How to Think Like a Roman Emperor
If you have anger issues, this one is a great tool (h/t mindyourbusiness)
Discourses and Selected Writings
Disclaimer: I’m not your Supervisor. These are my opinions after reading through these books a few times.
On travel for work again, so you get more clippings from my earlier essays.
These are from Daily Stoic 31-43.
Life is short, and work is important. I need to balance these things.
It doesn’t matter what is going on around me, I still have the ability to look inward and improve my mentality about external circumstances.
I keep trying to improve myself. It is not always the result I was hoping for, but I keep taking steps in the right direction.
There is not an original thought in any of the Stoic writings. Although some use this as a criticism, it doesn’t matter. What matters is the ability to learn from them and not just repeat them, but actually put them in practice and see positive change in my outlook and how I deal with problems and setbacks.
I don’t study Stoicism for fun. I don’t do it to impress others. I do it to improve my outlook on life and improve how I relate to the outside world. It has truly helped me to make positive improvement in many areas. I have not found a better way for me to control anger and be able to deal with external forces I cannot control.
Whose fault is it when I get angry at the world? If I can remember it is mine, I can control it and not get as angry.
I have read many books written by people that were dead before I was born. I don’t blindly follow them, I adapt their teachings to my belief and understanding. To me, following Stoicism is a personal journey and different people can have different interpretations of these writings without conflict because it is about how to live YOUR life, not how your neighbor should live.
If I am unhappy and angry, I can either find someone or something to blame, or I can take responsibility for my mood and change the way I am thinking.
If I have trained hard enough, the actual event is made much easier. When I was on active duty, my workouts were always harder than our Physical Fitness Test, for this reason, outside of being injured a few times, I was always able to score a first class using the young man scoring system. The same went for combat training. Now I am more concerned with my mental training to handle difficulties and frustrations. As I train my mind by seeking out difficulties, they become easier to deal with.
My mind is my defense against the external forces trying to get me stressed out or angry. As long as I an able to correctly ascertain what I control and what is totally outside of my control, my fortress is strong. When I allow hunger or tiredness to cause me to snap at my wife, it crumbles from the inside. How strong the fortress remains is up to me.
It is important to me to be right. I don’t mean whatever I say is right, but that what I believe has to be correct. I really try to not lie to myself and be open to the possibility I could be wrong. I used to be a conservative law and order type, which is odd, because before I got married, I was a pretty heavy weed smoker. I have since changed my views on the police and our warfare state. I have trouble dealing with people that can look at evidence and ignore it because it goes against their team.
If I am inflexible in my beliefs, I will never improve. It is too easy to convince myself of things I agree with. It is also very easy to double down on being wrong if I am invested in being right. If I make decisions rationally and not emotionally, it is easier to change course and admit I was wrong.
The ability to control myself is the most important ability I have. I still get angrier than I should, but I am usually able to stop myself and fix my attitude. In the past once I was angry, my day was pretty much ruined. If I had the ability to control more, how would I do in the days of anger? As long as I control myself, that is all the control I need.
I have high standards for the people I let into my life. I learned fairly early that hanging out with people you can’t trust is a recipe for disaster. I also have standards for what I listen to or read. Same as with friends, trusting the wrong information can be disastrous. I am learning to have higher standards for my own mentality and behavior, using Stoicism as a backdrop to identify my shortcomings and improve them.
Most of my struggles are caused by me. This is a hard truth to acknowledge.
Bad habits are hard to break. It is easy to keep doing the same thing just because you are used to doing that. Luckily, the same is true of good habits. As long as I can keep doing the correct things and controlling my anger, it can build on itself and make the future obstacles easier to overcome. It’s hard to establish good habits, but in the long run it works for the better.
Just because I am good at things that impress some people, (shooting, working on cars, rough carpentry and the like), doesn’t mean I am a good person. Those skills are useful, but it is more important that I am good at being an honest and strong man. It is also important that I don’t get impressed with my own abilities, or become condescending to others that can not do the same things.
I try to be as honest in my daily life as possible. I believe living a deceptive life is unnatural and not good for me or anyone that has to deal with me. Being rational means being able to separate emotions from logic. All three of these put together help to be able to see when outside forces are trying to manipulate my opinions, or lie straight to my face. This also helps to form my personal belief in freedom and my disdain for word salads that don’t have a true meaning.
