Stoic Meditations

Seneca advices his friend Lucilius to pay attention to people who act right, not just talk right. When we pick a role model to improve our character, let's pick someone whose actions we want to imitate, they are a better guidance to virtue. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Seneca argues that we can force Fortuna, the goddess of luck, to deal with us on equal terms, by not being slaves to external things we cannot control. Cultivate equanimity, and Fortuna will play fair with you. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Marcus Aurelius gives some commonsensical advice on how to interact with other people, which leads us to a brief discussion of what counts as "Stoic" advice in the first place. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Epictetus reminds his students that engaging in a wrong act, even one done in response to an injustice, stains our own character, and therefore hurts us first and foremost. Stoics don't favor retributive justice systems. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Seneca reminds us of the distinction between unhealthy and healthy emotions: being overwhelmed by the first ones tears us apart internally, while cultivating the second ones brings harmony to our psyche. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Musonius Rufus, in an implicit rebuttal to the Epicureans, reminds us of all the things that is worth experiencing pain to achieve, most importantly being a good, just, and temperate person. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Seneca gives rare advice on one's abode. It should be a place that does not get in the way of practicing virtue, which means neither too uncomfortable (if we can avoid it) nor too luxurious or distracting. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Seneca disagrees with Epictetus: the first says that philosophy is a pleasant medicine, the second that it is a painful one. And yet they agree that it is a remedy that, taken regularly, makes for a wholesome life. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Seneca says that more often than we realize we blame our problems on the time and place we live in, without understanding that the fault may be with us, and that we should work on ourselves, instead of finding excuses. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Seneca argues that we are born with the ability to reason and to improve our reasoning. We are also naturally social, and prefer virtue over vice. Hard to believe, right? And yet, he's got a point. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Seneca argues that it is the quality, not the duration, of one's life that is important, and that we often live long when measured in years, and yet too little in terms of what we accomplish. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

A straightforward quote by Epictetus allows us to reflect on what a philosophy of life is, and why everyone needs one. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Seneca says that he'd prefer to be told how to help people, rather than how many different meanings of the word "people" there may be. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Life is hard as it is, says Marcus Aurelius, there is no need to make ourselves more miserable by adding unnecessary opinions that increase our suffering. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Epictetus introduced a major innovation in Stoic ethics with his theory of roles. We are first and foremost members of the human cosmopolis. But also fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, friends, colleagues. How do we balance the conflicting demands of such diverse roles in life? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Seneca reminds us that we can't live happily if we transform everything into a question of our own utility. We must live for your neighbour in order to live for ourselves. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Marcus provides us three options for what sort of thing is truly good for you, and argues that a person of understanding will go for the third one. Have you reflected on what is good for you, and why? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Epictetus advises us to forgo issues of material resources and remember that family relationships in great part define who we are. After all, if we can't practice virtue with our brothers, sisters, and parents, with whom can we practice it? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Seneca says that if we are going after the satisfaction of lust, greed, ambition, and so forth, we make ourselves slaves to fortune. Not so if we regard what we have as loans from the universe, which the universe can take back at any moment, by any means. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Musonius Rufus reminds us that it is far easier to curb our desire for our neighbor's wife than to pursue it Not to mention that it is the right thing to do. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support