The Daily Stoic - You’re Not There Now (That’s A Good Thing) | Stake Your Claim

Episode Date: December 19, 2022

It’s easy to look at history and despair. Humans have been terrible to each other–going back to Marcus Aurelius’s time all the way through today. In fact, sometimes it feels like that��s all we’ve ever been.The writer Mary Karr once asked a religious friend, “How can you believe in God, you know, when there was a Holocaust?” The friend had a reply that stopped her cold: “But you’re not in the Holocaust.”✉️  Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, 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 Stokes 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 stoic intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave you with, to journal about, whatever it is you're happy 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're not there now. and that's a good thing. It's easy to look at history and despair. Humans have been terrible to each other, going back all the way to Marcus Aurelius' time through today.

In fact, sometimes it feels like that's all we've ever been. The writer Mary Carr once asked her religious friend, how can you believe in God, you know, when there was a Holocaust? The friend had a reply that stopped her cold, but you're not in the Holocaust. In his writing, Seneca talks about how we tend to worry ourselves into spirals of anxiety and despair. We look at what has happened and we extrapolate outward could happen. We suffer in our imagination, she says far more than we're actually suffering in reality right now. That's the lesson Carr took from that friend, especially as she tried to get sober. Yes, we're worried about what's going to happen, she would later explain, but we're

not in a nuclear war right now, or hairs not on fire. That doesn't mean I think that we should be passive and shouldn't take action, but I think there should be a reality check. That was her point, especially to those who were consumed with dread because they follow politics too closely or because of some forecasted natural disaster that may not even materialize. You can't let that paralyze you or cripple you emotionally. The potential of future suffering is not a reason to suffer now, the Stokes would say, on the contrary, it's a reason to be present now, to be good now, to love and live

now. That future may come and you'll meet it. If there's something you can do to prevent it, do that. But hopelessness and despair and dread and anger, they do nothing for nobody, least of all. You. and anger. They do nothing for nobody. At least of all you. Stake your claim. And this is from this week's entry in the Daily Steuord 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. We like to collect the sayings of great writers or of leaders we admire.

They often become mantras for us on the path to life, providing guidance and assurance. But as Senaqa reminds us, truth hasn't been monopolized. Need to spend some time and effort each week formulating our own wisdom, staking our own claims based on our study, practice, and training. And that's what the Daily Stoic Journal and this podcast has always been about. Reflecting on Stoic wisdom, adding our own to it.

Senica urged us to blaze our own trail and to take charge and stake our own claim. Well, let's do that. Let the pages in your own journal, your own writing, reflect the insights you've learned through your own experiences. Let the inspiration you've taken from the Stoics help you create your own exercises, reminders, and perspectives. Then we have two quotes from Seneca and One from Marcus. The first from Seneca's moral letters, it's disgraceful for an old

person or one inside of old age to only have the knowledge carried in their notebooks. Zeno said this, what do you say? Clienti said that, what do you say? How long will you be compelled by claims of another? Take charge and stake your own claim. Something prosperity will carry in its notebook. That's Seneca moral letters 33 seven. And then in 33 11, Seneca says, won't you be walking in your predecessors footsteps? I surely will use the older path. But if I find a shorter and smoother way, all blaze a trail there. The ones who pioneered these paths are not masters, but are guides. True stands open to everyone.

It hasn't been monopolized. And then Marcus Relius meditations three, five, says, don't act grudgingly or selfishly or without due diligence. Or be a contrarian. Don't overdress your thoughts in fine language. Don't be a person of too many words or too many deeds. Be cheerful, not wanting outside help or the relief that others might bring.

A person needs to stand on their own, not be propped up. I mean, obviously this is something I think a little bit about as a writer, a popularizer of stoicism. I rely quite a bit on the ideas from the stokes that is what the Daily Stoke is. And it's funny. I'll see comments from people. They'll say like, well, you're just quoting other people.

What do you have to say? But then of course, when I say what I have to say, if I don't make enough nods to the Stokes, people go, well, who's this guy? You should just read the origin of this. And so it's a delicate line that I walk, but I think it's analogous to the line that we all walk, which is smarter, wiser people came before us. And they said they picked so much of the low hanging fruit, but we have to, I think use kind of the Austin, Clean approach of

steel, like an artist take from here and there and there and there. And it's in the taking and the synthesis and the arrangement that we make something new. For instance, it's funny now I watch people talk about the relationship between stosism and amorphati. But I know I'm the one that made that connection explicit and popular because it was something I was introduced to when I was a research assistant on Robert Green's book with 50 Cent. He talks about the idea of a Morphati and it struck me just how deeply connected that idea was with stoicism and it's something I integrated into my own books. And that became popular. Now I see people going, hey, you know, the stoics never really said a Morphati. That's from Nietzsche, not from the stoics. I know, but I made the connection. And so the idea then of relying on these ancient ideas,

but not relying so much or too much, not being dependent on them using just the right amount, but also understanding you can't listen to this. I mean, I think it was Clienthe's put together one of his books and he quotes so much from the play Medea that he said, this is Clientes Medea. He included almost the entire book in all the quotations that he'd use. And I guess at some point, if I keep doing this, I'll have quoted from every single passage from Marcus Aurelius. But the arrangement that I do it in is different. The reading I have is different.

And my interpretation might be different than your interpretation, which might be different than the interpretation that even I myself might have made a few years ago. So we put our own spin on these things. We make them our own, right? And to not do that, to not do that is also a shame. I think it was this seem to let get him quoting, but he says, most of the quotations you make should

be of people you disagree with. Now, I would disagree with the idea of most, but the point is, if all the quotes that you have that you use that you write down are just ones that you accept that you agree with, you're probably not being critical enough. You're not challenging enough. And so I want to push you to do that too. You shouldn't agree with everything this does say. You certainly shouldn't agree with everything that I say. You should be blazing your own path. And that's something I think about even as I'm doing Marginelia and the sides of the books that I read is like, am I just unthinkingly agreeing with everything I said? Or I think it's better if it's

it's a the reading processes a bit of an argument. And if you agree with everything that I say, that means probably you're not thinking enough for yourself, but also it means I'm probably not being courageous enough. And what I say, I'm not pushing the envelope enough, I'm not being honest or vulnerable enough. So, you got to be comfortable both quoting and carving your own path. You got to be comfortable agreeing as well as disagreeing. And it's in how all that shakes out that we have, we have our original voice. And Sedica does say that again, quoting, noting the irony, Sedica says something like, how do you prove that you really understood these masters?

It's by putting their thoughts into your own words. And you see that illustrated in the Stoics, the sort of constant illusions or reframing or tightening of sort of Stoic Monsters or ideas in one's own voice, one's own expression. And to me, that's partly what journaling is. I'm writing the ideas down, writing them down in my own voice, putting my own spin on them, staking my own claim, as Senaika says, and as we wind up this year and we go into the New Year I hope you can put a stamp on this New Year, you can stake out your own claim, claim your own original voice and That's what Stoicism is about and I'll talk to you soon That's my momentum worry coin. I think about it all the time I'm playing with it on my desk right now. It's on that carry always. It's probably the thing I get asked about the most when I bump into people in public.

It's just been a game changer for me. I have a bunch of different momentum worries reminders, of course. But if you want to get this one, which we make here in the US, in a mint in Minnesota, it's been in business since 1882, you can check it out in the Daily Stoic store or if you're in Bastrop, you can stop by my bookstore here, the Payneed Portion Man street where we sell them as well. It's Game Changer. I hope you check it out. Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic early and add free on Amazon music, download the Amazon music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondry Plus in Apple Podcasts.

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