The Daily Stoic - Seneca on Practicing What You Preach

Episode Date: July 28, 2024

Today's episode is an excerpt from The Tao Of Seneca produced by Tim Ferriss’ Audio. In this letter, Seneca writes about how true philosophy requires acting in accordance with one's principles, advocating for consistency between one's inner life and outward behavior.Go to tim.blog/seneca to get the PDF for free. Listen to more of The Tao of Seneca:🎙️ Seneca on Despising Death🎙️Seneca on Conquering the Conqueror🎙️Seneca on Philosophy and Friendship 📕 Pick up a copy of Letters From a Stoic from the Painted Porch | https://www.thepaintedporch.com/💡 We set up Stoicism 101: Ancient Philosophy For Your Actual Life to give you the absolute best of Stoicism, in just 14 daysGet Stoicism 101: Ancient Philosophy For Your Actual Life & all other Daily Stoic courses for FREE when you join Daily Stoic Life | dailystoic.com/life✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

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

You can sign up right now for a free 30-day Audible trial and try your first audio book for free. You'll get right thing right now, totally for free. Visit audible.ca to sign up. for free, visit audible.ca to sign up. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Sundays, we take a deeper dive into these ancient topics with excerpts from the Stoic texts, audiobooks that we like here or recommend here at Daily Stoic, other long form wisdom that you can chew on on this relaxing weekend. We hope this helps shape your understanding of this philosophy and most importantly, that you're able to apply it to your actual life. Thank you for listening.

Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. As you know, stoicism isn't just supposed to be this thing we talk about. It's a thing that we apply. Now writing about it is one thing. That's what I do. That's what Seneca did. That's what Cicero did. But really what matters is how and when we apply it, how I apply it, how they applied

it, how I apply it, how they applied it, how you apply it. And what's so fascinating about Seneca is that he didn't always get it right. His life was complicated. I've raved about this James Rahm biography, Dying Every Day. I've also raved about Emily Wilson's book, which I think now is just called Seneca, A Life. But when I read it, it was called The Greatest Empire. But basically, Seneca himself understands this. You could almost imagine him writing. He couldn't say everything that he wanted to say because his life was in peril working for Nero.

And ultimately this is what claims his life. But Seneca would talk about how the true philosophy requires acting in accordance with one's principles, being consistent in your inner life and your outward behavior. Now, he of course didn't always do this, but so that adds kind of an interesting subtext to this. If you wanna know a little bit more about this,

I think you might like the Stoicism 101 course that we have. I'll link to that in the show notes. But if you're a Daily Stoic Life member, you can get that and all the courses for free, that's at DailyStoicLife.com. You can grab Daily Stoic Life member, you can get that and all the courses for free, that's at dailystoiclife.com. You can grab the Stoicism 101 course at dailystoic.com slash 101. In this episode, I'm bringing you one of Seneca's letters. This is from one of my favorite audio books,

my dear friend, Tim Ferriss produced it. He calls it the Tao of Seneca. It's his translation and then audio book, Tim Ferr's audio, which actually originally published The Obstacles of Way and Daily Stoke and he goes to the enemy, he brought this into the world because there wasn't a great audio book of Seneca. He lets me run these on the podcast sometimes.

I think you'll really enjoy them. I've got a couple other episodes you can listen to, Seneca on despising death, Seneca on philosophy and friendship, Seneca on conquering the conqueror. I'll link to that in today's show notes. Also let's try to practice what we preach and let's listen to Seneca tell us about it and then let's evaluate his life and see how close he came to actually doing it.

Letter 20. On practicing what you preach. Letters 20 On Practicing What You Preach If you are in good health, and if you think yourself worthy of becoming at last your own master, I am glad. For the credit will be mine if I can drag you from the floods in which you are being buffeted without hope of emerging. This, however, my dear Leucilius, I ask and beg of you, on your part, that you let wisdom sink into your soul and test your progress, not by mere speech or writings, but by stoutness of heart and decrease of desire. Prove your words by your deeds. Far different is the purpose of those who are speech-making and trying to win the approbation of a throng of hearers, far different that of those who allure the ears of young men

and idlers by many-sided or fluent argumentation. Philosophy teaches us to act, not to speak. It exacts of every man that he should live according to his own standards, that his life should not be out of harmony with his words, and that, further, his inner life should be of one hue and not out of harmony with all his activities. This I say is the highest duty and the highest proof of wisdom, that deed and word should be in accord, that a man should be equal to himself under all conditions, and always the same. But, you reply, who can maintain this standard?

Very few, to be sure, but there are some. It is indeed a hard undertaking, and I do not say that the philosopher can always keep the same pace, but he can always travel the same path. Observe yourself then, and see whether your dress and your house are inconsistent, whether you treat yourself lavishly and your family meanly, whether you eat frugal dinners and yet build luxurious houses. You should lay hold, once for all, upon a single norm to live by, and should regulate your whole life according to this norm.

