Why Stoicism treats self-control as a form of intelligence

Today, you're going to learn a little bit about what the Stoics mean by being a good human being

We'll learn to live more rationally, to conduct a life based on reason

and to deal with our emotions in the best way we can. I am Massimo Piollucci. I am an evolutionary biologist and a philosopher of science

and my latest book is called Beyond Stoicism, co-authored with Greg Lopez and Meredith Kunz

chapter one what is stoicism stoicism is a philosophy of life that suggests that the best

way to live a human life is to ask yourself what kind of a living organism human beings are and the

answer that the stoics give to that question is that fundamentally we are highly social and capable

of reason. We're very intelligent. It follows, according to them, that a good human life is one

where you use reason in order to solve problems and you behave in a cooperative, pro-social fashion

One of the crucial insights of the Stoics is that we should focus on what is up to us

as the ancient Stoic Epictetus put it, and try to accept with equanimity what is not up to us

In other words, focus where your agency is active, where you are efficacious in doing things, and then accept whatever comes as it comes because you really don't have a choice

The Stoics are nothing if not realists about life. They try to understand how human life works, and they try to live the best life possible

One of the things that we do understand from biology, psychology, is that we have limited time and energy to do things, both physical energy and emotional energy

And so if we insist on pursuing approaches that are likely not to work or they're not efficacious, they're not, you know, our agency doesn't really have any effect on it, then we are only making our life miserable

and in fact we're trading off with other things that we should be doing

One of the interesting aspects of the particular brain dystoicism, so to speak

that Epictetus articulated in the second century is this notion of role ethics

We all play different roles in life, many roles in fact, and if we reflect on it for a minute, for instance

some of my roles include being somebody's son, being somebody's father, being somebody's husband, being a friend, being a teacher, being a colleague, being a citizen of a

particular nation and of a particular city, and so on and so forth. All of these roles need to be

handled essentially simultaneously. It's not like I can decide one day I'm going to be just a colleague

and nothing else. I am a colleague, perhaps, in this particular moment when I'm at work and I'm

interacting with other people, but I'm at the same time also a husband, a father, a friend

et cetera, et cetera. And the idea here is that I need to conserve my both physical and emotional

mental energy so that I can do my best in all of these roles whenever it is that I need to do

something about it. If I'm going to waste a lot of energy and time on a particular thing, especially

something that is for which my efforts are, in fact, not efficacious, then I'm really trading

off with everything else. I am getting depressed, let's say, by just constantly reading the news

about things that are not actionable, about things that I cannot do anything about

Well, the result of that is then I'm not useful to my family. I'm not useful to my friends. I'm

not, in fact, useful to society in general and even to myself. So it's about conserving energy

setting priorities, this goes back to the first discipline of Epictetus, the discipline of desire

setting goals. Depending on our values, we set goals and we set priorities. And doing so is

crucial because otherwise we end up wasting a lot of time and then regretting it. And usually when

you get to the point of regret, especially near the end of your life, it's a little too late

Seneca points out in one of his letters to his friend Lucilius that too many people

start reflecting on what they want to do and why near the end of their lives when it's too late

when they've already done most of what they were going to do. Stoicism is one of the Greco-Roman philosophies that evolved during the Hellenistic period

And the goal is to live a eudaimonic life. Eudaimonia is a word that in Greek means, roughly speaking, a life worth living

The kind of life that you get to the end of it and you say, yeah, that was not wasted time

Now, different Hellenistic schools, like the Epicureans, for instance, or the Skeptics, had different answers to what constitutes a eudaimonic life

According to the Stoics, living a eudaimonic life means living intelligently, smartly, and socially

Because one of the fundamental aspects of Stoicism is that we should live a pro-social life

that is, a life where we interact with other people because we are naturally a social organism

then the Stoics put a lot of emphasis on relationships with people, on our roles in society

What is it that is a good thing or not thing to do with respect to other people

In fact, they went so far as declaring themselves cosmopolitan. Being a cosmopolitan means being a member of the human cosmopolies, the human city, the universal human city

According to the Stoics, every human being on Earth is our brother and sister, and we should treat them accordingly

The ancient Stoic Epictetus, who lived at the beginning of the second century

laid out three fundamental disciplines for the study and practice of Stoicism

They're referred to normally as the discipline of desire, the discipline of action, and the discipline of assent

although I should warn you that the English terms are a little bit misleading compared to the original Greek

Desire, for instance, doesn't mean whatever I fancy at the moment. It means my values and also my disvalues, that is the kinds of things that I think are

important and good in life and the kinds of things that are not important or bad in life

The discipline of desire teaches us to reevaluate critically our values, to reorient ourselves

according to good values, to make deliberate decisions about what those values are and why

The second discipline, the discipline of action, has to do, as the name implies, with acting

toward other people. We live in a society. We don't just subscribe to certain values

