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Top 7 Things I Learned about Stoicism from Running (Episode 168)
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Ancient and modern Stoics aren't just thinkers - they are runners too.
In this episode, Caleb explores how the simple act of running illuminates core Stoic principles about pain, perception, and perseverance.
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Transcript
Introduction to Stoa Conversations
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to Stoa Conversations. My name is Caleb Ontiveros, and today I'm going to be talking about my Stoa Letter running and stoicism. The top six things I learned about stoicism from running.
Six Lessons from Running on Stoicism
00:00:18
Speaker
So you can check that out at stolatter.com, which is our free weekly newsletter. You'll find short missives from myself and Michael.
00:00:32
Speaker
as well as a handful of guest writers on a weekly and basis. So do check that out. And occasionally I will read from these letters during the podcast and explore some of the ideas in
Insights: Pain Perception and Stoicism
00:00:42
Speaker
more depth. So that's what I'm going to do today.
00:00:46
Speaker
So I've run a handful of marathons, one personal ultra, but I wouldn't say I'm especially accomplished or meddled or anything of that sort. ah But nonetheless, I spent hours and hours running and it has some strong connections with stoicism. So that's what I talked to in this letter.
00:01:09
Speaker
One of the key figures in ancient Stoicism, Chrysippus, was a long-distance runner. I can take some solidarity in the fact that running then is an activity I share with the ancient Stoics. These days, I don't run as often or as far as I used to, but it's still an excellent time to think about philosophy. Running itself demonstrates many Stoic truths.
00:01:33
Speaker
Pain is not in the thing itself, but in our opinion of it. Physical activity makes us less than obvious. Many sensations during exercise feel initially terrible. There's no way around it. So if I woke up and found the tension, soreness, and fatigue in the middle of the night, I would be rightly alarmed. But these same sensations, when experienced during running, take on an entirely different character. The anticipation of a thing is worse than the thing itself.
00:02:04
Speaker
Many of us can relate to the sense that we don't have to go on a run because we fear that it'll be terribly uncomfortable.
Stoic Lessons: Endurance and Habits
00:02:11
Speaker
We'd rather do something else. But as soon as we get our shoes on and get out of the door, we're energized. The anticipation of the thing was worse than the thing itself. Our fear of the future had no reality in it. Pain is temporary. Another related lesson. Pain comes in waves, it builds up, then falls away. It doesn't last.
00:02:35
Speaker
Here's a connected quote from Marcus Aurelius. Just remember you can endure anything your mind can make in durable by treating it as in your interest to do so in your interest or in your nature. Meditations 10, three.
00:02:54
Speaker
Breaking a habit is easier than forming it. As Epictetus says in Discourses 218, every habit in faculty is maintained and increased by the corresponding actions. The habit of walking by walking. The habit of running by running. If you would be a good reader, read. If a writer, write. But when you shall not have read for 30 days in succession, but have done something else, you'll know the consequence. And he reminds us.
00:03:21
Speaker
where the habit at
Helpful vs Harmful Pain in Running
00:03:22
Speaker
first begins to be weakened and then is completely destroyed. All it takes is an instant. If you want to run, do it again and again.
00:03:32
Speaker
Pain is information. Fitness culture often preaches the message that you must overcome pain. This is a skill. Some discomfort is par for the course. It should be defeated. And yet other forms of pain are your body telling you to slow down or worse that it's harmed. Learn to listen to that voice before you become injured. In other words, stoicism isn't about overcoming pain. It's about seeing reality as it is.
00:04:02
Speaker
Finally, the world is beautiful. If you're lucky enough to run through nature, take your headphones out, listen, and look around. The world is a beautiful place. and another quote from Marcus Aurelius. We should remember that even nature's inadvertence has its own charm, its own attractiveness. The way loaves of bread split open on top in the oven, the ridges are just byproducts of baking and yet pleasing somehow. They rouse our appetite without our knowing why. Meditations three, two, one.
00:04:38
Speaker
There you are five lessons. Pain is not in a thing itself, but in our opinion of it, the anticipation of a thing is worse than the thing itself. Pain is temporary. Breaking the habit is easier than forming it.
Exercise as a Stoic Principle
00:04:50
Speaker
Pain is information. The world is beautiful.
00:04:55
Speaker
And just to add to those principles some more, take the first one, pain is not in the thing itself in our opinion of it. The Roman philosopher Cicero puts an excellent statement of this in his fictional philosophical dialogue into the mouth of Cato, so i I'd like to read that, that's from Unends. The mere fact that men endure the same pain more easily when they voluntarily undergo it for the sake of their country than when they suffer it for some lesser cause shows that the intensity of the pain depends on the state of mind of the sufferer.
00:05:25
Speaker
not on its own intrinsic nature. It's a familiar stoic idea and I think brought out perfectly by exercise. Some of those sensations we feel during exercise, discomfort, soreness, tension would be extremely uncomfortable.
00:05:44
Speaker
if you didn't have in mind that they were occurring during exercise, if you didn't have the opinion that exercise it was beneficial for you in some
Overcoming Fear: Seneca and Imagination
00:05:54
Speaker
way. So exercise is a excellent demonstration of of that principle, I believe, running any other ah other form of exercise ah perfect for that.
00:06:04
Speaker
The other principle, the anticipation of a thing is worse than the thing itself. That brings to mind Seneca's quote, we are more often frightened than hurt, and we suffer more in imagination than reality. And I think that's, that's just simply often true for many forms of exercise wanting in particular, you have that. We all all, we're all familiar with that feeling of not wanting to start something and then as soon as if we start it, it's a no problem. We're we're immediately energized.
