The Daily Stoic - To The End They Remain | Watch Over Your Perceptions

Starting point is 00:00:00 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. Daily Stoic is based here in this little town outside Austin. When we have podcast guests come in and go, oh, what hotel should I stay at? Honestly, there's not really many great hotels out here, but there are a bunch of beautiful Airbnbs that you could stay in a ranch. You could stay on something overlooking the Colorado River. They've even got yurts in the woods out here. And Airbnb has a million different options, old historic houses.

Starting point is 00:00:32 Usually when I travel, I'm staying in an Airbnb. That is when I'm bringing my kids. We make a whole experience of it. And usually what I do is I pull up Airbnb, I look at guest favorites, I type in, okay, we want this many rooms, this many bathrooms, we want a pool, we want a washer and dryer, whatever it is. And you can find an awesome place to stay in.

Starting point is 00:00:51 And I've been doing it now, crazy me, at least 15 years I've been staying in Airbnbs, basically since it came out. I love Airbnb and you should check it out for your next trip. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a stoic-inspired meditation designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women to help you learn from them, to follow in their example and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom.

Starting point is 00:01:41 For more, visit DailyStstoic.com. To the end, they remained. It was so long ago. We never knew them. We will never walk the streets of Rome or Greece. We will never meet Marcus Aurelius or listen to Epictetus lecture. They are dead, long, long dead. Even their graves are lost to us. Much of their writing, even the details of their life have been lost to the centuries. And yet, do they not feel real to us? Do they not still inspire and

Starting point is 00:02:26 speak to us? Will they not continue to do so as long as they are our people, as long as the world remains unpredictable, capricious, difficult, and painful? In a way, the Stoics and their insights are not unlike the beautiful sentiment in Lawrence Binion's World War I poem. As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust, moving in marches upon the heavenly plain, As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust moving in marches upon the heavenly plain, as the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness, to the end, they remain. Marcus Aurelius wrote of imagining ourselves among the stars and running alongside them. Zeno was told as a young man that the secret to life was to have conversations with the dead. Today, all these centuries later, the stoics remain bright. They lighten up our darkness

Starting point is 00:03:09 and guide us through the night. They endure because truth and wisdom, when deeply rooted in the human experience, are timeless, shining as a steady beacon for those who seek to navigate the trials of life with courage, clarity, and virtue. Watch Over Your Perceptions This is from this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal, 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living by yours truly, and my wonderful collaborator Stephen Hanselman, who I also worked on the Daily Stoic with. Today's entry, Every moment brings a flood of impressions of the world around us, and our minds are

Starting point is 00:03:57 filled with the perceptions that arise with them. The Stoics teach us that we must keep a constant watch over this flood, as if we are standing guard to protect something of vital importance. What is it that we are protecting? Our peace of mind, clarity, and freedom, all of which are anchored in our perceptions. Epictetus reminds us that we need to pay attention to what matters and learn how to ignore so many of the relentless provocations that come our way.

Starting point is 00:04:27 That's from the Daily Stoke Journal, obviously. And here we have Epictetus telling us, Keep constant guard over your perceptions, for it is no small thing you are protecting, but your respect, trustworthiness, and steadiness, peace of mind, freedom from pain and fear. In a word, your freedom. For what would you sell these things? Epictetus discourses. An important place to begin philosophy is this,

Starting point is 00:04:52 a clear perception of one's own ruling principle. That's Epictetus's discourses as well. I don't agree with those who plunge headlong into the middle of the flood and who, accepting a turbulent life struggle daily in great spirit with difficult circumstances. The wise person will endure that, but won't choose it, choosing to be at peace rather than at war. Seneca, Moral Letters, 28.

Starting point is 00:05:19 It's tricky, right? I mean, the Stoics ask us to be active, they ask us to be involved, They ask us to be involved. They ask us to be engaged. And then somehow they expect us to be at peace, to not be bothered by what's happening in the world. That's the tricky thing, right? Like you can go off in your cave, right? You can go on your 10-day meditation retreat

Starting point is 00:05:41 and get some semblance of peace or stillness. The tricky thing, and this is what I was trying to write in that book as well, the tricky thing is to find peace now within yourself, while engaged, while fully aware of what's happening in the world. What you don't know about, what you tune out, what you pretend doesn't exist, it's easy not to be bothered by. But the key to Stoicism is finding the ability, the strength to have that peace and stillness despite everything that's happening. I hope in stillness is the key with the story of Seneca trying to write a letter to Lucilius and he's in this noisy apartment in Rome. And he's saying, look, I didn't choose this. I had to do it.

Starting point is 00:06:25 That's the cost of what his philosophy is demanding to him. The Epicureans said, hey, go flee to the gardens. Seneca has to be engaged. He has to live in the city, he has to be involved. But can he find peace within that? And he says, you can find peace. You can become, as Marcus Aurelius talked about,

Starting point is 00:06:41 the rock that the waves are crashing over, but eventually become still around. And we do this by keeping guard over our perceptions, as Epictetus is saying. It's knowing what to care about and what not to care about. I've had Marc Manson on the podcast before. The subtle art of not giving a fuck is not caring about anything. It's about finding the right things to care about and things not to care about. So that sort of discernment is really essential to managing our emotions and our perceptions,

Starting point is 00:07:12 which is the theme in the journal this month. As we say, every moment brings a flood of impressions, a flood of news, a flood of interruptions, a flood of things that we're called to have opinions about to react to that are vying for our attention. And our ability to stand guard against this, to let the good things in, to keep the bad things out. That's the key, that's the struggle,

Starting point is 00:07:33 that's the fight that we're all engaged in. So, you know, even me, obviously I live out in the country a little bit, I live the life of a writer, which allows me, you know, some shelter from the craziness of a person who has to commute into a major city and work in an office with dozens of other people or hundreds of other people and TVs blaring and phone calls and meetings.

Starting point is 00:07:58 And yet even there, even in my midst, my sort of privileged situation, I have to decide what to let in and what not to let in. What role does the phone play in your life? What role does your colleagues or your partners play in your life? How disciplined are you about staying on task while you're in it?

Starting point is 00:08:18 How long are you able to maintain your focus on what matters? Even if nothing's going on, is your mind the enemy of itself? Are you drawing yourself towards here? Are you drifting or are you daydreaming? How to stay focused, how to concentrate like a Roman, as Marcus said, that's the most important thing.

Starting point is 00:08:34 And so having a clear perception about our own mind, our own limitations, our own temptations, this is really the key. That's what we're working on here. That's what I want you to think about today and this week. Remember, keep constant guard over your perceptions for it's no small thing you are protecting. You're protecting your respect, your trustworthiness,

Starting point is 00:08:54 your steadiness, your peace of mind, freedom from pain and fear. In a word, what you're protecting is your freedom. Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic podcast. them. the word, tell people about it, and this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you. 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. And before you go, would you tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey on

Starting point is 00:09:59 Wondery.com slash survey. I'm John Robbins and on my podcast, I sit down with incredible people to ask the very simple question, how do you cope? From confronting grief and mental health struggles to finding strength in failure, every episode is a raw and honest exploration of what it means to be human. It's not always easy, but it's always real. Whether you're looking for inspiration, comfort, or just a reminder that you're not alone in life's messier moments, join me on How Do You Cope?

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The Daily Stoic - To The End They Remain | Watch Over Your Perceptions

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