Speaker 1: Hi, everybody. I'm feeling very stoic today, so we're going
Speaker 1: to use what exactly is Stoicism as our weekly select selection.
Speaker 1: This one was released in July July fourth in Fact
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen. What a great for the July topic. Learn
Speaker 1: all about stoicism right here, right now. Welcome to Stuff
Speaker 1: You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with
Speaker 2: Charles W. Chuck Bryant guest producer. Noel's Jerry's been out
Speaker 2: a lot lately, Chuck, have you noticed?
Speaker 1: No, No, I haven't heard it. Of course, Jerry's got
Speaker 1: big life things going on. She does buying and selling houses.
Speaker 1: She's like a real estate mogul.
Speaker 2: Visiting the mall of stuff.
Speaker 1: We're just a couple of deep thinkers hanging out on
Speaker 1: the stoa.
Speaker 2: Yeah, specifically, what is it this soa? Did you practice
Speaker 2: the word the pronunciation at all?
Speaker 1: I tried to pronounce a lot of this, but you
Speaker 1: know ancient Greek, you know the phrase. It's all Greek
Speaker 1: to me. Yeah, it comes from not being able to
Speaker 1: pronounce these things.
Speaker 2: It's quite literal, the the stoa poikily. I think that's
Speaker 2: probably pretty close, man.
Speaker 1: So can I start this with a couple of quick thoughts?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 1: First of all, I took a I took four different
Speaker 1: philosophy quizzes before we recorded, like.
Speaker 2: What kind of philosophy do you subscribe to? Type quiz?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know the ones that are super accurate, right,
Speaker 1: because they can figure that out in eight to fifan questions.
Speaker 2: Sure, and then you can move on and find out
Speaker 2: what muppet you are.
Speaker 1: So here's here's my result here. For the first one,
Speaker 1: I was epicurean okay, the second one existentialism all right,
Speaker 1: third one atheist existentialist huh. And the fourth Nietzsche slash stoic.
Speaker 2: Nietzsche was a huge critic of stoicism. I'm surprised they
Speaker 2: put those two together.
Speaker 1: Well that that is chuck though.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying, Yeah, you're you're a contradiction
Speaker 2: in terms, you're yin and yang.
Speaker 1: Well I am, and that The reason why I took
Speaker 1: these is because when I was doing the research on stoicism,
Speaker 1: I found me. I found myself a lot of times
Speaker 1: going yep, yep totally, and then a lot of times
Speaker 1: going no, that's really not me.
Speaker 2: Same here, same here, and I think even the Stoics
Speaker 2: from back in the day realized that there were very few,
Speaker 2: very very few actual what they called sages walking around
Speaker 2: Stoics ages who really fulfilled every aspect of this to
Speaker 2: a t. And I think that I think one of
Speaker 2: the reasons why Stoicism today is making a comeback and
Speaker 2: it's so appealing is because, well there's two reasons. One
Speaker 2: more than kind of a navel gazing type philosophy where
Speaker 2: you're trying to figure out the nature of existence or
Speaker 2: something like that, it's more a blueprint for existing day
Speaker 2: to day in a in a useful, happy way. And
Speaker 2: then secondly, it's a you can kind of pick and choose.
Speaker 2: It's almost like a buffet. You can pick and choose
Speaker 2: what aspects of it you want to adopt or use,
Speaker 2: and know, you know, Greek ghost is going to come
Speaker 2: along and spear you in the face.
Speaker 1: With a trident, right punch. Yeah, And I think that's
Speaker 1: I mean, first of all, the Age of Reason fascinates
Speaker 1: me to no end, and second, I've kind of wanted
Speaker 1: to cover some of the great philosophies of all time.
Speaker 2: This sounds like a good start, well it is, but.
Speaker 1: It's just kind of daunting, because people spend like that's
Speaker 1: their life's work, you know, and for us to try
Speaker 1: and summarize any of them in thirty to forty five
Speaker 1: minutes is kind of like, you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: what philosophy. You would liken that to foolishism, duncism. That's
Speaker 1: what we do. You know, Well, how about this.
Speaker 2: If this one goes well, maybe we'll take it as
Speaker 2: a sign that we can tackle some other ones. But
Speaker 2: you're absolutely right, like even the even just like say
Speaker 2: the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which is meant you know,
Speaker 2: it's sharp, and it's detailed, and it's exhaustive, but it's
Speaker 2: also clearly meant for lay people interested in philosophy.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: It's just this just stoicism is so involved that it's
Speaker 2: not possible for us to like really capture all of it,
Speaker 2: even get in an overview, you know, or giving it
Speaker 2: just hitting the highlights. We can't possibly hit all the highlights.
Speaker 2: There's just too much to it. And that's just stoicism.
Speaker 2: I still say it's worth talking about though, just because
Speaker 2: it's so interesting.
Speaker 1: So if I get up in the middle, you're gonna
Speaker 1: pull me back. I'll just keep going well. I like
Speaker 1: the Urban Dictionary definition stoic is someone who does not
Speaker 1: give a peep about the stupid things in this world
Speaker 1: that most people care so much about. Stoics do have emotions,
Speaker 1: but only for the things in this world that really matter.
Speaker 1: They are the most real people alive. And then in
Speaker 1: their little example, as a group of kids sitting by
Speaker 1: the porch, stoic walks by, one can says something very mean, Hey,
Speaker 1: you're a blankety blank and you blank blank, and the
Speaker 1: stoic says good for you and keeps going right. It's
Speaker 1: a part of me really like I hear that, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, I am so that person on so
Speaker 1: many levels. But then sometimes I'm totally not, and I
Speaker 1: think what the difference is or what matters is well,
Speaker 1: it depends on if they say something that matters to you,
Speaker 1: or if something does matter to you. Like I might
Speaker 1: get really riled up about some.
Speaker 2: Stuff well that would make you not stoic, that.
Speaker 1: Doesn't rile anyone else up, But I also some things
Speaker 1: that really make other people I rate. I'm just like man,
Speaker 1: can't change it. It is what it is, and I
Speaker 1: only can get upset about the things that can change.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you could apply that to everything, you'd be
Speaker 2: pretty high up there in the Stoic pantheon.
Speaker 1: That'd be a Stoic matt five star general.
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 2: But we should say we picked that one up from
Speaker 2: an Aon article why Stoicism is one of the best
Speaker 2: mind hacks ever devised.
Speaker 1: That was a good one by Larry Wallace.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you did a good job kind of giving an
Speaker 2: overview of the whole thing.
Speaker 1: I think Larry Wallace is one of the great modern Stoicists.
