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Allan John and What Is Stoicism (Episode 96)
789 Plays1 year ago
“Stoicism is not so much an ethic as it is a paradoxical recipe for happiness.”
Caleb speaks with Allan from What Is Stoicism about the practice of Stoicism as a philosophy of daily life.
They discuss how they think about Stoicism, the work of Pierre Hadot, underrated ideas in Stoicism, and their Stoic practices.
https://whatisstoicism.substack.com/
https://whatisstoicism.com/what-is-stoicism/
(00:33) Allan's Story
(04:59) What Is Stoicism?
(10:54) An Underrated Stoic Idea
(18:18) Stoic Exercises
(28:06) Widening The Domain of Being
(31:48) Philosophy As Gardening
(35:10) Refined Selfishness
(39:55) Stoic Meditation
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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 and Importance of Stoic Meditation
00:00:00
Speaker
point is that it helps you get into the habit of planning stoic principles you're thinking so maybe that comes into more you learn about stoicism or you can meditate on how your own thoughts and actions could be improved by following the principles which we think gives you the platform to go on and implement
Meet the Guest: Alan John and His Stoic Journey
00:00:17
Speaker
that.
00:00:17
Speaker
Welcome to Stoa Conversations. In this conversation, I am speaking with Alan John from What is Stoicism, a popular website, newsletter, and podcast. Thanks for joining. Thanks, Caleb. Good to be here. So let's start with this broad question. What's your story?
00:00:36
Speaker
My story, my story in terms of being interested in Stoicism philosophy in general, I was someone who for a long time just didn't have much exposure to philosophy at all, to be able to appreciate the potential benefits of it. And probably fell under that stereotypical mindset of thinking it was a kind of luxury or, you know, the domain of the intimidatingly intellectual person who
00:01:06
Speaker
Well, it was types of people were allowed to study or something like that.
Influences and Practicality of Ancient Philosophy
00:01:09
Speaker
But probably about 10 years ago, that started to change a little bit when I was listening to Tim Ferriss' podcast.
00:01:19
Speaker
who had been a fan of for a long time. And he started to talk more and more about stoic philosophy around that time, particularly the work of Seneca. But it wasn't until we sort of Tim Ferriss spoke more of the therapeutic benefits of stoicism and I decided to explore it more and eventually went on to reading William B. Irvine's book, A Guide to the Good Life, which I think he had recommended.
00:01:43
Speaker
And around that time too, he had Derek Sivers on as a guest a couple of times. And his way of thinking really kind of opened my eyes to different ways of thinking really. So he was saying things like, you know, he was asked, who would you consider to be successful? And he was saying things like sort of going against the common conception of success as being wealth and fame and saying that
00:02:13
Speaker
to know who is successful, you have to know what their aims are. For example, if Richard Branson set out to live a quiet life, but like a compulsive gambler, he can't stop creating companies. It changes everything, he can't call them successful. So that was just one example of kind of things that made me think a bit differently. But sort of the real point of that was that Derek Sivers also brought up a guy to the good life. And he said that,
00:02:43
Speaker
In that book, William B. Irvine says something like, if you ask a modern philosopher, what should I do with my life? That'll probably say something like, well, it depends what you mean by do. It depends what you mean by life, all this kind of stuff. Whereas you go back to the ancient philosophers, ask them what you should do with your life.
00:03:03
Speaker
they'll say, do this, do that, pursue this, don't pursue that, exactly what you should do with your life. So yeah, I was getting the impression at that time that ancient philosophy is a practical thing and that's kind of why it interested me then to look into it more. And this whole concept of learning how to live and then actually trying to live that way.
00:03:27
Speaker
So that's kind of my story and it's maybe not the most common route into being interested in philosophy. But I think that's kind of the point that it's really opened up with everyone and can't benefit
Sharing Stoicism: Website and Social Media
00:03:41
Speaker
everyone. Yeah, I do like the Derek Sivers essay, there is no speed limit. I think that's one of my favorite essays about learning piano.
