A short podcast by Brian Johnson reflecting on Epictetus’s Stoic teaching about internal freedom versus external slavery (drawing on A.A. Long’s commentary). Johnson connects Epictetus’s ideas to Viktor Frankl’s logotherapy and James Stockdale’s wartime resilience, urging listeners to practice philosophical exercises in daily life to reclaim psychological freedom.
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic one. In our last few plus 1s, we've been chatting about Harriet Tubman and her heroic courage. After writing that last plus one, I did a set of burpees, then looked up at my wall of heroes on the other wall in my office studio that has heroic portraits. Ralph Waldo Emerson is on the upper left, then Abraham Lincoln, of course. Both of those heroes were contemporaries of Harriet Tubman, and both, of course, were ardent abolitionists. I'll be thinking of Harriet every time I go to Ralph and Abe for wisdom in my AM meditation and throughout the day. Now today I want to go back to AA Long and his wisdom on Epictetus. Let's get straight to work. As we discussed in our last one, Epictetus was a slave, and his name wasn't even a real name. In ancient Greek, the word Epictetus meant acquired. With that in mind, Professor Long tells us, and I quote, the chief constraint on personal freedom in ancient Greece and Rome was what Epictetus knew firsthand, the social practice and indignity of slavery. It was slavery, the condition of being literally owned and made to serve at another's behest, that gave ancient freedom its intensely positive value and emotional charge. Slaves, bodily movements during their waking lives were strictly constrained by their master's wishes and by the menial functions they were required to perform. He continues saying, but slaves, like everyone else, had minds, and minds, as well as bodies, are subject to freedom and constraint. You can be externally free and internally a slave, controlled by psychological masters in the form of disabling desires and passions and cravings. Conversely, you could be outwardly obstructed or even in literal bondage, but internally free from frustration and disharmony. So free, in fact, that you found yourself in charge of your own well being, lacking little or nothing that you could not provide for yourself. The latter, in essence, is the freedom that Epictetus, the ancient Stoic philosopher, made the central theme of his teaching. Now, as a former slave, whose name, I repeat, literally meant acquired, Epictetus had a very powerful perspective on the notions of slavery versus freedom. Thankfully, it's incredibly unlikely that any of us have personally experienced the literal physical bondage of slavery. Yet how many of us can truly declare ourselves free? The reality of our own struggles with true freedom is one of the reasons why Epictetus wisdom still strikes so close to home. Wisdom. Like this, I quote, Epictetus, if someone in this street were entrusted with your body, you would be furious. Yet you entrust your mind to anyone around who happens to insult you and allow it to be troubled and confused. Aren't you ashamed of that? Now? It's nearly impossible for me to read that passage about freedom and not think of Viktor Frankl. As we've discussed in different contexts, most recently in our note on Massimo PI Lucci's great book, how to Be a Stoic, Frankl was deeply inspired by Stoic wisdom. When he found himself in a concentration camp, he put his Stoic training to use and developed his ideas on logotherapy. One of the central tenets of his philosophy was on freedom. He tells us. And now I'm quoting Viktor Frankl. Everything can be taken from a man but one thing. The last of the human freedoms. To choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. And of course, he also tells us, between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. Now, right after Frankl comes to mind, James Stockdale shows up in my mind as well. He too lost his physical freedom when he was a prisoner of war. But as the commanding officer in a prison camp, he refused to give up his ultimate freedom to show up as the best version of himself. His primary philosophical guide, Epictetus in Courage Under Fire. Check out those notes, he tells us, and I quote Stockdale. What is the fruit of your doctrines? Someone asked Epictetus. Tranquility, fearlessness and freedom, he answered. So you want freedom? Practice your philosophy. Very important note. Don't wait for the inevitable emergencies and or huge challenges life will throw at us. Practice with the little stuff. Notice just how often you give away your freedom and reclaim it today.
