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What exactly is stoicism? · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's us Josh and Chuck, and we want
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1:16
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
1:20
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark
1:29
Speaker 1: with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, guest producer Noel. Jerry's Jerry
1:34
Speaker 1: has been out a lot lately, Chuck. Have you noticed? Uh? No, No,
1:39
Speaker 1: I haven't. Of course, Jerry's got big life things going on,
1:43
Speaker 1: does buying and selling houses. She's like a real estate mogul,
1:47
Speaker 1: visiting them all, doing all sorts of stuff. Uh, we're
1:52
Speaker 1: just a couple of deep thinkers hanging out on the stoa. Yeah,
1:59
Speaker 1: the typically what is it this? So? Uh? Did you
2:05
Speaker 1: practice the word this pronunciation at all? I tried to
2:09
Speaker 1: pronounce a lot of this um but you know ancient Greek,
2:14
Speaker 1: you know the phrase it's all Greek to me? Yeah,
2:17
Speaker 1: And it comes from not being able to pronounce these
2:19
Speaker 1: things quite literal, the the stoa poikili. I think that's
2:26
Speaker 1: probably pretty close, man. So can I start this with
2:30
Speaker 1: a couple of quick thoughts? Sure? First of all, uh,
2:35
Speaker 1: I took a I took four different philosophy quizzes before
2:39
Speaker 1: we recorded, like like what kind of philosophy do you
2:43
Speaker 1: subscribe to? Type quiz? Yeah, you know the ones that
2:46
Speaker 1: are super accurate, right, because they can figure that out
2:49
Speaker 1: in eight to fifteen questions. Sure, and then you can
2:51
Speaker 1: move on and find out what muppet you are. So
2:55
Speaker 1: here's here's my result here for the first one that
2:58
Speaker 1: was epicurean. Uh, the second one existentialism, alright, third one
3:03
Speaker 1: atheist existentialist. In the fourth Nietzsche slash stoic. Nietzsche was
3:10
Speaker 1: a huge critic of stoicism. I'm surprised they put those
3:13
Speaker 1: two together. Well that that is chuck though. You know
3:16
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Yeah, you're you're contradiction in terms yin
3:21
Speaker 1: and yang. Well I am that. The reason why I
3:24
Speaker 1: took these is because when I was doing the research
3:26
Speaker 1: on stoicism, Um, I found me. I found myself a
3:31
Speaker 1: lot of times going yep, yep totally, and then a
3:34
Speaker 1: lot of times going no, that's really not me. Same here,
3:37
Speaker 1: same here. And I think, um, the even the Stoics
3:40
Speaker 1: from back in the day realized that there were very few,
3:45
Speaker 1: very very few actual what they called sages walking around
3:49
Speaker 1: stoic stages who really fulfilled every aspect of this to
3:55
Speaker 1: a t. And I think that. I think one of
3:58
Speaker 1: the reasons why Stoa is m today is making a
4:01
Speaker 1: comeback and it's so appealing is because, well there's two reasons.
4:04
Speaker 1: One more than um kind of a naval gazing type
4:09
Speaker 1: philosophy where you're trying to figure out the nature of
4:12
Speaker 1: existence or something like that. It's more a blueprint for
4:17
Speaker 1: existing day to day in a in a useful, happy way.
4:22
Speaker 1: And then secondly, um, it's uh, you can kind of
4:28
Speaker 1: pick and choose. It's almost like a buffet. You can
4:31
Speaker 1: pick and choose what aspects of it you want to
4:34
Speaker 1: adopt or use. And no, you know, Greek ghost is
4:37
Speaker 1: going to come along and spear you in the face,
4:41
Speaker 1: but with a trident right punch. Uh yeah, And I
4:47
Speaker 1: think that's I mean, first of all, the Age of
4:50
Speaker 1: Reason fascinates me to no end um. And second, I've
4:55
Speaker 1: kind of wanted to cover some of the great philosophies
5:00
Speaker 1: of all time. This sounds like a good start, well
5:03
Speaker 1: it is, but it's just kind of daunting because people
5:05
Speaker 1: spend like that's their life's work, you know, and and
5:08
Speaker 1: to for us to try and summarize any of them
5:11
Speaker 1: in thirty to forty five minutes is kind of like,
5:14
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know what philosophy. You would liken
5:16
Speaker 1: that to foolishism. Duncis, m uh, that's what we do.
5:22
Speaker 1: You know. Well, let's how about this. If this one
5:24
Speaker 1: goes well, maybe we'll take it as a sign that
5:26
Speaker 1: we can tackle some other ones. But you're absolutely right,
5:28
Speaker 1: Like even the even just like say the Internet Encyclopedia
5:32
Speaker 1: of Philosophy, which is meant you know, it's it's it's sharp,
5:36
Speaker 1: and it's detailed, and it's exhaustive, but it's also clearly
5:39
Speaker 1: meant for lay people interested in philosophy. Right, It's just
5:43
Speaker 1: just this just stoicism. It is so involved that it's
5:49
Speaker 1: not possible for us to like really capture all of it,
5:52
Speaker 1: even get in an overview, you know, um or giving
5:56
Speaker 1: it just hitting the highlights. We can't possibly hit all
5:59
Speaker 1: the highlights. It's just too much to it. And that's
6:01
Speaker 1: just stoicism. I still say it's worth talking about though,
6:04
Speaker 1: just because it's so interesting. So if I get up
6:07
Speaker 1: in the middle, you're gonna pull me back. Just keep
6:09
Speaker 1: going well, I like the Urban Dictionary definition um stoic
6:15
Speaker 1: is someone who does not give a beep about the
6:18
Speaker 1: stupid things in this world that most people care so
6:20
Speaker 1: much about. Stoics do have emotions, but only for the
6:22
Speaker 1: things in this world that really matter. They are the
6:24
Speaker 1: most real people alive. And then in their little example,
6:28
Speaker 1: as a group of kids sitting by the porch, stoic
6:30
Speaker 1: walks by one kind says something very mean, Hey, you're
6:35
Speaker 1: a blankety blank and you blank blank and the stoics
6:38
Speaker 1: is good for you and keeps going right. It's a
6:40
Speaker 1: part of me really like I hear that, and I'm like, man,
6:43
Speaker 1: I am so that person on so many levels. But
6:47
Speaker 1: then sometimes I'm totally not, and I think what the
6:50
Speaker 1: difference is or what matters is well, it depends on
6:53
Speaker 1: if they say something that matters to you or or
6:59
Speaker 1: if something does matter it or to you. Like I
7:01
Speaker 1: might get really riled up about some stuff that would
7:05
Speaker 1: make you not stoic that doesn't rile anyone anyone else up,
7:07
Speaker 1: But I also some things that really make other people
7:10
Speaker 1: I rate. I'm just like man, can't change it. It
7:13
Speaker 1: is what it is, uh, And I only can get
7:16
Speaker 1: upset about the things I can change. Yeah, if you
7:19
Speaker 1: could apply that to everything, you'd be pretty pretty high
7:23
Speaker 1: up there in the stoic Um pantheon. I'd be a
7:28
Speaker 1: stoic UHT five star general pretty much, five finger punch guy.