00:03:50
Speaker
How did you start working on the website then? What was the move from learning about stoicism to making that learning public, helping others learn about stoicism too? I think it started initially with creating social media accounts just to try to share my thoughts on what I was discovering at the time, sharing quotes that interested me. And then the more I did that, the more I wanted to
00:04:18
Speaker
go a bit deeper and actually write blog posts and just explore my thinking a bit more and clarify my thinking, which I think writing really helps with and to get that interaction with other people too. So I sort of felt that because I started being interested in philosophy out of nothing and really felt that it was beneficial, it'd be a lot of people out there who would be in the same position of perhaps never discovering it if they
00:04:48
Speaker
didn't find an easier path into it.
Defining Stoicism and Its Core Virtues
00:04:54
Speaker
That was kind of the motivation behind it as well as trying to further my own learning at the time. Right, right. How do you define stoicism? What's your first past definition at the life philosophy? I would say that my definition of stoicism seems to evolve over time. It changes depending on what I'm reading.
00:05:16
Speaker
And hopefully that's a good sign that I'm actually starting to understand it a bit. And so to put it simply, I would probably say that it's a philosophy that gives us guidance that we can apply to give ourselves the best chance of living a good life. And that guidance is ancient wisdom from over 2000 years ago that has been durable and useful enough and valued enough.
00:05:45
Speaker
for people to actually want to preserve it until the current day. It's a balance of theory and practice. So it's not just a set of doctrines to memorize and to be it, but it's a way of thinking and acting to be learned and applied in the world. And in terms of what it actually entails, obviously stoicism centered around the four virtues of justice, temperance, wisdom, and courage.
00:06:12
Speaker
you know, the practical applications of those in terms of our thoughts and tensions and actions should all be carried out with reference to those virtues and things like treating others well, cultivating self-discipline, examining our judgments and basing our fears.
The Three Disciplines of Stoicism
00:06:30
Speaker
I also really like the three disciplines structure that I've talked a lot about.
00:06:38
Speaker
which I think can be helpful when defining stoicism. Maybe it's something that's more accepted by people who have been learning about stoicism for a little while. Maybe it's not something that you would dive straight into. I don't know what you think about that. Yeah, it's an interesting question. I think probably
00:06:59
Speaker
Uh, we don't introduce the idea of the three disciplines initially in our, in our first definition, which I think, uh, you know, if I'm talking to someone about, so it says, I would say something very close to what you just said, you know, it's a life philosophy, a vision of what the good life is. And also practices about how to attain it, how to actually walk on that path.
00:07:19
Speaker
as it were. That includes specific exercises, you know, it's pure hado called them spiritual exercises. And of course, when you're thinking about the vision of the good life, you have this picture of it's a virtuous one, it's one that's lived in accordance with nature. And you can sketch that out, add more detail with the four cardinal virtues.
00:07:41
Speaker
And then the three disciplines I think is a very useful idea for, you know, maybe once you have that idea of stoicism, how can you get deeper? How can you think about those three domains of desire, judgment, and action? How can you think of those as different?
00:07:58
Speaker
knobs to be improving or what have you, I think is a useful way to progress in stoicism. So that's certainly something we talk about a lot as well after that first introduction. Yeah, I think it's good that you mentioned Pierre because his book, The Under Citadel, really goes into great depth on the three disciplines and that's probably something that's opened my eyes to how useful that can be.
00:08:28
Speaker
quite recently too. It's not something that I think I would have really appreciated a few years ago. It's a very in-depth book and not an easy read by any means.
00:08:41
Speaker
Once you kind of have a good grinding and then dive in, start diving into that stuff, it really starts to make sense. Yeah, it's an excellent book. I love, I love Bierdo's book. I think it's one of those that has influenced many people in modern Stoicism, especially from Donald Robertson to Ryan Holiday. I think if you read the Meditations by Marcus Aurelius too, and you probably think that
00:09:05
Speaker
or at least I thought that I knew what it was about until I read Piero do's inner citadel and it really sort of made me realise that a lot of hidden patterns in Marcus realizes meditations and that he's basically completing a philosophical exercise for the whole, or for most of his book.
00:09:28
Speaker
Right, right.
Intention in Stoicism and Its Impact
00:09:29
Speaker
And how much influence Epictetus had on him and how he's thinking about those three disciplines from Epictetus. Quoting Epictetus, probably rephrasing Epictetus in his own words and other points. That's another thing that I was very good at. Yeah, for sure.
00:09:48
Speaker
And I think one nice fact about Hado also is that he just spent so much time quoting at Bictetus and Marcus Aurelius. So I think it might be, although it is somewhat dense, I think it can be, for some people, useful to read along.