We enact those values every time that we do something or say something, especially to

other people. So the discipline of action is about putting into practice our values when we interact

in society at large with other human beings. Finally, the discipline of assent

Ascent means, of course, agreement. But for Epictetus, that means thinking carefully and rationally about the other two disciplines

about values and how to implement them. So the discipline of ascent in a sense is about making all of this flow so nicely and so smoothly that we have in fact according to the Stoics a smooth or smoothly flowing life The three disciplines are a way to implement Stoicism in practice

but Stoicism, of course, is a philosophy, so there is also a theory behind it. And in order to

understand the Stoic theory, we need to refer to the three areas of study that were typical in any

stoic curriculum. If you went to a stoic school, let's say the school that was run by Epictetus

in northwestern Greece in the second century, you would actually study, before you get to the

disciplines and how to live your life, you would study the three general areas that are pertinent

to those disciplines. Now, there too, the English names are a little bit misleading

They are physics, ethics, and logic. But what they mean exactly is something a little bit different

from modern English, and so we need to be careful here. Physics, for instance, comes from physis

which means nature. So when I say physics, don't think quantum mechanics or general relativity or

things like that. Think science in general, so a good understanding of how the world works

That's connected to the discipline of desire, that is, to the discipline that deals with our goals

and priorities in life. Why? Because our goals and priorities in life depend on what kind of

living organism we are. If we were a different kind, a Martian or a dog or a lion, we would

have different priorities. So it's about understanding the world as it works. And the

best way to understand the world as it is, is through science. So you study science in order to

investigate into your own goals and priorities. These days, ethics means mostly the study of

right and wrong actions. But for the Stoics or for the ancient Greco-Romans in general

ethics had, again, a much broader meaning. It meant literally the study of how to live your life

So it's not just about whether a particular action is right or wrong. It's also about your

motivations for carrying out a particular action. Are they good motivations or not good motivations

is about your priorities in life, your goals, the way you relate to other people, and so on and so forth

The second discipline of action is connected with ethics. Action is about dealing with other people

Ethics is about how to live a life. Since we're a social animal, the two are very closely related

We live a social life. We don't live on deserted islands. We don't do very well when we are on our own

We can survive, perhaps, on our own under certain circumstances, but we only thrive in a society

So when I say logic, most people start thinking about logical puzzles and paradoxes and things like that

And that's fine. That is part of it. But logic, according to the Stoics, is in general the study of good thinking

So it includes also what we would today call cognitive science, the understanding of cognitive biases, and the understanding of why people's thinking can go wrong one way or the other

So it's much broader than the technical field of logic. Ascent. Ascent is about refining our understanding and practice of the first two disciplines

In other words, it's about using good judgment. And therefore, it's about logic

It's about understanding how human reasoning works and also how it can go wrong so that

we avoid as much as possible mistakes. And we're trying to think as much as we can in a rational, reasonable way and then implement that kind of approach into daily life

One of the obvious questions that come up with stoicism is, does it work

Which, if you think about it, on the one hand, it's a little bit of a weird question because we're talking about a philosophy

We're not talking about a scientific approach to life as we understand it today

Very few people, for instance, would ask the question, well, does Christianity work or does Buddhism work

However, they might ask, do prayers work or does meditation work? In other words, the techniques associated with certain religions or philosophies

In those cases, it does make sense to ask yourself, well, does it work

Is it something that quite independently of the theoretical part of the philosophy, does it actually have empirical evidence

So the same question can be asked reasonably about stoicism. We have a series of lines of evidence that stoic techniques, the stoic approach to a good life does in fact work

The first one is that stoicism originated what is now known as cognitive behavioral therapy back in the 1960s

In New York, authors like Aaron Beck and Albert Ellis started to practice this type of psychotherapy, which today is one of the best evidence-based type of psychotherapies

And they started from stoicism. They both read Marcus Aurelius and Pictetus and other Stoics, and they thought, oh, these

people were onto something here. There is something that can work, that is very practical, that can actually help people

Of course, CBT, as is known today, went then through a series of changes and evolution

over the last several decades. CBT is empirically based. There is lots of studies, empirical studies, that show that it does work

So it's not the same as asking whether Stoicism worked, but it's pretty close to asking whether

Stoic techniques work, because a lot of the techniques that the ancient Stoics designed

and developed on the basis of their intuition about human psychology and human nature

turns out, are actually efficacious. That's one line of evidence that Stoicism, in a sense, works

There is also an increasing number of papers out there on cognitive science in general

not just cognitive behavioral therapy, but cognitive science in general, how the brain works

how human decision-making is carried out, and so on and so forth

And my understanding is that much of that research is, if not in direct support of Stoic techniques

it certainly is compatible, highly compatible with it. For instance, modern psychologists and cognitive scientists have developed a theory of the relationship

between reason and emotions that is very similar to the way in which the Stoics were thinking

about the connection between reason and emotion. And then finally, there now begins to be direct studies about the efficacy of Stoic techniques

Stoicism is popular enough that psychologists have begun to look systematically into whether

specifically Stoic techniques work or don't. For instance, one of my colleagues, Tim Le Bon, who is a psychotherapist, has just

published recently, one of the first papers that shows at least preliminary evidence that, yes

indeed, Stoic techniques seem to have the kind of effects on behavior and on the way people think

that the Stoics thought they should have. Stoicism is a philosophy of life, and that, if you think

about it, it's an interesting concept. What is a philosophy of life in the first place? Do we need

a philosophy of life? I encounter people that tell me that they don't need a philosophy of life

