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Brigid Delaney on Reasons not to Worry (Episode 151)
974 Plays2 months ago
Michael talks with Brigid Delaney about her journey into Stoicism, the value it has had in her life, and the unique role it has to play in helping others.
(03:41) Stoicism vs Wellness
(13:15) Ataraxia
(18:07) Stoic Friends
(20:26) Favorite Stoic
(24:14) How To Explore The Stoics
(29:47) Persauding Non-Stoics
(34:11) Stripping Away Illusions
(38:51) Idealism Vs Stoicism
(51:44) Stoic Fable
(53:53) Story Of Stoicism
(57:45) What's Special Today?
(01:02:39) Desire
***
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Thanks to Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music in the conversations: https://ancientlyre.com/
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Transcript
Introduction to Stoicism and Brigid Delaney
00:00:00
Speaker
And also, I quite like the fact that stoicism gives me permission to not worry about like, how ah what other people are doing, you know, ah I don't have to try and change people like that's, that's a relief. um That's a big burden to carry when you're trying to change everyone around you when you're trying to change governments, when you're trying to change your friends, when you're trying to change your family, like, you know, so system says, put that down. Welcome to Stoic Conversations. In this I talk with Brigid Delaney. Brigid is a speechwriter, columnist for The Guardian, and author of the book Reasons Not to Worry, How to Be Stoic in Chaotic Times, which covers her journey from stoic skeptic to practicing stoic.
00:00:46
Speaker
In this conversation, we cover Bridget's recent journey into stoicism and why she thinks stoicism has more to offer than other forms of self-help or development she has tried in the past. We also cover some disagreements or challenges she has with stoicism. This episode is really about the journey of putting stoicism into practice and the ups and downs that come with
Brigid Delaney's Journey into Stoicism
00:01:07
Speaker
that. I hope you enjoy. Hi, Bridget, how are you?
00:01:11
Speaker
umm Well, thanks, Michael. How are you? I'm doing great. Thanks so much for coming on. Oh, it's a pleasure. Yeah, I really wanted to talk to you um about your book, Reasons Not to Worry. um I really enjoyed reading it. I thought it was a...
00:01:26
Speaker
lovely and We'll get into it as we talk, but I thought it was a lovely introduction to ah somebody, you know yourself, experiencing stoicism for the first time, incorporating it into your life. But before i before i I skip that part, I guess could you say how you discovered stoicism a bit about your journey into stoic philosophy?
00:01:45
Speaker
Yeah, sure. i Look, I did one year of philosophy at university, and it was a lot of um almost mathematics, you know, like logical positivism. And that turned me right off. So I dropped out and then didn't think about philosophy much for many years. um And then I had a column at the Guardian.
00:02:03
Speaker
um newspaper and each week I would write about something that had been happening in my life and um One week an editor sent me a press release saying there's a week coming up called stoic week Would I try and live like a stoic for a week?
00:02:18
Speaker
And i um I joined that group and I just didn't take it very seriously. I wrote a humorous column, kind of um taking the mickey out of it a bit. And then I got some some blowback from Stoics saying you've completely missed the point of what Stoicism is.
00:02:36
Speaker
It's a fantastic, very helpful tool for a lot of people and it's a real shame that the Guardian didn't um take it more seriously.
The Community and Practice of Stoicism
00:02:45
Speaker
So I took that feedback on board and the following year I went back and did Stoic Week just independently um and got a lot out of it and and found and I did it with a group of friends. So we had our own discussion group at night after we'd done the readings and um I mentioned to a friend at the end of stoic week that I was interested in taking it further. And so was he. So we ended up having a kind of almost um like mimicking, I guess, away a lot of the old philosophers taught philosophy, which is through friendship, dialogue, applying what was going on in our lives to the teachings, walking and talking about these things. And um that's how my interests kind of developed.
00:03:34
Speaker
yeah know That's something you you talk about in the book. I believe it's Andrew. Andrew is your friend who you were discussed stoicism with? Yeah, yeah. It almost reminded me of this like ah Seneca and Laquilius back and forth correspondence. You come up with a new topic and you debate it and you throw it back and forth. I think that's a really fun structure to it. um in terms of In terms of your background,
00:03:58
Speaker
i I know you've you've had a lot of involvement in the contemporary um wellness or self-help communities. How do you think your experience with stoicism has differed from that? um What has been, I think, I guess the main differences between ancient Greek philosophy and then other kind of wellness movements that you've written about or participated in?
00:04:20
Speaker
Sure thing. So for background for your listeners, I wrote a book called WellMania, which became a Netflix show um that was released last year. And that that whole journey of WellMania was trying different types of wellness treatments, getting involved in different subcultures, the yoga community, various other communities. um And I found there was a lot of crossover with Stoicism and some of the more spiritual elements of wellness, like for example, Vedic meditation. So what is in the Vedas and also some of Buddhism?
Stoicism Versus Modern Wellness
00:05:01
Speaker
you're coming You're coming across a lot of Stoic teachings. So I was fascinated um about like, where did they intersect historically? You know, like, was there
00:05:12
Speaker
you know people trading between say India or China and Greece and there were discussions and cross pollinations of ideas. um So that aspect of, I guess you'd call it wellness, but it's actually more spirituality connected with stoicism a lot. The more modern day wellness stuff,
00:05:33
Speaker
i I say this in Romania, it makes you feel good short term, you feel great, you go to a retreat, you pay thousands of dollars, um you connect with people, you feel like your problems, you can cope with your problems back at home because you're all relaxed, but then you go back into your normal life and that retreat and that money, it's just...
00:05:58
Speaker
the effects wear off very quickly. Whereas stoicism is about, well, look every single day, you know, what can you do no matter where you are to to give yourself equilibrium like the ataraxia um that's so important, the virtues. So yeah, it's not contingent on spending a sum of money. It's not contingent on um flying to Southeast Asia and going to a retreat.
00:06:26
Speaker
It is something that you carry around with you. I mean, would you say that's your experience of stoicism? It's it's very portable. I think it's very portable. I mean, to to follow up on what you were saying, I think there's this, um, well, I guess, I guess the, there's the two ideas there. One is you did, you said something that I think stoicism is almost this inversion of where you're like, wellness is like, you feel good in the moment and then it doesn't stay with you. And I think stoicism, there's this idea of like, it feels bad in the moment. You're like, Oh, it's kind of your fault. If you're getting angry.
00:06:57
Speaker
Or maybe you have some work to do and it's not this as you know you you can't point the fingers at other people ah so it's kind of difficult in the moment but helps you later on so it's almost this this inversion of that. I also think I agree with the idea that it's not. i ah It's not ah circumstantial I guess so it's it's portable in the sense that.
00:07:16
Speaker
You can do it wherever you are. Right. You don't you don't need to be in the perfect environment to be like, well, my relaxation depends, as you said, on the right room or the right people or the right being on vacation. It's this idea of I'm going to be relaxed. I'm going to be well. and And because that's because I'm generating it, I'm going to bring it around wherever I go. um Yeah. Do you agree with that? I totally agree with that.
