The Daily Stoic - The Trouble Of Too Many Opinions | Ask DS

Episode Date: May 4, 2023

It goes without saying that the man has changed the world for the better. He’s reinvigorated the American space program. He popularized electric cars. His solar panels cover the roofs of countless homes, his batteries save electricity for emergencies, taking pressure off overwhelmed grids, his satellites supply wireless internet where it’s desperately needed. And this is to say nothing of the payments company which has processed billions of payments.Yet these days the reputation of Elon Musk is not what it once was.---And in today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan answers questions from airmen at the Andrews Air Force Base about dealing with the hazards of moral injury, how stories can be a way of coping with trauma, the difference between oversharing and expressing feelings in a healthy way, and more.✉️ 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.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoic 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 and 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 happen to be someone there recording. But thank you for listening. And we hope this is of use to you.

The trouble of too many opinions. It goes without saying that the man has changed the world for the better. He's reinvigorated the American space program. He's popularized electric cars. His solar panels cover the roofs of countless homes, his batteries save electricity for emergencies, taking pressure off overwhelmed grids. And this is to say nothing of the payments company which has processed billions of payments

for things we've all bought. Yet these days, the reputation of Elon Musk is not what it once was. The brilliant and disruptive entrepreneur has in a relatively short span managed to upset not only many of his supporters and fanboys, but also upset many of the people who were excited about his acquisition of Twitter. He's gotten into petty fights, insulted, disabled employees, spread misinformation in propaganda. He's attacked journalists, gave preposterously bad takes on current events, weighed in on people's private medical decisions, and like a lot of people been sucked into the culture

wars. This was perhaps inevitable because the social network he owns is itself a violation of a timeless stoic principle, one that we actually reminded Elon of directly recently. And when he responded to a daily stoic tweet about what's in your control and what's not in your control, and he said, I mean, one does control what happens a little. And we said, a related Marcus Aurelius quote that might be of use, though probably bad for Twitter, you always have the option of having no opinion. Marcus Aurelius, as a leader, understood that the more opinions one has, the more likely they are to cause unnecessary conflict at home or in the world. Having strong opinions about how your children should live their lives,

weighing in on every piece of gossip or news, especially before these matters are settled, publicly airing their disagreements with employees or subordinates. This is a recipe for misery, and also chaos, and also exhaustion. This isn't to say that Aesthoic has no opinions. That's not only impossible, but also far too disengage for an active participant in the world. It's that Aesthoic ignores what doesn't matter, what is largely outside of their control, so they can focus solely on what does matter

where they can have impact, what their unique talent and resources suit them for. It's funny, I talk to lots of people and a good chunk of those people haven't been readers for a long time. They've just gotten back into it. And I always love hearing that. And they tell me how they fall in love with reading.

They're reading more than ever. And I go, let me guess, you listen audio books, don't you? And it's true. And almost invariably, they listen to them on Audible. And that's because Audible offers an incredible selection of audio books across every genre from best sellers and new releases to celebrity memoirs. And of course, ancient philosophy.

All my books are available on audio, read by me for the most part. Audible lets you enjoy all your audio entertainment in one app. You'll always find the best of what you love or something new to discover and as an audible member you get to choose one title a month to keep from their entire catalog including the latest bestsellers and new releases. You'll discover thousands of titles from popular favorites, exclusive new series, exciting new voices in audio. You can check out Stillness is the key, the daily dad.

I just recorded so that's up on Audible now. Coming up on the 10-year anniversary of the obstacle is the way audio books, so all those are available. And new members can try Audible for free for 30 days. Visit audible.com slash daily stoke or text daily stoke to 500-500. That's audible.com slash daily stoke or text daily stoke to 500 500, that's audible.com slash daily stoke or text daily stoke to 500 500. I have a question on the area on the community about the 16th century's floor of water. Sir, are you familiar with the concept of moral, injurious, popularized by Dr. Sharon at Georgetown. Yeah, and Dr. Sherman is great at a fascinating

professor and scholar of Stoicism, a show called Stoic Warriors, right? Which is fascinating, yes, go ahead. So with that concept in mind, and the concept of moral injurability is sort of a hazard of our profession. Do you have some thoughts on if those of us that experience it but come out or not come out related how you locate that experience with a broader chemistry of your life? Yeah I think this also pertains what we're just

talking about is our processing ones emotions right so if one feels things or one experiences something, one has questions about something, and we, you know, so that's uncomfortable, that's dark, I don't like it, I feel bad about these stuff that down. I think it, you know, tends to come exploding out. This is true. Not just, you know, sort of in your work life,

but this is true issues from our childhood, issues in our marriage, things we go through, we don't deal with those, we don't process those things, you know. It, it detest the sizes, we're, you know, the effects of it compound. And I, I think that's the, that is the problem with the image of the stoic warrior, which is like, I do this stuff, this is who I am, I'm the professional one, so I'm not feeling it. You are feeling it, there's another great book,

I'm predicting the author's name, it's a dutch, I think. Let's call it the body keeps score. And basically, the idea is that we're feeling these things. We feel deeply our body sort of tracks all the things that happens to us, you know, from the moment we're born. It's the idea that even if you're not feeling it, even if you're not dealing with it, the consequences are there. So obviously therapy is a part of this. Relationships are a part of this.

