The Daily Stoic - Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
Day 22
November 3rd - Following the Doctors Orders.
"Just as we commonnly hear people say the doctor prescribed someone particular riding exercises, or ice baths, or walking without shoes, we should in the same way say that nature prescribed someone to be diseased, or disabled, or to suffer any kind of impairment. In the case of the doctor, prescribed means something ordered to help aid someone's healing. But in the case of nature, it means that what happens to each of us is ordered to help aid our destiny"
- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 5.8
From the Author:
"... When it comes to external events, we fight like hell if anything happens contrary to our plans. But what if, Marcus asks, a doctor had prescribed this exact thing as a part of our treatment? What if this was as good for us as medicine?..."
My understanding of this is what makes us grow. Taking responsibility makes us grow a sense of self preservation, perhaps. Being forced to take a look at what you're doing, via some illness of sorts that come from a life of certain lack of activity, nature, nourishing food, is the same thing.
Illness is often no more than a cry from your body to reassess the environment you're in, the thought patterns and beliefs you entertain all day, and the people who's ideas are pushed onto you in some way or another. "We fight like hell" if we become sick in the middle of an important timely event in our life, so that we can successfully navigate through stresses and deadlines. But why do we only fight then, and not in every day to ensure our bodies are in best physical and mental health? Lessons to be learned are medicine for the growth of our self.
The Daily Stoic - Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
Day 21
November 2nd - Binding our Wishes to What will Be.
"But I haven't at any time been hindered in my will, nor forced against it. And how is this possible? I have bound up my choice to act with the will of God. God wills that I be sick, such is my will. He wills that I should choose something, so do I. He wills that I reach for something, or something be given to me - I wish for the same. What God doesn't will, I do not wish for."
- Epictetus, Discourses, 4.1.89
'Everything we could think of has been done, the troops are fit everybody is doing his best. The answer is in the lap of the gods."
- General Dwight D. Eisenhower to his wife on the eve of the invasion of Normandy
He had written two letters, the other was ready for release in the circumstances that the invasion was a failure. 'If failure was what God - or fate or luck or whatrever you want to call it - willed, he was ready.'
Despite assembling perhaps the most powerful army, he was humble enough to know that the outcome ultimately belonged to someone or something bigger than him.
"And so it goes with all our ventures. No matter how much preparation, no matter how skilled or smart we are, the ultimate outcome is in the lap of the gods. The sooner we know that, the better we will be."
This ties in a little with the most recent post I made - Accepting What Is. I feel like this is a preemtive kind of step. Be prepared for what could be from all angles, and accept that they are all possible, and then to be at peace with what the outcome is. This is again a 'if it's not meant to be, it won't be' from the gods, another door is waiting for you.
The Daily Stoic - Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
Day 20
November 1st - Accepting What Is
"Don't seek for everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything happens as it actually will - then your life will flow better."
-Epictetus, Enchiridion, 8
"It is easy to praise providence for anything that may happen if you have two qualities: a complete view of what has actually happened in each instance and a sense of gratitude. Without gratitude what is the point of seeing, and without seeing what is the object of gratitude?"
-Epictetus, Discourses, 1.6.1-2
From the Author:
"Something happened that we wish had not. Which of these is the easiest to change: our opinion or the event that is past?
The answer is obvious. Accept what happened and change your wish that it had not happened. Stoicism calls this the "art of acquiescence" - to accept rather than fight every little thing.
And the most practiced Stoics take it a step further. Instead of simply accepting what happens, they urge us to actually enjoy what has happened - whatever it is. Nietzsche, many centuries later, coined the perfect expression to capture this idea: "amor fati" (A love of fate)"
You must have a ducks back to start, then you must be a pig enjoying the shit he's rolling around in.
It's not easy at all to just simply accept what happens to us (Or better - what we experience that we misunderstand as 'happening' to us), but when you can leave things in the past that you perceive as negative, or when you can see that, for example, the car driving slowly in front of you, - infuriatingly slow - is actually fatefully put there to stop you from potentially making a mistake, getting a fine, or worse, the better off you will be.
That's a very simple to see example that you can recognise in life, but there are many potential examples. Like you don't succeed at a certain venture, maybe you simply weren't working from the soul, instead chasing something that wasn't truly you. If you can't let go of those feelings of failure, disappointment and resentment, then you won't see the door that has opened up in front of you.
