Letters from a Stoic Complete (Letters 1 - 124) Adapted for the Contemporary Reader

Oh, this is meditations by Marcus Aurelius. You see, this is letters to Seneca.

But then, in Moral Letters, Seneca said, we can remove most sins if we have a witness standing by as we are about to go wrong. The soul should have someone it can respect, by whose example it can make its inner sanctum more involuble.

The founder of the universe who assigned to us the laws of life provided that we should live well, but not in luxury.

Everything needed for our well-being is right before us.

Whereas what luxury requires is gathered by many miseries and anxieties.

Let us use this gift of nature and count it among the greatest things.

Pick up a copy of Letters From a Stoic from the Painted Porch | https://www.thepaintedporch.com/

Just reading a book is not enough. You have to reread the book. Seneca says we have to linger on the work of the master thinker.

Seneca says nothing happens to the wise man contrary to his expectations.

Seneca says that if you don't know what port you're sailing towards, no wind is favorable.

Seneca says we're all slaves to something.

You have two choices Seneca says. You can laugh or cry.

While the Stoic philosopher Seneca did offer a critique of Epicurus in his letters from a Stoic, it would be unfair not to mention the numerous times he positively quoted him.

Yes, I actually make a practice of going over to the enemy's camp, by way of reconnaissance, not as a deserter.

A cheerful poverty, he says, is an honorable state.

Why was Seneca quoting a rival school, you may ask? This was of course a question he had foreseen.

Quite possibly you'll be demanding to know why I'm quoting so many fine sayings from Epicurus rather than ones belonging to our own school. But why should you think of them as belonging to Epicurus and not his common property?

Or as he once poignantly remarked, But this is true to form for Seneca. He was looking for wisdom, period. It didn't matter where it came from.

As we mentioned earlier, Seneca, in Letters from a Stoic, had strong criticisms for the Epicureans, and in particular their idea of friendship, which is one based on mutual self-interest.

He who regards himself only, and enters upon friendships for this reason, reckons wrongly.

He says, how do you know you're making progress with this philosophy? I know because I've begun to be a better friend to myself.

We treat the body rigorously, so that it will not be disobedient to the mind.

poverty is also not having enough.

you take away power over events by expecting them

there's a tax on everything

This is written by one of the most famous Romans, Voltaim. As he's near the end of his life, he was the advisor to the emperor. He probably knows that he's a marked man that the emperor is soon going to kill him.

He's been studying philosophy his whole life and he has this friend who's in a prominent position of power as a governor of a Roman province. And he wants to write some advice to that guy.

They have this exchange back and forth where they're writing these letters to each other about life, about the world, about how to be better, about how to deal with all the things that make us uniquely human.

And ultimately he defines philosophy. I think this is great. He says, how do you know you're making progress with this philosophy? He says, I know because I've begun to be a better friend to myself.

So read Seneca's letters. It's amazing.

that's his job well that's Santa Clara says letters to his friend Lucilius that's Lucilius' job in just a different like they're they're they're just we we think of these historical moments and figures as being utterly unique as opposed to multiple people were doing the same thing at the same time

for even peace itself will supply more reason for worry

not even safe circumstances will bring you confidence once your mind has been shocked

it doesn't really avoid danger, just runs away

the unprepared are panic-stricken by the smallest things

the only inexcusable thing for an officer to say is 'I did not think that could happen'

