Amazon.com: Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic eBook : Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, HQ, Classics: Kindle Store
Disclaimer: I’m not your Supervisor. These are my opinions after reading through these books a few times.
Picking up where I left off with Seneca’s letters to his friend and student, Lucilius Junior, an official in Sicily.
I am summarizing a part of the letter in italics and then responding in normal text.
On the Good Which Abides
Seneca imagines Lucilius questioning whether Seneca believes himself to be a finished product, and that is why he offers advice to others. Seneca then admits he feels no shame for helping sick people while he himself is still ill. He is trying to help Lucillius with a problem both men have, just as one can give advice to another about an ailment that they both suffer from.
I am not perfect, and still battle anger issues sometimes. Maybe this disqualifies me from offering advice, but I think it gives me perspective and experience that might benefit someone with the same issue. Also, I can tell them what worked for me and what didn’t.
He explains to Lucillius that by explaining his thought process, he hopes to help both of them. As he gets older, he would be embarrassed to have the same desires he had as a young man. There should be no guilty pleasures as a man approaches the end of his life. This is because the guilt remains after the pleasure is over.
I am glad I no longer have the same pursuits I did when I was younger. I still drink a little too much on weekends, that has gone from 12-18 beers on Fridays and Saturdays to a six pack at most on Saturdays. I remember in 2008 I was stationed in Kansas City and my wife was still in North Carolina while we were waiting on housing. I would go to a local sports bar to watch football and became drinking buddies with another 30 something guy. He was always looking for a woman to take back to his place. That life seemed very odd to me. I was glad I had outgrown it and was happily married. Now that I am 52, I am even more glad that my life doesn’t revolve around chasing women and drinking beer.
Instead of looking for those guilty pleasures, look for things that bring pleasure that lasts. If you live a virtuous life you can find long term peace and joy. That will also make obstacles easier to overcome and much less troublesome.
I try to find lasting happiness with things that bring no guilt. My boss has a very active social life, always playing cards and having parties with friends. He asked me what I did on weekends.
I told him I usually have a project planned on my truck or one of the cars. Sometimes I do yard work and other weekends I drive my wife around so she can go grocery shopping and we’ll go out for lunch on those days. Saturdays we usually drink a little and watch a movie or something. Other weekends (rarely) I do absolutely nothing but hang out in the house with my wife.
According to my boss, this is “boring”. I don’t think so. Is it exciting? No. But I do not find it to be boring either.
It is up to you to find this kind of pleasure. Although you have been working towards it, you should speed up. No one can do this for you. Seneca then tells the story of Calvisius Sabinus. He was a wealthy man that had no desire or ability to learn great stories and verses, so he trained his slaves to learn these so that he would not have to. A man named Satellius told Sabinus that book cases were much cheaper than the trained slaves. Satellius also told Sabinus that he should take up wrestling. When Sabinus objected he was too old and sickly, Satellius told him to see how many healthy slaves he had.
It is up to me to learn things I think are important. Simply having access to the Stoic writings and knowing some quotes does not mean I understand the deeper meaning. I get an honest joy from learning and that helps me to stay centered as well. Luckily we do not live in ancient times, so large bookcases are not required, I have many hundred books on my Kindle.
You cannot buy a sound mind, but depraved ones are sold every day.
My mind and pride are not for sale for pleasure, I have known quite a few people that this was not the case for, and it doesn’t end well for the most part.
The letter closes with another quote from Epicurus (Seneca loved to borrow from him). “Poverty brought into accord with the law of nature is wealth.‟
I think that means if you can live a good life at your current income, regardless of the level that might be, then you have enough and are a wealthy individual. Also there should be no desire of things outside of your control to increase your wealth.
Last weeks music was Ozzy with Randy. This week is Ozzy with Jake E. Lee.
Jake swears he wrote this song (along with most of the album), but Ozzy has the writing credits.
Another fun fact: Ozzy is actually inside of the casket when it is in the wagon.
