The Daily Stoic - Don't Let Them Turn You Into This | Ask DS

Episode Date: November 30, 2023

In Book 7 of Meditations, Marcus writes to himself (as the Gregory Hays translation, which you can grab a special edition of here, has it):"Take care that you don't treat inhumanity as it treats human beings."What does that mean? What exactly does Marcus mean by “inhumanity”? Hurricanes are inhuman. ChatGPT is inhuman. They might be ruthless forces of nature or technology, but they’re not out to get human beings. Does it matter how you treat them? With a passage like this, it is helpful to, as we’ve done a few times now, look at various translations.In his great annotated edition of Meditations, Robin Waterfield translated that same passage like this:✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I told this story before, but the first Airbnb I stayed in was 15 years ago. I was looking for places to live when I wanted to be a writer and we stayed at this house, I think outside Phoenix. And then when I bought my first house here in Austin, I would rent it out when South by Southwest or F-1 or all these events. My wife and I would go out of town and we'd rent it and it helped pay for the mortgage and it supported me while I was a writer. You've probably had the same experience.

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$20 or more using the code DailyStoic20. Again, sign up for your free trial by downloading the Coho app and receive 20 bucks off when you make your first purchase of $20 or more using the code DailyStoic20. Welcome to the DailyStoic podcast where each day we read a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you in your everyday life. Well, on Thursdays, we not only read the daily meditation, but we answer some questions from listeners in fellow Stoics, we're trying to apply this philosophy just as you are.

Some of these come from my talks. Some of these come from Zoom sessions that we do with daily Stoic life members, or as part of the challenges. Some of them are from interactions I have on the street when there happened to be someone there recording, but thank you for listening. And we hope this is of use to you.

Don't let them turn you into this. In book seven of Meditations, Marcus writes to himself, according to the Gregory Hayes translation, which you can grab a special edition of here. He says, take care that you don't treat inhumanity as it treats human beings. What does that mean? What exactly does Marcus mean by inhumanity? Hurricanes or inhuman, chat GBT is inhuman. They might be ruthless forces of nature or technology, but they're not out to get human beings.

Does it matter how we treat them? So with a passage like this, it's helpful as we've done a few times now to look at various translations. In his great annotated edition of Meditations, Robin Waterfield translates that same passage like this. Be sure not to behave towards anti-social people as people behave towards other people.

In the Hicks and Hicks translation, the Emperor's handbook, it's, don't feel for myth and tropes what they feel for mankind. And the 19th century British translator George Long has it like this, take care not to feel towards the inhuman as they feel towards men. And finally, the Daily Stoke Translator Steve Hanselman, my dear friend and book agent, translates it as, see to it that you don't hold feelings towards missing throats like they do for other people. What Marcus really says really saying is that you can't let the world, you can't let other people get you down or change you. A more colloquial

and modern way to translate the essence of this quote might be, don't let the sons of bitches turn you into a son of a bitch. Don't let inhumanity affect your humanity. Whatever happens, however you're treated, do your best to remain kind and patient, helpful, understanding, generous, courage, courageous, just, and wise. Be a good stiller, even if nobody around you is." And like I said, favorite translation of meditations is the Gregory Hayes-Edris edition. There's a really good paperback version of it for the modern library. We have the leather edition that we sell in the Daily Stoic store. I'll link to that in today's

show notes. The Robin Waterfield edition is fantastic. I recommend that all the time. You really can't go wrong. I mean, there are better markets' wisdom, is markets' wisdom. There are better versions. And not so good versions. I advise you not to cheap out. But I love doing these deep times. Like, what can we learn as we parse the different text

from all these different angles? That's how we can parse it from all these different angles. But I'll say most of the time, I'm picking up my leather edition of meditations, which hits my bedside. And actually, my wife'll say most of the time I'm picking up my leather edition of meditations which hits my bedside and actually my wife brought a copy of it with us on vacation where I'm recording this from and so we always have one of those close at hand and so should you I'll link to that in today's episode page where you can just go to store that daily stuff.com All right, hit me.

All right, so thanks for taking my question. I moved to the US like 12 years ago to tour with my band. Yeah, and I've been super fortunate that I've been able to tour and also hold down just a nine to five job for the last seven years. And it went remote after COVID. But also after COVID, as you know, like touring pretty much top.

And I double down on writing. My ultimate goal in life is just to write books and write music. But I have this nine to five that accommodates all of that. Sure. Aside from that, I have a couple of side businesses, e-commerce store, and band rentals for other musicians. Okay.

My question to make it short, sorry. No problem. No problem. I, these other things, other musicians. Okay. My question to make it short, sorry. These other things, the job funds my art. And at one point, I wanted to leave it in all this to focus on the music. Glad I didn't because of COVID. Yeah. The other stuff funds my wealth buckets is what I call them. Sure. They take care, they take care of my parents. I was able to pay off my parents mortgage and set them up comfortably back home, they pay for travel, they pay for music gear, etc.

