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 might be 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.
Of personal adornment
Once, when he was visited by a young student of rhetoric whose hair was somewhat too elaborately dressed, and whose attire in general was highly embellished, Epictetus said: Tell me if you do not think that some dogs are beautiful, and some horses, and so every other creature.—I do, said the young man.—Is not the same true also of men, some of them are handsome, and some ugly?—Of course.—Do we, then, on the same grounds, pronounce each of these creatures in its own kind beautiful, or do we pronounce each beautiful on special grounds? I shall show you what I mean. Since we see that a dog is born to do one thing, and a horse another, and, if you will, a nightingale for something else, in general it would not be unreasonable for one to declare that each of them was beautiful precisely when it achieved supreme excellence in terms of its own nature; and, since each has a different nature, each one of them, I think, is beautiful in a different fashion. Is that not so?—He agreed.—Does it not follow, then, that precisely what makes a dog beautiful, makes a horse ugly, and precisely what makes a horse beautiful, makes a dog ugly, if, that is, their natures are different?—So it appears.5—Yes, for, to my way of thinking, what makes a pancratiast[1] beautiful does not make a wrestler good, and, more than that, makes a runner quite absurd: and the same man who is beautiful for the pentathlon[2] is very ugly for wrestling?—That is so, said he.—What, then, makes a man beautiful other than just that which makes a dog or a horse beautiful in its kind?—Just that, said he.—What is it, then, that makes a dog beautiful? The presence of a dog’s excellence. What makes a horse beautiful? The presence of a horse’s excellence. What, then, makes a man beautiful? Is it not the presence of a man’s excellence?
It is better to be functional than ornamental. If you have specialized in one athletic event your body type could be useless at a different one. Making yourself beautiful for appearance sake is not an important function, but in general it is still important to me. I am not beautiful, but I am working on getting back in shape and while being able to do more is a big reason, I would be lying if I said losing my gut was not an important part also.
Very well, then, young man, do you too, if you wish to be beautiful, labor to achieve this, the excellence that characterizes a man.—And what is that?—Observe who they are whom you yourself praise, when you praise people dispassionately; is it the just, or the unjust?—The just;—is it the temperate, or the dissolute?—The temperate;—and is it the self-controlled, or the uncontrolled?—The self-controlled.—In making yourself that kind of person, therefore, rest assured that you will be making yourself beautiful; but so long as you neglect all this, you must needs be ugly, no matter if you employ every artifice to make yourself look beautiful.
Beauty in a selfish or mean person is not attractive. When I was in high school it took a while for me to figure this out. Once I was an “adult” I learned to be more selective on who I spent time with. I try to be a good person more than I try to look good, and at 52, that ship is sailing away no matter what I do.
10Beyond that I know not what more I can say to you; for if I say what I have in mind, I shall hurt your feelings, and you will leave, perhaps never to return; but if I do not say it, consider the sort of thing I shall be doing. Here you are coming to me to get some benefit, and I shall be bestowing no benefit at all; and you are coming to me as to a philosopher, and I shall be saying nothing to you as a philosopher. Besides, is it anything but cruel for me to leave you unreformed?
When I was in the Marines, sometimes I had to tell junior Marines harsh truths that they didn’t want to hear. Most of them didn’t do anything different afterwards but there were some that took it as intended and improved themselves. Just trying to be nice to them would not have improved them and they would not respect me.
If some time in the future you come to your senses, you will have good reason to blame me: “What did Epictetus observe in me,” you will say to yourself, “that, although he saw me in such a condition and coming to him in so disgraceful a state, he should let me be so and say never a word to me? Did he so completely despair of me? Was I not young? Was I not ready to listen to reason? And how many other young fellows make any number of mistakes of the same kind in their youth? I am told that once there was a certain Polemo[3] who from being a very dissolute young man underwent such an astonishing transformation.
If I never told them the truth about their actions and just let them carry on, eventually they could realize one day that I had let them down. They could wonder if I was just a bad leader, or maybe think I had no hope in them and never tried to correct them because of that.
Well, suppose he did not think that I should be another Polemo; he could at least have set my hair right, he could have stripped me of my ornaments, he could have made me stop plucking my hairs; but although he saw me looking like—what shall I say?—he held his peace.” 15As for me, I do not say what it is you look like, but you will say it, when you come to yourself, and will realize what it is and the kind of people those are who act this way.
I don’t think looking good is bad by itself, when looking good becomes the highest priority is when it becomes a problem. I see too many young girls that were probably decent looking running around with plastic surgery faces. I see older ones with the permanent squint. Guys that go to the gym that obviously want you to know they do that. I am not great either, as a 52 year old man, I have hair halfway down my back.I know it’s not important in the bigger picture, but I like it and so does my wife.