00:10:03
Speaker
in the inner citadel with meditations, if you're struggling with it, because he will show you some of those connections between those different passages. And then with just a little bit of commentary, what's behind these otherwise short lines, short statements from Marcus Aurelius. How's it grounded in Epictetus? How's it grounded in these other stoic ideas? Yeah, definitely adds a whole new layer to it. I mean, you can read Marcus Aurelius' meditations as a standalone book and still get
00:10:31
Speaker
a lot of value from it. A lot of the short passages are very direct and self-explanatory. But when you look at the next layer in terms of those explanations and how they come from appetitious and how they adhere to a certain structure, then yeah, it's, it's all the more useful. Right, right.
00:10:57
Speaker
Well, one question I have that I'm curious to hear your take on is, you know, so what's a stoic idea that is going to be underrated among people who know about stoicism? They've heard about, you know, they have some sense of what the philosophy is. Maybe they started to practice it. What idea sort of comes to mind for you, for you there? So one thing I've been thinking about recently is the importance of intention.
00:11:22
Speaker
And I'm not sure if this is widely underrated, but it's possibly neglected as a topic, as it doesn't sound very exciting. Certainly underrated myself, but... So for the Stoics, it wasn't always results of their actions that mattered, but actually the intention to do good with those actions, and that's probably something that again comes from a good explanation by Pierre Hadeau, you know, and given the externals and the uncertainties that can interfere with any action,
00:11:49
Speaker
We can't always guarantee the success of an action even if, you know, taking that action was up to us. So in terms of the success of an action, the Stoics would probably place a greater focus on the intention behind it and specifically that the intention was one of virtue or moral good rather than some kind of pleasure or external gain. And so it's the awareness of the value of doing good for its own sake that can
00:12:17
Speaker
can really increase peace of mind and which ironically can lead to more effective actions when the outcome isn't a source of tension. You know, you're not so attached to the outcome that it becomes the one issue when you're actually trying to achieve that outcome. So essentially within the intention of doing good that virtue is found for Stoics, as far as I understand it, and there's a,
00:12:45
Speaker
a line from Seneca where he says that the reward for all virtues is lies in the virtues themselves. You know, the wages of a good deed is to have done it and be signed like it promotes a kind of apathy when it comes to fulfilling intentions or, you know, successful actions. But, um,
00:13:08
Speaker
you know like you would just give something a shot and give up if it doesn't succeed but right right intentions to do good or you know also determined um also determined and prepared to face obstacles too so you know there's a kind of perseverance there too if something does feel yeah so that was kind of something that i underrated for
00:13:30
Speaker
for quite a while and I think it's more important than I thought it was. Yeah, I suppose on one hand, of course you have the idea, there are some things that are up to you, others that are not, what is up to you, your decisions, your judgments, see how you use your attention. And that's always a good idea to keep in mind. And one additional sort of fact that follows from that is when you're thinking about action, interacting with the world,
00:14:00
Speaker
what is up to you is just going to be that decisions you have, what you intend to accomplish with your actions, not so much the results themselves, as you say. And I do think there's
00:14:15
Speaker
There's a nice link there, too, I think, between some concerns that some people have that, so it might be too passive, or how do you relate to this idea about, okay, I understand that I'm separate from externals, but how do I relate to externals?
Misconceptions and Challenges in Stoicism
00:14:31
Speaker
And that's that link, at least one of the links, perhaps, is intentioned, intending to bring about good effects.
00:14:39
Speaker
by managing indifference. Well, um, I think, I think that's a, that's a good, always a good point to highlight. I think that's kind of where the reserve pause comes from too, isn't it? It's, you know, I will complete this action unless something prevents me. There's always that kind of mental, um, mental note.
00:15:03
Speaker
before undertaking an action that it could feel. So obviously to be prepared for that, which is useful.
00:15:13
Speaker
Yeah, I think it gives you a kind of ease or a more directed way to interact with the world. Directed may not be the best word, but there's a sense in which, given that you're less invested in the outcome, now you can, of course, focus on making whatever decision is best in the moment. And that's sort of all you need to do. And, you know, let the cards fall what they may. Can be very freeing, I think.
