The Daily Stoic - They Still Hide Money In Books

Episode Date: June 26, 2020

"As a young boy, the famed basketball coach George Raveling learned an invaluable lesson about the power of both knowledge and ignorance from his grandmother, who raised him. 'Why did the slave masters hide their money in books, George?' she asked the young boy, standing together in her kitchen.'I don’t know, grandma,' he said.'Because they knew the slaves wouldn’t open them,' she said.Learn more about George's story, and the importance of reading, in today's Daily Stoic Podcast.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidayYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stood Podcast early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wondery's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target. The new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. music or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Daily Stoic. For each day we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living the good life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2000 year old philosophy that has guided some of history's

greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at dailystowach.com. They still hide money in books. When George Ravelling was a young boy, he was in the kitchen of his grandmother who raised him. Why did the slave masters hide their money in books, George? She asked him. I don't know, grandma," she said.

Her answer, because they knew the slaves wouldn't open them. There's a reason it was illegal to teach slaves to read. There is a reason that every totalitarian regime has burned in banned books. The answer sounds like a cliche, but it's true. Knowledge is power. The converse is even more true. A lack of knowledge is weakness. It engenders supplication. And it makes resistance harder. From this early lesson, George Ravelin came to see that reading was

actually a moral duty to not read to remain in ignorance was not only to be weak, it was to ignore the people who had fought so hard, who had struggled at such great costs to read and to provide for future generations the right, the ability to do so. It was to spit in the face of Frederick Douglass, of Booker T. Washington, and of course, of Martin Luther King Jr. who ravelling had gotten to know. But it is worth pointing out today that money is still hidden in the pages of books, though for slightly less nefarious reasons. How many people want to get better?

How many people want to be successful? How many people wish they could get out of the cycle of mediocrity that they are in? Well the solution, the secret to doing that is there on the shelf, but how many people bother to take it down and look at it. Marcus Arelius talks about going straight to the seat of intelligence. Well, that's what books are. Epictetus found freedom from slavery long before he was legally free. How in the writings of the Stoics, in the words of Musonius Rufus, we read because it makes us powerful when we don't read we are weak, easy to manipulate, less than what we are capable of being. It's in our self-interest

to read. There's money in it, but it is also our moral duty. One of the things that actually ties into what I wanted to ask you next is a Truman was a huge reader. You know, he was obsessed with Marcus Aureliate. He writes in one of his letters, you know, the sort of virtues of wisdom, courage, and justice, and temperance. He learned that from the sort of the education that he gave himself. He's one of the last presidents to not go to college. And so I wondered what you thought of that famous quote

from Truman. He said, not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers. And that strikes me as something very true about your life as well. The value quotient of reading for me was probably different controlments, but in the moments I quiet during the day when I think back about my life and reading and so forth, I find the early origin of about reading came from my

grandma. When I was a little boy, my grandma used to make me sit and watch her cook in the kitchen. My grandma never got past eighth grade, but she had common sense. So she would make me sit there and watch her cook. And so it turned out as I realized in my adult life, it was a classroom. She was teaching me how to cook by observation, and then she would have conversations with me why I was sitting there. And so one time she said to me, she said, George, she said, you know, back in the days of slavery,

the plantation owners used to hide their money in books. And I said, grandma, why did they do that? She said because they knew the slaves couldn't read so they would never take the books down. To me, the moral of that story was, as long as someone can control your mind, they can control your body. And so I think that was the early revelation to me. Books had to be more relevant in my life. And then I started to realize you've got a moral obligation to read that people die to get you the obligation to read that people die to get you the right to read.

If you remember your history, George, there was a time in America when it was illegal for a person to teach a black person how to read. There was a time in America when a black person could not get a library card. The libraries were segregated. People died to give me the right to read.

Am I going to dishonor their debts? I'm not reading. I see in a broader context than just reading to learn or reading for entertainment. I feel personally I have an obligation to honor those people's death date by so that I could have the opportunity to read. And people ask me, when you were growing up, did you read a lot?

Tell me though, the only books I saw in my young life were school books. That were the only books I knew. When I was growing up as a young kid and watched a DC 7, 8, 9, 10 years old, every day was about survival. When you got up in the morning, you were happy that you survived for another day.

And so you get up in the morning and you look out the window and you tip to stand and you say, I made it another day, but it's all about survival. And so along the way, I continued to progress to where I finally get a basketball scholarship to go and over. It really wasn't until I got to go and over that. I started to realize the wonder of reading it and how it could separate you from other people. Hey everyone, if you're stuck inside during this pandemic,

there's no better way to spend your time than getting caught up on all that reading you've been meaning to do. And if you want to change the way you read, so you get as much out of the books that you do read as possible, check out our Daily Stoic Read to Lead Challenge. It's 13 days of amazing challenges designed to rekindle your connection with books to help you rebuild your library and even more. You can check it out today. Just go to dailystoic.com slash reading. 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. Hey there listeners! While we take a little break here, I want to tell you about another podcast had free with Wondery Plus in Apple Podcasts. Guy has sat down with hundreds of founders behind well-known companies like Headspace, Manduke Yoga Mats, Soul Cycle, and Codopaxi, as well as entrepreneurs working to solve some of

the biggest problems of our time, like developing technology that pulls energy from the ground to heat in cool homes, or even figuring out how to make drinking water from air and sunlight. Together, they discuss their entire journey from day one, and all the skills they had to learn along the way, like confronting big challenges and how to lead through uncertainty. So if you want to get inspired and learn how to think like an entrepreneur, check out how I built this, wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen early and add free on the Amazon or Wonder yet. Listen early and add free on the Amazon or Wonder yet.