The Daily Stoic - You Will Need This In Every Situation | Plato's View

Episode Date: June 2, 2022

Ryan talks about the importance of the four virtues, and reads The Daily Stoic’s entry of the day.The Four Virtues Pendant design, custom to Daily Stoic, was hand-sketched by Lewis Williams, an artist based in Brooklyn, NY. The mixed-metal pendants are handmade by Williams, who uses the ancient processes of carving into the wax and casting into brass and sterling silver and then sawing, engraving, hammering & soldering the metals with precision and care. Each pendant comes with a 24" sterling silver chain and is handcrafted using traditional techniques and only the finest materials.The front of the pendant features a custom-designed seal with four elements representing the Four Virtues: a lion (Courage), a man sprinkling water into a jug of wine (Temperance), a set of scales (Justice), and an owl (Wisdom). On the back, it says, “Acta Non Verba,” which is Latin for, “Actions, not words.” Learn more and get yours here!If you or someone you know is in a mental health crisis and you live in the USA, please call 1-800-273-8255 to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline today. You can also text 741741 for help in a crisis.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.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/emailFollow 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.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke Podcast. On Thursdays, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from the book, The Daily Stokeic, 366 meditations on wisdom, perseverance, and the art of living, which I wrote with my wonderful co-author and collaborator, Steve Enhancelman. And so today, we'll give you a quick meditation from one of the Stoics,

from Epititus Markis, Relius, Seneca, then some analysis for me. And then we send you out into the world to do your best to turn these words into works. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wunderree'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. You will need this in every situation. You've just been promoted. You've just received terrible news. You've just been cut off in traffic. You've just hit the game winner in over time. You were just cc'd on an email chain to find your coworker throwing you under the bus. Your kid just spilled their orange juice on you. Your spouse just swung their car door open and dented yours. Rich or poor emperor or slave, it doesn't matter the situation.

There is one universal and constant imperative virtue. There is no situation that doesn't call for one or more of the four virtues, courage, temperance, justice, wisdom. It stares you in the face, Marcus at Relius wrote, no role is so well suited to philosophy, as the one you're in right now. As we've said recently, those four virtues guide us like four main points on a compass. It stares you in the face. We could also say that no situation is so well suited to one or all the four virtues. The stoic notion of virtue is radically different and more accessible than the finger-wagging version that people seem to think that virtue entails.

It's not something you demand of others. It's not a standard you pass laws about or police. It's something you demand of yourself. It's something you do. It's something you make use of every day, moment to moment. It's something that steers the choices you make and the actions you take. It's something we choose. Not once, it's a daily challenge. One, we face not once, but constantly, repeatedly. Well will we be selfish or selfless, brave or afraid, strong or weak, wise or stupid, will we cultivate a good habit or a bad one, courage or cowardice, the bliss of ignorance, or the challenge of a new idea? I think about virtue a lot. Obviously, I try to find ways of reminding myself of it too.

And that's why we created this daily stoic, for virtues, pendant. We've had the challenge coin for a long time, but I wanted to make a pendant that you could wear, not unlike a compass, to guide you through life. The front of the for virtues pendant has the daily stoic seal on it. Each of the four quadrants on it representing the for virtues, a lion for courage, a man sprinkling water into a jug of wine that's temperance, a set of scales, justice, and an owl, wisdom. And on the back it says, acta nonverba,

which is Latin for actions, not words. This design, which was custom for us here at Daily Stoke, was hand sketched by Louis Williams, an artist based in Brooklyn, and the mixed metal pendants that we settled on were handmade by Williams. He uses this ancient process of carving it into wax and then casting it with brass and sterling silver and then sawing and engraving and hammering and soldering the metals with precision and care.

It's really, really cool. Each pendant comes with a 24 inch sterling silver chain, handcrafted using traditional techniques and the finest materials. You can head over to dailystalk.com slash virtues pendant to get yours to wear, feel its weight, and hopefully to help you remember to choose courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom in any and every situation, you can check out a link in today's episode. Or again, just go over to dailystalk.com slash virtues pendant. Plato's View.