Little shorter today, got a late start on this one.
Get a haircut, ya damn hippy!
/jk , until recently I had a goatee down to my belly button
In my home town (pop around 600) I was the only longhair around.
After I moved into my dad’s place in WV I would come to visit my mom.
Once my brother told him he had seen me at the gas station and my brother said, “But you’ve never met him”.
The guy said “Yeah, but there was a skinny guy with long hair so I figured it was your brother”.
Wait… you cut the beard down? What happened?
The project at work is done.
I’ll grow it out for the current work project.
So it’s like a playoff beard?
You’re just going around assuming genders?
Literally worse than Hitler.
Carried over:
The proposed bill would take the resources that were allocated to buy more jets and use them to create a digital twin of the F-35 and an integrated software laboratory. It’s “astounding” that Lockheed hasn’t modernized how it develops software and hardware for the program, Wittman said.
“We also believe that the resources from the 10 aircraft that will go to an integrated software laboratory, to digital twin testing, to additional test beds—all those things are capabilities that should have been done years ago and haven’t been done and that’s why we’re so far behind where we are today. So we are saying, you know what, we’re not going to leave this to chance anymore. We’re going to take an active role,” Wittman said.
The F-35 program is on track to cost over $2 trillion, making it the world’s most expensive weapons program.
Maybe they should hire Atari to build a simulator and model the software.
Just in time for cheap drones to make them obsolete.
DEW is pretty much right around the corner to take out the drones.
What an incredible waste of money for what is turning out to be a mediocre high-maintenance aircraft.
Sell ’em to the Norks, except they have no money. Actually that might be winning strategy. Let them have at a discount
We’ll have the best virtual air force that money can buy.
It’ll be operated by South Koreans?
Outsourced to Indians and Chinese.
To keep costs down.
My personal opinion on aging and having work done is aging naturally and looking your age with all its flaws and battle scars is more attractive than fighting the process with surgery and enhancements. That said, I am fortunate to still have a full head of hair at 53 and still reasonably fit. I can imagine going bald is no easy thing.
Trying to remain stoic after visiting Mark Steyn’s website.
https://www.steynonline.com/14318/curiouser-and-curiouser
– “If it was cooked up in an American lab, don’t you think we should know about it?”
Nah. It just came naturally to me.
On a more serious note, I had a ponytail down to my waist. At 35 I went to the shaved head look as the hairline was retreating back too far from the forehead, and I didn’t want to be one of the hippie looking guys who are bald with a thin ponytail still hanging on. My dad still goes to a barber to get the fringe around the sides “trimmed”, I just use clippers.
Bobcat Goldthwait had a line,”I have long hair and am going bald, there is no way to do both at the same time and look cool”
Mrs. Frankelson has vetoed the skullet many times.
She doesn’t want some of this?
That’d be a hard no. No punk renaissance at 50 y/ofor me.
Ah. You’ve aged into Rockabilly exclusively then?
Probably more of an unkempt grunge grass look these days.
Heh. I resemble your dad.
And I too had hair down to my ass, but as 22 I hacked it off. Didn’t start balding until I was 29. Now I have a short, pointed beard a la Joseph Conrad.
I’ve got the standard mustache into goatee look now, I last trimmed the beard down when I started the previous job, and was going to be on site for the first time. I realized they may not know what to expect. The beard has shifted from dark with streaks of grey to grey with streaks of dark.
Same as the ponytail, the beard grows to a certain length and gets no longer.
My beard is getting pretty white. If I don’t keep it trimmed my wife calls me Santa.
That’s why I run the electric razor over my face every morning. Only takes a minute.
Came naturally to me, too. That awkward transition period is not fun, but once you’re through that, it’s no biggie. Kind of a relief, to not have hair maintenance to speak of. I just keep the remaining back and sides buzzed down, and that’s it.
Got around to the back and sides treatment awhile back due to an accident. Milady wife, who’s a retired beautician, decided to give me a haircut. Without really looking at the guard she used, she balded me. After I got over the shock, found that it looked good and was a lot more comfortable in Summer. Kept it that way ever since.
It seems like a very poor risk/reward balance. If it goes perfectly, you get marginal improvement. If it goes badly, you could end up looking like something out of a horror movie.
Well put.
“ Once, when he was visited by a young student of rhetoric whose hair was somewhat too elaborately dressed, and whose attire in general was highly embellished,…”
I see Epictetus didn’t get much action. His bar game would be off.
Are you kidding? His neg-game is top-notch.
