You Were Unsuspecting, Not Unwarned
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Why does the episode begin by saying we were unsuspecting but not unwarned?
Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. You were unsuspecting, not unwarned. It was out of the blue. It caught you off guard. It hurt you. It took some time for you to get your wits back around you to make sense of it all, to bounce back. That's not to say you're blameless here. In fact, you had plenty of warning. Haven't you read a history book or a memoir? These things happen to people, and they've been happening for thousands of years. Did you think you were special or exempt? To quote the Noah Kahn lyrics, you might have been unsuspecting, but you were not unwarned. The Stoics warned you many times, in fact.
Always take full note of fortune's habit of behaving just as she pleases, Seneca wrote wisely, treating her as if she were actually going to do everything it is in her power to do. Just because it caught you by surprise, just because you weren't expecting it, just because it wasn't what you wanted, doesn't mean it happened out of the blue. It doesn't mean it was unusual. It doesn't mean it was unfair. You were warned. And you are being warned again. Things happen. Things are going to happen to you. Be ready. Be prepared. Deal with it.
Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast. We've talked about Epictetus here quite a bit, but Epictetus is fascinating because unlike all the other Stoics, he actually experienced profound and real adversity without any of the privileges that would have balanced out the life of Marcus Aurelius or Seneca or Cato, right? He's born a slave. He spends 30 years in slavery. In fact, even his name, Epictetus, it means acquired one.
How does the host introduce Epictetus’s life as a slave and his unique perspective?
Like this dude doesn't even get his own name. Now, Epictetus doesn't write anything down as far as we know. Epictetus that we're going to hear from today, even the Epictetus that Marcus Aurelius quotes in his meditations, is coming to us from lecture notes from his students. Was Marcus's from his philosophy teacher, Rusticus? Are these Rusticus's notes? Or is Rusticus himself just handing Marcus Aurelius the notes from Arian, who also writes a fascinating book about Alexander the Great, who was a favorite of Hadrian, the emperor? Anyways, that's why Epictetus' work is called The Discourses, because it's the lecture notes. It's what Epictetus is talking about in his philosophy school in Nicopolis in Greece in the early 2nd century AD.
And there's a bunch of different translations. I like the Penguin Classics translation. In today's episode, we're reading one from an older translation. This is going to be read to us by Michael Reed. But Epictetus starts... at the beginning, right? He says, this is about what's in our control and what isn't, how to make use of what's in our power and treat the rest as something we accept, something we put up with, something we come to terms with, something we find out how to use, how to be made better for having gone through, which is all the more poignant, again, when you think about what Epictetus went through in his life, the things he had to come to terms with, things he had to accept. He's not being glib about it.
He's not talking about being stuck in traffic, right? He's talking about his lame leg, which was broken by a cruel slave master. He's talking about the years of his life that were stolen. He's talking about the injustices of the society that he lives in, which came down so hard on him. So I wanted to bring you some thoughts directly from Epictetus himself, although I direct. Epictetus gives his lectures. Arian and other students write them down. Then these get translated and translated and translated, and then they were read. And then this excerpt from book one of Epictetus' Discourses is brought to you by Daily Stoic and Michael Reed. I hope this is a little intro into the one and only Epictetus. There's a ton of information out there about what you should do to be healthier.
People trying to sell you this, people trying to sell you that, people trying to tell you to do this, people trying to tell you to do that.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
Why does the episode begin by saying we were unsuspecting but not unwarned?
0:00–2:06
2
How does the host introduce Epictetus’s life as a slave and his unique perspective?
2:06–4:24
3
What is the significance of the Discourses’ origin as lecture notes from Epictetus’s students?
4:24–7:04
4
Why does the episode pause for a reading of Epictetus’s Discourses and what does it cover?
7:04–10:05
5
How does Epictetus define what is in our control versus what is not?
10:05–13:11
6
What role do the sponsors (Superpower and Wealthfront) play in the episode’s flow?
13:11–15:26
7
How does Epictetus explain the faculty of reason and its ability to judge itself?
15:26–16:31
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from The Daily Stoic
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