The Daily Stoic - This Is The Meaning of Life | Ask Daily Stoic

Episode Date: August 12, 2022

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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 Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. But on Fridays, we not only read this daily meditation, but I try to answer some questions from listeners and fellow stoics who are trying to apply this philosophy, whatever it is they happen to do. Sometimes these are from talks. Sometimes these are people who come up to talk to me on the street.

Sometimes these are written in or emailed from listeners. But I hope in answering their questions, I can answer your questions, give a little more guidance on this philosophy we're all trying to follow. 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.

This is the meaning of life. Why are we here? It's not an easy question to answer. One could say that on a fundamental evolutionary level, we're here to pass along our genes. That's why we strive for success. That's why we lust for sex. That's what keeps the species going. But equally encoded in that evolutionary software and in our culture is another purpose, another less selfish drive, the drive for meaning, which actually leads to a pretty simple answer to the question of why we're here. As Temple Grandin and an autistic woman who is one of today's

leading scientists and animal behaviorists said in a recent interview with the New York Times, the meaning of life is if something you did made something better, like I get an email from a parent, thank you so much, my kid is employed now because I read one of your books. That is a little piece of the meaning of life right there. The fruit of this life, Marcus Aurelius,

wrote, is good character and acts for the common good. Indeed, the greatest achievements in human history are on selfish ones. It's art that gives people hope or insight. It's a scientific breakthrough that makes things better for everyone. It's the collective sacrifices. It's the tackling of hard problems together. It's that stoic idea that we are here for each other, that we are bees of the same hive, that we are here to make things better for others, for the next generation. This is what makes life meaningful and worth living, because in doing so, we find happiness and respect for ourselves.

for ourselves. So I had a question about as I was reading Lives of the Stoics, we see a lot of patterns around teachers and students. So yes, you had a teacher and then you study under them and then you become the teacher at some point maybe. And we see that with you as well like with Robert Green and how he became a mentor to you. So I was wondering if you have well, like with Robert Green, and how he became a mentor to you. So I was wondering if you have any advice on finding close mentorship, mentorships like that in everyday life, and also we'll help with career eventually?

Yeah, it is interesting. I'm not sure there is a single, a single stalec that you would argue was self-taught, right? They all had some direct teacher or philosophical mentor that either tutored them or taught them the philosophy. So I think that's really important. And obviously I'm honored that we're doing this here today. I think books are a way to do that. Obviously, you know, now there's all sorts of great platforms out there, whether it's Skillshare or Creative Live. There's all these platforms out there

that you can learn things. So I do think just deciding to like get explicit about it. So not go like, hey, I'm vaguely interested in X, but like what's the active step I'm going to take to teach myself about that thing? But so I think about that. As far as mentors go, I do think, you know, in where we are now,

you know, the mentor apprenticeship master thing is not as explicit as it once was. Like Benjamin Franklin is an apprentice printer, but this involves a contract where his father basically sells him to like his elder brother and in sort of a forced labor exchange over a period of several years. Obviously, we're not doing that anymore. So it's, I think it's less formal. Like, I even tend to find that, you know, most of the people that I might say are my mentor, I don't know if they would identify as my mentor, I've decided to

lose to learn from them. So I think it's something I would argue it's a little more casual than at once was. And it's also something that evolves over time. So you know, you don't go out looking for a girlfriend or a boyfriend, you go out looking to meet someone and then it evolves over time. The relationship evolves due to a shared connection. And so, I often, I'll get emails from people and they'll say things like, will you be my mentor or they'll go, can I ask you a question? When really they should have just emailed me a question and maybe I would have answered. And then that relationship would begin and to tie this back to Ben Franklin, there's

actually something you can look up called the Benjamin Franklin effect or the Franklin effect. And it basically what it is is that there was this guy that Ben Franklin wanted to be connected with in the Congress or Senate. I forget what it was, but he wanted a relationship with this person to learn from him. And so what he ends up doing is he hears that this guy is into collecting rare books. And so Ben Franklin goes up and asks the guy if he can borrow his most valuable rare book. And the guy's sort of taken it back, but he feels like he can't say no. And so he lets Ben Franklin borrow the book.

And Ben Franklin actually has no interest in this book whatsoever. He sits on his shelf and his house for a couple weeks and then he returns it. But what the Ben Franklin effect is, is that once we do a favor for someone, paradoxically, we feel indebted to them because we don't wanna have wasted that time.

So, if somebody emails you and if you email someone and say, will you be my mentor, they're like, no, no, no, no, no, I don't have time or resources for that. Right? But if you email someone and you go, hey, I'm 27, I'm thinking about leaving my job, you know, what book should I read? And they're like, oh, read this book. Well, now it's like they're hooked. You know, you've connected with them in some way. And then, you know, three weeks later, you follow up with another short question, and then, you know, a month later, another question.