I'm reading Seneca's letters right now...The letters are great...because sometimes they get bitchy, even you know it's like it's just very human and it really is just like that too. I mean this is like this guy's notebook you know I mean it's like to think about in meditation this is a guy writing not for publication in Greek even though the Romans he was speaking in the philosophical language and yet there are terms of phrases in there that you're just like whoa and it says something probably about one if you're not performing or thinking you can just it goes to over talking about you just lock in and something just straight from the mind onto the page shume probably just beautiful stuff but then also this sort of practice of like he was trained in rhetoric trained in writing training poetry he might one of my favorite little tidbits about marcus is like there's lines in there and they put this isn't this sounds like more like a quote than they tracked it down it's like oh this is a lost line from a play from your rippity or something it was like we never this is the only existing fragment from that thing and he's almost certainly quoting it from memory right just to himself for there's little lines from the great poets like this is a person steeped in all the great forms of art in addition to being a politician and a parent and then nobody's journal was that good right incredible yeah and I like Seneca because like when you read his letters you're like wait a minute you you said this other thing in another letter you know he's very human he'll be like you know you shouldn't just quote people you know you should have some of your own ideas and he's like by the way here's this quote from epitaphes or quote yeah here's my daily quote from revocure so whatever you know so it's just like really human you know and I so that that is one thing I mean I think that like I think with when you're when you're writing the type of books that we write um you're you are hoping that people swim upstream you know you're hoping that people will get back to like what's inspired you because that um because I just think that's the way reading works I think the fully music works I think that's the way our works is that if you connect with something and then you swim upstream and you see where it came from I think that's one of the really beautiful deep things I'm talking about this in the next book in the purchase series I have this chapter on coaching trees okay yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah a tragic great coach is not just how much they won but like what did the assistance go into like how and in this way great poppages poppages probably create a coach in this group sports is incredible coaching group but I I think as a writer is a creative like how how much did you repay your debt to your influences like did you make them more popular or not right um is I think a sign like it's like okay you're successful if you sell a few books or people go to your shows or whatever it is that you do but like did you have enough of a connection and did you impact people enough that they go upstream like you're saying yeah and go well I want to be a fan of the things that made the thing right on the fan of and so sometimes people will be like they'll like in your intersections they'll say like oh he's just a popularizer right what an incredible compliment thanks that's literally what I am attempting to do so it's not something like I find to be an embarrassment it's actually also quite hard to do but to be able to take something that isn't necessarily commercially accessible or immediately attractive to people like like like if through your work people are like listen to the Beatles like okay like they didn't need your help but if you know like because you know I put it if you can if you can help turn people on to things or bring them to a level where then they can go to these other things I think that's like a wonderful that's a sign of like a real that of success in your chosen mind my favorite band always did that too like even someone like people forget like Nirvana brought the neat pop that's on stage with them you know they were all you know Kirk Cobain wore a Daniel Johnson teacher you know like they were always really good at that even in their brief little so and I always as a fan loved that I always loved that and that's always been a big part of my experience and that's the why I operate the way that I do and um when showing your work which he has an awesome about with that title which is part of part of not part of being open about those influences the things you're excited about is uh is it big is part of like that's that's doing that it's it's both it's easy because you're not like pretending to be perfect but there's also a selflessness to it because you're exposing people to the things that you like it also turns up to be good marketing because when you talk about the stuff that you love you almost become an apart like one of the things that I think a lot of people make their way to my work because of the stuff I would I share instead of my actual books and so they show up for like the newsletters something like that because oh this guy points to cool stuff and then eventually I get up right eventually I can't like hopefully I make something that they want you know but no no I someone told me once like if you introduce to people like uh you come to their level right so like if you introduce two important people to each other you're up here because you facilitated this relationship yeah yeah that's a lot of that is it like they were saying this is kind of like a networking strategy but I don't know if you might like this person and then you're like who connected us again right remember that and so if you are recommending music or art or a way of thinking or doing something or even you just like you recommend a contractor to a friend and that one like you have a connection there that goes really deep uh because you you gave them something that they used um can you do a special about that I agree kind of the thing else you want to do you have any more questions so I might have loved all of them let's do a spot let's do a last one you you this is okay no exactly okay in our questions on parenting what do you feel like one could prepare for and would you feel like any kind of uh so yeah what parts of parenting can one prepare for an advance and then what what are the things that you learned on the job um you can probably go to therapy I didn't do that uh I still haven't done that but it might be a good idea I would recommend it you just won't do it you can forgive your parents that's something someone told me is like you can forgive your parents so you can kind of I don't know if I did that either yeah I didn't really need to um but you know my parents one of the things I was thinking about when I was reading your book is I had this there's this designer named Milton play where he says in my parents I had the perfect gifted and talented program he said I had a mother who told me I could do anything and a father who said prove it they look like they can't fool each other out and I was thinking about like this kind of like good cop bad cop of it they kind of thanks which way uh you know all the little black and gold they focus up I do I know the foot yes absolutely yeah yeah they focus up on mom and dad they may not mean too but they do they fill us full of faults we had and add some extra just for you they were messed up in their turn by weirdos and maniacs so do the world of favor and don't have any kids yourself I only like