Even more difficult than accepting what is, is cherishing the experiences that aren't to plan. But the more you accept, the more you leave those negative emotions, feelings and actions behind, the more you change your mindset, the more perceived positive things happen, and the cycle continues.
The Daily Stoic - Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
Day 19
October 31st - You were Born Good
"The human being is born with an inclination toward virtue."
- Musonius Rufus, Lectures, 2.7.1-2
"All of us have been made by nature" Rufus said, "so that we can live free from error and nobly - not that one can and another can't, but all."
From the Author:
"The notion of original sin has weighed down humankind for centuries. In reality, we're made to help each other and be good to each other, We wouldn't have survived as a species otherwise."
I think it's important to note the last sentence, despite all the horrible ways people treat others, from positions of assumed/non consensual authority (Which makes it's way into media seemingly more than good), the fact we've lasted so long is the majority population will come together for mutual benefit and coordinate peacefully with one another. The majority of people are good, with perhaps a small minority being selfish, and another small minority being outright evil.
I like "Bill and Ted"'s saying "Be excellent to each other". Excellency isn't just a higher 'tier' of goodness, but encompasses striving to do the best you can by another.
"You were born with an attraction to virtue and self-mastery. If you've gotten far from that, it's not out of some inborn corruption but from a nurturing of the wrong things and the wrong ideas."
Many are led astray from the path of goodness, of excellency, to their own lives and to their interactions with others. Virtue has been spun, perverted perhaps. Or maybe in a Libertarian way, it's only expanded, but I think virtue as we see it (to use a very common phrase - 'Virtue Signalling') is not what real virtue is. Real virtue isn't blind to truth, ignorant to nature, or 'forcing square pegs into round holes'. When it comes to whats true, and what comes from nature, we must not just accept everything as virtuous, but I think we must always be excellent to each other.
The Daily Stoic - Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
Day 16
October 28th - We were Made for Each Other
"You'll find more quickly an earthly thing kept from the earth than you will a person cut off from other human beings"
- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.9.3
From the Author:
"Naturally, Marcus Aurelius and the rest of the stoics were not familiar with Newtonian physics. But they knew that what went up must come down.
That's the analogy he's using here: our mutual interdependence with our fellow human beings is stronger than the law of gravity."
Aristotle called us 'social animals', in that we need to be there for others, and allow others to help us. We need to have that energetic connection that, despite the radical advances of technology and social networks we've built (I don't necessarily mean 'social networks like facebook at twitter'), we're possibly not as connected to each other as the Romans and Greeks were, or any period leading up to the 21st century.
What I like most about these thoughts is how I can tie them into Bitcoin - something we can talk about, philosophise and dream about, and give us a reason to create real world communities, because it's something that is so completely tied to the real world. Allowing us to interact with each other, to share, help, provide, support each other. It's a connection that surpasses hobby trends and financial means.
Socialising is what makes us human. Being able to interact with honesty in our word and our Medium of Exchange, backed by proof of our work, as well as the protocol makes that socialising so mutually beneficial.
The Daily Stoic - Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living
Day 5
October 17th - The Benefit of Kindness
"A benefit should be kept like a buried treasure, only to be dug up in necessity.... Nature bids us to do well by all.... Wherever there is a human being, we have an opportunity for kindness"
-Seneca, On the Happy life 24.2-3
Except from notes
'..and you can treat them well and be better off for it. The same is true with the second person you encounter, and the third. Of course, there is no guarantee that they will return the favor, but that's not our concern. As always, we are going to focus on what we control: in this case, the ability to choose to respond with kindness'
I read years ago the difference between being 'nice', and being 'kind', was; kind is loving and honest, nice is pleasing and positive (though not always honest, and not always with loving intentions)
I've always prefered to try to be kind, as opposed to nice, but it can be difficult being blunt with people who's feelings you might not want to offend.
But being kind can absolutely be of mutual benefit.
Anecdote - I spent nearly 2 hours speaking with a homeless guy, early/mid 50s, today. He spends time out front of the shopping center I frequent, and I'd had some passing conversations with him previously. Today I sat and really had a good conversation. At the end of it he told me, along the lines of, 'because of who I am, and my not wanting to go into shelters with people who are on drugs, I don't have a lot of friends... this morning I prayed that someone, likeminded, would talk with me" and I responded "And here I am".
I don't just simply want to equate what I did with 'kindness', but how often is it that someone may strike up a conversation that isn't just shallow pleasantries.
Be kind to someone today.
