The Daily Stoic

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Put All Of Your Energy Into This | Practice Letting Go Nov 20, 2023

Show notes

Amazon tells us that’s one of the most highlighted passages in the digital version of Stillness is the Key. It’s an idea that’s impossible to disentangle from Stoicism. Epictetus said there were things that were up to us and some things were not. Ok, but then what? Remind yourself, Marcus Aurelius writes in Meditations, that the past and the future are not in our power, only the present is.

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Epictetus - Discourses Pt. 4: On Progress Nov 19, 2023

Show notes

In today’s audiobook reading, Ryan presents an excerpt from one of the seminal texts of Stoicism, the Discourses of Epictetus, read by Michael Reid. As a series of lectures given by Epictetus that were written down by his pupil Arrian in 108 A.D., these discourses provide practical advice to think on and practice in order to move oneself closer toward the ultimate goal of living free and happy. In this third section, Epictetus discusses how we should see ourselves in comparison with the gods.

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Timothy Denevi on Hunter S Thompson and the Art of Journalism (Part 1) Nov 18, 2023

Show notes

Ryan speaks with assistant professor and MFA program at George Mason University, Timothy Denevi on mastery in learning the entire playbook so that you can throw it away, How the information makes us blind to the facts, Fundamentally journalism is a form of lying and an act of aggression and his book Freak Kingdom · Hunter S. Thompson's Manic Ten-Year Crusade Against American Fascism

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How To Make It Good | Judge Not, Lest… Nov 17, 2023

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Oscar Wilde was the victim of a terrible tragedy and a terrible injustice. At the height of his artistic powers, he was thrown in jail–an awful prison which contained the germs that later killed him. It was intolerance and tyranny, plain and simple. Everything he cared about was taken from him.

His family. His freedom. His work.

As he sat in that dark cell, rotting, festering, angry, he had a kind of slow but life-changing spiritual awakening. Coming out of his resentments and fear and despair, gifted with some paper by a sympathetic politician, he decided that his position would, “force on me the necessity of again asserting myself as an artist, and as soon as I possibly can. If I can produce even one more beautiful work of art I shall be able to rob malice of its venom and cowardice of its sneer and to pluck out the tongue of scorn by the roots.”

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What Do You See? | Ask Ds Nov 16, 2023

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A man walks through a field of flowing grain, the grass bending low under its own weight. The wind blows softly on a cold day. He looks and sees a small bird sitting on a branch, the steam rising off the ground behind it. The bird takes flight and he follows it with his eyes, smiling at the beauty of nature’s inadvertence.

But when the man turns, you see that he is surrounded by darkness–uprooted trees and thick mud. An army marches to get behind thick, sharp palisades. Weapons of war are being prepared to do terrible damage. Within seconds, ferocious, ceaseless, primal violence will erupt.

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This Is What Will Happen To Your Accomplishments Nov 15, 2023

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Marcus Aurelius spent 14 years at war with the Marcomanni. It was a brutal, grinding campaign which he eventually won at great cost and risk. His victory was celebrated as a triumph, immortalized in a 97 foot tall marble tower which winds upward, showing in brilliant detail, "the heroic emotion and despair of Roman soldiers along with the unwavering leadership of Marcus Aurelius."

And some 19 centuries later, this monument to his accomplishments still stands, disproving, you might say, Marcus Aurelius’s reminders to himself in Meditations that posthumous fame doesn’t last, that no one would remember him.

Except it’s more complicated than that.

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Steven Pressfield On Work Without Attachments (Part 2) Nov 15, 2023

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Ryan speaks with book athour & screenwriter Steven Pressfield on fewer possessions, superstition in memorabilia, the impact of working without any attachments to the outcome, and his new books The Daily Pressfield. Steven is an American author of historical fiction, non-fiction, and screenplays. He’s most known for The War of Art, Do The Work, Turning Pro, Gates of Fire, and Government Cheese.

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You Can’t Deny This |10 Stoic Tips For Being A Better Leader Nov 14, 2023

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Seneca thought he knew Nero. He was confident in his ability to teach or contain or even control him. Other Stoics knew better. Thrasea (whose story we tell in Lives of the Stoics) opposed him from the start. Agrippinus (another fascinating Stoic in Lives) wouldn’t even attend Nero’s parties, because it was clear to him that the man was a tyrant.

Surely these men (and women) communicated their concerns to Seneca. Surely people raised questions. But Seneca thought he knew better. He was also paid so handsomely by Nero, was so powerful as a result of his position as Nero’s teacher and advisor, that it became hard for him to see what was there. It was a classic case of that problem outlined by Upton Sinclair many centuries later: It’s very hard to get someone to see something that their salary (or status or identity) depends on them not seeing.

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It’s All In How You See It | Judge Yourself Not Others Nov 13, 2023

Show notes

It’s fascinating to think of all these different translators sitting down and seeing this same bit of writing and having such wildly different interpretations. How much each one was a reflection of their time and place, how much room there was for personality, for re-creation, and re-imagination and yet also still, how the same essential truth comes through.

So it goes with philosophy and with life. Nothing, not even philosophy, is completely objective. It’s all in how you see it. It’s in what you need to see in it. It’s about what you do with it.

We happen to think that the Gregory Hays translation is the best and that’s why we worked with him to put out what we think is the absolutely best edition of Meditations. It was designed in the U.S. by Ryan Holiday and made in the U.K., and features:

Genuine leather from the best Bible manufacturer in the United Kingdom. This edition includes a gold foil-stamped leather cover, gilded-edge pages printed on premium-grade paper.
Custom illustrations to delineate each section.
Custom gold foil-stamped box to protect your copy.
In-depth biography on the life of Marcus Aurelius written by Ryan Holiday from his book Lives Of The Stoics.

To learn more about this special edition of Meditations, visit dailystoic.com/meditations.

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Lives Of The Stoics | Epictetus the Free Man Nov 12, 2023

Show notes

Epictetus taught that philosophy is a way of life and not simply a theoretical discipline. To Epictetus, all external events are beyond our control; he argues that we should accept whatever happens calmly and dispassionately. However, individuals are responsible for their own actions, which they can examine and control through rigorous self-discipline.

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