The Daily Stoic - This Roman Party Trick Holds A Hidden Wisdom | It’s Just A Number

Episode Date: December 13, 2024

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Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to the daily Stoic early and ad free right now. Just join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. So for this tour I was just doing in Europe, we had I think four days in London and I was with my kids, my wife and my in-laws. So we knew we didn't want to stay in a hotel. We'd spend a fortune. We'd be cramped. So we booked an Airbnb and it was awesome. As it happens, the Airbnb we stayed in was like this super historic building. I think it was where like the first meeting of the Red Cross or the Salvation Army ever was. It was awesome. That's why I love staying in Airbnbs.

To stay in a cool place, you get a sense of what the place is actually like. You're coming home to your house, not to the lobby of a hotel every night. It just made it easier to coordinate everything and get a sense of what the city is like. When I spent last summer in LA, we used an Airbnb also. So you may have read something that I wrote while staying in an Airbnb. Airbnb has the flexibility in size and location that work for your family and you can always find awesome stuff. You click on guest favorites to narrow your search down. Travel is always stressful. It's always hard to be away from home. But if you're going to do it, do it right. And that's why you should check out Airbnb.

Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast. On Friday, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from the Daily Stoic, my book, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance in the Art of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful collaborator, translator, and literary agent, Stephen Hanselman. So today, we'll give you a quick meditation from the Stoics with some analysis from me, and then we'll send you out into the world to turn these words into works. The Greeks and Romans were known for their parties. They threw huge ones.

Seneca famously owned, not rented, some 300 tables for entertaining. Imagine that, the ancients also knew how to drink. Cato liked to drink, so did Socrates. There's no evidence that Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus and Seneca didn't either. But the accounts of their drinking don't square one to one with our modern times.

You see, the Greeks and the Romans were famous for watering down their wine. In fact, anyone who didn't water down their wine was considered barbaric, someone who's out of control. The poet Hesoid, a favorite of Marcus Aurelius and Seneca and many of the Stoics, actually said that three parts water and one part wine was the proper ratio. Nobody but the drunks drank their alcohol neat.

For much of history, the symbol of mixing water and wine has been a kind of symbol for that essential stoic virtue that we talk so much about here, moderation. Wine was quite strong in those days. So to take this intoxicating but enjoyable pleasure and dilute it a bit, that was not only necessary, but it was an important metaphor. It's one we should think about today.

What vices or indulgences do we have that we might add a little water to? Maybe if you drink soda, you can start mixing in some diet. Or if you like lemonade or tea, you can mix a little bit of sweetened into your unsweetened rather than the other way around. Water down your television time by reading during the commercial breaks.

Water down your night out with friends by listening to a podcast or an audio book on the way out. Water down your workout regimen with rest days. Water down your whirlwind love affair with time apart. Moderation is key. Don't overdo anything. Don't take virtue or vice in its pure or unadulterated form.

Balance, soften, enjoy. It's just a number. This is the December 13th entry from the Daily Stoic 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living. I am holding a copy that someone ordered from the painted porch that they're asking me to sign. You can grab those at stoic.dailystoic.com.

We have a leather-bound edition, although that's downstairs. Today's entry, though, begins with a quote from Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, 649. You aren't bothered, are you, because you weigh a certain amount and not twice as much? So why do you get worked up that you've been given a certain lifespan and not more? Just as you're satisfied with your normal weight,

you should be with the time you've been given. They say that age is just a number, but to some people, it's a very important one. Otherwise, women wouldn't lie about being younger They say that age is just a number, but to some people it's a very important one. Otherwise, women wouldn't lie about being younger and ambitious young men wouldn't lie about being older. Rich people and health nuts spend billions of dollars in an effort to move the expiration date from around 78 years to hopefully forever.

The number of years we manage to eke out doesn't matter though, only what those years are composed of. Seneca put it best when he said, life is long if you know how to use it. Sadly, most people don't, they waste the life you've been given. Only when it's too late do they try to compensate for that waste by vainly hoping

to put more time on the clock. Use today, use every day, make yourself satisfied with what you've been given. I said this before, but I got to know this guy, Richard Overton in Austin before he died. When he died, he was the oldest man in the world. He was 112 years old. My son and wife, I was out of town. They got to go to his 112th birthday. How crazy is that? But it's interesting. I've gotten to know a number of really old people. We just had Judge Block on the podcast. He's 90. George Raveling is 88. Look, all these people, they're not itching to die. But one of the things that I think is interesting when you meet older people is they're not desperate to live longer.

That's kind of a young man or young woman's game or fantasy or delusion even, right? All these, you know, as I said, health nuts who are like radical life extengency. It's not old people that are thinking that way. It's not, right? Partly it's because their quality of life is diminished. They haven't always taken care of themselves. It's something Peter Atiyah talks about a lot in his work.

But also I think what you tend to realize, you start to realize as you get older is it's not about the quantity. It's about the quality. And it's about making use of the time you have as opposed to deferring and deferring, getting more and more and more. Look, of course, life is good, dying not so good. If you had to pick one or the other, you'd pick to be alive than not alive, right? For the most part. But I guess what I'm saying is that

when you hear these people talk about how they wanna live forever or whatever, they never have like a great reason. Again, life itself is precious and great. I'm not saying that it's not, but what I'm saying is that they're never like, I need all this time because I have to do X, Y, and Z because I just so love X, Y, and Z. What's funny when I look at some of these people and I know some of them, I spend a lot of time with them, I'm not like, that's the guy.

It's mostly dudes. That's the person that I would gift another two decades because they use it so well. Most of their time seems to be caught up with weird health stuff. I guess what I'm saying, this is what Seneca is trying to say when he said that life isn't short, we just waste a lot of it. These people who keep needing to push the clock, how are they using the time they have now? How are you using the time you have now? I was just talking to someone who was pushing back the deadline on the book they have to submit. They're like, you know, I could use more time. The deadline was like two months from now. They're

like, I think I'm going to ask for an extension. And I was like, look, if it was due tomorrow and you were wrapping up and you could use that week, that'd be one thing. I said, I feel like you're not using today that well. You didn't use yesterday that well. Why do you think three months versus two months is gonna be radically different? Are you actually going to get an extra month

if the deadline is extended from two months to three months from now? And I think this is the point about fantasizing about living until you're 90, living until you're 100, becoming the oldest person in the world. You tell yourself, are you really going to live those years? But where is the evidence? Where is the proof? How are you showing right now? Maybe that's an interesting question. How are you showing right now that you are worthy of all those extra years? That's what I want to leave you with today. I know it's a little strange. The month of December in the Daily Stoic book is all about memento mori, but this is the

time to think about these questions, to evaluate what's important, to evaluate how you're spending your time. That's where I want to leave you today. Memento mori. Life is short. Use today, use every day. Make yourself satisfied with what you've been given. Make yourself worthy of getting more. Talk soon. Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoke Podcast. If you don't know this, you can get these delivered to you via email every day. Check it out at dailystoic.com slash email. If you like The Daily Stoic and thanks for listening, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music.

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