The Daily Stoic - Daily Stoic Sundays: The Daily Stoic, August 9

Episode Date: August 9, 2020

In today's episode, Ryan describes the new leather-bound edition of The Daily Stoic and reads today's entry.Get your copy of the limited leather-bound edition of The Daily Stoic: https://dailystoic.com/leather/***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stood Podcast early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wondery's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target. The new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. music or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoic, something that can help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, wisdom, and temperance.

And here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoke philosophers, we reflect, we prepare. We think deeply about the challenging issues of our time. And we work through this philosophy in a way that's more possible here when we're not rushing to worker to get the kids to school. When we have the time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with our journals, and to prepare for what the future will bring.

Hey everyone, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of The Daily Stoke Podcast. I am speaking to you from a closet in my wife's childhood bedroom. We spent the last, I guess, four and a half months here in Texas, locked down, and our kids were just sort of going out of their minds without any social interaction. So we made a quick trip out to California in an RV. So that's two adults, two kids under four, in a very small RV, never staying in hotels, never interacting with anyone because we're doing the socially distance thing, we're trying to be smart.

Driving through the Southwest in July, it was hot as balls as you can imagine. But it was also just a wonderful experience. We spent a lot of time together as family. We read, we talked, visited some cool places. We stopped in Tombstone, Arizona, which is always interesting. I've been there a couple times. I think one of the things it reminded me of is just, you know, Mark's realist talks about

how little is needed for the happy life this year. I was supposed to be I had talks in Australia and I had talks in Europe. I had all this stuff planned. All that went out the window and, you know, I'm not a big camping person, but it was, you know, like, look, we're in an RV as a family staying in a $25 a night RV park, eaten quesadillas made in the microwave. It was a much simpler life and it was wonderful. And one of the mornings we stayed in an RV park in Blythe, California on the way out here. And my son woke up at like 5 a.m.,

we went for a walk down to the river and we just spent like an hour like throwing rocks into the water, sitting there. You know, it was as pretty as being on a beach in Hawaii, as quiet, as wonderful. And, you know, it cost next to nothing. And these are the moments that the Stoics sort of talk about breathing in, really living, not taking for granted. And it should be empowering, right? Because you can lose everything. And you still have this, right? This is within everyone. I mean, there are people

in this RV park who live there, right? So it is, you know, it's hardly the glamorous life. And yet it's still wonderful and special. And we made it alive. We didn't kill each other or kill anyone. And it's been wonderful to see family a little bit, take a little bit of a break, coordinate podcast and a closet.

So got a great episode for you today, talk soon. Today, I wanted to read an entry from the Daily Stoic and riff on it a bit. It's one of my favorites. This is August 9th entry, stick with just the facts. Don't tell yourself anything more than what the initial impressions report. It's been reported to you that someone is speaking badly about you. This is the report.

The report wasn't that you've been harmed. I see that my son is sick, but not that his life is at risk. So always stay within your first impressions and don't add to them in your head. This way, nothing can happen to you. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 849. So at first, this can seem kind of like the opposite of everything you've been taught.

Don't we cultivate our minds and critical thinking skills precisely so we don't simply accept things at face value? Yes, most of the time, but sometimes this approach can be counterproductive. What a philosopher also has is the ability as Nietzsche put it to stop courageously at the surface, to see things in plain objective form, nothing more, nothing less. Yes, Stoics were superficial, he said, out of profundity. Today, while other people are getting carried away, that's what you're gonna practice,

a kind of straightforwardism, seeing things as their initial impressions make them. This idea of being profound and superficial at the same time, I think, is really interesting and important. It kind of reminds me in a little bit of that famous Zen story about the man and the horse, forget it exactly, but it's like a horse comes and everyone says, you're so lucky and he says, we'll see,

then his son breaks his leg on the horse and everyone says, you're so unlucky and he says, we'll see. And then because he's hurt, then he can't get drafted in a war, it goes on and on. Basically, you keep saying we'll see. And I think what he's doing is sort of not rendering judgment. Remember, this stoic idea from Epictetus is that it's not things that upset us.

It's our judgment about things. Events are objective, events are. Then we have opinions. And our opinions say, this is a bad thing, this is a good thing, this is lucky, this is unlucky. What the Stoics want to focus on is that it just is what it is. And they want to sort of, they want to leave it at that. You've been fired, right? Not you've been fired. This is horrible. You'll never work again. You've been humiliated. You know, I even think about this like let's say you're in a relationship and they're sort of tension.

Oftentimes it's not the thing that's bothering you, right? It's the idea of what if this goes on forever, right? Like, am I going to let someone talk to me this way? Are we never going to do this again? You know, is it going to always be this way? Like this idea of being worried about precedent is I think the cause of so much anxiety and worry. I mean, I know it is for me. And so what the Stoics are trying to say is just leave the impression as it is.

