Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, it's us Josh and Chuck, and we want
Speaker 1: you to know we are coming somewhere near you. We're
Speaker 1: sure if you live in North America this year, that's right,
Speaker 1: We're going on tour, and uh, why don't we just
Speaker 1: rattle through these dates? Okay? Uh? Toronto August eight at
Speaker 1: the Day and Fourth Music Hall, Chicago August nine, the
Speaker 1: next day at Harris Theater. Then we are taking some
Speaker 1: time off to recover after that two day grind. We're
Speaker 1: eating Vancouver the Vogue Theater September twenty six, followed by Minneapolis.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be at the Pantageous Theater again on September
Speaker 1: that is correct, yep. And then Austin Chuck on October
Speaker 1: tenth of the Paramount Theater, Yes, and very special show
Speaker 1: and Lawrence Kansas at Liberty Hall on October eleventh, yep.
Speaker 1: And then we're gonna do a three night stand October
Speaker 1: two at the Bellhouse in Brooklyn, New York. And then Chuck,
Speaker 1: take it home. Uh, well take it home literally, because
Speaker 1: we are finishing up November four right here in Atlanta
Speaker 1: at the Bucket Theater and this is a very special
Speaker 1: benefit show. Uh, and all the Proceeds will be going
Speaker 1: to Lifeline Animal Project of Atlanta in the National Down
Speaker 1: Syndrome Society YEP and for more information in too buy tickets,
Speaker 1: just go to s y s K live dot com.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark
Speaker 1: with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, guest producer Noel. Jerry's Jerry
Speaker 1: has been out a lot lately, Chuck. Have you noticed? Uh? No, No,
Speaker 1: I haven't. Of course, Jerry's got big life things going on,
Speaker 1: does buying and selling houses. She's like a real estate mogul,
Speaker 1: visiting them all, doing all sorts of stuff. Uh, we're
Speaker 1: just a couple of deep thinkers hanging out on the stoa. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the typically what is it this? So? Uh? Did you
Speaker 1: practice the word this pronunciation at all? I tried to
Speaker 1: pronounce a lot of this um but you know ancient Greek,
Speaker 1: you know the phrase it's all Greek to me? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it comes from not being able to pronounce these
Speaker 1: things quite literal, the the stoa poikili. I think that's
Speaker 1: probably pretty close, man. So can I start this with
Speaker 1: a couple of quick thoughts? Sure? First of all, uh,
Speaker 1: I took a I took four different philosophy quizzes before
Speaker 1: we recorded, like like what kind of philosophy do you
Speaker 1: subscribe to? Type quiz? Yeah, you know the ones that
Speaker 1: are super accurate, right, because they can figure that out
Speaker 1: in eight to fifteen questions. Sure, and then you can
Speaker 1: move on and find out what muppet you are. So
Speaker 1: here's here's my result here for the first one that
Speaker 1: was epicurean. Uh, the second one existentialism, alright, third one
Speaker 1: atheist existentialist. In the fourth Nietzsche slash stoic. Nietzsche was
Speaker 1: a huge critic of stoicism. I'm surprised they put those
Speaker 1: two together. Well that that is chuck though. You know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Yeah, you're you're contradiction in terms yin
Speaker 1: and yang. Well I am that. The reason why I
Speaker 1: took these is because when I was doing the research
Speaker 1: on stoicism, Um, I found me. I found myself a
Speaker 1: lot of times going yep, yep totally, and then a
Speaker 1: lot of times going no, that's really not me. Same here,
Speaker 1: same here. And I think, um, the even the Stoics
Speaker 1: from back in the day realized that there were very few,
Speaker 1: very very few actual what they called sages walking around
Speaker 1: stoic stages who really fulfilled every aspect of this to
Speaker 1: a t. And I think that. I think one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why Stoa is m today is making a
Speaker 1: comeback and it's so appealing is because, well there's two reasons.
Speaker 1: One more than um kind of a naval gazing type
Speaker 1: philosophy where you're trying to figure out the nature of
Speaker 1: existence or something like that. It's more a blueprint for
Speaker 1: existing day to day in a in a useful, happy way.
Speaker 1: And then secondly, um, it's uh, you can kind of
Speaker 1: pick and choose. It's almost like a buffet. You can
Speaker 1: pick and choose what aspects of it you want to
Speaker 1: adopt or use. And no, you know, Greek ghost is
Speaker 1: going to come along and spear you in the face,
Speaker 1: but with a trident right punch. Uh yeah, And I
Speaker 1: think that's I mean, first of all, the Age of
Speaker 1: Reason fascinates me to no end um. And second, I've
Speaker 1: kind of wanted to cover some of the great philosophies
Speaker 1: of all time. This sounds like a good start, well
Speaker 1: it is, but it's just kind of daunting because people
Speaker 1: spend like that's their life's work, you know, and and
Speaker 1: to for us to try and summarize any of them
Speaker 1: in thirty to forty five minutes is kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know what philosophy. You would liken
Speaker 1: that to foolishism. Duncis, m uh, that's what we do.
Speaker 1: You know. Well, let's how about this. If this one
Speaker 1: goes well, maybe we'll take it as a sign that
Speaker 1: we can tackle some other ones. But you're absolutely right,
Speaker 1: Like even the even just like say the Internet Encyclopedia
Speaker 1: of Philosophy, which is meant you know, it's it's it's sharp,
Speaker 1: and it's detailed, and it's exhaustive, but it's also clearly
Speaker 1: meant for lay people interested in philosophy. Right, It's just
Speaker 1: just this just stoicism. It is so involved that it's
Speaker 1: not possible for us to like really capture all of it,
Speaker 1: even get in an overview, you know, um or giving
Speaker 1: it just hitting the highlights. We can't possibly hit all
Speaker 1: the highlights. It's just too much to it. And that's
Speaker 1: just stoicism. I still say it's worth talking about though,
Speaker 1: just because it's so interesting. So if I get up
Speaker 1: in the middle, you're gonna pull me back. Just keep
Speaker 1: going well, I like the Urban Dictionary definition um stoic
Speaker 1: is someone who does not give a beep about the
Speaker 1: stupid things in this world that most people care so
Speaker 1: much about. Stoics do have emotions, but only for the
Speaker 1: things in this world that really matter. They are the
Speaker 1: most real people alive. And then in their little example,
Speaker 1: as a group of kids sitting by the porch, stoic
Speaker 1: walks by one kind says something very mean, Hey, you're
Speaker 1: a blankety blank and you blank blank and the stoics
Speaker 1: is good for you and keeps going right. It's a
Speaker 1: part of me really like I hear that, and I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: I am so that person on so many levels. But
Speaker 1: then sometimes I'm totally not, and I think what the
Speaker 1: difference is or what matters is well, it depends on
Speaker 1: if they say something that matters to you or or
Speaker 1: if something does matter it or to you. Like I
Speaker 1: might get really riled up about some stuff that would
Speaker 1: make you not stoic that doesn't rile anyone anyone else up,
Speaker 1: But I also some things that really make other people
Speaker 1: I rate. I'm just like man, can't change it. It
Speaker 1: is what it is, uh, And I only can get
Speaker 1: upset about the things I can change. Yeah, if you
Speaker 1: could apply that to everything, you'd be pretty pretty high
Speaker 1: up there in the stoic Um pantheon. I'd be a
Speaker 1: stoic UHT five star general pretty much, five finger punch guy.