Stoicism's Accessibility and Application
00:07:40
Speaker
um And it's you know, there's There's a whole interesting argument about capitalism and stoicism. So some of the kind of pushback I've had is um there's a new movement movement of stoics and they're all about the money. you know They're all about um incorporating this philosophy into a capitalist model, making money, et cetera. Now, some people might do that, but I don't think people use stoicism in a capitalist way. I think people use stoicism
00:08:13
Speaker
um Almost in a way that's anti-wellness industry, which is you resist, you you train yourself to resist the easy options, the easy way out. um it's It's not monetizable, you know, a lot of the journaling, you know. um checking in on how your reactions are. you know They're all stuff that is very within you. um And that's why it's appealing. You know you don't have to go. and like i I'm self-taught. I didn't have to go and spend thousands of dollars.
00:08:47
Speaker
um to do a course and that's what I'm kind of interested in with this stoic sort of journey like my next steps is it's thinking about community so how can you take it similar to what you're doing with the podcast how can you take these teachings give it more of a community feel but don't don't have a big barrier to entry like don't sort of charge people stuff um and I think that's a really exciting thing about stoicism.
00:09:16
Speaker
yeah Well, your example of talking with Andrew, right? It's this like it's this philosophical education and all you need is a friendship, basically, friendship and a ah willingness to engage. um Or I think of Socrates walking around the Agora. He's not handing out cards for his courses, right? He's like, let's talk about philosophy right now. Let's do it. um and I think there's a hunger for that. you know like i think I went to a friend's birthday party recently and it was four days on this island and she, it was people that didn't know each other and each of us had to bring something to the party, so to speak. And I ran a stoic workshop and I've split everyone into groups after I taught the basics of stoicism. And I said, okay, you guys talk about a problem you've had this week and apply stoicism and see how that works. And it was mostly men in these groups.
00:10:08
Speaker
They loved sharing, but also using a philosophy to help each other. You know, there's this sense of if you have a problem, you have to engage with a therapist or you have to kind of like go outside to some trained professional, but we actually have the ability.
00:10:24
Speaker
in low level problems. I'm not talking big mental health issues, but we have the capacity to support each other. And I think stoicism is a great framework to give other people support, support yourself, but also teach other people the basics of stoicism and, and, and share, you know, each week, say check in with your friends. How are you going? And they're like, had a bad day with my boss. It's like, okay, well, let's see what the, you know, let's see what the philosophy says about that.
00:10:51
Speaker
um So I think it's got real potential. um It just needs to be unlocked. Yeah, this is not something, I mean, I love this, and it's not something I've really thought about before is the barrier. It it it really seems to me it's about getting people engaged in it and interested in it. and But if that interest is there, then there's, there as you said, there's not really a barrier to entry. um It strikes me also as there's this idea and stoicism of cosmopolitanism, this idea, this is real kind of egalitarian underpinning of that You know, we're all rational creatures. We all have access to our minds. And so we can all be great philosophers. And back in the day, they extended that to women. And, you know, that that's more obvious now, but was was really progressive back then. And I feel there's maybe that maybe what you're saying is a similar thing about
00:11:39
Speaker
you know This is not something that's restricted to the academy.
Stoicism's Relevance in Modern Life
00:11:43
Speaker
It's not something that's restricted just to the experts. um we can always We can always rely on people and their expertise, but there is something to be gained from just having good, engaged conversations with friends and relying on you know the wisdom of some smart people whose ideas are free now. yeah is that Is that right? Absolutely. and I write about this in the book, which is,
00:12:07
Speaker
All the things we're going through, we think we're so immortal. They've gone through, like they are actually in many ways, very similar to our society. Like it's like they existed 10 years ago. They're extraordinary. But they've thought it all through. They've thought about, well, how do we deal with disappointment? How do we deal with death?
00:12:27
Speaker
How do we deal with being defamed? How do we deal with a pylon or a mob, which is like very much what happens on x dot.com, you know, or social media? How do we deal with disappointment and love? How do we deal with getting a diagnosis, a terminal diagnosis? So they've done all this thinking and their wisdom is there. We just have to kind of, you know, take it off the shelf and um apply it. So that's the wild thing for me is like, it's already,
00:12:56
Speaker
The answers we seek are already there. um I never get um never get let down. I don't agree with everything the Stoics say, but I'm never let down by their advice. They always give me something to to think about, and it always seems like incredibly relevant to modern life. Well, going back to that um the point you made earlier, we were talking about about There are some things that are difficult but may be good for you. What's something in discovering stoicism that maybe was not intuitive or you thought you disagreed with but has now proven helpful in your own life? i mean Sadly, this is a so ah sadness for me about stoicism. is i mean I love atorexia. I love that.
00:13:43
Speaker
that baseline state that you we should try and reach, which is equilibrium being chilled out. um But you have to forego a bit of excitement. um So in order not to go down, you can't go too far up.
00:13:59
Speaker
and um You know, when I, ah I was mentioning before about this Netflix series, when I got the news about the Netflix show, I was so excited, but I was also studying stoicism and the stoics are saying, hang on, you know, don't get carried away with something because there will be a corresponding emotion. And there was with that whole project, you know, there was massive highs and massive lows. Had I approached it more stoically?
00:14:27
Speaker
I'd be less high and I probably would have gone less low. And so now when I get good news, you know I like receiving good news, but I am aware that it evens out. you know Nothing's 100% great. There'll always be a flip side. um And so it's better to have an even temperament with whatever comes along. So good news, is bad news.
00:14:52
Speaker
just treat it all um fairly evenly. ah But it does mean, you know, you miss out on on that dopamine high when you do get good news. So I've trained myself out of the, you know, the highs, but I miss them. But the stoics were right. Like, yeah.
00:15:13
Speaker
Yeah, I remember, and it makes me think of, I did this, I don't think I've mentioned this on the podcast before, but I did this, basically this YouTube video um with a famous person in the martial arts scene and I interviewed them and I was like really excited to look at the YouTube comments because they're like, what are people saying? Because I wanted that high of like the compliments and the good comments.
00:15:34
Speaker
And then there's also the negative comments and it was like, oh, I can't. It's like if I play the game of like feeling the highs, if I, if I like, basically if I open myself um up emotionally to the, the randomness of the internet and the flow of internet strangers, you, if you, if you try to, if you try to get the high of those random compliments, you'll get the low of the random really mean things people say. And I kind of, I think I arrived at almost the same conclusion of like,
00:15:59
Speaker
Well, you know you can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't really expose yourself to the high and protect yourself to the low. It's better to just be like, I'm proud of what I did. It doesn't matter what other people think that that matters. that That applies when they say mean things, but unfortunately it also applies when they say nice things. I need to just kind of focus on the craft. that was ah That was a lesson for me. I really resonate with that one.
00:16:20
Speaker
It's a tool lesson. like so A colleague yesterday, who didn't know I'd written this book, looked it up on Goodreads. She's like, oh, you're on Goodreads. I'm like, oh don't open it. She said, oh, this is five-star review. and She started reading it. and I shut it down because it's like, I don't engage with the good and I don't engage with the bad. I don't engage with any of it.
