Ryan Holiday

It's nothing.

I do think as human beings, the Stoics would have been understanding and empathetic and perhaps even generous, but they're just trying to get you to see it that way.

I don't think if you were to come to Marcus Aurelius and go, hey, someone just stole my life savings, or hey, my child just died, he would go, yeah, but you knew they were mortal when you had them.

He would say,

hey, when that happened to me, here's how I felt, right?

And one of the things I reminded myself of was X, Y, and Z. So I think there's sometimes when we take the words in isolation, they can feel a little blase or a little black and white.

But when we actually look at who the Stokes were as people, and I would also say who we are aspiring to be as people, we can add a little bit more empathy and patience and understanding here.

All right, well, thank you so much.

Yeah, of course.

Somebody's asking a question about a stoic official who they realized he couldn't be bribed when they saw him cooking radishes, that he wasn't materialistic at all.

I believe that is a chapter in Right Thing Right Now, or maybe in Discipline is Destiny.

And it's not Cato.

I think it's one of Cato's heroes.

Yeah, it's in Discipline is Destiny about sort of keeping your needs small, if I'm remembering correctly.

Indira.

Yeah, I don't know if you would say it's innately wrong.

I think he's certainly pushing back against, you know, sort of outright hedonism or against doing whatever you want whenever you want it.

I think there's a skepticism in the Stoics about...

The permanence and the power of pleasure, you know, that it's rather fleeting, that building your life around doing things so you can have this sort of ephemeral experience is probably not worth it.

what people are often willing to give up to get it.