Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
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Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a Stoic-inspired meditation designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women, help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off
with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit dailystoic.com. It can change your life. The right book at the right time is a powerful thing. In fact, it can change the whole course of your life. Sometime in the first century AD, a young Marcus Aurelius was given a copy of Epictetus' lectures from his teacher's own library.
Walking the halls one day is a grad student at Stanford, a professor invited James Stockdale into his office. Reaching behind him, he too grabbed a worn copy of Epictetus off the shelf and handed it to this promising young man.
Not only did these books change the lives of the people they were given to Marcus Aurelius relying on it when he became emperor and Stockdale as a prisoner of war, but it may have indirectly changed your life too. How many people heard about the Stoics from these two evangelists? How many people has their example inspired? And there's actually another impressionable kid whose life was changed by such a recommendation.
Who? Who, you might ask? Me. When I first picked up Meditations 18 years ago, I had no idea how much that book would impact my life. I had no idea the immense and positive impact this ancient philosophy that I'd never heard about would have on my relationship with family and friends, but also the relationship I had with myself.
I certainly had no idea that I'd one day write books about Stoicism or that these books would sell millions of copies and lead to a global resurgence of the philosophy today. You would not be reading or listening to this right now without someone doing for me what Junius Rusticus did for Marcus Aurelius and Professor Rhinelander did for Stockdale.
I seem to remember my copy, the modern library edition with a beautiful translation from Gregory Hayes arriving right after I ordered it. But recently searching my email for that order number tells me otherwise. Instead, I found an angry customer service ticket where a teenager was angrily complaining about a few day shipping delay. How badly I then needed those words in 652 of meditations. You don't have to turn this into something. It doesn't have to upset you.
Reading those lines again, I'm reminded of the strange magic within meditations. Because when Marcus says you, as in you have to assemble your life action by action, or the things you think about determine the quality of your mind, he is obviously speaking to himself. And because he never intended those words to be read by anyone, this exercise in self-improvement is so radically sincere and earnest, even painfully so at times, that he's
that it actually has the unintended benefit of speaking directly to you, helping all of us with our common problems. And as unrelatable as antiquity might seem, human beings remain ever the same. This is why meditations has endured for almost 2,000 years, why great leaders throughout history have carried it into battle, why businessmen and athletes and stay-at-home moms and so many others turn to it for guidance today.
for whatever struggles and obstacles they face. However, I believe that Marcus and his meditations wouldn't have the impact it has had today if it weren't for this beautiful English translation by Gregory Hayes. It was that translation that I first picked up all those years ago, and I think it remains one of the best you can get today. And when the Daily Stoic decided to publish a leather-bound edition of that, there was no question which translation we were going to ask for. It was going to be the Hayes translation.
And the Modern Library just released a hardcover edition of that. And I was beyond honored when they asked me to write a new foreword for it and for the paperback, of course. And you can grab copies of that. I'll link to it in today's show notes.
But if you're curious about what Meditations has meant to me, or you have questions about that book or Marcus Aurelius, I would love to invite you. We're doing a live Q&A session in two days on April 26th, which is Marcus's birthday. We're going to do a deep dive into Meditations. And if you get our How to Read Marcus Aurelius's Meditations, this guide we made with Daily Stoic, that's how you can receive your invite.
And you can bundle it with a copy of Meditations for some savings and a bunch of other awesome stuff. So just head over to dailystoic.com slash meditations to grab those and learn about Meditations Month here at Daily Stoic. And I look forward to talking to all of you on Saturday. That's dailystoic.com slash meditations.
Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke Podcast. As you know, on Thursday, we do Q&A episodes of the podcast. I answer your questions. You could also ask Oreo, my puppy, some questions if you would like. She's sitting here at the desk with me, licking my face because my wife left her with me. And I'm going to take her to go pick up my son from school here in a second. She's a very sweet dog. How are you doing?
This has nothing to do with the questions I'm answering in today's episode. I answered these questions many thousands of miles from here across the ocean when I was in London as part of my speaking tour. It was quite a lot. I did a 45-minute private Q&A beforehand, then I did an hour talk and an hour-long Q&A after. So thanks to everyone who came out.
Thanks to my family for enduring it. We brought my in-laws along on that trip, so that was fun. All promptly got food poisoning on the flight over from Austin, so that was fun. But hopefully that is not apparent here as I'm answering some questions about stoicism. Hope to see all of you in person someday.