Sharing, connecting with others is a big part of this. Which I think we have to understand as being part of the stoic experience. Senica is a fascinating figure. You know, he's this philosopher, he's a politician, and then he gets assigned, you know, a tour of duty that ends up being pretty rough. He's brought back from exile, which would have been a traumatic experience. He knows himself as sort of exile, when he's come to up charges. He's brought back and he said,

you can come back to Rome, but your job is you've got a tutor, this young kid, who one may become himber, and that kid is nearer. So he basically has the worst boss of all time. And he is wrapped up in this administration that is corrupt and violent and terrifying. He probably wakes up every day and he goes, this is the day that I get killed, right? And some of Seneca's most beautiful words are actually not his philosophical words, but these plays that he writes.

And they're these dark, disturbing plays. And I'm forgetting who I talked to about this, but there's a great play, right? Who's put it on Center Sanctus Place. He basically looked at Center Place as Center's way of processing the world injury that he went through. He's fictionalizing his experience,

creating an artistic outlet for that experience, because he can't just come out and say, you know, near as a psychopath, what we're going to do about this guy, he's having to find a way to experience this, and in ancient Greece and Rome, for all men, most of whom had to participate in the military life at that time. The fear was a way of processing this moral injury. I think it's your rickities and the escalaries to both fight in the Persian Wars. And their play is their art that they do is see now through the light of our modern understanding of these ideas as a way of processing and working through decent experiences.

So I have a great answer for you other than have to deal with it. We have to find our own way through that experience. But the idea being the stoic word doesn't feel that thing. I think it's to just to to this point. One of my favorite passages in Marcus Ruele's is that he's one of the few passages where he deals with his military experience directly. He says, we're like soldier storming the wall. He says, if you fall, he says, if you need to reach up to a conrad for help. This is so what, right? His point is like, so like asking for help is not something to the issue, it's so normal

to him. It's so part of what being a so a philosopher is, he's like shrugging at it, but it's having clearly not shrugging at it because he's having to remind himself that this is natural and normal and you should be able to do it. There's a book I read to my kids many, many times. This is great sort of little allegories called The Boy, The Fox, The Horse, and The Mole. And there's a scene in it that I try to talk about in the time that I do with the horses, something like asking for help, is it giving not asking for help as perfused and can give up? And again, if we think about these these ideas of asking for help, processing things, seeking out resources, I think it's really important that we see that not as sort of cowardly in some way, but

actually as the final sort of active courage or the final act of forwarded to your strength to do like, I'm struggling with this. My body has kept soar on this. I need to ask for help. I need to get more of that. I think that's a really important way to think about this. So, lost me. Good morning. Hi. I think that's a really important way to think about this so blossoming. Good morning.

Hi. So about a month or two ago, I think I saw one of the the database is grabby meld to talk about we become a society that tends to overshare. So this represent this correctly 100%. But then I thought about as I did about that, I feel more introverted in your previous definition of what we made with the lower case stoic. Yes. So but then I also reflected like I think on that, I feel more introverted and your previous definition of what we think of the lower case stoic.

Yes, so, but then I also reflect that like I think on that guy now that I tell people too much on the social media, but you know, things just start to flow. So, I'm curious on your thoughts on the why we become a society that typically is introverted as our head down into the vices, but we like to share so much about our feelings and our personalized.

I got no problem sharing feelings. I think what I was talking about there was in a short, your basic boundaries. And I think what happened is social media, you know, sort of comes along and says, how can I get you to say every emotional thing that you feel as you are feeling? Right? So there's a difference between saying, you know, I'm struggling with this. This is what's going on with me. And

even moment when you're frustrated with someone or something, expressing that opinion for the permanent record. You see this in sports, right? Two athletes on the same team struggling with each other. They go back to the locker room and they always tweeting about how he's done with the team or frustrated with someone. So, this isn't how, like, that is oversharing, not sitting down with that person and talking to that about the conflict between those two people, right? So I think when we live in a social media

during the culture that is the economics and the algorithms of those networks depend on us sharing every thought that we have as we're having it. And the smartest people in the world spend a lot of time doing it. They've got very addictive, very hard to not do. So I think there's a difference between

sort of oversharing every thought that pops into your head or things that are best discussed privately amongst people who know each other and sort of opining on everything as it's happening. I think we even see this in not just in politics, but every sort of confirmed or a confirmed confirmation hearing where, you know, the senators that clearly told up every tweet this person has ever thought, however, ever said, and they're just sort of forcing them in. Six years ago, you said X, and how many of those things did that person thing, you know,

how's this going to age over time? Is this really something that I need to apply to about? Is a great line in the medical agency also in America says, you always have the power to have a known opinion, right? Or you have the opinion, but you don't have to tweet the opinion. And I think we see the costs of inser popping off or in the heat of the moment, you know, climbing up this or that. That's kind of, I think, what we need about

over sharing. That's a big question. 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 add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just gonna end up on Page Six or Du Moir or in court. I'm Matt Bellesai. And I'm Sydney Battle,

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