7:35
Speaker 1: All right, so we beat around the bush. I mean,
7:37
Speaker 1: that was a pretty good definition actually, even though it's
7:39
Speaker 1: from the Urban Dictionary. But um, we should say we
7:42
Speaker 1: picked that one up from a On article why Stoicism
7:45
Speaker 1: is one of the best mine hacks ever devised. That
7:47
Speaker 1: was a good one by Larry Wallace. Yeah, you did
7:50
Speaker 1: a good job kind of giving an overview of the
7:52
Speaker 1: whole thing. I think Larry Wallace is one of the
7:54
Speaker 1: great modern Stoicists. Maybe there's plenty of them running around
7:58
Speaker 1: these days. Yeah, but we're I mean, we'll we'll go
8:01
Speaker 1: back in time and study the beginnings of Stoicism because
8:05
Speaker 1: we're talking about like you hear the word stoic today
8:08
Speaker 1: and it means it was taken from this, but it's
8:10
Speaker 1: kind of someone like sort of a grim face. Stoic
8:14
Speaker 1: doesn't say much, um, and that that's not what stoicism
8:18
Speaker 1: And they say in our article several times with a
8:21
Speaker 1: capitalist really is all about? Right, Yeah, to these days,
8:25
Speaker 1: people typically, or I should say these days, up to
8:29
Speaker 1: about three years ago, people thought of stoics as somebody
8:33
Speaker 1: who could watch their dog get hit by a car,
8:35
Speaker 1: and you know their reaction was to raise their chin
8:37
Speaker 1: a little higher up in the area, you know, like
8:40
Speaker 1: just grin and bear it. Um. As Larry put it, Larry,
8:44
Speaker 1: where I'm on a first name basis with Lady Wallace Layer,
8:48
Speaker 1: that it's a philosophy of grim endurance, tolerating rather than
8:51
Speaker 1: transcending life's agonies and adversities, just kind of trudging through um,
8:59
Speaker 1: just taking hit after hit from life as it deals
9:02
Speaker 1: deals them to you, right, that that was the idea
9:04
Speaker 1: of stoicism. You can kind of like it's not like
9:07
Speaker 1: that's just radically unlike actual stoicism, but it's an outsider's
9:13
Speaker 1: interpretation of what the stoics are actually doing, what's actually
9:17
Speaker 1: going on, the purpose of the whole thing. That outsider's
9:20
Speaker 1: view that doesn't really fully understand. It became the popular
9:24
Speaker 1: view until recently, until it started to kind of gain
9:27
Speaker 1: some traction lately. Yeah, And you know, throughout the years,
9:30
Speaker 1: stoicism has informed some religions. Uh, these days, there are
9:35
Speaker 1: a lot of atheists, their stoics. Um, but I like
9:40
Speaker 1: how our article says it. Uh is, above all, it
9:44
Speaker 1: teaches the value of emotional control in living one's life fully. Yeah.
9:48
Speaker 1: So here's the basis of it. The basis of it is,
9:51
Speaker 1: if you can um detach yourself from emotional responses to things,
10:00
Speaker 1: then something that comes along, whether good or bad, is
10:03
Speaker 1: not gonna get your goat. Stoicism is all about protecting
10:06
Speaker 1: your goat and not letting anything get it. And the
10:10
Speaker 1: way that the way that they do that is by saying,
10:13
Speaker 1: there are very few things that I can control in life,
10:16
Speaker 1: and everything that I can't control, I'm not gonna get
10:19
Speaker 1: up riled up over, you know, lose my job. Oh well,
10:23
Speaker 1: it happens. It doesn't mean I'm any less of a person.
10:25
Speaker 1: I just wanted to go out and get another job.
10:28
Speaker 1: Dog gets hit by a car. Well that's really awful
10:31
Speaker 1: because I really like that dog. But I'll just go
10:34
Speaker 1: get another dog, or maybe I'll just learn to live
10:36
Speaker 1: without the dog. Maybe I was becoming too attached to
10:39
Speaker 1: the dog. Things like that. That's stoicism. But the whole
10:42
Speaker 1: point of it is it's not just to get your goat,
10:45
Speaker 1: it's or to protect your goat from being gotten. It's
10:49
Speaker 1: about UM living a moral life where you're a very
10:56
Speaker 1: good human being. And the idea is that the only
10:59
Speaker 1: way to really do that is through things like rationalism
11:02
Speaker 1: and UM investigating the universe and being understanding of knowledge
11:06
Speaker 1: and then UM pursuing ethics, specific ethics, UM. And then
11:12
Speaker 1: they figured out the best way to do that is dispassionately. Yeah.
11:16
Speaker 1: I think my bumper sticker would say, uh onboard colin,
11:21
Speaker 1: part time stoicis full time dreamer. Okay, that is that
11:26
Speaker 1: is a specific Yeah, right, bumper sticker. I used to
11:30
Speaker 1: have a lot of bumper stickers in high school and
11:32
Speaker 1: now I loathe them so much. Really, what did you have? Like, Oh,
11:36
Speaker 1: I had an old Volkswagen Beetle and that was my
11:40
Speaker 1: family actually bought brand new in nine eight and was
11:42
Speaker 1: passed down kid the kid, the kid, and it was
11:46
Speaker 1: it was very cool. I thought at the time, well,
11:49
Speaker 1: it is cool. I love those old Beetles. But I
11:51
Speaker 1: just went through on those phases where I was like,
11:54
Speaker 1: you know, here's a Native Americans saying and here's something
11:56
Speaker 1: about mother nature and this Bob Marley had this to say,
12:00
Speaker 1: and just yeah, I was from those and now I
12:03
Speaker 1: see those cars with all the things, and I'm just like,
12:06
Speaker 1: shut up, nobody cares. Yeah, for sure. I mean, did
12:15
Speaker 1: you have a three eleven sticker? No? This was pre
12:18
Speaker 1: three eleven? Actually, okay, got you? So did your mom
12:21
Speaker 1: come out and be like, what did you do to
12:22
Speaker 1: the family heirloom? Put stickers over? No, it's funny that
12:28
Speaker 1: that car had a the rear floorboard was missing on
12:31
Speaker 1: one side. My dad had a car like that in Malibu,
12:34
Speaker 1: so you could like see the street. Now that I
12:39
Speaker 1: looked back, he didn't even have a piece of wood.
12:41
Speaker 1: Now that I look back, I'm like, that was extraordinarily
12:44
Speaker 1: irresponsible to be driving around with kids in the back
12:46
Speaker 1: seat with the with the street visible. Yeah. I love
12:51
Speaker 1: your dad, Just like watch your feet kids. Yeah, easy,
12:55
Speaker 1: does it? Uh? Alright, So let's you want to go
12:58
Speaker 1: back and talk about the history a little bit. No,
13:00
Speaker 1: I want to keep beating around the book. All right,
13:03
Speaker 1: Let's get in the way back machine and we need
13:05
Speaker 1: to really juice it up because we're going way back.
13:09
Speaker 1: Got some kerosene, got some banana peels, and got some
13:13
Speaker 1: airplane glue. But that's just for us, that's right, Because
13:16
Speaker 1: it's a long ride. H ancient Greece is where we're headed, uh,
13:26
Speaker 1: to the time of the great philosophers. And um, like
13:29
Speaker 1: we said earlier, sitting here on the stoa, that was
13:31
Speaker 1: a joke, but it wasn't. And you you, you know
13:34
Speaker 1: you said stoa, You're gonna try it again. The stoa
13:38
Speaker 1: POI Kiley, yes, or painted porch is what it means.
13:41
Speaker 1: And that was a public space in Athens, Greece. It's
13:43
Speaker 1: like a portico, yeah, where where people would hang out
13:46
Speaker 1: and talk and chew the fat. And that's what I
13:48
Speaker 1: love about this time was people would just they were
13:51
Speaker 1: just alive with ideas, these philosophical ideas of trying to
13:56
Speaker 1: figure it all out. Yeah, but don't you think like
13:59
Speaker 1: everyone time you just be like everybody, shut up, I
14:04
Speaker 1: gotta do something useful, yeah talking Yeah, No, but I
14:09
Speaker 1: I I agree with you. Overall. It was a pretty
14:12
Speaker 1: thrilling time. Did you take philosophy in college at all? No? No,
14:17
Speaker 1: I didn't. Um, I really did not. I don't think
14:20
Speaker 1: I took a single philosophy class, now that I think
14:22
Speaker 1: about it. I even a survey. I took the one
14:25
Speaker 1: kind of general class. I guess it was the one
14:27
Speaker 1: on one and I actually made an A, which I
14:29
Speaker 1: didn't make a ton of a's in college. And I
14:31
Speaker 1: remember at the time kind of the same thing about
14:34
Speaker 1: half the class. I was like, man, so fascinating, And
14:38
Speaker 1: then then the other half I was just like, oh, man,
14:40
Speaker 1: what a waste of time. I do something useful, like
14:44
Speaker 1: volunteer for a charity, go makes something out of wood, anything. Alright,
14:50
Speaker 1: So back to the stoa. We're on this painted porch,
14:53
Speaker 1: this portico as it were. People are everywhere running their
14:57
Speaker 1: mouths about what they think is important. Uh. And then
15:02
Speaker 1: this dude wanders up Zeno of Sidium, Yeah, who had
15:06
Speaker 1: recently been shipwrecked. And there are other zenos. Not to
15:10
Speaker 1: be confused. I know it is confusing. There should be
15:13
Speaker 1: one zeno. There can be in all of in all
15:16
Speaker 1: of history, there were zenos of other things. But this
15:19
Speaker 1: is Zeno of Sidium. And you're right, he was shipwrecked
15:21
Speaker 1: and he was wandering around after a trip from Cyprus.