They just live their life. And I point out that that is a philosophy of your life

There is no way to live a life without a philosophy. That philosophy might not be conscious

It may not be the result of deliberations that you did with yourself, you know, paying

attention to what you're doing and why. But if I observe your behavior if I see what your choices are your priorities your values and so on and so forth I can put them all together and say okay this person philosophy of life is this

It's the result of, or it's whatever underpins their choices, their values, their priorities

and their behavior. So we all have a philosophy of life. If that's true, well, we might as well then be conscious of it and be aware of it and

possibly even occasionally at least ask ourselves, well, is this a good philosophy of life

Or not? Do I need to change something? So one might be tempting then to go to the opposite extreme and say, oh, if I need a

philosophy of life, I'm going to pick one off the shelf. Here's stoicism. I heard that it's a good thing

Let me pick stoicism. From now on, I'm a stoic, and that's it. End of the story

But that is also dangerous in a sense, because now you're blindly following what somebody

said 2,000 years ago or 2,300 years ago without necessarily thinking things through, without

asking yourself, well, does this thing actually make sense? Does it fit the way I want to live

my life? And if not, why not? So there is on the one hand a danger of not being aware of one's own

philosophy of life. There's also the opposite danger of sort of taking something off the shelf

without questioning, without exercising one's own critical judgment about whether that thing

actually makes sense, is useful, works, etc. Well, then there is a third option. Some people say

oh, I'm going to build my own philosophy of life out of bits and pieces from different sources. So

I heard that stoicism is useful. I'm going to take something from stoicism. I heard that

Epicureanism is useful. I'm going to take something from that. Some of my friends are Buddhists

Perhaps I could borrow something from Buddhists. That is certainly something that can be done

It's usually referred to as eclecticism, but it's also got its own problems because you

might end up with a mishmash of things that don't make any sense when they're brought together

There is a reason why these philosophies are internally coherent and people have worked

on them for thousands of years in order to make them internally coherent

For instance, although the Stoics themselves acknowledged that there is something useful

in Epicureanism, and they actually incorporated aspects of Epicureanism into their philosophy

at the end of the day, one cannot be simultaneously a Stoic and an Epicurean

Why not? Because the most important value for a Stoic is one's own virtue, meaning one's own character

Pleasure is secondary. The most important value for an Epicurean is pleasure

One's character, one's virtues are actually only instrumental to a life of pleasure

So at the end of the day, there may be situations where you have to choose. Is it going to be pleasure or is it going to be character

And if you choose one way, you're an epicure. And if you choose another way, you're a Stoic, whether you're aware of it or not

In my own case, I think of myself as mostly a Stoic, meaning that there are a number of

things that in Stoic philosophy as a whole that I think are very valuable

They're very well thought out, and I have adopted them as at least a provisional way of navigating my own life

But I am also very much attracted by another ancient Greco-Roman philosophy, skepticism, which has to do with the notion that we're fallible

We don't know the truth with a capital T. At best, we can make reasonable guesses, probabilistic guesses about what works or what doesn't work, what is true and what is not true

And we should therefore always be aware that no matter what we do, we may be mistaken, no matter what we think, we might be mistaken

So I temper my stoicism with a little bit of skepticism. And in fact, I temper my stoic skepticism with a little bit of something that it's called philosophical pessimism

This is the notion that there are probably no grand narratives in the world

There is no universal plan. There is no end to history. There is no inevitable trajectory that we go either in our lives or as a society as a whole. It's all about things happening here and now, and there is no rhyme or reason to them

So I put all these things together into what to me feels like a reasonably coherent philosophy

It's not my invention. And yet at the same time, it's not exactly anything that you find specifically in any particular other author

One thing that I would suggest, for instance, is certainly read the original texts

But even that is not that simple because there are countless translations

And sometimes if you read the same book in different translations, it almost feels like

a different book. There are versions of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations that really feel like a different book from

some other translations. So one needs to be careful. The more recent translations, the more modern translations are better

Some of my favorites, for instance, are by a classicist named Robin Waterfield, who has

translated both Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus. The University of Chicago Press has made a huge edition of all of the writings of Seneca

Invest a little bit of money. After all, if we're talking about something that you want to pursue as a philosophy of life, it's worth investing a few bucks to actually get it right or as right as possible

One of the advantages of these modern editions is that they have a lot of notes, and the notes will help you, will guide you through understanding what exactly these people are saying because they're putting those notions in their philosophical as well as historical context

But the other thing is I hear often people say, oh, I'm just going to read the Stoic text, forget all of these modern authors, including yours truly, who are writing about Stoicism

I think that's a mistake. I mean, that may come across as a self-serving mistake, since, as I said, I'm one of those authors

But nevertheless, I think it is a mistake. I myself took advantage of the writings of modern authors

Because, again, stoicism is ancient. It's 2,300, almost 2,400 years old. It needs interpretation

It needs updates. And that interpretation, those updates need to be done carefully by people who actually

know what they're talking about. So, for instance, I would pick up a book by my friends and colleagues, Donald Robertson