Speaker 1: All right, so we beat around the bush. I mean,
Speaker 1: that was a pretty good definition actually, even though it's
Speaker 1: from the Urban Dictionary. But um, we should say we
Speaker 1: picked that one up from a On article why Stoicism
Speaker 1: is one of the best mine hacks ever devised. That
Speaker 1: was a good one by Larry Wallace. Yeah, you did
Speaker 1: a good job kind of giving an overview of the
Speaker 1: whole thing. I think Larry Wallace is one of the
Speaker 1: great modern Stoicists. Maybe there's plenty of them running around
Speaker 1: these days. Yeah, but we're I mean, we'll we'll go
Speaker 1: back in time and study the beginnings of Stoicism because
Speaker 1: we're talking about like you hear the word stoic today
Speaker 1: and it means it was taken from this, but it's
Speaker 1: kind of someone like sort of a grim face. Stoic
Speaker 1: doesn't say much, um, and that that's not what stoicism
Speaker 1: And they say in our article several times with a
Speaker 1: capitalist really is all about? Right, Yeah, to these days,
Speaker 1: people typically, or I should say these days, up to
Speaker 1: about three years ago, people thought of stoics as somebody
Speaker 1: who could watch their dog get hit by a car,
Speaker 1: and you know their reaction was to raise their chin
Speaker 1: a little higher up in the area, you know, like
Speaker 1: just grin and bear it. Um. As Larry put it, Larry,
Speaker 1: where I'm on a first name basis with Lady Wallace Layer,
Speaker 1: that it's a philosophy of grim endurance, tolerating rather than
Speaker 1: transcending life's agonies and adversities, just kind of trudging through um,
Speaker 1: just taking hit after hit from life as it deals
Speaker 1: deals them to you, right, that that was the idea
Speaker 1: of stoicism. You can kind of like it's not like
Speaker 1: that's just radically unlike actual stoicism, but it's an outsider's
Speaker 1: interpretation of what the stoics are actually doing, what's actually
Speaker 1: going on, the purpose of the whole thing. That outsider's
Speaker 1: view that doesn't really fully understand. It became the popular
Speaker 1: view until recently, until it started to kind of gain
Speaker 1: some traction lately. Yeah, And you know, throughout the years,
Speaker 1: stoicism has informed some religions. Uh, these days, there are
Speaker 1: a lot of atheists, their stoics. Um, but I like
Speaker 1: how our article says it. Uh is, above all, it
Speaker 1: teaches the value of emotional control in living one's life fully. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So here's the basis of it. The basis of it is,
Speaker 1: if you can um detach yourself from emotional responses to things,
Speaker 1: then something that comes along, whether good or bad, is
Speaker 1: not gonna get your goat. Stoicism is all about protecting
Speaker 1: your goat and not letting anything get it. And the
Speaker 1: way that the way that they do that is by saying,
Speaker 1: there are very few things that I can control in life,
Speaker 1: and everything that I can't control, I'm not gonna get
Speaker 1: up riled up over, you know, lose my job. Oh well,
Speaker 1: it happens. It doesn't mean I'm any less of a person.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to go out and get another job.
Speaker 1: Dog gets hit by a car. Well that's really awful
Speaker 1: because I really like that dog. But I'll just go
Speaker 1: get another dog, or maybe I'll just learn to live
Speaker 1: without the dog. Maybe I was becoming too attached to
Speaker 1: the dog. Things like that. That's stoicism. But the whole
Speaker 1: point of it is it's not just to get your goat,
Speaker 1: it's or to protect your goat from being gotten. It's
Speaker 1: about UM living a moral life where you're a very
Speaker 1: good human being. And the idea is that the only
Speaker 1: way to really do that is through things like rationalism
Speaker 1: and UM investigating the universe and being understanding of knowledge
Speaker 1: and then UM pursuing ethics, specific ethics, UM. And then
Speaker 1: they figured out the best way to do that is dispassionately. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think my bumper sticker would say, uh onboard colin,
Speaker 1: part time stoicis full time dreamer. Okay, that is that
Speaker 1: is a specific Yeah, right, bumper sticker. I used to
Speaker 1: have a lot of bumper stickers in high school and
Speaker 1: now I loathe them so much. Really, what did you have? Like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I had an old Volkswagen Beetle and that was my
Speaker 1: family actually bought brand new in nine eight and was
Speaker 1: passed down kid the kid, the kid, and it was
Speaker 1: it was very cool. I thought at the time, well,
Speaker 1: it is cool. I love those old Beetles. But I
Speaker 1: just went through on those phases where I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, here's a Native Americans saying and here's something
Speaker 1: about mother nature and this Bob Marley had this to say,
Speaker 1: and just yeah, I was from those and now I
Speaker 1: see those cars with all the things, and I'm just like,
Speaker 1: shut up, nobody cares. Yeah, for sure. I mean, did
Speaker 1: you have a three eleven sticker? No? This was pre
Speaker 1: three eleven? Actually, okay, got you? So did your mom
Speaker 1: come out and be like, what did you do to
Speaker 1: the family heirloom? Put stickers over? No, it's funny that
Speaker 1: that car had a the rear floorboard was missing on
Speaker 1: one side. My dad had a car like that in Malibu,
Speaker 1: so you could like see the street. Now that I
Speaker 1: looked back, he didn't even have a piece of wood.
Speaker 1: Now that I look back, I'm like, that was extraordinarily
Speaker 1: irresponsible to be driving around with kids in the back
Speaker 1: seat with the with the street visible. Yeah. I love
Speaker 1: your dad, Just like watch your feet kids. Yeah, easy,
Speaker 1: does it? Uh? Alright, So let's you want to go
Speaker 1: back and talk about the history a little bit. No,
Speaker 1: I want to keep beating around the book. All right,
Speaker 1: Let's get in the way back machine and we need
Speaker 1: to really juice it up because we're going way back.
Speaker 1: Got some kerosene, got some banana peels, and got some
Speaker 1: airplane glue. But that's just for us, that's right, Because
Speaker 1: it's a long ride. H ancient Greece is where we're headed, uh,
Speaker 1: to the time of the great philosophers. And um, like
Speaker 1: we said earlier, sitting here on the stoa, that was
Speaker 1: a joke, but it wasn't. And you you, you know
Speaker 1: you said stoa, You're gonna try it again. The stoa
Speaker 1: POI Kiley, yes, or painted porch is what it means.
