Quote of the day

From Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living by David Fideler

The only way to really injure a Stoic would be to damage his virtue, goodness, or character.

 To illustrate persistence, Seneca uses the example of someone at the Olympic games who wears out an opponent through sheer patience. (The Latin  word patientia means "endurance.") Similarly, in terms of mental endurance, the wise person, through long training, acquires the patience to wear out, or simply ignore, any attack on his character.

Quote of the day

 "There are people who do not live their present life; it is as if they were preparing themselves, with all their zeal, to live some other life, but not this one. And while they do this, time goes by and is lost. We cannot put life back in play, as if we were casting another roll of the dice." - Antiphon, Sophist thinker, c. 450 BCE

Via the back cover of What is Ancient Philosophy? by Pierre Hadot

Quote of the day

 "Well then, if it is necessary for both [women and men] to be proficient in the virtue which is appropriate to a human being, that is, for both to be able to have understanding, and self-control, and courage, and justice, the one no less than the other, shall we not teach them both alike the art by which a human being becomes good?" - Musonius Rufus, "Should daughters receive the same education as sons?"

Via That One Should Disdain Hardships: The Teachings of a Roman Stoic edited/translated by Cora Lutz

We often see variations of "it was a different time" to excuse or soften past injustices; but almost always there is someone in that era that already knew then that it was wrong. Rufus was born nearly 2000 years ago and already saw a gender equality of moral worth; while he also held a sexist belief that there were skills/jobs that were inherently better suited for men or women, he did note that "all human tasks ... are a common obligation ... and none is appointed for either one exclusively."

On being who you want to be

"Lay down from this moment a certain character and pattern of behavior for yourself, which you are to preserve both when you're alone and when you're with others." - Epictetus, Handbook

In other words, practice constantly being the person you want to be. This quote compliments nicely the passage in Discourses where Epictetus tells his students to decide first what kind of person they want to be, then to ensure that all of their actions are consistent with that goal.

You can also see echoes of this teaching in Meditations, where Marcus Aurelius tells himself to think only thoughts that he would not hesitate to share with others if asked:

You need to avoid certain things in your train of thought: everything random, everything irrelevant. And certainly everything self-important or malicious. You need to get used to winnowing your thoughts, so that if anyone says, "What are you thinking about?" you can respond at once (and truthfully) that you are thinking this or thinking that. And it would be obvious at once from your answer that your thoughts were straightforward and considerate ones - the thoughts of an unselfish person, one unconcerned with pleasure and with sensual indulgence generally, with squabbling, with slander and envy, or anything you'd be ashamed to be caught thinking.

Aurelius says that someone who is able to maintain their inner self always would be "an athlete in the greatest of all contests - the struggle not to be overwhelmed by anything that happens."

Quote of the day

"Philosophy is nothing else than to search out by reason what is right and proper and by deeds to put it into practice." - Musonius Rufus (c. 30–before 101-2 C.E.)

Via That One Should Disdain Hardships: The Teachings of a Roman Stoic edited/translated by Cora Lutz

Quote of the day

 "While his lifetime was incomplete, his life itself was perfect. Another man might seem to live for eighty years but only be around for eighty years - unless by 'live' you mean that way in which trees are said to live. I beg you, Lucilius: Let's carry on in this way, so our lives are measured like the most precious objects - not by their size, but by their worth. Let's measure our lives by their performance, not by their duration." - Seneca, Letters 93.4

Seneca wrote this letter in response to the death of a friend (Metronax) who died young, but had lived admirably.

Via Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living by David Fideler

Quote of the day

 "[T]he existence of a time that is uniform, independent of things and of their movement that today seems so natural to us is not an ancient intuition that is natural to humanity itself. It's an idea of [Isaac] Newton's." - Carlo Rovelli, The Order of Time

Quote of the day

 "I am aiming to live each day as if it is a complete lifetime." - Seneca, Letters 48.2-3

Via Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living by David Fideler

Finding wonder in the sense of time

Have been reading Carlo Rovelli's thoroughly enjoyable The Order of Time and early in the book Rovelli was able to achieve, in my estimation, an impressive feat: his description of the relativity of time and explanation of how the notion of a "Now" across the universe is non-sensical triggered me having an experience of awe and wonder, for a brief moment, that I would call borderline euphoric. I also believe this is the first time that I've truly experienced/appreciated the Stoic "View from Above." The last time I felt something similar would have been when I read Postcards from Mars back in 2006.

And, so, I'm writing this post simply to capture, now, my sense of gratitude for the experience. Thank you, Mr. Rovelli! 