00:16:40
Speaker
so I don't want to hear about the great review because for every great review, there's someone that was like, thought it was a horrible book. So, um, and I think that's good. I think that serves you because, um, you then write the book that you think like the next book you go to write, you're not, you don't have the voices in your ear of the one star review because you always remember the one star review. You never remember the five star. Um, and so you're much more guided by your own, um,
00:17:10
Speaker
inner instincts, principles, creativity. ah And it's it's interesting, the Stoics didn't have, I mean, they got so much right, but they didn't, they weren't existing in this insane world that we're in now where everyone's opinion all of the time is available to you at the click of a button. you know So it's an extraordinary like moment in history we're living in. And I think stoicism is really suited for it because it does say, you know don't be don't be swayed by the opinions of others because you'll go mad. yeah You won't be able to focus on the actual craft. So yeah.
Exploring Stoic Philosophers and Texts
00:17:51
Speaker
I just have these thought experiments of like,
00:17:54
Speaker
If Seneca was around now, what would he say about you know the US election or what would he say? you know like I just love thinking about what they would think of the things right now.
00:18:07
Speaker
Well, they become like friends in a way. They they become friends. You you know you talk about this this this example of going around and talking about the friends. And Seneca becomes a friend. Epictetus becomes a friend. It's a person who you rely on and go back to and get their opinion on something. So I think it's very natural to be like, yeah like I want to talk to my friend about this. i want I want to know what they have to think about this topic. And it's kind of ah it's yeah it's it's ah it's disappointing. But as you said before, there's often such a breadth. Maybe it's not the US election.
00:18:35
Speaker
but There's some comment about Roman politics that will apply, right? There's some there's some yeah ah similarity somewhere. There always is. and um It's interesting what you were saying before about they become friends. like i i mean i've I really mourn the loss of um literature from the Greek story period. like I just think, what ah what a tragedy that we don't have the full suite of. sweete of of um work, um but we do have obviously the Romans. So I rely on, as do many, Epictetus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. But I use them at different points. Like meditations is when I'm feeling like introspective and um kind of, there's a romanticism in meditations. The the language is is so beautiful. And um I read that to to kind of get in a mood. And
00:19:30
Speaker
Epictetus is like if I want to be fired up. you know like He's got these short, sharp sentences. it's Some of the translations I read, he says, man, like hey man, you know stop stop being lazy. And it's like having a like hu hardcore dad. um And Seneca, Seneca's the most complex one I reckon. He's a beautiful writer, but then you start reading the biographies and you're like, wow, what a life that guy had. like That was insane.
00:20:01
Speaker
um But also, he he wrote so much. And before I discovered his philosophies, I really liked his plays. So in Sydney, Thaestys was put on a few years ago. And it was just extraordinary, you know, like just the most amazing play. Then you discover all these moral letters and, you know, all this other work. And he was in politics. So it was extraordinary.
00:20:26
Speaker
He wasn't sitting around writing all day. He was busy too. um it's it's It's very, very impressive. If you had to pick a favorite, who I feel like this is a good litmus test for the Stoics. feeling who's Who's your favorite of those three? ah It changes all the time. Marcus at the moment, um just because of his voice, I think his voice is it's so beautiful. you know He's such a beautiful writer. I'm doing another book. It's due next week, um another Stoicism book.
00:20:55
Speaker
And I'm using Seneca the most. like Seneca is the most useful, I think, because the the letters to Lecilius, on the shortness of life, all the constellations, that is where there's a lot of useful material. But Marcus Aurelius' is kind of um cadence, I think his his way of writing is it's great to kind of steep yourself in. So yeah, I'm i'm back in them in ah in a big way right now, um which is great. I say this in the book as well. like And this is something for your listeners, which I found
00:21:33
Speaker
really important. um you You can't just read them once and then think you you get Stoicism like it is. So I was brought up Catholic and I'm like, oh, I now understand why we went to mass every week. we We had religious education classes every day and the church had a structure where it was drummed into you every day. This is what the Bible says and Stoicism doesn't have that structure, but you need to create a structure around it because you forget, you know, like you forget how to control anger. You forget ataraxia. You forget about the virtues. So you almost have to have like a religious practice with it. I mean, what's what's your kind of view on that? I totally agree. I think there's the three practices.
00:22:22
Speaker
You know, seneca Seneca is a friend and he's writing to Lucilius. Marcus Aurelius is that deep introspection. He's journaling and Epictetus is a teacher. He's a pedagogue. He's writing to his students. So there's these like, you know, you can engage meaningful with other people. You can have your own personal practice of reflection, or you can seek out a coach. And it's it's really just serendipitous that we have these three paradigms or these three examples. um I think repetition is really important.
00:22:50
Speaker
different backgrounds like they are an emperor, a self-made guy, and a slave.
00:22:58
Speaker
yeah it's it's it's We're really lucky. That's the thing that I take. I mean, you talked about grieving. we're We're both sad to have lost what we lost and have so little remaining because that's such a small subsection, but what a beautiful subsection it is. We're really lucky to have that i think I think a practice, I'm a pretty introspective guy, so I um i often read stoicism. ah When I'm doing conversations like this, this is the kind of friend example, right? Like we're we're just engaging in it, debating it, um but really it's become my, Epictetus talks about having a scale to measure things by, it right? Like ah a way to test, is that a real coin or a fake coin when you receive an impression? And stoicism has just become my scale. It's just a part of me.
00:23:42
Speaker
So in terms of my practice, it's just always something I'm bringing up, always something I'm calling to mind because I've been studying it for a long time. I think before it was readings until it became ingrained. I don't know if there's ah if I have a formal practice now so much that it's just become a part of me so it's repetitive, but I totally agree with you that it's not a thing you read once and I think there's a dangerous Not dangerous, but you're just you're not getting the full value if you read the quote quote. Quotes are great, but you're not getting the full value if you read the quote once. ah there's There's just a depth to it that might not be immediately obvious. Yeah. and i think um it's I mean, a lot of people who are like who are struggling with something and they're like, I'm i'm going to go you know so i or meditations.
00:24:28
Speaker
um And they read Meditations and they don't understand it. like it It doesn't make any sense to them. And i don't think I think Meditations is an amazing book, but it's not a good in.
00:24:40
Speaker
without knowing what the philosophy is. So I say to people, get a yeah get a basic guide, you know like written by someone who is decoding it, and then you go into the primary sources and the primary sources will be your friends. And then if you're you're further interested, you go into the academic work. So I had i had a kind of unpleasant interview recently. ah um I didn't know I would be debating some like incredibly brilliant academic who really was very angry at kind of modern stoicism and took aim at me and say said that we were a group of people that were shallow shallow thinkers, we commodified it. um And she'd written about stoicism and no one had bought her book. And um so I kind of my message for that is like,
00:25:33
Speaker
with It's not the same thing like the people who are doing the basic stuff like me, it's a way in so people come in through that. But then it opens up the academic work of people who have spent their lives kind of going, you know, into one Seneca, you know, work. um So I think there's like levels. um And you start with a you start with a simple book, you go into the primary sources, then you go into the academic work.
