The Daily Stoic - Sharon Lebell on Epictetus and Rescuing Philosophy from the Philosophers

Episode Date: August 28, 2021

On today’s episode of the podcast Ryan talks to Sharon Lebell about her translation of Epictetus – The Art Of Living, the imbalance in the Stoic writings concerning gender roles, why we should take philosophy back from the philosophers, and more. GiveWell is the best site for figuring out how and where to donate your money to have the greatest impact. If you’ve never donated to GiveWell’s recommended charities before, you can have your donation matched up to $1,000 before the end of June or as long as matching funds last. Just go to GiveWell.org/STOIC and pick podcast and The Daily Stoic at checkout. KiwiCo believes in the power of kids and that small lessons today can mean big, world-changing ideas tomorrow. KiwiCo is a subscription service that delivers everything your kids will need to make, create and play. Get 30% off your first month plus FREE shipping on ANY crate line with code STOIC at kiwico.com.Ladder makes the process of getting life insurance quick and easy. To apply, you only need a phone or laptop and a few minutes of time. Ladder’s algorithms work quickly and you’ll find out almost immediately if you’re approved. Go to ladderlife.com/stoic to see if you’re instantly approved today.Streak is a fully embedded workflow and productivity software in Gmail that lets you manage all your work right in your inbox. Streak gives you tools for email tracking, mail merges, and snippets to save time and scale up your email efficiency. Sign up for Streak today at Streak.com/stoic and get 20% off your first year of their Pro Plan.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookFollow Sharon Lebell: Homepage, Instagram, Twitter, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers, we explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend when you have a little bit more space when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal and most importantly to prepare for what the week

ahead may bring. Hi I'm David Brown, the host of Wundery'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. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Show Podcast. I'm going to take you way back. This is the year 2006. I am a freshman

or a sophomore at UC Riverside in California. I've just been introduced to stoch philosophy. I hear about Marcus Aurelis. I hear about epictetus. I get the Gregory Hayes translation. Dr. Drew is the one who first turns me around in the stokes. I read Mark IIIus, I love it. I go, okay, what translation of Epictetus should I read? Even though I'm probably then pronouncing the Epictetus or something. And I go to borders in the Riverside Plaza, which is currently a forever 21. But then it was, it might not even be a forever 21 anymore, but at the time, it was a Borders bookstore. My favorite bookstore. I loved it more than Barnes and Noble at the time. I walk into the philosophy section. I look for epictetus and I see one

called the Art of Living. That seemed way more accessible and more my style than the Incaridian or the discourses. So I get it. It's the art of living, the classical manual on virtue, happiness, and effectiveness, and new interpretation by Sharon Lebel. I buy it and read it. It was very accessible, almost too accessible, I felt at the time and I did go read the others. I wondered like, could the Stokes have really been this straightforward and clear? I don't know, I was almost, it was too easy. I was convinced maybe it wasn't right or, I don't know.

But this really is how the Stokes wrote. And I am holding that copy in front of you and I can see some of the passages that I've marked. Here's page 58. Don't be afraid of verbal abuse or criticism. Only the morally weak feel compelled to defend or explain themselves to others. Let the quality of your deeds speak on your behalf. Or let's see.

Page seven. Open your eyes. See things for what they really are. They're by sparing yourself the pain of false attachments and avoidable devastation. Or... Page 77. If someone tries to impress you, claiming to understand the writings and ideas of a great thinker, such as Christ's Cypus, think to yourself, the important thing is not merely to be able to speak fluently about obtuse subjects. What is essential is to understand nature and align your attentions to actions and actions with the way things are. Anyways, you can see why I love the translation. As it happened many years

later, I would get my first book agent Steve Hanselman who would turn out to have played a role in publishing it, which I talk about with today's guest, do you want to only share in the bell who 20 years after she published it, maybe more? Came on the Daily Stoke Podcast, we had a wonderful conversation, we talk about stoicism, we talk about translations, we talk about the role of men and women in stoic philosophy, we talk about virtue specifically towards the end, we get into her take on the

four virtues, which reminds me my new book, the first in my series on the four virtues, is coming out September 28th. You can pre-order it dailystalk.com slash pre-order. We've got a bunch of awesome bonuses. Not only can you get signed copies from me if you order at dailystalk.com slash preorder. But if you want a signed page from the manuscript, that I wrote like an actual part of the process, accumulation of the book, there's also a way you can get those. So you go to dailystalk.com slash preorder