00:15:42
Speaker
Yeah, it can be misunderstood just when you said about passivity previously there. I think some people possibly think that the acceptance of an outcome is passivity, whereas it's maybe more helpful to think of it as accepting what can't be changed as a platform to then focus on what can be changed.
00:16:09
Speaker
I don't know if you find that people think that too. Is acceptance being passivity? Yeah, on occasion, I think people will make that move. Probably more often critics of stoicism, I think, or maybe someone just very who's at the very beginning stage is figuring out what's going on. And then, yeah, I think people can make that move.
00:16:32
Speaker
The other thing that I think what you just said just brought to mind is it helps make sense of the famous line that the obstacle is the way, the impediment to action advances action.
Daily Practices and Stoic Application
00:16:43
Speaker
Why is that? Because it's just the fact that you need to deal with.
00:16:50
Speaker
your next decision, you should take that into account, how you respond to whatever happened, that's what's next. And you can take into account maybe even the benefits of whatever obstacle arises. There's some nice examples of this in business, I think, where
00:17:05
Speaker
people who are both successful business skilled and also have a lot of fun. They often have this approach to adversity where if someone sees a bad market outcome, they're initially going to think about how exposed and lied to this, how ruinous is this bad market downturn going to be whereas others might think, okay, this is just a fact, the market
00:17:29
Speaker
take a turn for the worse, that's going to open up all these other opportunities that I wasn't thinking about before, even if it is going to come with serious costs, right? It's just that other frame that is usually useful to get into faster than not. I think that's a useful example for me. Yeah, I've heard Donald Robertson talk along these lines where he says that an awfulness of a situation
00:17:57
Speaker
The proof that that comes from our judgments is that one person can react one way and a different person can react a different way to the exact same situation. So the situation is the same, but the difference comes in the judgment of the different person. So I think that's a useful way to think about that.
00:18:18
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. What sort of stoic exercises or I suppose principles do you apply to find yourself applying in your daily life? So the thing that really helps me do that, first of all, is daily writing. I'm writing my daily newsletter because for that, I generally focus on one idea per day.
00:18:49
Speaker
and that's very helpful because it's one idea that can be practiced in that day and it's usually around 300 words and obviously I produce that primarily for the benefit of subscribers but I find that it also serves as a kind of ritual for me and that whatever I'm writing about is you know the one thing that I can then
00:19:15
Speaker
try to apply as a principle. So I try to cover a comprehensive range of themes each day and repeat those regularly in the hope that it's an effective way to really facilitate the practice of stoicism in a way that kind of seems effortless in a way, but really it's not. It's a repetition and it's writing about things that I've read and learned and trying to explain it to others too.
00:19:44
Speaker
So not only does a reader digest a new idea each day, they're also encouraged to reflect on how they're actually applying the idea in their lives and how they might go about improving that. So obviously I'm doing the same thing while I'm trying to provide that to them. But aside from that, I try to make decisions with reference to the stoic virtues as much as possible, separate what's within my control from what isn't.
00:20:11
Speaker
and really try to place as much focus on the present as I can so that I'm not wasting too much time regretting in the past or worrying about the future, which probably was much more prone to do before we got into practice stoicism. All those things can be pretty difficult to do at times, but if you do start small by routinely doing them,
00:20:40
Speaker
especially when you're calm and relatively unbothered, then you become more able to do than when it's more difficult or when you're faced with a problem. For example, you start separating what you can and control from what you can't when you break a glass, I think was the example Epictetus used. And if you find that to be helpful, you can progress to more important things. It becomes easier to do that.
00:21:10
Speaker
The other thing I like to practice is the exercise of objective representation, where you try to describe things in the most unemotional, matter-of-fact way possible as a means of decatastrophizing worries or seeing an object of desire for what it really is. Basically,
00:21:31
Speaker
We build up a lot of stories about things in our minds or we're directly fed those stories and it can be helpful to try to see those kinds of judgments and proceed through them and get a better distance from them and I think that exercise really helps.
Starting Small and Practical Stoicism
00:21:46
Speaker
Yeah, the classic example or one of the classic examples I suppose of that is Marcus Aurelius and meditation 613 where he talks about the purple robe and how it's nothing more than the some sheep's wool and
00:22:03
Speaker
the blood of a shellfish. And as you say, I think it's useful to do that sort of thing when we've built up stories around some object of our desire or some thing that has to do with and Marcus Aurelius' case status and the fact that he's trying to think about how to make excellent decisions as an emperor without losing his head like many of the former Roman emperors may have.