Speaker 1: And that was a public space in Athens, Greece. It's
Speaker 1: like a portico, yeah, where where people would hang out
Speaker 1: and talk and chew the fat. And that's what I
Speaker 1: love about this time was people would just they were
Speaker 1: just alive with ideas, these philosophical ideas of trying to
Speaker 1: figure it all out. Yeah, but don't you think like
Speaker 1: everyone time you just be like everybody, shut up, I
Speaker 1: gotta do something useful, yeah talking Yeah, No, but I
Speaker 1: I I agree with you. Overall. It was a pretty
Speaker 1: thrilling time. Did you take philosophy in college at all? No? No,
Speaker 1: I didn't. Um, I really did not. I don't think
Speaker 1: I took a single philosophy class, now that I think
Speaker 1: about it. I even a survey. I took the one
Speaker 1: kind of general class. I guess it was the one
Speaker 1: on one and I actually made an A, which I
Speaker 1: didn't make a ton of a's in college. And I
Speaker 1: remember at the time kind of the same thing about
Speaker 1: half the class. I was like, man, so fascinating, And
Speaker 1: then then the other half I was just like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: what a waste of time. I do something useful, like
Speaker 1: volunteer for a charity, go makes something out of wood, anything. Alright,
Speaker 1: So back to the stoa. We're on this painted porch,
Speaker 1: this portico as it were. People are everywhere running their
Speaker 1: mouths about what they think is important. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: this dude wanders up Zeno of Sidium, Yeah, who had
Speaker 1: recently been shipwrecked. And there are other zenos. Not to
Speaker 1: be confused. I know it is confusing. There should be
Speaker 1: one zeno. There can be in all of in all
Speaker 1: of history, there were zenos of other things. But this
Speaker 1: is Zeno of Sidium. And you're right, he was shipwrecked
Speaker 1: and he was wandering around after a trip from Cyprus.
Speaker 1: Did you say we're in Athens. Oh yeah, not Georgia, No,
Speaker 1: although we did our fair shriff sitting around on porches
Speaker 1: talking nonsense there as well. But that's a porch porch, yea,
Speaker 1: not a Greek porch And so Zeno took a little
Speaker 1: bit of insight from the cynics and then eventually said,
Speaker 1: you know what, I could my kind of forming my
Speaker 1: own thoughts here, and uh, I think everyone else is
Speaker 1: doing it. I have my own philosophy. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: called Stoicism, Yeah, named after later later, I don't think
Speaker 1: he'd called it that. I'm not sure he'd probably called
Speaker 1: it zeno Is. They're like, yeah, it sucks, We're gonna
Speaker 1: call it Stoicism after the porch. But this is I mean,
Speaker 1: like the Stoicism very quickly became one of the big
Speaker 1: of philosophies at the time, and it rivaled some of
Speaker 1: the philosophies that it grew out of, like Socratic philosophy
Speaker 1: and like you said, cynicism the cynics, And actually, if
Speaker 1: you look at Stoicism, it's kind of a compromise between
Speaker 1: um Socrates or so creates as Bill and Ted call them, philosophy,
Speaker 1: which was that to lead a good life. And this
Speaker 1: was the point of all of the philosophies at this time,
Speaker 1: during this Age of Reason, was achieving what was called
Speaker 1: you daimonia, and daimonia is a life worth living. It's
Speaker 1: thriving it's flourishing, it's being happy, like real happiness. Right.
Speaker 1: That was the pursuit of all of these different ideas
Speaker 1: that were floating around at the time, was how to
Speaker 1: achieve that. Socrates had the idea that you achieve that
Speaker 1: through like twelve cardinal virtues, and some of them were
Speaker 1: things you could cultivate in yourself, like courage, a sense
Speaker 1: of justice, that kind of stuff. But then there are
Speaker 1: other ones too that had like everything to do with luck,
Speaker 1: Like being good looking was one of them. Right, if
Speaker 1: you were good, look, if you were ugly, sorry, buddy,
Speaker 1: you could never achieve you daimonia right on the other
Speaker 1: end of the spectrum where the cynics and the cynics
Speaker 1: believed that earthly trappings like wealth and fame and glory
Speaker 1: anything like that was the path to ruin, and that
Speaker 1: the true path to you daimonia was living simply and
Speaker 1: living in poverty. And so Zeno comes along and here's
Speaker 1: all these and as he's formulating his own ideas, he's like,
Speaker 1: Socrates makes some sense over here, and so do the
Speaker 1: cynics a little bit, but I'm gonna put them together.
Speaker 1: And that's where Stoicism came from. It was a compromise
Speaker 1: between the two where you live a life of of
Speaker 1: pursuing you damonia through these virtues. Four virtues Um. I
Speaker 1: think there's justice, courage, wisdom, and then temperance. Right, So
Speaker 1: you're practicing those four virtues. So that's that's kind of
Speaker 1: a nod to Socrates. Um. And you don't have to
Speaker 1: live in poverty. You can be wealthy, because the stoicism
Speaker 1: is anything, it's wealthy. People who got into philosophy um
Speaker 1: that weren't quite sure how to feel about being wealthy,
Speaker 1: to say, to kind of come to the point that,
Speaker 1: like happen, money is not a bad thing, right, right,
Speaker 1: And so what they came up with was, um, sure
Speaker 1: you can be wealthy, and that's okay. You can prefer
Speaker 1: to be wealthy, but you just can't be attached to it.
Speaker 1: You can't desire to be wealthy because you can't control
Speaker 1: being wealthy, and if you pursue being wealthy, you're pursuing
Speaker 1: something beyond your control. So if you just happen to
Speaker 1: be wealthy, that's great. You can be happy with it,
Speaker 1: but also be prepared to lose it at any given time.
Speaker 1: And that's a big part of stoicism. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: it's so funny though, to think about, like thousands of
Speaker 1: years ago in ancient Greece, like they spent so much
Speaker 1: time thinking about living this all these schools of thought
Speaker 1: of living this life, so like, uh, putting so much
Speaker 1: thought into living to life to its fullest and all
Speaker 1: the different ways that they defined it. And eventually, like
Speaker 1: over the years, like as recently as like the generation
Speaker 1: of our parents and grandparents the United States, like the
Speaker 1: philosophy of life was like you just go to work
Speaker 1: and you work hard until you die, and that's the
Speaker 1: only thing that matters. Like all that stuff is garbage. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the reasons why stoicism is
Speaker 1: is becoming appealing Again, is this idea that like work
Speaker 1: seems to be kind of going through a weird transformation,
Speaker 1: doesn't it, Like it's not like that anymore? Like that
Speaker 1: that that that ethic is still around for sure, But like,
Speaker 1: how many people do you know work from home? Like
Speaker 1: almost entirely a lot a lot, And that's fairly new.
Speaker 1: So I wonder if like this changing work dynamic is
Speaker 1: leading to this resurgence and stoicism that you can't find
Speaker 1: happiness through other stuff. I mean, part of me thinks
Speaker 1: this is all like super worthwhile, and part of me
Speaker 1: thinks and it's sort of indulgent to sin and a
Speaker 1: bit like you said, naval gayzy and like put just
Speaker 1: start practicing good things instead of sitting around thinking about
Speaker 1: the best way to live life. Well, we'll talk about
Speaker 1: criticisms of them later on, but I think you hit
Speaker 1: a big one though, Chuck, was the idea that it's
Speaker 1: self indulgent because it it demands introspection almost every moment
Speaker 1: of every day. You want to take a break and
Speaker 1: then get back to it. Yeah, I gotta, I gotta
Speaker 1: get my head together. Where's that airplane glue here? You get?