for my new book on the four virtues, the first of which being courage is calling fortune favors the brave. Check that out if you wanna support the podcast I'd really appreciate it. And if you haven't yet read Epic Titus and you're looking for a place to start, sharing the bells, wonderful accessible translation,

the art of living, the classical manual, and virtue, happiness and effectiveness, is a good place to start. We sell it in the painted porch. So I'll have a link in the description below. We'll get it anywhere you get books. Here's my interview with Sharon Lebel. It's I was trying to think when we last saw each other, it would have been in Toronto for still a con.

I have no conception of time anymore. That could have been 10 years ago or two and a half years ago. Well, we're on the same team time wise. But I do think that's right. It wasn't Toronto at a stoicon. And you made a big impression on me. Oh, well, your work made a very big impression on me. Oh, well, well, your work made a very big impression on me. This would have been in 2006 or 2007.

That's what I would have gotten it. Borders books still existed. And I remember getting it there. And the other funny thing is that Steve Hanselman, who I would work on with on the Daily Stoic and also would become my agent, Steve Hanselman, who I would work on with on the Daily Stoic and and and also would become an agent, he he was the publisher, right? Of the art of living. Well, he worked for the same publisher, but in

in those days, because we're really talking early paleolithic. Yes. This was, I believe, in fact, I'm quite sure that the book came out even before he began working for the company. Well, it was meant to be. It was all aligned and here we are. Here we are. Here we are. And I'm just thrilled by the work that you are doing in the world. I just think you're giving modern stoicism such a straightforward, simple voice. And it means a lot to a lot of people. I'm sure you know that but Well, that's very kind. Well, that's very kind and you you were the I would say you were the ultimate pioneer of this trend So I and I want to get to that but it did occur to me

We were just talking about time passing this sort of weird limbo period where we've all not been able to do what we've Wanted to do and we couldn't see people the way it does kind of give you a glimpse into what, I don't know, epictetus is or Senica's exile must have been like, you know, it's not like they were thrown in jail exactly, but they were socially distanced from Rome, you could say. That's beautiful. I've never looked at the last year and a half through such a beneficent lens. Hahaha. Hahaha. Well, one of the things that hit me about

Sena Kazile specifically, I think I did a daily stokimal about this is, so he's exiled to Korsaka, which I don't know that much about, but early in the pandemic, I was reading this biography of Napoleon. And Napoleon is from Corsica. And he writes, you know, Napoleon, like it's like when he's, when Napoleon is sent off to exile, he passes the island. And he, you know, they, they stop and they let him have sort of one last long and look at it.

It was like, I guess what, you know, an epitome that talks about how every situation has two handles. It struck me as this vivid example of it because Seneca sees it as this horrible punishment and he hates it. Meanwhile, Napoleon coming from the same place, obviously many generations apart, although I can't imagine it changed that much. You know, sees it as this source of fond, beautiful, wonderful memories, which I guess just goes to show one man's trashes and another man's treasure. Indeed. And in some ways, well, my mind always jumps to symbolism.

It seems like Napoleon represented, or excuse me, I think I've got them flip. Senica represented human nature that's uncultured and Napoleon represents Winston. Yeah, yeah, I think it's that you know if you decide to see it as a horrible punishment, you will hate it and if you decide to see it as a wonderful beautiful island that you have all your fondest memories on, it will also be that. Yes. So walk me through your introduction

to our friend, Epictetus. How does this happen and how does it come into your life? Well, definitely through happenstance because as I know that you know so well, no one cared about stoicism, much less epictetus back in. This would have been the early 90s when I first came to read him. And the reason I came to read him is he was just is he was just part of kind of an inevitable chain of books that I read ever since I was young enough to read because I've always been philosophically minded. And in some ways, I would say my two obsessions are meaningfulness. How does one have a meaningful life?

