The Daily Stoic - Live from the Birthplace of Stoicism (PT. 2) | Ryan Holiday and Donald Robertson (in Greece)

Episode Date: July 26, 2025

In today’s Part 2 episode, Ryan visits the birthplace of Stoicism in Athens and sits down for lunch with writer and cognitive-behavioral psychotherapist Donald Robertson. They explore the rich history of Stoicism in Greece, share their must-see ancient philosophy spots, and catch up on what they’ve been reading and writing.Donald is a writer, cognitive-behavioral psychotherapist and trainer. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH). Donald specializes in teaching evidence-based psychological skills, and is known as an expert on the relationship between modern psychotherapy (CBT) and classical Greek and Roman philosophy.📚 Grab copies of Donald’s books, How to Think Like Socrates: Ancient Philosophy as a Way of Life in the Modern World, Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor and How To Think Like A Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius from The Painted Porch | https://www.thepaintedporch.com/🎥 Watch Donald Robertson’s episode on The Daily Stoic Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Axnl-E1zc5U&pp=0gcJCfwAo7VqN5tDSubstackX: @donjrobertsonIG: @donaldjrobertson📖 Preorder the final book in Ryan Holiday's The Stoic Virtues Series: "Wisdom Takes Work": https://store.dailystoic.com/pages/wisdom-takes-work🎙️ Follow The Daily Stoic Podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoicpodcast🎥 Watch top moments from The Daily Stoic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dailystoicpodcast✉️ 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 FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend when you have a little bit more space, when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and

most importantly to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke Podcast. I am recording beneath the Acropolis. It is 10.30 p.m. It is 10.30 PM. It is beautiful. I'm very lucky to be where I am. And I just left somewhere that I felt even luckier to be at.

You might be able to hear it in the background, but I just took my family last minute, didn't know it was going to be here while we were here, walked by. That's why I like to go on long runs on vacation, is that you spot things you go, oh, that would be cool to do. to be here while we were here, walked by. That's why I like to go on long runs on vacation, is that you spot things you go, oh, that would be cool to do.

So Michael Kiwanuka was performing at a theater under, at the foot of the Acropolis. If you know anything about Athens, you might be familiar with this theater, or you might be familiar with its patron. might be familiar with its patron, Herodes of Atticus is Marcus Aurelius' rhetoric teacher. And in honor of his wife, who died under somewhat suspicious circumstances, he dedicates this theater to him. He pays to put up this music venue,

which still stands to this day. I just watched a concert in it. Two thousand years, this theater has been there, and it's hosted some amazing bands from Elton John and Coldplay Theater. I think Antigone is playing tomorrow. We're not going to be here, so I can't see that. But sitting there with my kids, it's nine o'clock, the sun has just set.

I go, boys, Marcus Aurelius could have sat in those seats there at the bottom. Certainly, he wouldn't have known about this theater. Here we are, how the centuries collapse. You read meditations and all these centuries and the distance collapses watching a rock concert in this venue. Obviously, they weren't playing rock music there 20 odd centuries ago. But the way the audience was clapping,

the way that the band was interacting with the audience, just the awe that everyone had for this surreal, almost totally place, that's very old, that's very timeless. It's actually something I talked about in today's episode. I brought you the first half of this earlier in the week. I'm here in Athens, as I said, and that's how all this stuff is happening. I had lunch with Donald Robertson, and he told me quite a bit about that theater.

One of the things he points out, as we talk about in the episode, is the conspicuous absence of Atticus in Marcus Aurelius' meditations. Right at the beginning of meditations, he thanks all of his teachers, or many of his teachers, but he doesn't thank this one. Is it because he's the kind of person who potentially is involved in his wife's death tied to the Michael Kibunukkik concert? If you don't know his music, you probably have heard it because it's the theme,

the opening, the beautiful big sur sequence of big little lies which is all about a murder and secrets and marital complications. I thought that was interesting. Anyways, it was a great lunch with Donald. As I said, I didn't bring my recording equipment with me. I'm recording this intro on the voice memo on my phone and I just, I put the phone on a glass on the table and recorded.

So if you've ever wanted to know what having a meal with me is like, this is a glimpse. I had a Greek salad. I think you'll actually hear my order in part one, but I had a Greek salad just to catch you up. I had a Greek salad, enjiro. I didn't eat the pita, just nibbled on French fries a little bit. By a little bit, I mean I'm probably 80-80 percent of them. I drank quite a bit of sparkling water. It was nice.

