The Daily Stoic - Advance, Forlorn Hope

Starting point is 00:00:00 Your first great love story is free when you sign up for a free 30-day trial at audible.ca.ca. That's audible.ca.wondery. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a stoic-inspired meditation designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women to help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visitdailystoic.com. Advance forlorn hope. Marcus Aurelius tried to arrest the decline of the Roman Empire, but he did not succeed. Before him, Cato tried to stop the fall of the Republican similarly failed.

Starting point is 00:01:20 Thrasia and Helvidius and Rufus fought valiantly against Nero, but he triumphed over them. In the end, it was Nero who stood. over each of their corpses. Was it all pointless then? Should they have adapted instead of opposing? Should they have accepted the inevitable? That's what the Stoics seem to say sometimes, right? In his haunting poem, doubtful dreams,

Starting point is 00:01:44 Adam Lindsay Gordon wrestles with this very idea. Failure, disillusionment, the impossibility of it all. Vane dreams for our fathers cherished, high hopes in the days that were. all these men wondered and perished no better than these we fare and our due at least is their due they fought against the odds and fell is alluding to the old military idea of soldiers being sent on a tragic dangerous mission yet they proceed anyway because that's the job because that's the nature of being a soldier it's the nature of being a stoic too we may not win our mission might be impossible, the bad guys might get away with it. But that's not going to stop us from doing what we're supposed to do, from being who we are supposed to be. The odds do not deter us, and neither do the

Starting point is 00:02:40 difficulties. Life itself is a doomed mission. We are all going to die. We are all going to be forgotten. Should we do nothing and write it all off as meaningless then? No, we advance, because in the end, the end is the same. So in the meantime, we might as well do our duty. We might as well do what's right. Look, ads are annoying. They are to be avoided, if at all possible. I understand as a content creator why they need to exist.

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The Daily Stoic - Advance, Forlorn Hope

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