00:06:36
Speaker
Pain is temporary. Third lesson. I like to think of pain as coming in waves when you're running. And find that that is empirically true. Fatigue comes in waves as well, especially for longer runs. And the question is, can you make it pass that next wave often?
00:06:55
Speaker
And of course, uh, often you can, you can push through pain is temporary. It's not going to last forever. Your body will adjust. I think you can surprise yourself with what, what you're capable of there. Of course, we have to keep in mind the other lesson, the later lesson that pain is information, really any sensation is information. And there does become a point where.
00:07:19
Speaker
Some sensation isn't the kind of thing that you just want to push through, but rather it's an indication that you're injured, you need to slow down. And many people make a mistake by being strong enough in one sense.
00:07:35
Speaker
to push through the pain they're facing, but not strong enough in another to realize that this is a mistake, that doing so is a mistake.
Consistency in Habit Formation
00:07:45
Speaker
Yeah, so they're not strong enough in another sense or that that's connected to their ego, simply wanting to be the kind of person who always pushes through regardless.
00:07:53
Speaker
So, but of course there are many, many stories, personal experiences, perhaps I've certainly done it before where I've pushed myself too hard, pushed through a given pain, only to find out that it actually was quite serious. And, uh, with running, of course, there's particular instances of knee pain or something to always keep in mind, especially as one gets older and be very, uh, and be very careful about because those sorts of injuries can be quite significant and take you out of the game for awhile.
00:08:22
Speaker
right The other principle I mentioned, I skipped ahead a bit, but breaking a habit is easier than forming it. Some nice lines from Epictetus there. Epictetus is excellent on forming habits, and which is an essential part of stoic practice. right Habit, something you do repeatedly, that's an aspect of character. Characters a disposition of being disposed to behave in a particular way. So ah habit is an expression of our character in a sense in a way we can form our character and create new dispositions. And it's a simple fact of reality that it's easier to break a habit than form it. Sometimes all it takes is just skipping one day. So don't do that. Don't do it.
00:09:07
Speaker
Finally, the world is beautiful, always a good reminder. I think nature, often when sox talk about nature, of course they're talking about the universe as a whole, but to what's essentially important are these aspects of the natural world of human accomplishment that you might encounter when running and take time to appreciate that if you're able.
Balancing Immediate Actions and Perspective
00:09:28
Speaker
ah Something that I didn't mention here that I think running is also an excellent illustration of is this integration of the perspectives of the parts and the whole. So I need to give some context to this. the stoics they ah They have two almost contradictory practices. You see Marcus Aurelius talking about circumscribing himself to the present, being focused moment to moment, acting as if each one were his last. That's one perspective, that momentary perspective. you
00:10:01
Speaker
see But on the other hand, he also takes this view from above. you know He reminds himself that this is just one moment among many. You're just one human among the millions that have come before. What you see in front of you isn't as special as you think it is.
00:10:17
Speaker
um And of course in modern days we can think about zooming out, viewing ourselves from above, both from, we Michael and I have talked about this, so both in the spatial sense, seeing yourself as a tiny speck on ah floating rock and such, or but also in the temporal sense, you know, your sliver of time is minuscule compared to the whole story of humanity to say nothing about the whole story of the universe.
00:10:43
Speaker
So how do you make sense of that? what One way to, I think, make sense of this tension between the perspective of the whole, the perspective of the part is given by running, where in running, something that is can be useful, it's thinking of especially if you're doing a longer run, breaking it up into segments and almost thinking about yourself as different people on those segments. you're know You're running a relay race and each moment your job is just to take the next step at the right pace that you've determined. So you know you can imagine before a race thinking, I want to make this time, what's required to make this time? ah you know At this point, how fast and do I need to be going? At this point, don know do I need to adjust for the elevation changes? What have you?
00:11:28
Speaker
And having a sense that, you know, you want to keep a given pace for perhaps the whole race, a common strategy, keeping the same pace, of course. And think of yourself maybe for each mile, each half mile, whatever it is, as so your sole role is just to go that pace. And you can think about this and essentially as circumscribing yourself to the present, just taking that next step to keep yourself at going the right pace. That's the perspective of the part.
00:11:56
Speaker
But what's essential here is to remember that in the moment you're just taking that one step, running a relay race with yourself as it were. But you've also thought about the perspective of the whole. At least you should have. You should have thought about you know, what's ah what's essential is thinking about what's the right pace for me for this race. yeah How do I fit all of these segments and into a speed that makes sense? So one way to break out of this metaphor then is to think about day-to-day it's action by action, you know, simply being present doing the right thing.
00:12:36
Speaker
But determining what the right thing is, of course, is a project that requires taking the larger perspective. It requires seeing the whole and getting a sense of what your role is and how you play it within the larger networks that you are embedded
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:12:54
Speaker
in. So that's ah a long-winded way, perhaps, to describe another connection that I see between running and stoicism and not one that's talked about as much and not one that I mentioned in this essay.
00:13:06
Speaker
Well, thanks for listening. I hope you find these useful. Do you reach out to us, stoa at stoameditation.com. Um, if you have any additional ideas and and especially if you connected with any of these lessons or during running or some other form of exercise, you found, you found other stoic lessons, other connections that you think are essential that people might get value out of. And I'd be happy to think about it and perhaps talk about it some more as well. Bile.
00:13:34
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.
00:13:53
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.