Modern Wisdom - #239 - Massimo Pigliucci - The Stoic Guide To A Happy Life

Episode Date: October 31, 2020

Massimo Pigliucci is a Professor of Philosophy at City College and an author. The stoic teachings have helped people for thousands of years, Massimo is undertaking the not-so-small task of attempting to update and improve the body of work. Expect to learn Massimo's favourite lessons from stoicism, how to apply the dichotomy of control to your life, why Epictetus was so cool, why Plato might have had a big forehead and much more... Sponsor: Get 20% discount & free shipping on your Lawnmower 3.0 at https://www.manscaped.com/ (use code MODERNWISDOM) Extra Stuff: Buy The Stoic Guide To A Happy Life - https://amzn.to/2G9tFWJ Follow Massimo on Twitter - https://twitter.com/mpigliucci Check out Massimo's Website - https://massimopigliucci.com  Get my free Ultimate Life Hacks List to 10x your daily productivity → https://chriswillx.com/lifehacks/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://www.chriswillx.com/contact  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi friends, welcome back. My guest today is none other than modern wisdom favorite and stoic expert, Massimo Piglucci. His most recent book, The Stoic Guide to a Happy Life, is part of the not-so-small task he's attempting to update and improve the 2000-year-old stoic body of work. So today, expect to learn Massimo's favorite lessons from stoicism, how to apply the dichotomy of control to your life, why Epic Teeth was so cool, why Plato might have had a big forehead and much more.

Massimo is awesome, a lot of this stuff is very applicable. If you want to go and check the book out, I keep forgetting to say this, Modern Wisdom has a Amazon affiliate partnership, which means that if you buy the books and support the authors that I get on the show, by clicking the link that I always put in the show notes below,

we get a little bit of a kickback and it's at no extra cost to yourself. Jeff Bezos has more than enough money. So if you fancy buying a book, just scroll down, any episode ever, it's always in there, along with the guests, Twitter and other stuff, if you wanna check a book just scroll down any episode ever it's always in there along with the guests twitter another stuff if you want to check them out scroll down press that little button and me and video guide in can get some more knuckle. You know we need to stay caffeinated it's hard it's hard work at the moment you know the news what are the news that I got going on. I don't know man, I'm really looking forward to the rest of this year. We are 80,000 subscribers on YouTube only 20 away from that big 100k title which we've set ourselves and that play button is going to feel so good. But for now, it's the pandemic. It's easier to get people stuck at home. That's true.

Well, we've got nothing else to do. We might as well just keep on talking about stoicism. The stoic guide to a happy life, 53 brief lessons for living. Why'd you write this? For two reasons. On the one hand, there's kind of a personal reason. The book is really ambitious to some extent rewriting of the Enqueridion,

which is one of the classic texts in stories. I mean, ancient stories. And it's, it wasn't written by epictetus, but it is a biotepic teacher's teaching. Epictetus didn't write anything and one of his best students, or most famous students, Aryan and Nicomedia, wrote down both the discourses and the

encouraging. To some extent, this is my personal homage to epictetus because he has been my steady guide throughout my stoic path. I love all of the stoics. I read Microsoft. It is a read Santa. I read some of the so-called minor stoics that are not really minor. They're just minor because we don't have a hell of a lot. That survived of their writings. But epictetus has been the one that really got me into it, and it has been sort of a constant companion.

So in one sense, it is just my personal homage to epictetus. But more importantly, it is an attempt to update stoicism in in particular, epithelous version of Stoicism to the 21st century. And the reason for that is that Stoicism in a sense got interrupted. It studied out in the late fourth century BCE. It flourished for five or six centuries until the early third century of the modern era.

And then it got interrupted by Christianity, just like every other, you know, elinistic philosophy, just like it disappear from view. And in that sense, the Greek Roman philosophies are very different from, let's say, a number of Eastern traditions such as Buddhism and Confucianism or Daoism, which evolved and developed gradually over time in essentially uninterrupted fashion. So, for instance, if you compare stoicism with Buddhism, today it's not even correct really to talk about Buddhism in the singular. There are many Buddhism's, right, because there's a number of traditions that evolved over continuously over to an half millennia.

And clearly nobody today is a Buddhist in the same sense in which somebody was a Buddhist 2000 and a half years ago. But that's not true for Stoicism, because it's like after the third or third century, we have a lot of influence of Stoicism on other thinkers, like Christian writers throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, early modern philosophers. But then we kind of have a jump to the 20th century essentially. And so I'm not the first one to do this kind of thing. My friend and colleague Larry Baker, who wrote a new stoicism, did a similar thing with the entire stoic system. However, Larry's attempt is on one hand more comprehensive than mine because he didn't focus just on the pictorials.

It's just like the whole thing. But it's also much more difficult in terms of, you know, it's not as accessible to a general public because he wrote for philosophers for technical fashion. If you don't have at least a couple of courses of logic, I'm thebele, you're not going to get much out of that book. So my attempt has been to update stoicism to the 21st century, but also to make a pictidos accessible again to a wider public. Because most people I bet today don't even heard the word, the name of a pictidos. It's like, who the hell was this guy? People I've heard Plato,, people have heard Socrates,

they've heard Marcus the realist, they might not have read them, but they've heard of them. Epictetus like a behavior who, and this is unfortunate. And it's also rather anomalous. It is like a 20th century, early 21st century feature because before that epictetus was actually a household name. Year school in Nicopolis in Northwest in Greece

was very famous throughout antiquity. The emperor Adrian went to visit, a lot of high level Roman aristocrats sent their kids to study with him, that sort of stuff. Then throughout the Middle Ages in Renaissance, the Enqueridion was actually re-renin-updated several times because it was used as a training manual for a new word that I just invented. A training manual for a Christian monks, right?

So it was actually adopted by Christianity. And then all the way into sort of very recent, rather than recent times, like many of the American founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, John Washington, Thomas Jefferson, as well as several major British figures, early modern British figures, such as David Hume and Adam Smith, they all had copies of the Ancavidium. They all knew about epictures, whether they considered themselves stoics or not,

they certainly had read them. And so I think it is unfortunate that a lot of people today don't even know where the pictor's was. I think his philosophy, we have it without my update is incredible and it needs to be understood and appreciated because it changes lives, like it changed mind. What's so special about him?

