The Daily Stoic - You Must Learn From History | Watch Over Your Perceptions

Episode Date: February 14, 2022

Ryan talks about why it’s better to learn from the experience of others, and reads this week’s meditation from The Daily Stoic Journal.Blinkist takes top nonfiction titles, pulls out the key takeaways and puts them into text and audio explainers called Blinks that give you the most important information in just 15 minutes. Go to Blinkist.com/STOIC to start your free 7 day trial and get 25% off of a Blinkist Premium membership.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://DailyStoic.com/emailFollow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and 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 Stoke podcast early and add free on Amazon music download the app today Welcome to the Daily Stoke podcast each day. We bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics Illustrated with stories from history current events and literature to help you be better at what you do. And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive, setting a kind of stoke, intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave you with, to journal about whatever it is you happen to be doing. So let's get into it. 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. You must learn from history. When Zeno was a young man, he stopped to visit the oracle. There, he was given a mysterious prophecy. You will find wisdom, she said, when you have conversations with the dead.

What on earth could that mean? It's simple. She was talking about reading. Books are a way to speak to the dead. Want to learn about commanding an army, discuss this with Napoleon via his memoirs. Want to learn how to endure exile or loss tricinacus letters,

his consolations, or the lectures of Musonius Rufus. Trying to navigate a terrible pandemic, you can talk to the survivors and the victims of the plagues of history, Marcus Aurelius, being a good example of both. Nothing of these people are with us anymore, but somehow across the pages of their books, and the books written about them, it is if they are sitting across from us. And yet, so many of us reject the opportunity to have this conversation. We are, as they say, functionally illiterate by choosing not to read. And ironically, this is something one feels quite tangibly when we interact with the past. It becomes immediately clear how long the same things have been happening again and again

without anyone seeming to notice that men do not learn very much from history, how this Huxley one said, is the most important lesson that history has to teach us. If you wish to find wisdom, you must read, you must study history, you must avail yourself of the knowledge and the experiences of the dead. There is enough of it out there to last you a lifetime, to extend your lifetime and ideally to help you make your lifetime something subsequent generations can learn from as well. And look, if you're looking to be a better reader to supercharger reading practice, strongly

recommend something we've put together here at Daily Stoic. We're calling it the Read to Lead Challenge. It's two weeks of reading based challenges exercises drawn from the Stoics who were as we've talked about before very active thirsty readers. Harry Truman said that not all readers are leaders but all leaders are readers and the Stoics were no exception to that. So check this out. It's a Read to Lead Challenge. It's habits from my reading practices and Mark Sirrelius is in Seneca's in Epochetus and many other historical grates. So you can check that out at dailystoke.com slash reading.

Watch over your perceptions. And this is from this week's entry in the Daily Steal of Journal 366 days of writing and reflection on the art of living by yours truly and my co-writer and translator, Stephen Hanselman. I actually do this journal every single day. There's a question in the morning, a question in the afternoon, and there's these sort of weekly meditations. As Epictetus says, every day and night, we keep thoughts like this at hand, write them, read them aloud, and talk to yourself and others about them. You can check out the Daily Stoke Journal,

anywhere books are sold, you can also get a signed personalized copy from me in the Daily Stoke store at store.dailystoke.com. Every moment brings a flood of impressions of the world around us, and our minds are 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. Epic Titus 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. And here we have Epic Titus 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, 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 It's it's tricky, right? I mean Letters 28. It's it's tricky, right? I mean the still ex-askus to be active. 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 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, you know, 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 trying to, you know, he's saying, look, you know, I didn't choose this. I had to do it. That's the cost of what his philosophy is demanding to him. The Epicurians 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 that you can. You can find peace. You can become as Marx really has talked about. 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, you know, I've had Mark Manson on the podcast before, you know, the subtle art of not giving a fuck is not.

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, which is the theme in the journal this month. You know, as we say, every moment brings a flood of impressions, a flood of news, a flood of interruptions, a flood of things that we have to, 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, 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, youiness 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 TV's blurring and phone calls and meetings. And yet even there, even amidst my 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, you know, your colleagues or your partners play in your life? You know, how disciplined are you about staying on task while you're in it? 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 you're daydreaming? How to stay focused? How to concentrate like a Roman, as Marcus said, that's the most important thing.

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, your steadiness, your peace of mind, freedom from pain and fear. In a word, what you're protecting is your freedom. Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Stoke podcast. Again, if you don't know this, you can get these delivered to you via email every day. You just go to dailystoke.com slash email.

So check it out. 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. Is this thing all? Check one, two, one, two. Hey, y'all. I'm Kiki Palmer. I'm an actress, a singer, an entrepreneur, and a Virgo. Just the name of you. Now, I've held so many occupations over the years that my fans lovingly nicknamed me Kiki Keepa Bag Palmer.

And trust me, I keep a bag love. But if you ask me, I'm just getting started. And there's so much I still want to do. So I decided I want to be a podcast host. I'm proud to introduce you to the baby Mrs. Kiki Palmer podcast. I'm putting my friends, family, and some of the dopest experts in the hot seat to ask them the questions that have been burning in my mind. What will former child stars be if they weren't actors? What happened to sitcoms? It's only fans, only bad. I want to know. So I asked my mom about it. These are the questions that keep me up at night, but I'm taking these questions out of my head

and I'm bringing them to you. Because on Baby This is Kiki Palmer, no topic is off limits. Follow Baby This is Kiki Palmer, whatever you get your podcasts. Hey, prime members, you can listen early and app-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today.