the first person yeah well yeah you gotta take the whole that's that's context to me you know you know when you're with me and you write his one about the head charger like that one yeah I can't do that one for me though it's really good yeah you did the one you quoted in the book that I love is the trees the trees are coming in for leaf like something being said well yeah that's what he said yeah he has this poem about celebrating spring which we're in the middle of us who it's due and how beautiful and wonderful it is to see green leaves and shoots and flowers but he talks about what that means is the passage of a year uh that has gone forever and I think about that every time I uh clip my kids fingernails I think of the growth I go up and down a little bag and well the same forever that's a little far from me but uh there's there's something sad about it right there you're like I just did this and then you go I didn't just do this yeah two weeks ago I had and that that time has gone forever and the person who's nails you clipped last time is gone forever and you yourself yeah three weeks old version of you is gone I think there's something there's a more bit sort of stoic term to that and then also something I think that could you kind of urgency and prioritization clarity but also how beautiful that you get to clip your fingernails and start over you know there's a kind of like renew that goes with the spring too oh I came up with an idea uh for the for the things you can plan for um you can get role models sure right like that that's you can pick some people who are like down the road who you're like they seem like they did it really well and you can get to know them like I definitely have some I have some guy friends are about 10 years older than me and I find that really really helpful because they're kind of and then I that thing that really helps me when I was starting out is I got really lucky and got to know some writers who were good dads and I thought they could do it what's that a rare rare breed yeah well I remember going to see George Saunders and I asked him like how do you be a good father and a good writer at the same time and he said well I used to have a kirawek donor he said I thought you had to be this like wild maniac womanizing drinking guides like be a great writer and he's like and then I met Tobias Wolf and Tobias Wolf was his mentor Syracuse and also a wonderful writer and he said the way Toby wrote these stories with this teeth they're so good but he was so gentle with his children and he was so kind and loving and I did that just like mock something for me and so I think like just having a good role model someone who does what you want to do right good dad good writer great you know I think it's either in a letter or essay but Santa Fe is a square line and he says um we can't choose our parents but we can choose whose children we would like to be oh yeah and so when I think about role models like now obviously there's things you learn from your parents about what to do and not do but the idea that like that should go the peace like in my family right or like but my parents always did it this way I think that's a very small like uh uninspired way to think about it you should you should go who were but just as you would go you wouldn't go oh there's a series of writers in my family that's why I do it or I come on a long line of musicians or something you would go with the greatest of all time those are my influences that's the tradition that I'm trying to continue and I think you can do that with parents I mean you could do with anything but why not do it with parent and why not go uh Mr. Rogers is who I look to write my model whatever they don't they don't you don't have to be related to them um yeah so jazzy said the same thing it was like we were kids without fathers so we found our fathers on wax because that was kind of cool um but the other thing I would say is cross cross gender because uh I think a lot of my like I think finding women writers who are mothers or artists who are mothers that that always for some reason because the Michael Shabon joke you know he says that the thing historically uh that's handy for men is that the bar for uh fathers is so historically low you know he says that's not saying anything but um mothers have always been like taking to this you know a much higher and more impossible standard and so I feel like reading stories of mothers who are great artists or mothers who are great writers I found that at a certain point to be a little bit more helpful than just reading like the baby on the fire escape I thought that was good like a good survey yeah yeah yeah um I think and there's terrible cautionary tales too well what I like about that but there's a book called the baby on the fire escape which is more about female writers and artists um is we've I was joking there's not a lot of good creative men parents yeah uh but then going like oh yeah wow that's you know ones were terrible I mean and that it's more it's more of the problem of being very self-involved yeah and dedicated to your thing can other things can fall by the way side and it's not so much a gender or a societal thing it's a it's an individual thing well and it's interesting in a lot of stories of parents that are good I think the spurs saying um and bring into the fun a lot of people are good parents and also good writers they have a good partner yeah that you know like Ursula Kayla Glenn had a she was great but she also had a husband that did his share what did you you know like her quote in the book I mean it's yeah I like it definitely she says uh it makes him possible for one person to do two jobs and she says art is a job being a parent is a job but she said three people or two people can do three jobs and uh yes I think the partnership and uh caring and sharing your words what it's all about if anyone and I'll end with a note I'll go up by her okay uh my favorite quote by her if anyone's thinking about being an artist and becoming a parent is she says babies eat books babies eat books what they spit them out in pieces again and you can take pieces back together put them together later it's uh awesome thank you very much thank you thank you thank you thank you thanks y'all thanks so much for listening if you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show we appreciate it I'll see you next episode hey prime members you can listen to the daily stoke early and add free on amazon music download the amazon music app today or you can listen early and add free with wonder and apple podcasts the early two thousands was a breeding ground for bad reality competition series from shows like kidnation cbs is weird lord of the flies style social experiment that took 40 kids to live by themselves in a ghost town to the swan a horrifying concept where women spent months undergoing a physical transformation and then were made to compete in a beauty pageant hi I'm micha brown and I'm the host of wonderies podcast the big flop each episode comedians join me to chronicle one of the biggest pop culture fails of all time and try to answer the age old question who thought this was a good idea recently on the big flop we looked at the reality tv show the swan the problem this dream opportunity quickly became a viewing nightmare they were isolated for weeks berated operated on and then were ranked by a 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In letters from a Stoic, Seneca talks about how he pities the person who has never been through adversity because they haven't had a chance to prove themselves.