Robertson is a cognitive behavioral therapist. That's his approach to stoicism. Bill Irvine is a classicist, and so is John Sellers

Those are some of the best modern stoic authors that you can trust

These are people who actually know what they're talking about. And all of these authors have written very, very accessible books that can be used to dig deeper into Stoicism as a modern philosophy of life

Chapter 2, The Stoic Toolkit I'm going to try to teach you a few basic stoic techniques that hopefully are going to make your

life better in the long run, maybe even in the very short run, because a lot of stoic techniques

tend to be efficacious almost immediately. You can see the difference yourself after a few days

or a few weeks of practice And perhaps there is no better way to start than with the connection between reason and emotions How do we deal with emotions Emotions are a big part of course of the human experience

They are inevitable. Even if we wanted to avoid them, we cannot. They are an intrinsic part of our biology and our psychology

Sometimes they're useful. They are alarm bells, for instance. They alert us to certain things going right or going wrong

Sometimes they deceive us and they create problems. They push us to react in ways that then we're later going to regret

The Stoics thought quite a bit about emotions. All of the major Stoic authors write about emotions, perhaps none more than Seneca, who

was a Roman senator who lived in the first century. He wrote one of the best books on emotions, I think, ever written

It's called On Anger. And he focuses on that particular emotion because it's important

We all experience anger under different conditions. We all react in a way that is driven by anger

And sometimes we regret the way we have acted. So let's try to understand what the Stoics actually say about this

The fundamental idea is that emotions are not, in fact, distinct or sharply distinct from reason

A lot of people seem to think that reason is one thing and emotion is another thing. And they are sometimes in conflict with each other

So reason might have to overcome emotions, or perhaps if you are a so-called emotional

person, you actually prefer the other way around. But in reality, the two are actually highly interconnected

And this is one insight, one intuition of the ancient Stoics that is definitely confirmed

by modern cognitive science. We do know that the anatomical area from where many human emotions originate is the amygdala

which is the base of the brain. And we do know that our reasoning faculty resides mostly in the frontal parietal lobes of the brain

But we also know that those two areas are massively interconnected. There are literally billions of neuronal fibers that go back and forth between the two

so that there is no such a thing as an emotional response independent of the way you think

and there is no such a thing as thinking independently of your emotional reactions

Well, if that's true, the Stoics say, there is your key to a better relationship with your emotions

What you need to do is a two or three step process that begins with cognition

It begins with thinking carefully before you get into any situation that might be emotionally complex about what you want to do and why

Once you set the stage in terms of thinking, then you try to behave accordingly to that particular way of thinking

If you think that one thing is right or wrong, then presumably you will want to behave according

to that judgment. And it is this combination of cognition and behavior repeated over and over and over that

eventually affects your emotions, sinks in at the emotional level, and in fact will alter

your emotions. Let me give you an example. Let's say that somebody insults you

Epictetus talks a lot in his writings about insults and ways to deal with insults

And most of us would get upset at an insult. And in fact, we'd probably react

We'd start escalating things. You feel that rush of adrenaline. You're getting angry

How dare this person talk to me this way? And then you start raising your voice

And then it escalates into a confrontation, possibly even a physical confrontation

the Starks would say well before all of that think about it this way what exactly is an insult

an insult is somebody opening their mouth saying certain words those words arrive to your ears

you interpret them in a certain way and because of that interpretation you react in other words

It's your thinking, it's your cognition that is the first step. If you think this is unacceptable, this is an insult, how dare the person talk to me

like that, then your emotions will follow. Then you're now fueling your anger

You're fueling your aggressive reaction to those words. But if instead of going that way, you say to yourself, an insult is nothing

It's just air moving around. It doesn't actually touch me. It doesn't actually do anything to me

If that person is saying something about me that is insulting, what does that mean

Well, either that person is right and maybe he's expressing his opinion in a clumsy way, but he's actually right, in which case, why am I going to be upset about it

If somebody is right and it's setting me right, then it's a good thing for me to accept that

counsel, to accept that observation and do something about it. Or the person in question is wrong

In which case, that's his problem, not mine. I'm not the one in wrong

He is the one that is wrong. He should be concerned with it, not I

So either way, it is in my power not to react because it is in my power to reframe the situation

to myself and think, this is not an insult. This is just air bouncing off

And it doesn't actually touch me. It doesn't actually hurt me. Once you do that, you're now de-escalating your emotional response because your emotions

will react, will go along with whatever way you're thinking about the situation

If you're thinking that you have been offended, your emotions will escalate

If you're thinking that, oh, this is funny, this is really ridiculous, doesn't the person

in question know that he's embarrassing himself, then your emotions will go in a different direction

It will de-escalate. You're not going to get angry. Now, this is, of course, easier said than done

This is not going to happen on your first try. But the key here is to constantly ask yourself what exactly is going on here and what is

a good reaction, what might be a good reaction to what is going on

Once you've reframed whatever is happening to yourself that way, your emotions eventually

will follow. the problem in dealing with situations as they are happening is that often we're not mentally

prepared. And so we react in the moment, and then perhaps when we misjudge the situation

our emotions start running away from us, and then we regret later on whatever we did or whatever we

said. So the Stoics have a very important technique to help us prepare ourselves to a difficult

situation, to deal with difficult situations. That technique goes under a number of names