Some men restrict themselves at home, but strut with swelling port before the public. Such discordance is a fault, and it indicates a wavering mind which cannot yet keep its balance. And I can tell you further whence arise this unsteadiness and disagreement of action and purpose. It is because no man resolves upon what he wishes, and even if he has done so, he does not persist in it, but jumps the track. Not only does he change, but he returns and slips back to the conduct which he has abandoned and abjured.

Therefore, to omit the ancient definitions of wisdom, and to include the whole manner of human life, I can be satisfied with the following. What is wisdom? Always desiring the same things, and always refusing the same things. You may be excused from adding the little proviso that what you wish should be right, since no man can always be satisfied with the same thing unless it is right. For this reason men do not know what they wish, except at the actual moment of wishing. No man ever decided once and for all to desire or to refuse.

Judgment varies from day to day, and changes to the opposite, making many a man pass his life in a kind of game. Press on, therefore, as you have begun. Perhaps you will be led to perfection, or to a point which you alone understand is still short of perfection. Hello, I'm Hannah. And I'm Saruti. And we are the hosts of Red Handed, a weekly true crime podcast. Every week on Red Handed, we get stuck into the most talked about cases.

From Idaho student killings, the Delphi murders and our recent rundown of the Murdoch Saga. Last year, we also started a second weekly show, Shorthand, which is just an excuse for us to talk about anything we find interesting because it's our show and we can do what we like. We've covered the death of Princess Diana, an unholy Quran written in Saddam Hussein's blood, the gruesome history of European witch hunting, and the very uncomfortable phenomenon of genetic sexual attraction. Whatever the case, we want to know what pushes people to the extremes of human behavior. Like, can someone give consent to be cannibalized? What drives a child to kill? And what's the psychology of a terrorist? Listen to Red Handed wherever you get your podcasts But what, you say, will become of my crowded household, without a household income. If you stop supporting that crowd, it will support itself.

Or perhaps you will learn by the bounty of poverty what you cannot learn by your own bounty. Poverty will keep for you your true and tried friends. You will be rid of the men who are not seeking you for yourself, but for something which you have. Is it not true, however, that you should love poverty, if only for this single reason, that it will show you those by whom you are loved? O, when will that time come when no one shall tell lies to compliment you?

Accordingly, let your thoughts, your efforts, your desires, help to make you content with your own self, and with the goods that spring from yourself, and commit all your other prayers to God's keeping. What happiness could come closer home to you? Bring yourself down to humble conditions, from which you cannot be ejected, and in order that you may do so with greater alacrity. The contribution contained in this letter shall refer to that subject. I shall bestow it upon you forthwith.

Although you may look askance, Epicurus will once again be glad to settle my indebtedness. Believe me, your words will be more imposing if you sleep on a cot and wear rags, for in that case you will not be merely saying them, you will be demonstrating their truth. I, at any rate, listen in a different spirit to the utterances of our friend Demetrius, after I have seen him reclining without even a cloak to cover him, and, more than this, without rugs to lie upon. He is not only a teacher of the truth, but a witness to the truth. May not a man, however, despise wealth when it lies in his very pocket?

Of course. He is also great-souled, who sees riches heaped up round him, and, after wondering long and deeply because they have come into his possession, smiles and hears rather than feels that they are his. It means much not to be spoiled by intimacy with riches, and he is truly great who is poor amidst riches. Yes, but I do not know, you say, how the man you speak of will endure poverty if he falls into it suddenly.

Nor do I, Epicurus, know whether the poor man you speak of will despise riches should he suddenly fall into them. Accordingly, in the case of both, it is the mind that must be appraised, and we must investigate whether your man is pleased with his poverty, and whether my man is displeased with his riches. Otherwise, the cotbed and the rags are slight proof of his good intentions, if it has not been made clear that the person concerned endures these trials not from necessity, but from preference. It is the mark, however, of a noble spirit not to precipitate oneself into such things

on the ground that they are better, but to practice for them on the ground that they are thus easy to endure. And they are easy to endure, Leucilius, when, however, you come to them after long rehearsal, they are even pleasant, for they contain a sense of freedom from care, and without this nothing is pleasant. I hold it essential, therefore, to do as I have told you in a letter that great men have often done, to reserve a few days in which we may prepare ourselves for real poverty by means of fancied poverty.

There is all the more reason for doing this, because we have been steeped in luxury and regard all duties as hard and onerous. Rather, let the soul be roused from its sleep and be prodded, and let it be reminded that nature has prescribed very little for us. No man is born rich. Every man, when he first sees light, is commanded to be content with milk and rags. Such is our beginning,

and yet kingdoms are all too small for us. Farewell. Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and would really help the show. We appreciate it. I'll see you next episode. If you like The Daily Stoic and thanks for listening, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts.

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