This is one of my favorites:
As I go through the 2 albums with Jake, I realize that I was correct when I said Ozzy with Randy was the best Ozzy, but some of these are good tunes.
As bad as the world is, imagine it without Firsting.
🎶 What a wonderful world it would be.
❤️ Shot in the dark.
#metoo
#methree
# mefour
5
Let’s talk about boring. I love boring. I see “boring” as the REWARD for living a life kind of sidestepping the landmines that could blow it up. Of course, other people can act on you for whatever intent/no intent at all, so you have to deal with it, but when you are boring, you have possibility. You can do what you want because you otherwise have no plans. Your weekend is free, so to speak. I’m trying to instill in my son the value and pleasure of boredom, which is highly underrated. Chores and tasks, sure. But quiet pleasures and maybe not-so-quiet (e.g., getting a wild hare to go do something fun) if your life isn’t a complete shitshow.
I know what I’m trying to say. I’m not sure how to say it.
Oh, and you have to learn to love the grind of your daily tasks/chores/obligations, or at least be at peace with it.
I will take being at peace with it.
It all made sense to me, I agree 100%
I think a lot about giving advice to “sick” people while still being “ill.” If we are self-aware enough, doing so is distasteful if not outright gauche. I write my characters giving a lot of advice, but they are not “sick” so they can do that. Or they once were “sick,” but are no longer so they speak from experience. A friend asked me once, “They give such good advice. Why can’t you follow it?” Well, because it’s all easier said than done. Losing weight and saving money are simple. Everybody knows how to do it. But they are HARD to do. So, advice in many instances isn’t really helpful.
As Mike Tyson famously said, “everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth”.
Yep. I wrote that down in my commonplace book.
Don’t underestimate the power of support and encouragement. Fighting demons with a friend is better than white-knuckling it on your own. Even if the friend is struggling with the same shit.
I’ve found the opposite with friends and family. I discount their empathy because they love me and of course they want to help, so I’m not really getting an accurate picture of what I’m fighting. “You’re my mom. You have to think I’m pretty and smart.”
BUT! This is where therapy comes in. It hurts a lot. OMG, it hurts, but I find that purging the toxins with someone else (albeit paid, and skilled in getting you there) is invaluable. There are things I’ve come up against in therapy where I have to say, “I don’t want to talk about that.” It’s not that I never will, just don’t think I’ve dealt with enough upper-layer stuff to be able to dig into the deeper stuff yet.
I said ‘friend’ when I should have said ‘partner.’ Your therapist, I promise you, is a mess, too. We all are. But that doesn’t mean we can’t slay some dragons together.
Oh, yes, I’m sure she’s a mess, too. That’s okay, though. I take it on faith that because she’s trained to deal with other people’s messes, and because she doesn’t know me or have baggage with me, that she can see things more clearly than someone I have history with.
After being married to one, can confirm.
I remember a woman I knew through Swing dancing in the Boston area decided to change careers from engineering to therapy.
I said to a friend that knew her, “She’s going to project all her problems onto her clients and fuck them up worse than they already are.” He said, “Yep.”
Mrs. Tree’s profession pre-kids was as a clinical dietician/nutritionist. Like, for real stuff – not regular weight loss but as related to cardio conditions, oncology, renal conditions, HIV, hospice care, etc. So on the medical side of things.
Her line about her field is that half of them are there because they really love to cook/eat interesting things (her), and the other half have made careers of their eating disorders.
My wife’s recently divorced cousin and her young son are living with us for a while. After just a week we realized how hectic the cousin’s life is. Constantly running around, having to be someplace. A lot of it has to do with her splitting custody and having to pick up and drop off her kid with the dad. But as soon as the kid’s gone, she’s off to a friend’s, or a more than friend’s house. We have been accused of running around too much, but not like this. We decided we are perfectly content being boring most of the time.
Amen.