00:22:29
Speaker
in the face of all the signs of opulence, power, and so on. So I think that's an excellent one for decision-making generally. And then also if you think about catastrophizing, yes.
00:22:43
Speaker
trying to, to the extent that you can describe things in objective terms without making unnecessary value judgments. That's always a good exercise. How do you think about applying those sort of in day-to-day moments, either that or of course other study principles as well? But I think many people they'll say, I understand I have the principles, but I'm struggling to
00:23:10
Speaker
use them when it matters. I either forget or they're not in front of my mind for whatever reason. I don't know if you have any advice or just noted things in your own life that might be useful to know about.
00:23:24
Speaker
It can be difficult, it definitely can, but just from what I was saying previously, I think the smaller you can start, really, you know, if you can really start small, do one small thing per day, as long as you can.
00:23:42
Speaker
In practical terms, it might be a case of writing something in the morning, journaling your thoughts, writing down what you recently read about Stoicism or a principle that has resonated with you or something like that, and then just focus on that one thing for that day. One of the things that the Stoics did was condense a lot of the
00:24:10
Speaker
larger points and principles in this shorter phrases to make them more memorable, which is very helpful. I think that's a good exercise for for anyone to do but there's also obviously ready-made sort of aphorisms from Epictetus and Seneca and Marcus Aurelius that you can you can use yourself or note down in your own you know your own notebook and revise over those things that they might
00:24:39
Speaker
come back to you more readily when you need them. I think it can be difficult to see how you can do that when you're just starting out. But I think that's one of the main points is that stoicism really is a practical philosophy and it has to be applied that once you begin to learn something, you then have to have the inclination to then try to practice it. But as I say,
00:25:10
Speaker
It's not going to all happen at once, and if you can start with one thing and focus on that for a while, it becomes more habitual, I think. Yeah, I think so. I think that the idea of always starting small, being specific, and then that other thought of just keeping those principles
00:25:30
Speaker
in mind, internalizing them, either remembering phrases from the aesthetics themselves, putting them into your own words. They advocated keeping those principles ready at hand for a reason, just as having them be useful rules of thumb, reminders for what to do when an obstacle arises or what have you. So I think a quick example of that is
00:25:58
Speaker
I love Marcus Aurelius' aphorism, the universe is transformation, life is opinion. It's very short, easy enough to remember, but has so much of the philosophy in it. The universe is transformation, the fact of change, things are temporary, always moving, always in flux, a reminder not to grip onto things too tightly. And then you have
00:26:26
Speaker
life is opinion. That's just the stoic view of emotions, the fact that interpretation shapes how we experience events. And you can also read into it the importance of knowledge, making that move from opinion to
00:26:45
Speaker
having beliefs that aren't merely opinions, but true in a sense that they're justified and get at the root nature of reality to the extent that you can. And when you can't, maybe suspending your desires. So it's so short, but there's a lot there. And I think it's useful to come back to when an event comes up or even just during those transition moments in a day when you have a time to pause.
Philosophical Reflections and Broader Perspectives
00:27:11
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. There's one that stuck with me from Marcus Aurelius to quite a short one, but there's more behind it. He says, if it's not right, don't do it. If it's not the truth, don't say it. Your impulses should be under your control.
00:27:28
Speaker
So, you know, in general, it's just good advice on its own and a good reminder to do the right thing and be honest at all times, which is great. But it's also that kind of prompt to look a bit deeper and understand, well, what is the right thing and what is the truth? And, you know, to examine your impulses and impressions and to ensure you're applying your ability to reason. And, you know, as I so explained, characterise it and to do that as best as you can.
00:27:56
Speaker
So yeah, I think a lot of those lines are a lot deeper than they appear, even though they can be useful on their own too. Right, right. Yeah, exactly. So a few of your newsletters stuck out to me, so I'd love to ask you about them and have you say a little bit more about them. So one of them is on widening your domain of being. What does that mean? How does that connect to philosophies of life?
