How to Think Like a Roman Emperor
If you have anger issues, this one is a great tool (h/t mindyourbusiness)
This week’s book:
Discourses and Selected Writings
Disclaimer: I’m not your Supervisor. These are my opinions after reading through these books a few times.
Epictetus was born a slave around 50 ad. His owner was Epaphroditus, a rich freedman who was once a slave of Nero. Though he was a slave Epictetus was sent to study philosophy under Musonius Rufus.
Epictetus was lame and there are some stories it was caused by his master and others that it was caused by disease.
He was a freedman when all philosophers were banished from Rome in 89 by the Emperor Domitian. He then started his school in Greece, and had many students. He did not leave any writings from his lessons, but one of his students, Flavius Arrian, took notes and wrote the Discourses.
Epictetus did not marry, had no children, and lived to be around 80-85. In retirement, he adopted a child that would have been abandoned and raised him with a woman.
He died sometime around AD 135.
He is my favorite Stoic teacher. I love his bare bones and very straight forward approach.
Following is a paragraph-by-paragraph discussion of one of his lessons. Epictetus’s text appears in bold, my replies are in normal text.
That we ought not to allow any news to disturb us
Whenever some disturbing news is reported to you, you ought to have ready at hand the following principle: News, on any subject, never falls within the sphere of the moral purpose.
News is interesting sometimes, but not worth letting it disrupt my mental state. I don’t watch the TV news for this reason, my main source of news is this website. I used to get in discussions with my mother, she could not believe that, “someone as smart as you chooses to be uninformed”. I would always answer with the “Better to be uninformed, than misinformed”. She never noticed that in spite of not watching the corporate news, I had a good handle on whatever issue she wanted to try to get me with.
Can anyone bring you word that you have been wrong in an assumption or in a desire?—By no means.—But he can bring you word that someone is dead. Very well, what is that to you?
This sounds cold and uncaring, but it is a reminder to keep yourself in control by maintaining an idea of priorities and what is inside and outside of control.
That someone is speaking ill of you. Very well, what is that to you? That your father is making certain preparations. Against whom? Surely not against your moral purpose, is it? Why, how can he? But against your paltry body, against your paltry possessions; you are safe, it is not against you. But the judge condemns you on the charge of impiety. And did not the judges similarly condemn Socrates? Surely it is no concern of yours that the judge pronounced you guilty, is it?—No.—Why, then, are you any further concerned?
None of the things listed here are anything to be concerned about if you are a perfect Stoic. I think I would have a hard time dealing with being sent to jail on a false pretense. Eventually I believe I could control my reaction, but that would take some time and effort.
5Your father has a certain function, and if he does not perform it, he has destroyed the father in him, the man who loves his offspring, the man of gentleness within him. Do not seek to make him lose anything else on this account. For it never happens that a man goes wrong in one thing, but is injured in another.[1] Again, it is your function to defend yourself firmly, respectfully, without passion. Otherwise, you have destroyed within you the son, the respectful man, the man of honor.
I have quit talking to my father for a few years now. Last time we talked I was home and we were supposed to go out to dinner. He never showed or called to explain what happened. My wife used to tell me I should call and maybe she is right, but I really don’t have anything to say to him.
What then? Is the judge secure? No; but he too runs just as great a risk. Why, then, are you afraid of what decision he is going to render? What have you to do with another man’s evil? Your own evil is to make a bad defense; only guard against that, but just as being condemned or not being condemned is another’s function, so it is another’s evil. “So-and-so threatens you.” Me? No. “He blames you.” He himself will attend to how he is performing his own proper function. “He is on the point of condemning you unjustly.” Poor devil!
Other people’s opinions of me are not on my list of things I care about. I have a small group that I would be worried if they told me they thought I was wrong about something. For the most part, I know myself and am comfortable with how I respond to things for the most part. This week is a little bit of an exception, I think I need adult supervision. When my wife is here, I go to bed on time and eat healthy. This week, I have been eating more junk out of convenience and staying up way too late reading. I need to do better at that. On the bright side, my ankle has improved to where I can walk the dogs so I plan on going back to the gym for the first time in 3 months on Monday. If I don’t sleep enough, I probably won’t be able to keep that internal promise. 5 weeks until my wife comes back.