Although I will take in a hockey game on occasion 😉
I have practice twice a week, and tournaments about once a month. I work from home and don’t go out much outside of hockey. But that’s still enough for my mom to tell me I’m too busy and need to stay home more.
Just got back from a work trip, be did manage to go to the Devils-Canadians game in Jersey on Tuesday.
Good times, and I’m not a fan of either team.
Sweet! I like games where I’m not invested.
Sorry to corpse fuck the thread and you probably won’t see this, but I was at that game too! Vet ticks for the win! (through my buddy, not me, no stolen valor for me)
But if you are both working to improve and you find a method that works, but you are still struggling, would giving advice in that context be distasteful?
I agree it would be a bad look for my morbidly obese mother to give me workout tips, but I don’t think that’s the same thing.
That’s what I mean. Even if she’s right (and with all the information out there, she probably would be), it’s still gauche.
But if she was actively working out and trying to lose weight, it wouldn’t be as gauche, I believe.
It’s the fact she is not even pretending to do the right thing that would irritate me in this hypothetical scenario.
This is a test, this is only a test.
Okay, server doesn’t like my comment I have been trying to post for an hour.
It was my Anti-seconding platform at work. I still haven’t gotten it to weed out UCS, though.
A Critique of Stoicism
Stoicism has excellent psychological advice, albeit with imperfections
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-three-minute-therapist/202301/a-critique-of-stoicism
Stoicism recommends feeling neither negatively nor positively about things one cannot control, which may be unrealistic.
Lol, wut?
Difficult, certainly, but achieving any of these goals is fucking difficult.
Stop trying for the ideal already. Just give up and reach out with your feelings.
Let the hate flow. Yes, yes….
It makes sense when you realize that modern society is all about people indulging in their own emotions. It’s at the core of who we are as a culture at this point.
This is a byproduct of prosperity, where every single moment isn’t spent thinking about surviving.
Just as I arrived at daycare to pick up my son he fell, he was trying to decide if he should be sad about it or not.
I kept trying to get him to get past it so we could go home, for some reason one of the teachers kept asking him if he was okay. Everytime she asked he would stay crying again. Sigh…
Smack the teacher and tell her he’s fine and she should stop making things worse.
/font of bad advice.
It’s basically DIY CBT.
Ow!
Heh.
I think that guy read 5 minutes of quotes and decided to debunk it.
Maybe he read more, but he sure didn’t grasp it very well.
Ain’t nobody got the time to philosophize.
Our own personal happy space.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USeOKsZg__A
He explains to Lucillius that by explaining his thought process, he hopes to help both of them. As he gets older, he would be embarrassed to have the same desires he had as a young man. There should be no guilty pleasures as a man approaches the end of his life. This is because the guilt remains after the pleasure is over.
Again, the denial of material pleasure is such an important part of both Stoicism and Christianity. Some of the reading I’ve done lately could have been written by either.
It fascinates me how good ideas endure.
Thanks, Ron! I like these letters.
I don’t know that it is denial as much as it is putting it in its place and not elevating it into the most important thing.
Marcus Aurelius enjoyed good food and fine wine, but he would try to remind himself at the root it is the same as plainer fare.
But it’s not the same as plainer fare. Not in nutritional composition and not in biochemical reaction. The difference between good food and food that is distilled disappointment is night and day, and carries a knock on effect on mood and outlook long after it is consumed. It is easier to tackle one’s woes when not facing a place of dreary dreadful dreck.
Yes – moderation, control, and priorities.
Denial in the sense of sacrifice. Forgoing comforts to further growth.
I am perfect, which is why I battle anger issues sometimes. Imperfection of others pisses me off
12-18 beers on Fridays and Saturdays – that is to much fluid. was there no whisky when you were young?
I remember in 2008 I was stationed in Kansas City and my wife was still in North Carolina while we were waiting on housing. I would go to a local sports bar to watch football – were there no erotic massage parlors in Kansas City?
I told him I usually have a project planned on my truck or one of the cars – truck and multiple cars? killing Gaia much?