How does one have a meaningful moment, a meaningful day? day. And then the idea of ordinary virtue, virtue as it's expressed on the ground in, you know, within what some people would call the mundane, though harkening back to Sennaka and Napoleon, to Senaqa and Napoleon, you can see our ordinary moments as mundane or as Majestic or as keys to the kingdom, whatever your kingdom is. Anyway, be that, but I digress. I always read philosophy and when I was a young married woman and having babies and such, I was really on a existentialism jag and then I have to say I don't even really remember who or you know, there's no like pivotal watershed moment when epititus was put in my hands but I read his discourses and in those days sort of this the spiritual or poppsych call it what you will ethos was everybody was

into Eastern religions you know if you were a hip daddy, oh, kind of person. And so, when I first read Epic Titus, I almost felt like I was, you know, betraying the zeitgeist or something because, you know, in those days it was not considered cool to be a dead white man western philosopher. philosophy was looked at as being, well, just kind of like you're manacalling yourself to a wall. It seemed rigid. This was not my judgment, but it was confusing for me at first when I first read his stuff because I wasn't supposed to like it. It's so busy practicing Tibetan Buddhism and all of that, definitely a person of my generation. I did what people did, but I was just thunderstruck by how relevant epictetus' words seemed not just to my life, but to the lives of everyone I loved and cared about.

And so I started messing around writing his ideas in a more accessible way because I suppose it's kind of accessible way because I suppose it's kind of my personal marching orders for myself are to to rescue philosophy from the philosophers. Mine too. Yes, I noticed that. And along with that, to rescue the notion of virtue from the sanctimonious. And then, furthermore, to rescue art from the critics, artistic expression looms large in my life and somehow this triad, kind of each part of it nourishes the other. Do you remember you telling me that a neighbor had introduced you to philosophy as a young girl as well?

Yes, and in fact, oh gosh, you've got a memory like an elephant. Yes, I suppose that would be the genesis of everything. I grew up in a very multi-cultural neighborhood and the fellow who lived across the street. His name was Narayan Champawat and he was a philosophy professor from India and he owned more books than anyone I ever knew. In fact, we had a really bad earthquake one time, and we had to manhandle him out of his house because he wouldn't leave his books. I can kind of relate to it, but I choose life. Anyway, so yeah, Nareian Champa-Wat, you know, I think he recognized that I used to come over to his house to play with his kids, and I think he saw that I was kind of a misfit or a square peg trying to make

it in a round hall, and he gave me a book that was, I'm pretty sure it was like a college freshman's intro to philosophy or something. But I took it home and I read it covered to cover, like it was, you know, Tal's when I thought Western philosophy, I need to dive into this, however incrementally. Well, what I love about that is the idea that this has kind of been this unbroken chain of that happening, right? So how is Marcus Aurelius introduced to Epic Titus?

You know, Rousticus just gives him a copy of these notes from his own library. I think I even read George Washington is introduced to the Stoics by a neighbor, just like you were. I just loved the idea of like, hey, this worked for me. Maybe you should check it out, being a really old timeless sort of passing of torches. Yes. Oh, that's such a beautiful image.

And it's really true. I also need to, for a second, jump on just an incidental phrase you just used in talking about Washington and his neighbor that, you know, hey, this works. Yeah. You might want to check. Because if I had to say what stoicism is, you know, just on one foot, like Hillel or something, I would just say that stoicism teaches us how to do what works and quit doing what doesn't. All said and done, you know, because we're kind of always bashing ourselves against the brick wall of

how we want things to be, rather than how they are. Well, actually, if I was to do epictetus in standing on one, like for people who don't know the Hullell reference you made, which I only recently came in, came in countered, encountered. Hullell was asked to basically explain the Jewish faith while standing on one foot and he said, love that neighbor as they self, all the rest is commentary. Which I think is so beautiful and sadly very much missed here in the middle of this pandemic. But I feel like Epic Titus and then I have your translation here of it. I think Epic Titus standing on one foot says, some things are within our control and some things are not. Yeah.

That is the essence of stoicism as well right there. Exactly. And so given what you just said, then I would just put on the tagline, so act accordingly. Yes, exactly. So focus, so put all 100% of your energy towards the things that are up to you. Yes, which is a vast number of things. I think that's the thing that we so forget, right? Because we're so focused. Oh, dang it, I don't control this.

Dang it, I don't control that. But look at the other side of the ledger. It's a long ledger. I mean, other side, there's so much we can do. 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

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Right. Well said. So why do you think epictetus is this underrated figure? I want to talk about your translation, but what you're saying is true, I think. And it's weird, especially now, right? Like, I remember there was some sort of sneering article about my work and it's popular in Silicon Valley a couple years ago that was like, these Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are using the philosophy popular with Greek slaves.