15:26
Speaker 1: Did you say we're in Athens. Oh yeah, not Georgia, No,
15:30
Speaker 1: although we did our fair shriff sitting around on porches
15:32
Speaker 1: talking nonsense there as well. But that's a porch porch, yea,
15:37
Speaker 1: not a Greek porch And so Zeno took a little
15:41
Speaker 1: bit of insight from the cynics and then eventually said,
15:44
Speaker 1: you know what, I could my kind of forming my
15:46
Speaker 1: own thoughts here, and uh, I think everyone else is
15:50
Speaker 1: doing it. I have my own philosophy. Yeah, and it's
15:53
Speaker 1: called Stoicism, Yeah, named after later later, I don't think
15:57
Speaker 1: he'd called it that. I'm not sure he'd probably called
15:59
Speaker 1: it zeno Is. They're like, yeah, it sucks, We're gonna
16:02
Speaker 1: call it Stoicism after the porch. But this is I mean,
16:06
Speaker 1: like the Stoicism very quickly became one of the big
16:10
Speaker 1: of philosophies at the time, and it rivaled some of
16:14
Speaker 1: the philosophies that it grew out of, like Socratic philosophy
16:18
Speaker 1: and like you said, cynicism the cynics, And actually, if
16:22
Speaker 1: you look at Stoicism, it's kind of a compromise between
16:27
Speaker 1: um Socrates or so creates as Bill and Ted call them, philosophy,
16:33
Speaker 1: which was that to lead a good life. And this
16:36
Speaker 1: was the point of all of the philosophies at this time,
16:39
Speaker 1: during this Age of Reason, was achieving what was called
16:42
Speaker 1: you daimonia, and daimonia is a life worth living. It's
16:47
Speaker 1: thriving it's flourishing, it's being happy, like real happiness. Right.
16:52
Speaker 1: That was the pursuit of all of these different ideas
16:56
Speaker 1: that were floating around at the time, was how to
16:58
Speaker 1: achieve that. Socrates had the idea that you achieve that
17:03
Speaker 1: through like twelve cardinal virtues, and some of them were
17:06
Speaker 1: things you could cultivate in yourself, like courage, a sense
17:09
Speaker 1: of justice, that kind of stuff. But then there are
17:12
Speaker 1: other ones too that had like everything to do with luck,
17:15
Speaker 1: Like being good looking was one of them. Right, if
17:19
Speaker 1: you were good, look, if you were ugly, sorry, buddy,
17:21
Speaker 1: you could never achieve you daimonia right on the other
17:24
Speaker 1: end of the spectrum where the cynics and the cynics
17:27
Speaker 1: believed that earthly trappings like wealth and fame and glory
17:34
Speaker 1: anything like that was the path to ruin, and that
17:37
Speaker 1: the true path to you daimonia was living simply and
17:41
Speaker 1: living in poverty. And so Zeno comes along and here's
17:45
Speaker 1: all these and as he's formulating his own ideas, he's like,
17:48
Speaker 1: Socrates makes some sense over here, and so do the
17:51
Speaker 1: cynics a little bit, but I'm gonna put them together.
17:53
Speaker 1: And that's where Stoicism came from. It was a compromise
17:56
Speaker 1: between the two where you live a life of of
18:00
Speaker 1: pursuing you damonia through these virtues. Four virtues Um. I
18:05
Speaker 1: think there's justice, courage, wisdom, and then temperance. Right, So
18:11
Speaker 1: you're practicing those four virtues. So that's that's kind of
18:14
Speaker 1: a nod to Socrates. Um. And you don't have to
18:20
Speaker 1: live in poverty. You can be wealthy, because the stoicism
18:24
Speaker 1: is anything, it's wealthy. People who got into philosophy um
18:29
Speaker 1: that weren't quite sure how to feel about being wealthy,
18:32
Speaker 1: to say, to kind of come to the point that,
18:35
Speaker 1: like happen, money is not a bad thing, right, right,
18:37
Speaker 1: And so what they came up with was, um, sure
18:42
Speaker 1: you can be wealthy, and that's okay. You can prefer
18:46
Speaker 1: to be wealthy, but you just can't be attached to it.
18:48
Speaker 1: You can't desire to be wealthy because you can't control
18:51
Speaker 1: being wealthy, and if you pursue being wealthy, you're pursuing
18:55
Speaker 1: something beyond your control. So if you just happen to
18:57
Speaker 1: be wealthy, that's great. You can be happy with it,
19:00
Speaker 1: but also be prepared to lose it at any given time.
19:03
Speaker 1: And that's a big part of stoicism. Yeah, I think
19:07
Speaker 1: it's so funny though, to think about, like thousands of
19:10
Speaker 1: years ago in ancient Greece, like they spent so much
19:14
Speaker 1: time thinking about living this all these schools of thought
19:17
Speaker 1: of living this life, so like, uh, putting so much
19:23
Speaker 1: thought into living to life to its fullest and all
19:26
Speaker 1: the different ways that they defined it. And eventually, like
19:31
Speaker 1: over the years, like as recently as like the generation
19:34
Speaker 1: of our parents and grandparents the United States, like the
19:38
Speaker 1: philosophy of life was like you just go to work
19:41
Speaker 1: and you work hard until you die, and that's the
19:43
Speaker 1: only thing that matters. Like all that stuff is garbage. Yeah, well,
19:48
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the reasons why stoicism is
19:50
Speaker 1: is becoming appealing Again, is this idea that like work
19:54
Speaker 1: seems to be kind of going through a weird transformation,
19:57
Speaker 1: doesn't it, Like it's not like that anymore? Like that
20:01
Speaker 1: that that that ethic is still around for sure, But like,
20:05
Speaker 1: how many people do you know work from home? Like
20:07
Speaker 1: almost entirely a lot a lot, And that's fairly new.
20:12
Speaker 1: So I wonder if like this changing work dynamic is
20:16
Speaker 1: leading to this resurgence and stoicism that you can't find
20:19
Speaker 1: happiness through other stuff. I mean, part of me thinks
20:22
Speaker 1: this is all like super worthwhile, and part of me
20:24
Speaker 1: thinks and it's sort of indulgent to sin and a
20:28
Speaker 1: bit like you said, naval gayzy and like put just
20:32
Speaker 1: start practicing good things instead of sitting around thinking about
20:37
Speaker 1: the best way to live life. Well, we'll talk about
20:39
Speaker 1: criticisms of them later on, but I think you hit
20:42
Speaker 1: a big one though, Chuck, was the idea that it's
20:44
Speaker 1: self indulgent because it it demands introspection almost every moment
20:50
Speaker 1: of every day. You want to take a break and
20:52
Speaker 1: then get back to it. Yeah, I gotta, I gotta
20:54
Speaker 1: get my head together. Where's that airplane glue here? You get?
20:57
Speaker 1: All right? Nothing like airplane glue to get your head
21:26
Speaker 1: back on straight. Is just kidding, of course. Everyone Sure,
21:30
Speaker 1: we're smart guys. We don't do that kind of thing. No,
21:33
Speaker 1: it's pretty tough to be smart and huff model airplane glue.
21:37
Speaker 1: It's pretty you're pretty much making a choice between that
21:39
Speaker 1: and being smart. That's what they teach you early on.