There was one in my neighborhood when I was growing up. It was on my way to school. I never really understood that that particular “massage” place came with a happy ending, but it looked seedy, so I knew something was up.
2nd try, got the server error the first time.
I definitely have this problem.
Always liked beer better than hard alcohol.
Not my style, even when I was single.
What do you mean? My truck averages 16 mpg at around 400hp.
Every adult person needs a private space, to do nothing if that’s a goal. Be it fishing, watching TV or working on some sort of a project or simply contemplating any of the former. Contemplating is under valued but not boring.
Always enjoy your stuff, Ron.
I personally find meditating virtually impossible. But I can almost get into a trance mowing the lawn!
And hikes are my contemplation time.
I contemplate while I’m driving. It’s why I like driving long distances.
The DOJ ain’t pussyfooting.
Exclusive: DOJ investigates Alex Jones’s cat. Not Satire!
Juvenile petty assholes
Your Twitter link brought me to this when I scrolled.
A giant kid beating a teacher most of the way to death because she took his toy.
https://twitter.com/hodgetwins/status/1629083287414091777
The take-my-time-and-put-my-phone-down stroller had access to a chair and didn’t use it.
https://www.stripes.com/marine-seen-tackling-two-fist-fighting-students-has-been-counseled-on-appropriate-level-of-involvement-1.598879
*spits coffee*
The corps is dead. Play the bugle and lower the coffin.
When I was in Artillery we got banned from the “Warrior Club”(it was the club on 29 Palms for off base units coming there to train) because we got into a brawl with another unit.
Reminded me of “No fighting in the War Room”.
The racial composition is all wrong so this ain’t news.
Also, pretty bad how the only man there took his time getting involved.
They’ve been trained to not fight back from elementary school on. If you fight back, you get punished.
But wait, there’s more!
Whatever shall we do?
Actually punish those responsible?
Bigot!
Mandatory school attendance is not a good policy. There are a number of sociopaths that should not be there. Disruptive at a minimum, dangerous at some point.
My opinion after doing student teaching in an urban school 45 years ago
10% on the top end gained nothing from the classroom settings, were beyond what was being taught
Next 20% were there and learning something
Middle 50% were just occupying a seat but weren’t a behavioral problem
Next to bottom 10% came to sleep, disrupt, ignore
Bottom 10 % should have been in jail
Some kids that were suspended came to school and roamed the hallways, creating more than a nuisance
I agree with this 100%. The fact that it hasn’t changed in 45 years should be the death blow to government schools.
It has changed – that bottom 20% is much bigger than it used to be.
Fine. Doesn’t change anything, though. Shut them all down.
Yeah. So when can we sue newspapers into oblivion for damages during the COVID lockdowns?
“ I am not perfect, and still battle anger issues sometimes. Maybe this disqualifies me from offering advice…”
Not at all. Unless your advice turns into MURDER THEM ALL in which case some people might consider disqualification.
Unless your advice turns into MURDER THEM ALL
Is it time yet?
*taps foot impatiently*
Ten more minutes.
I’m on a call. Can we say 20?
It’ll wait. See Drake’s Twitter link above.
I’m not sure I would disqualify a “MURDER THEM ALL” advice depending on who we’re talking about killing here.
I try to find lasting happiness with things that bring no guilt. My boss has a very active social life, always playing cards and having parties with friends. He asked me what I did on weekends.
I told him I usually have a project planned on my truck or one of the cars. Sometimes I do yard work and other weekends I drive my wife around so she can go grocery shopping and we’ll go out for lunch on those days. Saturdays we usually drink a little and watch a movie or something. Other weekends (rarely) I do absolutely nothing but hang out in the house with my wife.
According to my boss, this is “boring”. I don’t think so. Is it exciting? No. But I do not find it to be boring either.
I like your life better.
Seems like a good l/wife.
#metoo
Hope your parents are doing well.
Thanks… things are moving along with my parents. Some stuff might happen in the next week or two.