Actually, if you want to have a meal with me, we're doing a Philosophers' Dinner where we talk about philosophy for people who pre-order wisdom takes work. If you pre-order a certain number of copies, you can get a signed page from the manuscript. If you pre-order a lot of copies, like you're gonna give them away at your company or whatever,

we'll have dinner together. We usually do it at Storehouse, which is a place across from my painted porch. Dalin and I were eating across from the actual painted porch here in Athens, the painted porch, my bookstore in Bastrop, Texas, across from a lovely farm to table restaurant that I eat at many, many times a month called Storehouse.

Sonia, the amazing chef there, always treats us quite well. We're gonna do dinner there for a handful of folks that do that. So if you want to have dinner with me, you can pre-order Wisdom Takes Work, which comes out in the fall. We will run out of slots and sign manuscript pages. You can grab all that at dailystoic.com slash pre-order. Of course, order Donald's books. His biography of Marcus Aurelius is incredible. It's got facts like we were just talking about. His book, How to Think Like a Roman Emperor is largely about the philosophy of Marcuss, really is incredible. His book about

Socrates, also great, How to Think Like Socrates, just one of my favorite people. He's been on the podcast a bunch of times. I'll link to those other episodes and then we will just get into it. He has been a great supporter of my work. I try to be a supporter of his work. I think it's important. I think it's great work. And I was excited to see him. And then I texted him this morning as I was walking down, well, running, starting my run, I saw a fox running up the path of the Acropolis.

How cool was that? And he said he'd never seen one in all his time living here. So that was pretty cool. Anyways, let's get into the episode. Here's me and Donald Robertson talking. And goodbye, Athens. Thank you for indulging the somewhat untrad's get into the episode. Here's me and Donald Robertson talking. Goodbye Athens. Thank you for indulging the somewhat untraditional episode of the podcast. I'm going to enjoy this view for a couple more minutes

and then go put my goods to bed. Bye. The other interesting thing about stoicism, in terms of the demographics and the reach, is that a lot of the people I speak to, like psoriasis is their only exposure to CBT and therapy, if you work in therapy, you kind of assume that everybody is a self-help junkie because all your clients tend to be, right? And psychotherapists have to be reminded, and people that are in the self-help soldiers have to be reminded, there's a large percentage of people, particularly quite a large percentage of men that never read any self-help stuff. Like, you know, they're completely beyond

the reach of self-help. They just aren't interested in it. But if they read books about stoicism because they're into Roman history or whatever, they find out about CBT self-help stuff and they often think it's really interesting. The only exposure they get to it. So sometimes I think, well, these ideas are good. Some of these ideas are going to be familiar to people that have read other stuff. But a lot of the people that read books like I think the Roman Emperor, probably some of you have read, are like, no, this is the only self-help stuff I've ever read.

I know about that with the historical stories I tell. Everyone knows this story. Everyone knows this story. I mean, Blue Charm tells a story. You know, just like also when you do academic stuff, you're like, everyone knows about this study. And then you realize, no, people are living their lives. They have no idea about this. And if they're hearing it for the first time, it's new. It's new to them. I wrote about Queen Elizabeth a lot and Disco and Sesame and people

like that. I had no idea. It's like, this is one of the most famous people in the world. You just realize, well, first up, you can always take something that people do know about and present it in a new way. Yeah. But yeah, most people are busy and they don't know about it. Yeah.

It's funny though, I think we're switching. So you're gonna write more topic-based stuff. Yeah. I'm doing a biography of Stockdale. Oh, really? Uh-huh. That'd be cool. It should be interesting. That's a great idea. I was just working on it in my in our every meeting. His grandmother, like we think of him as this 20th and 21st

century figure, this modern guy, right? Right. Because he flies up fighter jet. Yeah. Obviously, he runs for president. He dies in 2008. His grandmother, Mabel, goes as an eight-year-old to see Lincoln speak during the campaign. So you're like, oh, this is almost a 19th century picture. And so in a way, he's closer to the sort of Victorian stoics. Certainly, that's the tradition he's he's raised in But he's born in 1923. It's like you think of the guys in Vietnam being young, right?

But he's almost 40 when he's shot down. He's a throwback figure So anyways, I'm really interested in that. Well, that's why I'm doing I got a picture from his sons of his copy of Epictetus that he's introduced to when he's at Stanford He gets a copy of the Higginson translation Higginson being a Civil War general You know what I mean? He doesn't go to a bookstore and get like some new edition, right? It's a throwback era root into the philosophy and in a way, he's kind of part of that military stoicism tradition Right Higginson being you know, the first leader of black troops in the revolution. That's definitely like a whole new issue today.

But yeah, there's a lot of these dudes in the military. It's a little bit disjointed though. I can always follow it would be good if somehow they kind of talked to you. We had a military stoicism virtual conference a few years back. I remember that. Yeah.

That was kind of, I think it was kind of an attempt just to introduce them to mold each other. Just thought, you guys, like I keep coming across you guys and keep reaching out to me, but none of them know each other. Right. Right. I think that's because it's one of the last places where character development is part of the role of the institution.