21:42
Speaker 1: You want to go somewhere life, you want to huff
21:44
Speaker 1: airplane glue. It's the one thing Nancy Reagan didn't lie about,
21:50
Speaker 1: all right, So Zeno got things going, um, peace of
21:57
Speaker 1: mind that comes with living a life of virtue in
21:59
Speaker 1: accordance with re in in nature. And then other dudes
22:01
Speaker 1: got on boards, and of course got on boards, got
22:04
Speaker 1: on board, and they were all dudes back then because
22:06
Speaker 1: everything was from the man's perspective. Uh, I just want
22:09
Speaker 1: to point that out, Yeah, because it's changed so dramatically
22:12
Speaker 1: since then. But some of the other early stoicist Cleanthes Kato, Kato,
22:20
Speaker 1: the younger, elder younger, right, Kato, the calin oh man,
22:25
Speaker 1: I forgot about him. I'm not sure which Kato. I
22:27
Speaker 1: think it's the younger. Yeah, we'll find out from two
22:31
Speaker 1: people who email into let us. Uh Seneca. And then
22:35
Speaker 1: a very important stoicis Uh. Well, I'm gonna pronounce it
22:41
Speaker 1: epic epic epic tectus. Epic tetus sounds like a vaccine shot.
22:50
Speaker 1: It does E P I C T E H t
22:53
Speaker 1: U s. It's the C going into a T that's
22:55
Speaker 1: getting you. It's just epic tetius or epic tetis. I
22:59
Speaker 1: think I pictitis is what we should go with. I
23:02
Speaker 1: want another see in there. I wanted to be epithectus,
23:04
Speaker 1: but it's not. No it's not alright, So, uh, don't
23:09
Speaker 1: forget Marcus Aurelius. Man. Oh well, sure, I mean he
23:12
Speaker 1: comes a little bit later, like he was. He was
23:13
Speaker 1: the ruler of Anthentt. Man, what is my problem today?
23:20
Speaker 1: It's okay, man, Everyone knew what you meant. He was
23:23
Speaker 1: the philosopher king and that was when Stoicism was kind
23:26
Speaker 1: of the most popular thing going. Yeah. Yeah. Apparently they
23:31
Speaker 1: moved from Athens to Rome, which I didn't realize this.
23:35
Speaker 1: I always had the idea um that Rome venerated Hellenistic
23:39
Speaker 1: Greece hundreds of years after basically the Greek civilization had
23:45
Speaker 1: had just kind of, you know, gone into a bit
23:48
Speaker 1: of a twilight or had gone out of its heyday. No,
23:52
Speaker 1: there was total cross pollination, including some of these early
23:55
Speaker 1: Stoics who traveled from Athens to Rome, and basically with
24:00
Speaker 1: that move transferred the seed of philosophy from Athens to Rome,
24:04
Speaker 1: from Greek to Rome, to Um to Rome, from Greece
24:07
Speaker 1: to Rome. I didn't realize that they were They were
24:09
Speaker 1: actually like cross pollinating one another at the time. Did
24:13
Speaker 1: you know that? I think I recalled that from deep
24:16
Speaker 1: in my college memory. Banks nice. Uh, so Epitetus Tedis
24:21
Speaker 1: man Um. He had a big role in the Stoic movement.
24:26
Speaker 1: He was a former slave um, which kind of makes
24:30
Speaker 1: sense and for in terms of Stoicism, he almost almost
24:35
Speaker 1: single handedly gives um credence to uh Stoicism because so
24:41
Speaker 1: many other Stoics were extraordinarily wealthy, powerful man that it's like, yeah,
24:47
Speaker 1: it's pretty easy for you to go through life saying,
24:50
Speaker 1: you know, it's just just take what life gives you.
24:53
Speaker 1: If life is giving you nothing but gold, bullying all
24:55
Speaker 1: the time. Right, this guy was born a slave, crippled
24:59
Speaker 1: in the knee for life and and became a Stoic,
25:04
Speaker 1: one of the great Stoic thinkers, and just through his
25:07
Speaker 1: life proved that Stoicism can work. Yeah, And he wrote
25:11
Speaker 1: a handbook at the time was called an Encridian, and
25:14
Speaker 1: he wrote the Incridian of Epic Tetis, And in coridium
25:19
Speaker 1: literally means handbook, it means ready at hand. So it
25:23
Speaker 1: was a very famous handbook. And he attributed, I mean,
25:26
Speaker 1: the first line of it was some things are in
25:29
Speaker 1: our control and others not right, and that kind of
25:32
Speaker 1: sums it all up, like he could have said the end,
25:35
Speaker 1: but he decided to dive a little deeper. I agree
25:38
Speaker 1: with you. I think our brand of Stoicism has about
25:42
Speaker 1: the same contours because that that that right there, that's all.
25:46
Speaker 1: That's everything you need to know, right there is some
25:49
Speaker 1: things you can control, most things you can't control. There
25:53
Speaker 1: you go, don't get too high, too low, right, don't
25:56
Speaker 1: get too mad about something. Well, ultimately, I think that's
25:59
Speaker 1: what boils down to. I don't really find much of
26:03
Speaker 1: a problem when people are overjoyed. I don't think that's
26:07
Speaker 1: an issue. And technically with Stoicism, that is a that's
26:10
Speaker 1: a problem. You should not become overjoyed. The experiencing joy
26:14
Speaker 1: is fine. But but just being like overcome with happiness
26:18
Speaker 1: or joy or um, grief or whatever it is you're
26:23
Speaker 1: you're you're violating one of those four cardinal virtues, temperance,
26:27
Speaker 1: which is just being tempered and even keeled. So but
26:31
Speaker 1: I think if you're saying, um, don't get upset about
26:34
Speaker 1: something that's out of your control. Don't blame others, don't
26:38
Speaker 1: try to control other people. Just know that whatever comes
26:41
Speaker 1: you can handle it. There you go. That's all you
26:43
Speaker 1: need to know for me. Yeah, and you know, I mean,
26:46
Speaker 1: how many times have you heard me say it is
26:48
Speaker 1: what it is, which is an annoying thing to hear
26:50
Speaker 1: and say, but it's pretty stoic. Well it is, but
26:54
Speaker 1: it's also in my case, like it is what it
26:56
Speaker 1: is until it Isn't It just matters if I personally
27:00
Speaker 1: riled up about something, you know? Yeah, but I think
27:04
Speaker 1: again though, if like, there's probably some people who listen
27:07
Speaker 1: who who um subscribe to at least modern stoicism listening
27:12
Speaker 1: to this, and I would guess that they would say
27:15
Speaker 1: that's because stoicism is basically meant to apply to every
27:19
Speaker 1: day of your life. Like, no stoics are really expected
27:22
Speaker 1: to become stages in their lifetimes. That it's something you
27:25
Speaker 1: just do every single day, is try to not get
27:28
Speaker 1: riled up. But of course you're something's gonna come along
27:31
Speaker 1: and get you riled up. That's just human nature. Stoicism
27:34
Speaker 1: is trying to put a bridle on that human nature. Yeah. Well,
27:38
Speaker 1: and this is insider stuff. Uh. I think you and
27:41
Speaker 1: I compliment each other because we rarely get worked up
27:46
Speaker 1: about the same thing. Just voter suppression. Well, no, it
27:50
Speaker 1: happens here and there, but just in our personal lives
27:53
Speaker 1: and and everything to do with work. Like oftentimes I've
27:57
Speaker 1: noticed like something that will rile me up your and
28:00
Speaker 1: me down and the other way around. And I mean,
28:03
Speaker 1: I think that's one reason we've lasted so long. Like
28:06
Speaker 1: if two people were so similar that they're constantly worked
28:09
Speaker 1: up about the same stuff, no one, you know, you're
28:13
Speaker 1: just gonna be working each other up, and no one's
28:14
Speaker 1: going to be there to say, hey, man, it is
28:16
Speaker 1: what it is. Yeah, man, hey, mellow out, here's the
28:19
Speaker 1: Bob Marley bumpers exactly. H So should we talk a
28:23
Speaker 1: little bit about the areas of study? Yeah, all right,
28:27
Speaker 1: Well there are three main ones and stoicism, uh, and
28:32
Speaker 1: this is all you know to deal with introspection, which
28:34
Speaker 1: is kind of like all philosophies. Um, physics is the
28:38
Speaker 1: first thing. And it's not physics like you think of
28:41
Speaker 1: that you hate studying in high school. Well, it falls
28:44
Speaker 1: under a larger umbrella term, I guess. Yeah. They're talking
28:47
Speaker 1: about the the natural world, the natural universe, and also
28:50
Speaker 1: what lies beyond it. And and when they say the
28:54
Speaker 1: natural world, they're talking about everything, um, God, the divine nature,
29:00
Speaker 1: everything that we know and things that we don't know. Yeah,
29:03
Speaker 1: everything we would view as science or like you said, nature, Um, yeah,
29:08
Speaker 1: all that stuff that's physics and all of it. The
29:11
Speaker 1: one of the things the Stoics, I think, if they
29:15
Speaker 1: weren't the first to come up with it, they definitely
29:18
Speaker 1: popularized it. Was the idea that all of this was interconnected,
29:23
Speaker 1: which is pretty I mean, you take it for granted today,
29:25
Speaker 1: like everybody thinks that everything is interconnected these days, but um,
29:30
Speaker 1: it's to be among the first to kind of point
29:33
Speaker 1: that out or suggest that's pretty pretty significant contribution to
29:37
Speaker 1: Western thought. Yeah, imagine that was a pretty deep thing
29:41
Speaker 1: when it first started hitting people. You know. Can you
29:44
Speaker 1: just see George Carlin being like, oh, you just blew
29:46
Speaker 1: my mind? Uh oh, because he was so great. Man. Wait, no,
29:52
Speaker 1: he wasn't so great. He was he was the guide
29:56
Speaker 1: their spirit and what was his name? We'll just edit
30:04
Speaker 1: this part out. I didn't know. I had to brush
30:05
Speaker 1: up on my bill and dead. I didn't either. I
30:08
Speaker 1: surprised myself. You should have seen my face. You know.
