The Daily Stoic

His book, Barry the Chains about the the freeing of the slaves, the abolition movement, the ending of the slave trade. Absolutely must read core idea in this Stoic principle of justice.

Basically it's about abolition, that the idea that slavery shouldn't just exist because it has always existed.

it was a fascinating brilliant lovely book that I have been thinking about ever since I wrote it

it totally changed how I think about how to bring about change I think it's a vivid reminder of what the Stokes would say our obligation is as people to the common good

the famous slavery logo that he talks about in the book, the the question 'Am I not a man and a brother?', goes to the essence of what Marcus really is trying to get to, what Heirich Lee is trying to get to, that the victims of injustice have a nature not unlike our own and we own obligation to help them, to be of service to them, to make their lives better

I cannot recommend enough

I would just read that book Bury the Chains about the creation of the abolitionist movement that like basically a group of like seven people got in a room and were like hey should we care about people who are enslaved and they came away with the answer yes and and the entire arc of Western civilization changes as a result of that that conversation not immediately and in many cases not in the lifetime of those people and they couldn't have anticipated where it would go exactly but yeah the moral innovation I'm thinking about that you have the graphic of that slave ship in the book but there's the you've seen this the famous drawing of the black man and it says am I a man and another am I not like an artist comes up with an idea that that represents a person that was previously to the vast majority of let's say white people in the world not seen as a human being and renders it artistically and creatively and you could even say propagandistically in a way that changes how people see things and over the course of 100 200 years an institution that no one would have questioned or predicted would go away does go away and that shows the seeds for the women's rights movement and the gay rights movement and so many different movements because a few people made a moral invention or innovate

I really love Steve's last book Outdoor Kids in an Inside World which I have raved about I've told a million people about it I would carry that at the painting porch too you'll definitely like it

read that first love it then with your kids read catch a crayfish count the stars

while I was in Big Bend I read this new book from Steve Rinella about how to raise outdoor kids in inside worlds obviously I'm bookish obviously I spend a lot of time front of screens but I also live in the country I also love the outdoors and how do you raise a kid that appreciates that and understands the beauty of the outdoors anyways this is a great book I really liked it I interviewed him for the podcast

His new book Outdoor Kids in an Inside World getting your family out of the house and radically engage with nature is a fantastic book. It's so perfectly encapsulates what I'm thinking about as a parent.

I'll never forget there's a passage where you know virtual's writing and there's a lot of different backgrounds of what's going on but in the epic poem we know in some day Rome won't exist anywhere either it's stepping back it's it's a fact there really a day America does not exist but being an 18 year old boy with my boy brain and sitting back and looking around and being like this country's not going to exist someday too you know and having that realization the presentness yeah of our lives the instantaneousness of our lives it doesn't just make us you know focused on our phones or screens or who said something it makes us blind and the way humans want to be to very clear facts that this country these people were all gonna die someday anyways as the stoics will tell you they already did but you know better than anybody but this country itself personally we're almost as going to be on and whatever an 18 year old boy's brain is it is malleable you can give it good writing and good perspectives and those magnets they're not gonna hurt you know and so i i've always remembered that moment of looking up stepping back from the book one to think why is virtual putting it in there he's writing to Augustus right and he's trying to get that to him and so like the just even the it's heightened by the sense of like what's the author trying to do here what's the message that they're delivering right

Previously she was on discussing her beautiful readable riveting translation of the Ineid.

And you can check out her new book Plato Goes to China, the Greek classics in Chinese nationalism and do read her translation of Virgil's The Ineid.

I found that absolutely fascinating and I think you're really going to enjoy this interview.

And I'm just finishing her translation of Virgil's The Anteid.

And you can get her new book, the translation of the Ineid, anywhere books are sold, including my bookstore, The Painted Porch here in Bastrop, Texas

I think it's interesting that there is a pragmatic streak to the Stoics that perhaps Seneca embodies most of all, but Athenodorus and Arias do, which is like, governance is a complicated thing.

I decided stoicism was for me it had helped me put death into perspective it helped me process the loss of loved ones

On the Daily Stoic podcast, the author Paul Kicks talked about how he wrote The Saboteur, an incredible book option by Steven Spielberg while he was working full-time at ESPN, intending to two newborns.

I loved his last book The Saboteur which was about this resistance figure in World War II in France, this are fascinating were hero

You might have heard my interview with the ESPN writer Paul Kicks who's booked The Saboteur. I've recommended many times. He wrote a piece about me and Stoicism in the NFL and professional sports.

It really explores human relationships particularly in the framework of marriage again under extreme stress, years of separation.