Well, he's a no-nonsense kind of philosopher. He talks very in a very plain language. He talks about important topics, anything from wealth to friendship to death, to what are the important things in life. In fact, he even actually gives you advice on what kind of conversation to engage in and whether to watch chariot races or not. Should we should we watch chariot races? No, watch chariot races really. It's like it's a waste of time.

Unfortunately, there are not many of those. Yeah, no. I love I just want to see a boodika. You know, I want to see some horses and some lines and tigers getting at it. Yeah, that would be kind of interesting, wouldn't it? So, so he's both straightforward and approaches in a number of topics that are really about concern for everyday life. He also has a wicked sense of humor bordering on sarcasm. You know, he's by my understanding, he's a little bit abusive of some of his students, calls him slaves, which he would know because he actually was a slave. He studied out his life in Hyropolis,

in modern Western Turkey, as a slave. In fact, we don't even know his real name. Epic, the toss just means acquired in Greek, but it literally means that he was a slave, right? So I only learned recently that Plato wasn't Plato's real name, that it was aristocraties. That's right. A pan with no foreshore, but yes. Yeah, and Plato just means Brod Scholder, because he was a wrestler. Ah, now if you, if you Google it, there was three three suggestions for why he was called Plato. Plato is the broad. First one is the breadth of his shoulders, potentially because of all of the weight training

he'd done through wrestling in the gymnasia. The second one is the breadth of his skills, again, going from the physical attributes. But the third one is the size of his forehead. Oh, that's interesting. Which I'm not actually mutually exclusive, right? One can have both broad shoulders and a broad understanding of it. Under broad forehead. And a broad forehead, yes, absolutely. It could be all of the above. Right, but the difference being that a broad forehead is not the result of your efforts.

On the other hand, the other two really are actually are. Right. So epic tedious. Why is he so cool? Well, he's cool because he gives you very practical advice on life. For instance, if you pick up the very opening of the NK region, it says, some things that up to us, other things are not up to us. And then it gives two lists of things that are and are not under our power.

And if you actually, if you get anything out of the NKD, you're in order of the field guide, the new version, that would be it. If you just get that one and incorporate it into your daily life, that's just that one is going to change things for you because it turns out that what it does, if you really understand the so-called dichotomy, this is a refer to as the dichotomy of control. If you understand the dichotomy of control and incorporated in your life, and you're internalizing because understanding it's easy. Sure, something's up to me, other things are not up to me. Right, okay.

Then we can have a discussion about what falls into each category. And actually we should have that discussion because it is important. But understanding is not enough. You have to internalize it. You have to actually live it. And if you do, what that does is it results into a major reorientation of the way you conduct your life.

Because it turns out that a picturist says that the only things that are up to us actually are very limited that the only things, the things that are up to us actually value limited. They essentially three categories of things that are up to us. Our considered judgments, our endorsed values, and our decisions to act or not to act. That's it. Nothing else. So not even most of your mental life is under your control, as we know. There's this all sorts of thoughts that pop up to in our mind and we can't control them, we don't even want to control them necessarily. But those three things are the ones you control. The rest, you don't. You can influence it, of course, in some cases, but you don't control it. Don't you control the outcome? For instance, we're talking, we're having this conversation in the middle of a pandemic, right? So let's talk about health.

Health is one of the things that a picture says is not on your control. And a lot of people find that really counterintuitive. Like, what do you mean? I can go to the gym. I can, you know, exercise. I can have a healthy diet. Now that I know COVID, I can, you know, wear a mask when I go out, social distance, avoid crowds, wipe down my groceries,

and you'll sanitize my hands, all that sort of stuff, right? And you should do that. In fact, all those things are under your control because those are your decisions to act and not to act based on your judgments, right? However, I'm a biologist, I can tell you, viruses are suds of bitches. They will get you, then might get you

even if you do everything right It's it's down to luck. Yes, you can influence that outcome meaning that if you do everything right you're less likely Probably far less likely to contract the virus, but you may all it takes is I go to a grocery I had to go grocery shopping because I had to eat and all it takes is somebody not wearing their mask, sneezing, you know, a foot away from me and that's it. Then, then, then, I got it, right? So, if we understand this, then what happens is that you start worrying much less about outcomes because they're not under your control, not because they're not important. It is important whether I get sick or not from COVID, right?

But it's not on my control, so why the hell am I worried about it? There's no, it's a waste of energy, it's a waste of mental energy and emotional energy. I should focus on the other hand, where my agency is maximized, where I can actually make a difference, in the kinds of judgments and decisions

that I was talking about. If you do that for everything in your life, because if it says you should do that for anything, no matter what it is, what it is, what it's important or not, it's large or small, etc., etc., he says your life would change dramatically and you would be happy, you would not complain, you would not be angry with people and you would not be angry at that circumstances like, okay, I sign up. I like that sort of stuff and it works. It does take practice, obviously. As I said, one thing is to understand the idea. Another thing is to actually internalize it. It takes a little bit of practice. But I can tell you, it started making a difference in my life within weeks after I started practicing

stauzism and now it's kind of second nature. That was something that I really enjoyed during our first conversation, which everyone can go back and listen to from earlier this year, if you enjoy this conversation, was talking about the automation of it in the same way as people automate the other things in their life, a little trigger that reminds them to go outside, the trigger for the dichotomy of control. It's one thing to know it, it's another thing to internalize it, and then it's a third thing to automate it,

and that gap between understanding how to do it and what it is. And then the removal of it being so arduous that it takes tons and tons of effort is another step, right? And that's just repetition over time. It is just repetition, just like a lot of other things. You know, if you want to learn how to drive a car or play an instrument or anything, repetition is the key. You have to understand what you're doing.

