Ryan Holiday

They were thinkers, but they were also doers.

Well-known Stoic is Marcus Aurelius, who's the emperor of Rome, the philosopher king.

But there were Stoics who were slaves, who were soldiers, who were artists.

There were men and women.

They were people trying to do what we're all trying to do, which is make sense of the crazy world that we live in.

It's hard to get more privilege than the emperor of Rome, right?

But the philosopher that influences Marcus Aurelius more than any other philosopher who he quotes in his writings all the time is this guy named Epictetus, who is a slave.

The exact opposite of Marcus.

You have extreme power and you have extreme powerlessness.

All throughout history, the Stoics have been involved in social movements and positive change making because, yes, there's a lot we don't control.

But we do control what we do.

We control whether we vote, whether we go out to a protest, whether we speak out about something.

So courage is one of the virtues.

Justice is another virtue.

Discipline is a virtue.

And then wisdom is a virtue.

All of these, I think, propel us into being informed and then being active in the world.

Yeah, philosophy, at its best, is what they call the guide to the good life, to human flourishing, not just to happiness, but productivity and purpose and meaning and being able to endure suffering and pain and loss, as we all have to go through in life.

If we can see philosophy as something we lean on, something that gives us counsel, that's really helpful.

Not as this thing that only people in universities do, but that it's there for all of us.