And it struck me that- Oh, please. Sorry. But it's even that given our like focus on privilege and and you know sort of I don't want to say I'm using this ironic Canceling you know sort of racist or colonial figures from the past It seems like Epitita should move to the front of the line of our philosophical heroes because he was one of a handful of them Who were not privileged who were not slave owners who experienced real real adversities, who were not just rich white guys. It seems like he would be who we would be celebrating as we're trying to diversify the

Western canon. But for some reason, even with the popularity of your work, that hasn't quite happened. He's still mostly unknown. Yes. I would like to say that I had the answer to that question, but I could make up some Pat response that would be plausible. But to be really honest, I don't know. Maybe it's because people have trouble pronouncing his name. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's puzzling to me why anyone would have a problem, especially because of how you so ably described him, is he wasn't. I could understand people getting a little bent out of shape about Seneca, a man of privilege. Yeah.

Mary Beard recently referred to Marcus Aurelia, a fascist, you know, that he was the emperor. And you're like, okay, I get what you're saying. I mean, it's technically true, but like, you can't say any of that stuff about epictetus. No, you can't. He wins everyone. He's a slave. He's got a lamp. He's everything. And he's ugly. He's an exile. You know, I think it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. And, you know, I was just thinking of something while we were forth and backing here is I'm pretty sure that I cottoned to epictetus at first, more readily than Marcus or Seneca or Misonius Rufu, you know, the whole pantheon, because he was a marginalized figure, because he had demonstrated, you know, kind of incontrovertible adversity. And especially as a female,

that I relate to that a lot, just that sense of, you feel impaled to live a life of wisdom, and but you're trying to do that within a world that still doesn't quite take you seriously, or doesn't give you the benefit of the doubt as being a sort of fully endowed human being, because the whole idea of man and man

is kind of interchangeable with man and men specifically. And so just, I mean, I am not saying, when, when, when, I'm so oppressed or that would be ridiculous. I mean, if we were, if you saw where I lived right now, if we were looking at each other, you'd say, shut up. But yeah, I like, it seemed like he earned his stoicism, but so did the others. So did the others. In their own way, on their own merits, yeah.

Well, I think that's fascinating. Epic Titus has this sort of working class vibe to him because I mean, some of my favorite parts of epic Titus are, you know, he's working for Nero's secretary. So he's in the palace watching these insufferable, privileged rich people, the most preposterous things, right? You know, I think he says someone walks into Nero's quarter, his boss is quarter something and he says, I'm down to my last million dollars

and he says, how have you survived? Like, there's another scene where he talks about, somebody, he watches someone suck up to Nero's cobbler. Right? Like he's so desperate to ingratiate himself into the inner workings of the palace, you know, he's sucking up to the to the guy that that fixes neuroshoes. And so there is this, I think the reason Epictetus is so much so much more relatable. And perhaps this is why he's not

popular in the Ivy League is that he knew those people and he hated them and he talks about him was scorned and discussed because he, you know, he saw him up close and he knew there was nothing special about him. Yes. Yes. He even looks down on the fancy philosophers. You translate it pretty well in your book as well, but I love where one of his students is bragging about reading Crescippus, who is supposedly very obscure and difficult to understand.

And EpicTidus says, you know, if Crescipus was a better writer, you wouldn't have anything to brag about. Oh, man. So he just hated those phony stuff shirts, you know? Like he didn't, and yeah, he wasn't, he wasn't part of the old boys club. I mean, he was a part of the club at all these. They made him go away to Necapolis,

but I mean, he wasn't a part of that. And I think if you feel that even 2,000 years later. You do. You really do. And it seems like out of that exile, which is another way of vernacular language for talking about values because, well, Ryan, this is kind of a half fake thought. Maybe you can find something here. I'm not sure if you can. Most of mine are too, so don't worry about it. Oh good.