I mean, you have to have a sort of a cognitive understanding of, you know, why is it that you want to hit the brake? What let's say, if a pedestrian walks in front of you all of a sudden, but understanding by itself doesn't bring your ability to actually drive the car well or play the instrument well or do whatever. Precisely. What is a Vade Mechum? But if Vade Mechum is a ladset for the film. Did I pronounce it correctly?

Yes, yes, you did. Yes. Vadim make-up just means bring it with you or carry it with you. And that is the reason that you make a book into something that's small and that is with you at all times. And yeah, that's cool. I really like that. Vadim make-up, I'm going to, and it's, it go with you, did you say?

Yeah, it comes with me, literally. Cool. So what are your favorite lessons? You've, like you say, not a small undertaking to try and do stoicism 2.0. Before we get on to where you diverged and where you amended work, what was some of the lessons,

your favorite lessons, that didn't require any modification from the original text? Well, let's see. We can open some kind of a random, the first one I just told you, the number one, right? Number 11, I think it's particularly interesting. It says, it starts out, my version starts out, you should go through life as a traveler who stops at an end, never regarding anything as truly yours, but as on loan from the universe. And then it continues for a couple of other paragraphs. And that's a notion that you find any picked it is. And in fact, you actually find in earlier stocks, like Santa.

This idea that we don't actually own anything. We use a language of ownership for a lot of things. My house, my wife, my friend, my dis and that or the other, right? But in fact, you don't own anything, even if you legally own your house, it's not really yours, meaning that somebody probably lived in it before you did and somebody's gonna live in it after you're done with it. Even if it's a new house, at some point somebody else will inherit it, or somebody else will buy it,

it's not something you can carry with you into the grave, right? And of course, even so, more so for things like relationships, right, I mean, nobody is actually, no human being is yours. You have a relationship with them. And the relationships change over time, sometimes they end. And they are, however, an important part of life.

So what Peter is saying there is like, hold on to everything as if you were a traveler in hotel. When you check in, you're a tell. The room that you're given is your room, quote unquote. Not as in, I own it and That's it. I can do whatever I want with it. I can't trash it. I can you do do do whatever I like No, I don't I can't but it is my room nobody else is gonna get into it You know unless I give permission for the duration of my stay now. What is the proper way to stay hotel?

You use everything you have available proper way to stay hotel. You use everything you have available, but you don't trash the place, you live it as clean and orderly as you found it, even better, actually, ideally, and so on and so forth. I've never left a hotel room better than I found it, Masimo. If that's the way that you, that might be your cultural heritage speaking for you there, but us Brits and Noah near as polite and tidy as that. Granted, that's not a normal thing, but you see when you certainly wouldn't trash it, right? That's the notion is. So the idea is that that's the attitude that you should have for pretty much everything in life. Just hold it lightly.

Remember that it's not yours. It's on loan from the universe and the universe can take that loan back and anytime. Now yours, it's on loan from the universe and the universe can take that loan back at any time. It wasn't there a little further down the line of that particular thinking, wasn't there a place that you diverge from the work, the original text, whereby you had a problem with the way that describing dealing with the death of a family member was basically to be treated with equanimity. It doesn't matter, like you shouldn't cry if you're wife or your son or your daughter dies, you shouldn't cry if this happens.

And I think that you said that kind of, we forget, or that is ignorant of the way that interpersonal relationships work. Is that right? Yeah. of the way that interpersonal relationships work. Is that right? Yeah, so what Epic Titus does actually one of the major places where I diverge from Epic Titus. And I diverge with respect and understanding, not because I thought it was an idiot and it's like, oh, look at the kind of stuff

that he was believing. So let me set the stage first. The Stoics believed in a type of providence, which is not like the Christian providence. You know, Christian providence is based on the notion that there is a creator God that loves us and cares about us and has a plan for the universe. That's how we're talking about. However, the Stoics believed that the universe itself, which they called God, or nature, interchangeably, is a living organism endowed with logos. Logos is the ability to reason.

So it's its own organ, it's a thing, it's in the organism or organs in the organism. In fact, epictetus uses a metaphor that I find beautiful. He says, you know, imagine you are a foot that has to step into the mud. If you think of it from the point of view, just the foot without realizing you're connected to a whole organism, you say, well, this is disgusting.

I don't want to step into the mud, what the hell? I read that take a shower, I read that I have a bathroom, I don't want the mud. But if you understand that you are in fact connected to a body, the body has to get home, and the only way to get home is to cross a muddy path, then not only you're going to do it because you're duty, but you're going to be happy to do it because you're fulfilling, you're literally fulfilling the reason for your existence. You're allowing the body to get home. Right? If you believe in that kind of conception of the universe, then it follows, as a picturist says, that when something tragic happens to us or something that other people think tragic, not only we should endure it and accept it, we should actually be happy about it.

It's the concept of amorphati, love your fate, although the phrase comes from Nietzsche much later on, and it was not a stoic. But that's essentially the idea. So when he says in the original and Caribbean, look, remember when you kissed your child or your wife, remember that they're mortals. Therefore, if they die, you will not be disturbed. People read this passage out of context. It's like, what kind of a monster is this guy?

What do you mean? Psychopathic. Yeah, it's psychopathic. From back in the ancient times, yeah. But they don't understand that if in context, that epitome is absolutely right. This is no different, in fact, from a Christian who really believes that he's now deceased father or mother or loved one is in heaven. You should be happy. I never understood, you know, I grew up Catholic

and I never understood, even when it was a Catholic. Why is it that so many people who professed to be Christian go to funerals of their own loved ones and cry in desperation? It's like, so you think the guy is in hell. Because that could be the only reason why you would be in desperation. But if you actually think that he is in a better place, that is with God, in the presence of God, and all that, you shouldn't, not only you shouldn't be upset, should actually celebrate. Funeral should be parties it's like all right and I'm coming you know I'll join you in a few in a little bit of time and I compare to eternity even if you live a long time as a human being it's laughing so it's like okay great let's

celebrate but they don't and I suspect that they don't because a lot of people don't actually believe deep down what they're saying. But to interject there, obviously, your background, which a lot of the listeners might not know, is actually evolutionary biology, right? That's what you say. Yes. You spend a lot of time doing. There is genetics, a one hell of a drug, and our genetic predispositions are capable of overpowering pretty much anything, I think, and that includes faith. Like, the inherent horror that we feel when a loved one passes away is like gravity, it's that strong, you know? And to believe, obviously, the Stoics weren't privy to the work of the evolutionary theory, but I think you are right to highlight the fact that it's just inherently unrealistic to expect humans to be able to transcend their own nature because of some clever cerebral trick that we've taught ourselves.

