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Chapter 1: What is the essence of Stoicism as a conversational philosophy?
Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. This is how it's meant to be done. Because so much of Stoicism comes down to us in books, it's easy to assume that it's a written philosophy.
That philosophy was something the Stoics did alone, in private, hunched over a wax tablet or some unfurled scroll. Isn't that how we got meditations or Seneca's letters? yeah, but that's not how we got the philosophy itself. Stoicism began on a porch in Athens, the Stoapochile, the painted porch where Zeno would talk and trade ideas with whoever was around.
The great playwright David Mamet had a funny way of putting it on the David Stoic podcast a while back. He says what he loves about the Stoics is that they were just porch guys, just regular people hanging out, talking about how to become the best version of themselves. Cato, the man widely admired as one of the greatest Stoics, we don't even have secondhand reports of his words.
But we know that he liked to do his philosophizing on foot. Or Plutarch tells us that he would take meandering walks through Rome, talking with whomever he met on his rounds. And that for all his austere habits, he loved philosophical dinner parties where they talked about ideas long into the night. You know, Epictetus never wrote anything down.
His discourses comes to us from a student who tells us that whatever he used to hear him say, he wrote down word for word as best he could as a record for later use of Epictetus' thoughts and frank expressions. And that's how Epictetus taught, in person, going back and forth in real time. So for most of its history, Stoicism was a spoken conversational philosophy.
It's meant to be heard, meant to be talked about, meant for that back and forth.
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Chapter 2: How did Stoicism evolve from spoken discussions to written texts?
And it's a great tradition that we're a part of, one that's gone on unbroken for thousands of years. And by the way, we are continuing it here with Daily Stoic and me, Ryan Holiday. I'm going to be hitting the road the old way here very soon. It's part of the Daily Stoic live tour. I'm making the rounds. I'm going to be in Portland here in early June, San Francisco, California.
then Chicago, Boston, D.C., Detroit, Australia, Midwest, East Coast, all over, even New Zealand. And I'd love to see you. Come ask me questions, trade ideas, hang out, talk to me, talk to other Stoics. Grab your tickets at dailystoiclive.com. You know what silently kills sales teams? The inability to see what's happening in their pipeline.
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Chapter 3: Who were the key figures in early Stoicism and what were their practices?
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It is well to be flexible. Begins with a quote from Seneca on tranquility of mind. He can't serve in the military. Let him seek public office. Must he live in the private sector? Let him be a spokesperson. Is he condemned to silence? Let him aid his fellow citizens by silent public witness. Is it dangerous to enter the forum?
Let him display himself in private homes at public events and gatherings as a good associate, a faithful friend, and a moderate table mate. Has he lost the duties of a citizen? Let him exercise those of his human being. And then the story, it's one of my all-time favorites. I loved this the first time I heard it.
Shortly before his death as victory in the Civil War was finally within his grasp, Lincoln told a story to an audience of generals and admirals about a man who had approached him for a high-ranking government appointment. First, the man asked if he might be made a foreign minister. Upon being turned down, the man asked for a more modest position.
Upon being turned down again, he asked for a job as a low-level customs officer. Finally, he could not even get that. He finally just asked Lincoln for an old pair of trousers. Ah, Lincoln laughed as he concluded the story. It is well to be humble. This story embodies the flexibility and the determination of stoicism. If we can't do this, then perhaps we can try that.
And if we can't do that, then perhaps we can try some other thing. And if that thing is impossible, then there is always another. Even if that thing is just being a good human being, we always have some opportunity to practice our philosophy to make some kind of contribution. You know, I love this story.
And I think the lesson that Lincoln was trying to say is that you find your role, you're willing to accept or make whatever works, right? And I think that's what Seneca was saying. And I suspect Seneca was also telling this story, you know, near the end of his life as the options in public life were closing to him. You know, okay, so Nero turned out to be insane. Okay, so you're forced into exile.
you know, all throughout Seneca's life. In fact, he's forced to adjust, to accommodate, to make the best of a bad situation. And for the Stoics, this was the resignation, not like resignation, like, oh, everything sucks. What am I going to do? But like, oh, this is the role I've been assigned. I'm going to act the hell out of it. And this is something that Epictetus talks about as well. You
You know, we're like actors in a play. We're not the author. We're not the playwright. But we have to really embrace the role that we're assigned. And this ability to be flexible, to not go, oh, but I only operate at this level. I'm a Harvard grad. I could not possibly accept X, Y, or Z. This makes us really fragile because life is going to humble us.
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