Most of the talks I do are not open to the public. They're sort of corporate. But this one was a unique experience where I got to talk at some cool theaters. This is at the Troxie Theater in London. So here's me answering some stoic questions. I hope they are of use to you.
Thanks for everything you've done for Stoic, by the way. I've been a fan from before you made it mainstream. And that was basically my question. The ancients had so many areas of their morality that today we've moved on from, whether that's slavery or whatever else that was acceptable back then. And yet they look to try and live, some did, look to try and live a virtuous life. And we've lost that. I mean, I know you've created sort of, maybe not on your own, but you've created this movement.
about a virtuous life and the actions behind philosophy as opposed to being academic. Why do you think that people in antiquity actually really thought about virtue much more than people do today? Yeah, you know, what's an interesting way to illustrate this is like,
Philosophy in the ancient world was about self-improvement, about realizing one's potential, about, as you said, living a life of virtue. There's sort of this earnestness to being good and honorable and embodying all these things. And then today, when somebody talks or writes about that, we kind of dismiss it as self-help.
And we've taken philosophy from this sort of practical, actionable way of living and made it this theoretical academic practice.
inaccessible thing. And then we wonder why people aren't interested in it and then why people aren't living up to these sort of standards. They don't know what they are. They haven't been steeped in them. The stories that we tell aren't reiterating these ideas over and over and over again in the way that, you know, in the ancient world, not only would you have learned the philosophy itself, but then as you were
Being taught Greek and Latin, you'd be reciting these epigrams over and over again. It was just kind of part of the cultural memory of,
And I think a big part of it is just a lack of familiarity there. But that familiarity is part of our DNA, both Eastern and Western. And I think part of the reason that philosophy and Stoicism specifically has had this resurgence in popularity is people kind of recognize it. And when they hear these quotes or they hear these stories or they even hear some of these names, there's a resonance to it that wouldn't be there if these things were invented today. Right.
We know that there's a tradition there. And I think we're hungering for a kind of a return to that tradition. And we know that there's a set of kind of values and a way of living that is available to us if we want to
We want it. And I think that to me, that explains the popularity of my works and stoicism as a whole more than anything I'm specifically doing. It's that there is just 20 centuries of history here and that history wasn't, hey, it was 20 centuries ago and then nothing's happened. People have been talking about it and sharing and using these ideas and applying them. And
and plays and poems and then books and movies. And so we recognize these things when we hear them again. And that's kind of what you asked me about my North Star earlier. One of the things is about sort of paying forward this introduction that I had to philosophy. And I found in some ways it's been tough
Because it's not as easy as some of the things I could be writing or talking about. On the other hand, there's a power to it. And I have a tailwind behind me that I wouldn't if I was making this stuff up, which I'm not, right? I am able to tap into this tradition of stories and these ideas that go back, you know, for all of Western civilization. Good evening, Masolide. Hi. Hi.
I've been following your reading list and books for over a decade. Oh, wow. I've found these questions over the years and I'm not sure where to begin. Okay. But one would be some of my favorite people on this planet. I've encountered through mutual love for your books, what books you recommend. Infinitely grateful for that.
I'm here with Juan tonight. He recently read one of your books. And we connected and I raved on about you for three hours. He's smart, humble, kind, very generous. And I'd love to make more connections like that. Yeah. And I wonder if you've ever considered leveraging your platform or your list, which I know is wholly to you.
to allow us to connect with each other? I have not. It's an interesting idea. You know, this isn't exactly answering your question, but I try to be pretty chill. And I have found, though, over the years that sometimes people, maybe this is why we're coming to Stoicism, is that we're not as chill as we ought to be. So like sometimes, for instance, you should see like some of the customer service emails to Daily Stoic.
They're definitely people who could use to be introduced to stoicism. So I try to just think about...
