The Daily Stoic - Whatever You Call It, Steer Clear | Ask DS

Episode Date: February 29, 2024

Marcus Aurelius called it a few different things. His translators varied even more in their interpretations. Gregory Hays used the word “imperialization.” Robin Waterfield called it “becoming Caesarified” and “dyed in purple.” Pierre Hadot has it, “becoming Caesarized.” George Long translates it, “Take care that thou art not made into a Caesar, that thou art not dyed with this dye.” In The Daily Stoic, we have Marcus express his worry of being “stained purple.”Ok, but what is he actually talking about? He’s talking about being corrupted by power, changed by the position and fame that he has. And we know this was a lifelong concern of his. One story has Marcus Aurelius breaking down in tears when he’s told he will someday be emperor, not because he was sad, but because his study of history taught him how few people managed to leave the job unscathed, let alone unchanged.While none of us will wear the purple cloak of the emperor (that’s what Marcus was referring to about being dyed), hopefully, we will be successful. Hopefully, we will earn positions of influence and power and respect. What will this reveal about us? What might it corrupt or corrode?It is a timeless battle, a timeless temptation. Stoicism is here to help us with it. Meditations, specifically, is one of the only books ever written by a person with that much power, one of the only books by a person who power did not make worse, and about how to remain good and decent and virtuous when there is every excuse and opportunity not to.-On today’s Thursday episode of the Daily Stoic podcast, Ryan talks with over 150 employees from Austin Central Library during their staff development and apperception day. They discuss why Ryan became an author, writing process, and the importance of reading and learning from ancient wisdom.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. Well, on Thursdays we not only read the daily meditation, but we answer some questions from listeners and fellow Stoics. We're trying to apply this philosophy just as you are. Some of these come from my talks. Some of these come from Zoom sessions that we do with Daily Stoic Life members

or as part of the challenges. Some of them are from interactions I have on the street when there happen to be someone there recording. But thank you for listening and we hope this is of use to you. Call it Steer Clear. Marcus Aurelius called it a few different things. His translators varied even more in their interpretations. Gregory Hayes used the word imperialization.

Robin Waterfield called it becoming Caesarified and died in purple. Pierre Hedau has it becoming caesareified. George Long translates it as, take care that thou art not made into a caesare, that you art not died with this die. And in the Daily Stoke we have Marcus express his worry at being stained purple. Okay, but what is he actually talking about? He's talking about being corrupted by power, changed by the position and fame that he has.

And we know this was a lifelong concern of his. One story is Marcus Realus breaking down in tears when he's told that he will some navy emperor. Not because he's sad, but because his study of history had taught him how few people had managed to leave the job unscathed, let alone unchanged. Well, none of us will wear the purple cloak of the emperor, that's what Marcus Aurelius was referring to when he talked about being guide.

Hopefully we will be successful. Hopefully we will earn positions of influence and power and respect. What will this reveal about us? What might it corrupt or corrode? It is a timeless battle, a timeless temptation. And stoicism is here to help us with that. Meditations specifically is one of the only books

ever written by a person with that much power. And it's about how to remain good and decent and virtuous when there is every excuse and opportunity not to. And it's funny, there's all the different translations, but I do think Hayes is the most beautiful, imperialization, right? The imperial power of the emperor becoming integrated with them, corrupting them,

changing them, right? That's the translation we use in the leatherbound meditations that we sell at Daily Stoic. The one I have with me right now. It's I think the most beautiful long lasting edition you can get out there, you can check that out at store.dailystoic.com. I'll link to it in today's show notes. Makes a great gift for the holidays,

for somebody who's going through something. If you know someone who's a fan of the podcast, you want to get them something to help them celebrate it. Well, you can check out the leather edition of meditations at store.dailystowek.com. If you want to focus more on your well-being this year, you should read more and you should give Audible a try. Audible offers an incredible selection of audiobooks focused on wellness from physical, mental, spiritual, social, motivational, occupational, and financial.