00:28:25
Speaker
I would like to say that I had come up with that phrase myself. I didn't. I got that particular phrase from Nan Sheppard, who was a Scottish mountaineer and a poet who basically used her hill walking experiences as inspiration for her writing. So he died in about 1981.
00:28:49
Speaker
I think her image is currently featured on the Bank of Scotland five pound notes, but basically she's best known for a book called The Living Mountain, which is about her hill walking and things like that. So she said,
00:29:08
Speaker
She's talking about the mountain range and being in nature and things, and she said that simply to look on anything such as a mountain with the love that penetrates to its essence is to widen the domain of being in the vastness of non-being. Man has no other reason for his existence.
00:29:28
Speaker
And so when I came across that, it really reminded me of the stoic notion that our life is what our thoughts make it. It also sort of invokes the importance of fully focusing on the present to really experience each moment to its fullest, especially when you're surrounded by nature.
00:29:49
Speaker
and the simple but amazing things that are easy to miss, you'd hear familiarity with them, which can happen every day. By being grateful for everything and to take in as much as possible, it widens your demean of being and broadens your perspective of life. That's always really inspiration behind that one. Yeah, I love it. It reminds me of the posture that
00:30:18
Speaker
You see it in Marcus Aurelius too, around how he will know what's beautiful in nature, how things are connected to a much larger whole. He mentions in the flex of foam on a boar's mouth and how that's connected to, of course, the boar, but also how the boar plays a whole role in its ecosystem, as well as different facts like the cracks of
00:30:43
Speaker
on top of a loaf of a bread and how that too has its own beauty. And if you can see things properly, if you're attuned to them properly, you'll see how beautiful they are as things that fit into a much larger whole. Yeah, it's kind of like the more simpler things that you can notice or take joy in and the more there is to take joy in, which is
00:31:09
Speaker
There are more sources of joy on a daily basis if you're noticing more of what's readily available. Yeah, I don't know if I'm reading the phrase correctly, but to me, widening your domain of being means being more open to those kinds of experiences, recognizing that.
00:31:30
Speaker
Often we have a sort of narrow perspective on things that'll cause us to miss just how valuable or good people things the art is that surrounds us. Yeah. Excellent, excellent. Well, how is philosophy just like gardening?
Virtue Ethics and Self-Interest
00:31:52
Speaker
This one's probably a bit of a cliche. It's like,
00:31:59
Speaker
Just like a gardener tends to their plans steely, the philosopher can cultivate their thoughts and attitudes regularly, that kind of thing. You know, one of those digging in the dirt and the other one's digging into your own mind and garden needs attention to care.
00:32:15
Speaker
or attention and care to grow, but so does our inner world. And the apictetus said that no great thing is created suddenly anymore than a bunch of grapes or a fig. Let it blossom, then bear fruit, then ripen. So just like the gardener has to patiently tend to their plants over time, we have to be patient with ourselves as we practice philosophy.
00:32:43
Speaker
It's kind of like what we're talking about earlier. You can't suddenly expect to have all the answers or be free from negative thoughts overnight, but it takes a time and effort to cultivate a healthy mind.
00:32:54
Speaker
you know, a few other things that the garden can bring you joy and nourishment in the shorter term, but so too you can practice some philosophy for self-improvement. It's not all, it's not all long-term, you know, shorter term gains to be had there too. So you can learn to be more present and appreciate the little things as we're talking about too, and be kinder to yourselves and others. You know, there's just things you can start doing straight away. And yeah, obviously the gardener has
00:33:24
Speaker
plenty of unexpected things that they have to deal with too, so they'll be following. It teaches us vice as well as with philosopher and that it's not what happens but how you react to it that matters. You know if there's some kind of infestation in their garden plot or something like that then you know it's happened they can't control that but they can control how they respond to it so
00:33:50
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's the parallels between gardening and practicing philosophy.
00:33:55
Speaker
When I was younger, I would help a older neighbor garden. And it was at once a bit of a chore, but also very pleasurable. I thought it was sometimes very fun as well. And I realized it has a social aspect, gardening, or at least it can have a social aspect. I suppose people approach it differently. And perhaps there's that connection in philosophy too, where you see so much philosophy happens in dialogue.