Apropos:
https://twitter.com/buitengebieden/status/1627360524643041280
He’s obviously trying to kill it.
The Bee:
https://babylonbee.com/news/plane-explodes-into-fireball-after-woman-in-23c-fails-to-put-phone-in-airplane-mode
Rebellious Andean bear sneaks out of US zoo – twice
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64762959
New security measures added to this Andean bear’s habitat by the Saint Louis Zoo were no match for his adventurous nature.
After escaping his habitat earlier this month, on 7 February, the four-year-old bear, named Ben, snuck out again on Thursday afternoon.
“Am I being detained??”/libeartarian
*ovation*
Yes *fires dart* /Zookeeper
The Rise Of Modern Stoicism: Is Keeping Calm A Healthy Option?
In the midst of permacrises, an ancient Greek philosophy that advocates for resilience and acceptance has become newly fashionable. Dedicated stoic Natasha Bird questions how well its principles actually serve her and the world we’re living in.
https://www.elle.com/uk/life-and-culture/culture/a42993347/stoicism-keeping-calm/
That one is better that the first one, I plan to do a response to these once I finish Seneca’s letters.
Thanks for these.
At its heart, these attempts to debunk stoicism are based on the perception that stoicism demands you be (more) self-reliant, and there are a lot of people who don’t want others to be independent and self-reliant.
A giant kid beating a teacher most of the way to death because she took his toy.
There were a few male teachers in my high school who would have put that kid on life support.
Yeah, fights were pretty common in my school and the biggest teacher would wade in, grab each of the combatants, give them a good shake or a couple shots against the lockers, and it was over.
And nothing else happened.
There weren’t so many fights at my school. The gang members killed each other elsewhere.
I guess I’m getting old because I remember throughout my school days (although it was changing by the time I graduated), teachers were pretty concerned about fights in school but turned a blind eye to anything much past the outskirts of the school grounds. It wasn’t uncommon for kids to settle disputes with fisticuffs within a block or two of school. The school
Didn’t involve itself in these incidents and most of the kids didn’t solicit teacher involvement. Unless the kid who got beat up had a Karen for a Mom it was usually over when it was over (and at worse there was a tense phone call between parents).. I feel like I’m from a by gone era.
My 8th grade Latin teacher was a member of the 1968 US Olympic weightlifting team. He routinely scared the living shit out of us.
Da fuq? My district barely offered any Latin, and only to a tiny subset of high schoolers.
Private school
OT – (and I hope this hasn’t already been extensively talked about here) what power will Bill Gates and the WHO have inside the United States?
Only the power we give them.
Functionally, the Biden administration is trying to shift any blame for unpopular policies to a third party outside of the USA. The WHO isn’t the problem, Bill Gates isn’t the problem, it’s our political class that’s the problem. The WHO doesn’t have an army or any authority unless we provide it.
They’re just laying the groundwork for a true reactionary to rise, and then all bets and gloves will be off on both sides.
Oops – here’s a link to the correct time: WHO / US.
Cool link, bro!
https://youtu.be/ETOgkkoG9JU?t=2229
Well, Gates is coming for the beer as well.
/looks over at Lagunitas and Shorts
Well, that would be why he bought a stake in Heineken.
Haha. No shit. He’s not a big beer drinker but he likes skunky beer farts a lot?
“It was the lobstermen wut dun it!”
https://dailycaller.com/2023/02/24/radical-wind-farm-activists-blame-blue-collar-fishermen-for-wind-farm-whale-deaths/
More retardation from the death cult.
Funny how the whales didn’t react like that in the past 150 years of fishing (or whaling, for that matter).
400, but yeah.
Fuck those whales.
And dolphins.
Samantha Power explains the vital interests the US has in Ukraine:
https://twitter.com/PowerUSAID/status/1628966332761886720
Spoiler: There aren’t any.
And then there is this cocksucker
War,War,War,War,War,War,War,War,War,War,War,War,War,War,War,War,War,War,War,War,War,War,War.