It really explores human relationships particularly in the framework of marriage again under extreme stress, years of separation. Sybil Stockdale would never have let him become party to some kind of untoward conspiracy like outcome just knowing the two of them they sailed to North every day in their lives.

and then he wrote the passion paradox and The Practice of Groundedness we carry both The Practice of Groundedness

we are briefly both at portfolio penguin that's where he wrote The Practice of Groundedness

And here is my interview with Brad Stolberg his new book The Practice of Groundedness is wonderful I also like his book peak performance so here's me talking with Brad yeah I was thinking about this idea of groundedness which is the new book like I was thinking about how much more literally grounded my life is like I was walking on a dirt road this morning instead of concrete there were no cars going by I was outside like I think there's also you know none of almost nowhere you can live in the United States at this point is like sort of pristine nature but I do think the a even the suburbs are more natural than the sort of concrete jungle busy city life which I find like I think it wasn't until I moved out of New York City that I was quite and then I went back like I moved out and then I now when I traveled there particularly as I've gotten older how much how viscerally the noise pollution affects me like you go through your life not hearing large trucks or horns or jackhammers and then you hear them and you're like oh wow this is awful like this isn't natural to hear all the time and you can get really used to hearing it so you're not aware of the harm the progressive harm that's having an inner body but it is there

Brad is the co-author of a book we actually sell at the Painted Porch which I really like called Peak Performance.

He's also the author of the Passion Paradox.

So walk me through that journey because I guess I have a similar one. Walk me through the decision to leave Oakland and live somewhere quieter.

if you're gonna use your hands and your feet like your hands and your feet are gonna get soaring calloused right and what that means if you're gonna live a life you're gonna get beat up

This is the important thing for me. We talked about this in today's episode. I don't want the pandemic to have been a productive, fruitful, creative period for me simply because I just abstained from all the other things that I used to do.

One of my favorite novels is The Movie Goer.

And most of all, it turned me on to Walker Percy and his kind of Southern stoicism turned me on to one of my all-time favorite novels which would be The Movie Goer which I recommend all the time.

One of my sort of literary heroes is the writer Walker Percy who wrote this great book, The Movie Goer, which is sort of about adolescent angst.

He wrote this book Uncommon Wrath, published by Basic Books, which I think you're really going to like. I enjoyed reading it. I know a ton about Cato and Caesar and I got a lot out of it.

It's a fascinating book by Professor Josiah Osgood who's been on the podcast before.

It's a clash of virtue and vice in both men.

And this biography about these two men who hatred for each other destroys the world they love.

I loved his book so much I wanted to bring you a chunk of it.

Check out the book anywhere books are sold, grab it on audible, whatever.

But I think you're going to like this book also listen to my episode with Professor Osgood and do check out Uncommon Wrath how Caesar and Cato's deadly rivalry destroyed the Roman Republic.

it's called Uncommon Wrath how Caesar and kato's deadly rivalry destroyed the Roman Republic so it's not just a biography of kato in isolation but it's a biography of the two leading figures of the age kato and Caesar

this new book is really good and we had a great conversation about kato pros and cons strengths and weaknesses virtues and vice and I think there's a lot to learn from here

I had Kate Fagan on the podcast who wrote this amazing book called What Makes Maddie Run about this collegiate runner who ended up committing suicide.

if you haven't read her book what makes Maddie run you should it's incredible

It's one of my favorite books. It's a book I've recommended to all the sports coaches that I know, recommended to parents. Actually just the other day, a customer came into the Painted Forge. I saw them looking at the sports section. I saw them pick up What Made Maddie Run? And I said, you got to read that book. It's amazing. And she took it home with her because it was amazing.

What Made Maddie Run is also, as it happens, inspired by the title of one of my favorite novels of all time. What Makes Sammy Run?

check out what made Maddie run beautiful haunting book

And no one talks about contentment more beautifully than the poet Horace, the Roman poet.

He who longs only for what is enough is not stirred to fear by the seas tumult or by the fierce force of the falling northern star or of the rising kid or by the vines beaten down by hail and the disappointing farm where the trees blame now the rain waters, now the constellations that roast the fields now the hostile winters.

Thee who has enough need not strive for more.

To be daunted by nothing is the one and only thing numicius that can make and keep you happy.

Those who speed across the sea change their climate, not their temper.

I've raved about these series I carry them with the painting porch you I'll show and today shown it's all that all the ones we we used but I really liked this edition of Horus I've read it I've I've actually quoted it both in discipline and I have a quote of it in the in the New Justice book

This one is specifically translated by Stephen Harrison it's called How to Be Content, the search for the Good Life. I devoured this little book of Horus's poems quite quickly when I read it a few years ago and we carry it at the painted porch in the physical form which you can pick up I'll also link to it in today's episode page but I thought I'd bring you the audio because there's something about listening to poetry that's extra special.