Hope you all enjoyed this week’s segment of “Things I have said before”.
I’ll be back to a normal article next week.
A Clip Show! I haven’t seen one of these in years.
I’m sad it didn’t include ron throwing an axe at the target’s crotch.
Shades of Ed Ames!
ONE of you got it!
Do you know how old that makes you look?
I, too, immediately got the reference, fellow old-person.
Oh, I got it! “Welcome to ‘Frontier Bris’!” 😆
I still don’t get it – and I don’t think I want to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0L5QC9ZJkM8
I’m not old enough to see the original, but I used to watch Carson in the 1980’s. Every few years they’d have a big anniversary show and this was always the last clip they showed.
Oft-repeated clip from a Johnny Carson-era “Tonight Show” episode. Singer/actor Ed Ames was then playing an American Indian character on “Daniel Boone” and was demonstrating his tomahawk throwing prowess for Johnny using a human silhouette target. Hilarity ensued.
No prob, Ron. This kind of thing bears repeat consideration.
Just because I am good at things that impress some people, (shooting, working on cars, rough carpentry and the like), doesn’t mean I am a good person. Those skills are useful, but it is more important that I am good at being an honest and strong man. It is also important that I don’t get impressed with my own abilities, or become condescending to others that can not do the same things.
Who know who needs to heed that advice? The fictional character “Homelander” in the TV show, The Boys.
Speaking of Homelander, he graces the cover of the current issue of Time Magazine. It’s a fake cover; an advertisement. When you turn the page, the real cover is displayed: Joe Biden leaning across his desk.
Homelander is an evil man pretending to be a hero. I find it interesting that when you “unmask” him, you see Joe Biden.
I’m assuming the next season is out?
Yeah, the first episode anyway.
First three episodes dropped yesterday. Rest coming in weeks to come. It does make references to the events of Gen V, both as a background event and for one plot piece.
And they’ve managed to throw in some woke bullshit that the show seemed to be better about in past seasons.
I may be a little too sensitive to it, but the first episode of the new season of The Boys seemed to be painting Homelander and his unhinged followers as Trump and the MAGA crowd.
Hopefully leftist bullshit messaging won’t ruin this show, too.
There is a reason for the lack of classics coming out of the USSR. Leftism is like chlorine gas, it kills EVERYTHING.
Buried lede:
Time still publishes paper magazines.
On inflexibility of beliefs: There’s a great quote from Richard Feynmann; “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest one to fool”. Practice looking at your ideas about philosophy, religion, politics, whatever, from time to time. Test them against new information. Jump up and down on them. Subject them to heat, cold, pressure and solvents. See just how well they endure. Then you can be (reasonably) sure that what you believe is worthwhile.
One of the reasons I like arguments and discussions (in good faith). It will help me attack my own preconceptions and assumptions.
Agreed. One of the reasons why I won’t argue with wokies, or any other fundamentalists, is that they tend to treat their beliefs as received wisdom from who knows where and refuse to consider that there might be an error or two in their thinking. Never attempt to teach a pig to sing…
Also, don’t argue with wookies.
mindyourbusiness:
I was made shockingly aware of that ~20 years ago when talking tax policies and strategies in a bar with a group of friends (for some reason, our table always had plenty of empty space around it), and the most proggy one there didn’t like what I was saying because “the math all sounds right, but it feels wrong”. I never discussed anything of import with that person again.
Arguing in “good faith” now means having soundbites or thought-provoking questions at the ready, and I can’t do that. Also, if I don’t feel like I’m going to change anybody’s mind, I don’t bother.
This X 1000 plus what MYB says. The problem of course is finding people to engage with who will do so in good faith. Remember the ACORN (or whoever) paid commie trolls from the before times?
MYB: I remember during the 2020 campaign some lefty org spokesidiot saying “What we are trying to do is too important to be held back by math.” regarding public spending of some sort. Yes, engaging with such a person is a waste of time. Around here it is expressed as “You cant argue facts, logic and reason with someone whose beliefs are not based on facts, logic or reason.”
– Oliver Cromwell, in a letter to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, August 1650.
Ironic, coming from a man that was sure he never was wrong.
Didn’t work out well for him in the end, did it, JI?