Oh, well, don't forget about the dichotomy of control. Like my daughter was 11 years old in the light of my life. Like, what do you expect this person to do? Yeah, exactly. So it is not impossible in practice. It's also not tenable in theory anymore. Because today, you know, move 18th century is forward from epictetus, look at modern biology and modern physics and there is no reason to

think that the universe is anything like what the stoics thought it was. It's not a living organism and that we're reason. It is a set of dynamic processes regularly by what we call the laws of nature. And yes, we are bits and pieces of the universe, but not in any sense that we are functional bits and pieces. We're not like the foot in the organism, we're just there. And the universe doesn't care one way or the other. What happens to us is irrelevant to the rest of the universe.

It's not like we're causally connected in a very loose way. But it's not that nothing like that could provide you something like stoic providence, which means I argue in the field guide to a happy life, that we should do away with amorphati. But there's no shown that I should love my fate, no matter what it is, it's non-tenable anymore. I understand and I respect why it was tenable in a pictidious time.

There was a beautiful notion of providence that they have, but I can't buy into that notion of providence, so it's got to go. Now, if you suggest that, and I mean to somebody says, oh, but then you give up stoicism. It's like, well, no, hold on. First of all, in the introduction to the book, I explained that change within the stoic system is nothing new. Even the ancient stoics themselves constantly debated about what stays and what goes. Clientus, the second head of the store, disagree with Xeno, the first head of the store.

Crecipus, the third head of the store, disagree with both Xeno and Clientus. Sanica actually writes explicitly. It's like, look, he writes a beautiful letter to his friend Lucilius and he says, look my friend, the people that came before us are not our masters, they are our teachers, they are guides. But if I find a new way to proceed that it's better, I'll do it because the truth is as is open to all

and it will be uncovered by future generations. So this notion that stoicism is like this thing that was stable over time for five centuries and then I'll send you know who the hell are you to change it. Like no, that's that's fantasy. It has never been stable. That said, of course there is only a certain amount of change you do, you can do and then still call it stoicism. I mean, to some extent it doesn't matter what we call it, right?

Because names and names, labels are labels. But I am sensitive to this notion that, you know, if you change too much, and especially if you change too much without readjusting the bits and pieces of the system, without seeking coherence within the system, then you're open to the accusation, I suppose, that it's not stoicism anymore. That's why I do it very carefully. to the accusation, I suppose, that it's not stores as many more. That's why I do it very carefully. You'll notice that at the end of the book, there is an actual detail table

and there is a section which I describe bit by bit, all the changes that I made and why they were made and how they fit into the general system. So one of the reasons this is still stores is in my mind, well, there's two reasons. First of all, because the stoics insisted that the three parts of philosophy, ethics, which is about how to live your life, metaphysics, they call it physics, but metaphysics, that you are understanding of how the universe works, and logic, meaning your ability to reason. They have to go together, because if you are Because if you don't reason correctly about things,

you're likely to mislead your life. Your ethics is gonna work very well. And if you are under deep misunderstandings about how the universe works, that also implies that you're gonna likely mislead your life. So the three things are connected. If I change the metaphysics, in this case, I'm suggesting a change in the metaphysics, right? So the three things are connected. If I change the metaphysics, in this case, I'm suggesting a change in the metaphysics, right, do away with the notion that the universities

are living organisms and downward reason, then you have to change the ethics, which is what I do. You throw out the amorphating, and you retain what? Well, you still retain notions that come out of the dichotomy of control. You still retain this that come out of the economy of control. You still retain this idea that, okay, maybe I'm not going to love my fate, but I can prepare myself mentally to deal with things that are inevitable and accept them as for what they are and still try to get the best out of life as it actually happens to me and not as I would like it to be, right? So, not engaging in wishful thinking.

So, you're still adopting a stoic attitude. You're still adopting a lot of stoic metaphysics because stoic metaphysics includes determinism. These people were compatible, as we would say today about free will. These people were determined, we're believing universal cause and effect. We still do. Modern science essentially is based on the notion that. So these people were determined, we're believed in universal causing effect.

We still do. Modern science essentially is based on the notion that these universal causing effect. And there were materialists. Meaning that they believe that the only things that exist are physical stuff. It's not, today would say, matter and energy, of course. But stuff, not, you know, there's no transcendental thing. There is no, in material thing, there is nothing out there that along those lines. Those are still true, as far as I can tell.

And so that's why we're still retaining much of the stoic system, but we're making some changes. I like it. How do you think the Stoics would define a happy life? Obviously, this is the Stoic guide to a happy life. We need to define our terms. What is a happy life? Yeah. The word happiness, of course, is fraught with problems because people have very, very different ideas about what counts as a happy life. In fact, the word happiness itself can take a number of meanings. On one hand, for instance, I can say, oh, I'm happy that tonight I get to relax with my wife and watch a movie. Sure, but that's not the happiness that we're talking about here.

The word applies, but not in the broader sense. In a broader sense, happiness could be a life of flourishing, a life where you get to enjoy the good things about it. Your amount of pain and suffering is reduced to a minimum. You pursue your projects, et cetera, et cetera. Right? That would be the Aristotelian version of the happy life. What the word we should use, we should be using actually is the one that the 18 Greeks used, regardless of which school they belong to. And that was Uda Monia. Uda Monia is the life that the 18 Greeks used. Regardless of which school they belong to and that was Uda Monia. Uda Monia is the life worth living. That seems very circular.

What's a happy life, a life worth living? Okay, what's a life worth living? Right, except that what breaks the circularity is that each one of those different schools had an actual conception of what counts as Uda Mon demonic life and why? Lay it on us. Lay it on us, Masa.

