The Daily Stoic

Latest Episodes:

How To Better Understand The Past | Say No to the Need to Impress Mar 27, 2023

Show notes

In retrospect, so many of the decisions the Stoics made are baffling. Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus. Seneca and Nero. Their attitude toward women, toward slavery, toward violence, toward what society was supposed to look like. Even more recently, what of Stockdale and the complicated nature of the war in Vietnam.

Didn’t they know? Didn’t they know better?

Sometimes…but not always.

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And in today's Daily Stoic Journal reading, Ryan discusses the importance of avoiding the need for external validation, especially in the age of social media.

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Cicero on The Paradox of the Fool Mar 26, 2023

Show notes

Ryan presents the first of six readings of Cicero's Stoic Paradoxes. Cicero was considered Rome’s greatest politician, and he has survived as one of history’s most enduring chroniclers of Stoic philosophy and the Stoics themselves. As Ryan explains in Lives of the Stoics, these paradoxes are designed to question commonly held beliefs in order to promote reflection and discussion. In that spirit, the paradox that Cicero examines today, the fourth paradox, explores the idea that “every fool is an exile and the wise person cannot be harmed.”

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Zach Braff on Healing and Helping with Art and Stoicism Mar 25, 2023

Show notes

Ryan speaks with Zach Braff about his new Stoicism-inspired movie A Good Person, how the idea of Amor fati has helped him translate recent personal trauma into art, what he has learned about supporting people who need help in the wake of a friend’s tragedy, and more.

Zach Braff is an actor, voice actor, director, screenwriter, and entrepreneur. He is most known for his starring role on the TV comedy Scrubs (2001-2010), for which he was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series as well as for three Golden Globe Awards, and in his directorial debut Garden State (2004), which he also wrote and starred in. Zach has also directed a second feature film (Wish I Was Here in 2014) and the hit Apple TV show Ted Lasso (2021) for which he was nominated for a Directors Guild of America Award. His new movie A Good Person is scheduled for release on March 24, 2023.

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Have You Been Infected Yet? | There is Philosophy in Everything Mar 24, 2023

Show notes

In the year 165 AD, a plague began to break out in Rome. Brought back from the far eastern corners of the empire, the virus spread from person to person, house to house, until nearly all of Rome was overwhelmed.

The doctors could not keep up. Neither could the morticians or the grave diggers. Rome’s economy was devastated. Millions died, millions fled. And the plague simply dragged on, year after year, without serious respite for over a decade.

As we reflect now on this third anniversary of our own plague, it’s worth evaluating what you may or may not have been infected with. Marcus broke into tears whenever the victims of the pestilence were mentioned–he knew how much had been lost, literally and figuratively. It’s important, whatever the future holds, that we do not needlessly add ourselves to that casualty list.

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And in today's Daily Stoic reading, Ryan ruminates on the importance of balancing the philosophy of study with applying it to real life experiences. After all, philosophy is what you do, not something you say.

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Don’t Make This Lesson More Painful | Ask DS Mar 23, 2023

Show notes

We get so used to having our way. We live in a time when the skies have been conquered. When so many diseases have been vanquished. When technology allows us to do and have things that were inconceivable even just a generation ago.

Consequently the eternal battle for our attention, between the things we control and the things we don’t, becomes even harder for us to wage. The lessons and warnings the Stoics have issued to us across the centuries about this perpetual internal fight, begin to feel like they belong to a different age, like they are meant for people who are fundamentally different from us.

This is how skewed our collective sense of self has become.

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And in today's Ask Daily Stoic, Ryan answers questions about how Marcus Aurelius dealt with Commodus's derangement, why the Stoics could be so socially "advanced" in some areas and so "behind" in others, how we can best line up the time when we are the most effective with the work that most needs to be done, and more.

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Steve Scott on Winning in Life Mar 22, 2023

Show notes

Ryan speaks with Steve Scott about his book Hey, Tiger―You Need to Move Your Mark Back: 9 Simple Words that Changed the Game of Golf Forever, why having integrity is such a crucial part of being a good athlete and human being, the cautionary tale of Tiger Woods, and more.

Steve Scott is an American former professional Golfer and the current PGA Head Golf Professional of The Outpost Club and Founder of the Silver Club Golfing Society. The defining moment of his career came during his competition against Tiger Woods in the 1996 Amateur Golf Championships. Scott found himself a surprising 5‐up after the first 18, but on the 35th hole Tiger squared the grueling match with an improbable 40‐foot birdie putt. With the result coming down to the last hole, the difference in the outcome actually came earlier, when Scott reminded Woods to move his mark back to its rightful place on the 34th hole. Had Scott not done the morally correct thing, Tiger would have been penalized and, in turn, not gone on to have his legendary career. Since retiring from playing golf, Steve has become a golf teacher, instructor, speaker, and broadcaster. His work can be found at his website stevescottpga.com, and on instagram @sscottpga.

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Here’s How To Get Out Of A Rut Mar 22, 2023

Show notes

The busier we get, the more we work, even the more that we learn and read, the further we tend to drift from our center. We get in a rhythm. We’re making money, being creative, we’re stimulated and busy. It seems like everything is going well. But if we’re not careful, those other things grow and grow until they take over completely; and what once felt like a rhythm now feels like a rut.

It’s true for us now just as it was true for Marcus Aurelius. He had an awful lot to keep him busy, to distract him, to push him further and further, which in turn afforded him less and less time for that which really mattered to him: philosophy. We get a good sense of how he thought about his priorities with this analogy in Book 6 of Meditations:

“If you had a stepmother and a real mother, you would pay your respects to your step mother, yes…but it’s your real mother you’d go home to.

The court…and philosophy: Keep returning to it, to rest in its embrace. It’s all that makes the court — and you — endurable.”

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They’ll Never GIVE It To You | 6 Simple Stoic Lessons To Feel More Peace Mar 21, 2023

Show notes

We like to think that someday, things will be slower, more peaceful. That we’ll get a break. That after the holidays, after this busy season, then we’ll be able to get serious–about that thing we needed to think about, about that exercise we wanted to start doing, about taking that vacation. Once I get away from the city, from the office, then I can relax, we tell ourselves.

It’s never going to happen. You are fooling yourself. You are fooling yourself as people have always fooled themselves.

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Today, Ryan also shares six Stoic lessons that you can learn and apply to feel more tranquil, free, and at peace. No matter who you are or where you’re from.

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There Is No Greatness Without This | The Portable Retreat Mar 20, 2023

Show notes

People probably thought Marcus Aurelius was strange. The time he spent alone in his room. The long walks he took by himself. We know they thought it was strange that he was seen reading and writing in the Colosseum, ignoring the carnage of the games below.

“The world today does not understand, in either man or woman,” Anne Morrow Lindbergh writes in Gift from the Sea, “the need to be alone.” Perhaps we ourselves don’t understand it. We don’t quite see the point. Or as much as we enjoy it, we don’t see it as much of a priority. As we discussed over at Daily Dad in an email recently, parents will manage to make time for so many things…but quiet time by or for themselves is written off as an impossible indulgence.

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And in today's Daily Stoic Journal reading, Ryan examines the importance of cultivating a safe and free place to retreat to inside of your own mind.

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Seneca on Conquering the Conqueror Mar 19, 2023

Show notes

In today’s episode, Ryan presents an excerpt from The Tao Of Seneca produced by Tim Ferriss’ Audio. In this letter, Seneca talks about examining the causes of our fear, the unavoidable threat of death, and more.

📖 Check out the PDF of The Tao of Seneca for free and the Penguin Edition of Seneca’s Letters at the Painted Porch.

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