PNTV: Lives of the Stoics by Ryan Holiday

Why study philosophy? Why should we study philosophy? There's one reason, and only one reason, to study philosophy, which is to become a better person, to become a better version of you. When you are listening to a philosopher, when you're attending a lecture by a philosopher, it should feel like you're getting surgery, like you're going to a hospital, not a spa. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another Philosopher's Notes TV. Today we've got another great book, Lives of the Stoics by Ryan Holiday. Lost the dust cover jacket, but we do have a Philosopher's Note on it. Get the note for free. It's a 7-page PDF, 25-ish minute MP3. The link is in the show notes. This is the 11th note I've done on one of Ryan Holiday's books. 11 great self-development books. I've featured every single one of them. I have never done— I think the most I've done is like 7 or 8 notes, maybe 9, on another author. Ryan is just phenomenal. If you're into Stoicism, you know Ryan Holiday, his The Daily Stoic email. You may also know The Daily Dad, 2 great daily emails you may enjoy. But The Daily Stoic, The Obstacle Is the Way, Ego Is the Enemy, Stillness Is the Key, his 4 Virtue Series books, we've covered them all. I am a huge Ryan Holiday fan. He is an extraordinary writer, and he is just fiercely committed to practicing his philosophy, and I admire him for those 2 reasons and more. He also gave me his donkey when we moved out to Austin, Texas. Thank you, Ryan. It's now our neighbor's, but here we go. All right, we got 5 big ideas that I talk about in the note that we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about why study philosophy, look at Zeno, Musonius Rufus, and Epictetus, 3 of my favorite Stoic philosophers. We're going to skip Seneca and Aurelius for now. And then we're going to talk about playing your role well, moment to moment to moment. Let's start at the top. Why study philosophy? Why should we study philosophy? Well, let's look at the etymology of the word philosophy. Philo-sophia, 2 little ancient Greek words. Philo means love of or admiration of, right? So philanthropy, love of mankind, etc., humankind, right? And then sophia is wisdom. So love of wisdom is what the word philosophy means. Wisdom is knowledge of life, or knowledge of how to live a good life. So philosophy is the love of understanding how to live a good, noble life. That's how the ancient philosophers thought about it. Of course, in the modern world, it becomes often a very academic, impractical subject, which is why a lot of people just kind of brush it off. But philosophy in its etymological ancient roots, and as practiced by ancient Stoic philosophers, was a passionate pursuit of how to live a good life. So Ryan says there's one reason and only one reason to study philosophy, which is to become a better person, to become a better version of you. And he uses the metaphor of an archer. So an archer— and Apollo was the patron god of ancient philosophy— he was an archer. Right? So the archer sets up a target, and in any given moment, our target as we strive to be better versions of ourselves should be to do the right thing. And the way that I frame it up in everything I do is like this: in any given moment, there's a version of you that you could be. That's the target we want to set moment to moment to moment. Now, no archer Hits their target every single time. So there's often going to be times where we miss the target. We come up short. We could have been this. We were this. But you got to know it's in that gap in which regret, anxiety, disillusionment, etc. exists. So the target is to listen to your inner daimon, your guiding spirit. The summum bonum of a good life, Aristotle said, is to live with eudaimonia. To have literally a good soul. So that internal voice that's pointing the way for you, that's setting the target of you at your best—that's your daimon. You want to live in integrity with that. When you do that, you feel great. When you don't, when there's a gap, that's when you feel the regret, anxiety, disillusionment, etc. So closing the gap—that's why we study philosophy. Of course, the one-word answer the ancient Stoics would give us on how to do that is arete. Live with virtue. Live with excellence. Close that gap moment to moment to moment. My next tattoo is eudaimonia. Getting that in a couple weeks. Can't wait to share that with you. That sense of deep joy, of meaningful, purpose-driven living doesn't mean that you're happy in quotes all the time, but that deep sense of joy as you strive to do your best closing that gap, knowing you're never going to do it perfectly. But that's why we study philosophy, to understand how to live a good life, as we talked about in the episode on the Daily Dad, such that we can teach our kids how to live a good life and those around us, our friends, our family, our colleagues, etc. So that's the first big idea. Zeno, as you know, if you follow Stoicism, Zeno is the founder of Stoicism. I should also say we've got in the Heroic app Stoicism 101, one of my favorite classes in which I talk about some of these ideas. My ten favorite ideas on how to apply Stoicism to your modern life, etc. But Zeno is the founder of Stoicism. Now, Zeno, if you look back at the ancient Greeks, right? You got Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. Well, Zeno and Aristotle lived in the same basic era. Zeno was a merchant who arrived in Athens via shipwreck, right? So he's an entrepreneur, a merchant, and he's got a ship full of his dye that he was trading—the purple dye. that the ancient Roman emperors and other elite would wear. Very, very expensive, right? He's got this cargo ship full of this precious cargo. Shipwreck! He lands in Athens. That's how the founder of Stoicism basically founded his philosophy. He found himself in a— what is it— a bookstore, right? And he stumbles across some wisdom. He asks the bookstore