Dude, if I am being ordered to drink Hemlock, that is very much a concern of mine. And remaining stoic at that juncture is beyond the pale.
Condemn me to die, and I am taking as many of you fuckers with me as I can.
You should be out car shopping for her.
That depends on whether or not my clutch gets fixed this week.
I love my truck, but driving it everyday through traffic is not fun.
We have a lot of construction going on, so it’s a lot of 2nd to 3rd shifting.
I can’t drive a stick anymore. No worries about me stealing your truck, Ron.
You could make the giant new car bow at home.
“That depends on whether or not my clutch gets fixed this week.”
I know a euphemism when I see it.
I just swapped out the ATF in my Ranger’s 5 speed. It eliminated a lot of hard shifting issues, especially getting it into first at a stop when it was cold. It looked like oil in a old quarry truck after 5 years. I do think the throw out bearing is getting warn. It makes a bit of noise when doing a high RPM clutch and shift.
How did I not catch this on my rereading befor I submitted it?
I’ve made the same redundancy error before when writing. Especially if my train of thought gets derailed while typing.
As for the rereading befor, I can’t say.
Ha! Now you are doing it!
*Passes Seppuku knife
Does the redundancy impact your pursuit of Moral Purpose? It does not; it is merely an example of human fallibilty and may serve as a harmless reminder to guard oneself against errors which may harm another unjustly.
Honest disclosure, I am a terrible stoic. I worry about things outside my control almost constantly and allow them to destroy my equilibrium.
You are unburdened by the rules of grammar that came before?
“I have quit talking to my father for a few years now.”
My Dad was not one to show much emotion but I always knew he loved us kids. Busted his butt providing as best he could.
It’s Deer Hunting season here now, every day my Dad sits with me in the stand. He’s been gone over 50 years but he’s still telling me to “Wait, wait, you’ll have a better shot when it comes out of the brush”. Sometimes I forget and see a white flag.
I love that.
My dad’s dead. We had a complicated relationship. He loved us, for sure, and he provided for us and rescued me a few times, but … he was also a bit abusive (though not nearly to the extent his dad was, so generational curse avoided?), expected me to do everything he told me to do for my own future (“major in accounting”), and gave really bad advice. Because of his authoritarianism, I was singularly unprepared to go out into the world alone. I had the social understanding of an 11yo. I wouldn’t have ever been able to get out from under his thumb of he hadn’t died without a major paradigm/relationship shift.
Now, with my own kids gotten to adulthood, I can see why he did some of the things he did, but I also had a lot more life experience than he did when he started having kids so I didn’t need to do those things and I didn’t give bad advice. I’m dismayed that I wasn’t any better of a teacher (especially driving teacher) than he was, but shit has to get done anyway.
And that’s as generous as I can be about him.
I don’t put any effort into talking to people who don’t want to talk to me, especially if I’ve reached out several times without response.
The only thing I really learned from my Dad was not to get angry at my kids when they were helping me do something.
He would always get so mad at every little thing we did wrong and then get upset we didn’t want to help him.
Because of that, I always tried to make sure my kids had fun working with me.
Well, I mean, holding the flashlight for dad may be a universal experience.
I didn’t make my kids help except to clean up, and even then I paid them because it’s a shit job. However, my very clear instruction to “make it look like we were never here” was apparently too vague.
XY did some DIY thing for me a little while ago. I don’t remember what it was. I asked him, “How’d you know to do that?” because I wouldn’t have thought to. He looked at me all surprised and said, “You taught me that.” Oh. Hm. I just remember taking him to the lumberyard and teaching him how to make sure to get straight and true 2x4s.
I love my dad and we have some issues, but I overlook them. It did seem that my sisters and I grew up in a different house sometimes.
I saw my dad working his ass off taking extra shifts and OT as a positive (providing for my mom and us kids). My sister saw an absent father that was never home.
I saw a guy trying to talk to and give advice as much as possible a little annoying sometimes, she saw an overbearing and critical asshole.
Imagine a world where we just banished the entire intelligentsia. I can only dream.