Right. Because basically, universities and public schools, that's not part of it. Right? Or it is, but it has to be so watered down because it can't be religious, it can't be judgmental, it can't be... So, sort of like real values-based moral teachings, it's one of the last places that that's a part of it. Yeah, it's interesting, like in therapy, therapy's always, very much always been, at least as long as I can remember, the code of ethics that different organisations have always emphasised

that you have to be value neutral. It's got to be non-direct, value neutral and all this kind of stuff. And I always felt that was virtually impossible and the therapist's values invariably come through and shaped what's going on indirectly. There's a famous study of Carl Rogers who really was one guy that pushed this idea. He invented counseling. So in the Hades psychoanalysis, whenever he was interpreting everything, Rogers kind of abandoned all of that and said we should just paraphrase back what the client is saying and empathize with them and reflect their own words back and not impose any interpretation at all. So he really laid a little

on thick this idea about a kind of hands-off approach. Yeah. Then some behavioral psychologists studied a load of videos of him working with clients and they said but clearly when his clients mention sex he frowns and leans back and looks disinterested. And then when they talk about self-actualization, he always leans forward and kind of asks them to say more. So he's implicitly shaping the course of the public. So they say, you can quantify this and prove, like, none of his clients ever talk about sex because he always looks bored whenever they do.

Right. And even though he thinks I'm being totally non-directed, they're like, no, he's profoundly none of his clients ever talk about sex because he always looks bored whenever they do it. And even though he thinks I'm being totally non-directed, they're like, no, he's profoundly shaping the things that they're discussing in the sessions. He just doesn't realize that he is. That's so interesting. He's in denial of the fact that he is. Oh, by the way, why are there tortoises up there? Well, like actual tortoises walking around. Yeah, you didn't know that? The lawn of that thing, there's a huge thing of giant tortoises walking around. Yeah you didn't know that? Along with that thing there's a huge thing of like giant tortoises. Sometimes you see them and sometimes you don't. There's like always a few in there and then the Keramikis there's a bunch.

I didn't know if they were somehow like deities or god, it's just they're just like a peacock walking around. It's not like a, they're not like there as a... What do you mean statues or tortoise? No they're real tortoise. No they all, they're real tortoise. No, they just live here. They run wild in Athens.

If you go to even the public parks, like in academia, I don't think there's any in academia in Latin that's actually been. Some of the other public parks, you'll just see them wandering around. Often they're kind of in the bushes and stuff, so you don't really see them. You have to be careful at night because they hunt in packs. The tortoises here? Yeah, they're faster than they look. And you can trip over them?

Yeah. But they... No, I saw one down here once actually. It kind of came onto the street like it had wandered out the agaraw. So it walked across the bridge. That's so amazing. Somewhere around here. I mean there's loads of feral cats around. My kids are obsessed, they're just all they're doing is counting cats. Be careful about stroking them like one of them scratched Casey really badly and there's blood all pouring down her arm she tried to pet it and just went yeah. I probably thought it was trying to get caught or something. The angriest they get is if you actually feed them, so you give them like a little bit of fish

or something like that, they're always hanging around the restaurants. And then they'll literally bite the hand that feeds them right. Because then they get really angry because they want to get more and more from you. If you don't acknowledge them, then they generally leave you alone.

But as soon as you start interacting with them, you can get a little bit of guessing. We walked by our place the other day and there was a feral cat eating a bowl of spaghetti that someone had put out. My kids just thought it was the funniest thing they've ever seen in their life. They're drink by bags of cat food and just throw them on the sidewalk. So are there any other stoic sites that you can tell people about? Okay, so things that are relevant off the top of my head would be the theatre of Dionysus

on the side of the Acropolis, where Aristophanes performed The Clouds. And there's a story that Socrates was sitting in the audience and it was kind of ridiculing him and he stood up and kind of acknowledged it was about him, like he wasn't ashamed of it. And the Agara, we believe that was probably very well put on trial and imprisoned and executed. The Socrates is not in prison. He's not in prison. Yeah, I don't even know why they had that sign up. It's too confusing. The Stope Oikile today, there's the Academy,

there's the Lyceum, Electrocycus, like took the Lyceum. That's Aristotle's. Yeah. I'm gonna try to run there tomorrow. Yeah, it's just a small, I mean the actual archeological site of the Lyceum is probably not much bigger than that.

Okay. But it's like, it's a really, it's in a posh part, relatively posh part of Athens, it's in Kulonaki. It's like a really well-kept little garden, you have to buy a ticket to go in it. And it's right beside the Byzantine Christian Museum. Now the actual Lyceum would have been like 10 acres or something like that, so it actually would extend underneath where the Byzantine Museum is. Okay. They have this little bit marked in it that they call the Lyceum, which is one tiny little corner of it.