Speaker 2: Maybe there's plenty of them running around these days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but we're I mean, we'll go back in time
Speaker 1: and study the beginnings of stoicism because we're talking about
Speaker 1: like you hear the word stoic today, right, and it
Speaker 1: means it was taken from this, but it's kind of
Speaker 1: someone like sort of a grim face. Stoic doesn't say
Speaker 1: much and that's not what stoicism and they say in
Speaker 1: our article several times with a capital less really is
Speaker 1: all about, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, to these days people typically or I should say
Speaker 2: these days. Up to about three years ago, people thought
Speaker 2: of stoics as somebody who could watch their dog get
Speaker 2: hit by a car and you know their reaction was
Speaker 2: to raise their chin a little higher up in the air,
Speaker 2: you know, like just grin and Barrett, as Larry put it, Larry,
Speaker 2: where I'm on a first name basis with Larry Wallace
Speaker 2: layer that it's a philosophy of grin, endurance, tolerating rather
Speaker 2: than transcending life's agonies and adversities, just kind of trudging through,
Speaker 2: just taking hit after hit from life as it deals
Speaker 2: them to you. Right, that was the idea of stoicism.
Speaker 2: You can kind of like it's not like that's just
Speaker 2: radically unlike actual stoicism, but it's an outsider's interpretation of
Speaker 2: what the stoics are actually doing, what's actually going on,
Speaker 2: the purpose of the whole thing, That outsider's view that
Speaker 2: doesn't really fully understand. It became the popular view until recently,
Speaker 2: until it started to kind of gain some traction lately.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you know, throughout the year, stoicism has informed
Speaker 1: some religions these days. There are a lot of atheists,
Speaker 1: there are stoics, But I like how our article says it.
Speaker 1: Above all, it teaches the value of emotional control in
Speaker 1: living one's life fully.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So here's the base of it. The basis of
Speaker 2: it is if you can detach yourself from emotional responses
Speaker 2: to things, then something that comes along, whether good or bad,
Speaker 2: is not going to get your goat. Stoicism is all
Speaker 2: about protecting your goat and not letting anything get it.
Speaker 2: And the way that they do that is by saying,
Speaker 2: there are very few things that I can control in life,
Speaker 2: and everything that I can't control, I'm not going to
Speaker 2: get up riled up over, you know, lose my job. Well,
Speaker 2: it happens. It doesn't mean I'm any less of a person.
Speaker 2: I just need to go out and get another job.
Speaker 2: Dog gets hit by a car, Well that's really awful
Speaker 2: because I really like that dog. But I'll just go
Speaker 2: get another dog. Or maybe I'll just learn to live
Speaker 2: without the dog. Maybe I was becoming too attached to
Speaker 2: the dog. Things like that. That's stoicism.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The whole point of it is it's not just to
Speaker 2: get your goat or to protect your goat from being gotten.
Speaker 2: It's about out living a moral life where you're a
Speaker 2: very good human being and The idea is that the
Speaker 2: only way to really do that is through things like
Speaker 2: rationalism and investigating the universe and being understanding of knowledge
Speaker 2: and then pursuing ethics, specific ethics, and they figured out
Speaker 2: the best way to do that is dispassionately.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think my bumper sticker would say onboard Colon,
Speaker 1: part time stoicist, full time dreamer.
Speaker 2: Okay, that is a specific yeah, right, bumper sticker.
Speaker 1: I used to have a lot of bumper stickers in
Speaker 1: high school, and now I hit loathe them so much.
Speaker 2: Really, what did you have?
Speaker 1: Like? Oh, I had an old Volkswagen Beetle and that
Speaker 1: was my family actually bought brand new in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: eight and was passed down from kid to kid to kid,
Speaker 1: and it was it was very cool. I thought at
Speaker 1: the time, well, it is cool, love those old Beatles.
Speaker 1: But I just went through one of those phases where
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, here's a Native American saying
Speaker 1: and here's something about mother nature and this Bob Marley
Speaker 1: had this to say, and oh, just yeah, I was
Speaker 1: one of those. And now I see those cars with
Speaker 1: all the things and I'm just like, shut up, nobody cares.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, I mean did you have a three
Speaker 2: eleven sticker?
Speaker 1: No, this was pre three eleven.
Speaker 2: Actually, okay, gotcha. So did your mom come out and
Speaker 2: be like, what'd you do to the family heirloom? No
Speaker 2: stickers over?
Speaker 1: No, it's funny that that car had a the rear
Speaker 1: floorboard was missing on one side.
Speaker 2: My dad had a car like that, a Malibu, so.
Speaker 1: You could like see the street.
Speaker 2: Uh huh there, Now that I look back, he didn't
Speaker 2: even have a piece of wood. Now that I look back,
Speaker 2: I'm like, that was extraordinarily irresponsible to be driving around
Speaker 2: with kids in the back seat. Yeah, with the street visible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that. Your dall was just like watch your.
Speaker 2: Feet kids, Yeah, easy, does it?
Speaker 1: Uh? All right? So look, you want to go back
Speaker 1: and talk about the history a little.
Speaker 2: Bit, No, I want to keep beating around the butt.
Speaker 1: All right. Let's get in the way back machine and okay,
Speaker 1: we need to really juice it up because we're going
Speaker 1: way back.
Speaker 2: Got some kerosene, got some banana peels, huh, and got
Speaker 2: some airplane glue. But that's just for us.
Speaker 1: That's right, because it's a long ride. Yeah, Ancient Greece
Speaker 1: is where we're headed to the time of the Great philosophers.
Speaker 1: And like we said earlier, sitting here on the stoa,
Speaker 1: that was a joke, but it wasn't. And you you,
Speaker 1: you know, you said, Stoa, You're gonna try it again.
Speaker 1: The stoa poikilely yes, or painted porch is what it means.
Speaker 1: And that was a public space in Athens grease.
Speaker 2: It was like a portico, yeah, where people.
Speaker 1: Would hang out and talk and chew the fat. And
Speaker 1: that's what I love about this time. People just they
Speaker 1: were just alive with ideas, these philosophical ideas of trying
Speaker 1: to figure it all out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but don't you think like every once a while
Speaker 2: you just be like, oh, everybody, shut up, I live.
Speaker 1: I gotta do something useful.
Speaker 2: Yeah, plan talking. Yeah, you know, but I agree with you. Overall,
Speaker 2: it was a pretty thrilling time.
Speaker 1: Did you take philosophy in college at all? No?
Speaker 2: No, I didn't. I really did not. I don't think
Speaker 2: I took a single philosophy class now that I think
Speaker 2: about it, not even a survey.
Speaker 1: I took the one kind of general class. I guess
Speaker 1: it was the one I won. And I actually made
Speaker 1: an A which I didn't make a ton of a's
Speaker 1: in college. And I remember at the time kind of
Speaker 1: the same thing. About half the class I was like, man,
Speaker 1: so fascinating, and then the other half I was just like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: what a waste of time. I do something useful, go
Speaker 1: like volunteer for a charity.
Speaker 2: Go make something out of wood, anything.