00:26:04
Speaker
um and then you have your own practice and and you're good to go. I think that that sounds really reasonable to me. not to like i think I think you're
Making Stoicism Accessible to All
00:26:11
Speaker
right. um And I think to your credit, it's a lot of it is about the way you frame it, right? So you frame it in your book, which is to say, um I'm paraphrasing, but like I'm a person who engaged in this journey, and I'm gonna write about this journey, and hopefully that journey is helpful to you. And that's the way I feel that that your book is framed. And and and in that context, um that's incredibly helpful. And one of the things that I've found also is that
00:26:37
Speaker
I don't want to get too abstract here. But I find that once you've studied stoicism for too long, you almost forget how the world looks to non-stoics. So there's a real beauty in actually capturing that transition point. There's a real beauty in writing a book that is to say, look, i i go I have one foot in before I studied stoicism. I've got one foot in stoicism. And now I'm going to kind of explain how I started to understand these things and put them into my life.
00:27:05
Speaker
and that That's that's that's what what I see your book doing. that provides ah It carries someone else along that similar journey in a way that they wouldn't get just jumping into Epictetus, for example. Yeah. it's it's you need um You need a guide, really. um and I look back to the original Stoics. It was it was a marketplace, you know the stoa, the painted porch. It was off the street. um and that's kind of My interest at the moment is bringing um philosophy that is helpful and useful to people who need it. So um how do you get how you get it out of the academy into like where I mean you you would have listeners from all over the world but definitely in Australia where I'm speaking to you from we're in the middle of a major mental health crisis like there's not enough
00:27:57
Speaker
um There's a lot of one in four people get depression. There's not enough psychologists. It's, it's, it's really hard. And so how can we make things better for people? Well, we can give people a framework or stoicism can give people a framework to better like cope with the difficulties that they have in their life. And I think that's a great thing. And so I want everyone to know about stoicism, you know, like I'm a real evangelical, it's like,
00:28:28
Speaker
because it's not promising something in the afterlife. It's not um it's also not anesthetizing you. like There's so much of what our society offers people who are stressed or worried or unhappy, is it anesthetizes them. It's like Netflix, streaming, alcohol, drugs, pornography. you know It's all about dulling.
00:28:54
Speaker
your experience in the world so you don't feel the pain, whereas stoicism is about clarity. It's about saying, you're going to feel the pain, but the pain's not going to be as bad as you think it's going to be. And that, I think, is you know a revelation.
00:29:11
Speaker
Yeah, Bridget, you're pumping me up. This is getting me really excited. I like i agree agree with this mission statement. That's part of the reason why I left academia as well was I was just, not that there's anything wrong with being an academic, but I was really, it's like you gain all this knowledge and I had this real interest in saying, well, there's people who could benefit from this that didn't have either the opportunity, the luck or the timing to kind of get the get a background in this or an education in this. So I'm i'm i'm really pro this ah popularization or basically just like sharing it and communicating it. um if you had to If you had to persuade somebody towards stoicism or somebody who's like you know maybe thinks that you know it's not for them or philosophy is not for them, how would you yeah how would you persuade them? What's kind of this, I guess the the elevator pitch of stoicism in your view?
00:30:03
Speaker
Well, firstly, I'd find out if they need it. So they might not be interested because they've got their own, they've got a religious belief, or they've got something that is their kind of North Star. If they didn't have a North Star, I would persuade them by saying, um you're going to go through some stuff in life, as is everyone, that is going to be really challenging.
00:30:25
Speaker
And this is something that can take you from cradle to grave and give you guidance on how to cope with not only the good stuff, but also the bad stuff that will inevitably happen to you. And wouldn't you rather have that when you rather have something in your toolkit, then be left alone to fend for yourself when you lose all your money, you've been slanted, um, you,
00:30:53
Speaker
as I said, get you know get a diagnosis of something, when your loved ones die, when you die. So it's just some kind of, it it shepherds you through all those things. um And it's extraordinary. Someone I know recently um told me that they've been diagnosed with a terminal illness, which was, you know, it's terrible news. But my stoic brain was saying, this is terrible, what's happened to you also.
00:31:22
Speaker
it's going to happen to everyone. You know, you're not alone in facing death. Like all of us in this room at some point will be there. But we're not taught how to deal with that. So people are given terrible news in a doctor's room or whatever, and they sent home with a pamphlet. And if they're not religious, or they don't have a philosophy like stoicism, they are alone with this terrible kind of news and there's no way of framing it. Whereas the stories say, oh, we're we're we're all going to die. So let's let's talk about how we can how we can make sense of it.
00:32:08
Speaker
For me, that comes back to your metaphor of um being anesthetized or ah having clarity, right? and and somebody's um And somebody's going through this illness and there there can be this view, I think at least, where people give this impression of stoicism as being maybe non-empathetic, but I think often people are I don't want to say cynical, but like they they almost don't want to engage with the inevitability of something like death, for example. So they're not empathetic or present because it's it's ah it's scary and they'd rather still like not engage with it. And I think that if you can have that clarity, with so many things, this clarity of like what you're going through is terrible, but it's um
00:32:54
Speaker
in it But in other ways, it's not unique. It's a very human thing. it's a very It's a thing that we will all experience. We all need to understand how to navigate as well as possible. um It's almost like ripping a band-aid in a sense. of ah like Again, it's it's harder in the moment. It's not the four-day retreat or vacation, but it it's um it's a much more clear way to live, as as you were saying. it it is ah It's an honest and truthful way, I think.
00:33:19
Speaker
um Yeah, and there's this I mean a lot of stoicism is um It's rooted in reality and that's I think that's the kind of um That's the shocking thing about it, which is we often don't realize we're very unconscious about You know what reality really means we've kind of see the world as we want to see it so um if we're in a job that we don't like and we think our bosses are um, terrible, we'll see him as a terrible person. You know, we, we will see that side of him and he'll become an ogre and our experience will kind of be shaded by that viewpoint. But stoicism kind of challenges us to say, is he really an ogre or did you just sort of, did you bring your feelings onto him and interpret him
00:34:14
Speaker
just in a very one-sided way. So it says, dont you know, be in reality, look at um and what the world really is, and and be in that reality. If you think, I'm really great at my job, I'm gonna definitely get a promotion, and that is your thinking, I'm so good, I'm gonna get a promotion, it doesn't happen, someone else gets the promotion ahead of you, you're devastated. And then that then makes you unhappy, um because you weren't really in reality, which might be like,
00:34:43
Speaker
I'm good at my job, but also so are five other people. so I could get a promotion, but so could they. um so That's the kind of daily challenge of stoicism, which is recognize your reality and live in it you know as unpleasant as that may be sometimes. Strip away the illusions. and and how do you i mean how do How do you do that? how are How do you put that into practice? What what are your techniques that you employ?
00:35:10
Speaker
Well, I have to just keep reminding myself. Um, I don't have any tattoos, but if I was to have one, it would say reality, you know, and and I'd have to run reality be in reality, you know, like don't be in a dream world. And there's this great book by a Jesuit priest, a theologian called Anthony de Mello called, um, I think it's called awareness. And it is all about that. It's, um,
00:35:38
Speaker
And the Veda, like a lot of Vedic meditation and Vedic philosophy is about that as well, which is if you so if you see the world for what it really is. um And it's also if you look at nature and take cues from nature. So you'll see animals kill each other. um The natural world is violent. um Things die. um There's seasons. ah that is you know We are part of that. So being in reality um is also about you know looking around. you know What does reality look like for a bird? What does it look like for
00:36:17
Speaker
you know, um, a tree and we are part of that system.