00:34:23
Speaker
like what we're doing now, but of course you have the earlier examples at this, sort of unfamiliar with examples of Socrates talking to his friends and thinking through what, you know, what their thoughts and subjecting themselves to criticism, inquiry. Yeah, I think that's something that is probably under really quite a bit is that, you know, the social aspect of
00:34:48
Speaker
philosophy and the fact that it's not just an isolated pursuit, you know, it's really to do with the, you know, the virtue of justice and community and treating others well and making your, your actions with reference to, to the common good, which doesn't just benefit other people, but benefits you also. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting. How is stoicism or a fine kind of happiness?
00:35:16
Speaker
I think the title of this one is actually a refined kind of selfishness, possibly, which I took from Anthony D'Amelio. In his book, Awareness, I think it was. So he basically says that even people seeking to benefit others are really seeking to benefit themselves.
00:35:41
Speaker
Um, not only, not only should we buy that in mind, but we should accept it rather than, you know, treating it with cynicism. Um, so he says charity is really self-interest masquerading out of the form of altruism. Uh, and there's two types of selfishness. The first type is where you give yourself the pleasure of pleasing yourself. And that's self-centeredness.
00:36:06
Speaker
Whereas the second is giving yourself the pleasure of pleasing others, which is a more refined kind of selfishness. So as the Stoics would maybe say, when you try to inflict harm on someone else, you're actually harming yourself because you're stealing your character in a way, you know, and making yourself a worse person. But the same applies when you benefit someone else and that you're benefiting yourself too.
00:36:29
Speaker
by improving your character and actually getting a good feeling from it in the process. So I think that's the idea of a refined kind of selfishness, as Anthony de Mello puts it, and to please someone else and see how pleasurable it is. It's kind of a win-win situation. I suppose if you think about the account of virtue, what is
00:36:51
Speaker
the virtuous life, it's a happy one. And of course, it's in our self-interest to be happy. So you could think of that as doing what in fact benefits us and that having a significant overlap with what benefits others, where at once individuals, but also of course people who are living in these larger communities,
00:37:17
Speaker
And that might be maybe another underrated aspect of Stoicism because it sort of challenges both Stoicism and I should say many other ancient forms of virtue ethics challenge the common dichotomy between altruism and egoism. You'll usually see both I think in popular discussions of ethics, but also of course in some of the key main ethical competitors to virtue ethics as well. There's a stark divide between
00:37:47
Speaker
what's in your self-interest and what's more altruistic, but many of the ancients didn't see things quite in that light.
00:37:57
Speaker
Yeah, that's well put. So how do you think about finding that place where it's not that first kind of selfishness, but it's the second kind? How do you think about being that kind of person? Maybe this comes down to that sort of virtue of justice. How do you think about approaching that, developing that trait?
00:38:19
Speaker
That's kind of tricky one too. It's hard to know what the balance is sometimes. We'll go back to the sort of the domain of action. I think that sort of the instruction there was that more or less all your actions should be done with reference to the common good, essentially. But it's hard to know, you know, sort of the idea of ego as you were talking about too is
00:38:48
Speaker
What are your intentions behind the action that you're performing? Are you genuinely trying to treat someone's kindness with fairness? Or are you doing it for some kind of personal game or reputational game? Which, if it happens as a result of that, it may not be the worst thing in the world. But if that's the main motivation, then perhaps it's not the best intention to begin with.
00:39:17
Speaker
Yeah, I suppose you always have that reminder. You want right action, also right intention at the right time. And thinking about things, not just from, okay, what's the right thing to do, but also do I have the right intentions?
Purpose and Practice of Stoic Meditation
00:39:35
Speaker
And of course those are going to come together.
00:39:39
Speaker
But perhaps it's easier I think for many to think about what the intentions are to begin with and then given that those are in fact the intentions putting in the relevant effort or developing the relevant skills to do the do the right thing.
00:39:55
Speaker
So something else you've thought a lot about is stoic meditation and different exercises, guided exercises people can do to practice stoicism. So I suppose the first question there is, what do you think makes meditation distinct from other forms of meditation? Why do people find it so valuable?