Quote of the day

 "That kindness is invincible, provided it's sincere - not ironic or an act." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Quote of the day

"Friendship creates between us a partnership in all things. Nothing is good or bad for us alone: we live in common. Nor can anyone live happily who only cares for his own advantage. You must live for another if you would live for yourself. This fellowship, maintained with special care and respect, unites humanity as a whole, and holds that we all have certain rights in common." - Seneca, Letters 48.2-3

Via Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living by David Fideler

Quote of the day

"When you start to lose your temper, remember: There's nothing manly about rage. It's courtesy and kindness that defines a human being: and a man. That's who possesses strength and nerves and guts, not the angry whiners. To react like that brings you closer to impassivity - and so to strength. Pain is the opposite of strength, and so is anger. Both are things we suffer from, and yield to." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

On Stoic ethics

 "Stoic ethics is a species of eudaimonism. Its central, organizing concern is about what we ought to do or be to live well - to flourish." - Lawrence Becker, A New Stoicism

Quote of the day

 "Don't search outside yourselves for what is good; seek it within, or you will never find it." - Epictetus

Via Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living by David Fideler

Quote of the day

 "Extreme anger will not increase justice or make the world a better place; it will only make the world more miserable, and more out of control. Anger, in the Stoic view, can only increase human suffering." - David Fideler, Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living

Quote of the day

 "Forgive others, and even all of humanity, because you are not perfect either: the faults we find in others also exist within ourselves." - Seneca

Via Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living by David Fideler

Quote of the day

 "Stoicism is a philosophy that focuses on teaching us how to excel, how to become better human beings, and how to live a good life." - Donald Robertson, Stoicism and the Art of Happiness: Practical wisdom for everyday life

Quote of the day

 "For no one will cause you harm if you don't wish it; you'll have been harmed only when you suppose that you've been harmed." - Epictetus, Handbook

I am particularly moved by the transcendence of shared human experience across the ages while reading this knowing that the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius tried to deal with the troubles he encountered daily by reading the same teachings and putting them into his own words and reminding himself in his journal to put them into practice.

Quote of the day

 "Remember that what insults you isn't the person who abuses you or hits you, but your judgement that such people are insulting you. So whenever anyone irritates you, recognize that it is your opinion that has irritated you. Try above all, then, not to allow yourself to be carried away by the impression; for if you delay things and gain time to think, you'll find it easier to gain control of yourself." - Epictetus, Handbook

Quote of the day

 "With regard to everything that happens to you, remember to look inside yourself and see what capacity you have to enable you to deal with it." - Epictetus, Handbook 

Quote of the day

 "So what would you wish to be doing when death overtakes you? For my part I'd like to be carrying out some deed worthy of a human being, something beneficent, something that serves the common good, something noble. But if I can't be caught doing anything as fine as that, I should at least like to be doing something that I can't be hindered from doing, something that is granted to me to accomplish, namely, putting myself right, striving to perfect the faculty that deals with impressions, and labouring to achieve peace of mind, while yet fulfilling my social duties, and if I should be so fortunate, pressing on the third area of study, the one that is concerned with the attainment of security in one's judgements." - Epictetus, Discourses 4.10

Baleful quote of the day

"The truth is that Donald Trump undermined faith in our elections in his false bid to retain the presidency. He sparked an insurrection intended to overthrow our government and keep himself in power. No president in our history has done worse." - Cleveland Plain Dealer, "Our Trump reporting upsets some readers, but there aren't two sides to facts: Letter from the Editor"

Quote of the day

 "The first promise of real philosophy is a feeling of fellowship, sympathy, and community with others." - Seneca (4 BCE - 65 CE)

Via Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living by David Fideler

Quote of the day

 "Is this what you've been anxious to learn: how to be delivered from grief, disturbance, and humiliation, and be free? Haven't you heard, then, that there is only a single path that leads to that end: to give up things that lie outside the sphere of choice, and turn away from them, and acknowledge that they're not your own. The opinion that someone else holds about you, then, what kind of a thing is that? - 'Something that lies outside the sphere of choice.' - So isn't it nothing to you? - 'Nothing at all.' - So while you continue to be disturbed and nettled by the opinion of others, do you suppose that you're properly convinced about what is good and bad?" - Epictetus, Discourses 4.6

Quote of the day

 "It takes very little to spoil and upset everything: just some slight deviation from reason ... Pay careful attention, then, to your impressions; watch over them unceasingly. For it is not something of little importance that you're trying to preserve, but self-respect, fidelity, impassibility, freedom from distress, fear, and anxiety, and, in a word, freedom. At what price will you sell that? Consider how much it is worth." - Epictetus, Discourses 4.3

Quote of the day

From Meditations by Marcus Aurelius 

As those who try to stand in thy way when thou art proceeding according to right reason, will not be able to turn thee aside from thy proper action, so neither let them drive thee from thy benevolent feelings towards them, but be on thy guard equally in both matters, not only in the matter of steady judgement and action, but also in the matter of gentleness towards those who try to hinder or otherwise trouble thee. For this is also a weakness, to be vexed at them, as well as to be diverted from thy course of action and to give way through fear; for both are equally deserters from their post, the man who does it through fear, and the man who is alienated from him who is by nature a kinsman and a friend.