True
I think we can all agree that in our culture, women tend to have a rather different perspective from guys on the subject of physical beauty. As a Woman Of A Certain Age, I’ve grown even more ambivalent about it than I was earlier in life. I spend a ridiculous amount of money to keep my hair red instead of letting it turn white (and I will again next week and until I go broke.) I keep buying makeup… but then can’t be bothered to put it on in the morning. I’d love to lose just a bit of weight – no more than 15 to 20 pounds – but then I get hungry or bored, and the snacks in the break room are so close and so cheap, and why bother dieting?
I will say, no plastic surgery – not even the nose job I’ve always wanted. 🤥
My wife has jet black hair and is concerned about the amount of gray that’s showing up, she’s 54.
Mine is grayer and I could not care less, if it was thinning, that would probably bother me, or I might just shave it off.
Relevant, I believe
She is still in the 30-50, but she is scared of the bottom level.
Knew it.
I finally convinced my wife to go grey, as it was starting to look a little brassy. But, she isn’t a red head like me or you.
What I really hated was that as the hair started to turn gray (or white) the overall effect was to look faded. Maybe one of these days I’ll allow myself one white streak a la Bonnie Raitt.
There’s a young lady that I met through Viva who has pitch black hair, with a white streak in it. Per her (the girlfriend asked, not me) it’s natural.
A friend of mine had that – jet black, with a white streak. Childhood injury, IIRC.
It’s gone pure white now, which also looks great.
I like the “ash blonde” look, myself.
Me too, ass-man through and through… oh, you said ‘ash’. Never mind, carry on.
I only remember my paternal grandmother’s hair as white-white, as a result of some kind of beauty-parlor thing. But all the older relatives said that her hair actually turned silver when she was like 18 (which would have been about 1931). Maybe that’s what a “platinum blonde” was – dunno.
My Irish Grandmother went from Maureen O’Hara red to bone white in what seemed like a week when I was young kid. But she may have been coloring it by then to keep her natural red.
Mrs. Tree called those her “Cruella stripes”
Lady Frankenstein.
A lady-friend of mine consistently dyed her hair that weird fake metallic red. Then during Covid she gave up and revealed the most gorgeous snow-white hair that would have made Ororo jealous.
My copper red hair turned transparent,
So I’m a blonde now,
/colored that is
“What, then, makes a man beautiful? Is it not the presence of a man’s excellence?”
This week’s edition is a good example of why the left loves to hate on Stoicism. Striving to be a better person and taking personal responsibility undermines the view of people as part of a group instead of as individuals.
Beauty is kryptonite to post-modern shit heads.
Sophia Loren said “There are no ugly rich men” so you’ve got that going for you.
No fatties, got it.
If I never told them the truth about their actions and just let them carry on, eventually they could realize one day that I had let them down.
I think about this a lot as a parent. Some people have criticized my wife and me, suggesting that we push our kids too hard. I think it’s bullshit. As you say, better to tell the truth than have them figure out that you were chickenshit, lazy or just neglectful.
I see too many young girls that were probably decent looking running around with plastic surgery faces.
Ugh. One of my friends at the old gym turned 40, got divorced and lost her mind. She was a legit 10 (albeit with bolt-ons), but she had a bunch of work done and last time I saw her she looked like a different person. It’s bizarre.
Thanks, Ron. Good stuff today.
I know I’m weird, but bolt-on would drop her quite a few points. Welcome back, haven’t seen you in awhile.
Thanks! I’ve been trying to sneak by more.
I, too, prefer the factory installed ones.
There is a huge variety in quality of aftermarket installations.
If this doesn’t summon Q, nothing will.
Some you can’t tell by feel unless told about the enhancement.
No tattoos, clean shaven, zero jewelry or adornments…I am just me. I dont like drawing attention to myself. Understated is always better in my view.
I went for cigarettes earlier and the regular checkout girl, an attractive young woman half of my age, got a glint in her eye and called me by my first name.
I have never told her my name. I have never gone beyond a cordial greeting, addressing her as ma’am, thanking her and wishes for a good day. With women I try hard to pretend to be a gentleman.
I have no idea what her name is. I shall have to ask next time.
I have to say it gave me quite the ego boost.
I’m big on teasing the girls, younger or older. No offensively, just as something pleasant.
Hopefully no one takes me seriously, reality is bad enough.
It is better to be functional than ornamental
So no tats then. :-p
Well, unless the tats are circuits or barcodes or the like.
I have seen some instructional tramp stamps… plus warning labels are functional as well.
There was apparently a girl in the local punk scene who had “Slot A” tattooed on the inside of her lower lip. I never met this girl, only heard the tales of those who had gone home with her once.
That definitely should’ve read: “Penicillin required after use.”
I’ve been thinking about getting my blood type tattooed on my arm.
Being ruled by middle school mean girls sure feels great.