Stoicism and Social Justice
00:36:22
Speaker
So, which is also like a very stoic thing with the, with Gaia. Um, and Marcus talks a lot about that in meditations. So yeah, I just would so look at my wrist if I had a tattoo reality, reality, reality every day, every interaction. I mean, do you find, do you find that your house, your group on reality,
00:36:45
Speaker
Yeah, i think it's I think it's all right. You have to ask somebody. You could ask ah the people close to me and they could see if they disagree. um it's something It's something I definitely work on and it really resonates what you're saying.
00:36:58
Speaker
It's just that idea of living in accordance with the truth, right? The way things are... You quote this passage from Marcus in your book, but this idea of... um yeah The passage he has... Again, I'm gonna paraphrase, but it's like... you know You look at the purple robe, as just like it's just like ah it's just a piece of cloth stained with the dye of a shellfish, or um your you know your big feast is just a corpse of a pig or something.
00:37:25
Speaker
And there's this idea of when we receive these impressions, we we always code them or everything we think we encounter in the world, we're always kind of running through this filter of our own biases and our own perspective. And I see as as you're saying of of reality as cutting through that to the things uncolored by those judgments, which just comes back to this stoic idea of living in accordance with nature.
00:37:47
Speaker
i like that's that's Sounds it always sounds like such an abstract thing live in accordance with nature But it is that thing of you said of just reality reality and i I always think of live in accordance with the way You know the facts of the world the way things really are and and always try to embrace that and accept that as soon as possible um I think your example is great of like, yeah oh, i there's some sort of injustice has happened to me because I didn't get this job. And that ability to actually step back and see the world as it really is and say, well, there was other people that were qualified. And even if there weren't other people that were qualified,
00:38:21
Speaker
People are going to have problems and biases, and my boss is a person, and they then acted out their problems like people with problems do. um Marcus Aurelius has this another another line about you know don't expect a fig tree not to produce figs. and so but Even if an injustice is encountered to you, there's another disconnect with even if you've encountered a real injustice, there's another disconnect from reality to expect not to encounter injustices, to be surprised that something bad has happened. so There's almost those two layers.
00:38:51
Speaker
I think where the tension for me lay in Stoicism, and this is right through the book, um is idealism, you know, I'm an idealistic person, I want the world to be a certain way. um I want it to be a more just world. And um the tension of stoicism is between accepting reality and fighting injustice. So how do you and that's what Andrew and I talked a lot about in our stoic conversations, which was, okay, you want to fight against um climate change or
00:39:28
Speaker
whatever your issue is, problems in the Middle East, whatever it is, how do you how do you reconcile that with stoicism? Like it was a very hard kind of thing to debate. um And we ended up kind of settling on the fact that justice is a virtue. So the stoics didn't completely, um you know, kind of chuck it out. They they saw justice as a virtue, but it it didn't sit that well with epic tettuces.
00:39:57
Speaker
um, you know, dichotomy of control. So im I'm wondering what your, your views are on the social justice issue. Oh, well, I can, I mean, I can always, I, I'm curious about first how how you, was how did you resolve that tension or what did you, and then I'll, I'll jump in because I'm worried I'll, uh, I'll go down a rabbit hole. ah How did you, I totally agree with that problem, but how did, how did you, I guess resolve it or where did you land on it? We'll land with, with the justice principle, um, the justice virtue.
00:40:27
Speaker
My interpretation of the Stoics was that um you should definitely fight for justice, and um and they did. you know like They were powerful people who were very active in public life. um So you should definitely fight, but you shouldn't be um necessarily connected so connected to the outcomes that you're devastated if you don't get what you want.
00:40:55
Speaker
So an example of that was a few years ago, me and a friend, and a friend called Matt, um I used to be a lawyer and we were very interested in the death penalty and did a lot of work around the death penalty, um particularly sending students over to the US to work on death row cases. And then we became interested in death row issues in Southeast Asia and we formed a ah group called the Mercy Campaign that ended up um um advocating for two Australians on death row. And we did we put everything into it. you know We were visited them. We had this website. We were agitating petitions. And um in 2015, the people we were agitating for were executed. So the campaign didn't work. And it was utterly devastating. you know it was
00:41:46
Speaker
um it was you know I still can't really talk about it without getting upset today. um And I thought about that a lot when I was writing the book. I was like, well, what, what would have, you know, had I been a stoic, then what would have changed? Would I have been less upset when they were executed? Like, I don't know, you know, I don't know if I would want to be less upset. Um, but I would have probably been a lot more detached, I think. And, but I still would have fought. So.
00:42:23
Speaker
You know, it's this thing of you fight, but you fight with detachment and you fight knowing that you mightn't win. And if you don't win, you go, okay, well, we didn't win. But when people are killed because you didn't win, it's very hard to be detached.
00:42:36
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's a resonant story. It's a sad story, but I think it's like ah it's a really good example. um My general thought on this is and stoicism says that you know we feel emotions when we care about things, right? And the goal of stoicism is to care about the right things.
00:42:53
Speaker
And so there's kind of two answers here. One is that um you know stoicism has gotten some things wrong and we should care about people dying. That's just a bad thing. Dying unjustly is just a bad thing. And stoicism has you know the right that we shouldn't care about social media, but they're wrong about that. that's That's one answer to it. It's just to kind of change the stoic position, which is a legitimate thing to do. Another thing to do is to say,
00:43:21
Speaker
but there's kind of and ah There's kind of a spectrum of advanced. You have a beginning practitioner and you have an advanced practitioner and like just because the sage can advocate for people on death row and cannot be upset or perturbed genome or disturbed when ah they fail,
00:43:40
Speaker
That doesn't mean um I am a sage yet. That doesn't mean that has to be my response. And also I shouldn't pretend like it's my response. I think that's something I wrestle with in stoicism a lot is I think like if I'm upset about something and you know, one answer is like, one answer is stoicism is wrong and I should be upset about it, but another answer is I'm just not advanced enough yet, but I shouldn't pretend like I'm advanced. I shouldn't try to jump to the step. I should feel that. And if you're going to,
00:44:07
Speaker
If you're going to have an incorrect value judgment, you know much better your incorrect value judgment and you're incorrect your your detachment from reality be about, oh, i've I valued people's lives a little bit too much or in a kind of way where I assumed they were going to live longer than they would. That's a very good vice compared to being over-attached to other kinds of things.
00:44:30
Speaker
So I think it's like in the spectrum of problems, it's a relatively small problem. And maybe it's a large problem in terms of the subjective experience of like going through grief or dealing with those kinds of issues. But I think it's um in terms of progressing, it's like better to make better to better to make mistakes in that area than be, b I don't know, be totally detached in that area and then overly attached to, you know, money or pleasure or something like this. Right. Yeah. Those are my those are my initial thoughts.
00:44:59
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. um And, you know, there's, there's, that's where the justice thing intersects because if you, um so this was the state murdering people, you know, I think that's unjust. I think um if I um touch word, you know, but if I had, if I had a heart attack, like tonight,
00:45:27
Speaker
It's not unjust, it's ah likeings unfortunate, but it's it's also nature, you know it's the body which is subject to the forces of nature. So there's not, it's a it's when they talk about death and suffering, you know is it an unjust death or is it a death that's part of nature? And that's kind of you know part of my thinking now on how I deal with other forms of of grief or other forms of disappointment.