Speaker 1: All right? Nothing like airplane glue to get your head
Speaker 1: back on straight. Is just kidding, of course. Everyone Sure,
Speaker 1: we're smart guys. We don't do that kind of thing. No,
Speaker 1: it's pretty tough to be smart and huff model airplane glue.
Speaker 1: It's pretty you're pretty much making a choice between that
Speaker 1: and being smart. That's what they teach you early on.
Speaker 1: You want to go somewhere life, you want to huff
Speaker 1: airplane glue. It's the one thing Nancy Reagan didn't lie about,
Speaker 1: all right, So Zeno got things going, um, peace of
Speaker 1: mind that comes with living a life of virtue in
Speaker 1: accordance with re in in nature. And then other dudes
Speaker 1: got on boards, and of course got on boards, got
Speaker 1: on board, and they were all dudes back then because
Speaker 1: everything was from the man's perspective. Uh, I just want
Speaker 1: to point that out, Yeah, because it's changed so dramatically
Speaker 1: since then. But some of the other early stoicist Cleanthes Kato, Kato,
Speaker 1: the younger, elder younger, right, Kato, the calin oh man,
Speaker 1: I forgot about him. I'm not sure which Kato. I
Speaker 1: think it's the younger. Yeah, we'll find out from two
Speaker 1: people who email into let us. Uh Seneca. And then
Speaker 1: a very important stoicis Uh. Well, I'm gonna pronounce it
Speaker 1: epic epic epic tectus. Epic tetus sounds like a vaccine shot.
Speaker 1: It does E P I C T E H t
Speaker 1: U s. It's the C going into a T that's
Speaker 1: getting you. It's just epic tetius or epic tetis. I
Speaker 1: think I pictitis is what we should go with. I
Speaker 1: want another see in there. I wanted to be epithectus,
Speaker 1: but it's not. No it's not alright, So, uh, don't
Speaker 1: forget Marcus Aurelius. Man. Oh well, sure, I mean he
Speaker 1: comes a little bit later, like he was. He was
Speaker 1: the ruler of Anthentt. Man, what is my problem today?
Speaker 1: It's okay, man, Everyone knew what you meant. He was
Speaker 1: the philosopher king and that was when Stoicism was kind
Speaker 1: of the most popular thing going. Yeah. Yeah. Apparently they
Speaker 1: moved from Athens to Rome, which I didn't realize this.
Speaker 1: I always had the idea um that Rome venerated Hellenistic
Speaker 1: Greece hundreds of years after basically the Greek civilization had
Speaker 1: had just kind of, you know, gone into a bit
Speaker 1: of a twilight or had gone out of its heyday. No,
Speaker 1: there was total cross pollination, including some of these early
Speaker 1: Stoics who traveled from Athens to Rome, and basically with
Speaker 1: that move transferred the seed of philosophy from Athens to Rome,
Speaker 1: from Greek to Rome, to Um to Rome, from Greece
Speaker 1: to Rome. I didn't realize that they were They were
Speaker 1: actually like cross pollinating one another at the time. Did
Speaker 1: you know that? I think I recalled that from deep
Speaker 1: in my college memory. Banks nice. Uh, so Epitetus Tedis
Speaker 1: man Um. He had a big role in the Stoic movement.
Speaker 1: He was a former slave um, which kind of makes
Speaker 1: sense and for in terms of Stoicism, he almost almost
Speaker 1: single handedly gives um credence to uh Stoicism because so
Speaker 1: many other Stoics were extraordinarily wealthy, powerful man that it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty easy for you to go through life saying,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just just take what life gives you.
Speaker 1: If life is giving you nothing but gold, bullying all
Speaker 1: the time. Right, this guy was born a slave, crippled
Speaker 1: in the knee for life and and became a Stoic,
Speaker 1: one of the great Stoic thinkers, and just through his
Speaker 1: life proved that Stoicism can work. Yeah, And he wrote
Speaker 1: a handbook at the time was called an Encridian, and
Speaker 1: he wrote the Incridian of Epic Tetis, And in coridium
Speaker 1: literally means handbook, it means ready at hand. So it
Speaker 1: was a very famous handbook. And he attributed, I mean,
Speaker 1: the first line of it was some things are in
Speaker 1: our control and others not right, and that kind of
Speaker 1: sums it all up, like he could have said the end,
Speaker 1: but he decided to dive a little deeper. I agree
Speaker 1: with you. I think our brand of Stoicism has about
Speaker 1: the same contours because that that that right there, that's all.
Speaker 1: That's everything you need to know, right there is some
Speaker 1: things you can control, most things you can't control. There
Speaker 1: you go, don't get too high, too low, right, don't
Speaker 1: get too mad about something. Well, ultimately, I think that's
Speaker 1: what boils down to. I don't really find much of
Speaker 1: a problem when people are overjoyed. I don't think that's
Speaker 1: an issue. And technically with Stoicism, that is a that's
Speaker 1: a problem. You should not become overjoyed. The experiencing joy
Speaker 1: is fine. But but just being like overcome with happiness
Speaker 1: or joy or um, grief or whatever it is you're
Speaker 1: you're you're violating one of those four cardinal virtues, temperance,
Speaker 1: which is just being tempered and even keeled. So but
Speaker 1: I think if you're saying, um, don't get upset about
Speaker 1: something that's out of your control. Don't blame others, don't
Speaker 1: try to control other people. Just know that whatever comes
Speaker 1: you can handle it. There you go. That's all you
Speaker 1: need to know for me. Yeah, and you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: how many times have you heard me say it is
Speaker 1: what it is, which is an annoying thing to hear
Speaker 1: and say, but it's pretty stoic. Well it is, but
Speaker 1: it's also in my case, like it is what it
Speaker 1: is until it Isn't It just matters if I personally
Speaker 1: riled up about something, you know? Yeah, but I think
Speaker 1: again though, if like, there's probably some people who listen
Speaker 1: who who um subscribe to at least modern stoicism listening
Speaker 1: to this, and I would guess that they would say
Speaker 1: that's because stoicism is basically meant to apply to every
Speaker 1: day of your life. Like, no stoics are really expected
Speaker 1: to become stages in their lifetimes. That it's something you
Speaker 1: just do every single day, is try to not get
Speaker 1: riled up. But of course you're something's gonna come along
Speaker 1: and get you riled up. That's just human nature. Stoicism
Speaker 1: is trying to put a bridle on that human nature. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: and this is insider stuff. Uh. I think you and
Speaker 1: I compliment each other because we rarely get worked up
Speaker 1: about the same thing. Just voter suppression. Well, no, it
Speaker 1: happens here and there, but just in our personal lives
Speaker 1: and and everything to do with work. Like oftentimes I've
Speaker 1: noticed like something that will rile me up your and
Speaker 1: me down and the other way around. And I mean,
Speaker 1: I think that's one reason we've lasted so long. Like
Speaker 1: if two people were so similar that they're constantly worked
Speaker 1: up about the same stuff, no one, you know, you're
Speaker 1: just gonna be working each other up, and no one's
Speaker 1: going to be there to say, hey, man, it is
Speaker 1: what it is. Yeah, man, hey, mellow out, here's the
Speaker 1: Bob Marley bumpers exactly. H So should we talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about the areas of study? Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: Well there are three main ones and stoicism, uh, and
Speaker 1: this is all you know to deal with introspection, which
Speaker 1: is kind of like all philosophies. Um, physics is the
Speaker 1: first thing. And it's not physics like you think of
Speaker 1: that you hate studying in high school. Well, it falls
Speaker 1: under a larger umbrella term, I guess. Yeah. They're talking
Speaker 1: about the the natural world, the natural universe, and also
Speaker 1: what lies beyond it. And and when they say the
Speaker 1: natural world, they're talking about everything, um, God, the divine nature,
Speaker 1: everything that we know and things that we don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: everything we would view as science or like you said, nature, Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: all that stuff that's physics and all of it. The
Speaker 1: one of the things the Stoics, I think, if they
Speaker 1: weren't the first to come up with it, they definitely
Speaker 1: popularized it. Was the idea that all of this was interconnected,
Speaker 1: which is pretty I mean, you take it for granted today,
Speaker 1: like everybody thinks that everything is interconnected these days, but um,
Speaker 1: it's to be among the first to kind of point
Speaker 1: that out or suggest that's pretty pretty significant contribution to
Speaker 1: Western thought. Yeah, imagine that was a pretty deep thing
Speaker 1: when it first started hitting people. You know. Can you
Speaker 1: just see George Carlin being like, oh, you just blew
Speaker 1: my mind? Uh oh, because he was so great. Man. Wait, no,
Speaker 1: he wasn't so great. He was he was the guide
Speaker 1: their spirit and what was his name? We'll just edit
Speaker 1: this part out. I didn't know. I had to brush
Speaker 1: up on my bill and dead. I didn't either. I
Speaker 1: surprised myself. You should have seen my face. You know.