In this excerpt Horus talks about being content with what you have and not worrying about the future and he explores how contentment piece satisfaction, enoughness is the key to living the Good Life.

I recommend the physical edition which you can pick up in the link below at thepaintedporge.com but if you want to grab it in an audio here's what it sounds like as well.

I read his book many years ago. I met I read his novel many years ago Green on Blue. I found it to be quite moving.

The first book I read from today's guest, Elliot Ackerman, was called Green on Blue, which it was a really haunting novel.

He really wrote a book from the perspective of a young boy in Afghanistan who becomes sort of radicalized and drawn into the tribal warfare there.

It's a remarkable exercise in empathy, seeing the conflict that he was in from a perspective so different than his own.

To save his brother, Aziz must join the special lash car. A US-funded militia. Aziz rises through the ranks. Aziz becomes mired in the dark underpinnings of his country's war, witnessing clashes between rival Afghan groups, what U.S. soldiers called Green on Green attacks. And attacks on U.S. forces by Afghan soldiers, violence known as Green on Blue.

It's just a great book.

no i found i thought Green on Blue was an incredible novel a haunting uh dark dark novel but uh but a great one

I have raved and raved and raved about his book Boyd The Fighter Pilot who changed the art of war which I read right around the same time my first got turned onto Tyler Cowan.

Just incredible biographer, just like one of the best and I think because of how few people have read this book, one of the most underrated biographers that I've ever read.

I cannot rave enough about Boyd and I can't rave enough about his book on Bud Day.

But in the meantime you must read Boyd, The Fighter Pilot, The Change to the Art of War which we sell at the painted porch and I will link in today's show notes

I still think about this book and what you wrote in it on an almost daily basis.

I'm going to come back and watch this. I'll follow up. Yes. Glad. Well, now I have to ask you because I can't do it. Can you watch film of your own appearances? Like... Oh, all the time.

Have you read... I used it as a source in Ego as the enemy but given your interest in military jets and then also leadership, have you read Boyd, the fighter pilot who changed the art of war?

He's one of the great fighter pilots of all time. He fights in Korea. He was called 42nd Boyd because you could basically take anyone down in 40 seconds.

I had been waiting for justice suddenly to rise up and smite him in all its vengeance. Secretly hoping to be around when Sammy got what was coming to him. Only I had expected something conclusive and fatal. And now I realize that what was coming to him was not a sudden payoff but a process. A disease he had caught in the epidemic that swept over his birthplace like a plague, a cancer that was slowly eating him away, the symptoms developing and intensifying, success, loneliness, fear. There of all the bright young men, the newer fresher Sammy Glicks that would spring up to harass him to threaten him and finally overtake him.

what a beautiful bright light ambition can be when there's something behind it and what a puny flickering sparkle is when there isn't.

I thought how consciously I had been waiting for justice to rise up and smite him with all its vengeance. Secretly hoping to be around when Sammy got what was coming to him. Only I had expected something conclusive in fatal and now I realized that what was coming to him was not a sudden payoff but a process. It disease he had caught in the epidemic that swept over his birthplace like a plague, a cancer that was slowly eating him, the symptoms developing and intensifying success loneliness and fear fear of all the bright young men, the newer the fresher Sammy glicks that would spring up and harass him to threaten him and finally overtake him. It was too late to hate or change him. He just was who he was.

have you read a Love Wins by by Rob Bell

I'll send her a Richard Rourer CD and we talk. And there she is. I mean like the real her, like not neuroses, not fear, but like we meet as souls and we're there together and it's like the clouds part and we're both free together. We've dropped the role of son and mother. We're just two pieces of the mystery and we can breathe fresh air together and it's been so wonderful. It happened when I sent her Rob Bell's book, Love Wins,

I loved your book, but it's not biblical.

He has a new edition of his book, The Algebra of Wealth, A Simple Formula for Financial Security.

He also has one called The Algebra of Happiness. I would say those two things are related, right? The purpose of wealth is to facilitate happiness.

He has a new edition of his book, The Algebra of Wealth, A Simple Formula for Financial Security.

obviously has all these amazing books that are afghan campaign gates of fire or legend of backer vans

I actually read that book Why We Sleep...and I...and that's like there's the percentage of people who can actually do that is staggeringly low

I saw that I actually read that book, Why We Sleep, the author right, and I and I and that's like there's the percentage of people who can actually do that is staggeringly low.

have you read the book the body keep score

there's another great book I'm pretty the opposite name it's a good actually thing let's call the body keep score and basically the idea is that we're feeling these things we feel deeply our body sort of tracks all the things that happens to us you know from the moment we're born and this idea that even if you're not feeling it even if you're not dealing with it the consequences are there so obviously therapy is a part of this relationships are a part of this sharing connecting with others is a big part of this which I think we have to understand as being part of the Stoic experience