We're here. Let me give you three. Let me give you four, including the stoic one. Because that actually kind of gives you a very, I think, I hope a very clear understanding of not only what the ancient Greeks and Romans thought, but actually how to think about the happy life.

So, Aristotle thought that a happy life was a life of virtuous flourishing. Virtuous flourishing means you want to act virtuously, meaning you want to be ethical human being. And however, you also do need, need, not just prefer, but need certain external things, such as health, well, a little bit of wealth, a little bit of education, a little bit of good looks, and things like that. Otherwise, your life sucks, even if you have virtues, your life sucks. That's how it's all.

The Epicureans thought that the good life is actually defined by one thing and one thing only and that is absence of pain Okay, a good human life. No matter you can you can live your life in a number of different ways So long as it's painless particularly in terms of emotional pain So that's true The cynics the cynics were the in your face Philosophers of antiquity, the people that you know went in the streets and reminded people constantly how bad they were. And the cynics thought that the only thing that matters is virtue.

What the health doesn't matter, wealth doesn't matter, possessions don't matter, that nothing else matters. The only thing about what makes a good human life is acting virtually, acting. We would say the day pro-social, you know, engage with other people in a pro-social fashion. And then there is the story. The story kind of fall in between the Aristotelians and the cynics. So the story said, yes, the overarching thing that is important, the top thing that is important in life is to act ethically toward the people. Why?

Because that's human nature. Human nature is the nature of a cooperative social being. Yes, we do nasty things to each other on occasion. Yes, we use violence. Yes, we cheat. Yes, we do all that. But those are actually negative aspects of human nature that get in the way of social life.

Fundamentally for the story, we're essentially social beings, and we depend on each other in a very interconnected fashion in order to have a good life. So the most important thing is, in fact, to act ethically to our other people. But it's okay to also pursue on the side, so to speak,

the kinds of things that restarted thought were absolutely necessary for life, such as wealth health education, etc. Because other things been equal, it's better to be healthy, than sick, better to be wealthy, than poor, better to be educated, and ignorant, and that sort of stuff. But the crucial difference with Aristotle is that the Stoic Stoic Stoic, that even if you don't have any of those things, your life is still worth living. And the reason for that is because it is still in your power to do good in life, to do good to other people. Even if you are sick, even if you're poor, even if you are, if your means are very limited. So let me give you an example of a good stoic life,

even though the person that I'm about to mention was not actually a stoic. Nelson Mandela. So we all know that Mandela spent, Africa, what it was, 18 years, I think, in prison during the apartheid regime. That's not flourishing. I restarted what I said, sorry dude, your life sucks.

Right, that is definitely not flourishing. So with the Epicurians, yeah, they would have said. Yeah, the Epicurians would have said, yeah, that's a lot of pain my friend, the both physical and mental pain. So know your life sucks as an Epicurian as well. But the story should say, hold on. Yes, of course you're not flourishing, of course you're not,

you're not enjoying the kinds of material life that other people might be enjoying. But you're doing something that is very worthwhile. You're fighting for a good cause, you're fighting for improving the human condition. Therefore, your life is worth living. Even if you don't succeed, because as we know, he actually succeeded in the end., even if you don't succeed, because as we know, he actually succeeded in the end. But even if you don't succeed, a pectetus actually mentions some people who lost their lives in opposition to the Emperor's Vespagian and the Mission,

who the Stoics considered, you know, timings. And a pectetus in one of these students, at one point says, well, that was a wasted life, right? What was the point of that? And if you do says He gave the example. It was like the purple and the toga the purple and the toga is the is the the the the thing that actually makes you look at at the The whole garment and say, okay, that's interesting. That's that's that's that's well done, right? So our life and it's like, okay, that's interesting, that's well done. So a life like Nancy Mandela's, even if he had failed,

it would have still been worthwhile because it would have set the example for others on what to do in order to live your life. So all of these different conceptions are the result of different understandings of what's important about human nature. So what breaks the circle that you brought up is that the claim is not just that the happy life

is the life worth living. That would definitely be circular. That would definitely not. Now, the idea is the happy life is the life worth living. And here it is. And here is how I cash it out and why. I like it. I'm worried and thankful that we are revisiting ancient wisdom on modern wisdom, and generally kind of in the 21st century, because it seems like so many of the things that people presume are going to make them happy have become hijacked. You know, like the Instagram TikTok 21st century transactional sex,

porn hub world of the race to the bottom of the brain stem, which you'll be familiar with from evolutionary psychology, which is how a lot of the apps that people spend a lot of time on getting them hooked. It really just feel like this is a little bit of an antidote to that. So hopefully that's opened some people's eyes to it. In terms of some strategies or your favorite strategies on root to the happy life, we've got the dichotomy of control, which is, I would say perhaps more useful at avoiding suffering and pain than perhaps it is at pursuing happiness. I might have got that a little bit wrong, but that's at least how it seems to me.

If you see pain as being in the way of happiness as opposed to, it removes the negatives rather than adds the positives. To me, as far as that seems, I'm going to disagree with that on that one. I mean, I can see why you say that because, yes, one of the major outcomes, one of the major goals of the economy of control is in fact, too, as Peter puts it, do not get disturbed when events don't go your way. So that's, I can see where that comes from. But at the same time, there is also the positive, the flip side of the coin is, you don't get disturbed. The notion of not getting disturbed by the fact

that events don't always go your way, that's because that's one side of the, one half of the document control. It's because you're focusing on the things that you don't control, right? You say, okay, I don't control this, so I shouldn't be worried about it. I should activate, I should actively cultivate an attitude of equanimity toward outcomes because I don't control the

outcomes. But that's only half of the economy. The other half is, and I should be focusing my energy and efforts on the stuff that I actually control. Now it turns out, as we all realize, there is a pretty damn good correlation between your efforts and your outcomes. So let me go back to the initial example of the COVID infection. While it is true that I don't control the outcome, that I could still get COVID no matter what I do and no matter how careful I am, it is also equally true that my chances of getting COVID go dramatically down because I'm doing all those kind of things that I'm doing.