Speaker 1: They kept they kept talking about remakes because recently, as
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago, I think, or not remakes,
Speaker 1: but sequels with the original. Yeah, Like Canna Reeves was like, man,
Speaker 1: I love those movies. I'd love to make another one.
Speaker 1: Did you see what what was? Um? So was Keanu Reeves,
Speaker 1: Bill or Ted? Why are we even doing this to ourselves? Boy?
Speaker 1: I want to say he was Ted. So the guy
Speaker 1: who played the other guy, Yeah, Alex Winter. Oh jeez, Chuck, wow,
Speaker 1: A nice job. So Alex Winter was in um what
Speaker 1: was the Charles Bronson vehicle, like his most favor death
Speaker 1: Wish Death Wish three. Death Wish three was what he
Speaker 1: was in, which was when Golding Globus got their hands
Speaker 1: on it and turned it into like a schlock island
Speaker 1: like um, almost post apocalyptic movie. Um. And he's great
Speaker 1: in it. But he's also in um A a documentary
Speaker 1: on Golding Globus. I can't remember what the name of
Speaker 1: the name of the documentaries, but it's just about how
Speaker 1: bad the movies they made were and how how gleefully
Speaker 1: these guys made them. But um, he's interviewed in it.
Speaker 1: That guy hasn't aged a day. No, he looks exactly Okay,
Speaker 1: So he's Bill. Yeah alright, So, uh so we got
Speaker 1: that settled. Physics was done. What's next? Uh, logic which
Speaker 1: they wanted to include, um, social scientists, psychology, sociology, history,
Speaker 1: which I kind of like, I'm down with that. As
Speaker 1: far as the philosophies go, they want to include all
Speaker 1: this stuff. But collectively they kind of called this all reason.
Speaker 1: It was a very big deal, uh, to Stoicism, perhaps
Speaker 1: the biggest deal, right. And they also were engaged in
Speaker 1: a pistol pology, which is theories of what knowledge is,
Speaker 1: how we gain knowledge, what's true, what's belief, what's false?
Speaker 1: How do we differentiate between these things? And they spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time investigating this and putting it all
Speaker 1: under logic, because it was through logic that you could
Speaker 1: investigate physics, which included investigating God and the nature of
Speaker 1: universe and stuff like that. And then through all that
Speaker 1: that investigation, that introspection, that navel gazing, Um, you were
Speaker 1: ultimately figuring out how to best pursue and best live
Speaker 1: out the third part, which was the ethics of the
Speaker 1: whole thing. Yeah, and you mentioned the four great virtues earlier, courage, justice, wisdom,
Speaker 1: and temperance, and Um, the whole idea here is, Uh,
Speaker 1: It's it's not like you want to block out the
Speaker 1: bad and only embrace the good. You like, you want
Speaker 1: to consider both the good and the bad, but just
Speaker 1: don't let it any of it get in the way
Speaker 1: of any thing that you're trying to pursue in your life. Right,
Speaker 1: pretty simple. Yeah, and the whole good bad thing. Where
Speaker 1: did you find this this thing on ethics? Was that
Speaker 1: the that was the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy from their
Speaker 1: and from their entry on it. Yeah, it's pretty pretty good.
Speaker 1: The whole thing was. Dude, you should have seen how
Speaker 1: in depth they go though, But I thought this one
Speaker 1: was a good snippet. Well, I was sure, Yeah, they
Speaker 1: dive pretty deep, but I thought this was a pretty
Speaker 1: good little summation there. And you know, they were talking
Speaker 1: about um, like you said, like money isn't just not
Speaker 1: good or a k A bad things like this they
Speaker 1: called indifference as in uh I N D I F
Speaker 1: F E R E N T S not indifference, And
Speaker 1: it's like not good or bad. It could be either one. Um,
Speaker 1: it's really kind of all about not letting something like
Speaker 1: that get in the way of your pursuit. Right. So
Speaker 1: and again it went back to wealth, right, and this um,
Speaker 1: this person in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy points out that
Speaker 1: like money, definitely being wealthy usually is is helpful or
Speaker 1: beneficial to the individual, but it can also not be beneficial.
Speaker 1: Where say you have a big heroin problem, Well, the
Speaker 1: more money you get, the more money you're gonna spend
Speaker 1: on heroin. So in that case, being wealthy is detrimental
Speaker 1: to you're not beneficial. And for something to be a
Speaker 1: good it has to be good under all circumstances, and
Speaker 1: to a stoic only there's only four things that are
Speaker 1: good under all circumstances, which are those four cardinal virtues.
Speaker 1: Everything else, like you said, is an indifferent and it
Speaker 1: can either be preferred or dispreferred, like wealth typically would
Speaker 1: fall under being a preferred and different whereas say disease,
Speaker 1: having chronic disease would be a disprefer just dispreper wow,
Speaker 1: a dispreferred indifferent man. That's tough though it is um
Speaker 1: But the point is is whether it's fabulous wealth or diabetes,
Speaker 1: they should affect you about the same or you might
Speaker 1: want one, you might not want to have one, but
Speaker 1: if you have either one, you can live with it.