Speaker 1: All right, So back to the Stoa. We're on this
Speaker 1: painted porch, this portico, as it were. People are everywhere
Speaker 1: running their mouths about what they think is important. And
Speaker 1: then this dude wanders up. Zeno of Citium, Yeah, who
Speaker 1: had recently been shipwrecked. And there were other zenos. Not
Speaker 1: to be confused.
Speaker 2: I know that is confusing. There should be one Zeno.
Speaker 2: There can be in all of history.
Speaker 1: There were zenos of other things. But this is Zeno
Speaker 1: of Cidium. And you're right, he was shipwrecked and he
Speaker 1: was wandering around after a trip from Cyprus.
Speaker 2: Did you say we're in Athens.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, not Georgia. No, although we did our fair
Speaker 1: shriff sitting around on porches talking nonsense there as well.
Speaker 2: But that's a porch porch, yeah, had a Greek porch.
Speaker 1: And so Xeno took a little bit of insight from
Speaker 1: the Synics and then eventually said, you know what, I
Speaker 1: could my kind of forming my own thoughts here, and
Speaker 1: I think everyone else is doing it. I have my
Speaker 1: own philosophy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's called Stoicism, Yeah, named after later later
Speaker 2: I don't think he called it that. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: he probably called it Zenoism. They're like, yeah, that sucks,
Speaker 2: We're gonna call it stoicism after the porch. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: this is I mean, like the Stoicism very quickly became
Speaker 2: one of the big philosophies at the time, and it
Speaker 2: rivaled some of the philosophies that it grew out of,
Speaker 2: like Socratic philosophy and like you said, cynicism, the cynics. Sure,
Speaker 2: And actually, if you look at Stoicism, it's kind of
Speaker 2: a compromise between Socrates or so Crates, as Bill and
Speaker 2: Ted call them, philosophy, which was that to lead a
Speaker 2: good life. And this was the point of all of
Speaker 2: the philosophies at this time, during this Age of Reason,
Speaker 2: was achieving what was called you diemonia, and you diemonia
Speaker 2: is a life worth living. It's thriving, it's flourishing, it's
Speaker 2: being happy, like real happiness. Right. That was the pursuit
Speaker 2: of all of these different ideas that were floating around
Speaker 2: at the time was how to achieve that. Socrates had
Speaker 2: the idea that you achieved that through like twelve cardinal virtues,
Speaker 2: and some of them were things you could cultivate in yourself,
Speaker 2: like courage, a sense of justice, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: But then there are other ones too that had like
Speaker 2: everything to do with luck, Like being good looking was
Speaker 2: one of them. Right, Yeah, if you weren't good look,
Speaker 2: if you were ugly, sorry, buddy, you could never achieve
Speaker 2: you diemonia. Right on the other end of the spectrum
Speaker 2: where the cynics and the cynics believed that earthly trappings
Speaker 2: like wealth and fame and glory anything like that was
Speaker 2: the path to ruin and that the true path to
Speaker 2: you diemonia was living simply and living in poverty. And
Speaker 2: so Zeno comes along and here's all these and as
Speaker 2: he's formulating his own ideas, he's like, Socrates make some
Speaker 2: sense over here, and so do the cynics a little bit.
Speaker 2: But I'm going to put them together. And that's where
Speaker 2: Stoicism came from. It was a compromise between the two
Speaker 2: where you live a life of pursuing you diemonia through
Speaker 2: these virtues for virtues. I think there's justice, courage, wisdom,
Speaker 2: and then temperance, right, So you're practicing those four virtues.
Speaker 2: So that's kind of a nod to Socrates. And you
Speaker 2: don't have to live in poverty. You can be wealthy,
Speaker 2: because if stoicism is anything, it's wealthy people who got
Speaker 2: into philosophy that weren't quite sure how to feel about
Speaker 2: being wealthy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, to say to kind of come to the point that,
Speaker 1: like happing money is not a bad thing, right, right.
Speaker 2: And so was what they came up with was, sure,
Speaker 2: you can be wealthy, and that's okay. You can prefer
Speaker 2: to be wealthy, but you just can't be attached to it.
Speaker 2: You can't desire to be wealthy because you can't control
Speaker 2: being wealthy. And if you pursue being wealthy, you're pursuing
Speaker 2: something beyond your control. So if you just happen to
Speaker 2: be wealthy, that's great. You can be happy with it,
Speaker 2: but also be prepared to lose it at any given time,
Speaker 2: and that's a big part of stoicism.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's so funny though to think about,
Speaker 1: like thousands of years ago in ancient Greece, like they
Speaker 1: spent so much time thinking about living this all these
Speaker 1: schools have thought of living this life so like putting
Speaker 1: so much thought into living life to its fullest and
Speaker 1: all the different ways that they defined it and eventually,
Speaker 1: like over the years, like as recently as like the
Speaker 1: generation of our parents and grandparents the United States, like
Speaker 1: the philosophy of life was like you just go to
Speaker 1: work and you work hard until you die, and that's
Speaker 1: the only thing that matters exactly, Like all that other
Speaker 1: stuff is garbage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think that's one of the reasons why
Speaker 2: stoicism is becoming appealing again, is this idea that, like
Speaker 2: work seems to be kind of going through a weird transformation,
Speaker 2: doesn't it. Yeah, Like it's not like that anymore. Like
Speaker 2: that ethic is still around for sure, but like, how
Speaker 2: many people do you know work from home? Like almost
Speaker 2: entirely A lot a lot, And that's fairly new. So
Speaker 2: I wonder if like this changing work dynamic is leading
Speaker 2: to this resurgence in stoicism that you can find happiness
Speaker 2: through other stuff.
Speaker 1: I mean, part of me thinks this is all like
Speaker 1: super worthwhile, and part of me thinks and it's sort
Speaker 1: of indulgent to set and a bit like you said,
Speaker 1: naval gaysy and like put just start practicing good things
Speaker 1: instead of sitting around thinking about the best way to
Speaker 1: live life.
Speaker 2: Well, we'll talk about criticisms of them later on, but
Speaker 2: I think you hit a big one though, Chuck, was
Speaker 2: the idea that it's self indulgent because it demands introspection
Speaker 2: almost every mo of every day. Yeah, you want to
Speaker 2: take a break and then get back to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I gotta, I gotta get my head together. Where's
Speaker 1: the airplane glue? All right?
Speaker 2: Nothing like airplane glue to get your head back on straight.
Speaker 1: Just kidding, of course. Everyone. Sure we're smart guys, we
Speaker 1: don't do that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: No, it's pretty tough to be smart and huff model
Speaker 2: airplane glue. Yeah, you're pretty much making a choice between
Speaker 2: that and being smart.
Speaker 1: That's what they teach you early on. Yeah, like you
Speaker 1: want to go somewhere life, you want to half airplane glue.