Vice versa in terms of positive outcomes, because that would be a negative outcome obviously. But in terms of positive outcomes, I don't know if I'm applying for a job for instance, right? Yeah, if I focus on the outcome, which is actually getting the job, I'm focusing on the wrong thing according to a picked list because that's not up to me. That's up to whoever is interviewing me. However, focusing on the effort, putting together a resume, focusing on doing the interview, dressing well, not going out drinking the night before the interview, you know, that, all that sort of stuff. Those are up to me. and those obviously raise significant

and claim the chances that I will in fact get the job. So there is actually a positive aspect to it. And it's essentially, you know, we also mentioned these a bit on 11, it's actually 11 of the book about going through life as if you were in an end checking in at an hotel. There, to another analogy that the story is used is the seasonal way of thinking. So a piquet or says, for instance,

don't wish for figs in winter. Wishing for figs in winter is hopeless because figs are not winter, they don figs in winter. Wishing for figs in winter is hopeless because figs are not winter. They don't bloom in winter. They're not winter fruits. I can tell, I'm a botternist. And on the other hand, don't wishing for figs in winter and it would e-apply this to missing your loved ones.

If your parents died, for instance, as in my case, a few years ago, to wish that they were here now is wishing for figs and winter. It's like, OK, I'm just making myself feeling bad because now my mind is on purpose going on another action which is not a productive one. However, there was a season during which they were alive and well, right?

There was a summer there. And so the notion is that the other side of the coin, the flip side of the coin is, and when it's summer, you really should enjoy the things because they are in season, right? So the upshadow of this is that Stoi extend to concentrate on the focus on their here and now of what they have now. We try not to regret things that we no longer have because they're gone. We try not to hope too much for things to come because

they're also not in my control and who knows what the hell is going to happen. But in the meantime, I can focus on what I have right here right now. I have a good life, I'm healthy, I have a wife that loves me, I have a daughter that is starting her life as an independent... All of the, I have friends, you know, there are all these things that eventually will be gone. Right? At some point or another. But why the hell should I worry about the fact that they're going to be gone? When they're going to go on, they're gone, that's it. Okay, fine.

And the story, that's how life works. But right now they're here. And so I need to pay attention to here now because too often we actually take people and things for granted. And we can also take ourselves out of the moment of enjoying the brief time that we do have with those people and things worrying about the time

when they're not going to be here. And that's a sure fire root to misery. That's like the Mark Twain quote, which is worrying is like playing a debt that you don't owe. Yes, exactly. That's exactly right. Mark Twain had a little bit of a stoic. Obviously, I've done my research on marks. I know that precisely. In terms of one more lesson that you think you didn't need to change, but would help people to lead a happy life, what would it be? Number 30, you're a social animal and whether you like it or not, living in a society comes with certain duties. How do you figure out what these duties are? Just look at the various roles you play.

So this is, this comes out of what is sometimes referred to as a, a pictidos role ethics. There's a wonderful book about just about that aspect of stoicism of a pitilous philosophy by Brian Johnson, who is a colleague of mine at Fordham University and he wrote a book on role ethics of a pitilous. The notion that a pitiletus worth fourth is that, like, look, what's your best guidance in life and how to actually live your life?

Well, just ask yourself, what kind of roles you normally play? And these, these, these things which three types of roles that we all have in life. The first and most fundamental one is, of course, the member of the human cosmopolitan, we are human beings, all of us, right? And since the story for cosmopolitan, the implication of that is that we should never do anything that undermines the human cosmopolitan.

What do you mean by cosmopolitan in this definition? Considering every human being on earth as brothers and sisters. So which means you should never do anything that undermines the human cause. Now, whenever I say that, often people say, I can't, even if I wanted to, I can't undermine you must go and smuggle. I don't have that kind of power, right? Is like, I'm not an emperor. I'm not a president of the United States.

But that's not true. For instance, if you live a, live the kind of life that contributes to global warming, you are undermining the human cosmopolies. If you live, if you shop, let's say, for your daily life into places that are known to exploit other people, you're undermining the human cosmopolies. If you are eating animals that have suffered unnecessarily, in order to be served on your dinner plate, you are undermining the human cosmopolies. So, you know, there is all sorts of ways when you can actually add their mining human cosmopolies. So, that's number one, the first first role. The other two classes are roles are the types of roles that circumstances give you.

You don't choose them. For instance, you know, you're somebody's son. You didn't choose that. That was not your choice. That's what it is. But now that you're there, you have some duties, you know. Children have certain duties toward their parents. Even if, I picked it as says,

even if their parents are not good, they're, you know, they're not the best parents you can, because the deal that the universe gave you wasn't, I'm going to give you the best parents. The universe just said, I'm going to give you parents. And sometimes it works out well, sometimes it doesn't, but the point is, your parents' behavior is not under your control. Your behavior is under your control, so you still have certain duties. Now, those duties don't expand to being abused physically or mentally by your parents. behavior is not under your control. Your behavior is under your control. So you still have certain duties. Now, those duties don't expand to, you know, being abused physically or mentally by your parents. That's not a duty that you have.

But you do have a duty to be forgiving, a duty to be helpful, et cetera, et cetera. And then the third class of duties of roles, sorry, sorry. Art, the ones that we choose given our circumstances. But in some sense, I'm a father, that was a choice. I'm a friend to some people and that's another choice. My career was a choice to some extent and so on and so forth. My obviously my relationship with my wife was a choice.