30:10
Speaker 1: They kept they kept talking about remakes because recently, as
30:14
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, I think, or not remakes,
30:16
Speaker 1: but sequels with the original. Yeah, Like Canna Reeves was like, man,
30:22
Speaker 1: I love those movies. I'd love to make another one.
30:24
Speaker 1: Did you see what what was? Um? So was Keanu Reeves,
30:28
Speaker 1: Bill or Ted? Why are we even doing this to ourselves? Boy?
30:33
Speaker 1: I want to say he was Ted. So the guy
30:35
Speaker 1: who played the other guy, Yeah, Alex Winter. Oh jeez, Chuck, wow,
30:40
Speaker 1: A nice job. So Alex Winter was in um what
30:48
Speaker 1: was the Charles Bronson vehicle, like his most favor death
30:51
Speaker 1: Wish Death Wish three. Death Wish three was what he
30:54
Speaker 1: was in, which was when Golding Globus got their hands
30:57
Speaker 1: on it and turned it into like a schlock island
31:01
Speaker 1: like um, almost post apocalyptic movie. Um. And he's great
31:06
Speaker 1: in it. But he's also in um A a documentary
31:10
Speaker 1: on Golding Globus. I can't remember what the name of
31:13
Speaker 1: the name of the documentaries, but it's just about how
31:16
Speaker 1: bad the movies they made were and how how gleefully
31:20
Speaker 1: these guys made them. But um, he's interviewed in it.
31:23
Speaker 1: That guy hasn't aged a day. No, he looks exactly Okay,
31:28
Speaker 1: So he's Bill. Yeah alright, So, uh so we got
31:33
Speaker 1: that settled. Physics was done. What's next? Uh, logic which
31:37
Speaker 1: they wanted to include, um, social scientists, psychology, sociology, history,
31:43
Speaker 1: which I kind of like, I'm down with that. As
31:45
Speaker 1: far as the philosophies go, they want to include all
31:48
Speaker 1: this stuff. But collectively they kind of called this all reason.
31:53
Speaker 1: It was a very big deal, uh, to Stoicism, perhaps
31:56
Speaker 1: the biggest deal, right. And they also were engaged in
31:59
Speaker 1: a pistol pology, which is theories of what knowledge is,
32:03
Speaker 1: how we gain knowledge, what's true, what's belief, what's false?
32:07
Speaker 1: How do we differentiate between these things? And they spend
32:10
Speaker 1: a lot of time investigating this and putting it all
32:13
Speaker 1: under logic, because it was through logic that you could
32:18
Speaker 1: investigate physics, which included investigating God and the nature of
32:23
Speaker 1: universe and stuff like that. And then through all that
32:27
Speaker 1: that investigation, that introspection, that navel gazing, Um, you were
32:33
Speaker 1: ultimately figuring out how to best pursue and best live
32:38
Speaker 1: out the third part, which was the ethics of the
32:40
Speaker 1: whole thing. Yeah, and you mentioned the four great virtues earlier, courage, justice, wisdom,
32:46
Speaker 1: and temperance, and Um, the whole idea here is, Uh,
32:51
Speaker 1: It's it's not like you want to block out the
32:52
Speaker 1: bad and only embrace the good. You like, you want
32:54
Speaker 1: to consider both the good and the bad, but just
32:57
Speaker 1: don't let it any of it get in the way
32:59
Speaker 1: of any thing that you're trying to pursue in your life. Right,
33:04
Speaker 1: pretty simple. Yeah, and the whole good bad thing. Where
33:09
Speaker 1: did you find this this thing on ethics? Was that
33:12
Speaker 1: the that was the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy from their
33:17
Speaker 1: and from their entry on it. Yeah, it's pretty pretty good.
33:20
Speaker 1: The whole thing was. Dude, you should have seen how
33:23
Speaker 1: in depth they go though, But I thought this one
33:24
Speaker 1: was a good snippet. Well, I was sure, Yeah, they
33:27
Speaker 1: dive pretty deep, but I thought this was a pretty
33:30
Speaker 1: good little summation there. And you know, they were talking
33:32
Speaker 1: about um, like you said, like money isn't just not
33:37
Speaker 1: good or a k A bad things like this they
33:41
Speaker 1: called indifference as in uh I N D I F
33:46
Speaker 1: F E R E N T S not indifference, And
33:50
Speaker 1: it's like not good or bad. It could be either one. Um,
33:55
Speaker 1: it's really kind of all about not letting something like
33:58
Speaker 1: that get in the way of your pursuit. Right. So
34:02
Speaker 1: and again it went back to wealth, right, and this um,
34:05
Speaker 1: this person in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy points out that
34:10
Speaker 1: like money, definitely being wealthy usually is is helpful or
34:17
Speaker 1: beneficial to the individual, but it can also not be beneficial.
34:23
Speaker 1: Where say you have a big heroin problem, Well, the
34:26
Speaker 1: more money you get, the more money you're gonna spend
34:27
Speaker 1: on heroin. So in that case, being wealthy is detrimental
34:31
Speaker 1: to you're not beneficial. And for something to be a
34:33
Speaker 1: good it has to be good under all circumstances, and
34:38
Speaker 1: to a stoic only there's only four things that are
34:40
Speaker 1: good under all circumstances, which are those four cardinal virtues.
34:44
Speaker 1: Everything else, like you said, is an indifferent and it
34:47
Speaker 1: can either be preferred or dispreferred, like wealth typically would
34:51
Speaker 1: fall under being a preferred and different whereas say disease,
34:56
Speaker 1: having chronic disease would be a disprefer just dispreper wow,
35:03
Speaker 1: a dispreferred indifferent man. That's tough though it is um
35:08
Speaker 1: But the point is is whether it's fabulous wealth or diabetes,
35:14
Speaker 1: they should affect you about the same or you might
35:17
Speaker 1: want one, you might not want to have one, but
35:19
Speaker 1: if you have either one, you can live with it.
35:21
Speaker 1: And that brings up a huge, huge component of stoicism
35:26
Speaker 1: that's really been blown up and exploded in the twenty
35:30
Speaker 1: one century, which is you should take adversity and turn
35:36
Speaker 1: it into a an opportunity for growth. That is a
35:40
Speaker 1: huge aspect of Stoicism. That's that's really being practiced and
35:44
Speaker 1: espoused these days. Yeah, I'm down with that. Like I
35:50
Speaker 1: don't I don't think I like being able to take
35:54
Speaker 1: from all these philosophies and different religions to form your
35:57
Speaker 1: sort of pathway through life. You know, like when I
36:01
Speaker 1: hear sometimes I've started to read about Buddhism and the
36:05
Speaker 1: whole thing with Buddhism of like every day you start
36:09
Speaker 1: a new and you have a new chance. Like that
36:11
Speaker 1: really appeals to me too. What I don't like is uh,
36:16
Speaker 1: when either religions or philosophy say like and like this
36:20
Speaker 1: is the only way, then everything else is BS. Sure,
36:25
Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, that's just that's a harsh buzz kill.