owner, hey, how do I find out more about this? He points to a guy and goes and studies and becomes a philosopher, becomes a founder of Stoicism. He says that that shipwreck was his most prosperous voyage. How awesome is that? That captures the idea of Stoicism perfectly. How do we use life's challenges? How do we use life's shipwrecks as fuel to become the next best version of ourselves? Tom Morris, another great guy who's shared a lot on Stoicism, wrote a book called Stoicism for Dummies. Quotes Seneca, who says, disaster is virtue's opportunity. If your ultimate game is to— and your ultimate reason to study philosophy is to practice it, well then shoot! The bigger the challenge you have, the greater the opportunity to practice it. Disaster is virtue's opportunity. We talk about that as antifragility. Ryan has the whole book, The Obstacle Is the Way. Whatever's happening to you, use it as fuel. To be your best self, that's Zeno. Zeno also is the guy that came up with the four cardinal virtues of Stoicism that Ryan wrote a book on each of these four cardinal virtues. I kind of adapt them a bit, but wisdom and discipline, which is what Ryan calls them as well, and then I call justice love, right? So this this act of living for something bigger than ourselves isn't just justice; it's love. And then the fourth cardinal virtue is courage. Wisdom, discipline, love, and courage. Zeno is the guy. that first came up with those 4 virtues, which are kind of the compass for how we're going to close the gap, live with eudaimonia, etc. Then we got Musonius Rufus. So fast forward, what would that be, about 300 years, right, from the 4th century. Pretty sure that was when Zeno was kicking it, right? 4th century to 1st century. AD, Common Era, right? And you've got Musonius Rufus. So Musonius Rufus is known as the 4th great Stoic. If you don't know Stoicism that much, you probably haven't heard of Musonius Rufus. You know about Seneca, who was born about the same time as Jesus. Then you've got Epictetus, who is Musonius Rufus's best student. Then you've got Marcus Aurelius. So Musonius Rufus is the 4th Great Stoic. He was known as the Roman Socrates. William B. Irvine translated one of his works and brought that to life. We've got a note on it. He's phenomenal. Epictetus, we'll talk about in a minute. He's my favorite teacher, all-time favorite teacher. Well, again, his teacher was Musonius Rufus. These 2 dudes make me look like I don't have any intensity. You read their stuff and you can feel their intensity. Ryan talks about in this book and others the fact that, um, Donald Roberts and all these great Stoic scholars and teachers and practitioners talk about the fact that ancient Stoic teachers and philosophers like Rufus and Epictetus said that when you were listening to a philosopher, when you're attending a lecture by a philosopher, it should feel like you're getting surgery, like you're going to a hospital, not a spa. And Ryan juxtaposes the ancient philosopher with the ancient sophist. So the sophist, Donald Robertson says, is more like a confectioner. It's more like a modern-day influencer, a confectioner that's trying to make you candy, that's trying to give you the things that you want. And they know they're not best for you, but they don't really care. They'll give you whatever you want that will kind of pay the bills. And you applaud these guys because they make you feel good. That's a sophist. But the philosopher is more like the surgeon who brings you into his hospital and tells you the stuff you may not want to hear and challenges you to live your absolute best. That's Musonius Rufus. Beautiful intensity. And his whole thing is move from theory to practice. No more words. We want works. We want to see this wisdom embodied in your life today. Gotta love Musonius. Then we've got Epictetus. As I said, he was Musonius's best student, and then Epictetus taught the guys who taught Marcus Aurelius. As you know, if you follow Stoicism, Epictetus was a former slave. His name Epictetus, that wasn't even his name. It meant acquired one. So you have a former slave, and Ryan talks about this beautifully, talking about freedom. So Stoicism is all about freedom from controlling thoughts and negative emotions, right? Not, not all emotions, but negative emotions and the negative thoughts and behaviors that create a negative life experience, right? Well, Epictetus experienced the lack of physical freedom, but he never gave up his mental freedom, his ability to choose his response to any given situation. And you may not know that Viktor Frankl was deeply inspired by Stoicism, as were the founders of cognitive behavior therapy. Behavioral therapy, Albert Ellis, Aaron Beck, all these guys. But the ultimate freedom, Viktor Frankl is at least paraphrased as saying, whether he said this or not is a little bit up for debate, but you have a stimulus, life happens, life hits you, right? And then you've got your response. So Frankl says the ultimate freedom exists in the gap between a stimulus and your response. And the reason we study philosophy is to get very, very good at choosing the optimal response. At any given moment you get hit, what's the best next action? What's the best way you could possibly respond to this challenge? Stimulus, response. In that gap exists your freedom. That's the ultimate essence of Epictetus's philosophy that he practiced at an extraordinarily high level, which leads us to the next and final big idea: your role. So Ryan ends the book— I like to pull out the final words of a book, are often the best, perfect final big idea that I pull out in the note. So Ryan talks about at the end of the book the fact that ultimately, if you want to study philosophy in order to be a better person, you got to play your role well right now. Right now. Right now. Live with arete. Close that gap. Moment. To moment to moment to moment. But Ryan says you have different roles in your life at different