Often it's referred to as philosophical journaling. And I say philosophical because it's a particular

type of journaling. This is not a diary where you just write down, oh, today I went and did this or

did that, and it was fun, that sort of stuff. It's a journal of reflection. And perhaps the best model

of that journal available to Stoic practitioners is the Meditations of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius

The Meditations was never meant for publication, is in fact the Emperor's personal philosophical

journal. And if you read it, you'll see there is no particular structure. There are 12 chapters

but the 12 chapters don't have any... particular subheadings, there is no particular topic, because Marcus is going through his life

and he's reflecting on whatever was happening at that moment and how he was reacting to what was

happening. And so often people read the meditations, for instance, and they come across

with this notion that it's repetitive and it's a little preachy. Both of those things are true

It's repetitive because Marcus, just like the rest of us, kept running into the same problems

over and over again. So for instance, he had an issue with anger management. And so you will see

in the meditations that there are several places where Marcus says to himself, why did you get

upset about this today? What is a better way to answer that situation, to react to that situation

instead of getting angry? And it's preachy because he's preaching to himself. He's not talking to an

audience. He's talking to himself and he says, look, you really need to do things this way and

not that way. So how does that work in practice? Incidentally, this is another thing where there

is very good evidence from modern cognitive behavioral therapy in particular, but also

cognitive science in general, that this technique of philosophical journaling of reflection on your

actions actually does work. It's a very good tool for self-improvement, for ethical self-improvement

There are different ways in which you can do philosophical journaling. Both Seneca and Epictetus actually give you details

There are bits in their writings where they say, this is how you do it

And as I said, Marcus Cirilius is a great example. There is a whole book there where you can read it and see how it is done

My favorite way of doing it is carving out a little bit of time at the end of the day

before you go to bed, when you're not too tired, quiet down, open up your journal or your tablet

or however you prefer to do it. This doesn't have to be a written exercise either. You can just

think about it. But it's better to be done as a written exercise because then you have a record

of what you've been doing and thinking over eventually a period of years. And then you can

go back and check if you have improved in certain areas or if there are certain issues

that are particularly problematic and recurring for you. And you ask yourself, you pick a particular example of something that happened during

the day. For instance, let's say somebody came up to me and trying to insult me

And he said something that is rude or uncalled for. And I reacted in a certain way

So I described to myself in the journal the situation as objectively as I can without

using emotional language, as ytically as I can, because the point is not to relive

the experience. The point is to yze the experience and learn from it

In fact, if you notice, Marcus Servilius writes his journal in the second person

He says, you did this and you reacted this way. This may sound strange and it may feel a little awkward to do it that way

But again, there is very good evidence from modern studies that it does help keeping the

distance from your emotional responses, which is, in fact, helpful in trying to learn ytically

from what you did and what you perhaps didn't do. Imagine you're just talking to a friend

You're writing to a friend. You say, you did this. How come you reacted this way or that way

So you pick a particular instance, something that happened, an accident that happened during

the day. you briefly describe that incident to your friend and then you ask yourself three questions

what did i do wrong what did i do right and what could i do next time why ask yourself those

questions the first one what did i do wrong the point is not to indulge in sort of regret and

self-flagellation and things like those are all useless according to the stoics whatever you did

it's done. You cannot change it. You cannot go back in time and change it. However, you can learn

from it. The second question is, what did I do right? It's essentially the same idea, only in the

flip side of that coin. That is, you don't just want to remind yourself the kinds of things that

you do wrong. You also want to set goals that you're going to achieve over and over. Here's where

I don't want to go the next time, here's where I do want to go the next time. Or here's what I want

to do less and less moving forward, and here's what I want to do more and more moving forward

The third question is arguably the most crucial one. What could I have done differently? Again

this is not about regret because you can't change what you did. But it's about the fact that, you

know, as much as we think of our lives as endlessly fascinating and different and varied and all that

sort of stuff. In fact, most of the times we tend to do the same things pretty much every day

That's an advantage as far as the Stoics are concerned, because what that means is that

whatever situation you did not handle properly today is likely going to happen again, possibly

soon. So if a colleague, for instance, came in and said something insulting or rude or whatever

well, you know, that person isn't going to go away very likely anytime soon. So

and his behavior is not going to change necessarily in any radical fashion

So you can expect reasonably then in a few days or next week or next month

something close to that will happen again. But now you're ready. You may not have been ready today when it happened

That's why you're doing this self-ysis in your philosophical journal. But you're going to be ready next time

You're telling yourself, okay, well, if this happens again, here is a better way to respond

That way you're prepared. And Seneca says a prepared mind handles difficulties, handles difficult, delicate situations much better

Perhaps not perfectly. The goal is not perfection necessarily, but better. You may have heard of something called the serenity prayer, which is not exactly the same thing that comes to mind when we talk about stoicism