But it's worth checking out. It's very pretty. So we're gonna go to Delphi? Yeah, that's amazing. I guess that's where it all begins. Yeah, I mean it's just like a really stunning place and a really remarkable archive. It's got a museum there. The other thing is it's like a two and a half hour drive or something. We're doing, so we're leaving on Friday, we're doing like a 10 day road trip.

Yeah. My son wants to go to Ithaca, so we're gonna go to Ithaca. Now at the end of the trip I'm gonna do the run from Marathon back to Applewood. If you had time, the only other place I'd say is like Elifcina. But there's like so many, the thing about Greece, and the reason, right, is people all come here on holiday and retire here and stuff, there are many places in the world, like Montreal maybe like where you might go once, it's like oh this is really cool. And maybe you go twice. But then you think okay I've kind of like seen everything

there. With Greece, you come to Athens, you leave, you think there's still like loads of things in Athens that I haven't seen. You come back two or you leave, you think there's still like loads of things in Athens that I haven't seen. You come back two or three times and you think maybe I'll go to one of the islands. Right. There's like 200 islands and they're all different. Right. And then there's loads of other things on the mainland. So you end up thinking you could just like keep coming back to Greece like every year

and see different things. Right. Yeah, that's interesting. Well, because there's just so much, it's not one era of history. It's thousands of years of history. That is something I've been thinking about recently, which is like how old Stoicism would have been to the Stoics, right? Like you think about how old the Stoa was by the time Marcus Aurelius comes here.

Maybe it's ruins, maybe it's not. Oh yeah, I've seen that as kind of a bit relevant to Stoicism because there's actually a bust of Maximillius still there. Where? Ancient Eleusis. Oh. They call it Elefcena today. So it's where there's a big temple complex there, the temple of Demeter.

And it was raided by the Sarmatians during the reign of Maximillius and then when he comes to Athens, he goes there and has it rebuilt. And they rebuilt the main gate, the proper layer to the temple, and it had a big bust of Marcus Aurelius over it. And that's still there. So it's one of the few places where there's a bust of Marcus Aurelius in the location where it was originally.

Right, instead of just finding it randomly. Or even when Dorcas and Hadrian and Antoninus, they come here, in some ways for the same reason that we're coming here, as this historical birthplace. And so just that for 2000 years, that process has been ongoing, is fascinating to me that the nostalgia is already there for centuries by the time he gets to it. No, there's like a whole thing about, like I always include me for example, as far as we know Seneca never went to Athens, but like if you teach philosophy, it's kind of to some

extent, I mean you can kind of maybe get away by the Roman imperial period, but generally speaking it would look a bit lame if you hadn't been to Athens and you were claiming to be an expert. Oh, that is interesting. if you hadn't been to Athens and you were claiming to be an expert. So Marcus really spoke fluent Greek, he was completely immersed in it, really identified with the philosophy and he didn't go to Athens until towards the end of his life so for him, even more than people like us reading about it and stuff, it must have been like a massive pilgrimage.

But also like you know today there'll be these stories about, like, you know, the young men are turning to ancient ideas for modern guidance. That's what he's doing. Yeah. You know what, like, that's what the Romans were doing, looking backwards hundreds of years for guidance. You know, although it's more of a living tradition

that they're still doing the same thing. Like, just the timelessness of that process of looking backwards for foundational ideas that we've been doing that since basically he's first setting up on this porch it's kind of an incredible thing. I think they thought about it, they probably thought about time a little bit definitely but for sure to Marcus, Zeno and the foundations of Stoicism are like, if you like, us looking back to the medieval period. For Shakespeare, yeah. Yeah, like it's a whole different world to him.

And I think to some extent just like Greek cult, I mean, he would have been very familiar with Greek culture, but it's also still slightly exotic. We just compress that whole period down into it's all this one thing. Ancient stuff. Yes. And it's like, no, the Greeks give way to the Romans, and the Romans believe that they're living in the future. Yeah, it makes me laugh, but like even in TV and documentaries and stuff, you always

hear people saying, like even professors will sometimes say in ancient times, and you go like, when? What does that mean? What does ancient times mean? That could be anything. That's as vague as you can be. In the ancient world. Yes, and also, I mean, there's obviously all these worlds that they don't even know about. Yeah, whole civilizations that didn't leave any records behind, and and I mean we don't really know much about the Celts to be honest. There's a poem, I forget who says it, but like she's reading some ancient author and she's like what would he think of me now reading this

you know all this time is there on an unrumored continent. You know like to think like there's all these other things happening in the world that they don't even know that it exists. You know, like to think like there's all these other things happening in the world that they don't even know that it exists. You know, that's what I think. So like you get to Montaigne and he's now aware of the new world. And then there's this sort of different type of civilization for the first time, different kinds of people. And then the whole picture of the world has been reduced, artificially reduced by 50 percent. It's about every moment. Really interesting. I wonder to what extent, I mean some educated, like a lot of Romans must have felt like Rome was basically the world. Yeah.