All of those carry their own duties. So if I put somebody into the world, then I have certain duties toward that person. I have to take care of that person. I have to, you know, make sure that she has as many instruments as possible to actually leave a fulfilling life. If I am in a relationship with my partner, that carries certain other duties. And again, those duties don't imply necessarily that the other person reciprocates or reciprocates on the same level. I mean, I'm liking that factually,

that my friends and relatives and loved ones actually do reciprocate, but sometimes they won't. Sometimes that's not the case. And a pitiless says it doesn't matter because other people's behaviors is not under your control. And Sanika says that when it comes to what the ancients called benefits, so being generous, giving to other people, he says the thing to do

is always to have your ledger such that you give more than you receive, right? So don't look at what you're getting, look at what you're doing, what you're giving. And of course, once again, the two are often connected, without being polyannious about this kind of stuff. But look, if you're a generous person who actually genuinely loves other people

and wants to be, typically the people realize that and the people they get to people will give back. Precisely because as the stoic say, human beings tend to be social and highly interactive and interdependent of each other. I think that we agree on something that other people got angry at me for talking about on a podcast a little while ago. Okay. Time each. Can we just take a second to talk about how much bollocks is in the secret? Oh, yes.

A lot. So the best lies have a kernel of truth in them, right? And what you've just brought up there with the, what you could quite easily call karma, like things come back around. Right. But there isn't some metaphysical magnetized aura of nebulous, ephemeral, supercharged, good teons or whatever they were called in the secret.

I was about to call it the bollocks there, but in the secret. And yet, because of that kernel of truth, it's a juicy people into believing it. Right, that's exactly, I mean, that's how a lot of pseudoscience works. That there is a kernel of truth, there is a kernel of plausibility, right?

And people don't think too carefully about it. They also engage in all of wishful thinking, is I go, that sounds good, so I wanna believe it. I mean, that's how the psychology of pseudoscience actually works. But yeah, actually, I've used the secret as an example of a type of metaphysics that is entirely incompatible with stoicism.

Because in violence, it's an economy of control. Essentially, it says that you do control the universe, that if you really want it, if you really make the effort, if you really are into certain things, the universe somehow will rearrange itself so to, you know, favor your goals. Epictetus, explain with that who had not read, obviously, the secret. Thank God for that. Right. It recently says so to a one of these students. He says, one of his students, his company came in complaining about the fact that his nose

was running all the time. So he had a cold or something like that. And if he did, it says, okay, wipe your damn nose, but stop complaining about the fact that there are such a things as running noses in the universe. What do you want to do? The unit is literally says, what would you want the universe to rearrange yourself for the sake of your running nose? It's like when I read that as a waiting witness, this guy must have read that. The secret, yeah, him and Ronda Burm would have fallen out. I remember, man, the,

there was this story. Do you remember, it was about 2003, the big Christmas day, a boxing day tsunami in Thailand, was it? Yeah. In East Asia. And Ronda Burm, author of the secret, said the reason that the tsunami happened was because the people of East Asia were giving out bad energy that attracted the tsunami. Right. That's awful. In what world is that acceptable to say? Hundreds of thousands of people displaced from their homes. And then some bourgeois writer sitting at the back of a couple of million sold copies

of a book that is based on bullshit is able to say, well, if only you'd been giving off some more positive vibes, then this tsunami wouldn't have come and annihilated the next generation. Yeah. No, I'm completely involved with that. In fact, not only, I think, that metaphysics, remember, I'm completely involved with that in fact not only I think that metaphysics remember we were discussing earlier that according to the Stoics logic metaphysics and ethics are connected. Yeah, I love the field I love the ring the fence around the field analogy that you gave I think

Right, exactly. Very nice. Yeah. Well think about in terms of the secret they're connecting exactly the wrong way right because the metaphysics is bullshit. I mean, the universe simply doesn't work that way. The logic is flawed because clearly you should be able to realize that the universe doesn't work that way and draw the right conclusions. And the ethics is horrible because it ends up blaming the victims as in the case of the tsunami that you just brought up, right? So, oh, it's their fault. What do you mean it's their fault? Those people are suffering,

some of them died as a result of a random natural event and you are saying that it's their fault, essentially. What kind of monster is at the disaster? It really is. Do you know what it is? Identifying the fact that it is the flipped reverse of the dichotomy of control. I mean, if ever there needed to be a nail

in the coffin of the secret, it could be right there. Do you know what it is as well? I had one of the guys on, I'm gonna forget his name. I had one of the guys that featured in the film, the secret, really, cognitive psychologist, understood what he was talking about. And he, it felt like was in it begrudgingly or perhaps for cloud.

And even him, this is a person who featured in the film very prominently. And even he had highlighted his own issues. We can continue bad mouthing the secret for the remainder of the episode, but I feel like we've- We can just summarize it this way. The metaphysics is bullshit. The reasoning is bad and the headaches is horrible. There we go. That's it. Job done. Last lesson. Another one where you diverge from stoicism,

something else that you think would help people lead a happy life. You talk about 52. Which have you thought? Oh, oh, I thought you literally thought the last lesson. No, no, the a final lesson from you, Massimo. I think, let's see, there are several, of course, that are that are interesting to me in that sense. But for instance, I tend to go back over and over on this notion of one thing that is missing from the original stoicism is an appreciation of what we would today call social justice. And I don't mean, as in social justice warriors

or anything like that, I just mean the basic concept in philosophy of social justice, meaning that we should try to come up with a society that is as just as a quinimus as possible. Right, stoicism doesn't have that, and it's not a fault necessarily because stoicism is a personal philosophy. It's not meant to be a broad societal level kind of umbrella type of philosophy. For instance, when people accuse the stoics or but you don't have a theory of social justice or anything like that, a broad societal level kind of umbrella type of philosophy. For instance, when people accuse the Stoics, but you don't have a theory of social justice

or anything like that, what would you have accused Christians or Buddhists of the same? Buddhism doesn't have a theory of social justice, neither does Christianity, because those are personal philosophers. They tell you how you should behave, not how other people should behave. However, it is still the case that the ancient stoics started moving in that direction and I think that it behooves us to keep moving along the same trajectory. Let me give you two examples. The stoics where the ancient stoics I'm talking were fairly unusual in the ancient world because they thought that women have the same mental abilities

as men and therefore they actually ought to study philosophy and practice the virtuous life. Seneca says that explicitly. Epititus says that explicitly, it's there. But of course, they were not what we would call feminists in modern term. I mean, they were, you know, Sandek and Fat, on the one hand says this kind of stuff, very explicitly in it. There's no, there's not even implied. This is, he actually says so explicitly in a letter

of consolation that he writes to his friend Marsha, who had lost an adult son. At some point, he says, you know, you think that I'm talking out of steps here because you're a woman, but in fact, women have the same ability as men. They should be, et cetera, et cetera. So he actually says that.