I donno, he died Lord Protector of natural causes. The monarchy was reinstated after his successor proved… less than capable.
“Lord Protector of Natural Causes”
Man, those limeys have a title for everything!
To test the stoicism of travelers, I see that facial recognition is showing up at all of the airports now.
But don’t worry, the pictures aren’t retained, locally.
I’ve given up (or maybe it’s apathy). I’ve been in the Matrix since Global Entry.
Or just don’t care.
Caring would require the expending of energy.
It’s better to focus one’s limited energy on things one can measurably affect.
Same. Just got back from the DR and now you don’t even have to put your passport on the scanner – as soon as you look at the screen you’re told to head to the booth, where they rubber-stamp your entry.
Speedy yet a bit off-putting.
Speedy yet a bit off-putting.
DEN opened a great new PreCheck checkpoint recently. Combined with the FR stuff, the last three times through have totaled about 5 minutes.
My doctor doesn’t make me do all that, even.
Evil, Mrs. Dean made that exact point recently when I was working myself into a froth about something (I think it was the unholy union of the Tech Lords and Our Government Masters).
I’ll stand in the regular TSA line and miss my flight before letting Clear track my face and my life.
Spoiler: it’s already captured and tracked.
I imagine that your face is being tracked the second you step into an airport, Clear or not.
Yes – you are both right. But I did not agree to it and never will.
I never thought that would be the reason I would give up air travel.
I see the little kids on the Shriner’s/St Jude hospital commercials and realize life could be a lot worse.
Truth. Yesterday was the 1 year anniversary of the death of a friend’s 12 yo daughter. Leukemia.
Gotta be grateful every day for what we have.
I’ve heard nothing but good things about the Shriners and St. Judes. I’ll also add Child’s Play as another one, this one you can avoid any charity overhead by directly ordering toys/games for children’s hospitals through Amazon wish lists.
Thanks, Neph. I need to do some shopping!
Cool that they have 3D printers and other stuff like that on the wishlists.
Hope they’re FDM printers. Last thing I’d want to do is expose a sick child to Resin fumes.
Ouch. What a painful loss.
There are a few charities I’d drop a shit-ton of money on if I ever won the lottery. St. Jude’s would be in the running.
Speaking of stoicism, I’ve been watching A Man in Full on Netflix. They’ve changed way too much from the book. It’s not terrible, but it should have been so much better.
I didn’t know that had made it to the screen. I’m not going to bother. A Man in Full is one of my favorite books, and I’m not going to watch it be chopped up like Atlas Shrugged was.
Hell, even the Bonfire of the Vanities (just to keep to the same author getting horrid screen treatment).
I resolved to strike the movie from my memory and have mostly succeeded. Bonfire of the Vanities informed my writing also. Wolfe titles his chapters, and I felt super-smart and like I was sharing a joke with the author whenever I got the reference. So I titled my chapters in my contemporary novels (not in the historicals, though; I’m not clever enough).
There’s a good review by Kevin Mims on Quillette back in May. Don’t agree with all he says, but he makes good points.
“Former NSA Director Joins OpenAI; Will Serve On Board And “Security” Committee”
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/former-nsa-director-joins-openai-will-serve-board-and-security-committee
Mmm hmm, “former.” Is there a single tech enterprise that isn’t completely compromised?
I worked for that guy when he was a Colonel. Pleasant enough fellow, as General Officer track officers go.
But yeah, this public/private partnership thing is positively dystopian.
Former director of J2 for ISAF (Afghanistan) – so where and when did he publish the truth about the mission there? That every GO was lying about the capability/reliability of the ANDF? That the govt was corrupt and doomed to fail before we even pulled out? Surely he had that intelligence.
I wasn’t endorsing his career. Other than when he was the boss of one of the shops I worked at in NSA HQ.
That said, there was an unspoken understanding throughout the whole of the IC that the whole thing was a failed endeavor.
It turns out you can’t parachute in centuries of enlightenment/liberal traditions into an Iron Age society and expect it to work, who knew?
Why would the IC want that? Much better to have reliable contacts in all of those places.
I wasn’t endorsing his career. Other than when he was the boss of one of the shops I worked at in NSA HQ, I can’t vouch for anything else in his service history.