Speaker 1: And that brings up a huge, huge component of stoicism
Speaker 1: that's really been blown up and exploded in the twenty
Speaker 1: one century, which is you should take adversity and turn
Speaker 1: it into a an opportunity for growth. That is a
Speaker 1: huge aspect of Stoicism. That's that's really being practiced and
Speaker 1: espoused these days. Yeah, I'm down with that. Like I
Speaker 1: don't I don't think I like being able to take
Speaker 1: from all these philosophies and different religions to form your
Speaker 1: sort of pathway through life. You know, like when I
Speaker 1: hear sometimes I've started to read about Buddhism and the
Speaker 1: whole thing with Buddhism of like every day you start
Speaker 1: a new and you have a new chance. Like that
Speaker 1: really appeals to me too. What I don't like is uh,
Speaker 1: when either religions or philosophy say like and like this
Speaker 1: is the only way, then everything else is BS. Sure,
Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, that's just that's a harsh buzz kill.
Speaker 1: There really is not only is a b S, but
Speaker 1: I'm gonna kill you for thinking otherwise. So Seneca, who
Speaker 1: was one of the great thinkers of Stoicism. He was
Speaker 1: an advisor to Nero, and we'll talk about him as
Speaker 1: criticism of Stoicism later on, but he had a very
Speaker 1: famous quote where he says, you are unfortunate in my judgment,
Speaker 1: for you have never been unfortunate. You have passed through
Speaker 1: life with no antagonists to face you. No one will
Speaker 1: know what you are capable of, not even yourself, And
Speaker 1: that kind of shapes that the basis of that idea
Speaker 1: that no matter what life throws at you, you take
Speaker 1: it and you say, I'm going to become a better
Speaker 1: person from this, like, oh this happened, Well, that's great
Speaker 1: because that means that I can learn to be better
Speaker 1: at this. So my dog just got hit by a car.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna practice um fortitude and make it through this
Speaker 1: really hard time and become a stronger person on the
Speaker 1: other side. Yeah, he may as well have said you
Speaker 1: comma trust fund kid, Comma s right exactly. And I
Speaker 1: mean that that that makes a people turn that on
Speaker 1: Seneca as well, but a lot of modern Stoics come
Speaker 1: to his defense. Is like, no, like, I had a
Speaker 1: harder life than you would think. Should we take another break? Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, let's do it, and we'll talk about Seneca
Speaker 1: and Cicero and all other kinds of weird names. So
Speaker 1: Chucky you were saying, you were talking about um religion.
Speaker 1: Stoicism apparently informed Christianity in a lot of ways. Yeah,
Speaker 1: in Buddhism in some ways. Yeah, Yet atheists embrace it.
Speaker 1: It's these days, but I mean the early stoics were
Speaker 1: definitely they definitely believed in a divine intervention. It was
Speaker 1: kind of the basis of the whole thing, that this
Speaker 1: is God's will, So why why you've tried to control it?
Speaker 1: Who are you to try to control it? Just roll
Speaker 1: with the punches. Yeah, that's a big when when I
Speaker 1: was taking all those philosophy quizzes, they're all a little
Speaker 1: bit different, but you saw through line through a lot
Speaker 1: of these questions, and uh, the free will one was
Speaker 1: in every single one of them. Yeah, like, how do
Speaker 1: you feel about free will? And different ways of asking it?
Speaker 1: But you know that you will. What do you think
Speaker 1: if exactly if you want to find out which philosophy
Speaker 1: that you jibe with, uh, you have to answer the
Speaker 1: free will question. Free will question. Yeah, hey, that's easier
Speaker 1: to say than just preferred indifferent. Nice work. So um
Speaker 1: So one of the big points, especially today for practicing
Speaker 1: stoicism is looking at adversity as a growth opportunity for growth, Right,
Speaker 1: that's just a good tool in life. Innic another one
Speaker 1: and this one, I really this is where I big
Speaker 1: time diverged from stoicism as like, a part of a
Speaker 1: daily practice is something called negative visualization. Yeah, like, uh,
Speaker 1: try and try and imagine the worst case scenario constantly. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not into that at all. No, So say you're
Speaker 1: say you're right, like your child's birthday party, right, and
Speaker 1: you are not you specifically, this is you just a
Speaker 1: general person, and you're having just the most intense moment
Speaker 1: of of joy and appreciation for your child. According to stoics,
Speaker 1: you should follow that up with a thought about how
Speaker 1: at your child's next doctor's appointment, your child could be
Speaker 1: diagnosed with terminal leukemia. That that is what you should
Speaker 1: be doing basically all the time, negative visualization. And the
Speaker 1: idea is it's twofold one. You're preventing yourself from becoming
Speaker 1: overjoyed at that moment. Don't don't do that. And then secondly,
Speaker 1: you're you're exploring how you will feel if your kid
Speaker 1: does get diagnosed to something horrible or something bad happens,
Speaker 1: and that when it actually happens, you'll say that's not
Speaker 1: so bad. I'm already used to it, or you'll be
Speaker 1: able to confront it through your imagination and say, this
Speaker 1: is what I'm afraid of that's not that bad. But
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a really extreme, horrific example. But but
Speaker 1: it is. Ultimately it's definitely in step with stoic stoicism
Speaker 1: that you should be visualizing the worst case scenario all
Speaker 1: the time. Yeah, I mean, And that's one of the
Speaker 1: reasons stoicism has such a downer reputation. Uh, such that
Speaker 1: Cicero uh wrote a stoic rouse enthusiasm, he is much
Speaker 1: more likely to extinguish any enthusiasm the student may have
Speaker 1: to begin with, Yeah, it was a pretty good burn. Um,
Speaker 1: and you know, I get that. Like, who would if
Speaker 1: you if that was one of the first things you learned,
Speaker 1: if you started to poke around with stoicism, people would
Speaker 1: probably be like, Man, I don't want to. I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't like the sounds of that. Yeah. I like
Speaker 1: that you're not having to control everything aspect, but the
Speaker 1: thinking about no thingbut negative thoughts all the time, you know,
Speaker 1: And I get the point of it. I just it
Speaker 1: doesn't it doesn't appeal to me. No, I mean, you
Speaker 1: shouldn't be Pollyanna either. Um. Well, no, it's it's in
Speaker 1: direct contradiction to the idea of the power of positive thinking,
Speaker 1: which is stoics like, you fool, what are you doing.
Speaker 1: All you're doing is setting yourself up for nothing but
Speaker 1: let downs when that doesn't actually come true. Well, but
Speaker 1: I also agree with that to a certain degree, you know,
Speaker 1: like the whole like just you can conjure it up
Speaker 1: just by thinking positively. I think that's on the opposite
Speaker 1: side equally, Uh b s sure, sure, I think so too.
Speaker 1: I'm kind of right down the middle, I guess when
Speaker 1: it comes to that stuff, and I think most people are.