36:29
Speaker 1: There really is not only is a b S, but
36:32
Speaker 1: I'm gonna kill you for thinking otherwise. So Seneca, who
36:37
Speaker 1: was one of the great thinkers of Stoicism. He was
36:41
Speaker 1: an advisor to Nero, and we'll talk about him as
36:44
Speaker 1: criticism of Stoicism later on, but he had a very
36:49
Speaker 1: famous quote where he says, you are unfortunate in my judgment,
36:54
Speaker 1: for you have never been unfortunate. You have passed through
36:57
Speaker 1: life with no antagonists to face you. No one will
37:00
Speaker 1: know what you are capable of, not even yourself, And
37:03
Speaker 1: that kind of shapes that the basis of that idea
37:07
Speaker 1: that no matter what life throws at you, you take
37:11
Speaker 1: it and you say, I'm going to become a better
37:13
Speaker 1: person from this, like, oh this happened, Well, that's great
37:16
Speaker 1: because that means that I can learn to be better
37:19
Speaker 1: at this. So my dog just got hit by a car.
37:22
Speaker 1: I'm gonna practice um fortitude and make it through this
37:28
Speaker 1: really hard time and become a stronger person on the
37:32
Speaker 1: other side. Yeah, he may as well have said you
37:35
Speaker 1: comma trust fund kid, Comma s right exactly. And I
37:39
Speaker 1: mean that that that makes a people turn that on
37:43
Speaker 1: Seneca as well, but a lot of modern Stoics come
37:46
Speaker 1: to his defense. Is like, no, like, I had a
37:48
Speaker 1: harder life than you would think. Should we take another break? Yeah,
37:52
Speaker 1: all right, let's do it, and we'll talk about Seneca
37:54
Speaker 1: and Cicero and all other kinds of weird names. So
38:22
Speaker 1: Chucky you were saying, you were talking about um religion.
38:26
Speaker 1: Stoicism apparently informed Christianity in a lot of ways. Yeah,
38:30
Speaker 1: in Buddhism in some ways. Yeah, Yet atheists embrace it.
38:34
Speaker 1: It's these days, but I mean the early stoics were
38:38
Speaker 1: definitely they definitely believed in a divine intervention. It was
38:42
Speaker 1: kind of the basis of the whole thing, that this
38:44
Speaker 1: is God's will, So why why you've tried to control it?
38:48
Speaker 1: Who are you to try to control it? Just roll
38:50
Speaker 1: with the punches. Yeah, that's a big when when I
38:53
Speaker 1: was taking all those philosophy quizzes, they're all a little
38:56
Speaker 1: bit different, but you saw through line through a lot
38:59
Speaker 1: of these questions, and uh, the free will one was
39:02
Speaker 1: in every single one of them. Yeah, like, how do
39:05
Speaker 1: you feel about free will? And different ways of asking it?
39:08
Speaker 1: But you know that you will. What do you think
39:11
Speaker 1: if exactly if you want to find out which philosophy
39:15
Speaker 1: that you jibe with, uh, you have to answer the
39:18
Speaker 1: free will question. Free will question. Yeah, hey, that's easier
39:22
Speaker 1: to say than just preferred indifferent. Nice work. So um
39:29
Speaker 1: So one of the big points, especially today for practicing
39:33
Speaker 1: stoicism is looking at adversity as a growth opportunity for growth, Right,
39:38
Speaker 1: that's just a good tool in life. Innic another one
39:41
Speaker 1: and this one, I really this is where I big
39:44
Speaker 1: time diverged from stoicism as like, a part of a
39:46
Speaker 1: daily practice is something called negative visualization. Yeah, like, uh,
39:53
Speaker 1: try and try and imagine the worst case scenario constantly. Yeah,
39:58
Speaker 1: I'm not into that at all. No, So say you're
40:01
Speaker 1: say you're right, like your child's birthday party, right, and
40:04
Speaker 1: you are not you specifically, this is you just a
40:08
Speaker 1: general person, and you're having just the most intense moment
40:14
Speaker 1: of of joy and appreciation for your child. According to stoics,
40:20
Speaker 1: you should follow that up with a thought about how
40:22
Speaker 1: at your child's next doctor's appointment, your child could be
40:25
Speaker 1: diagnosed with terminal leukemia. That that is what you should
40:30
Speaker 1: be doing basically all the time, negative visualization. And the
40:34
Speaker 1: idea is it's twofold one. You're preventing yourself from becoming
40:38
Speaker 1: overjoyed at that moment. Don't don't do that. And then secondly,
40:43
Speaker 1: you're you're exploring how you will feel if your kid
40:48
Speaker 1: does get diagnosed to something horrible or something bad happens,
40:53
Speaker 1: and that when it actually happens, you'll say that's not
40:57
Speaker 1: so bad. I'm already used to it, or you'll be
41:00
Speaker 1: able to confront it through your imagination and say, this
41:03
Speaker 1: is what I'm afraid of that's not that bad. But
41:06
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a really extreme, horrific example. But but
41:10
Speaker 1: it is. Ultimately it's definitely in step with stoic stoicism
41:15
Speaker 1: that you should be visualizing the worst case scenario all
41:18
Speaker 1: the time. Yeah, I mean, And that's one of the
41:20
Speaker 1: reasons stoicism has such a downer reputation. Uh, such that
41:25
Speaker 1: Cicero uh wrote a stoic rouse enthusiasm, he is much
41:31
Speaker 1: more likely to extinguish any enthusiasm the student may have
41:34
Speaker 1: to begin with, Yeah, it was a pretty good burn. Um,
41:41
Speaker 1: and you know, I get that. Like, who would if
41:44
Speaker 1: you if that was one of the first things you learned,
41:47
Speaker 1: if you started to poke around with stoicism, people would
41:52
Speaker 1: probably be like, Man, I don't want to. I don't.
41:53
Speaker 1: I don't like the sounds of that. Yeah. I like
41:56
Speaker 1: that you're not having to control everything aspect, but the
41:59
Speaker 1: thinking about no thingbut negative thoughts all the time, you know,
42:02
Speaker 1: And I get the point of it. I just it
42:05
Speaker 1: doesn't it doesn't appeal to me. No, I mean, you
42:07
Speaker 1: shouldn't be Pollyanna either. Um. Well, no, it's it's in
42:11
Speaker 1: direct contradiction to the idea of the power of positive thinking,
42:16
Speaker 1: which is stoics like, you fool, what are you doing.
42:18
Speaker 1: All you're doing is setting yourself up for nothing but
42:21
Speaker 1: let downs when that doesn't actually come true. Well, but
42:25
Speaker 1: I also agree with that to a certain degree, you know,
42:27
Speaker 1: like the whole like just you can conjure it up
42:30
Speaker 1: just by thinking positively. I think that's on the opposite
42:34
Speaker 1: side equally, Uh b s sure, sure, I think so too.
42:40
Speaker 1: I'm kind of right down the middle, I guess when
42:42
Speaker 1: it comes to that stuff, and I think most people are.
