The Daily Stoic - Your Shoulders Are Made of Ivory | The Freedom of Contempt

Episode Date: April 26, 2021

“Marcus was like us. He wasn’t naturally extraordinary. He wasn’t born to greatness. His destiny was not pre-ordained. So how did it happen? How are we here today—what would have been his 1900th birthday—still talking about him?”Ryan remembers Marcus Aurelius on his 1900th birthday, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal, on today’s Daily Stoic Podcast.This episode is  brought to you by Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is a custom formulation of 75 vitamins, minerals, and other whole-food sourced ingredients that make it easier for you to maintain nutrition in just a single scoop. It tastes great and gets you the nutrients you need, whether you're working on the go, fueling an active lifestyle, or just maintaining your good health. Visit athleticgreens.com/stoic to get a FREE year supply of Liquid Vitamin D + 5 FREE Travel Packs with subscription. ***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow Daily Stoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoic See 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 podcasts early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast. Each day we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics Illustrated with stories from history, current events and literature to help you be better at what you do and it was stories from history, current events, and literature to help you be better at what you do. And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive, setting a kind of stoic intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave you with, to journal about, whatever it is you happen to be doing. So let's get into it.

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Plus, you'll get five free travel packs with their first purchase if you visit our link today. Simply visit AthleticGreens.com slash stoic. Join us in making this commitment to your health. Just go to AthleticGreens.com slash stoic and get your free year supply of vitamin D plus five free travel packs today. Your shoulders are made of ivory. Marcus Serrieles was like us. He wasn't naturally extraordinary, he wasn't born to greatness. His destiny was not preordained. How are we today here on what would be his 1900th birthday still talking about this man. We've talked before about the dream that Marcus had, the one where his shoulders were made of ivory, signalling

to him that he could do it, that he could be king. But what's important for us to remember, at least to those of us who have never experienced such a lofty dream, is what happens after. Marcus didn't wake up with a bottomless reservoir of confidence. All of a sudden, it was not as if a switch had been permanently flipped. It's that over and over again in meditations, we see Marcus writing messages of reassurance to himself. He writes not to assume it's impossible because you find it hard, but to recognize that if it's humanly possible, you can do it too. You can do it if you simply recognize that they are human too. Yes, you can if you do everything as if it were the last thing you were doing in your

life. You can manage this. Marcus has talked about how our life takes on the color of our thoughts. If you hold a perpetually negative outlook, soon enough everything you encounter will seem negative. And in those moments when you don't think you can do something, it's very likely you won't be able to do it. The same holds true for a positive outlook, however. Color your mind with the right thoughts, color them with what's possible, and then whatever you're trying to do, whether it's trying to start a

company or salvage a relationship or lose 20 pounds or quit drinking or make partner at your law firm, you may be able to manage it. That is not to say that things won't be hard regardless of your outlook, but you have stronger shoulders than you know. People less talented, less determined, less privileged than you have succeeded at similar things. With a positive outlook, of course you can do this. You just need to focus. You just need to grit your teeth and get to work. So today we celebrate Marcus's 1900th birthday by reminding ourselves what Marcus kept reminding

himself of. Yes, yes you can. Whatever it is, yes you can. You don't need to dream it. Your shoulders are made of ivory. The freedom of contempt. The language we use to describe things imputes value to those things. We often embellish our language with superlatives to help make our choices of what to buy,

where eat or drink seem much better than they really are. As Emperor Marcus Aurelius could have the finest fileriny and wine at his table at any meal, but he preferred to remind himself that this was only grape juice. As Emperor, he was the only Roman allowed to wear a purple cloak, but he took pains to point out that this cloak was like any other, just died with shellfish blood, so as to produce a purple hue. This week, try to practice cutting your own luxuries and the things you yearn for down to size with a little contempt. Describe them with the bluntest language you can and see how much their

power over you diminishes. Just as when meat or other foods are set before us, we think this is a dead fish or a dead bird or a pig. Also, this fine wine is only the juice of a bunch of grapes. This purple-edged robe is just sheep's wool dyed in a bit of blood from a shellfish, or of sex that is only the rubbing of private parts together followed by a spasmic discharge. In the same way our impressions grab actual events and permeate them. So we see things as they really are. Marcus Aurelis' meditation 613. Keep a list before your mind of all those who burn with anger and resentment about something, or even the most renowned for success, misforging evil deeds or any special distinction. Then ask yourself, how did it work out smoke and dust, a stuff of simple meth trying to be legend? That's Marcus really says, Meditations 1227, you know what wine and liquor tastes like. It makes no difference

whether a hundred or a thousand bottles pass through your bladder. You are nothing more than a filter. This is from the Daily Stoke Journal. The week's entry is titled, the Freedom of Contempt. I don't know. This is Longwood, one of my favorite exercises in all of Stoicism. It's just brilliant. It's cynical. It's funny. It's really practical, too. You know, Marcus really didn't have to live in a time of Madison Avenue advertising. He didn't live in a time of social media influencers. He didn't live in a time of propaganda and misinformation. There wasn't spinning and selling the way that there is now.

And yet, even then, he had to practice, you know, just seeing through all the bullshit, seeing through to what things actually were, stripping them as he says, of the legend that encrust them. So when Epictetus talks about putting things to the test, this is what Marcus is doing. He says, I'm not going to get distracted by my urges, by my immediate positive reaction to this, to the way my mouth is watering when I see X or the way that my eyes get big when I see Y. So I'm going to really break down what I see here. I'm going to describe it in the most unflinching, unvarnished, least sympathetic language possible. And I'm going to see what that reflection back to me does, how it changes my opinion of it.

Right? Sometimes, you know, there's that expression about seeing how the sausage gets made. When you go and see the sausage gets made, or you see, you know, the underneath things, they lose their power over you. And that's what this stoic practice is really about. And it's so important. It's not that you don't want, you'll never enjoy this or that ever again. It's just you want to enjoy it with the the deceit turned down a little bit, the legend, the little more thread there. And and this is an active practice we have to go through. So as you as you walk

out in a parking lot and you you know you see a Alexis remind yourself this is just a Toyota with fancy or branding, right? When you see a $300 pair of Nike's, remind yourself of the sweatshop that this was likely made in. When you hear someone talking about how they are a billionaire, remind yourself just how dumb a lot of billionaires have turned out to be, right? When you're intimidated by someone's fancy degree, again, remind yourself who else is graduated

from that institution. Think of the corruption, think of the evil ideas that have come out of that institution over the years. Again, this isn't a dismisser to mean the things entirely. It's just to counteract that impulse of jealousy, of envy, of lust, of fear. You know, there's that expression about if you see a beautiful woman that somewhere,

someone is sick of that person's shit. And that's true for everything, every person, and it'll take it down a peg, and then help you see it, a tad more rationally. And look, if you can imagine being selected to be emperor, imagine the pressures, the stress, the doubt, yet he's surprised everyone by rising to the occasion. How does he do it?

Well, that's the question I tried to answer in the boy who would be King. It's an illustrated fable. I say, for all all ages for the ages About this early journey of Marcus Aurelius. I'm so proud of it One Amazon reviewer said the boy who would begin will teach anyone of all ages and it's a book to be cherished among all I'm honored to hear that you can order your copy on Amazon or you can get signed copies in the daily Stoic store I'm really proud

of this book. It was an honor to make it, to bring it into the universe. I've loved hearing from people. So check out the boy who would be king, go to dailystoke.com slash king. Of course, check it out on Amazon. 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.