My question is keep doing it like that even though it slows down my creative process in a way because an hour I dedicate to a side business is an hour taken from writing music or words, right? Or just accept that and keep, keep lighting all these different fires, kind of as you were saying earlier. Well, first off, I love it. I think it's creative and inspiring and interesting and exactly the sort of path that I have taken. Yes. Does there come a time where you have to sort of narrow and eliminate because it is, it's not just, hey, an hour here takes from over here, but I think it becomes more acute than that when you ultimately make the leap,

which is like, hey, it's really costing me serious opportunities, right? Okay. I'm not able to do most of what I wanted you creatively. I'm having to pass on big opportunities, the chance to go on this show or to do this thing or to go on this tour. I would probably, I'm not saying you want to wait until it's too late, but I would say, you probably don't.

I was just listening to this podcast about Saturday Live and the writers were talking about, you know, how does someone know when it's time to leave Saturday Live, right? And they were basically saying it's better to go too late than too early, right? Like it's better to overstay your welcome a little bit than it is to leap to think you've got it and it's all gonna be easy street from here, you know? And so I might say like you're right to be concerned about it and monitoring it, but I think it will be much clearer than you think

when it is time to start making those decisions. And so would you say continue aside from the job, which I know I shouldn't, but continue the side businesses that kind of feed or fund the wealth buckets? I think so. And then maybe you know, it's not a process of dropping everything all at once, but it's a scaling down or you you find a way to exit one of them or bring on, maybe it's a process of how do you automate those businesses or they become less efficient and less profitable, but they take up less of your time, right?

And so how do you scale or automate or delegate on those things so you can buy back more of your own time as I saw someone put in the questions. But great, great question. Yeah, can I hear you, I can hear you great. Okay, cool. I think it kind of stems off the question that was just as, uh, central corpus job and until now, yes, it has been a ratio of, like, that systematic reasoning cow was talking about, and he's just great at that's a strength. And then that, that, that creative, like workflow,

Robert Green talks about just understanding everything as a whole that that obviously come from, you know, accumulating all the information over time. But do you, do you start to add that over time or has that ratio changed? Like, yeah, I think, I think that thing about ratios is that they can change, right? And so your different times in my life, it's been more focused over here and less focused over here, and it's about sort of constantly adjusting and then also learning, right? Like you learn, hey, I've over committed or hey, I do too much over here or hey, this

is the busy season for me. And so yeah, I think like to speak of Robert Green, you know, the last law and the 48 laws of power is assume formlessness. And this point is that as you become great at what you do and successful at what you do, you actually become less rigid and more flexible and adaptable and adjustable. And this is built around your experience, both learned and firsthand with all the different variables in what you're doing. But great question.

Hi. Hi, Ryan. Hi. This has been so great. I'm just so honored to be here. My question. Oh, my pleasure. Yeah.

My question is about as a creative that you are, how do you strike a balance with consuming other people's creative content versus creating your own? Because that's something I've been struggling with a lot recently. Yes. I think it's really important that you consume lots and lots of stuff. I tend to find that to find what I spend consuming work from my peers or contemporary work is much less valuable over the long term than even the most esoteric

and strange of stuff that's sort of older and more classic. So as you're trying to sort of step outside trends or the moment and really root yourself in stuff that's timelessly good and great, right? Because you're trying to create timeless good and great, right? I, because you're trying to create timeless and great work, right? And so I think you're, you want to consume a lot, but like I'll just notice like, hey, I'm reading lots of articles and not enough books, right? Or I'm watching, you know, whatever the TV show of the moment is, but like, there's so many classic movies

that I haven't seen, right? And so I just, I just try to root myself in consuming and immersing myself in really great stuff or that's really different than what I do. Like I was just talking about this SNL podcast. I was listening to it's called Fly on the Wall. I think I like to listen to stuff that's very different or like if I am going to consume contemporary stuff,

I want to watch like a comedy special or I want to watch a documentary. I want to watch someone who does a very different thing than I do. One, because I'm, I'm less likely to compare myself to that thing, right? Like, hey, how did they get this? Should I be doing this? And, um, you know, I'm more likely to be inspired and, and discover something new that, like, make a new connection or have a new idea that maybe I wouldn't have had otherwise.

That's so awesome. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, great question, though. Hi, Ryan. How are you? Hi. Good to see you again. Great. Yeah. I love being part of these. Yeah. My question first off, I want to say thanks. I just had my first article published. Oh, congrats. That's awesome. Yeah, it's published in the Air Force Journal of Character and Leadership Development so that's fantastic. Excited about that you're

going in it and that's what my question was. Okay I pulled a tweet from years several years ago for the abstract where you talk about perfecting the personal regularly leads to success as a professional but rarely the other way around. Correct. It comes to accruing wealth and time. Are you better to invest in yourself as a person or are you better to invest in the trade and the skill? Where's the balance there? No, that's a great question. Yeah, I do think it applies here.