You can listen to Audible on your daily walks. You can listen to my audiobooks on your daily walks. And still, this is the key. I have a whole chapter on walking, on walking meditations, on getting outside. And it's one of the things I do when I'm walking. Audible offers a wealth of wellbeing titles to help you get closer to your best life

and the best you. Discover stories to inspire sounds to soothe your best life and the best you. Discover stories to inspire sounds to soothe and voices that can change your life. Wherever you are on your well-being journey, Audible is there for you. Explore bestsellers, new releases and exclusive originals. Listen now on Audible. It's funny, you know, people go, I wanna, you know, support independent retellage, I wanna support some big multinational conglomerate like Amazon. But the truth is, most of the bookstores just buy their books from publishers, which are

multi-billion dollar conglomerates, and distributors like Ingram, which are multinational conglomerates. And so we just decided like, let's dispense with all the pretense of that and let's just actually carry books that we like, right? Like the first thing that happens when we start a book store is they go, here's the suggested list of books that you should order from us. And that just seemed like, what's the suggested list of books that you should order from us.

And that just seemed like, what's the point? If people want access to any book, they should go to a library or all books. They should go on Amazon. But if you want to be recommended something that maybe you wouldn't have otherwise thought of, a lot of the books, a painful part about owning the bookstore is like we get books that the publishers aren't prioritizing because they don't sell thousands of copies a year. We have to wait for them to ask for reprints of them. But if you want a book that like we have actually read and that I think could change your life, like that's the idea is like I

want to carry books that have the potential to change your life or be one of those books, but this is one of the best books that I ever read. If a public library could have an innovation, what would your preference be? And what do you see as the observable strengths of a public library as it currently exists? I'll start with the second part. I mean, if I'm thinking about what strengths public libraries have, it's the space, right? It's the land.

This is some of the most valuable real estate in Austin. This is some of the most beautiful architecture in Austin. It's the space. And as stuff increasingly becomes digital, physical space has a premium in a different way. That's one of the things we thought about in opening the bookstore too, which is, again, if you're looking for a specific book,

you're probably just gonna grab it on the internet. If you wanna explore, if you wanna be exposed, this is the place to do it. One of my favorite novelists is John Fonte, this book called Ask the Dust, which is maybe the greatest novel ever written about Los Angeles. And that novel, I wrote a story about this a few years ago,

that novel came out, it was published by a small publisher and then it was lost to obscurity for somewhat strange reasons, lost to obscurity because his publisher also simultaneously in 1933, in the third or fourth month that publishes a English translation of minecraft. And Hitler sues them for copyright infringement and wins in US federal court in bankruptcy culture. And the book loses its marketing budget.

The publisher basically goes under, and the book is lost to history. Except there is one copy in the Los Angeles Public Library and Charles Gukowski is wandering around there one day and finds it. It says it's like finding gold in the city dump. And this is the height of Gukowski's fame. He brings the book back. John Fonte enjoys this resurgence

in the last couple years of his life, book sales, millions of copies. It's made into a very mediocre movie with Colin Farrell. But it's a book that never would have had this second life were it not for a library, in the physical space of the library, and what connections and events and discoveries can happen inside a library. And to me that's the magical thing about these places. Anyone else? Go for it.

Do you ever read out loud? To my children, yes. I read out loud all the time. I think it's wonderful and fun. And then I read my own audio books, which is not so wonderful and fun. And that generally makes me feel like a bad and idiot by the end of it. And I am reminded, talking about, you know,

finding things you could use. I am constantly confronted as I read my own audio books. talking about finding things you could use. I am constantly confronted, as I read my own audiobooks, how few words I myself have ever heard out loud and thus have no idea how to pronounce them. I learned them reading and have to look them up on YouTube or whatever to be able to pronounce them. But I love reading about it.

It's such a great sort of family connection. I don't like listening to books as much. So I prefer to sort of quietly read the book by myself. So, well, first I just wanna say I really appreciate your books. They've really helped me a lot in my life and modernizing stoicism I, is amazing and wonderful. As someone who works here, I was curious to see

if you had any ideas for how we could incorporate like stoic philosophy and these things that could really benefit a lot of people's lives into programming or events or things that the community can get involved in. That's a great question. I mean, obviously, I think all the time about how do you take philosophy which most people think they don't need or are not smart enough for, and then how do you take stoke philosophy which has this negative connotation of being about being an emotionless, invulnerable robot, and how do you make that practical to people?