As far as they were concerned, why wouldn't they? But some of them I think also show this awareness that it's a small corner of the world. I mean I think probably they would all slightly talk. They see it like they're kind of bugged by Alexander the Great and the fact that just constantly acts as a reminder to them. Like there's the whole of Persia and India and stuff beyond that that's almost entirely unknown to them. Yes. Yeah, there was this kind of limit, probably mostly because of the ships. But basically they're like, if it's outside the Mediterranean, we're not interested. Well, I'm glad that you finally made it. Yes, it's been good.

And you're enjoying it. Yeah. It's pretty hot, but you're probably used to that in Texas. I mean, it's cooler than Texas. Yeah. Yeah, last summer we did Australia, which was the exact opposite of this. And that did totally escape the heat. Right. Has it been up there? Propolis, yeah. Yeah, yeah. We did that yesterday. Right. Have you been up the Acropolis, yeah? Yeah, yeah, we did that yesterday. You must have done a lot of things yesterday.

We did a lot of things yesterday, and then we're doing it again tonight. You did that again? Yeah. Wow. The boys were upset. We wanted to do a night night. Have you been up Mount Lycavetas?

Is that the tallest peak, the one up there? Yeah, so we did the Acropolis yesterday, and it was like a drive-in set after, so we took us up there. So we got to see that. That was pretty cool. What was that historically? Anything?

They don't talk, they mention it in passing but don't really say all that much about it. Right. It's interesting when you're here, yeah, because there are like things, they talk a lot about the Agara and the gymnasium and stuff but they don't, there's other things that they don't say that much about. They're just not that interesting. Look at this, it's like kind of and stuff, but they don't, there's other things that they don't say that much about. They're just not that- Look at that, this is like kind of in your face, but they don't really-

Yeah, they're like, no, we just have the one mountain. They all have made it down vaguely and passing. Yeah, it's weird they would so build that out as a temple and then over there, nothing. I never thought there was anything on it. Like, yeah, I think it was kind of, and the name sounds like it has something to do with wolves. Actually, I'll tell you something really weird.

The Lyceum is at the foot of the Cavertas, in a sense, basically. And Lyceum sounds like it. It's like Lycos, the word for wolf. Like, so we don't know, we have no idea. But it sounds like there's some kind of connection between the name of the hill and the name of Malaysia. I'll look there, move a bit closer over here.

They're going to do some digging over here maybe. Yeah, let's try to go to what's called... So these are mostly college students you think? I think so. It's a long, slow process. What do you think that is, like 10, 15 sheet? They'd have to go down to even get to the... Yeah, to even get to that level.

And I mean it kind of looks like there might be things built above that level. Like maybe there were other structures built on top of it that they'd have to excavate first and then maybe move somewhere or not to get to that level. It's crazy. The painted porch itself might not be on the ground level. It could be on ruins itself. Well, there's supposedly a shrine to Aphrodite next to this stuff, right? I don't know if they'd ever uncover a part of that.

And then also says it was dedicated to the sleep races. I do love there's a bookstore right there. Under the green thing, there's a bookstore. But, uh... Yeah, there's an Irish bar. Yes, of course. But they didn't have any of my books or any of your books, so that would have been cool. I think I've seen your book in some of the bookshops in Exarchia.

I was trying to find... I don't know what they look like in Greek. I don't know. Like, because you know they send you the different translation. I don't know if I've ever seen them in Greek, but... And some countries, it's like when you're in the Netherlands for instance like they are translated but most people just read them in English you know? What is tipping culture in Greece?

You don't expect people to tip and sometimes it's a little bit of a hassle because like in in Canada whenever you pay by card every time it will always give you the offer. Right. Whereas here often it doesn't and then sometimes you'll say, sometimes I've even said take an ad and send it to them, and they're like, oh I can't be bothered ranking it up again. It's like annoying. Have you sold the anger book yet or no? We're in the process of, Mr. Martin's are looking at the proposal at the moment. I think they're probably going to make me an offer on it, but they wanted me to revise the proposal to make it like a little bit less about history.