And now, all of a sudden, you have this, you know, multi-month exchange. This is, in my experience, where that sort of mentor, patron, advisor, relationship comes from, as opposed to like a formal exchange. I love that. No, thank you. That's super insightful. I love the relationship aspect of just something that you struggle now and everything's just one way like through email. So that's the whole thing. But I and then the other thing I would add to that is like 100 emails to 100 people and if 10 of them respond, that could be life changing. I think sometimes people will just email their favorite person in the world and then they don't get a response and then they say, well, it's hopeless. There's lots of

people out there. So I would also, you got to try a bunch of times. Awesome. Thank you. So you got to try a bunch of times. Awesome, thank you. Earl, let's do you. Hey, Ryan. Hi. The dumb question for you here. And so I'll be the one to raise that. I got the Stoicism 101 email today.

And I was hoping you could give an overview of what we should be expecting and how do we get these every day? Yes. And how those relate to these office hours, I understood you said, ask questions, but sure, I'd like to what you want. Now, not a dumb question at all.

So yes, there'll be an email every day for the next two weeks. The obviously this office hours, there's less to talk about specifically because we're only one day in. I think Billy, when are the, do you wanna post the questions again, or the schedule again?

I think there's one Wednesday. And anyways, the idea, so there'll be a bunch of calls and you can ask me anything about stoicism in general, about specifically what's been in the email. I'd love to get in some debate about what's, you know, what people like,

what people don't like, what's not clear, what is clear. So the idea is just for this to be a discussion. And if you remember in college, the idea is you go to class and then the professor has office hours where you get to go ask them about what you're learning about in class and the irony I remember in college, you have these people who are experts about what they do,

and of course nobody ever takes them up on the office hours. And so I'm so glad that at the start, we've got all these people in here. And yeah, we can ask anything and everything. So let's do Sarah. Hello. So, Ryan, I was curious about what you do personally to stay mindful of living stosism rather than just having it be a philosophy that you think about because I think a lot of people intellectualize it. So, I read this book a few years ago from Jimmy Carter and he was talking about, obviously, he's sort of a devout Christian and he was talking about, I don't know if he meant this up or he heard about it, but he said, okay, let's say there were some like persecution of Christians, he was saying in the modern age, and he said, let's say someone accused you of being a Christian and you went up on trial.

And he said, would you be convicted? Right? So not what you said, but would you be convicted of actually living the ideas? Which I found to be quite beautiful. And so one of the things I was actually just writing about this in the journal this morning, because the journal entry today was about, you know, sort of, who do you want to be, you know, are you living your words? I try to think on a regular basis, like, if nobody knew what I wrote about, would an outside person describe me as a stoic. So what I think is interesting about Marcus Aurelius is that yes, he writes meditations. But let's say meditations hadn't survived and we're just reading the his entry in the Historia Augusta or let's say we're reading about him on this Wikipedia page. Would we find him to be a philosophical emperor even then, even without his sole sort of philosophical work. So I think thinking

about legacy in that aspect, not because you're trying to impress people necessarily, but it's a decent proxy for stepping back and evaluating yourself. It's like, would a disinterested party, you know, sort of judge you by the idea, but judge you based on your actions, not based on what you've said. And so to me, that's sort of like a rule of thumb that I try to use. And I would be, to be very forthright with you, I'm not sure how often I would be convicted. And so that's, that's the idea of like, we've got to be, there's more work to be done. Thank you.

Of course. Maureen. Well, you took me by surprise. Can you give me okay? I can. What's your question? I'm delighted to be here. I have to say.

And it's kind of maybe once again, a stupid question. But I spent my professional life as a professor of rendering. So very erratic for me to be studying stoic. Yes. And I'm delighted to do it. But I wanted to share something that gave me pause that may be true for other people. What I thought about doing this.

I thought, well, maybe I should be a handle lot younger than I am. And aspirational and ambitious and in the workplace. And I wish to have I know this one. I entered military service where I did 20 years of service. And some of the principles I did acquire in military service, but as some of the principles I know for my own studies. But here at 63, I'm asking myself, do I want to spend my time like this and what will I gain from it for this sort of, you know,

Jane Father calls it the last corner of the game? Sure. Well, what I think is particularly moving about meditations is that it's written by Marcus as an old man, very old by Roman standards. And he's writing then the same things that he's always believed that he struggled with since he was a boy and he's still trying to work on them. And he even says, at some point, he says the most pathetic thing is for the mind to give up

while the body's still going. Meeting, he's talking about people who sort of quit, when they've still got stuff in the tank. And to me, what he's referring to is people who sort of go, I'm stuck in my ways, you can't teach an old dog new tricks, right? Right, and I don't want that.

Yeah. So I think the idea that it's not too late for any of us, to me, is inspiring and moving. And there's a story. I think we told them in the launch video for this, of Marcus being seen leaving the palace as an old man to go learn philosophy from sexist to philosopher. So I think it's something we engage in in our whole life.

I would say that as a professor of rhetoric, have you read any of Marcus's letters to his teacher, Fronto? No. So the only letter, the other than meditations, the only documents that survive to us from Marcus are the letters, the exchange of letters

between him and Fronto, his rhetoric teacher. And they're quite lovely, if only because his rhetoric teacher doesn't particularly like philosophy and thesis Marcus about his love of Seneca and books and all these things. So they have a very affectionate relationship

and I think as a writer of teacher, you'd really like it. I can argue myself out of this. I'm happy that you argued me into it. Thank you. Great. 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 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 Stoa. We're calling it Daily Stoic 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 is 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, quarterly

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