Okay, I'm among friends. But, you know, if you've ever talked about values with other people or taken a class when the idea of values clarification or something like that, or even in the corporate world, it's the language of values to me is very wooden and abstract, and yet our values are the very thing that kind of animate our life, that we actually do feel some passion about. And the simplicity of Epic Titus' style of,

I don't want to say writing exactly, because I know it comes as words come through, Arianne, but there was just a kind of lack of There was just a kind of lack of pretension and it seemed like he had read, strung, and white. I mean, it was kind of incredible. There's no deadwood in his teachings. And because of that, I think,

when I say that he gave us a language to talk about values, I mean that less in terms of having a conversation with the next person, oh, what are your values? XYZ, what are yours, PQR? But just with yourself, you get to clarify when you read him what matters and what doesn't in a realm of thoughts and in the realm of words and deeds. And it's

just it's not that complicated. No, I think that's right. I would imagine that it's because so you take even epictetus to teacher Musone's roof. So does experience adversity, he's exiled, but or you take a centric or whatever. These are brilliant ideas that they arrive to. It feels like through thinking, right? Yeah. Through their study of the Stoics. It feels like epictetuses are rooted on the bedrock of these experiences that like he is not sitting down and going, what is freedom, you know, and having some interesting dialogue about it. He's thinking about what does it mean to be free when I'm chained to a wall or what does it mean to be free

when my leg has been broken by someone who owns me and my name literally means enslaved person. So I think it's like, it's almost as if he's coming at it from the opposite direction. So it's much closer rooted to real life than the other one. Like, Sennaka feels like he talked about all these things rooster rooted to real life, then the other one, like, Senka feels like he talked about all these things,

and then his life came to challenge him to actually live up to the words, and he does towards the end. But it feels like Epic Titus is the reverse. He has the experiences and then spends the second half of his life talking about them, which is probably why I think Marcus really is his writings are so brilliant is that it's it's also right down against the

nub of the experience. It's just a more privileged sort of higher elite level set of experiences about leadership and stress and fame and power. Yes, yes, and yes, and I tell us, I think it's maybe in some ways I'm just restating what you're saying, but I think that Marcus and Epititas gain their authority as teachers because we all know what or we have some sense of what they actually went through and experiences what gives wisdom, not fancy abstract philosophical pirouettes. Do you think, um, speaking of Musonius Rufus, so I think this also goes to your point about how stripped down Epic Titus is, you know, his teacher, Musonius is referred to as the Roman Socrates, kind of known for his eloquence. It's fascinating to me that epictetus would then

sort of go so starkly in the other direction, but you mentioned this idea of sort of epictetus being approachable or more accessible to women. Do you feel like, I know Musonius writes about teaching women and that virtue is genderless and that all of that? I guess we don't know, but I mean, where do you, having sort of immersed yourself

in Epic Tidus' world, do you think he taught women? Do you think part of what the universality you're sensing, and do you think it's actually rooted and that's how he acted? I, you know, I couldn't conclusively say because I'm not a historian or a class assistant, but I don't think so. I think that Epicetus' words were indeed a product of his experience, of his experience, but to be a product of your experience

doesn't mean that quite literally the only things you know are the things you experience, because when you experience something, it then imprints on your heart and mind. Well, kind of in a, like a multivalent way, it's like you, you, when you have an experience in a way, you also have access to the various potential analogies to that experience. I think that's what I'm grasping at. So, you know, the guy was definitely a product of his time, and I, especially because across all of the, the extent literature of, from the ancient Stoics, doesn't talk too much about cooking or cleaning the house or taking care of the babies.

And because of that, I think the women and girls are off doing that stuff because the don't draw on that those you know dumb domesticity as a source of universal human wisdom is you know from that era. Yeah I just wonder I just wonder if part of it, it's sort of like, there is something remarkable about Mussoni's roofist who's teaching men and women and slaves that must have been an pretty transgressive or at least progressive classroom that Epic Titus comes to study philosophy in, at least compared to its time. That makes a lot of sense.

Do you know anything? I don't know that much about Masonius Rufus besides a few fun facts and that he was epitelius' teacher. But do you know how Masonius Rufus was received in the world? I mean, he had that moniker, the Roman suffocates. Yeah. I mean, how was he thought of? I mean, he's exiled four times.