It was about Caesar and Grotus, you know, Davidian a bit, like and I kind of used those as the case for these examples. And they said they thought I'd put too much emphasis on the history and they wanted me to put more emphasis on the cycle. I think that's a good call actually. Usually their notes are wrong but that's actually a pretty good one. You know St. Martin's also bought a Usually their notes are wrong, but that's actually a pretty good one. You know St. Martin's also bought a historical novel about Marx's realist? Like if you read Augustus by John Williams, John Williams who wrote Stoner He wrote a very famous historical novel

That came out in the 70s that sold very well, and you know St. Martin's bought a historical novel about Marcus. Oh! What's the other famous historical novel about it? Oh, Memoirs of Hadrian. Yeah. So I'm excited for that. I'm very excited. It's a good idea. It's a very good idea.

Memoirs of Hadrian is weird because the letters are supposed to be written to Marcus Aeolus. Yes. But it doesn't include any of his... It's kind of a bit of an old literary device in a way because it's framed as everything is two bucks worth and they're coming up in a bit at once. Yes, yes which is weird because there are letters that's right yeah but it's a very beautiful novel have you read Last of a Wine? Yeah. I read that in anticipation of coming here. That was beautiful. Oh yeah you probably read it when you're doing your Socrates book. Yeah. People give me a half-time though, I say I don't really read novels, but Jesus knows

that I've always had to read a lot of nonfiction. So I don't read books about psych therapy or history all day and then it's like, I know I'm gonna kick back and read another book. No, no, that is one of like, because you become a writer because you love books. And then you choose what you're gonna write about and then that assigns you all the things

that you have to read. And so suddenly the idea of just reading, there's just not enough hours in the day to read as much as you would like for pleasure. Unless you're going to completely neglect your family or your health or anything that's happening in the world, there's just not enough time to read, given how much you have to read to fill up your own writing And one of the tricky things I find as well is that people will send me manuscripts of bricks by stories I'm sorry

90% of the time though the like the least interesting breaks to read because a lot of them are just like rehashing Well, all of us. Yeah, it's rare that you would read a book about sources and that will tell you something you didn't know So when you do it's very exciting. Yeah That's why I've liked your books. What other ones have I liked? I've read like Walt Sonsworth's. Yeah he's great. I think he's quite good, right? But when you're reading somebody tell you what the people said and you've read what the people said, it's not always that interesting.

Well that's another reason I don't read that many new books. It's also when I'm doing research for these kind of like Historical books I spend most of my time just like reading the classics. Yeah, right again and again and going over them And you're finding something new in there Even though you've read it before and then you read a modern commentary on it Sometimes it sheds light on it, but sometimes you're like, I could have just read the original text and that's totally right and got that but uh I think one thing that's worked out for me is that because it comes to classics from a different background like there's a lot of stuff in ancient philosophy that just jumps out at me of being relevant from a psychological perspective and I think classicists often well it's really interesting

is often I'll be talking to professors of philosophy or facets and I'll say hey you know this bit in Xenophon where he says such and such and they'll be like oh yeah I guess he says that like they just completely ignore that so it didn't seem important to them. But it jumps out to me as being really similar to something that's important in modern psychology. Yeah. It's strange how they kind of don't see it. It doesn't seem important. If you're only looking at the classics as the classics, what you're not having is the things that it can make connections to. And so you layer on top of that, that you're living a somewhat cloistered or sheltered academic life, now you have even

fewer things to connect it to because you don't, you have tenure. You have like, so maybe you can see, oh, there's this thing in Xenophon that connects to this office politics thing, but you're not actually living in the world of most people. You're not experiencing most people, even the people you are experiencing, most of them are children, you're not in the position to make the connection from one thing to another. So you end up just focusing again and again on the main thing. You get sucked into academic debates

about what other people have written articles about. Yes. Yeah, these distinctions without a difference. Or you're primarily right. I think the other thing is you get very used to writing to people who have the same basis of knowledge as you do. So you have all these assumptions that you're making as opposed to being like what I think like what's wonderful about being a popularizer is you find something you're like, I love this is amazing.

I want to go tell more people about it that don't know about it. I just come to think that like there's types of translation. There's the translation of one language to another, which is obviously a very difficult task and requires an understanding of language. And then there's this new form of translation, which is translating from one context to another or one demographic to another. And I think that's kind of what I do in my books. I think you do this in your books too, which is like, you're taking a thing,

whatever language you're interacting with is not important, but you're making it relevant to people who didn't or wouldn't have thought it was relevant to them. I think that in a way that's kind of central to what psychotherapists are supposed to do to start living because they're meant to read all the psychological research and the clients, most of them aren't going to understand any of that or see the relevance of it. So at CBT Practitioner in particular, as many spend a lot of their time looking at the current

research and then figuring out how to translate that into terms, you know, that a 15-year-old kid, or an elderly Jewish matriarch, or a guy who drives a bus. Yeah, you know, it's actually interesting. You know, they've been finding, like, it's supposed to kind of, oh, that connects to this thing, and maybe go read more about it, or, oh, somebody, like a cancer doctor's like, oh, you know, I did hear about this type of study they're doing on a person with a very similar disease as you, you know? And that, yeah, that process of one making connection from one group to another. Actually, I mentioned like, Albert Ellis, I think stumbled across the fact that that

quote from Epictetus was just something that his clients related to. Yeah. But he latched onto it because he's getting that idea from research that was going on by psychology at the time, and research on the cognitive appraisal model of emotion. And then he's like, how am I going to explain that to all his clients? And he's like, well, there's this quote from Epictetus that says something about that, and they're all like, that makes total sense. So now he's like, oh, I'm going to say that to everybody.