00:45:55
Speaker
This is something that I thought about, I mean, just to build on that. This is something that I'm not sure I have a good answer to, but about you know if virtue and vice are good and bad, isn't the vice of other people bad? like Shouldn't we be upset when the state unjustly murders somebody? Because that is that is not, as you said, it's not a hurricane. or it's not it's it's some it's It is injustice being enacted. And there's like there's something wrong about that. that seems That's something about stoicism that I wrestle too, is about how to how to feel about
00:46:28
Speaker
the vice of other people or like men, yeah like human caused vice, basically. Well, I think where I'm at with that at the moment is that, you know, it's outside our field of control. So you can um what other people do and their vices, you know, you can't change that. um You can be a counterpoint. And I think that's why activism is a good thing. You know, like you, you may not but You may not get your your um result as an activist, but you're showing a counterpoint to something that you think is unjust. So people in a democracy or whatever can see the counterpoint and it gives them something to think about. So if something's not counted, um then it's very hard for people to see the alternative or see how a resistance might happen.
Stoic Detachment and Emotional Balance
00:47:21
Speaker
But it's that detach, it's kind of like, yeah, it's the detachment from the outcome, which is, I think the main sort of stoic thing. And also, I quite like the fact that stoicism gives me permission to not worry about like, how ah what other people are doing, you know, ah I don't have to try and change people like that's, that's a relief. um That's a big burden to carry when you're trying to change everyone around you when you're trying to change governments when you're trying to change your friends when you're trying to change your family, like, you know, so system says, put that down. You can um you just have to focus on yourself. And then you become a ah living kind of active counterpoint to vice if you embrace the virtues. Yeah, there's this there's this I think there's this idea and in this utilitarian way of thinking.
00:48:14
Speaker
which is to say how upset you get about something corresponds to how much you care about it, right? And the stoicism agrees with that to an extent. So there's there's there's an argument there, but it kind of gives you permission to say, well, what you care about, as you said, is how well you're being a counterpoint to that thing.
00:48:33
Speaker
What you care about is how well you're kind of working on yourself and doing your part in that dynamic where you don't allow to upset you or disturb you. it Are those events outside of yourself? um And so that's a way, I think that's what we're landing on. It's a way to be involved. It's a way to be positively influential and it's a way to still care without having um both the, you know both it's it's as you said, it's it's a a heavy load to carry.
00:48:59
Speaker
And it's also kind of ineffective if you get burnt out um or you get discouraged or get angry. um This is a quote from your book that I really like. You said, you're more likely to be an effective agent of justice and change if you channel stoic techniques, including controlling anger. And that's something I agree with. And I always give this example of, you know,
00:49:19
Speaker
I think of the example of a surgeon. where It's like, you know, when you have a surgeon operating on you, does you want that person being like, this is the most important thing I've ever done. Like if this person dies, I don't, I want people to live with myself. It's like, no, you want to, you want somebody who like.
00:49:33
Speaker
recognize it's important, but is is cool and calm because they're totally focused on the execution of their technique. That's the way that I think about it. And it's like, okay, there's nothing wrong with the surgeon doing that. I don't want the surgeon to be upset about the fact that I might die. I want them to be you know focused on themselves and they're still helping. Yeah. And you also you don't want the surgeon who um you know, it wants applause after the operation. Like you want them, which is kind of, um, you know, what we were talking before about like writers, you know, going on good reads or podcasts is going on YouTube and seeing what the comments say.
00:50:11
Speaker
You know, you you want to just focus on the thing itself that you're doing and you want to do it to the best of your ability. And you want also want that in a surgeon. Like you don't want them kind of when you wake up going, how was I? Was I amazing ah in your stomach? Was I great?
00:50:26
Speaker
ah you know that's And they don't operate that way for a reason. so yeah yeah But the counterpoint thing, I think, is another reason why I want to bring Stoltzism much more you know mass audience because it is a counterpoint to so much of what our culture worships at the moment. you know like it The algorithms worship or reward strong responses, angry responses like angry tweets. Get, you know, they are, there is a bias in the machine towards high emotion and it's not being really counted at the moment. You know, we've got a,
00:51:09
Speaker
um We've got to bring the temperature down, I think. And stoicism is a great way of doing that. um And so the more that people can see it, and the more that people can read about it and learn about it, they can say, well, there is a there is a um you know there is an alternative to the very hot kind of atmosphere that we're living in right now. And it's an atmosphere that is is getting hotter because of of the way that you know machines and social media reward certain types of um emotions. And is that what your next book is about? Are you able to talk about that at all?
Storytelling and Stoic Philosophy
00:51:48
Speaker
Yeah, sure. um I finished it this weekend, which is exciting. Congratulations. Thank you. It's actually a fable. So it's ah it's a novel, um a Stoke novel, which has been something I've been wanting to do for ages because I think
00:52:02
Speaker
It can be hard to talk about stoicism in the abstract. It's something that really rewards story and having examples. So yeah, it's about a ah person that goes on a journey to interview a sage and they get given three days with this sage and it's a conversation. um And the conversation covers everything, you know, it covers or the whole, like whole of life stuff that stoicism is so good at. But also things happen to this person on this journey, which means they need, they need the stoicism. So it's, um you know, and it's accessible. So it's not, um it's not necessarily a book where, um you know, it's a simple story and it's a, and people like being told a story. So I'm hoping with this one, which comes out next year, 2025, that,
00:52:56
Speaker
the story element will also bring more people in. You know, it's not just another book, which is, um you know, this is my journey into stoicism. It's more like, this is everyone's journey. And this is the journey of this character. So yeah, I'm excited about it.
00:53:12
Speaker
It's great. I remember talking to Massimo Pigliucci, and he made the point, well you know why people don't read Aristotle? It's because the Stoics had stories. They had anecdotes and examples. And you know you read Epictetus, and it's like these these interesting kind of a day in the life. um You read Aristotle, it's like lecture notes. Yeah, exactly, right? it's like ah And so that's why people don't read Aristotle.
00:53:37
Speaker
And i mean that connects like what you're talking about is that i mean that's that's what Plato did. right that's what um ah that's that's what lots's what lots of that That's a big part of the ancient Greek tradition is making this kind of this myth or this story, characters going on a dialogue and talking to each other about these ideas. um is there ah Is there a favorite, you know along those lines, is there a book, a movie, a story from the Stoics? Is there a story that for you captures the spirit of Stoicism that you find inspirational, you turn to?
00:54:09
Speaker
I'm always interested in the Stoics in exile. like I think that to me is is really interesting. you know the because they were Sometimes we feel exiled and excluded in our lives today. like we um you know, we have a social exile or whatever. um But they these guys were actually like properly exiled. They were sent away to like islands. And and um so how did they deal with that? You know, what were what were they doing there? And how did they cope with it? um Because I like since sort of reading about the Stoics in exile, particularly Seneca, um and I think Missonius Rufus as well was exiled a number of times. You know, you then see exile everywhere.