To me this is so profoundly remarkable to find this sentiment in the personal journal of a Roman emperor. The notion of seeing anger towards people who are negative or unfriendly or who attempt to hinder us as a weakness; and gentleness and kindness in response as a strength. I know from experience that whenever I let someone's negativity towards me divert me from the goal of being friendly towards everyone I always in the end felt like I had failed myself and the person, no matter how justified I may have felt in the moment of being angry or vexed. I always end up feeling like I had behaved as a person I do not want to be - and that it is a weakness to let negative emotions rule your conduct. Plus, it's unhealthy. If you're angry or troubled you're by definition not happy. Why would you do that to yourself? No one can hurt you or make you unhappy - it's your judgments and thoughts about things that do so.

Quote of the day

 "Don't you know that someone who is virtuous and good never acts for the sake of appearances, but only for the sake of having acted rightly?" - Epictetus, Discourses 3.24

Quote of the day

"Solitude is a torment which is not threatened in hell itself." - John Donne, Meditation V (1625)

Quote of the day

From Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

If you can cut yourself - your mind - free of what other people do and say, of what you've said or done, of the things that you're afraid will happen, the impositions of the body that contain you and the breath within, and what the whirling chaos sweeps in from outside, so that the mind is freed from fate, brought to clarity, and lives life on its own recognizance - doing what's right, accepting what happens, and speaking the truth -

If you can cut free of impressions that cling to the mind, free of the future and the past - can make yourself, as Empedocles says, "a sphere rejoicing in its perfect stillness," and concentrate on living what can be lived (which means the present) ... then you can spend the time you have left in tranquility. And in kindness. And at peace with the spirit within you.

Quote of the day

 "Surveillance capitalism found shelter in the neoliberal zeitgeist that equated government regulation of business with tyranny. This 'paranoid style' favored self-management regimes that imposed few limits on corporate practices." - Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power

What price do you set upon your soul?

The Stoics - particularly Roman Stoics - trained themselves to believe that maintaining the quality of their character, leading a life dedicated to virtue is of the highest value and nothing was worth compromising one's integrity. It's why Roman senator Cato committed suicide as a last act of protest rather than allow himself be captured by Julius Caesar and used as propaganda (See the excellent Rome's Last Citizen: The Life and Legacy of Cato, Mortal Enemy of Caesar for more on his life and conduct.) Cato was an inspiration to the founders of the United States, who attempted to emulate him in living a life of virtue. 

I found myself thinking of the Stoics and their dedication to right conduct/character as the highest good as I read and finished Thank You for Your Servitude: Donald Trump's Washington and the Price of Submission by Mark Leibovich. The rise and empowerment of Donald Trump was made possible by person after person who did not value their character and integrity highly. It was people who valued access to power, prestige, a high ranking job etc  more than doing the right thing or standing up to someone they knew was a horrible, corrupt person. Lindsey Graham particularly stands out for setting apparently no value whatsoever on his personal integrity. 

I believe what we're now seeing and facing is the reality that a democracy can't work if a substantial amount of citizens do not believe in the principles of democracy and do not set a high value upon being citizens of virtue. 

Quote of the day

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

This quote has a similar effect on me as the Anne Frank one I cited previously; if Dr. Frankl could find in a concentration camp - while his friends and family (and wife) died around him - a way to give his life meaning and purpose despite any amount of suffering he encountered, then we all can do it - or at least try. Few of us have suffered anything as nightmarish as what he went through. And yet through his suffering he found a way to help millions of other people cope with theirs. 

Quote of the day

"I do not believe anyone can be perfectly well, who has a brain and a heart." - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, letter to Charles Sumner

Feeling this.

Quote of the day

 "[C]onsider how much more pain is brought on us by the anger and vexation caused by such acts than by the acts themselves, at which we are angry and vexed." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Quote of the day

From The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power by Shoshana Zuboff:

There are differences among various incarnations of "personalizations" and "assistance" offered by the tech giants, but these are trivial compared with the collective urge toward total knowledge - about your inner states, real-world context, and specific daily life activities - all in the service of successfully training the machines that they might better target market operations to each moment of life.