We could cordon off San Francisco and just give them that cesspit. Like Frederick the Great said. Nothing worse than being governed by self-proclaimed philosophers.
On the bright side, my ankle has improved to where I can walk the dogs so I plan on going back to the gym for the first time in 3 months on Monday.
This is good.
Still bigger than it used to be, but no pain.
Still scared to try to run on it though.
She seems fun.
To UCS from the deadthread:
“Now I’ve got myself worked up with curiousity about Morton’s Israeli production operation.”
I don’t know about Morton, but the Israelis most certainly extracting salt from the Dead Sea. They were doing it when I was there in 1969, cordoning off portions to make them even more saline than the rest of the sea. I still have a little bottle of Dead Sea water floating around somewhere.
I just can’t seem to find where the shaker I got originated. It’s as if the association was scrubbed from the internet.
A salt scrub?
That depends on whether or not my clutch gets fixed this week.
What was the final diagnosis? If you said already, I missed it.
It was gremlins. They must be evicted.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7VnDCtcrCc
I still think it’s the hydraulics.
I purchased a new master cylinder, but on these cars, that’s a job and a half.
Since I’m not sure if it’s the master or slave, I’m not going to do all that.
I will let the shop handle it.
When Priorities Collide.
I still think no company should come here until the regulatory landscape has been cleaned out and the fraud machine broken, but I do find it interesting that after decades of rejecting nuclear, the warmists are like, “Sure, why not, radium green* is still green.”
* I know that chernov radiation is blue, but most normies associate green with radioactive because of the radium glow.
The power that I am generating… Ah the arrogant political idea that they are somehow responsible for things their only role in ragrd to is to make more difficult for those actually responsible.
I hadn’t even noticed that – I tend to skim when dealing with statements from her or her office.
Ya that is some arrogance.
I got the power! Hey yeah ah. https://youtu.be/_BRv9wGf5pk?si=pbHndIrBz4bgRuhR
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/the-return-of-the-congestion-tax/
NYC is gonna do what it does.
Isn’t that an unsafe place to levitate a power plant? What if the antigrav fails?
Urban Renewal! Plus disaster monies!
Wait, you mean you actually worry about all the people crushed and proprty destroyed? How quaint.
Not to wish anyone ill, but that anti-grav failure would change the electoral map in NY for the better.
What the state obviously needs is a Three Mile Long Island.
The high IQ redditors in Duluth are NOT stoic about the new Chick-Fil-A
https://www.reddit.com/r/duluth/comments/1grbqv7/hows_the_chick_fil_a_lookin_today/
I miss when Chick-Fil-A was more under the radar and you could get in and out in ~10 minutes even during lunch time.
You just reminded me that my prog teammate was calling it “hate chicken” all weekend.
We have a Chick-Fil-A across from a Popeyes. Very comparable sandwiches.
If there are 30 people in line at CFA and 3 people at Popeyes, you’ll have your food 10 minutes faster at CFA.
They really know how to train employees. I used to go there twice a week. The lady at the counter greeted me by name and had my order ready to go as soon as she saw me. Plus they can really move some food.
There was one on my drive to work. I was always astounded by the lines there. Not as bad as that, but holy crap, does Chik-Fil-A have Michelin stars or something?
That’s the part I don’t get. It’s (IMO) the best fast food chicken sandwich, but that’s not exactly the highest bar. I’ll say that I’ve yet to experience rude staff at a Chick-Fil-A, and they were always among the most accurate at getting orders right, but that’s not worth waiting 20 minutes or so for food.
I don’t get it either. It’s fine, but nothing special.
We stopped at a Buccees (or whatever the fuck you call it) recently. I was astonished at how big the place was, how crowded is was, the staggering BMI of the average customer and the mediocrity of the brisket sandwich.
I tool one look at a Buckys and noped the fuck out of there. I ain’t walking that far to go take a leak while my tank is filling.
I’m way down with Buckey’s, and the wait at Chick-Fil-A is not as bad as you think it will be. Ever. Somehow for a fast food place, they have relatively impeccable service.
I loved Bucee’s. I’m even wearing the t-shirt I got there. But I probably wouldn’t make a habit out of it.
