The Daily Stoic - Is The World Going Through Hell? | Marks Of The Good Life

Episode Date: October 20, 2022

“It’s tough to be alive now,” the actor Timothée Chalamet recently said. “I think societal collapse is in the air — it smells like it.”It’s one of those lines that got picked up by dozens of media outlets. Because those outlets know it’s one of those headlines people can’t resist clicking on. As the economist Deirdre McCloskey once put it, “For reasons I have never understood, people like to hear that the world is going to hell.”✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook See 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 Stoic podcast early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic podcast. On Thursdays, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from the book, The Daily Stoic, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, in the art of living, which I wrote with my wonderful co-author and collaborator, Stephen Hanselman. And so today we'll give you a quick meditation from one of the Stoics,

from Epipetus Markus Relius, Seneca, then some analysis for me, and then we send you out into the world to do your best to turn these words into works. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wonderree'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. Is the world going to hell? It's tough to be alive now, an actor recently said. I think societal collapses in the air.

It smells like it. It's one of those lines that gets picked up by dozens of media outlets because those outlets know it's one of those headlines that people can't resist clicking on. As the economist Deirdre McCloskey once put it, for reasons I have never understood people like to hear that the world is going to hell. Perhaps you're one of those people. Perhaps you are alarmed about the state of the world. Perhaps you're horrified at the risks and dangers that lurk about. Pandemics, political chaos, riots, people at each other's throats, unprecedented events. Perhaps you're getting a strong whiff of societal collapse. Certainly, the Stokes knew that smell. How could they not? The fall of the Republic, Nero, the Antonin plague, and yet they kept going.

They did not despair. It's not that they were naive optimists, that they knew their job always remained the same. Focus on what you control. Do your best. Live with virtue. Real optimists bear in mind constantly, Mark Serelius, wrote that all of this has happened before and will happen again, the same plot from beginning to end the identical stage. Remember this is just what it means to live through history.

It can be scary, it can be confusing, and weird, and smelly. The Spanish flu, the Depression, Watergate years, the Six Day War, the 1973 oil embargo, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the 2008 financial crisis. Living through history has always had at least a faint smell of collapse. It's strange to think that we can find optimism in this, but we can't, because when we face challenges with proper stoicism, with courage, moderation, justice, and wisdom, the odds of a good outcome are in our favor. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to today's entry from the Daily Stoic. Today is October 20th,

and you can read this in the Daily Stoic. Marks of the Good Life. You have proof in the extent of your wanderings that you never found the art of living anywhere, not in logic, not in wealth, or fame, or any indulgence. Nowhere. Where is it then? In doing what human nature demands? How is a person to do this? By having principles be the source of desire and action.

What principles? Those to do with good and evil, indeed, in the belief that there is no good for a human being, except what creates justice, self-control, courage, freedom, and nothing evil except that which destroys these things. Marcus Arellius' meditations. 8. 1. Then the entry reads, What is the meaning of life? Why was I born? Most of us struggle with these questions.

Sometimes when we're young, sometimes not until we're older. Rarely do we find much in the way of directions, but that's simply because we miss the point. As Victor Franco points out in man's search for meaning, it's not our question to ask. Instead it is we who are being asked the question. It's our lies that are the answer. No amount of traveling or reading or clever stages can tell you what you want to know. Instead, it is you who must find the answer in your actions and living the good life by embodying the self-evident principles of justice, self-control, courage, and freedom,

and abstaining from evil. There's probably nothing that Marcus talks about in meditation is more than the virtues. Deeply earnest about them too. I think cynicism is this kind of idea that nothing matters, but there's a self-fulfilling prophecy to that. Conversely, when you take the virtues as important

as significant and you try to live by them and you follow them and you try to live up to them, I think you create meaning, as Victor Franco was saying. The decision to say, hey, this is who I am, this is what's important to me, this is what I think I was put here to do, this is what I know I'm capable of being. That elevates us, right? That's why I've been writing this series on the Forverchews, just to courage. The temperance version just came out, uh, discipline is destiny, the power of self control, which you can grab anywhere, books are sold and thank you to everyone who's supported the book. Now I'm tackling justice in my writings.

And yeah, you just read about people who experience so much adversity, so much difficulty, so much pain, who never gave up, who never quit, who never said, ah, nothing matters, never said, fuck it, who stuck with that sense of decency and goodness because they felt like there was meaning in that. To me, that's what stoicism is all about. That's the journey that we're on. That's the journey that I'm trying to be on in this series. And so I try to talk about here at Daily Still at Clayton. I don't know what put a seer, right? I'll leave that question to a much wiser person. But I know that we are seer. And so how do we make that meaningful? It's not by doing whatever we want. It's not by chasing our pleasure. It's not by avoiding pain or or risk. It's by standing up, stepping forward, doing what we can, trying to leave this place a little bit better than we found it. So I try to do my writing.

So I try to talk about here. That's what I know so many of you try to do. And whatever it is that you do professionally, it's what I try to do as a parent, it's what I try to do as a spouse. Marcus says that life is what our thoughts make it and deciding to think that virtue is important is important. You could argue it's the most important thing. And this idea of the good life, right, Cardos, which is where the phrase cardinal virtues comes from, it's about hint, that means hint or pivot point. I think, put aside the marks of good life, the good life, pivots on this, pivots on virtue, pivots

on those four key ideas that Marcus was talking about. And I hope you're hanging your hat, your life, your sense of meaning and value as a person on those four things to. And I hope you're hanging your hat, your life, your sense of meaning and value as a person on those four things too. And I hope it served you as it served me. I appreciate all the support of the new book everyone. It's been awesome to see how it's doing. And I've loved hearing from all of you. If you haven't read discipline, it's destiny. You can grab that anywhere, books or sold. You can listen to it in an audio too, but what I'd really prefer is that you just do your best today to live by those ideas. Being able to control your anger is a difficult but worthwhile goal.

We'll take time and effort, it won't be free, but by changing your perspective and developing techniques to control your temper, we'll ultimately be achievable in life-changing. So take the first step on the path to a calmer and more fulfilling future, check out your temper, the 10-day still-idk guide to controlling your anger can just go to dailystodd.com-slash-angry. Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic early and ad-free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today, or you can listen early and ad-free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Ah, the Bahamas. What if you could live in a penthouse above the crystal clear ocean working during the day and partying at night with your best friends and have it be 100% paid for?

FTX Founder's Sam Bankman Freed lived that dream life, but it was all funded with other people's money, but he allegedly stole. Many thought Sam Bankman Freed was changing the game as he graced the pages of Forbes and Vanity Fair. Some involved in crypto saw him as a breath of fresh air from the usual Wall Street buffs with his casual dress and ability to play League of Legends during boardroom meetings.

But in less than a year, his exchange would collapse. An SPF would find himself in a jail cell with tens of thousands of investors blaming him for their crypto losses. From Bloomberg and Wondering comes Spellcaster, a new six-part docu-series about the meteoric rise and spectacular fall of FTX and its founder, Sam Beckman-Freed. Follow Spellcaster wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, Prime members, you can listen to episodes Add Free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music app today. you