Speaker 1: It's the one thing Nancy Reagan didn't lie about. All right,
Speaker 1: So Zeno got things going. Peace of mind that comes
Speaker 1: with living a life of virtue in accordance with reason
Speaker 1: and nature. And then other dudes got on boards, and
Speaker 1: of course got on boards got on board, and they
Speaker 1: were all dudes back then, because everything was from the
Speaker 1: man's perspective. Uh just want to point that out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's changed so dramatically since then.
Speaker 1: But some of the other early stoicist Clianthes Kato.
Speaker 2: Kato the younger, elder younger, right, Kato the klin oh
Speaker 2: I forgot about him.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure which Kto.
Speaker 2: I think it's the younger. Yeah, we'll find out from
Speaker 2: two people who email.
Speaker 1: In to Seneca. And then a very important stoicis Uh. Well,
Speaker 1: I'm going to pronounce.
Speaker 3: It epic epet Epictetus, epictetus. Epetic sounds like a vaccine shot.
Speaker 3: It does E P I C T E T U s.
Speaker 1: It's that C.
Speaker 2: Going into a T that's getting you. Yeah, it's just
Speaker 2: Epictetus or Epictetus. I think epictetis is what we should
Speaker 2: go with.
Speaker 1: I want another C in there. I want it to
Speaker 1: be Epitectus, but it's not.
Speaker 2: No, it's not. It's Epictetus, all right. So u oh,
Speaker 2: and don't forget Marcus Aurelius Man.
Speaker 1: Oh well, sure, I mean he comes a little bit later.
Speaker 1: He was he was the ruler of anthant Man. What
Speaker 1: is my problem today.
Speaker 2: It's okay, man, everyone knew what you meant.
Speaker 1: He was the philosopher king, and that was when Stoicism
Speaker 1: was kind of the most popular thing going. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Apparently they moved from Athens to Rome, which I didn't
Speaker 2: realize this. I always had the idea that Rome venerated
Speaker 2: Hellenistic Greece hundreds of years after basically the Greek civilization
Speaker 2: had had just kind of, you know, gone into a
Speaker 2: bit of a twilight or had gone out of its heyday. No,
Speaker 2: there was total cross pollination, including some of these early
Speaker 2: Stoics who traveled from Athens to Rome, and basically with
Speaker 2: with that move transferred the seed of philosophy from Athens
Speaker 2: to Rome, from Greek to Rome to Rome, from Greece
Speaker 2: to Rome. I didn't realize that there were they were
Speaker 2: actually like cross pollinating one another at the time. Did
Speaker 2: you know that?
Speaker 1: I think I recalled that from deep in my college memory.
Speaker 1: Banks nice.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: So Epitectus Tetus man he had a big role in
Speaker 1: the Stoic movement. He was a former slave, which kind
Speaker 1: of makes sense in terms of Stoicism.
Speaker 2: He almost almost single handedly gives credence to Stoicism because
Speaker 2: so many other Stoics were extraordinarily wealthy, powerful man sure
Speaker 2: that it's like, yeah, it's pretty easy for you to
Speaker 2: go through life saying, you know, it's just just take
Speaker 2: what life gives you. If life is giving you nothing
Speaker 2: but gold bullion all the time. Right, this guy was
Speaker 2: born a slave, crippled in the knee for life and
Speaker 2: became a Stoic, one of the great Stoic thinkers, and
Speaker 2: just through his life proved that stoicism can work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And he wrote a handbook at the time was
Speaker 1: called an Encritean, and he wrote the Encridian of Epictetus.
Speaker 2: Incridium literally means handbook. It means ready at hand.
Speaker 1: So it was a very famous handbook. And he attributed
Speaker 1: I mean, the first line of it was some things
Speaker 1: are in our control and others not right, and that
Speaker 1: kind of sums it all up, like he could have
Speaker 1: said the end, but he decided to dive a little deeper.
Speaker 2: I agree with you. I think our brand of Stoicism
Speaker 2: has about the same contours because that that right there,
Speaker 2: that's all. That's everything you need to know, right there
Speaker 2: is some things you can control, most things you can't control.
Speaker 2: There you go, don't get too.
Speaker 1: High, too low, right, don't get too mad about something.
Speaker 2: Well, ultimately, I think that's what it boils down to.
Speaker 2: I don't really find much of a problem when people
Speaker 2: are overjoyed. I don't think that's an issue. And technically,
Speaker 2: with stoicism, that is a that's a problem. You should
Speaker 2: not become overjoyed. Experiencing joy is fine, sure, but just
Speaker 2: being like overcome with happiness or joy or grief or
Speaker 2: whatever it is, you're you're violating one of those four
Speaker 2: cardinal virtues, temperance, which is just being tempered and even keeled.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So, but I think if you're saying, don't get upset
Speaker 2: about something that's out of your control, don't blame others,
Speaker 2: don't try to control other people, just know that whatever
Speaker 2: comes you can handle it. There you go, That's all
Speaker 2: you need to know for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, I mean, how many times have
Speaker 1: you heard me say it is what it is? Which
Speaker 1: is an annoying thing to hear and say.
Speaker 2: But it's pretty stoic.
Speaker 1: Well it is, but it's also in my case, it
Speaker 1: is what it is until it isn't. It just matters
Speaker 1: if I personally riled up about something, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I think again though, if like, there's probably
Speaker 2: some people who listen who subscribe to at least modern
Speaker 2: stoicism listening to this, and I would guess that they
Speaker 2: would say that's because stoicism is basically meant to apply
Speaker 2: to every day of your life. Like, no, Stoics are
Speaker 2: really expected to become stages in their lifetimes, right that
Speaker 2: it's something you just do every single day, is try
Speaker 2: to not get riled up. But of course something's going
Speaker 2: to come along and get you riled up. That's just
Speaker 2: human nature. Stoicism is trying to put a bridle on
Speaker 2: that human nature.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, and this is insider stuff. I think you
Speaker 1: and I compliment each other because we rarely get worked
Speaker 1: up about the same thing.
Speaker 2: Just voter suppression.
Speaker 1: Well, no, it happens here and there, but just in
Speaker 1: our personal lives and everything to do with work, Like
Speaker 1: oftentimes I've noticed, like something that'll rile me up, you're
Speaker 1: calming me down and the other way around. And yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's one reason we've lasted so long.
Speaker 1: Like if two people were so similar that they're constantly
Speaker 1: worked up about the same stuff, Yeah, no, one, you know,
Speaker 1: you're just gonna be working each other up, and no
Speaker 1: one's going to be there to say, hey, man, it
Speaker 1: is what it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, hey, mellow out, here's the Bob Marley bumpers exactly.
Speaker 1: So should we talk a little bit about the areas
Speaker 1: of study, Yeah, all right, Well there are three main
Speaker 1: ones and stoicism and this is all you know to
Speaker 1: deal with introspection, which is kind of like all philosophies.