So he's sort of a player, but then also kind of a constant thorn in the side of the powers that be. But he does have this fascinating lecture, which you can people can look at called should daughters receive the same training as sons. And it's one of the few, you know, only like 10 or 15 of his writings survive. And this is one of them. So who knows how representative it is of the larger, you know, sort of, be, but it is striking

to read this guy writing 2000 years ago, going like he basically says he's like, you don't care what gender your dog is or your horse, like you know what they're capable of and you feed and treat and train them accordingly. Why should you assume that your daughter is not capable of virtue or wisdom or, you know, he's like, his temperance as important in a woman as courage is important to a man or, you know, whatever. Obviously, there's pretty stratified generals in Rome at this time, but it is a remarkably progressive piece of writing when you think about what was happening at that

time. Yeah, you know, it sounds like he had to watch his backside a lot. His back to then why he was exiled so many times. Right, right. I think his fellow men probably they're like, dude, what are you doing? I'm pretty good too. I'm with him.

I'm with him. I'm with him. So you mentioned that you're not a classist. How, I know I get asked this question. So how the hell do you end up writing this translation of epictetus that brings him to thousands and thousands of people? It can't just be that he was neglected. It's a brave thing to do. Yeah, or well, I don't know how brave it was or not, but all I can say is that I've always faced life as an auto-died act. And when something intrigues me in any domain of experience, to me, I hope I don't

sound like a Northern California flake, but it's like life is saying, beep, beep, beep, you know, it beeps at me. And I think you'll understand that as a kind of self-created person. And so I've always just kind of followed and then fully dropped into the next good idea that comes. And so epictetus, I can't account for the success of the art of living, and I'm not being falsely modest. It still kind of baffles me, it delights me too, of course. me too, of course. But I think a lot of times people are afraid to take on the mantle of knowing something or having the right to fully engage with something if they don't have certain, you know, societally conferred credentials. And it's so unfortunate. I think we all, I mean, I guess in other words, I'm saying hip hip hooray for the popularizer,

hip hip hooray for the amateur, but mostly hip hip hooray for but mostly hip-hip hooray for living wide but more importantly, living deep. And I hope I'm not starting to sound cententious. But no, no, I think that's well said. It's like these ideas, these philosophers, they don't belong to anyone, they belong to everyone. Exactly, exactly, Ryan. Yes. I think there's something Seneca says he goes like, if you really want to own the quotes or the ideas, you have to put them into practice, right?

You have to engage with them in some way. And I think, yeah, I think for, I think it's two parts. So one, it's like these philosophers were not being particularly well served by the so-called Academy. And they were being forgotten or relegated or being unduly ignored. So the idea that it was sort of available is part one, but part two, the idea that, yeah, you don't have to be a genius to interact with these people and add, put your own spin-on.

In fact, are you still there Ryan? Oh, yes, sorry, can you hear me? I can now, but I miss probably the last sentence and a half. So rewind the tape for me. No, I was just saying that like, you don't have to be a genius to interact with these people. I mean, that's what's genius about the philosophies that it's simple and straightforward.

And we should be able to add our own experiences and connections to them. And that's how the philosophy continues to live on. Yes. But talk to me about popularizing because I know I get that where people go, oh, you're just popularizing and I go, thank you, that's an enormous compliment. But I imagine you've gotten a little bit of that criticism as well. Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, and I mean all I can, well first of all I want good ideas to just belong to an elite.

Everyone should have access to good ideas, philosophical and otherwise. It's sort of like saying, you know, only certain cooks get to read certain cookbooks or something. And I always believe, or at least it's my, my hope, my aspiration that when people read something that is accessible, but more to the point that it actually, it's ideas when applied in a reader's life, when those ideas are transformative in action, then I like to think that's an invitation to go to the primary sources.

And if people have a problem with that, well, I don't have control over that. No, that's what I was thinking when they were saying, oh, you know, this is a pop, you know, the Silicon Valley programmers are reading a philosophy popular with Greek slaves. And I'm like, you're welcome. What else would you have them read? Like, tell me, like, I can't think of so many things worse than popularizing an ancient philosophy

that is based around virtue, meaning courage, just as tolerance and wisdom. Like what else, like tell me what you'd rather I be popularizing? Yes, yes. I often think, you know, the bitterness of critics is that they didn't do it, you know. So walk me through your methodology

because it's, you're not a classist. So, were you riffing on English translations, were you actually reading it in the Greek and Latin? How, for people who are thinking about reading Epic Titus, what is the, is it the provenance? What is the provenance of the words that show up in the art of living? What is the provenance of the words that show up in the art of living?

