeah, that's why. It worked, you know what I mean? It worked. It worked. I have to thank you. I really thank you. Because it's true, I literally, that after I listened to that part, I listened to it,

and then I went online, I ordered the books, and I just never done that before. I just, and I can't read him going, this guy's amazing. And I fell in love with him. I'm in love with him. I'm in love with him. Me too. Look, I feel like all I'm doing is paying forward that conversation that I had with Dr. Drew when I was 19 years old.

And he said, hey, you should read this guy, Epic Titus. That's amazing. You know, I'll take from Dr. Drew really. It did. Yeah, I went up to him and I said, hey, you seem smart. What book should I read? And he said, I'm reading this slave, Epictetus. And that changed the whole course of my life.

And so why have there never been a movie? I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Absolutely no epictetus, epictetus movie. Well, have you read a man and foe by Tom Wolf? I just got it. That's basically the only real appearance of Epictetus

in sort of fictional work. You would like that. I'm about to go out there ready to read. I think he'd like it. It does. He's actually in it. Well, basically, this guy discovers Epictetus. It's like sort of running through the whole book, him, right.

He has this conversion to Stoicism. Amidst all these other things happening in the novel, but it's really cool. Oh, I'm going gonna read that then. And there's another one, there's one called Memoirs of Hadrian, which won like the National Book of War like 50 years ago, but it's to talk about your Gandalf rule. It's fictional, but it's the idea that Hadrian is writing down all the lessons that he wants to leave

to Marcus Aurelius before he dies. Oh, okay. And so it's got some real elder energy to it. Okay. Good. Yeah. Well, there's never been a movie about his life. There never, no, I don't think there has been.

I mean, I guess there's some, no, no, there really hasn't been. I don't like to write. I just, I'm not told anyone about it, but I just finished a kid's book about Epic Titus. You wrote it? Yeah, I just, I'm not told anyone about it, but I just finished a kid's book about epic teedis. You wrote it? Yeah, I did, I did want it to beginning in the pandemic for my oldest son that was about Marcus really becoming emperor as a boy.

And then I decided to do one about epic teedis, but the big choice I made is I made epic teedis a girl. Oh, okay. Okay. So we'll see, we'll see how it goes. Because the, the last one was about a boy and I do dislike the sort of exclusively masculine energy of stoicism and especially if you're trying to talk to a young person about so I made epictetus a girl which I feel like is okay to do because

Musone's roof is epictetus's teacher also taught girls. He was very progressive in his belief that virtue had no gender connotations. That's good, yeah. So, that's, I'll send it to you when it comes up to printer. Well, thank you. Yeah, this is amazing. Well, I can't wait to see the film come out

and I hope we can connect next time I'm in Canada or near in Texas. Yes, yeah, I think you're really going to enjoy the movie. All right. The documentary is wonderful. We all love it. The Five of Us loved it, which is unheard of for all Five of Us to love it. That would be the hard part.

Getting Five Guys to agree on anything. And it's moving. It tells our story properly. And the Five of Us are at a stage where we go, we don't mind if people see the darkness. It's so... Yeah, you're past giving a fuck, I have that imagine. We don't, we've been together forever, we're married to each other, you can't really hurt us. I love it.

Any longer. That's the stoic sage level when you're past all that. Yeah, it's like, what are you gonna do, like, really? You're gonna do, give me a chance or what are you gonna do, shoot me, play, blah, blah, blah, oh, oh, oh, man. I love it. Ha, ha. You know, the Stoics in real life met at what was called

the Stoa. The Stoa, Poquile, the Painted Porch in ancient Athens. Obviously, we can't all get together in one place because this community is like hundreds of thousands of people and we couldn't fit in one space. But we have made a special digital version of the stove. We're calling it Daily Stoke Life. It's an awesome community.

You can talk about like today's episode. You can talk about the emails, ask questions. That's one of my favorite parts. Interacting with all these people who are using stoicism to be better in their actual real lives. You get more Daily Stoke meditations over the weekend, just for the Daily Stoke Life members life members quarterly Q&As with me, clothbound edition of our best of meditations plus a whole bunch of other stuff including discounts and this

the best part all our daily stoke courses and challenges totally for free hundreds of dollars of value every single year including our new year new you challenge we'd love to have you join us there There's a two week trial totally for free. Check it out at dailystokelife.com. Hey, prime members, you can listen to the daily stoke early and ad free on Amazon music. Download the Amazon music app today or you can listen early and ad-free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.