Going to North Star. What is the best use of my time? What did I get into this for? I love writing and I love reading. And those are the things that light me up. And those are the things I think I'm good at. Running a social network or connecting people socially. Less good at that. Probably why I became a writer in the first place. But maybe something like this is a good way to do it. I'm trying to do more stuff in person. But no plans currently. But it's certainly an interesting thing to think about. Awesome. Hello. I was also lucky to...
gift your books to my daughter and to my son. Yeah. That was really cool to introduce them to, they are 12 and eight, to introduce them to raising our kids by virtue, or at least try to. One of the things that bothers me at least personally a lot, potentially more people, is a kind of a polarization issue that we see across the board. Do you have any thoughts on how
I guess from history or stoicism or from any vantage point, have you came across something that historically can help us to de-escalate the polarization? And maybe there is another topic that is a polarization versus perception of polarization as well that is going around. So any thoughts on that topic would be nice. Thanks.
Yeah, these are, this is interesting. You know, the era that the Stoics were most dominant would not give one much hope. Cato and Cicero...
you know, are there at the fall of the Roman Republic. There's a fascinating book called The Storm Before the Storm written by Mike Duncan. Talks about a number of well-known Stoics, including those two. And then Rutilius Rufus. There's basically a hundred year period of Roman history where it starts to feel like the wheels are coming off and you see this sort of, you know, wicked cycle of polarization and radicalization, a collapse of norms, a normalization of political violence, you know,
strong men coming to power. This might start to sound familiar. So it's really a terrifying period. And, you know, there's some, depending on how you look at it, the Stoics were sort of valiant going down with the ship. Then there's a case you could make where the Stoics are partly responsible. Cato himself is too inflexible, not too high-minded, not
open enough, not willing enough to compromise. And he brings about some of the changes. And then you have this very quick transition where suddenly Rome is no longer a republic. And who are the two first advisors to the first emperor of Rome? It's Athena Darius and Arius Didymus, two Stoic philosophers. So the Stoics...
Maybe this is the idea of acceptance. They accept it real fast. And then Seneca, again, finds himself working for Nero and accepts real fast.
This guy who lionizes Cato finds himself the advisor to this sort of unstable lunatic of an emperor, but he kind of goes, this is the system now. And so there's this interesting, like, sort of depending on what you want to see or what lesson you want to learn, the Stoics can sort of illustrate it either way. I do feel like, and I'll talk about this a little bit later, I feel like one of the hardest things in the world to do right now is...
to not lose your mind when everyone else is going crazy, when people are themselves becoming radicalized or polarized, how do you stay? I don't mean in the center because just sort of splitting the difference isn't necessarily the right thing to do. What I mean is how do you stay centered, which is to not, if the, if the poles are moving, right,
to either side? How do you not get dragged that direction? I think that's really hard. How, when everyone else is acting extreme or unhinged or cruel or indecent, when other people are accepting things that they shouldn't accept, when there's misinformation or disinformation, how do you sort of stay locked into what is true and important and essential? I feel like that is the fundamental
of our time. And when I talked to Mike Duncan, he has a really good episode on the Daily Stoic Podcast. He had this line that I think about all the time. I've been thinking about this last week or two. He said his phrase for the Stoics in that period, he said it was, the winds may howl, but I will not be swept away. And I think that's a beautiful image for what we've got to try to figure out. That things are going to be crazy. Things are going to be extreme. A lot's going to be coming at us. How do we
how do you not get blown away by that? How do you stay moored to what is important and true and right? That's going to be the challenge that I think the whole world's going to face, not just in the immediate future, but for some time to come. I think social media, I think technological disruption, I think climate change, I think just a whole lot of deferred maintenance on institutions has put us in a place where a lot is really...
straining under the weight of what it's going to be subjected to and what it's already been subjected to. And so we're going to have to figure out how we don't get pulled off the planet with it. A slightly younger question here. Oh. What does do the rain right now mean? Oh.
That's a great question. To me, right thing right now is the idea that we often know what the right thing is. We have to know what we're supposed to do. And then we come up with reasons why it's inconvenient right now, or we'll do it when we're more comfortable. We'll do it when conditions are better. We'll do it when we're stronger. We'll do it when we're more successful.
And there is a tension in this, I think. You don't become the CEO of a company by being disruptive and challenging every little thing that happens. So you kind of do have to go along with things. But then the idea that someday in the future, you're magically going to be this person that does the right thing. You've just spent 20 or 30 years developing the habit of not doing the right thing, but doing the right thing for you. So how do you build this habit of
Here's what I stand for. Here's what's important. Here's what's right in this situation. I'm going to do that thing now. That's what the idea behind that book is.
Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please spread the word, tell people about it, and this isn't to sell anything. I just wanted to say thank you.
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