Well, what I did, and this is what I do when I think or write about anything, is I have I have a room in my house that has nothing in it, literally nothing, except for one pillow that I use to prop, I sit on the floor and I prop myself against the pillow on the wall. And then when I'm studying something with the intent to write, I just, I make a circle of books around, you know, books that are relevant to what I'm doing. And so in the case of Epicetus, I do, well, I do read some Latin, though

that one's have been too helpful with Epicetictetus. But I just, I gathered every English translation of the discourses that I love how they're called the diatribe. I always kind of get a little giggle out of that. But I surrounded myself with every translation. I could get my hands on. I went to a lot of use bookstores in Berkeley to find them. But mostly I relied ultimately after reading any number of these.

My main companion was the George Long translation. And so you're just sort of loosely riffing on how they translated it, trying to get sort of the inaccessible essence of what Epipetitus was trying to say. Well, I actually, so I decided that I would just, Well, I actually, so I decided that I would just, at least the first part of the book, I literally would read a passage of the In-Caridian. I based it on the In-Caridian. And so I followed the sequence of ideas in the In in Caribbean and just you know I would read a I'd read a page and then I would

write it as you know as a modern woman trying to be intelligible to other people. And I guess that's, I mean, in some ways I'm having to, in my mind, reverse engineer this, because I've sort of never had a method for anything except going into my spare room, which is kind of like this, you know, the metaphor of the blank canvas and possibility and so forth. And just ideas occur in there, but I did strictly follow the progression of ideas in the end-credient. And then there's a part two of the book that is more kind of a cherry-picked synthesis of what I consider to be the key ideas across all of the discourses, the diatripes. The sort of the essential teachings section. Exactly. So I have a question and I hope this doesn't come off as an insult. I mean it as a compliment.

How come no books since? No other translations, no other works on the Stoics? Did you? I'm just curious. Well, then the next big idea, not big idea, but good idea came along. And in a way, it was a natural outgrowth of stoicism. And what it was is, it was music. I decided that I had a duty, you know, cost-stoicism to liberate and make available the sound of this one of a kind instrument that I had made for me.

But when I was much younger, so I'm talking about this in the aftermath of the success of the art of living, I just thought to myself, what would be a different vessel for beauty and somehow communicating, I don't know, the value of goodness, virtue. Again, I'll just borrow that word. And I know that no one else is going to let the world have this sound. I mean, there's similar sounds to it, but I feel, in some sense, chosen to make this music and to write, write music for people. So that's pretty much what I threw myself into. I did take a stab in my agent at the time right after Art of Living came out. Well, after it kind of exploded, she said, oh man, this is your time. You've got, yeah, you've got to write, you know, son of the Art of Living or, you know, etc. And I tried doing it. And

or, you know, etc. And I tried doing it and just that that horse wouldn't go. I wasn't, I just wasn't interested. I might be now. I'm actually working on a book about women in stowicism right now. So it's not that I've given up writing. I mean, I still write small pieces. What, what, what, what your tell us about that? Cause I am fascinated. I think I was just talking about that to someone the other day. There, there is kind of this assumption, especially from still critics that the philosophy is just popular with dudes. And I know for a fact, because I hear from it, it's like, it's not even close to that.

It might even be tipping towards more popular with women than men. I've been fascinated with just how many women I hear from, as far as the audience goes, what is your conceit with the book? Well, I would say that I see the female posture in relation to stoicism and philosophy, Western philosophy more generally, is in some ways we get to take on the role of Socrates, vis-à-vis the tradition, because we've only recently become members of the conversation. And because of that, we have that outsider perspective, that kind of gadfly way of viewing this tradition. And so in that way, I think we can also see the conspicuous absences, the necessary things that are find the traditional stoic virtues, you know, the four categories

of, you know, temperance and, oh God, I'm having an old lady moment here for a second. Help me out there. Pop quiz, the four virtues. Oh, temperance. Help me out there. Pop quiz, the four virtues. Oh, I've got a courage. Courage temperance, Justice Wisdom. Courage temperance, Justice Wisdom. Yeah, I think those are terrific virtues, and I think the entailments of those virtues are fabulous. But I call those virtues, I virtues, you know, like because they are ways of developing the virtue of an individual.

