The Daily Stoic - This Is How Reading Is Supposed to Go

Episode Date: August 4, 2020

"We Stoics don’t just get a book and put it up on our shelf. We devour it. We take notes. We fold pages. We throw it in our backpacks and suitcases when we travel, it sits on the front seat of the car in case we have a few minutes. It moves with us from college to our first apartment to our first home and then, if it’s really good, perhaps, one day we’ll give it to our own children."Ryan describes what books mean to a Stoic, and introduces the newest product from Daily Stoic: our collectible, leather-bound edition of The Daily Stoic, Ryan's page-a-day book of Stoic wisdom.Get the leather-bound edition of The Daily Stoic: https://dailystoic.com/leather/***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/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: 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 Wundery'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 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. This is how reading is supposed to go. It was sometime around the year 141 AD that Junius Rousticus gave Marcus a really a gift. In addition to all the things he would teach this young future emperor about character, about truthfulness, about getting to the point, about forgiveness, Marcus would recall most gratefully Rousticus's gift of the remembrances of

Epic Titus, which he supplied to me out of his own library. How well-worn this copy must have become, as Marcus would say, Rousticus had taught him never to be satisfied with just getting the gist of things he read, but encouraged him to read deeply, repeatedly and forcefully, considering how many times Marcus quotes epictetus in meditations for memory.

It's likely that he treated this copy of discourses like a Bible returning to it time and time again. Certainly by the time Marcus died, there must not have been much left of this prized possession. So well-traveled it would have been and made of such fragile materials. Rather than the rich leather volumes we are used to seeing in private libraries and museums, the books of ancient Rome were constructed of papyrus and wrapped in thick rolls unsuitable for long-term preservation.

We can imagine that Seneca's copies of Zeno, Clientes, Chrysipus, and Epicurus must have been similarly well worn. You must linger among a limited number of master thinkers and digest their works, you advise Lucilius if you would derive ideas from which shall win firmhold in your mind. Everywhere means nowhere, he said, and the same thing must hold true of men who seek intimate acquaintance

with no single author, but visit them in a hasty and hurried manner. There is nothing so ephatious that it should be helpful while it is being shifted about, and in reading of many books is a distraction. That's what we still ex do. We don't just get a book and put it on our shelf. We devour it. We take notes.

We fold pages. We throw it in our backpacks and suitcases when we travel. It sits on the front seat of the car in case we have a few minutes. It moves with us from college to our first apartment to our first home. And then if it's really good, perhaps one day we'll give it to our own children or to a friend in need as Rousticus did. Books are made to be broken in.

They are mines to be dug, wells to be drawn from sturdy posts to lean on, shoulders to cry on. Just as we never step in the same river twice to paraphrase Marcus and Heraclitus, we never read the same book the same way. That's why we read and reread, note and discuss, write and flag. The beatings our books take in the process, it's a beautiful site, it's a sign they are doing their job, it's evidence of accumulated hours and hopefully much wisdom too.

It's the highest praise you can give an author to really engage with the material to make it your own, to have a real two-sided conversation. It's been almost four years since the Daily Stoic was published. This little book, the first collection of all the Stoics in one book in centuries, and certainly the only one to ever put them in a page a day format, has sold nearly 1 million copies in 20 languages. It's quite possible that your copy, having been cracked open hundreds of times now, is looking a little worse for where. So we have good news. We are releasing a premium leather bound edition of the Daily Stoic. This limited edition comes with a host of new features to distinguish it from the original, a genuine leather cover with gold foil stamped logos, gilded edge pages printed on premium grade paper, and all new illustrations to delineate each section of the book and more. Each book comes inside a custom box which makes

it great for gift giving, and that holds the book as well as a special letter for me the author Ryan Holiday. Then the book is on sale now, but this is the first run, which means it's a limited quantity. So don't miss your chance to own this new beautiful edition of the Daily Stoic. You can buy yours today in the Daily Stoic store or at DailyStoic.com slash leather. 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 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 Wondery, 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