What Cal is saying is, like, getting clarity about what you want to do, what you're, what Cal is saying is say like getting clarity about what you want to do, what you're trying to save for, what you're trying to make, what kind of life you want, an hour spent on that is probably preferable to say an hour reading index fund perspectives, right? But I think if we're talking about sort of investing in yourself as a human being, first investing in yourself professionally, you know, obviously there's attention or a balance here, but I do tend to find that when I'm more aligned, when I'm in a good headspace, when I'm happier, when I'm more secure in who I am,

what I'm trying to do, what's important to me. I'm less likely to be distracted by things that don't matter. And I'm also bringing a better headspace, a better focus, you know, a better mindset to the work itself, right? So if my marriage is not going well, it's very unlikely that I'm coming home every day, also crushing it as a writer, right? And so the decision to go, hey, I'm going to invest or do some work over here to get this stuff back on track.

And I'm going to have the faith and the confidence that almost certainly that's going to translate over professionally. But let's say it doesn't, I'd still probably make that trade, right? Like if, if, like, you know, people were talked about this with Tiger Woods, like, Tiger Woods going to sex rehab and getting his life together, kicking his various addictions, did it make him a worse golfer? Maybe, maybe it did, but if it did, that's probably a good trade. You know what I mean? That's probably a good trade. So the nice part about it is that it works separate. It's worth doing separate from, you know, whether it has a financial or

professional pay off also. And I love the daily dad book read it every night. My side, I appreciate that. My son broke his hand and had hand surgery on Monday. So trying to take some advice from that book to try to be there for him. And a lot of what we do, his athletics, yeah, part of me now. So trying to find a way to fill that space productively.

I know that might sound egocentric, but now I totally get it. Yeah. So I'm trying to use some of the advice that I read from you to help him kind of get through this injury and be better for it. So thank you for all you do. Love it. I love being part of these things.

Let's do it. So I have a question just about I have a kind of a weird job, right? And I do like live streaming stuff on social media. And my income is very donation based. So I go live every night for a couple hours, but I'm trying to remove my value as a creator and or entertainer from the amount of money I'm making

and set night. So if I'm having a bad night, I want to do that and still be able to do my job of how I'm making in said night. So if I'm having a bad night, I want to do that and still be able to do my job. Yeah. I want to know. I totally agree. I have had to as a creator over time insulate myself from the numbers so I don't see them, right? As a creator, I have to make just like right? As a creator, I have to make just like, I built my brand, I have my audience because of my taste, because of what I know, because of what's important to me, and this is also what motivates me, right? Like, I didn't, I didn't sign up to be anyone's monkey, right? And so, if, if I only do what the audience wants, then I don't own the audience.

The audience owns me. Right? So I think about that a lot. Right? So part of the way that I, but at the same time, if you don't care about the audience, if you are totally ignorant or ignore what's working and what's not working, you can end up very far from not only what the audience wants,

but what's economically sustainable, right? So I try to create some a buffer space between me and the stuff. So I'll give you an example. When Daily Stoke started, anyone could reply to the Daily Stoke email and be like, I loved the email or I hate you, your garbage person, you should stop doing this, right? And one of the shifts I had to make was away from,

so I could write what I thought was important and what people needed to hear on a given day, not what people told me they wanted to hear. Because what I was finding is that I would say something that I thought was important or good. And then so many people would say something negative about it that it would make me gun shy later when I felt like I had to do the same thing.

So I've created buffers, right? Somebody else checks the emails and they tell me if anything important comes through. And by the way, almost nothing ever important comes through, right? Or stats, right? I, my team gives me a social report at the end of the month. Are we growing the accounts? What's working? What's not working? I get a similar report for YouTube, right? My accountant gives me a similar report on financially what's working. The sales for the painted porch, they're on my wife's phone, right? So I can't check it

as I don't even have the log in for Shopify for daily stoic because I don't want to be thinking about I want to think I have this card here that says, am I being a good steward of stoicism? I want to judge my decisions on whether I think I'm doing the right thing for the community, for the philosophy, for what, you know, I'm interested in. I don't want to be thinking about dollars and cents all the time. Yeah. I know I get the I get enough of the information on a daily basis, or sorry, on a monthly or weekly basis that I'm not going to run out of money. I'm not going to get in some unreoverable downward spiral, but I'm also not checking it on a consistent basis

in a way that it looms large in my mind. Because if you are thinking about money all the time, you are probably not rich, right? Like the whole point about being successful or wealthy is that you should get, we used the word post economic earlier, the whole point is that you should have to think less about money. People go, I've made so much money, I don't have to think about money anymore, right? Now, there's lots of ways to get there that don't involve winning the lottery. And I think one of the ways to do that is just to set up systems that allow you to be aware, but not constantly

aware in real time of the numbers. Because the stats from social media, the stats from, you know, your PayPal account, all these things, it's more information than a creative should have access to in the moment if they want to be centered and sane and do good work. Right. Isn't saying I appreciate that. I appreciate advice. Thank you. Great, great question.

This was really awesome. And I will talk to you guys in the next one of these and we'll do the same thing where we, we do some questions after because I had a good time doing this. So thanks everyone. A lot of great stuff coming and there will be an archive of this. We'll send it out so stay tuned. Appreciate it. Hey, prime members, you can listen to the daily Stoic early

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