Speaker 1: Physics is the first thing. And it's not physics like
Speaker 1: you think of that you hate studying in high school.
Speaker 2: Well, it falls under a larger umbrella term, I guess.
Speaker 1: Yeah. They're talking about the natural world, the natural you know,
Speaker 1: and also what lies beyond it. And when they say
Speaker 1: the natural world, they're talking about everything God, the divine nature,
Speaker 1: everything that we know and things that we don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, everything we would view as science or like you said, nature, Yeah,
Speaker 2: all that stuff that's physics and all of it. That
Speaker 2: One of the things the Stoics, I think, if they
Speaker 2: weren't the first to come up with it, they definitely
Speaker 2: popularized it was the idea that all of this was interconnected. Yeah,
Speaker 2: which is pretty I mean, you take it for granted today,
Speaker 2: like everybody thinks that everything's interconnected these days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but.
Speaker 2: It's to be among the first to kind of point
Speaker 2: that out or suggest that it's pretty pretty significant contribution
Speaker 2: to Western thought.
Speaker 1: Yeah, imagine that was a pretty deep thing when it
Speaker 1: first started hitting people, you know.
Speaker 2: Can't you just see George Carlin being like, oh, you.
Speaker 1: Just blew my mind? Oh because he was so great?
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Man.
Speaker 2: Wait, no, he wasn't so crazy. He was he was
Speaker 2: the guy their spirit a Yeah, what.
Speaker 1: Was his name? Oh? Man got killed on this.
Speaker 2: We'll just edit this part out.
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I had to brush up on my
Speaker 1: bill and deed.
Speaker 2: I didn't either. I surprised myself. You should have seen
Speaker 2: my face.
Speaker 1: You know. They kept they kept talking about remakes, like
Speaker 1: as recently as a couple of years ago, I think,
Speaker 1: or not remakes, but uh sequels with the originals. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: Like Kenna Reeves was like, man, I love those movies.
Speaker 1: I'd love to make another one.
Speaker 2: Did you see what what was?
Speaker 1: So?
Speaker 2: Was Keanu Reeves?
Speaker 1: Bill? Or Ted?
Speaker 2: Why are we even doing this to ourselves?
Speaker 1: Boy? I want to say he was Ted?
Speaker 2: So the guy who played the other guy?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Alex Winter.
Speaker 2: Oh geez, Chuck.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Nice chob So Alex Winter was in what was the
Speaker 2: Charles Bronson view Cola is most famous death Wish Death
Speaker 2: Wish three. Death Wish three was what he was in,
Speaker 2: which was when Gol and Globis got their hands on
Speaker 2: it and turned it into like schlock, violent, like almost
Speaker 2: post apocalyptic movie. Yeah, and he's great in it. But
Speaker 2: he's also in a documentary on Golan Globis. I can't
Speaker 2: remember what the name of the name of the documentaries,
Speaker 2: but it's just about how bad the movies they made
Speaker 2: were and how how gleefully these guys made them. But
Speaker 2: he's interviewed in it. That guy hasn't aged a day.
Speaker 1: No, he looks exactly Bill.
Speaker 2: Okay, so he's Bill.
Speaker 1: Yeah all right.
Speaker 2: So, uh so we got that settled. Physics is done.
Speaker 1: What's next? Logic, which they wanted to include 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 electively they kind of called this all reason.
Speaker 1: It was a very big deal to stoicism, perhaps the
Speaker 1: biggest deal, right.
Speaker 2: And they also were engaged in epistemology, which is theories
Speaker 2: of what knowledge is, how we gain knowledge, what's true,
Speaker 2: what's belief, what's false? How do we differentiate between these things?
Speaker 2: And they spend a lot of time investigating this and
Speaker 2: putting it all under logic, because it was through logic
Speaker 2: that you could investigate physics, which included investigating God and
Speaker 2: the nature of universe and stuff like that. And then
Speaker 2: through all that investigation, that introspection, that naval gazing, you
Speaker 2: were ultimately figuring out how to best pursue and best
Speaker 2: live out the third part, which was the ethics of
Speaker 2: the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you mentioned the four great virtues earlier, courage, justice, wisdom,
Speaker 1: and temperance, And the whole idea here is uh, it's
Speaker 1: it's not like you want to block out the bad
Speaker 1: and only embrace the good. You like, you want to
Speaker 1: consider both the good and the bad, but just don't
Speaker 1: let any of it get in the way of anything
Speaker 1: that you're trying to pursue in your life.
Speaker 2: Right, pretty simple.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the whole good bad thing. Where did you
Speaker 1: find this this thing on ethics?
Speaker 2: Was that the that was the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Speaker 2: from their from their entry on it. Yeah, it's pretty
Speaker 2: pretty good. The whole thing was. Dude, you should have
Speaker 2: seen how in depth they go though, But I thought
Speaker 2: this one was a good snippet.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm sure, yeah, they dive pretty deep, but I
Speaker 1: thought this was a pretty good little summation there. You know,
Speaker 1: they're talking about, like you said, like money isn't just
Speaker 1: not good or a ka bad. Things like this they
Speaker 1: called indifference as in I N D I F F
Speaker 1: E R E N T S. Right, not indifference, And
Speaker 1: it's like not good or bad. It could be either one.
Speaker 1: It's really kind of all about not letting something like
Speaker 1: that get in the way of your pursuit.
Speaker 2: Right, So and again it went back to wealth, right,
Speaker 2: And this person in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy points out
Speaker 2: that like money, definitely being wealthy usually is helpful or
Speaker 2: beneficial to the individual. Sure, but it can also not
Speaker 2: be beneficial. Where say you have a big heroin problem, Well,
Speaker 2: the more money you get, the more money you're going
Speaker 2: to spend on heroin. So in that case, being wealthy
Speaker 2: is detrimental to you're not beneficial. And for something to
Speaker 2: be a good it has to be good under all circumstances,
Speaker 2: and to a stoic only there's only four things that
Speaker 2: are good under all circumstances, which are those four cardinal virtues.
Speaker 2: Everything else, like you said, is an indifferent and it
Speaker 2: can either be preferred or dispreferred, like wealth typically would
Speaker 2: fall under being a preferred and different, whereas say, disease,
Speaker 2: having chronic disease would be a dispropered dispropered, wow, a
Speaker 2: dispreferred indifferent man.
Speaker 1: That's tough though it is.
Speaker 2: But the point is is whether it's fabulous wealth or diabetes,
Speaker 2: they should affect you about the same or you might
Speaker 2: want one, you might not want to have one. But
Speaker 2: if you have either one, you can live with it.