They all seem to get that. And when is he doing this? In the 70s, 60s? 60s. Just like think about what percentage of people who don't have a classical education would be familiar with a quote from Epictetus that, you know, they didn't have the internet in a way that could spread these things. And so yeah, what an important task it is to be like,

hey, this connects to this. And he was just, he was an unusual guy. Like, he was an odd guy. He was probably a lot better than you, but he was technical. He was like a workaholic. He quite possibly saw more clients than any other psychotherapist that would ever help.

So he got his hours in? He was kind of obsessive. And he was super nerdy about the history of psychotherapy. He read all this stuff that most psychotherapists probably wouldn't have read. So you're right, it's kind of unusual that he would have even read Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus. But he did because he was looking massive nerd and read loads of random stuff. But then that was what he chose to draw on. Funny thing is he says he read it when he was a teenager and then kind of forgot about it and then decades later...

It pops back in your head. ...it came back. That's why you need this broad sort of liberal arts education where you're connected to this stuff and then you go, oh, like that's what I do. I'm, hey, you know what, like I'm writing a book about courage and I go, oh, maybe I'll do the 300 Spartans here and then I'll go, oh, okay, let me go get Herodotus off the shelf and let me go get Herodotus off the shelf, and let me go get this off the shelf.

You have to vaguely know where stuff is, and I think that's what's going to be interesting about AI for people is if you haven't built the habits of being vaguely informed about these different things, you're not going to know where to look. So you're actually not going to be able to use these tools very effectively or you're going to be very easy to manipulate.

You need to have a kind of a broad understanding of where... You don't have to have read all the books, but you have to vaguely know what the different books are and what's in them. How do you think AI will... I'm kind of surprised in a way that AI hasn't had the big amount of effect already on publishing. Yeah. It seems like already you'd be generally up within a couple of minutes just by putting a prompt in.

Yeah, well, and if you take that most books aren't very good, they're probably pretty replaceable. But at the same time, it's like the decision to read a book, you are deciding to spend a lot of time with a person. So like, it's not the words that are important so much, it's like, why am I reading this book from this person? I don't know though. So in the wisdom book I opened,

Seneca has this story about this wealthy Roman who instead of learning things, he hires a bunch of really smart slaves to tell him stuff. Oh, a wrestler's gonna. And then he thinks he's getting away with it. It's like AI. Yeah, he thinks he's getting away with it. And then one of his friends comes up to him and he says, you know

Have you thought about becoming a wrestler and this is why would I become a wrestler? I'm an old man and and the the friends says yes, but all your slaves are still young Why don't they just do it for you? And to me that that is there's something about AI there where it's like you think you can get something to do it for you But the whole point is to do it yourself. You know, in Plato's Fibers, there's this famous section where Socrates says that he thinks writing is gonna kill everything. It's gonna kill our intellect.

People aren't gonna think for themselves. But the arguments he makes against writing sound very similar to the concerns that people have about AI. And the problem is, he's actually totally wrong. Like, I think, and I'm probably gonna do a piece on this, I think actually the transition from oral culture to writing culture is actually what makes us smart. Like, I think the reason we're in this mess right now,

culturally, is that people are listening to podcasts to learn about things. With the exception of a scripted podcast, which is written, people just bullshitting is not how you learn about things. With the exception of a scripted podcast, which is written, people just bullshitting is not how you learn about pens. Like there's something about sitting down and thinking, Joan Didion has this line, she says writing is a hostile act. I'm having to take what I think and attack what you think. The act of writing, but what about reading? But reading is consuming what someone has spent a lot of time thinking about.

So writing, I think, actually sharpens thinking. And when you have read writing, you are consuming sharpened thinking. Let me tell you something that's unusual. It's well known in modern psychotherapy. So there are a series of research studies, trying to be someone in what's called role-governed behavior. And they get two groups of participants in a study, right?

And they have to solve it as all, like, pressing some bodies in a particular order. And they get, you know, eyes are for the wrong, they get a world for the wrong way. And first group are given verbal instructions, or written instructions. So they read, like, you do it in this order, and they figure out how to apply that, they do it.