Speaker 1: But I think that's what's fascinating about this kind of
Speaker 1: thing is it's like, well, well there's are some people
Speaker 1: actually are to these these degrees, these extremes. It's interesting
Speaker 1: to me. Well yeah, And the other's interesting thing is
Speaker 1: we you know, you're talking about Christianity, and then it's
Speaker 1: weird how stoicism on one hand, like atheists like I
Speaker 1: can totally see how they'd be down with Stoicism, but
Speaker 1: also the whole notion that uh, some believers from God
Speaker 1: and some Christians like give it all up to God
Speaker 1: because only God can control anything. So all we're gonna
Speaker 1: do is is pray about it. And that's popular among
Speaker 1: Stoics as well. So it's just interesting that it has
Speaker 1: such a wide range as far as from atheism to
Speaker 1: like the you know, serious, serious, give it up to
Speaker 1: God Christianity, right yeah, no, definitely yeah, And it almost
Speaker 1: it's kind of like it's that buffet thing again where
Speaker 1: people can come along and take what they want from
Speaker 1: it and it becomes part of their own philosophy or
Speaker 1: their own religion or whatever. Um. Let's talk about some
Speaker 1: of the ways that that has been used over the
Speaker 1: year's stoicism. Right, So there's been a lot of people
Speaker 1: who have followed Stoic thought, like Adam Smith Apparently, um
Speaker 1: was very much informed by Stoicism when you wrote The
Speaker 1: Wealth of Nations because one of the big, big, big
Speaker 1: aspects of it was individual liberty. One one cool thing
Speaker 1: about the early Stoics was that everybody's equal, right, it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter whether you're a man, woman, gay, straight, uh, black, white, whatever,
Speaker 1: everyone is equal. And this was at a time when
Speaker 1: slavery was rampant, right yeah, Um, so that was a big,
Speaker 1: big that's a big aspect to um. That's a big
Speaker 1: aspect of the Wealth of Nations is anybody can come
Speaker 1: along and and become a capitalist. You just have to
Speaker 1: compete right. Um. Another place that it popped up kind
Speaker 1: of famously was in cognitive behavioral therapy. Yeah, which initially
Speaker 1: when I saw that, I was like, that kind of
Speaker 1: surprised me, but then it all made sense, Like exposure
Speaker 1: two something bad can help you get over. It is
Speaker 1: kind of like that conjuring that the worst possible it's
Speaker 1: almost numbing yourself to the worst possible thing. If you
Speaker 1: think about that worst case scenario thing all the time.
Speaker 1: It's almost a way of preparing for that. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: and it's rooted specifically. One of the founders of CBT,
Speaker 1: Albert ellis Um, was an adherent of Um of Stoicism
Speaker 1: as a younger man, and the what's known as the
Speaker 1: cognitive model of emotion, which is the basis of cognitive
Speaker 1: behavioral therapy, is based on Epictetus's um maxim that people
Speaker 1: are disturbed not by things, but by their view of things.
Speaker 1: And that's part of that whole Stoic philosophy, which is
Speaker 1: nothing is good or bad. There's only good in the
Speaker 1: four virtues. Everything else is how you view it. Whether
Speaker 1: it's losing your job or winning the lottery, those aren't
Speaker 1: those things aren't inherently good. Or bad. It's you, the
Speaker 1: person experiencing that, who bestows good or bad on them?
Speaker 1: And why label things? I'm down with that. Yeah, a
Speaker 1: little bit. Did you hear about Admiral Stockdale. I remember
Speaker 1: that name for sure when he came out with his
Speaker 1: h with his book, uh, Courage under Fire, Colin Testing
Speaker 1: epic tectus is Doctrines and the Laboratory of Human Behavior.
Speaker 1: He was a famous UM prisoner of war in Vietnam
Speaker 1: for seven years, endured some of the worst of the
Speaker 1: worst you can imagine in war. And what got him
Speaker 1: through was certainly not Christianity, because he thought that's nothing
Speaker 1: but false hope. Well not not only that, he shared
Speaker 1: the pow camp with people who you who clung to
Speaker 1: that and and did not make it right up front.
Speaker 1: So what got him through was his stoic beliefs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was a huge, big time adherent of Epictetus. Um.
Speaker 1: He'd studied him in college. Apparently he'd read everything that
Speaker 1: Epictetus had written or said. I had been written down
Speaker 1: and attributed to Epictetus twice from two different translators. So
Speaker 1: this guy knew is Epictetus and he said, well, I'm
Speaker 1: a prisoner of war in Vietnam. I've got some broken bones,
Speaker 1: I'm starving, I'm being mistreated. I'll be here for seven years.
Speaker 1: What a perfect opportunity to put Epictetus's teachings to the
Speaker 1: test in a real life laboratory experiment. And he said,
Speaker 1: Epictetus passed the flying colors. Was was Stockdale's final report
Speaker 1: on it? Yeah, he said. If Epictetus's lecture room was
Speaker 1: a hospital, my prison was a laboratory, a laboratory of
Speaker 1: human behavior. I chose to test his postulates against the demanding,
Speaker 1: real life challenges of my laboratory. So, man, talk about
Speaker 1: a strong will, like to be based with that and
Speaker 1: be like, well, hey, this is a great chance to
Speaker 1: work on my philosophy of life. Exactly what else am
Speaker 1: I gonna do? But that that follows in and of
Speaker 1: itself on the whole too, of um, turning adversity into
Speaker 1: a room for growth as well. Yeah, man, yeah, stronger
Speaker 1: than me. Let's just say that. So, um, you want
Speaker 1: to talk about some criticisms of stoicism, Well, Cicero certainly
Speaker 1: thought it was a big downer. Yeah, um, he said,
Speaker 1: well you already said, but he said, right, it basically
Speaker 1: extinguishes enthusiasm and students not a good thing, right, And
Speaker 1: over the years, the fact that some of the great
Speaker 1: Stoic thinkers of all time have been super wealthy and powerful.
Speaker 1: Seneca Marcus Aurelius was the Emperor of Rome. He basically
Speaker 1: ran the free world. Well, I don't know if the
Speaker 1: free world's right the Western world for almost twenty years.