Speaker 2: And that brings up a huge, huge component of stoicism
Speaker 2: that's really been blown up and exploded in the twenty
Speaker 2: first century, which is you should take adversity and turn
Speaker 2: it into an opportunity for growth. That is a huge
Speaker 2: aspect of stoicism that's really being practiced and espoused these days.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm down with that. Like I don't think I
Speaker 1: like being able to take from all these philosophies and
Speaker 1: different religions to form your sort of pathway through life,
Speaker 1: you know, sure, Like when I hear sometimes I started
Speaker 1: to read about Buddhism and the whole thing with Buddhism
Speaker 1: of like every day you start anew and you have
Speaker 1: a new chance. Like that really appeals to me too, Right.
Speaker 1: What I don't like is when either religions or philosophies
Speaker 1: say like like this is the only way and everything
Speaker 1: else is BS. Sure you know, yeah, that just that's
Speaker 1: a harsh buzzkill.
Speaker 2: It really is. Not only is a BS, but I'm
Speaker 2: going to kill you for thinking otherwise.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So Seneca who was one of the great thinkers of Stoicism.
Speaker 2: He was an advisor to Nero, and we'll talk about
Speaker 2: him as criticism of Stoicism later on, but he had
Speaker 2: a very famous quote where he says, you are unfortunate
Speaker 2: in my judgment, for you have never been unfortunate. You
Speaker 2: have passed through life with no antagonist to face you.
Speaker 2: No one will know what you are capable of, not
Speaker 2: even yourself, And that kind of shapes the basis of
Speaker 2: that idea that no matter what life throws at you,
Speaker 2: you take it and you say I'm going to become
Speaker 2: a better person from this, like oh this happened, Well,
Speaker 2: that's great because that means that I can learn to
Speaker 2: be better at this. So my dog just got hit
Speaker 2: by a car. I'm going to practice fortitude and make
Speaker 2: it through this really hard time and become a stronger
Speaker 2: person on the other side.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he may as well have said, you comma trust
Speaker 1: fund kid, kamma.
Speaker 2: Sure right exactly, And I mean that that makes a
Speaker 2: people turn that on Seneca as well, but a lot
Speaker 2: of modern Stoics come to his defense. Is like, no, like,
Speaker 2: I had a harder life than you would think.
Speaker 1: Should we take another break? Yeah, all right, let's do it,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about Seneca and Cicero and all other
Speaker 1: kinds of weird names.
Speaker 2: So, Chuck, you were saying, you were talking about religion.
Speaker 2: Stoicism apparently informed Christianity in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Buddhism in some ways. Yeah, yet atheists embrace it.
Speaker 2: It's kind of weird these days. But I mean, the
Speaker 2: early Stoics were definitely they definitely believed in a divine intervention.
Speaker 2: It was kind of the basis of the whole thing,
Speaker 2: that this is God's will, So why try to control it?
Speaker 2: Who are you to try to control it? Just roll
Speaker 2: with the punches.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a big When when I was taking all
Speaker 1: those philosophy quizzes, they're all a little bit different, but
Speaker 1: you saw through line through a lot of these questions,
Speaker 1: and the free will one was in every single one
Speaker 1: of them. Yeah, like, how do you feel about free will?
Speaker 1: And different ways of asking it, but you know.
Speaker 2: You will what do you think exactly?
Speaker 1: If you want to find out which philosophy that you
Speaker 1: jibe with, you have to answer the free will question.
Speaker 1: Free will question.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hey, that's easier to say than just preferred indifferent.
Speaker 1: Nice work.
Speaker 2: So one of the big points, especially today for practicing
Speaker 2: stoicism is looking at adversity as a growth opportunity for growth.
Speaker 1: Right right, That's just a good tool in life.
Speaker 2: I think another one and this one, I really this
Speaker 2: is where I big time diverge from stoicism as like
Speaker 2: a part of a daily practice is something called negative visualization.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like, uh, try and try and imagine the worst
Speaker 1: case scenario constantly. Yeah, I'm not into that at all.
Speaker 2: No. So, say you say you're at like your child's
Speaker 2: birthday party, right, and you are not you specifically, this
Speaker 2: is you just a general person and you're having just
Speaker 2: the most intense moment of joy and appreciation for your
Speaker 2: child According to stoics, you should follow that up with
Speaker 2: a thought about how at your child's next doctor's appointment,
Speaker 2: your child could be diagnosed with terminal leukemia.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That that is what you should be doing basically all
Speaker 2: the time, negative visualization. And the idea is it's twofold one.
Speaker 2: You're preventing yourself from becoming overjoyed at that moment. Don't
Speaker 2: don't do that. Yeah, and then secondly, you're you're exploring
Speaker 2: how you will feel if your kid does get diagnosed
Speaker 2: to something horrible or something bad happens, and that when
Speaker 2: it actually happens, you'll say that's not so bad, I'm
Speaker 2: already used to it, or you'll be able to confront
Speaker 2: it through your imagination and say, this is what I'm
Speaker 2: afraid of. That's not that bad. But I mean, it's
Speaker 2: a really extreme, horrific example.
Speaker 1: But it is.
Speaker 2: Ultimately it's definitely in step with stoicism that you should
Speaker 2: be visualizing the worst case scenario all the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, And that's one of the reasons stoicism
Speaker 1: has such a downer reputation, such that Cicero wrote a
Speaker 1: stoic rouse enthusiasm. He is much more likely to extinguish
Speaker 1: any enthusiasm, the student may have to begin with burn. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a pretty good burn. And you know, I
Speaker 1: get that. Like, who would if that was one of
Speaker 1: the first things you learned if you started to poke
Speaker 1: around with stoicism, ninety nine percent of people would probably
Speaker 1: be like, Man, I don't want to. I don't like
Speaker 1: the sounds of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I like the not having to control everything aspect,
Speaker 2: but the thinking about nothing but negative thoughts all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, And I get the point of it. I
Speaker 2: just it doesn't It doesn't appeal to me.
Speaker 1: No, I mean, you shouldn't be Pollyanna either. Well.
Speaker 2: No, it's it's in direct contradiction to the idea of
Speaker 2: the power of positive thinking, right, which is stoics like, you, fool,
Speaker 2: what are you doing? All you're doing is setting yourself
Speaker 2: up for nothing but letdowns when that doesn't actually come true.
Speaker 1: Well, but I also agree with that to a certain degree,
Speaker 1: you know, like the whole like just you can conjure
Speaker 1: it up just by thinking positively. I think that's on
Speaker 1: the opposite side equally, uh bs.
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 2: Stuff, and I think most people are. But I think
Speaker 2: that's what's fascinating about this kind of thing is it's like, well,
Speaker 2: well there's some people actually are these these degrees, these extremes.
