At the start of this entertaining conversation between @DonJRobertson & @ScottFlear, DR talks about his method of teaching philosophy through ancient anecdotes.
• Critobulus asks Socrates to help him make friends
• S asks C to list the qualities in an ideal friend
• C obliges
• S asks, “How many of these qualities do you have?”
• C - “....”
☝️Work on your own character first and you will attract the same.
[The Reserve Clause]
• The Stoics didn’t discourage the pursuit of external goals
• They should be pursued with the acceptance that they might not be achieved
• “Neurosis is caused by inflexible demands.” - Albert Ellis
☝️Having strong preferences > having inflexible demands
[Epictetus On Mindfulness]
• Someone walking barefoot takes care not to walk on jagged rocks
• The same care should be taken with what we focus our minds on
• 🇬🇷 Prosochē = Attention
☝️Continually be aware of how you’re using your mind and your value judgments
[The Choice Of Hercules]
• Hercules finds himself at a fork in the road
• The goddess Kakia offers the path of luxury (vice). Aretê offers adversity (virtue)
• He chooses virtue and later gains status of a God
☝️It’s better to face hardship and grow than embrace easy-living
[Time Projection]
If you’re upset now about something that has already happened, ask yourself how you’ll feel about it:
• Tomorrow
• Next week
• Next year
• In ten years
☝️If you won’t be worried about it in ten years, why waste time on it now?
[Wisdom For Adversity]
• There are many reversals of fortune in life
• Complaint adds suffering to suffering
• There’s always something to be grateful for
• To over-react is to prevent rational thinking
☝️Perspective is the key to coping with adversity
[Socrates & 🐑]
• If u were a shepherd, would u know how many 🐑 you had?
• 👍
• Are friends more important than 🐑?
• 👍
• How many friends do u have?
• Depends how u define a friend
• Friends are more important than 🐑, huh?
• 😕
☝️Consider what friendship means to u
[Aesop’s Bags]
• We all have two bags hanging round our neck
• One bag hangs in front and is full of everyone else’s flaws
• The other hangs behind and is filled with our flaws
☝️We’re often quick to see the flaws of others but are blind to our own
[Stoic Empathy]
• No-one is perfectly wise
• The Stoics didn’t even consider Zeno as such
• Seneca told Lucilius not to think of him as an expert, but as a fellow patient in a hospital with more experience of the treatment
☝️”We exist for the sake of one another” - Aurelius
[On Feeling Lost]
• If feeling lost in life, it means you at least have a clear goal of clarifying your values
• This can be done by seeking more wisdom
• If nothing else, your experiences can be shared to help others
Epictetus: 1. Neither death nor pain is to be feared, but the fear of pain or death
2. The poor body must be separated from the spirit as it was before, either now or later. Why then are you troubled if it be now? For if not now, later
Seneca: 3. We must make ready for death before making ready for life
4. Death would be a thing to dread if it could stay. But it either doesn’t come, or comes & is gone
5. What matters is not how long you live, but how well; & often living well means that you cannot live long
6. There are no ills to be suffered after death, reports that make the underworld terrible to us are mere tales
7. Let us order our minds as if we had come to the end. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s account every day.