times of the day, right? At some points I'm playing the role of spouse or parent or teacher or founder of Heroic or whatever it is, right? Friend, colleague, etc. We all have different roles, and the challenge is to play your role as well as you can in any given moment. Now what's funny is I'm recording this on a Monday. I intended to record it On a Friday. So I prepped this up and I was ready to film it, and my wife a week before had been bitten by a snake. Whole nother conversation. We live out in the country in Austin, right? We know that we have snakes. We've been here for 6 years, right? Very rare to actually get bitten by a snake, but she was bitten by a snake and needed to go to the hospital, needed to go to the ICU for 24 hours. Won't bore you with the details, but it was a phenomenal— Opportunity for us to practice our philosophy. So a week goes by, and she is in ICU, her platelets dropped, coagulation factors— I never knew how snakes actually kill their prey, it's fascinating stuff. They basically make you bleed to death. So her numbers weren't looking good from a lab perspective, although she had no other outward symptoms, right? So she spends the 24 hours under observation, gets some platelets, she's fine, wonderfully so. We come back home. But a week later, she still can't stand on her foot, right? Which is common. It's a lot of swelling. Rattlesnake bite. Ouch. She's got this little rash that is popping up, right? Right where she was kind of, uh, uh, whatever, between her ankle where she was bitten and her knee. So I'm gonna go from preparing to filming the studio, but I come out and she's concerned, and my role switched from teacher To spouse and being her wingman, calling the ICU, checking in, or the emergency room. Hey, what should we do? You should come in. Okay, cool. Different plans for the day. And we're driving to the hospital, we're talking about these ideas. And the fact that I had planned to do one thing that day, but the role that I needed to play shifted. Can I shift? And can I show up and be my best self in service to my wife, given the circumstances had changed. And we talked about Apollo, right, the archer. And what's interesting is Apollo had a twin sister, and Apollo's twin sister is Artemis. Well, Artemis happens to be one of the archetypes my wife— she has a program called Rock Your Goddess Life— Artemis, Athena, and Arete are 3 of the virtues, 3 of the goddesses she aspires to embody. Anyway, we had this phenomenal conversation about Archers out on a range doing target practice. Can we show up as our best selves in the midst of the challenge we are facing as it relates to the snakebite in this context? Fast forward, all good. Got to spend another day in the ER. And I laugh now, but just to appreciate how precious life is. Memento mori. Memento good health, as we saw others vastly suffering at a much higher degree. She's back. Life is good. Feeling better three days after that, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But you have a role, and you have an opportunity to play that role well right now. Stimulus response. Can you close the gap? Can you study and practice your philosophy? Remember Zeno arriving in Athens via shipwreck and saying, "That was the most prosperous voyage I've ever taken." Why? Because I became a true philosopher. Side note, forgot to mention Vernon Howard, old school, kind of obscure esoteric spiritual teacher of the 20th century. Vernon Howard, got a bunch of notes, actually one or two notes on his books. He says if your ultimate goal in life is enlightenment or whatever you want to call it, eudaimonia as the Stoics would say, if your ultimate goal is to practice your philosophy at the highest level and be your best self, Then anything that helps you do that is a good thing, not a bad thing, right? And then paradoxically, the things that help you practice your philosophy at the highest level are often the shipwrecks or the snakebites of your life. Therefore, let's quit complaining about them and rub our hands together, as Epictetus would say, ah, the Stoic gods have blessed us with an opportunity to practice our philosophy. He says it's like You know, the Olympics, obviously, you know, in Greece, right? Epictetus would say it's as if you're a world-class wrestler and God has sent you a competitor to wrestle with. That's what these challenges are. Another metaphor he used was a boxer. What kind of boxer goes into the ring, gets hit in the face, and walks out? Why are you studying these things? Why are you this many minutes into this video unless when you get hit in the face, you choose to respond as your best self. Again, Zeno, shipwreck, prosperous voyage that helped him become who he, who he was destined to be. No shipwreck, no stoicism. I'm not sitting here, we're not talking about this. Old school, intense teacher, performed surgery on his students and on himself. Let's go. Um, thank you for the 4 cardinal virtues. Do you remember what they are? Recall. It's the fastest way to learn something. I'll write them down for you just so we got a little more use of the chalkboard. Wisdom, discipline, love, and courage. In any given moment, we're being asked to embody one or some combination of those. Thank you again, Musonius, for— I'm sorry, Zeno shared those with us, but Musonius unpacked them for us. Epictetus, we've already talked about stimulus-response. Let's go and play your role well. That is a quick look At a few of my favorite Stoics from Lives of the Stoics. I hope you enjoyed. As always, most important part of our time together is the plus one here. Let's go! What was the idea that most jumped out and landed for you? How can you apply that wisdom to your life today? Perhaps the next time that you experience a stimulus you'd prefer to avoid, you can choose a better response. Practice your philosophy at the next highest level. I look forward to sharing more with you soon. Have another great day. See ya.