CFA is OK, but it’s made tastier because it’s forbidden fruit.
I like Buc-Ees, we were just there during the weekend and I have a mug and some shirts. It’s fun. But I wouldn’t go every week even if one was close.
Chick Fil A is good, there is a salad I like and the chicken sandwich and nuggets are tasty. Usually the line goes pretty fast around here.
Best convenience store that is not a megastore is QuikTrip.
I have not been to Buc-ees, but Little America is DA BOMB.
I went to Chick-Fil-A once. I was unimpressed.
Best thing about Chick-Fil-A is their breakfast. The chicken egg biscuit sandwiches.
But, why?
Homophobic Chicken, that’s why.
I don’t get it. It’s okay for fast food but not that special.
I am seeing more just low/mid-tier YT streamers and even Twitch streamers picking op on some highlights of Elon/Vivek and governmental FWA claims that of course, any follower of Ron and Rand Paul and a couple other politicians have been trying to get out to the public for years if not decades. At first I was thinking “Well ya! We’ve been saying that all along!”
Then I realized, it has always been marginalized or buried or presented as “Here’s the looney Libertarians again”. I am hoping that the right messengers have been found to actually highlight the absolute waste of money, our money, has been going on.
“Here’s the looney Libertarians again”
To be fair, the capital-L Libertarians did make it easy.
What the fuck are you talking about? I think a homeless guy with a fucking boot on his head is the ideal messenger.
But I agree with OBE. I’m seeing a lot of talk among normies about the issues and it white pills the shit out of me.
Again, it is your function to defend yourself firmly, respectfully, without passion. Otherwise, you have destroyed within you the son, the respectful man, the man of honor.
Powerful. As my kids get older I’m starting to see how important this is. Every day you are helping determine who they will become.
Good stuff, Ron. Good luck with the clutch!
TPTB/Tonio!
I hit the submit button without adding my featured illustration.
It was supposed to be: https://www.glibertarians.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/scorpion-king.png
I’m sure everyone can immediately recognize the relevance.
It’s been added.
*tips top hat*
The power that I am generating… Ah the arrogant political idea that they are somehow responsible for things their only role in ragrd to is to make more difficult for those actually responsible.
just like that useless dingbat Harris saying SHE was going to build houses.
Glasshouses, she’d build glasshouses to reeducate the wreckers and counterrevolutionary running dog lackeys. You know, us.
https://www.politico.eu/article/just-stop-oil-activist-charged-target-stonehenge/
Two Just Stop Oil activists were charged Thursday in connection with the spraying of orange powder on iconic English monument Stonehenge.
Rajan Nadie, 73, and Niamh Lynch, 20, were charged with “destroying or damaging an ancient protected monument, and intentionally or recklessly causing a public nuisance,” Wiltshire police said in a statement.
first step
English Heritage, a charity that oversees many of England’s historic sites, confirmed there was no visible damage to the site at the time but said the clean-up process could jeopardize the stone.
Not defending the actions of the Just Stop Oil morons, but it was corn flour. How does cleaning up corn flour jeopardize stone plinths?
with a pressure washer.
I dont know what stone is involved…I remember reading about it but cant remember and cant be bothered to look but some idiot using too much pressure could damage the stone. Also, consider how hyperbolic law enforcement can be to up the ante on crime and punishment.
Uh, it’s corn flour. It’ll come off in the rain like chalk off a sidewalk.
First step-Public Service cleaning up the monument. Then 10 years to contemplate the errors of their behavior.
As taxpayers we are charged with paying for those sitting on their asses doing time. I would think a little exposure to providing for themselves might be helpful.
/Remembers the chain gangs in Augusta, circa 1961
“Puttin’ ’em on here, boss”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMoV3-8q_po
Just got off of the phone and had an interesting conversation. In a nutshell: The system as it exists now is certain to collapse. We are probably seeing the beginnings of that now with Trump. This election of Trump will be one of the most significant events in American history on par with the revolution, constitution, civil war, new deal and end of WWII. In ten years the system will be completely different than it is now.
Question: Will this turn out like the French Revolution or like the American revolution? Disaster or success?