Stay here in the present moment. You don't need to reflect on, is this part of some larger pattern in the past? Is this the beginning of a pattern going forward? No, it is what it is. Let's stay there, right? And that's what Marcus Aurelius is talking about. And that's one of, I think, the most important stoic ideas.

Don't tell yourself anything more than what the initial impressions report. Okay, this is Marcus. It's been reported to you that someone is speaking badly about you, right? Even the badly has a little bit of judgment, right? So he's not trying to be inhuman about it. He's saying, okay, they said this thing about me.

Did you don't have to extrapolate out from that that your reputation is ruined? That if you don't stop this, everyone will think you're a fool. That this is gonna be just like it was in high school for you, right? And again, your son has a, I think when he's talking about your, your kid being sick, I think this is a, well, one, a lot of us can relate to because what, what, what kids do is they trigger all our anxieties are, are all our catastrophizing. What if this happens and this happens and this happens and then all of a sudden we're existing in this

dystopian future fantasy world where nothing is ever the same and everything is broken and the absolute worst thing in the world is gonna happen. No, let's just Stop and be here in the present and I think this ties into that Victorl idea of that sort of in between the stimulus and the response. And I think what Marcus is talking about there is being in that space as long as you can. And Marcus talks about this a bunch of different times and meditations. And it's really important. You know, he talks about, he says, you know, it's possible, and I think about this one all the time, he says, you know, it's possible to have no opinion.

He says, you don't have to have an opinion about this one all the time. He says, you know, it's possible to have no opinion. He says, you don't have to have an opinion about this. He's like, these things are not asking to be judged by you. They just are. The weather is the weather. The pandemic is the pandemic. Donald Trump is Donald Trump for better or worse. Your obnoxious neighbor is your obnoxious neighbor. Your parents are your parents.

You don't need to judge it. You don't need to have an opinion about it. But you do have to deal with it. You do have to respond to it. You do have to accommodate it. You do have to forgive it. You do have to set up boundaries. You do have to say, I'm not going to deal

with this person anymore. But what you don't have to do is that catastrophizing, that cycle, that loop, that sort of miserable place that we all seem to go to for no real reason, honestly. And so I think this is one of the most important lessons in stoicism. And let's go to this point from Nietzsche when you're talking about being superficial out of profundity. I think when you do think about some of the best quotes

from the Buddhists or from the Stoics, there is a superficiality to them. Like they're very simple, I say that in obstacle, it's simple and not easy. They're superficial, but that doesn't mean they're not profoundly deep, that there isn't a lifetime of exploration in that idea. I mean, it's easy to say, okay, I accept this, but what does that mean? Was that look like? How do you how do you live it? That's that is quite hard.

So just because something is simple doesn't mean that it's not deep and that doesn't mean you can't wrestle with it and it doesn't mean you're stupid. So for the Stoics, I think if we could give you a prescription today, something to think about, let's focus on this idea of just accepting things as they are and you know, obviously no one should be flying right now but a great way to do that would be you know a great example of this is like your flight is delayed It is delayed, right? There's a

Construction and traffic is down to one lane. It is what it is. No one did this to you. You're not being deprived of anything. It's not actually that bad. It just is what it is. So let's accept it. Let's deal with it. And then let's go on with our lives because what we don't need to do is be angry and bitter and we can just leave things as they are and go about our lives. And so it's awesome to give you this entry from the Daily Stoic. Obviously I think that some of the best writing I've ever done. I'm really proud of it. It's crazy to think this book is four years old now. So there were a million copies in 20 languages and so we're excited also to announce that we've got this leather

bound edition. We did this limited run just a few thousand copies just to see if people would like it. And it's for sale now in the Daily Stoke store. You can check it out at dailystoke.com slash leather. It's got a premium leather cover. It's got an inset, a four virtues logo from Daily Stoic. It's got a really cool ribbon. It's got gilt edges on the pages. Some cool new graphics in it. It comes in a box. It's great for gift, but also if you've beat

the hell out of your edition over the years, this is a great replacement, sort of forever perennial replacement. Check that out, dailystoke.com slash leather. Keep reading, stay superficial in a good way, and I'll talk to you soon. Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke early and add free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus

in Apple podcasts. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life. But come on, someday, parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast from Wondery that shares a refreshingly honest and insightful take on parenting. Hosted by myself, Megan Galey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Brown-Oller, we will be your resident not-so-expert experts. Each week we'll share a parenting story that'll have you laughing, nodding, and thinking.

Oh yeah, I have absolutely been there. We'll talk about what went right and wrong. What would we do differently? And the next time you step on yet another stray Lego in the middle of the night, you'll feel less alone. So if you like to laugh with us as we talk about the hardest job in the world, listen to, I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wonder e app. or Wendry app.