42:44
Speaker 1: But I think that's what's fascinating about this kind of
42:46
Speaker 1: thing is it's like, well, well there's are some people
42:49
Speaker 1: actually are to these these degrees, these extremes. It's interesting
42:53
Speaker 1: to me. Well yeah, And the other's interesting thing is
42:55
Speaker 1: we you know, you're talking about Christianity, and then it's
42:58
Speaker 1: weird how stoicism on one hand, like atheists like I
43:02
Speaker 1: can totally see how they'd be down with Stoicism, but
43:05
Speaker 1: also the whole notion that uh, some believers from God
43:10
Speaker 1: and some Christians like give it all up to God
43:13
Speaker 1: because only God can control anything. So all we're gonna
43:17
Speaker 1: do is is pray about it. And that's popular among
43:20
Speaker 1: Stoics as well. So it's just interesting that it has
43:24
Speaker 1: such a wide range as far as from atheism to
43:28
Speaker 1: like the you know, serious, serious, give it up to
43:31
Speaker 1: God Christianity, right yeah, no, definitely yeah, And it almost
43:35
Speaker 1: it's kind of like it's that buffet thing again where
43:38
Speaker 1: people can come along and take what they want from
43:40
Speaker 1: it and it becomes part of their own philosophy or
43:43
Speaker 1: their own religion or whatever. Um. Let's talk about some
43:49
Speaker 1: of the ways that that has been used over the
43:52
Speaker 1: year's stoicism. Right, So there's been a lot of people
43:56
Speaker 1: who have followed Stoic thought, like Adam Smith Apparently, um
44:02
Speaker 1: was very much informed by Stoicism when you wrote The
44:05
Speaker 1: Wealth of Nations because one of the big, big, big
44:08
Speaker 1: aspects of it was individual liberty. One one cool thing
44:12
Speaker 1: about the early Stoics was that everybody's equal, right, it
44:16
Speaker 1: doesn't matter whether you're a man, woman, gay, straight, uh, black, white, whatever,
44:22
Speaker 1: everyone is equal. And this was at a time when
44:24
Speaker 1: slavery was rampant, right yeah, Um, so that was a big,
44:29
Speaker 1: big that's a big aspect to um. That's a big
44:32
Speaker 1: aspect of the Wealth of Nations is anybody can come
44:35
Speaker 1: along and and become a capitalist. You just have to
44:38
Speaker 1: compete right. Um. Another place that it popped up kind
44:42
Speaker 1: of famously was in cognitive behavioral therapy. Yeah, which initially
44:47
Speaker 1: when I saw that, I was like, that kind of
44:49
Speaker 1: surprised me, but then it all made sense, Like exposure
44:53
Speaker 1: two something bad can help you get over. It is
44:57
Speaker 1: kind of like that conjuring that the worst possible it's
45:01
Speaker 1: almost numbing yourself to the worst possible thing. If you
45:04
Speaker 1: think about that worst case scenario thing all the time.
45:09
Speaker 1: It's almost a way of preparing for that. Yeah. And
45:11
Speaker 1: and it's rooted specifically. One of the founders of CBT,
45:16
Speaker 1: Albert ellis Um, was an adherent of Um of Stoicism
45:20
Speaker 1: as a younger man, and the what's known as the
45:24
Speaker 1: cognitive model of emotion, which is the basis of cognitive
45:28
Speaker 1: behavioral therapy, is based on Epictetus's um maxim that people
45:34
Speaker 1: are disturbed not by things, but by their view of things.
45:39
Speaker 1: And that's part of that whole Stoic philosophy, which is
45:43
Speaker 1: nothing is good or bad. There's only good in the
45:47
Speaker 1: four virtues. Everything else is how you view it. Whether
45:51
Speaker 1: it's losing your job or winning the lottery, those aren't
45:54
Speaker 1: those things aren't inherently good. Or bad. It's you, the
45:56
Speaker 1: person experiencing that, who bestows good or bad on them?
46:02
Speaker 1: And why label things? I'm down with that. Yeah, a
46:06
Speaker 1: little bit. Did you hear about Admiral Stockdale. I remember
46:11
Speaker 1: that name for sure when he came out with his
46:14
Speaker 1: h with his book, uh, Courage under Fire, Colin Testing
46:20
Speaker 1: epic tectus is Doctrines and the Laboratory of Human Behavior.
46:26
Speaker 1: He was a famous UM prisoner of war in Vietnam
46:30
Speaker 1: for seven years, endured some of the worst of the
46:32
Speaker 1: worst you can imagine in war. And what got him
46:35
Speaker 1: through was certainly not Christianity, because he thought that's nothing
46:42
Speaker 1: but false hope. Well not not only that, he shared
46:45
Speaker 1: the pow camp with people who you who clung to
46:48
Speaker 1: that and and did not make it right up front.
46:52
Speaker 1: So what got him through was his stoic beliefs. Yeah,
46:56
Speaker 1: he was a huge, big time adherent of Epictetus. Um.
47:00
Speaker 1: He'd studied him in college. Apparently he'd read everything that
47:03
Speaker 1: Epictetus had written or said. I had been written down
47:07
Speaker 1: and attributed to Epictetus twice from two different translators. So
47:13
Speaker 1: this guy knew is Epictetus and he said, well, I'm
47:16
Speaker 1: a prisoner of war in Vietnam. I've got some broken bones,
47:19
Speaker 1: I'm starving, I'm being mistreated. I'll be here for seven years.
47:23
Speaker 1: What a perfect opportunity to put Epictetus's teachings to the
47:27
Speaker 1: test in a real life laboratory experiment. And he said,
47:31
Speaker 1: Epictetus passed the flying colors. Was was Stockdale's final report
47:36
Speaker 1: on it? Yeah, he said. If Epictetus's lecture room was
47:39
Speaker 1: a hospital, my prison was a laboratory, a laboratory of
47:42
Speaker 1: human behavior. I chose to test his postulates against the demanding,
47:45
Speaker 1: real life challenges of my laboratory. So, man, talk about
47:50
Speaker 1: a strong will, like to be based with that and
47:52
Speaker 1: be like, well, hey, this is a great chance to
47:55
Speaker 1: work on my philosophy of life. Exactly what else am
47:59
Speaker 1: I gonna do? But that that follows in and of
48:01
Speaker 1: itself on the whole too, of um, turning adversity into
48:06
Speaker 1: a room for growth as well. Yeah, man, yeah, stronger
48:09
Speaker 1: than me. Let's just say that. So, um, you want
48:13
Speaker 1: to talk about some criticisms of stoicism, Well, Cicero certainly
48:17
Speaker 1: thought it was a big downer. Yeah, um, he said,
48:22
Speaker 1: well you already said, but he said, right, it basically
48:24
Speaker 1: extinguishes enthusiasm and students not a good thing, right, And
48:28
Speaker 1: over the years, the fact that some of the great
48:31
Speaker 1: Stoic thinkers of all time have been super wealthy and powerful.
48:35
Speaker 1: Seneca Marcus Aurelius was the Emperor of Rome. He basically
48:40
Speaker 1: ran the free world. Well, I don't know if the
48:42
Speaker 1: free world's right the Western world for almost twenty years.
48:47
Speaker 1: And when you sit there and yeah, again, if you
48:49
Speaker 1: say yes, you can turn anything into any adversity into
48:55
Speaker 1: an opportunity. If if you're super wealthy, you don't have
48:57
Speaker 1: to worry about where your food is going to come from. Like, yes,
48:59
Speaker 1: of course you can be a Stoic. And then Epictetus
49:02
Speaker 1: came along and, like we said, kind of erased all
49:06
Speaker 1: that to an extent for sure, but it is still
49:09
Speaker 1: kind of criticizes like a a wealthy person's philosophy, and
49:15
Speaker 1: it kind of smacks of that a little bit today
49:17
Speaker 1: to Chuck with its huge um resurgence in Silicon Valley.
49:22
Speaker 1: Uh is that happening? Oh? Yeah, most most of the
49:26
Speaker 1: Stoic revival is taking place there. That's where it's cradle
49:30
Speaker 1: is right now. Well, our own article has a couple
49:33
Speaker 1: of good points to talk about it. Um not being
49:37
Speaker 1: hiss appealing because it lacks the mystique of Eastern practice. Uh.
49:41
Speaker 1: And then they also said, this is also regarded as
49:44
Speaker 1: a philosophy of merely breaking even while remaining determinedly impassive. Yes.
49:50
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's entirely fair, but it's a
49:52
Speaker 1: it's it kind of catches it a little bit. Well, yeah,
49:57
Speaker 1: because the very next sentences, this attitude ignores the as
50:00
Speaker 1: proffered by stoicism of blasting transcendence. And that one article
50:03
Speaker 1: that you sent talked about the power of indifference, right,
50:07
Speaker 1: which I thought it was interesting. It's not about just
50:11
Speaker 1: like not caring about anything. It's about caring about only
50:15
Speaker 1: the right things that you have the power to change. Yeah.
