📝Think Like A Stoic, by Massimo Pigliucci
These are just some random thoughts I jotted during my listen, so I'm not sure that it will be very useful for someone else. Don't take it to be a comprehensive review or summary.
Basics
Live according to nature
i.e. we have the capacity for reason plus we are social animals.. that is our nature so anything that stays true to it is virtuous.
Use your brains to make this planet better for everyone :
No utopia. Set yourself in motion. Do your part. World changes one person at a time.
The 4 Stoic virtues:
- Practical wisdom
- Courage (moral)
- Justice
- Temperance : the right measure
Dichotomy of control
What's within our power vs not.
Body, property, reputation sound like they are in our power but are not.
Internalise our goals. Attach self worth to effort not outcome.
Ataraxia - inner tranquillity.
Eudamonia - a life worth living.
Roles - son, engineer, friend, citizen. For stoic, serving humanity is the biggest role.
Unrelated: "It's the rock we all push." -Fargo.
Role models: a ruler to straighten what is crooked (one's character). Examples: Cato the younger, Odysseyus, Socrates, Nelson Mandela, Spider-man.
Alternate philosophies
Epicureans: A life without pain.
Academicians: Avoid particular opinions.
Peripateticism: Aristotle's followers. Virtue, wealth, health, looks.
Cyniscm: dog-like. Virtue is necessary and sufficient for eudamonia. Diogenes. Austere.
Stoicism: Somewhere between the above 2. Practical. Being poor/uneducated doesn't make you bad, it is rational to select wealth and looks, but not a limiting factor. Just external factors but irrelevant to moral status.
Closely aligned with Socratic philosophy.
- Virtue is chief good.
- Philosophy ought to be practised not just studied.
Virtue is the chief good because by definition it cannot be used for ill.
Dynamic change is the fundamental aspect of reality.
History and context
Stoa or porch. Zeno preached here. Hence 'stoic'.
86 BCE: Athens was sacked and led to philosophers moving to other regions. Later : Epictetus, Seneca.
190 CE Marcus Aurelius dies, stoicism slows down and Christianity rises.
Neo-stoicism: reconciles Christian plus stoic themes.
Spinoza was also influenced by stoicism. The world (god) is nature. Accommodate ones mind to nature. Adapt and accept.
Emerson and Thoreaux.
Wherever we go, we bring ourselves.
Virtue ethics - instead of judging the ethics of an individual action, you judge if the person is improving and living virtuously. (compare this to Utilitarianism where the widest benefit is most virtuous, Stoicism goes to the other extreme and says that only virtuous acts that improve oneself are worthy.)
Experiments and Activities
Fast, or have a cold bath, or deny an occasional pleasure so you appreciate it more the next time.
For some perspective:
Think of the present, and zoom back a year, a century, a millennia and so on, then finally come back to the present. Does the problem matter all that much?
Similarly zoom out to the building, city, continent, planet, solar system.. And back.
Try not to use 'good' or 'bad' for everyday things that do not tie to virtue. Reshape the way you think of events, situations or people.
Dealing with problems
Say, "I will do X, and I will keep my will in harmony with nature."
The first may not be in your control but the second is. E.g. "I will go to the theater and I will keep my will in harmony with nature." Now if someone annoys you in the theater, you don't reach your first goal, but that was never in your hands anyway. But you do control how you react to it, i.e. you keep your harmony with your 'nature'. (I like this!)
You think a lot before lending money but you can always get it back. But time lent or wasted or spent will not come back
4 moods to avoid, from Marcus Aurelius
- Needless fancy
- Being antisocial
- Speaking but not from the heart
- Refusing to forgive yourself
Read Homer (or good literature in general).. "All time which you entrust into their keeping will be safe". - Seneca counseling someone dealing with grief when at home and stuck with dark thoughts.
The last few chapters condenses Aurelius's meditations, and took some interesting real life problems and gave the Stoic's response to them.