00:54:52
Speaker
in in today's world, like Navalny, you know, exiled to Siberia. um Anyone who's a refugee, exiled from their homeland. You know, so I think that that's always instructive to me is is how to deal, how did how did they deal with exile? Where can I see exile today? um And I think there's a modern ah stoic, oh God, I've forgotten his name. he He's a great writer though, I've read, John Irving?
00:55:22
Speaker
ah Bill Ervin? Yes, Bill Ervin. Yeah. So he writes about being sent to an aged care home as a form of exile and how we can learn um how we can learn to cope with that from the stoics. So anything on exile is great. I love Seneca's like life story um because you go into all the madness of Nero and you know all the the poisonings and the um um the kind of the ship that that Nero built for his mother that kind of collapsed but she survived and um James Rom's book on Seneca um dying every day I love you know it's a great book and Emily Wilson's is good as well um but yeah gee there's some there's some amazing stories like they lived in incredible times
00:56:12
Speaker
Yeah, that's why, I mean, i'm I'm preaching to the choir here. I think we're both on the stoic team, but sometimes I get defensive when people, they'll hear a story about Epictetus saying, you know, kiss kiss your child on the forehead. And when you do tell them, tell yourself, you know, you too will die. Like my child will die. And people go, Oh, what a terrible philosophy. It's so dark. And it's like, this was a time when people was very, very common for your children to die before you, right? Like it's a very weird thing to kind of,
00:56:39
Speaker
I mean, it's the thing you were talking about. In one hand, they've lived through what we've lived through and they have this perspective and nothing's new. And in other hand, it's a different world. It's like both these things at the same time. ah And ah so that example of exile, it's like that is such a terrible, terrible thing that me like growing up in Canada, that's not really a thing that I considered happening, but it's a thing that happened to many of them and they wrote about and they considered very deeply. And it is still a thing happening in other parts of the world today, as you gave um I never thought about that before, but excellent um an excellent kind of modern examples of of being a refugee, for example, um and being kind of forcibly removed from your community. and so we We need people writing about these things from positions of experience. and I find it empowering this view of, okay, well, if this person can live through that, re-contextualizes my problems, re-contextualizes traffic and some interpersonal
Stoicism in Contemporary Contexts
00:57:35
Speaker
disagreements.
00:57:35
Speaker
um So I find that I find it motivational just to see what people are able to do and survive, not just survive, but survive well. I'm curious about why you think this time, I mean, I think that these times for whatever reason,
00:57:53
Speaker
feel very closely aligned, even though it's completely different, feel very closely aligned with those stoic, kind of almost pre-Christian times. And that what, what, you know, like reading Chaucer and reading Seneca, it's like, how did Chaucer come after Seneca? You know, like the, everything's different, you know, Christianity, like that, the Dark Ages, like, it feels like that's a different world, but the,
00:58:18
Speaker
the world of the Stoics um and their language and their kind of, um their interest in feasting, boozing, you know, like they were, they partied um and they had all these, you know, they had all these teachings on how to deal with kind of hangovers and too much alcohol. And um it feels very modern. And I think that might explain why there's an interest in Stoicism today, but I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that.
00:58:48
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's a good question. it's It's one of those things that I always find hard to answer because, you know, you just kind of know it when you see, like I fell in love with it. I didn't, I didn't respect it. It was like, it just, it just hit me. So the question is, you know, why is it hitting me? um I think part of it for me.
00:59:04
Speaker
the way is that um i did i wasn't I didn't grow up in a religious household. i never So you talk about that North Star and I think that's a really good way of putting it. I never really had a North Star and i I was also resistant to North Stars that were based on faith. I was very resistant to any sort of North Star where I said, OK, well, you should live like this. Why? Well, that's just what it says. Or that's, you know, you just need to believe it or any sort of resistance to argument. And I found stoicism and all ancient Greek philosophy. I just think the stoics are right. I just think they have better arguments than and the others.
00:59:40
Speaker
um But I think that was a way where it's like, here's a North Star and and we'll we'll debate it with you. That's fine. Like we welcome that. I remember there's this line in Marcus Aurelius where he says, you know if somebody can show me that stoicism is false, I'd gladly give it up. I'm i'm after the truth and the truth never hurt anybody. And that goes back to your tattoo about reality, right?
01:00:01
Speaker
um I think that was it, it was in North Star that welcomed questioning. And then so then I guess that's what, but that's ancient Greek philosophy. So why stoicism in particular, for me personally, it it always resonated with self-improvement. I was always really interested in self-development. It came from an athletic background. In terms of why it's appealing to other people,
01:00:27
Speaker
I'm not sure part of it, I think also is historical in that it just actually it actually wasn't accessible to other people. So, you know, why didn't appeal to people in the 40s? Well, people in the 40s just didn't have access to it in the way we do now, which is like.
01:00:42
Speaker
um well-written translations, people like yourself writing accessible books about the topic that people say, well, I didn't study philosophy philosophy or philosophy is boring. Maybe that they they pick up your book, they read reasons not to worry and they go, ah this is actually really applicable. And so um i think I think there's more stoicism now than there ever was before. But at the end of the day, that's a bit of a chicken and the egg. Maybe there is because it's appealing more to people. So I don't know if that's the best answer.
01:01:09
Speaker
Yeah. I just feel like it hits real, you know, like it's, it's, you read it and you're like, wow, that's. Yeah. And you can apply it to the internet. Like that's the crazy thing for me. You can apply it, a lot of how they dealt with insults, um, back in the day, you can apply to beefs on social media. So it's, yeah, I did some of it and I go, how is this, how is this written 2000 years ago? It's so good.
01:01:37
Speaker
I mean, you have that, you have a chapter, it's how to how to deal with social media or how to be on social media, how to be on social media, um which is which is great. You can almost think of that. You can almost feel, I mean, I'm looking at the things here, you'll feel sorry for the insult or use humor.
01:01:52
Speaker
yeah And you can almost feel like x dot.com as the, cause this don't always talk about you receive an impression and you've got to kind of evaluate it. And it's like that is the internet is just nonstop impressions, right? Like that's the best example of just like, look at pages as an impression, you know, how many exactly impression that's a good way of putting it. Yeah. So it's like, there's there's a hundred thousand people that have received an impression. And, you know, as you said, there's the, probably a lot of them got angry.
01:02:21
Speaker
One last question um I wanted to ask is, is we've hit it on this a bit about, you talked about the tension between social justice and ah or just you know just just causes in general, kind of being being an active contributor um and the dichotomy of control.
The Role of Desire in Stoicism
01:02:39
Speaker
We've talked about the highs and the lows and how you know you've you've got to give up some of the highs to keep the lows.
01:02:45
Speaker
Is there anything about stoicism that you actually disagree with or anywhere where it's failed you that you'd say, well, I don't know if I'm a stoic about this. Yeah. At the moment, and in this book, I'm i'm exploring it a lot more, um, is desire. So I think desire is, you know, I can, I can find barely any sort of mention of like sexuality or infatuation or, um,
01:03:14
Speaker
you know, like even just having a crush on someone. ah So it's ah it's such a part of life and it's, um you know, they kind of say, oh, well, you you you can't control if someone else likes you, um so therefore don't.