And of course, that's where all change starts, right? All but sure. Good change starts, you know, I can't try and change you. I can only change me. However, what I see missing and what I think is fairly self-evident to women, whether they articulate it or not, is that we need we virtues too. You don't have the injustices of we virtue? I'm curious.

I think it can be spun as such, but I think, let's see, I'm thinking out loud right now. So I may speak good, kind of sloppy. But what I think is the eye virtues, what I'm calling the eye virtues, so just run with me here, are they are not rooted in the experience of human vulnerability and dependence, which are conditions that exist for all people, but are especially salient for females. You know, like when we're nursing our babies, we look down at a completely dependent,

vulnerable person. And more than one, eminence has said that the mother child relationship is arguably the archetype for moral relationships. So what are these weed virtues I'm talking about? I think they are the virtues that sustain and ignite the eye virtues. So I came up with four wee virtues and I'm kind of curious what you think this all works on. Okay, so the first one is nurturance, namely the active provision of emotional and physical care and protection for others.

The second one, for the time being, I'm calling liberality, which is the willingness to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from your own, being open to new ideas like empathy, the ability to seek to understand and share the feelings of others. The third virtue, what am I calling? Oh, yeah, kindness. calling, oh yeah, kindness. You know, simply the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate. And finally, altruism, the selfless concern for the well-being of others. So, I'm not saying that these four virtues can't be kind of kind of juiced out of the official virtues, but why I think the Wii virtues are important. And not just important, but necessary is because where we live, where we actually live, is not in ourselves, but in relationship. Of course, we live it right. And because we live in I think we need virtues that affirm that and develop that Locusts and so for example, I think you could go off you know with your long father-time beard and live in a cave or something and You could by yourself

or something, and you could by yourself develop courage. You could maybe not just this yet, you're definitely tripping me with justice, that's important. But the other three virtues, you could work on yourself every day in your head. But you wouldn't necessarily then be able to, you wouldn't necessarily then be able to, I think, live a fully morally expressed life once you came out of the cave and got a haircut, you know. No, I get it.

So I'm in the middle of, I've talked about this on the podcast, but I'm in the middle of doing a four book series, one on each of the four virtues. So, next month, I guess it'll be September 28th, the first one comes out, which is Courage is calling. And I thought a lot about it because Courage is this virtue that I think a lot of people can get wrong. In that it's just about braving risk or danger. I think to get to your point, and this is, so basically the way my book works is that

the first part is about overcoming fear. The second part is about acting with courage. The third part of the book is exactly along the lines you're talking about, which is how do you get to away from the eye part of the virtue and towards the wee part of the virtue? So for me, the third part of the book is like the wee part of the virtue. So for me, the third part of the book is, like the distinction between courage and heroism is that heroism is when it's about somebody else, as opposed to you. So, you know, I was talking to a guy

who was an instructor at the Naval Academy, who was talking about, he's like, jumping on a grenade is not heroic. It's only if you're jumping on a grenade to save someone else, right? Like if you can get away from the grenade and it will hurt nobody else, then it's not courageous, right?

It's stupid. So I think this idea of the Weaver Jews is really important because, you know, stoicism is so much an individual philosophy and it's what is guiding, you know, stoicism is so much an individual philosophy. And it's what is guiding, you know, epictetus through this horrendous adversity, but it would be worthless if he hadn't become a teacher or a, you know, if he hadn't helped all these people

throughout the centuries. I think James Stockdale being a great example of taking Epicetus's Virtues and making them we virtues in that prison camp where he was protecting and supporting and Fighting for The people next to him. So I love the concept of Iverse Wee virtues.

I think it's really important. Thank you. I can't wait to read the book, it sounds amazing. Well, likewise, I'm sure. I think that's wonderful just homing in on each of those virtues. I really look forward to just talking to you outside of this formal, this formal,

please. How do you do? Let's keep going. No, it's amazing. I loved the art of living. It helped put me on the path that I'm on today. So thank you for that. And I look forward to the new book.

Thank you. Amazing. Thanks for being you. Likewise. All right here, let me hit stop. Thanks so much for listening. If you could leave a review for the podcast, we'd really appreciate it. The reviews make a difference and of course every nice review from a nice person helps balance out. The crazy people who get triggered and angry anytime we say something they disagree with. So if you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it and I'll see you next episode. Hey, Prime Members! You can listen to the Daily Stoic Early and Add Free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.

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