Trump doesn’t have the insight or principles to fundamentally change anything. Just my two cents. I wish he did, but he don’t.
Will this turn out like the French Revolution or like the American revolution? Disaster or success?
Mixed bag. Regardless of the “mandate” trump has, there are 100M+ people who are varying degrees of on board with wokeness, big government, debauched culture, and no-holds-barred power seeking. Out of the other 100+M people, many are for a different form of wokeness, a different form of big government, a different form of debauched culture, and no-holds-barred power seeking.
I think we’re still heading towards a national divorce or similar. A worldview cannot peacefully coexist with its reaction. Traditional western culture cannot peacefully coexist with the modern left.
Besides the NPR teammate, I have another one who’s more of a National Review kind of guy. I think he worked in DC during GW Bush. We obviously don’t agree on everything but we always have great discussions (when NPR teammate isn’t around to interrupt).
Anyway, we had a number of discussions this weekend, and he told me to remember the pendulum always swings back. And we might be seeing the beginning of that swing. It might not be just Trump, he might be the beginning, but we are going through a correction. I don’t know where this ultimately ends.
Trump: vision or not if he gets the wrecking balls he is appointing and a couple of bricks get pulled out of the bottom of the wall…
Across the board they want to dismantle the worst parts of the system. They all want to shutter some of the alphabet agencies altogether and pare the other down significantly. I think one, I dont remember which, thinks shuttering all of the agencies would be the path to take.
I think culture is the difference between American and French culture. France was e’t up with socialists. Their revolution turned into a feeding frenzy of wealth redistribution and power grabs – in other words they doubled down on the stupid.
American culture, at the time, was quite different. They were much more individualistic and had more respect for property rights and a healthy caution about power.
Sadly, I think today we look a lot more like revolutionary France than revolutionary America.
No matter what the outcome, keep your powder dry.
The only way I see the edifice beginning to crumble is if those first few bricks are significant budget cuts, as in, we actually spend less next year than we did this year. If the budget is just more of the same, then all the rest is a great sound and fury, signifying nothing.
I’m with JI here. Trump will be expected to make good in 2025. He has all three branches on his side. He’s got Javier Milei chatting in his ear. If we don’t see some sort of budget cuts, real ones, it will all have been just talk and Trump will lose much of his credibility.
Will he Sulla – who tried to fix the Republic? As soon as he died, Caesar and the rest went back to trying to take over.
Or Constantine? Who liquidated the Praetorian Guard, moved the capital, and set up another thousand years of Empire in the East.
The irony that the enduring end of the empire also gave birth to the most pejorative description of bureaucracy.
One thing I am learning about myself while my wife is gone:
I hate grocery shopping.
She usually does most of it throughout the week and we do a little on weekends sometimes.
When we go together, I am just the chauffeur/security. Plus, we get lunch together, by myself is torture.
Husband does that. I hate going out. He likes going out and will do so at the slightest opportunity, even if he has to ask me, “Hey, want me to go get you anything?”
I swear, my marriage is like Jack Sprat and his wife, which works out wonderfully well.
Divide and conquer for us. I do the Costco run and she hits the grocery store.
Mrs. Suthenboy is having trouble with her foot. She doesnt get about on her feet much. I do all of the shopping. I hate it.
Today I rode shotgun with my 80yo maternal parental unit in years. I kinda forgot WHY I insist on driving.
She’s not to taking the car keys away point yet, but she has always been a little careless (speeding, tailgating, wide right turns out into the left lane, not staying in her lane) and now she’s getting worse.
Had to tell her to back off a bumper. BUT HE’S GOING TOO SLOW AND I CAN’T GET OVER. Geez, just have a little patience. Nothing is going to change.
THEN her phone chimed and she dug in her purse for it before I could catch her. PUT IT DOWN MOM!
One of you degenerates probably still would.
https://x.com/rawsalerts/status/1857180056935973288
I could see there being a spark.
She could send a tingle up your spine.
She’s high energy.
These foreign efforts to probe the hardness of our grid infrastructure aren’t very sophisticated.
I was literally cringing in anticipation of her exploding.