Ancient Stoic Quotes for Today

I have recently become a subscriber to Ryan Holiday's podcast: The Daily Stoic. Listening to his episodes has encouraged me to read more on stoicism. Much has changed over the past 2,000 years, but the best advice by the stoics is as relevant as ever. Here are some examples.

"The Obstacle Is the Way." Marcus Aurelius

“Think of the life you have lived until now as over and, as a dead man, see what’s left as a bonus and live it according to Nature. Love the hand that fate deals you and play it as your own, for what could be more fitting?” – Marcus Aurelius

“And a commitment to justice in your own acts. Which means: thought and action resulting in the common good. What you were born to do.” — Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.31

“People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time, they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.” – Seneca

"The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are." Marcus Aurelius

“Life is very short and anxious for those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear the future.” – Seneca

“All ferocity is born from weakness.” Seneca

“A blazing fire makes flame and brightness out of everything that is thrown into it.” Marcus Aurelius

“I begin to speak only when I’m certain what I’ll say isn’t better left unsaid.” – Cato

"Learn to be indifferent to what makes no difference." Marcus Aurelius

He has the most who is content with the least. Diogenes

Just keep in mind: the more we value things outside our control, the less control we have. Epictetus

“He who fears death will never do anything worth of a man who is alive.” – Seneca

“No person has the power to have everything they want, but it is in their power not to want what they don’t have, and to cheerfully put to good use what they do have.” – Seneca

“Be tolerant with others and strict with yourself.” – Marcus Aurelius

If you are pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs you, but your own judgment about it. And it is in your power to wipe out this judgment now. - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“The best revenge is not to be like your enemy.” – Marcus Aurelius

“If anyone can refute me—show me I’m making a mistake or looking at things from the wrong perspective—I’ll gladly change. It’s the truth I’m after, and the truth never harmed anyone.” – Marcus Aurelius

We should always be asking ourselves: “Is this something that is, or is not, in my control?” - Epictetus, Enchiridion

Floods will rob us of one thing, fire of another. These are conditions of our existence which we cannot change. What we can do is adopt a noble spirit, such a spirit as befits a good person, so that we may bear up bravely under all that fortune sends us and bring our wills into tune with nature’s. - Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

Fate leads the willing, and drags along the reluctant. - Seneca, Letters from a Stoic

“If a person gave away your body to some passerby, you’d be furious. Yet you hand over your mind to anyone who comes along, so they may abuse you, leaving it disturbed and troubled — have you no shame in that?” — Epictetus

“Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be One.” – Marcus Aurelius

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Holiday Gloom re COVID

I agree with Chris Hayes here. Cold weather + holiday parties + travel + Thanksgiving feasts + Christmas gathering would seem to be a perfect storm for COVID, especially with numbers already spiking. We were concerned about the pandemic back in March, when the rate of infections was a tiny fraction of what it is now. This is insanity.

BTW, my elderly mother and her adult children WILL have an hour-long in-person Thanksgiving celebration this year. We will meet outside at my mom's house during the "heat" of the day, spread far apart from each other on lawn chairs, eating our BYO snack and drink for about an hour. Unless it's surprisingly warm, in which case we might linger longer.

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Differential Investment in Procreating in Terms of Money and Risks

In her column at Psychology Today ("How to Train Your Boyfriend"), Evolutionary Psychologist Diane Fleischman illustrates the time investment differential in terms of money:

We know women have had to carry a baby for 9 months. But over our evolutionary history, a mother would have had to breastfeed for 3 years, on average, before the baby would be weaned. What's the minimum amount of investment a man could put in to have a baby? Let's be generous and say the minimum amount is an hour. This is called "minimum obligatory parental investment" and in human men and women, the asymmetry is bigger than in most other species. . . . If you think about the asymmetry between men and women in the minimum amount they would have to invest to make a baby in terms of dollar amount- a man would have to invest $1 and a woman would have to invest $32,000.

In her article, Fleishman points out many difference in behavior between men and woman (see the extensive list below), as well as reproductive risks, stemming from this procreation investment asymmetry.

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Neil Postman on Orwell vs. Huxley

I had seen this quote before and posted a cartoon on this idea, but tonight I heard Tristan Harris read this passage by Neil Postman (Amusing Ourselves to Death) toward the end of his discussion with Joe Rogan. It hits the nail on the head:

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egotism.

Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumble puppy.

As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists, who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny, “failed to take into account man’s almost infinite appetite for distractions.”

In 1984, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we fear will ruin us. Huxley feared that our desire will ruin us.

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