Speaker 1: And when you sit there and yeah, again, if you
Speaker 1: say yes, you can turn anything into any adversity into
Speaker 1: an opportunity. If if you're super wealthy, you don't have
Speaker 1: to worry about where your food is going to come from. Like, yes,
Speaker 1: of course you can be a Stoic. And then Epictetus
Speaker 1: came along and, like we said, kind of erased all
Speaker 1: that to an extent for sure, but it is still
Speaker 1: kind of criticizes like a a wealthy person's philosophy, and
Speaker 1: it kind of smacks of that a little bit today
Speaker 1: to Chuck with its huge um resurgence in Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: Uh is that happening? Oh? Yeah, most most of the
Speaker 1: Stoic revival is taking place there. That's where it's cradle
Speaker 1: is right now. Well, our own article has a couple
Speaker 1: of good points to talk about it. Um not being
Speaker 1: hiss appealing because it lacks the mystique of Eastern practice. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then they also said, this is also regarded as
Speaker 1: a philosophy of merely breaking even while remaining determinedly impassive. Yes.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's entirely fair, but it's a
Speaker 1: it's it kind of catches it a little bit. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: because the very next sentences, this attitude ignores the as
Speaker 1: proffered by stoicism of blasting transcendence. And that one article
Speaker 1: that you sent talked about the power of indifference, right,
Speaker 1: which I thought it was interesting. It's not about just
Speaker 1: like not caring about anything. It's about caring about only
Speaker 1: the right things that you have the power to change. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And also though I also see that even keel aspect
Speaker 1: being indifferent, the power of it, I mean, think about
Speaker 1: how much time whenever you you are like super happy
Speaker 1: about something going right or super upset about something going wrong,
Speaker 1: you're ultimately you're being distracted from keeping on keeping on,
Speaker 1: and then you go back to eventually get back to
Speaker 1: that middle again, which is the baseline anyway. And so
Speaker 1: I guess what stoics are doing is staying on that
Speaker 1: that baseline and not being distracted so they can get
Speaker 1: further along faster or at a more steady pace. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's definitely, uh, something that's really frustrating in life,
Speaker 1: which is when you look back and say, man, I've
Speaker 1: spent two days stressed and worried about something that I
Speaker 1: have no control over, right, And what a waste of
Speaker 1: time that was when I could have done X, Y
Speaker 1: and Z. One of the big questions I have. It's
Speaker 1: not necessarily a criticism. I guess it depends on what
Speaker 1: the answer would be. But my one, my big question
Speaker 1: for stoicism, since it's so um it places so much
Speaker 1: emphasis on the individual and self exploration and introspection. How
Speaker 1: would a stoic suggest enacting massive social change where something
Speaker 1: some ill is happening to some large group of people,
Speaker 1: but nothing's going to change unless you go out of
Speaker 1: your own personal sphere and work to make others change.
Speaker 1: How do you do that or do you just say, well, whatever,
Speaker 1: it's God's will that these people suffer and be put
Speaker 1: down by of the majority for forever, or is there
Speaker 1: some way that that can be addressed through the stoic
Speaker 1: you know, philosophy. I'm very curious, so anybody who knows
Speaker 1: that right in please, yeah, maybe that's white appeals to
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley, right. Well, that's the other thing too, right.
Speaker 1: So it also very much smacks when when you hear
Speaker 1: of it from like wealthy people espousing it to anybody, Um,
Speaker 1: it's smacks of that whole uh aspect of Christianity, where hey,
Speaker 1: medieval peasant, you know how your life is terrible and
Speaker 1: you're gonna live to thirty five and all you do
Speaker 1: is work all the time, and you give most of
Speaker 1: the spoils of your effort to your king. Well, there's
Speaker 1: such thing as Christianity, and your treasure is in the afterlife,
Speaker 1: so don't worry about this life. It's smacks of the
Speaker 1: same thing where you can keep a population placated and
Speaker 1: not searching for larger social change by saying, hey, just
Speaker 1: focus on these four things and every thing else is
Speaker 1: just It just happens, and you don't need to get
Speaker 1: worked up about it at all. It seems like a
Speaker 1: bit of a pacifier too, depending on how you look
Speaker 1: at it. It's it's fascinating. Are we done with stoicism?
Speaker 1: I'm finished with it? Okay? I think that was a
Speaker 1: good overview. I think so too. A good thoughts starter
Speaker 1: if you want to know more about stoicism. But there's
Speaker 1: a lot more out there than this. Just dive in
Speaker 1: and see what it means to you. And again, it's
Speaker 1: a buffet. Take what you like, leave what you don't want,
Speaker 1: leave the kirdled pudding behind. Take the perfectly garliced green beans.
Speaker 1: Yeah if you uh, what else did I already say
Speaker 1: that one part? Oh, since I said green beans, it's
Speaker 1: time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this beagle brigade
Speaker 1: slash police dogs. People love that. One man who doesn't
Speaker 1: love beetles, Beagles on aid on parade, no one, even
Speaker 1: people who get busted with whole pigs still are like that.
Speaker 1: Beagles adorable. So this dude, Eric Stover, as a sandwicher,
Speaker 1: meaning he follows our advice, which is to listen to
Speaker 1: the newest episode as well as whatever from our back catalog.
Speaker 1: He chooses to Yeah, he's doing it right. Hey, guys
Speaker 1: are working in the sports and entertainment business in New
Speaker 1: York and after nine eleven, the use of bomb sniffing dogs,
Speaker 1: mostly German shepherds, became standard operating procedure for all events.
Speaker 1: You are respired to a concert one night. The canine
Speaker 1: units were sweeping all the backstage areas and one of
Speaker 1: the bomb dogs hit on an employee locker. You can
Speaker 1: imagine it caused an immediate and serious response. A bomb
Speaker 1: squad was dispatched and that portion of the arena was evacuated.
Speaker 1: Plans were even made to cancel the show. Uh, he
Speaker 1: doesn't say what show, which I was very curious about.
Speaker 1: I'm going to say three doors down. Okay, After some
Speaker 1: very tense moments, the police officers open the locker. Those
Speaker 1: guys are super brave. Thankfully they didn't find a bomb,
Speaker 1: but did find drugs. An employee must have thought it
Speaker 1: must have brought in an extra bump for the show.
Speaker 1: Oh man, it was definitely three doors. Then you might
Speaker 1: be asking yourself, Um, no, this wasn't the band's green room.
Speaker 1: This was an employee. Oh no, I know three doors down.
Speaker 1: Three Doors Downs fans are among the most drug adult
Speaker 1: of all they. I thought that was the Juggalos. No,
Speaker 1: they put the Juggalos a shame. Juggalos take time off
Speaker 1: once in a while, you know what I mean. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. Uh, you might be asking yourself, how does
Speaker 1: a bomb dog find drugs. As it turns out, the
Speaker 1: dog had failed out of drug school and was retrained
Speaker 1: as a bomb dog. Poor guy, that's hilarious, Poor guy.
Speaker 1: Which one the dog or the guy who just happened
Speaker 1: to run across the failed drug dog? I guess we
Speaker 1: were still remembered. There are no winners here. I guess
Speaker 1: he didn't completely forget his drug training, though, and he
Speaker 1: set off the chain of events that scared the crap
Speaker 1: out of us. The story ends with the employee getting arrested,
Speaker 1: The show went on and the fans none the wiser.
Speaker 1: And my guess is the dog was reassigned to crowd control,
Speaker 1: just barking up people taking line. Thanks for everything you
Speaker 1: guys do. Please let me know if you ever need
Speaker 1: anything in New York City. Is that a hint? We
Speaker 1: don't do drunks, Eric, Yeah, we're terrified of dogs. That
Speaker 1: is Eric Stover in New York and I guess he's
Speaker 1: still in the sports and entertainment business. Yeah, he's like,
Speaker 1: you need some sports, Come see me. I could use
Speaker 1: some sports. Thanks Eric. That's a pretty great story, right,
Speaker 1: that's right. If you want to get in touch of this,
Speaker 1: like Eric did, you can hang out with me on Twitter,
Speaker 1: I'm at Josh Underscore um Underscore Clark. We also have
Speaker 1: an official s y s K podcast handle. You can
Speaker 1: hang out with Tuck on Facebook dot com, slash Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant, or slash stuff you Should Know. You can
Speaker 1: send us an email. This stuff podcast at how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com and has always joined us at our
Speaker 1: home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com.
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, is
Speaker 1: that how stuff Works dot com