In letters from a stoic written during the final three years of his life, Seneca would warn again and again about the burdens of becoming rich.

Very often he writes the things that cost nothing, cost us the most heavily.

Most people think he says in the quest for an acquisition of money that one has much to gain and little to lose.

But there's a great line from Seneca's, Seneca would write these letters to his friend Lucilius, which is also a great book if you've ever read Letters from a Stoic.

well it's interesting Ryan because I wrote this book wise up really thinking about nicomachian ethics and senica's letters to a stoic

today's quote comes to us from seneca in his letter on consolation to helvia that's his mother it's a beautiful essay you can read it in on the shortness of life

Seneca is talking about how to be a true friend, how to be a good friend and how stoicism can make us a great friend and hopefully Senica's life is an illustration to us of that as well.

Tim actually has a PDF of the book for free at tim.blogslashsenica and you can get his audiobook on Audible which I've recommended to many many people and we talked about here before.

the penguin edition is the one that I love all the several different ones. Loeb has all the letters. I like the penguin one because it's a collection of the best ones

We must read like a spy in the enemy's camp

I will quote a bad author if the line is good

there's Seneca's letters from a stoic which I have here that's which I love the penguin penguin translation

We suffer more in imagination than in reality.

the unexpected blow lands heaviest

how fear holds us back out torches us how we borrow suffering basically how so many troubles exist exclusively in our heads in our minds.

Seneca points out that we suffer more in imagination than in reality

Seneca moral letters 28 it's it's tricky right i mean the still ex-askus to be active they asked us to be involved they asked us to be engaged and then somehow they expect us to be at peace to not be bothered by what's happening in the world

Senica has to be engaged yes to live in the city has to be involved but can he find peace within that and he says that you can't you can find peace you can become as marcus are really is talked about the rock that the waves are crashing over but eventually become still around and we do this by keeping guard over our perceptions as epictetus is saying

we carry the Penguin Classics translation of letters of a stoic one of my favorite books the second book of stoicism I ever read

Senica has been dead even longer and yet you can get what amounts to a daily letter from him every day by reading letters of a stoic.

He says, no man steps in the same river twice.

He talks about how he's suspicious of people who read only very widely, who sort of flit from book to book.

it is in keeping with nature to show our friends affections and to celebrate their advancement as if it was our very own for if we don't do this virtue which is strengthened only by exercising our perceptions will no longer endure in us.

seneca's conversation with lucilius what he who he writes to and letters from a stoic is about him associating with someone who made him better

In his letters to Lucilius, Seneca was explicit in his writing aspirations. He wanted to be one of the greats. But unlike some writers, he didn't view other writers as competition. If he read a great work, he didn't see it as a threat. In fact, in his 46th letter, Seneca says he received his copy of a book that Lucilius wrote. With the intention of just quickly skimming it, the sunlight called to me. He said hunger warned and the clouds were lowering. But I absorbed the book from beginning to end. I was not merely pleased. I rejoiced so full of wit and spirit it was.

I love the Penguin Classics physical translation of letters from Aesthetic.

the Dow of Seneca produced by Tim Ferriss and Tim Ferriss Audio

Did you ever get back around to picking up letters of a stoic?

I did. And I read it right after that actually. And I underlined a whole bunch of stuff. And but it was long enough ago that I don't think I can have an intelligent conversation about what I underlined. Unfortunately. But I was a huge admirer of, I mean, I was really, I mean, I was reading passages to my wife, which might be an abusive marriage, abuse of the marriage contract.

No, it is fitting Seneca talks in one of the letters. He talks about how the mind, if not given relaxation will break. And he says we must go on wandering walks, which did remind me of your wonderful new book.

In his 91st letter, Seneca tells Lucilius about his friend Liberalis who is "in some distress at the present moment following the news of the complete destruction of Lyons by fire."

It was a terrible savage tragedy that caused to mine the images we see on the news all over the world day-to-day.

His advice for the future is to cultivate readiness for anything, letting nothing catch you completely and acknowledging the suddenness and unpredictability of change.

As he says sharply, but accurately, born unequal we die equal.

truth stands open to everyone. It hasn't been monopolized. Seneca moral letters 33

I've been reading so many of the books in the Blinkist format. I'm not sure if you've read a short history of Brexit, the future of capitalism, the prince, letters from a stoic.