Speaker 2: It's interesting to me.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, And the other interesting thing is we you know,
Speaker 1: you're talking about Christianity, and then it's weird how Stoicism
Speaker 1: on one hand, like atheists like I can totally see
Speaker 1: how they'd be down with Stoicism, but also the whole
Speaker 1: notion that some believers in God and some Christians like
Speaker 1: give it all up to God because only God can
Speaker 1: control anything. So all we're going to do is pray
Speaker 1: about it, and that's popular among Stoics as well. Right,
Speaker 1: So it's just interesting that it has such a wide
Speaker 1: range as far as from atheism to like the you know, serious, serious,
Speaker 1: give it up to God Christianity.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, no, it definitely, yeah, it almost It's kind
Speaker 2: of like it's that buffet thing again where people can
Speaker 2: come along and take what they want from it and
Speaker 2: it becomes part of their own philosophy or their own
Speaker 2: religion or whatever. Let's talk about some of the ways
Speaker 2: that that it's been used over the year's stoicism, right, Okay,
Speaker 2: so there's been a lot of people who have followed
Speaker 2: Stoic thought, like Adam Smith apparently was very much informed
Speaker 2: by Stoicism when he wrote The Wealth of Nations because
Speaker 2: one of the big, big aspects of it was individual liberty.
Speaker 2: One cool thing about the early Stoics was that everybody's equal. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter whether you're a man, woman, gay, straight, black, white, whatever,
Speaker 2: everyone is equal. And this was at a time when
Speaker 2: slavery was rampant, right, Yeah, so that was a big,
Speaker 2: a big that's a big aspect too. That's a big
Speaker 2: aspect of the Wealth of Nations is anybody can come
Speaker 2: along and become a capitalist. You just have to compete, right.
Speaker 2: Another place that it popped up kind of famously was
Speaker 2: in cognitive behavioral therapy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which initially when I saw that, I was like, huh,
Speaker 1: that kind of surprised me, But then it all made sense,
Speaker 1: Like exposure to something bad can help you get over
Speaker 1: it is kind of like that conjuring up the worst
Speaker 1: possible It's almost numbing yourself to the worst possible thing.
Speaker 1: If you think about that worst case scenario thing all
Speaker 1: the time. It's almost a way of preparing for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's rooted specifically. One of the founders of CBT,
Speaker 2: Albert Ellis, was an adherent of Stoicism as a younger man,
Speaker 2: and what's known as the cognitive model of emotion, which
Speaker 2: is the basis of cognitive behavioral therapy, is based on
Speaker 2: Epictetis's maxim that people are disturbed not by things, but
Speaker 2: by their view of things. And that's part of that
Speaker 2: whole Stoic philosophy, which is nothing is good or bad.
Speaker 2: There's only good in the four virtues. Everything else is
Speaker 2: how you view it.
Speaker 1: Yea.
Speaker 2: Whether it's losing your job or winning the lottery, those
Speaker 2: things aren't inherently good or bad. It's you, the person
Speaker 2: experiencing that, who bestows good or bad on them. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and why label things?
Speaker 1: Sure, I'm down with that, Yeah a little bit.
Speaker 2: Did you hear about Admiral Stockdale.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember that name for sure. When he came
Speaker 1: out with his book Courage under Fire, colon Testing Eptectus's
Speaker 1: Doctrines and the Laboratory of Human Behavior in nineteen ninety three.
Speaker 1: He was a famous prisoner of war in Vietnam for
Speaker 1: seven years, endured some of the worst of the worst
Speaker 1: you can imagine in war. And what got him through
Speaker 1: was certainly not Christianity, because he thought that's nothing but
Speaker 1: false hope.
Speaker 2: Well, not only that, he shared the pow camp with
Speaker 2: people who who clung to that and did not make it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so he saw it right up front, right, So
Speaker 1: what got him through was his stoic beliefs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was a huge, big time adherent of Epictetus.
Speaker 2: He'd studied him in college. Apparently he'd read everything that
Speaker 2: Epictetus had written or said that had been written down
Speaker 2: and attributed to Epictetus twice from two different translators. So
Speaker 2: this guy knew his Epictetus. And he said, well, I'm
Speaker 2: a prisoner of war in Vietnam. I've got some broken bones,
Speaker 2: I'm starving, I'm being mistreated. I'll be here for seven years.
Speaker 2: What a perfect opportunity to put Epictetus's teachings to the
Speaker 2: test in a real life laboratory experiment. And he said
Speaker 2: Epictetus passed. The flying Colors. Was Stockdale's final report on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he said, if Epictetus's lecture room was a hospital,
Speaker 1: my prison was a laboratory, a laboratory of human behavior.
Speaker 1: I chose to test his postulates against the demanding real
Speaker 1: life challenges of my laboratory. So, man, talk of out
Speaker 1: a strong will like to be faced with that and
Speaker 1: be like, well, hey, this is a great chance to
Speaker 1: work on my philosophy of life.
Speaker 2: Exactly what else am I going to do? But that
Speaker 2: follows in and of itself on the whole too, of
Speaker 2: turning adversity into a room for growth as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, yeah, stronger than me. Let's just say that.
Speaker 2: So you want to talk about some criticisms of Stoicism.
Speaker 1: Well, Cicero certainly thought it was a big.
Speaker 2: Downer, yeah, he said, Well you already said what he said, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: it basically extinguishes enthusiasm and students. Not a good thing. Right,
Speaker 2: And over the years, the fact that some of the
Speaker 2: great Stoic thinkers of all time have been super wealthy
Speaker 2: and powerful. Seneca Marcus Aurelius was the Emperor of Rome.
Speaker 2: He basically ran the free world. Well, I don't know
Speaker 2: if the free worlds right, the Western world for almost
Speaker 2: twenty years. Yeah, And when you sit there and yeah again,
Speaker 2: if you say yes, you can turn anything into any
Speaker 2: adversity into an opportunity. If you're super wealthy and you
Speaker 2: don't have to worry about where your food's gonna come from. Like, yes,
Speaker 2: of course you can be a Stoic. And then Epictetis
Speaker 2: came along and, like we said, kind of erased all
Speaker 2: that to an extent for sure, but it is still
Speaker 2: kind of criticized as like a wealthy person's philosophy, and
Speaker 2: it kind of smacks of that a little bit today too, Chuck,
Speaker 2: with its huge resurgence in Silicon Valley.
Speaker 1: Oh is that happening?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, most of the Stoic revival is taking place there.
Speaker 2: That's where it's cradle is right now.
Speaker 1: Well, our own article has a couple of good points
Speaker 1: to talk about it not being as appealing because it
Speaker 1: lacks the mystique of Eastern practice. And then they also
Speaker 1: said this, it's also regarded as a philosophy of merely
Speaker 1: breaking even while remaining determinedly impassive.