Presented for the site, and the article title:
https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/online-exclusive/is-democracy-surviving-the-year-of-elections/
Self-Awareness level: 0
According to CNN it’s a conspiracy theory to call the US a republic.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/06/13/us/video/politics-voters-donie-o-sullivan-stephen-collinson-fst-061312pseg1-cnni-u-s-fast
That’s dumb, but not without a little relevance. I’m pretty sure we left the being a Republic stage many moons ago. Pick a date, 1865, 1913, 1917, or 1945. At some point we transitioned into an empire, and its been all down hill since then.
1789?
Tundra, I always love the bold stances.
News for morons by morons.
If we are a democracy, when did we have a vote for open borders? The war in Ukraine? Borrowing $89k a second?
I didn’t recall voting on any of that shit.
We’re an oligarchy with democratic features but if the vote meant anything they wouldn’t let us do it.
I would have gone with “veneer” rather than “features”, but yeah. Trump’s first term made it crystal clear that elected officials are mostly decorative.
Also, if I don’t feel like I’m going to change anybody’s mind, I don’t bother.
I do not possess what I call the “teacher gene”. I have no interest in teaching anybody anything. If I think somebody is wrong about something I am content to let that person go right on being wrong or stupid or whatever, without any interference on my part. I am not going to bestir myself to point out the error of their ways, or attempt to correct their misconceptions.
Fuck that. I have better things to do, like nothing at all.
My only caveat to that is if I have time to do a proper fisking online.
Proggie friend (PF): rEpUbLiCaNs WoNt AlLoW OtC bIrTh CoNtRoL
Me: *triggered* Here’s the bill Republicans submitted to allow that very thing. Dems blocked it by X much.
PF: Um. Oh.
PF’s proggie friend: wElL Im A dOcToR aNd ThErEs GoOd ReAsOnS fOr NoT aLlOwInG iT
Me: Because you don’t trust women to be able to purchase their own birth control without your say-so?
PF’s PF: No, it’s not like that.
Me: Then what’s it like?
PF’s PF: …
PF: I’m going to have to think about that.
Me: *bows out gracefully*
I’m sorry, but would you mind terribly if I opened up your skull to watch the gears grind?
It’s a lot of fun to watch all those futiley-spinning wheels.
As those sorts of exchanges go, that is actually a bit of a victory. Giving a proggy pause is a win, normally they will plow on regardless of how insane they sound.
U-Turns are allowed in clown world.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/anti-gay-no-u-turn-signs-come-down-in-la-s-lgbtq-friendly-silver-lake/ar-BB1nYTXm
Link at the bottom of the story. Hmmmm
Yikes, the various pox diseases give me the heebie jeebies.
I should stop procrastinating.
I have a project on my desk that makes me go “ugh” every time I think about it. (Writing end user documentation). Rationally, I am the person with the knowledge level best suited to write it, I just get so worn out writing user documentation. It takes so much mental energy to write down to the lowest common denominator.
PF’s proggie friend: wElL Im A dOcToR aNd ThErEs GoOd ReAsOnS fOr NoT aLlOwInG iT
You can’t let people just go buy medicine without forking over the gatekeeper fee! That way madness lies.
I was so tempted to go into all the reasons why not allowing OTC birth control pills was particularly harmful to poor women, but especially poor black women, hitting all of the intersectional talking points between upper/middle class white women and poor black women, but that’s an intersection of exactly 0, so I didn’t think it would do any good.
I can think of two other reasons why the D’s were against OTC birth control pills:
1) Insurance generally doesn’t cover OTC drugs, so now they couldn’t give “free” birth control.
2) Planned Parenthood made quite a bit of coin having consults and writing scripts from my understanding.
You’d already locked up their brains. The only thing you could add to that is something to catch fire.
Just issue the last Halt and Catch Fire command?
Republican carnage
In 2017, it took a shooter 10 minutes to spray more than 1,000 rounds into a crowd watching a Las Vegas concert. He murdered 58 people and injured 500 more in America’s deadliest mass shooting. He did this with a bump stock, an accessory that, for all intents and purposes, transforms semi-automatic rifles into machine guns. Today, the Supreme Court’s GOP-appointed justices legalized bump stocks. Any gun owner can now possess this weapon of mass carnage.
Who did what where?
I’m gonna need something belt fed, pls.