Quote of the day

 "Tell yourself first of all what kind of person you want to be, and then act accordingly in all that you do." - Epictetus, Discourses 3.23

Quote of the day

"His morality is lofty and unworldly; in a situation in which man's main duty is to resist tyrannical power, it would be difficult to find anything more helpful." - Bertrand Russell, describing the philosophy of Epictetus in The History of Western Philosophy

Quote of the day

 "There was a time when you searched Google, but now Google searches you." - Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power

This is a book with profound importance, detailing the ways that our lives and inner selves are being gobbled up by corporations to further manipulate our behavior and make money doing so. As the Guardian review linked puts it

It describes how global tech companies such as Google and Facebook persuaded us to give up our privacy for the sake of convenience; how personal information (“data”) gathered by these companies has been used by others not only to predict our behaviour but also to influence and modify it; and how this has had disastrous consequences for democracy and freedom. This is the “surveillance capitalism” of the title, which Zuboff defines as a “new economic order” and “an expropriation of critical human rights that is best understood as a coup from above”.

But, unfortunately, the material has to be read carefully and digested to appreciate how insidious this age of surveillance capitalism is. And we have a generation of young adults for whom the norm is having their entire lives available on-line for data tracking, without seeing any problem with it or even realizing it's happening.  (The extent to which these companies gather information about our lives is vaster than almost anyone imagines, and I'm certainly not exempting myself, as I didn't realize it, either, until reading this book.)

Our right to our inner selves is one of the most fundamental, necessary rights for living a fully realized human existence. And this is now being threatened by the almost entirely unregulated behemoth that is surveillance capitalism, which has annexed all human behavior/experience as substrate for predictative models of our lives. This is not right.

The end of America

 It's surreal to me seeing someone who has lived his life as a narcissistic criminal and all around just horrible, indecent, unkind person still being described as "running for president." He is not running for president, because that would entail agreeing to abide by the election process. He has made clear that the only acceptable result of an election is for him to be the victor, no matter what the actual vote count is. So he isn't running for president: he is trying to install himself as Supreme Ruler of America, someone who is held accountable to no law but his own fiat. He is currently arguing that he is immune from all legal liability while President and asserts that every court case against him ever are by definition illegitimate. He attempted to stop the previous election, calling for an end to vote counting and declaring himself winner. He is on tape asking the Georgia Secretary of State to "find" i.e. fabricate the exact number of votes he would have needed to win the state. He refused to acknowledge his loss, resulting in the first siege of the US capitol since the War of 1812. The Confederate flag, a symbol of sedition, slavery and white supremacy was waved inside the Senate for the first time ever. These extremists, in devotion to their leader, attempted to stop the peaceful transition of the power of the Chief Executive officer of the United States for the first time in US history. A disgrace beyond description.

I feel like we're living through the Aesop fable where the frogs get bored when Zeus sends them the Rule of Law to be their king, so they ask him to send them a more exciting King, and in return he sends them a water snake. Which eats them. End of story. As Paul Woodruff put it in First Democracy: The Challenge of an Ancient Idea 

And so it was - and still is - when people are frustrated with the law's stupidities or delays or inconveniences. If they wish for a ruler who will rise above the law, they are offering themselves to be devoured.  

Aesop commented elsewhere: 

Chance shows us two roads in life; one is the road of freedom, which has a rough beginning that is hard to walk, but an ending that is smooth and even; the other is the road of servitude, which has a level beginning, but an ending that is hard and dangerous.

Quote of the day

 "Someone despises me. That's their problem. Mine: not to do or say anything despicable. Someone hates me. Their problem. Mine: to be patient and cheerful with everyone, including them." - Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Quote of the day

 "You can generally be sure, whenever ideologues speak of true or serious freedom, that it will be at the expense of actual, ordinary freedom. And when the rhetoric is transcendental, the reality will probably be miserable." - Sarah Bakewell, Humanly Possible

Baleful quote of the day

From "Alabama’s IVF Ruling Is Christian Theology Masquerading as Law" by Elie Mystal

What’s troubling to me is the extent to which the rest of the country has just accepted that we live under the rule of theocrats in robes and there’s nothing we can do about it. Establishment politicians, media figures, and even non-theocratic judges just kind of shrug and pretend that scripture is a reasonable basis for judicial pronouncements in a free society. If these judges and justices were establishing any religion other than fundamentalist Christianity, people would lose their minds. If an Alabama court ruled that Trump had to be kicked off the ballot because he lies so much he lacks satya, and rested their opinion in quotes from the Vedas, there would be riots. The ruling would be overturned and the judges, probably, impeached.