But bear with me for a second. There is a connection. The serenity prayer, which is often recited at the beginning of meetings of 12-step organizations, such as Alcoholic Anonymous

goes something like this. It asks God to have the wisdom to tell the difference between what we can

change and what we cannot change, the courage to change what we can, and the serenity to accept

what we cannot. That notion, that serenity prayer, was written at the beginning of the 20th century

by an American theologian. But in fact, it's a rephrasing of a fundamental insight by the Stoic

Epictetus that goes back to the beginning of the 2nd century. The two are, in fact, connected

historically because it turns out that Epictetus' Manual for a Good Life was used throughout the

Middle Ages by Christian monks as a source of spiritual exercises. Now, Epictetus doesn't quite

phrase it that way, but the same idea holds, and it's one of the most interesting and most useful

ideas in Stoicism. Epictetus talks about some things are up to us and some things are not up to

us, and we should focus on the things that are up to us and act on them because that is where

our agency is efficacious, and we should develop an attitude of acceptance and equanimity

toward the things that are not up to us Now we all live in a complex world where there are all certain things that we don necessarily control both at a macroscopic level let say political change social

change, things like that, and at a personal level. You know, things happen in our life that we don't necessarily have much to say or do about

because they depend on a number of factors that we do not control

So how do the Stoics deal with those kinds of uncertainties and that kind of limited agency that, at the end of the day, we all have

Let's pick a specific example. Let's say that tomorrow morning I'm going to have a job interview, and it's a job that I really want

It's important for me to do well in that interview. Epictetus will say, well, the best way you can prepare yourself for that challenge is the day before, let's say

to ask yourself what under these circumstances is up to me and what is not up to me

And you can do this literally by making two lists. You can do it in your mind, or better yet

you can write down a table, you can draw a table with two columns

and say, up to me, not up to me. It's surprising once you start paying attention

to the question, how many things you actually will be able to list

For instance, actually getting the job, not up to me. It depends on the competition. It depends on who's doing the interview and how

they're feeling that day and on a number of other things that are really not under my control

which means, according to Obetetus, that I have to be ready to accept the possibility

that things will not go my way and accept that with serenity, with equanimity, because that's

the way the world works. Sometimes job interviews are successful and other times they're not

And we are adults. We don't throw a tantrum when things don't go our way. What is up to me

Well, clearly to prepare myself as much as possible and as carefully as possible for the job interview

What else is up to me? Well, try to get a good night's sleep because we know that being rested and all that helps

But notice that I said to try to get a good night's sleep, not to actually get a good night's sleep

because it's possible that my neighbor in the next apartment is throwing a party into the late night

and I will not be able to sleep as many hours as I should or want to

because there are, again, circumstances that are outside of my control that are going to interfere with it, with my intentions

So the intention is good, is mine, but the outcome is not under my control

What else? Well, it's certainly a good idea to show up on time for the job interview

That means that you care, that you're a professional, and so on and so forth. But again, there, what is up to me is to try to show up on time

I live in New York. That's not a guarantee. I can get on the subway, and the subway all of a sudden stops in the middle of the tracks

and it's not going to move. Or I may take a taxi, and there's a lot of traffic, and I may actually get there late

So to try to have the intentions, do my best in order to get there on time is up to me

Actually getting there on time is not up to me. and so on and so forth

So we can come up with these lists that are actually fairly detailed. The more detailed, the better

And the idea is that once you have these lists of things that are up to me and things that are not up to me

you focus only on the one to the left side. The things that are up to me

Those are the ones that I want to rehearse, think carefully about, be as prepared as possible

because my agency lies in that direction. All of the other ones

I can still be aware of them And I can mentally prepare myself for the possibility that they are or they're not going to go in my preferred direction

But that's all I can do about it. The result is that you have much more efficacious in the things you do because your agency is, in fact, at play there

But it's also true that you accept things in a way that maintains calm, tranquility, serenity

You don't upset yourself over things for which, frankly, there is no point in getting upset

The same approach of focusing on things that are up to us and accepting with equanimity things that are not up to us can be applied to pretty much every situation and every challenge or potential setback we might suffer, not just at an individual level, at a personal level, but also at a societal level or a political level

And the Stoics themselves lived in really turbulent times. The Hellenistic period, which went from the death of Alexander the Great and the collapse

of the Macedonian Empire to the Battle of Actium in 31 BCE, which basically marked the

beginning of the Roman Empire, was in fact a period of major turmoil where things were

changing very rapidly, seemingly completely outside the control of most individuals. Well, we might live in a similar situation

We're facing major challenges that all of us, most of us feel unprepared and not particularly able to do anything about

You know, there's political change, there's social change. We're facing the possibility of climate catastrophe

We are still facing the possibility of, you know, a nuclear war, for instance, and things like that

How does a Stoic deal with those kinds of situations? It's exactly the same approach

Again, you ask yourself, what here is up to me and what is not up to me

You make the two lists. You focus on the first one. And then you try to do your best to accept with serenity the second

For instance, let's say that I'm concerned about climate change, as I should be

Well, I can't change anything dramatically at that level for that kind of problem on my own

And this is not an individual level. Arguably, it's not even a problem that can be solved by an individual society

It requires literally global actions. But that doesn't mean that I cannot do anything about it