WAR!
I used to like Pompeo but the more one learns…
Watching the retired military on the news makes me wonder if they missed VN, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and all the rest. Somalia, was that real or just a movie?
Is there light at the end of the tunnel? Maybe a few more weapons to Ukraine and the Russians will learn that we mean business.
I’m increasingly worried that there is no one powerful or interested enough to stop this. The Cathedral is all in and the antiwar voices just too weak.
Yep. One thing all the assholes of both party agree on is the unquestionable need for MORE WAR!!!!
I couldn’t sleep so I watched “All Quiet on the Western Front” on Netflix last night. It was a good reminder that war is hell and there is nothing glorious or redeeming about it.
The people advocating hardest for WWIII are the ones who are least likely to do any actual fighting.
Same as it ever was.
YEP
I’m wondering how that works out for us this time around. Previous generations had large populations of young, strong patriotic men to dupe (or force) into service. I have a hard time picturing your average zoomer going over the trench.
Contrary to how it was portrayed in Dr. Strangelove, nukes don’t need riders.
Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor
Looking at Clinton, Biden, Trump, Cheney, George II. They sat out. Gore at least got a few months vacation (as a photographer) until his papa pulled some strings. Obama gets a pass ’cause no mandatory draft.
Can’t imagine what that would be like, but then I remember Biden’s unofficial campaign motto:
IT”S DIFFERENT WHEN WE DO IT!
This is why I have anger issues.
The first comment of that tweet had a question I wanted to ask “Are you talking about Putin or Zelenskyy?”
Or Biden?
…and, as you implied, Biden.
They don’t believe their own bullshit. They’re just out there selling a war because failure could quite well be the end of the neocon era.
So now we’ve got two nuclear armed countries warring. One views it as existential to the country and the other views it as existential to their continued rule. I gotta say, as a citizen, it’s a fantastic situation to be in. History is being made and we all know that the more people who die, the greater the history is.
“It was the lobstermen wut dun it!”
Ray Charles could see that coming.
WAR!
They won’t stop until they get American boots on the ground.
Bring back Yellow ribbon bumper stickers! Support the troops rally’s! Death toll counts below the talking heads!
We only get death counts with a republican president.
True. The current media regime is probably ghoulish enough to keep a running Russian death tally.
Thanks, ron. Glad you’re back.
Putin gave Biden a writing set worth $12k in 2021.
I demand that the President publicly burn it on the West Lawn or be denounced as a traitorous Putin-lover!
Daily Ray of Sunshine
We Peaked in 1981
I stayed in a hotel on the California coast that looked like that. In 2015.
I love everything about that.
Thank you.
It’s just missing some lines on the table.
In 1981, my 13yo self thought that was the ultimate in cool and luxury.
Was the interior design done by Trump?
Makes me think of this: “Hotel Scarface”
Humblr pie
Sen. Tim Scott arrived in Iowa this week amid buzz about a presidential bid to come. But shortly after stepping foot in the state, that enthusiasm was complemented by the humbling elements that come with politicking in such an intimate place.
Scott chose a reading room at Drake University, hoping to reach younger voters who don’t always hear from Republican candidates. There, he received enthusiastic applause from conservatives in the front as he stuck closely to the prepared speech rolling on teleprompters. But his message was a harder sell to some of the other young voters who didn’t respond to his lines about gender identification and the teaching of racism. Later, they confided that they would never vote for him. After all, they were Democrats.
“That’s exactly what I assumed he was going to say,” said Gavin Hoedl, a 20-year-old student, who had come merely to witness the possibility of an announcement being made. “That’s the standard Republican stump speech.”
What does that porch monkey know about race relations in America? And he wants people to be slaves of biology when all they need is a wish and a tap of the old magic wand.
And a slice of the new magical scalpel.
I can’t say as I blame them, I wouldn’t vote for Tim Scott either.
Still a correction is necessary….
After all, they were
Democratsscumbags.