We need to resurrect Jerry Springer to preside over that committee.
I think Adam Carolla would handle that job well. Color commentary for the fights.
The road to President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho continues apace.
Tell me when cane whippings come back. That will be fantastic!
Mud wrestling. A Cortez v. Bobert pay-per-view could close the budget deficit.
I don’t care what you all say, I’ll be in my bunk.
An alternative to my earlier link.
A simpler, better time (the looks on the girlfriends’ faces at the end really makes it).
https://babylonbee.com/news/the-19th-amendment-was-a-mistake-think-all-male-congressmen-simultaneously
TIWTANFL
1. For a woman, the top three things she can do to be beautiful are to be content/happy, to be generally healthy, and to be generally competent in life – being able to take care of things. None has to be (or even can be) perfect, but together they count for basically everything. And note than my point is about the root of “physical” beauty, not worthiness or any other esoteric thing. So I basically think I’m agreeing with the “excellence” thing.
2. An old quote: “There ain’t nothing uglier than a naked man.” Ignoring the “naked” part of the quote just to make the argument more normal, I get that there are guys out there that women consider attractive, and can be objective and analytical enough to try to predict which they are based on the available data, but it’s impossible for me to see it.
I seem to recall reading several stories on studies that showed that men generally have the same idea of what constitutes “attractive”, while women are much more diverse in their preferences.
“Men fall in love to the woman they’re attracted to, woman grow attracted to the men they fall in love with”.
Good thing for some of us, I wouldn’t be good at bachelorhood
I did not realize that Robert Fico (the Slovakian Prime Minister who was shot) was under such vicious attacks by usual mainstream lunatics. Sounds a lot like Trump hate. Also much in common with Shinzo Abe who also rejected the World Health Organization policies.
Somebody in Ireland just got shot by a crazy leftist too, right? Also a political figure. I think the psychotic phase of the decline has begun.
Just a death threat from what I was able to find.
He’s a commie but he’s also against blindly supporting Ukraine and taking in a bunch of immigrants. He’s like Bernie Sanders from 10 years ago, but with a better personality. I’m pretty sure I had Thanksgiving dinner with him (and about 100 others) many years ago and didn’t get the sense that he’d try to steal the silverware like Bernie would.
He sounds like RFK Jr. now or JFK back in the day. Left on economics, but against mass immigration, globalism, and the neo-con military adventures.
Amazingly, Abe was killed to bring attention to the Moonies and their influence on the LDP and what the cult was doing in Japan.
Shocker of shockers it actually achieved the desired effect.
Don’t you know politicians can only get shot for opposing Klaus Schwab?
Japan still has the expectation that government actually has to have some level of accountability on money spent.
Personal accountability, putting people through hell, shaming people, etc is perfectly fine…
A few years ago a French colleague who was the stereotypical arrogant and sexist old guy made a remark at a work dinner to the effect of “there should be an organization that collects all of the most beautiful women into just a few cities so you would know where to go to see them”.
My response: “They already have that. It’s called the Southeastern Conference.”
Tempe was a good location
If I ever see an attractive woman around here I know she’s not local.
“there should be an organization that collects all of the most beautiful women into just a few cities so you would know where to go to see them”.
“Beautiful women are like elephants. They’re fascinating to look at, but I wouldn’t want to own one.”
-W C Fields
“If I told you you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me?”
– B Hill
For some reason your comment made me think of this recent YouTube recommendation.
https://youtu.be/yuoFsi2iIi0?si=P4RxYp4bDNmG9Mes
No idea why
Nice score today:
There was a pristine copy of McGee’s “On Food And Cooking” in one of the local Little Free Libraries.
It is mine now.
I’ll have to dig up some things to add in return.
In case anyone was wondering why there are no libertarian women*, this post should put that to rest.
*present company excepted, as always
CANCEL MOJEAUX!
https://www.thecollegefix.com/romance-is-white-supremacy-black-studies-professor-says/
“It follows her 2019 book about how “fatphobia” is rooted in racism.”
The next in a string of hits! And people said grifting wasn’t a good long-term plan.
🤔 I wonder what might be the one common element in all her relationships…
“I keep meeting assholes all day long!”
What’s this about the #1 golfer “disrespecting a cop’s authority”? Misunderstanding or both throwing around “do you know who I am? ” bullshit?
He followed one cop’s instructions. Another cop thought he wasn’t respecting his authority and hauled him off to jail while reporters and club officials watched. That cop might be looking for a job tomorrow.
The charges were crazy. Assaulting an officer, etc. Reporters were standing right there and could tell you of he did. I am with Blake, somebody is getting fired.
Japan still has the expectation that government actually has to have some level of accountability on money spent.
How droll.