50:18
Speaker 1: And also though I also see that even keel aspect
50:23
Speaker 1: being indifferent, the power of it, I mean, think about
50:26
Speaker 1: how much time whenever you you are like super happy
50:30
Speaker 1: about something going right or super upset about something going wrong,
50:34
Speaker 1: you're ultimately you're being distracted from keeping on keeping on,
50:40
Speaker 1: and then you go back to eventually get back to
50:43
Speaker 1: that middle again, which is the baseline anyway. And so
50:46
Speaker 1: I guess what stoics are doing is staying on that
50:49
Speaker 1: that baseline and not being distracted so they can get
50:54
Speaker 1: further along faster or at a more steady pace. Yeah.
50:58
Speaker 1: I mean, there's definitely, uh, something that's really frustrating in life,
51:02
Speaker 1: which is when you look back and say, man, I've
51:04
Speaker 1: spent two days stressed and worried about something that I
51:10
Speaker 1: have no control over, right, And what a waste of
51:12
Speaker 1: time that was when I could have done X, Y
51:14
Speaker 1: and Z. One of the big questions I have. It's
51:17
Speaker 1: not necessarily a criticism. I guess it depends on what
51:20
Speaker 1: the answer would be. But my one, my big question
51:22
Speaker 1: for stoicism, since it's so um it places so much
51:27
Speaker 1: emphasis on the individual and self exploration and introspection. How
51:32
Speaker 1: would a stoic suggest enacting massive social change where something
51:40
Speaker 1: some ill is happening to some large group of people,
51:43
Speaker 1: but nothing's going to change unless you go out of
51:47
Speaker 1: your own personal sphere and work to make others change.
51:54
Speaker 1: How do you do that or do you just say, well, whatever,
51:56
Speaker 1: it's God's will that these people suffer and be put
51:59
Speaker 1: down by of the majority for forever, or is there
52:03
Speaker 1: some way that that can be addressed through the stoic
52:07
Speaker 1: you know, philosophy. I'm very curious, so anybody who knows
52:11
Speaker 1: that right in please, yeah, maybe that's white appeals to
52:15
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley, right. Well, that's the other thing too, right.
52:18
Speaker 1: So it also very much smacks when when you hear
52:21
Speaker 1: of it from like wealthy people espousing it to anybody, Um,
52:26
Speaker 1: it's smacks of that whole uh aspect of Christianity, where hey,
52:32
Speaker 1: medieval peasant, you know how your life is terrible and
52:34
Speaker 1: you're gonna live to thirty five and all you do
52:36
Speaker 1: is work all the time, and you give most of
52:39
Speaker 1: the spoils of your effort to your king. Well, there's
52:42
Speaker 1: such thing as Christianity, and your treasure is in the afterlife,
52:46
Speaker 1: so don't worry about this life. It's smacks of the
52:50
Speaker 1: same thing where you can keep a population placated and
52:53
Speaker 1: not searching for larger social change by saying, hey, just
52:57
Speaker 1: focus on these four things and every thing else is
53:00
Speaker 1: just It just happens, and you don't need to get
53:02
Speaker 1: worked up about it at all. It seems like a
53:05
Speaker 1: bit of a pacifier too, depending on how you look
53:09
Speaker 1: at it. It's it's fascinating. Are we done with stoicism?
53:14
Speaker 1: I'm finished with it? Okay? I think that was a
53:18
Speaker 1: good overview. I think so too. A good thoughts starter
53:21
Speaker 1: if you want to know more about stoicism. But there's
53:25
Speaker 1: a lot more out there than this. Just dive in
53:28
Speaker 1: and see what it means to you. And again, it's
53:30
Speaker 1: a buffet. Take what you like, leave what you don't want,
53:33
Speaker 1: leave the kirdled pudding behind. Take the perfectly garliced green beans.
53:40
Speaker 1: Yeah if you uh, what else did I already say
53:44
Speaker 1: that one part? Oh, since I said green beans, it's
53:47
Speaker 1: time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this beagle brigade
53:53
Speaker 1: slash police dogs. People love that. One man who doesn't
53:57
Speaker 1: love beetles, Beagles on aid on parade, no one, even
54:03
Speaker 1: people who get busted with whole pigs still are like that.
54:06
Speaker 1: Beagles adorable. So this dude, Eric Stover, as a sandwicher,
54:10
Speaker 1: meaning he follows our advice, which is to listen to
54:14
Speaker 1: the newest episode as well as whatever from our back catalog.
54:18
Speaker 1: He chooses to Yeah, he's doing it right. Hey, guys
54:22
Speaker 1: are working in the sports and entertainment business in New
54:24
Speaker 1: York and after nine eleven, the use of bomb sniffing dogs,
54:26
Speaker 1: mostly German shepherds, became standard operating procedure for all events.
54:31
Speaker 1: You are respired to a concert one night. The canine
54:34
Speaker 1: units were sweeping all the backstage areas and one of
54:36
Speaker 1: the bomb dogs hit on an employee locker. You can
54:39
Speaker 1: imagine it caused an immediate and serious response. A bomb
54:42
Speaker 1: squad was dispatched and that portion of the arena was evacuated.
54:45
Speaker 1: Plans were even made to cancel the show. Uh, he
54:48
Speaker 1: doesn't say what show, which I was very curious about.
54:51
Speaker 1: I'm going to say three doors down. Okay, After some
54:57
Speaker 1: very tense moments, the police officers open the locker. Those
55:00
Speaker 1: guys are super brave. Thankfully they didn't find a bomb,
55:03
Speaker 1: but did find drugs. An employee must have thought it
55:06
Speaker 1: must have brought in an extra bump for the show.
55:08
Speaker 1: Oh man, it was definitely three doors. Then you might
55:12
Speaker 1: be asking yourself, Um, no, this wasn't the band's green room.
55:17
Speaker 1: This was an employee. Oh no, I know three doors down.
55:20
Speaker 1: Three Doors Downs fans are among the most drug adult
55:24
Speaker 1: of all they. I thought that was the Juggalos. No,
55:28
Speaker 1: they put the Juggalos a shame. Juggalos take time off
55:32
Speaker 1: once in a while, you know what I mean. Yeah,
55:33
Speaker 1: that's true. Uh, you might be asking yourself, how does
55:38
Speaker 1: a bomb dog find drugs. As it turns out, the
55:41
Speaker 1: dog had failed out of drug school and was retrained
55:45
Speaker 1: as a bomb dog. Poor guy, that's hilarious, Poor guy.
55:52
Speaker 1: Which one the dog or the guy who just happened
55:55
Speaker 1: to run across the failed drug dog? I guess we
55:58
Speaker 1: were still remembered. There are no winners here. I guess
56:02
Speaker 1: he didn't completely forget his drug training, though, and he
56:04
Speaker 1: set off the chain of events that scared the crap
56:06
Speaker 1: out of us. The story ends with the employee getting arrested,
56:09
Speaker 1: The show went on and the fans none the wiser.
56:11
Speaker 1: And my guess is the dog was reassigned to crowd control,
56:16
Speaker 1: just barking up people taking line. Thanks for everything you
56:19
Speaker 1: guys do. Please let me know if you ever need
56:21
Speaker 1: anything in New York City. Is that a hint? We
56:25
Speaker 1: don't do drunks, Eric, Yeah, we're terrified of dogs. That
56:31
Speaker 1: is Eric Stover in New York and I guess he's
56:34
Speaker 1: still in the sports and entertainment business. Yeah, he's like,
56:37
Speaker 1: you need some sports, Come see me. I could use
56:40
Speaker 1: some sports. Thanks Eric. That's a pretty great story, right,
56:45
Speaker 1: that's right. If you want to get in touch of this,
56:49
Speaker 1: like Eric did, you can hang out with me on Twitter,
56:51
Speaker 1: I'm at Josh Underscore um Underscore Clark. We also have
56:56
Speaker 1: an official s y s K podcast handle. You can
56:59
Speaker 1: hang out with Tuck on Facebook dot com, slash Charles W.
57:02
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant, or slash stuff you Should Know. You can
57:06
Speaker 1: send us an email. This stuff podcast at how stuff
57:08
Speaker 1: works dot com and has always joined us at our
57:10
Speaker 1: home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com.
57:18
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
57:20
Speaker 1: that how stuff Works dot com