My first book on Stoicism, The Obscursive Way, I probably say the word stoic or mentioned stoic philosophy like all of three or four times, because I was very conscious of the fact that it had this sort of headman. And so I wanted to present philosophy as a solution to somebody's problems as opposed to an academic discipline

or intellectual thing. So I think one of the best ways we can popularize stoicism is not by talking about stoicism itself, but talk about great examples of people acting in accordance with the philosophy or showing that philosophy is this accessible, usable thing. So I tried to do a kids book, these two kids books on stoicism for that idea,

like they don't need to know the names of these people or the historical facts or anything like that. They just need to see that like actually, hey, yeah, when your brother steals your toys from you, you don't control that, but you control how you respond to that. And so I've tried to think more about the substance, the actions of stoicism and demonstrating it that way.

But I guess I would try to start there and then, you know, I think Glidea is a great movie. And I think like finding ways into these, I think the reason, when someone said, hey, should read Marcus Reles and Epictetus, the reason I went and picked up Marcus Reles first is that I remember him as the old guy in the movie Glideator. And so I try not to judge, I try to go where people are and try not to judge what their entry point to those things is. And so with Daily Stoke, we spend a lot of time posting inspirational quotes on Instagram

and making YouTube videos and wheels and stuff on TikTok, because I love books, and when I want to learn about something, I think I should go read a book about that. That is not how the vast majority of people think about things. They think about Wikipedia, or they think about social media, or they think about videos, but that can be the entry point to that thing, and I know that because I talked to so many people who go, you know,

Mark Sreelius was the first book of philosophy I've ever read. They'll tell me that one of my books was the first book that they have read since high school. And I love that. I think our job should be getting people into the ideas by whatever means necessary and whatever entry point, you know, is as accessible to them as possible. But I love that you're thinking about that

and however it helps, just let me know. Should we do one more? Do you want us? I know what you mean about you can't step into the same river twice and how that relates to books. But the first time I read the Confederacy of Dunsons, I thought it was laugh out loud funny. And I would recommend it to people.

And then like 10 years later, I read it. I thought it was the saddest thing. So I think it kind of relates to like, and I think about that a lot. And I haven't been ready to read it again because I was just like, what am I gonna think of this? Yeah, you know, it's funny because Ignatius Riley is a loser. And it's funny because he's not aware he's a loser.

And it kind of depends on how, do you relate to him as a loser, do you relate to him as someone who's better than all the people? I think it depends on where you are. But I was actually just thinking of this the other day because as we sort of seen downtown Bastard being revitalized, little new things are happening. And a guy started a hot dog part on the corner

and I was getting a hot dog one day and I was like, you know what's fair here? I have a book for you. And I went and I got him a Confederacy of Dunces, which I was so excited to do because like you, I thought I was the funniest but the whole time. And then as I was handing it to him, I was like, I hope he's not insulted.

Like, I hope he's not. And it is interesting, like these books operate in different contexts and depending on where you are in your life at that moment, you get something totally different out of them, which is also why I think this idea of banning books that make us uncomfortable or challenge us or are controversial or inappropriate or whatever is so dangerous because what you see in it might be radically different than what somebody else sees in it.

Once you start that process, that's what Fahrenheit 451 is. He has this great very politically incorrect assage in the book that I won't repeat, but he goes, we banned these books because this minority group was offended. And we banned these books because this minority group was offended.

And da, da, da, da. And the result is there was no reason to read anymore after they got rid of all those books. And so we never step in the mix in there twice. And then also everyone else was always stepping into their own river, in their own version of the river, coming to it at a different time. And I think we have to have a lot of empathy and openness and patience with that. But I do think, I still think Confederacy and Constance holds up pretty well.

It's pretty fun. Thank you guys very much. 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 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 ad free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad free with Wondery

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