Speaker 2: Yes, I don't know if that's entirely fair, but it's
Speaker 2: as it kind of catches it a little bit.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, because the very next sentences, this attitude ignores
Speaker 1: the promise proffered by stoicism of lasting transcendence. And that
Speaker 1: one article that you said talked about the power of indifference, right,
Speaker 1: which I thought was interesting. It's not about just like
Speaker 1: not caring about anything. It's about caring about only the
Speaker 1: right things that you have the power to change. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And also though I also see that even keel aspect
Speaker 2: being indifferent, the power of it. I mean, think about
Speaker 2: how much time whenever you are like super happy about
Speaker 2: something going right or super upset about something going wrong,
Speaker 2: you're ultimately you're being distracted from keeping on keeping on.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and then you go back to eventually get
Speaker 2: back to that middle again, which is the baseline anyway.
Speaker 2: And so I guess what stoics are doing is staying
Speaker 2: on that baseline and not being distracted so they can
Speaker 2: get further along faster or at a more steady pace.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, there's definitely 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.
Speaker 2: One of the big questions I have, it's not necessarily
Speaker 2: a criticism, I guess it depends on what the answer
Speaker 2: would be. But my big question for stoicism, since it's
Speaker 2: so it places so much emphasis on the individual and
Speaker 2: self exploration and introspection. How would a stoic suggest enacting
Speaker 2: massive social change? Where something some ill is happening to
Speaker 2: some large group of people, but nothing's going to change
Speaker 2: unless you go out of your own personal sphere and
Speaker 2: work to make others change. Right, how do you do that?
Speaker 2: Or do you just say, well, whatever, it's God's will
Speaker 2: that these people suffer and be put down by the
Speaker 2: majority forever, or is there some way that that can
Speaker 2: be addressed through the stoic you know, philosophy. I'm very curious.
Speaker 2: So anybody who knows that right end, please.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe that's why it appeals to Silicon Valley. Right.
Speaker 2: Well, that's the other thing too, right. So it also
Speaker 2: very much smacks when when you hear of it from
Speaker 2: like wealthy people espousing it to anybody, it smacks of
Speaker 2: that whole aspect of Christianity where hey, medieval peasant, you
Speaker 2: know how your life is terrible and you're going to
Speaker 2: live to thirty five and all you do is work
Speaker 2: all the time, and you give most of the spoils
Speaker 2: of your effort to your king. Well, there's such a
Speaker 2: thing as Christianity, and your treasure is in the afterlife,
Speaker 2: so don't worry about this life. Yeah, it smacks the
Speaker 2: same thing where you can keep a population placated and
Speaker 2: not searching for larger social change by saying, hey, just
Speaker 2: focus on these four things and everything else is just
Speaker 2: It just happens, and you don't need to get worked
Speaker 2: up about it at all. It seems like a bit
Speaker 2: of a pacifier too. Yeah, depending on how you look
Speaker 2: at it, it's fascinating. Are we done with stoicism?
Speaker 1: I finished with it?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: I think that was a good overview.
Speaker 2: I think so too.
Speaker 1: It's a good thought starter.
Speaker 2: If you want to know more about stoicism, Bud, there's
Speaker 2: a lot more out there than this. Just dive in
Speaker 2: and see what it means to you. And again, it's
Speaker 2: a buffet. Take what you like, leave what you don't want,
Speaker 2: leave the kerdle pudding behind, Take the perfectly garlic green beans. Yeah,
Speaker 2: if you what else? Did I already say that one part?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Since I said green beans, it's time for listener mail.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this Beagle Brigade slash police dogs.
Speaker 2: People love that.
Speaker 1: One man who doesn't love beatles, Beagles on brigade, on parade.
Speaker 2: No one, even people who get busted with whole pigs
Speaker 2: still are like that. Beagles adorable.
Speaker 1: So this dude, Eric Stover is a sandwicher, meaning he
Speaker 1: follows our advice, which is to listen to the newest
Speaker 1: episode as well as whatever from our back catalog. He
Speaker 1: chooses to Yeah, he's doing it right. Hey, guys are
Speaker 1: working the sports and entertainment business in New York and
Speaker 1: after nine to eleven, the use of bomb sniffing dogs,
Speaker 1: mostly German shepherds, became standard operating procedure for all events.
Speaker 1: If you ares, prior to a concert one night, the
Speaker 1: canine units were sweeping all the backstage areas and one
Speaker 1: of the bomb dogs hit on an employee locker, so
Speaker 1: you can imagine it caused an immediate and serious response.
Speaker 1: A bomb squad was dispatched and that portion of the
Speaker 1: arena was evacuated. Plans were even made to cancel the show.
Speaker 1: He doesn't say what show, which I was very curious about.
Speaker 2: I'm going to say three doors down.
Speaker 1: Okay. After some very tense moments, the police officers opened
Speaker 1: the locker. Those guys are super brave, thankfully they didn't
Speaker 1: find a bomb, but did find drugs. An employee must
Speaker 1: have thought, must have brought in an extra bump for
Speaker 1: the show.
Speaker 2: Oh man, it was definitely three doors Down.
Speaker 1: You might be asking yourself. No, this wasn't the band's
Speaker 1: green room. This was an employee.
Speaker 2: Oh, I know, I know. Three Doors Down. Three Doors
Speaker 2: Downs fans are among the most drug addled of all
Speaker 2: music plans? Are they sure?
Speaker 1: I thought that was the Juggalos?
Speaker 2: No, they put the Juggalos a shame. Jugglers take time
Speaker 2: off once in a while, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true. Uh, you might be asking yourself, how
Speaker 1: does a bomb dog find drugs? As it turns out,
Speaker 1: the dog had failed out of drug school and was
Speaker 1: retrained as a bomb talk poor guy. That's hilarious, isn't it?
Speaker 1: Poor guy?
Speaker 2: Which one the dog or the guy who just happened
Speaker 2: to run across the failed drug dog? I guess I
Speaker 2: still remembered something.
Speaker 1: There are no winners here. I guess he didn't completely
Speaker 1: forget his drug training, though, and he set off a
Speaker 1: chain of events that scared the crap out of us.
Speaker 1: The story ends with the employee getting arrested. The show
Speaker 1: went on and the fans none the wiser. My guess
Speaker 1: is the dog was reassigned to crowd control.
Speaker 2: Just barking up people. Keep back in line.
Speaker 1: Thanks for everything you guys do. Please let me know
Speaker 1: if you ever need anything in New York City. Is
Speaker 1: that a hint?
Speaker 2: We don't do drugs, Eric, Yeah, we're terrified of dogs.
Speaker 1: That is Eric Stover in New York and I guess
Speaker 1: he's still in the sports and entertainment business.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like, you need some sports, Come see me.
Speaker 1: I could use some sports.
Speaker 2: Thanks Eric. That's a pretty great story, right, that's right.
Speaker 2: If you want to get in touch with this like
Speaker 2: Eric did, you can send us an email to Stuff
Speaker 2: Podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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