And I'm reading to you today from the daily Stoke, 366 meditations on wisdom, perseverance, and the art of living by yours truly. My co-author and translator, Stephen Hanselman, you can get signed copies, by the way, in the daily stoke store, over a million copies of the daily stoke and print now. It's been just such a lovely experience to watch it. It's been more than 250 weeks, consecutive weeks on the best cellist. It's just an awesome experience. But I hope

you check it out. We have a premium leather edition at store.dailystoke.com as well. But let's get on with today's reading. How beautifully Play Doe put it. Mark's really, Marx really strikes in Meditation 748. Whenever you want to talk about people, it's best to take a bird's eye view and see everything all at once, of gatherings, armies, farms, weddings, and divorces, births, and deaths, noisy courtrooms or silent spaces, every foreign people, holidays, memorials, markets all blended together, and arranged in a pairing of opposites. And actually, let me give you the Hayes one today, too, because if I recall correctly,

he renders this quite beautifully. Plato has it right. If you want to talk about people you need to look down on the earth from above, herds and armies, farms and weddings to voices, births, deaths, noisy courtrooms, desert places, all the foreign peoples, holidays, days of mourning, market days, all mixed together, a harmony of opposites. And there's actually a beautiful dialogue

by the poet Lucien, who is Senka's nephew, I believe, in which the narrator is given the ability to fly and see the world from above. Turning his eyes earthward, he sees how comically small even the richest people, the biggest estates, the entire empire, and entire empires look from above, all their battles and concerns are made petty and perspective. In ancient times, this exercise was only theoretical. The highest that anyone could get was the top of a mountain or a building if you stories tall. But as technology has

progressed, humans have been able to actually take that bird's eye view and greater. Edgar Mitchell in astronaut was one of the first people to see the earth from outer space. And as he later recounted, in outer space you develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics looks so petty. You want to grab a politician by the scruff of the neck and drag him a quarter of a million miles away and say, look at that, you son of a bitch.

And then I add, many a problem can be solved with the perspective of Plato's view, use it. I'm about to, I'm, you know, I just got off a plane, I'm getting on a plane again shortly. And, you know, you look out the window and you see, sometimes when I fly in Austin, I can actually see where I live. And, you know, 48% are suddenly very small,

a thousand acres, very small. The Tesla factory, one of the biggest buildings I've ever seen in my life, very small, skyscrapers, very small people, miniscule. I think what's, what Egremitchell's talking about is the sort of paradox of it. Everything seems very small, but everything also seems very connected. And so wars and international boundaries, these all seem, you know, so insignificant, such artificial and petty distinctions. I was telling you I was recently down in Big Bend National Park, right? You look over this vast expanse, and it humbles you in that sense. And then also, you're like, here is the United States, here is Mexico, here is the United States, here is Mexico. You're walking on the one side of the river. And then it's just a, and we don't have to get into some complicated discussion about immigration, but it's just a

reminder, it's like how arbitrary, someone born over here gets this kind of life, someone born on this side gets this kind of life, and they'll shoot you if you come across the border with this intention, but me splashing around in the water with my kids, that's totally fine, right? You realize that all these things we take very seriously are not that serious. And what matters, I think Marcus is saying when you take Plato's view, is like our connection to other people, our obligations as human beings, being good, being decent. You know, Alexander the Great's empire looks very enormous and significant and powerful and important up close, but Zoom out doesn't seem that different than anything else.

And the immensity of the damage that he did in creating it suddenly comes into view as well. So Plato's view is about getting perspective and it's a reminder that our technology helps give us that view. And that we should appreciate. I know if you ever watched the Daily Stoked videos, sometimes we use drone shots and it's been fun to learn how to fly this drone, but this drone is also Expanded my perspective. It's allowed me to see things even myself, right from different angles I never saw what I looked like running from 30 meters above me, right? I haven't seen what the angle of the road that I like to run on looks like that way and it helps you appreciate things

differently It gives you that birds eye view. And I think it's really important. I think time lapses can do this too. Of course, just sitting there and looking at it, climbing up to a high spot, looking at the stars can give you this too. But the stokes were trying to humble themselves. They were trying to get perspective. They were trying to remember our obligations and connections to other people. They were trying to get perspective. They were trying to remember our obligations and connections to other people. They were trying as Annie Duke says to get to the outside of their problems, the outside of the insolerness of their viewpoint and their urges and their desires and their emotional reactions. And I just think it's so important and please do

avail yourself of that knowledge. It's very powerful and important. As Marcus says, as Plato does, as Lucian does, and I'll leave that with you now to chew on for the rest of the day. Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoke Podcast. If you don't know this, you can get these delivered to you via email every day, check it out at dailystoke.com slash email. Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke early and add free on Amazon music. Download the Amazon music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondry Plus in Apple Podcasts. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life.

But come on, someday's parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast from Wondry that shares a refreshingly honest and insightful take on parenting. Hosted by myself, Megan Galey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Brown Aller, we will be your resident not-so-expert experts. Each week we'll share a parenting story that'll have you laughing, nodding, and thinking, oh yeah, I have absolutely been there.

We'll talk about what went right and wrong, what would we do differently? And the next time you step on yet another stray Lego in the middle of the night, you'll feel less alone. So if you like to laugh with us as we talk about the hardest job in the world, listen to, I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app.