So if I start writing down the things that are up to me, I can come up, for instance

with the following partial list. Well, I can inform myself that the first basis for rational decisions is to get informed

I can also donate to organizations that actively work in that direction

I can vote. I can talk to people. I can go in the streets and join other people that are vocal about these kind of things

All of these approaches are, in fact, up to me. They're under my agency

And doing them by themselves, of course, will not solve the problem, but it will contribute

toward the solution of the problem. And just as importantly, at a personal level, will make me feel better because I'm doing

something about it. But by the same token, there's the second column

The things are not up to me. Actually solving the problem of climate change is certainly not up to me

Actually even getting a particular politician that might contribute to the solution elected

is not up to me. Actually achieving, in fact, all of those things that I just mentioned is not really up to me

And therefore, although I hope that things are going to go in a certain direction, I

have to be ready for the possibility that they won't. and that's okay because again not everything in life goes the way we prefer and we need to accept

as rational reasonable adults that we may not have a choice and we need to be okay with with the notion that we don have a choice on everything We cannot act on everything

We cannot solve everything. I'm sure you noticed that one of the things in life is that sometimes we have to make

tough decisions. And we second guess ourselves. We tend to go one way and then think, maybe I should have gone the other way

We tend to think in a dichotomous fashion. We tend to think that it's either black or white, either this or that

The Stoics thought a lot about decision-making. In fact, Epictetus thought that our most important faculty was something that he called pro-hi-resis

which is Greek for will. The decision, the ability to actually arrive at a judgment, at an assessment of a situation

and then try to act on it, do your best to act on it. The problem is, of course, that life sometimes is complicated

There are multiple choices. We have a tendency to want to simplify things and go for something that is stark, that it's

clear, that it's obvious. That's just not the way the world works

And according to the Stoics, it's much better to try to understand how the world works and

then act accordingly rather than trying to impose on the world the way we want to think

or the way we prefer things to be. There are several passages in Epictetus' discourses where he talks to his students

And he reminds them, this is to design the world in a certain way that it's convenient for you

It's not up to you. At one point, in fact, it gets even pretty funny

One of the students apparently complained of having a cold and a running nose

And Epictetus looks at him and says, so what do you think? The universe should rearrange yourself so that you don't have a running nose

Why don't you just get a handkerchief and wipe it off? So sometimes it's about obvious things

Sometimes it's about things that are complicated. it. And there is no sure way to make right decisions. The only thing that we can do is to

make sure that we fine-tune as much as possible our pro-hiresis, that is, our faculty of judgment

That is what the third discipline of epitidae is about, the discipline of assent. Assent means

to agree to something. According to the Stoics, we are constantly bombarded by impressions

what they call impressions. An impression is essentially a combination of a sensorial experience

and an immediate, usually instinctive judgment. For instance, I might walk down the street

and I have the impression that it's good to go by and eat that gelato that I just so

displayed because it tastes good, it looks good, it's attractive, I should do it

That's an impression. It's a combination of I am seeing something and I'm immediately arriving at a judgment

that doing something about that object is a good thing. Epitida says that that's the time

when you want to stop and think. Ask yourself. In fact, talk to your impression

Say, well, wait a minute. Is this really a good thing? Should I actually go and get the gelato

and eat it right now? Well, maybe not because I'm on my way to dinner. Eating a gelato would spoil my appetite

Also, frankly, my waistline is not exactly in the best shape possible, so that's not

going to help either. No, on second thought, a better decision is to ignore the gelato, keep walking, and go home

That's a simple situation. But we face constantly these kinds of decision-making opportunities, so to speak

and we also constantly second guess ourselves. Oh man, I should have done this

I should have done these other things. The Stoics think that what is up to you is your intentions

not the outcomes of those intentions. So what you need to do is to work on

why are you trying to do certain things more than on will I succeed in doing these things

And that might simplify our decision-making problems. For instance, let's say that I go and volunteer in my soup kitchen around the corner from my apartment

Is this a good thing to do or is not a good thing to do? Well, most people probably would say it's a good thing because I'm helping other people

I'm spending my time in a way that it's helpful to others and so on and so forth

But a stoic would actually frame the question differently. The question would be not necessarily is the action itself good or not, but are your motivations

virtuous or not? Why am I doing this? If it turns out that I generally want to help people, then that is in fact a virtuous action

whether I succeed or not. However, it's also possible that I decided to do that because I need a new line on my

resume to look good the next time that I apply for a job so that I can show that I also volunteer

for social causes. Well, that's not virtuous because now I'm using other people as a means

to an end, to my own end, to self-aggrandize, to get my own benefit out of this thing, right

So it's not virtuous. Even though it might still be useful to others, I might still be helpful to

others, this is not really the right thing to do because it actually undermines my character

So to shift perspective from the outcome, is this a good thing or a bad thing, to my

intentions and therefore my character, is this good for me? Does this make me a better person or does it actually undermine my character

It makes me a worse person. Very often we'll simplify our decision making because it turns out that the answer to why

am I doing this, is often much simpler than the answer to, is this really truly a good

thing to do or not a good thing to do. The very goal of Stoic philosophy, of Stoicism, is to make us into better human beings, into

the kind of human beings that lives a life that is worth living

But what does that mean in practice? Well, it means a number of things, but one way in which the Stoics answered that question

what sort of life we should live, is that they say we should live according to nature