And then the other group have to figure out how to reply in their own, okay? So the first group, the second phase of the experiment is that they change the rules that govern the reward and penalty without telling the group. So, previously they would press buttons A, B, C, now that doesn't work, suddenly stops working. The group that were given written or verbal instructions will consistently carry on trying to use the original strategy for much longer, whereas the group that figured that out through trial and error will adapt much more quickly.

Interesting. Now, psychologists are really interested in that because they think that one of the puzzles of mental health is why do people use coping strategies that don't seem to work? Right. When they're getting feedback, which you've told them that it's not working. Yeah. Like, what causes the jittery? Sure.

What causes coping with jittery? I heard this once. Yeah, they're saying like, I heard this and then I didn't take on any new information. So one idea is that when they're heard or read, they tend to apply in a more rigid, Interesting. professional way. I would agree with that. Now, funnily enough, if that's true, and that kind of applies to thinking, Socrates would absolutely be

this kind of iconic example of somebody who does the opposite and exhibits cognitive flexibility by figuring everything out from scratch and questioning everything. Whereas, Sophus would teach people to vote-learn lectures in maxims. And I think he's aware that this causes a problem with this interesting like learning a formula and then applying it in too rigid a way right he's always trying to get people to think about the exceptions to a role yes the exceptions to a definition and we do that like in therapy we say well this might be a good problem strategy in some situations but maybe it's backfiring

when you try to do it in meeting meeting. So maybe when you were in the military talking to people that way worked really well but now it's a different context. It's not working out so well in your marriage. Totally. The final law in the 48 laws of power is assumed formlessness. And I think like there's something about you have to learn all the rules and all the ideas and then you have to toss it out. And actually Siddiqui talks about that, right? The whole point is that at some point you have to put your own spin on it. It's not this so-and-so said this and so-and-so said this. You have to sort of put your own version on it.

If you're not doing it right. Let me see where I'm meeting the... They went to the park. It's the National Gardens. Yeah, they went to the National Gardens because they wanted to see some turtles again, even though we have turtles literally in our backyard. What I do is we agree on all the places we're going to go as a family. And then anywhere I want to go, I do, no, no, I do on my run.

Are you doing your run? I do my run. So I go and look at the faraway things or the things that are all I haven't run up I've seen people running up with the basis I saw that when I was driving yesterday I was like this would be good yes that's in maybe more that although the little the hill next to the propolis where that big rock is that's it I'm where like the prison is and stuff I was I'm gonna run up there I think yeah that's Philip Apple. So yes, okay

Yes beside the pinnix, which is where they had the black was Emily and stuff Was a big you can see right at the top of that how there's a monument. Yeah. Yeah from the same a happy and yeah Oh the filip office monument. Okay, like it's actually one of the main viewpoints Yeah, well one of the things that you do is maybe you could come up here I'll walk up to the key brother for the pop is movement is you get a actually one of the main viewpoints. Yeah, one of the things that we do is maybe you could come up here, I'll walk up to the peak where the Philippapus movement is. You get a nice view of the Apopos. That's, that's what I think I'm going to do.

So how much longer are you in Athens for? Till Friday. Till Friday? Just a few days. Yeah. Well, I mean, I mean, if you want to meet up again, I'll do that. Okay. Yeah, yeah, I'll show you the text, but I'll let you know about the beach too.

Yeah, we're going to be not far from you. That sounds amazing. And if you've got any questions about anything, you know, the beach too. Yeah, we're going to be not far from you. That sounds amazing. Unless you've got any questions about anything. Okay. You've got my number, just say it to me. Well, this is awesome. Well, I'm excited about the new book. That's a great idea.

Yeah, I'd be happy. Steve's the best, isn't he? I keep telling myself that too. Yeah, Steve's really good. He's been up an increment for a few challenges. So you think that, but like we're doing a 10 year anniversary of Daily Stoic, and then it's a 10 year anniversary of Ego after that.

So you think you're winding down, but actually I bet your things are just starting. Because of the culture we live in now, also it just takes so much longer for people to get around to books. So you don't think about it, but every year new people are coming to the stuff, right? People email me and say I read your book. Which one? That was one that I wrote a year ago. I think I wrote one every other year, five or six years ago. I've written a bunch since then.

Totally. Well you can do an updated one. Yeah and then they ask you about it and you're like, you're not totally sure I remember everything that I wrote in it. That, well, I think I just interviewed Ron Chernow. He said, he put it well. He was saying that every new book pushes out the stuff from the old book. And so yeah, you're living in a different world than the reader. So I will see. No, this was amazing. All right. Yeah. I'll text you when I figure out where we're going. All right. See you. Bye. All right. See you. Bye. Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and would really help the show.

We appreciate it. And I'll see you next episode. you