So 6000 seconds for more than 1000 rounds. That’s not exactly full auto.
whoops one two many zeros on the first number
why no occifer I have not been drinking, much, yet
His bump stock kept inducing malfunctions (as well as the 100-round Surefire quad-stack magazines he’d stockpiled.) He’d have been better off with 30’s and two conventional ARs. Well, actually he’d have been better off putting the first round through his own brainstem, but you get what I mean.
Italian chicks are not stoic
That’s some righteous hate.
Yikes!
She is not having any of his shit.
I’m reading Buchanan’s WWII book finally. It’s excellent. But man, some of the shit going on in Europe right now seems to have a familiar trajectory to it.
To whatever extent that authoritarianism is ascending in the EU, the solution is frustratingly simple, stop framing any expression of national sovereignty as the second coming of the failed painter and address the concerns of your people regarding your determined effort to import the third world into Europe.
The longer they try and stave of doing something, the worse it is going to be.
This is a deep fake, Mediterranean women are well-known for their calm demeanor and understated ways.
Hey, alright! We got the Cold War restarted!
https://www.euronews.com/2024/06/14/cubans-line-up-in-havana-to-board-russian-military-warship
“military warship”
Is there another kind?
Privateers.
https://www.newsweek.com/us-nuclear-powered-submarine-uss-helena-naval-base-guantanamo-bay-russia-fleet-cuba-havana-1912722
The fucking retards running the state department are going to make it hot this time if something doesn’t stop their idiocity
Surfacing a sub while underway seems like a dumb thing to do. If you are looking to do the ‘Peace through strength’ and ‘we see you’ bit, park a carrier group in the Caribbean. Making a strategic asset vulnerable to make a point isn’t the flex you think it is.
That’s some righteous hate.
Nice. She just needed to grab a hand sanitizer towel immediately after shaking his hand.
Kind of turned me on to be honest: Whip me, beat me, make me write bad checks.
And here I thought I had talked myself out of being pro-death penalty.
I still oppose the State doing it. I’m completely comfortable with a relative taking care of that monster.
AND that doctor.
UGH. I hate people.
Sometimes I think becoming China’s newest province wouldn’t be so bad. I doubt they allow that kind of shit.
I’m not anti-death penalty at all. Some people need killing, after all.
I think the way we do it now is moronic, of course. Decades of appeals, blah blah. Shouldn’t take more than a year to get appeals done, and then, bingo bango, kill the fucker.
Sounds like they were injecting/implanting something in a very sensitive place, doesn’t it.
Not sure, unless the kid didn’t like the way the first shot made him/her feel, and so didn’t want the second shot. Clearly, mom was far more invested in the transition process than the kid was. “Children’s Hospital” indeed.
Transhausen by proxy.
I think I know which relative is going to kill that woman – eventually.
It’s a little too perfectly evil, TBH.
Maybe, maybe not. In this clown world, I’m leaning to not.
There is the possibility that, say, ten years or so in the future, mama’s little darlin’ may offer her a prefrontal lobotomy. With an axe.
So was it really her son, or her daughter that she was pushing to become a son?
Not sure, but either way, it’s child abuse.
If I were on the jury for a person who murdered that woman, I would be an automatic “Not Guilty”.
“Justifiable Homicide to protect the child” Not Guilty.
Ryan Reynolds wishes you a haooy father’s day!
Good grief. I tipe gud.
I figured you were drunk already.
Almost time.
Cubans boarding Russian warship? Are they shipping out for Ukraine?
They want to see it before sinks due to a smoking accident.
-“Alt-Protein”: Pentagon Contractor Wants To Feed US Troops Lab-Grown Meat To “Reduce CO2 Footprint”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/alt-protein-pentagon-contractor-wants-feed-us-troops-lab-grown-meat-reduce-co2-footprint
Well that should help with those recruitment problems.
“Today’s army marches on its pronouns.” 🙄
I’m pretty sure the pentagon has a larger carbon footprint than many developed countries. Starving its soldiers isn’t going to make much of a dent in it.
https://earth.org/us-military-pollution/
“Unless big Pharma is involved!”
Tor! Tor! Tor!!!
Thank you for your inspiring posts.Ron. I so seldom get a chance to commebtnon them lately.
Arg. And a mistype at that.