01:03:31
Speaker
you know, don't have that desire. And I find that an unsatisfying, you know, um it's it's an, it's an unsatisfying principle. and They talk about, it's chrysipidus talking about the cart, you know, with the dog attached and you've got to stop it before it races down the hill. And, um you know, they didn't understand, I guess, hormones, ah neuroscience,
01:03:57
Speaker
um biology, ah the fact that desire is is, you know, it's not necessarily a a switch that you can turn off and on. um Desire will often give us information. um And that includes not just sexual desire, but it includes desire um for justice or desire for an outcome or um I mean, anger is in some ways desire for justice. If you feel like you've been wronged, you get angry. um And Martha Nussbaum, who is I think a Princeton philosopher,
01:04:33
Speaker
wrote a great book called The Therapy of Desire um about this, you know, the the stoic problem with desire. And it's a fantastic book. And um there's a really good podcast called Philosophize This, which I don't know if you've listened to that. that but No, big big fan. I think it's great. Yeah, it's a really good podcast. So he has just done an episode on on Narsbaum and Desire and how it's is that it a It is something that contains information. It's not just something that we should throw out. And the Stokes were kind of saying, oh, well, if it's not in your control, just get over that desire. And it's not that easy.
01:05:17
Speaker
Yeah, I think martha's ah Martha is an amazing um philosopher. I really, really love her stuff. She has one. She's a book called Upheavals of Thought, which is basically, ah it's it's pretty much like a contemporary argument for stoic theory of emotions.
01:05:34
Speaker
I think her work is just ah is fantastic and she's one of those few thinkers that is a world-class ancient Greek philosopher and also writes about contemporary philosophy of motion, contemporary politics, um really, really impressive. The desire stuff I think is interesting. Maybe part of it could be this argument of of we want to live in accordance with nature, but part of our nature is to experience desire and that part of our nature has been not Accepted or embraced enough by the stoics or the way that they talked about it was outdated. I think the stuff about you know sexuality or ah romantic relationships is a
01:06:12
Speaker
um because Because part of what we love about the stoics we talk about is like wow they talk about things like going out to the you know going out to the bath and people are being annoying. like How do you deal with that? Going to work and waking up and not want to get out of bed. So it is it is actually interesting, the amount of the the lack of discussion of like romantic relationships, which is such a fundamental part of it. um I think that's a really, really good point. One of the stoic answers to this, which I'm not sure if you've if you've come across it, is this idea that we should be romantically attracted to other people's characters. So we should like love the virtue of them. ah Yeah,
01:06:49
Speaker
but um but oh yeah I guess that sounds over over intellectualizing it. um I mean, they it could be a societal thing of how they existed back then. So they were very pro marriage because marriage was stability um and it was a great way to raise children.
01:07:09
Speaker
um And you you read like, say the letters, letters to Lucilius or Marcus and is it Frodo, the his former tutor, and they are romantic, you know, there is romance in the friendships, you know, like there is love in the letters. um The way that they talk, greet each other, my dear, you know,
01:07:32
Speaker
blah, blah, I've been thinking about you, you've been on my mind, you know, it's a way that people don't, friends don't talk to each other these days. But there was a lot of romance, I think back then in friendship. um But desire, you know, like, that's, that's the kind of missing part of the puzzle for me. And I think that's why Martha's worth is great, because she's trying to fill in something that, that you know, is is a bit of ah a blank.
Evolving Stoic Philosophy
01:07:58
Speaker
And Seneca said, you know, like, there'll be other, you know, I can't remember the exact quote, but he basically left the door open for people to come in and improve on stoicism. He's like, there'll be others, there'll be science, there'll be other things that come after us. And
01:08:14
Speaker
the philosophy should change according to new discoveries. And I love that flexibility about Stoicism. it it It's not like um Christianity where I'm i'm not, or of many other religions where me as a follower of that is not able to just add on.
01:08:34
Speaker
bits, you know, like it's either in the Bible or it's not. um And you have to have achieved hierarchy in the church in order to kind of suggest doctrinal changes. um Whereas socialism is so egalitarian, it's so open to putting your own spin on it, um to saying, well, what do we know now about the neuroscience or biology of desire?
01:08:59
Speaker
What do we know about the unconscious? We know all this stuff, so let's improve on um what the Stoics said. It comes back to that idea again of of reality, reality. of you know we When we add to Stoicism, we can get it wrong, but um the stoics the Stoics want the theory to correspond with the way things are. And so if we've learned something different about the way things are, ah we should we should add to it or modify. I always think there is this.
01:09:26
Speaker
there can be a There is like a balance you want to strike, which I think is that, or at least in my own practice, which is to kind of understand what what ancient Stoicism was and don't read modern interpretations into it, like kind of keep it as it is. And then you've got on the other side, you've got your your current practice or your current way of reflecting with it. And that is open to modification.
01:09:50
Speaker
But just because it's kind of as long as you don't throw it backwards, I think it's all fair game. And which is to say, you know, you don't want to misread Seneca and and add something into Seneca um because then you're then you're you're losing the value of it if you're changing it. But once it's like, OK, now if If this tradition had continued on, obviously, it would be very different. Obviously, there would be modifications. And so now, as long as we're taking up that spirit, what modifications, what changes can we make both to serve ourselves better, but also to actually represent the way things are, right? Definitely. i Totally agree.
01:10:23
Speaker
um So but just as we're wrapping things up, Bridget, thanks so much for talking with me. um I really love your mission of spreading stoicism to more people.
01:10:35
Speaker
i think your ah Your relationship with stoicism is a ah wonderful one of just somebody who who who wants to put this into practice and wants to help other people do it too. um For those that listen to this episode and want to um engage with more of your work or know more about what's going on, you've got your your book, Reasons Not to Worry. um' so it's a great It's a great book. I recommend it um to anybody listening, but anything else that you would say to those people, anywhere else they can um engage with your work?
01:11:08
Speaker
um So I'm currently a political speech writer. So the work is not, um I'm writing, ah like, yeah I'm writing for politicians. So ah there's nothing current, but I've got eight years of work on the Guardian website. I had a column called Bridget Delaney's diary. So if, and it was like, a lot of them were humorous columns. So if you're interested, um that's on the Guardian website. um I've got four books.
01:11:35
Speaker
reasons not to worry, WellMania, which is also on Netflix, and um a novel called Wild Things, and another book called This Restless Life. And next year, um my stoic novel is coming out, so we'll have to have a chat about that, and I'll make sure you get an advanced copy. And I'm on Twitter, at BridgerWD, B-R-I-G-I-D-W-D. If you do an angry tweet at me, I'll um be very stoic and not respond. Yeah, that's a guarantee. um i say If we can brave Twitter, ah you know put it to the put your stoic stoicism to the test on there. um Great. Thank you so much. Thank you. That was wonderful.
01:12:18
Speaker
Thanks for listening to Stoa Conversations. Please give us a rating on Apple podcasts or Spotify and share it with a friend. If you want to dive deeper still, search Stoa in the App Store or Play Store for a complete app with routines, meditations, and lessons designed to help people become more.
01:12:37
Speaker
Stoic. And I'd also like to thank Michael Levy for graciously letting us use his music. You can find more of his work at ancientlyer.com. And finally, please get in touch with us. Send a message to stoa at stoameditation.com if you ever have any feedback, questions, or recommendations. Until next time.