But then, a few products later, it's like, you know, don't be womanish. Don't be, you know, it's like, so it was not to hurt actually in a different letter. It's not, don't be womanish. Like, what do you mean? Hey, hold on a second. So Seneca and the Stoics in the study, moving in that direction, but of course they were naturally a product of their own culture and time. These were people that lived 2000 years ago, in an incredibly misogynist society by modern standards, right? So, modern stories can pick up on that,

and there are actually a couple of scholars who have written technical papers about the relationship between stoicism and feminism, for instance. Feminism here understood very simply and very broadly. I'm not talking about specific waves or specific current ongoing controversies. I'm simply talking about the basic notion that women are human beings just as men. And therefore, they ought to have the same rights and et cetera, as you know, that's it, that's what I'm talking about. So there is more modern scholarship that moves us in that direction. It's an argues and I agree that feminism in that bare-bone sense

that I just mentioned is actually logically entailed by stoic philosophy. And so the restoic should be feminist. It's inconsistent for somebody to be a stoic and not being a feminist. The second example has to do with the environment. So the ancient stoics were not, of course, conscious of the value of the environment in which, in the way in which we are. In fact, explicitly, they thought that what we call the environment, particularly other animals and plants,

are there for our consumption. They're there because the logos of the universe set it up in a way that that's what we're going to do with it. However, they did have this notion of the expanding circles of concern. One of the second century stoics, his name was Hayeropolis, said that we should try to practice this notion of expanding our concern. We're naturally concerned about ourselves. That comes natural to human being, right? It's the self. But then it also comes pretty naturally,

immediately, early on in our lives, to be concerned with our caretakers, typically our parents. And then we expand that kind of concern to other family members and friends. And then he said, we should make an effort to expand that kind of concern to further and further circles out there. Citizens of their same city, citizens of the same country, and eventually humanity a large.

Well, today some scholars, modern scholars in the stoicism, like Chris Gil, for instance, say, yeah, and there is one more step. And then one more, in more in fact couple more steps the immediate of the step after that is other sentient animals Because why because they suffer because they're capable of suffering and then after that So the environment as a whole but not in any kind of again polyane sure so guy are kind of sensing with you Oh, I wish you were she has energy. We have. Now just because we depend on a health environment to as human beings to live. So it's up to us. It's the same version. It's an expanded version of the same concept that the stoics have, which is one of the

things I, one of the reasons why I really like stoicism. We tend to make a sharp distinction between self-regard and other regard. So if you're an altruist, you're doing something that sacrifices yourself for the sake of another. The story doesn't see it that way. The story starts that whenever you help other people, you're actually helping yourself because you're making yourself a better person.

And whenever you're working on becoming a better person, you're automatically helping other people because that's the way your interactions are going to go. And so similarly, they wouldn't see, I think, a sharp distinction today with modern scientific knowledge between ourselves and the environment. Of course, you want to save the environment because our own game survival depends on it. Our ability to flourish depends on it. The reason you want good hair and good quality water for everybody is because that's how you live a good life. Otherwise,

you're going to literally poison yourself. So you should be concerned with it. So those are some of the things that also that I expect. It's not as much as a disagreement with epictetus as much as an expansion of epictetus concerns. I think that it's really interesting to hear the way that you can synthesize new world information, you know, and adapt it to ancient wisdom. I really, I mean, intrigued by what you said at the very beginning, that I hadn't come to me, that Stoicism had this, you know, half millennia or so to develop and then very quickly got muted by the new kid on the block, which was Christianity, for about a thousand years and then came back Renaissance, then really sort of kicked on enlightenment, then stopped again and now people

like yourself and Ryan Holiday, so on and so forth are repopularizing it. But I wonder what we would have if stoicism had been allowed to continue unfettered or even a couple of schools of it, had been able to keep going for 1500 years. It would have been very interesting. Yeah, we would have something similar to modern Buddhism. We would have a number of schools of thought. Some of them would probably have developed

certain strands of ancient thought into new directions and others would have picked up enough other strands. And some of them might even become incompatible. I mean, there are some versions of modern Buddhism that you could argue actually incompatible with each other. Even though they all come from the same root, their emphasis, their development, has been such

that they are actually not compatible. And that's great because that means that there is more variation, that is more to pick from in terms of when you're thinking about your philosophy of life, you say, okay, well, there's different ways of thinking about this stuff. And let me see which one actually resonates with me and which one is actually useful to me.

Yeah, I really love that quote, and I'd written it down, and then you said it, so I couldn't say it. Those who have advanced these doctrines before us are not our masters, but our guides from Seneca. And with that as well, is a lovely way to kind of remind us all that the vast majority of what I spend my time thinking about,

and talking about on the show, which is how the leader good life, and how to be virtuous and be happy and be Feel fulfilled is an ongoing process. There is wisdom of the past that we can take in and think, oh my god, this is there's so much of the work has been done already, but there's Massive amount of imposter syndrome or over of imposter syndrome or over respect, I guess, for the sages of the pastor presumed that there's no more work to be done on top of that. So the stoic guide to a happy life will be linked in the show notes below.

If you've enjoyed today, I highly, highly recommend that you go and check it out. Very easy book to read. What we have? 150 pages, pocket sized, your vade may come to take with you anywhere else that people should go and check out Massimo Well if anybody's interested in pretty much everything I do from podcasting to writing essays in books They can go to Massimo Pillucci.com. I imagine that was a very easy URL to get Yes, no one else competing for that Massimo

It's a little bit more difficult to spell But it's it's it'll be linked there's a link in the difficult to spell, but it's, it's a little bit linked. There's a link in the show notes below. Do not, I employ you. You will lose brain cells trying to write it yourself. Just click the link below. It's been a pleasure to have you on twice in 2020, mate. I'm looking forward to the next time.

So do I. Thank you. Get on Feds