00:40:20
Speaker
sound a bit repetitive here, but probably the actual intention behind stoic meditation is maybe what makes it distinct from other forms. With certain types of mindfulness meditation, as far as I understand, there shouldn't really be a great intention when you begin the session of that. You're not necessarily making an effort to empty your mind or achieve a state of serenity as much as you're just experiencing the moment and
00:40:50
Speaker
in the feelings in your body and your environment and things like that. But I think that the ancient Stoics meditation meant more of a conscious contemplation of philosophical principles and attempt to create an inner dialogue that allowed them to reflect on their impressions and inform judgments based on those. So I think it can be a really important part of a philosophical practice because it's
00:41:18
Speaker
It's another sort of vehicle for repetition, if you like. It helps to really cement the type of thinking you're trying to adopt from stoicism.
00:41:30
Speaker
You know, it can take many forms too, so you could meditate on a stoic text you've just read, or on what your intentions are for that day, or, you know, how you reacted to a certain situation. Possibilities are endless, really, but the point is that it helps you get into the habit of playing the stoic principles of your thinking, so maybe that comes into, you know, the more you learn about stoicism, the more you can meditate on how your own thoughts and actions could be improved.
00:41:59
Speaker
by following the principles, which we think gives you the platform to go on and implement that. So what I've tried to do with some of my content, what you've done brilliantly with Stoa is sort of combine mindfulness with stoic meditation and give people the opportunity to be guided in the practice. And that can be really helpful because people don't have to figure that out for themselves. Yep. Yep. Yeah, absolutely.
00:42:25
Speaker
The purpose behind stoic meditation is always central. I think maybe you can think of mindfulness. People do mindfulness meditation for a whole range of different reasons, sometimes to address just a negative emotion, remove that negative emotion from their life, other times to improve productivity, or perhaps there's a spiritual purpose as well. And then with stoic meditation, it's always
00:42:55
Speaker
geared towards its purpose, its telos, if you will, just as becoming more stoic. What does that mean? It means becoming more resilient, of course, but also developing excellent character and doing these kinds of exercises to develop one's mind that involves
00:43:11
Speaker
increasing your attention and awareness, but also thinking about, as you say, what are the decisions that I'm going to be making in my life? How am I going to handle different circumstances? And using meditation as a gym to think through different situations that might arise and how to handle them properly when they do or if they do.
00:43:34
Speaker
Yeah, it's an underrated element to your philosophical practice too, you know, just taking that time and space to really contemplate what your intentions are and where you are in your journey and where you're trying to go.
00:43:51
Speaker
what you need to do better at. It's not always easy to take that time. Even just 10 minutes a day can really help, I think. Right, right. Yeah, I suppose for still meditation, you don't always need to, although it can be helpful too, but you don't always need to have that cushion, make sure you're in a silent place. That sort of thing does help, but it's a sort of thing. I think many still exercises, many, many ticket exercises you can do while walking, while doing
00:44:18
Speaker
the dishes or something like this. It's a sort of thing that you really do want to enter into your ordinary life, right? Because that's where it matters. So there's that point as well. Awesome. What's one of your favorite stoic quotes or favorite stoic lines recently that you've been thinking about that you want to end on?
Closing Thoughts and Stoic Resources
00:44:41
Speaker
Aside from the one I mentioned earlier, which is one of my favorites, but it also
00:44:46
Speaker
one from Seneca, which probably discovered fairly recently and just seemed to have stuck with me. So the background is that in ancient times philosophy was sometimes referred to as a medicine for the soul. In one of his letters, Seneca plays on this a bit to explain how philosophy can not only heal, but also be a kind of pleasure. So he says, the mind must be forced to make a beginning. From then on, the medicine is not bitter.
00:45:16
Speaker
For just as soon as it is curing us, it begins to give pleasure. One enjoys other cures only after health is restored, but a draft of philosophy is at the same time wholesome and pleasant. So yeah, I just love that idea of a draft of philosophy. It's something that you drink basically every day and it can be healing, but also pleasant at the same time.
00:45:42
Speaker
Excellent. That's great. Thanks so much for coming on. No worries. Thanks for having me. This was great. Thanks for listening to Stoic Conversations. Please give us a rating on Apple podcasts or Spotify and share it with a friend. And if you'd like to get two meditations from me on Stoic theory and practice a week,
00:46:01
Speaker
Just two short emails on whatever I've been thinking about, as well as some of the best resources we found for practicing stoicism, check out stowaletcher.com. It's completely free. You can sign up for it and then unsubscribe at any time as you wish.
00:46:18
Speaker
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 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.
00:46:41
Speaker
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.