Quote of the day

 "Try not to become a man of success, but rather try to become a man of value." - Albert Einstein

Via The Quotable Einstein edited by Alice Calaprice

Stealing from the future to give to the present(ly) rich

 I hear often people saying there is too much free stuff given away by the government. Almost always this ire is directed towards people on the lower end of the economic spectrum, and that this is how people have their votes purchased.  What I very rarely hear spoken against, however, is the much vaster sum of money that is given to the already rich and powerful; corporations and the super-rich - people who have vastly more political influence than people who receive some form of social welfare. This is why I consider Free Lunch and Perfectly Legal by David Cay Johnston to be such important books. They detail how our economic system has been rigged across decades to transfer the nation's wealth from the many to the few, flowing money upwards like Niagra Falls in reverse, and how the wealthy benefit extensively from taxpayer subsidies.

So today I come across this: a detailed article about how corporate tax breaks are leading to the defunding of education across the nation. Read it and weep for the future: "Students lose out as cities and states give billions in property tax breaks to businesses − draining school budgets and especially hurting the poorest students."

What exactly Atlanta and other cities and states are accomplishing with tax abatement programs is hard to discern. Fewer than a quarter of companies that receive breaks in the U.S. needed an incentive to invest, according to a 2018 study by the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, a nonprofit research organization.

This means that at least 75% of companies received tax abatements when they’re not needed – with communities paying a heavy price for economic development that sometimes provides little benefit.

Quote of the day

 "I believe in the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy." - Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason (1794)

Via Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope by Sarah Bakewell

It's still difficult for me to wrap my mind around how someone could express this kind of sentiment and end up so despised (only 6 people saw fit to attend Paine's funeral, despite him having played a significant part in the birth of the United States and generally lived as an avatar for democracy.) 

People are fickle and take it personally when their beliefs are criticized; and many were inclined to see his criticism of superstition and organized religion to be corrosive to organized society. But Paine believed that "[i]nfidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what [one] does not believe." 

Quote of the day

 "There is nothing so beautiful and legitimate as to play the man well and properly, no knowledge so hard to acquire as the knowledge of how to live this life well and naturally; and the most barbarous of our maladies is to despise our being." - Montaigne

Via Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope by Sarah Bakewell

This quote compliments and extends the previously quoted quote of the day from him (and Bakewell) about living a life well.

Quote of the day

 "The greatest benefit we owe to the artist, whether painter, poet, or novelist, is the extension of our sympathies ... A picture of human life such as a great artist can give, surprises even the trivial and the selfish into that attention to what is apart from themselves, which may be called the raw material of moral sentiment. " - George Eliot, "The Natural History of German Life" (1856)

Via Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope by Sarah Bakewell

Quote of the day

 "Concedo nulli" 

According to Sarah Bakewell in Humanly Possible: Seven Hundred Years of Humanist Freethinking, Inquiry, and Hope this was "the emblem and motto of Terminus, Roman god of boundaries and limits." Sixteenth century Christian humanist Erasmus adopted this phrase as his personal motto and his friends had it inscribed on a memorial plaque when he died. It translates to "I yield to no one."

Quote of the day

 "[T]o be happy is to be good." - Aristotle, eulogy for Plato

Via Aristotle's Children: How Christians, Muslims, and Jews Rediscovered Ancient Wisdom and Illuminated the Middle Ages by Richard Rubenstein

On haters

 From Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

What their minds are like. What they work at. What evokes their love and admiration.

Imagine their souls stripped bare. And their vanity. To suppose that their disdain could harm anyone - or their praise help them.

There is just something so human about seeing someone who lived almost two thousand years ago struggling (recall that this is an entry in his personal journal) with dealing with toxic people in his life and reminding himself that their opinion doesn't matter.

He has another passage that compliments this one well: "It never ceases to amaze me: we all love ourselves more than other people, but care more about their opinions than our own." 

Of course, he didn't mean that we shouldn't be considerate of other people, but that we should focus on what is in our control (or own opinions) and "[j]ust that you do the right thing. The rest doesn't matter."

Also: "The tranquility that comes when you stop caring what they say. Or think, or do. Only what you do."

I love that Marcus had to remind himself this more than once, in an earlier entry in the journal he tells himself to face whatever challenges life presents "not worrying too often, or with any selfish motive, about what other people say. Or do, or think." He goes on to write "that to care for all human beings is part of being human" but that "doesn't mean we have to share their opinions."