Now, to live according to nature doesn't mean running naked into the forest

and hugging trees, although, of course, there's nothing wrong with that necessarily

It means to look at the kind of living being, of organism that a human is

and what actually makes that organism flourish, makes it do good things, better things

have a happier life, as opposed to the kinds of things that get in the way of human flourishing

This turns ethics, remember that for the Stoics, ethics is the study of how to live a good life

into essentially an empirical discipline because it's about human nature. You have to observe things about what makes human beings better or worse

what makes a human life better or worse. The Stoics drew an interesting ogy

They thought that ethics is like medicine. You know, medicine, of course, being concerned with the body

ethics being concerned with the mind, with our psyche. Now there are some things some behaviors that are natural for us but they not good from a medical perspective For instance we have a natural attraction to sugar and to fatty foods

That probably evolved by natural selection in a period of human evolution where there wasn't a lot of food around

And so every time that we run into a source of fat or sugar, we were better served by actually taking advantage of it

But we don't live in that kind of environment anymore. We don't live in the Pleistocene anymore

We live in cities where you can find food 24 hours a day, seven days a week

And so having these natural cravings, because it's natural, for fat and sugar, it's actually

not good for us. It undermines our physical health. It causes all sorts of problems, diabetes and so on, heart attacks, et cetera

So a doctor will look at this and say, look, this is in fact a natural craving, but the

healthy thing to do would be to resist that craving, to reorient your priorities elsewhere

The Stoics make exactly the same argument in terms of the human psyche. There are some things that

come natural to human beings in terms of behavior. For instance, anger. Anger is a natural response

to a perceived injustice. But the Stoics argue anger is the psychological equivalent of a fatty

food or a lot of sugar. It's just not good for you mentally

It doesn't lead to a good life. Then what is good for you at a mental level, at a psychical level

Two things. To reason your way through your problems instead of bulldozing things or just reacting in the moment

And most importantly, to be social, to cooperate with other people. Because we are, of course, social animals

and we thrive in a society, in a social group. Now, from there, the step is not very far

to realizing that it's not just my immediate group. It's not just my family, my friends

or perhaps the people that live in my city. It makes sense to cooperate, to be good

to be positive about any human being that lives anywhere because after all, we live in an interconnected world

And one of those early Stoics, a guy named Hierocles, in the second century wrote a book called Principles of Ethics

Hierocles says, what we should try to do is to metaphorically bring people

all the people, closer and closer to us. Imagine that you are the center of your own world

As soon as you do that, you immediately realize that you depend on other people, your parents, for instance, your siblings

And then eventually you realize that you depend on other people that you start calling your friends

And then you depend on further, larger group of people outside, you know, acquaintances

or people that you don't necessarily directly come in contact with, but that indirectly

affect your life. Well, what Hieroglyphs said was what you need to do is to bring all those circles, which

extend eventually all the way to the entirety of humanity, closer and closer to yourself

You should think of your friends as if they were your family. You should think of your acquaintances

as if they were your friends. You should think of strangers as if they were your acquaintances

and so on and so forth. Bring them closer. Your circles of concern should shrink

and your concern should expand to all of these people. And Ienocles actually goes so far as

giving practical advice of how to do that. This is not just a way of thinking about stuff. You

actually can behave in a way that is cosmopolitan, because that's ultimately the word that the

Stoics used. And the way you do that is, Iaclis says, just go around, and when you meet strangers

address them as brother and sister, or perhaps uncle and aunt, depending on their age and their

gender and so on. In other words, remind yourself and others that we are, in fact, all on the same

boat together and that we depend on each other for a good navigation

Now, at this point, you might be tempted to think, this is just too simple

Some things are up to me. Other things are not up to me. Yeah, sure. Everybody knows that. So what

How is that going to make a difference in my life? Well, but the issue is not that things are simple or not

The issue is, are you going to act on those things? Are you actually going to practice those things

Ethics, after all, is not rocket science. You're not going to have to build a rock that goes to the moon

You just have to improve your life bit by bit, action by action, thought by thought

Here's an ogy that the Stoics themselves made very often with athletics

They thought, well, you know, if you go into a gym and somebody is going to show you, a

trainer is going to show you how to lift weights, for instance, you might be tempted to say

oh, is that all there is to it? It's a simple action. I pick up the weights in a certain way

I make sure that my posture in a certain, and then that's it. I'm done. Yes, the action is conceptually simple, but the difference is going to come only if every

day or several times a week, you come to the gym and you actually do that action

That's how you're going to get your muscles. That's how you're going to get your physical ability improved

Not by the fact that you understand something that is simple to do, but by the fact that

Once you understood it, you actually practice it over and over and over

The same goes for the kind of stoic advice that we have heard so far

Yes, it's very simple to say that, you know, some things are up to me and other things are not up to me

What is difficult is to actually follow through. Every time that you face a challenge, every time that you face a difficult situation, you go through that exercise and then you focus your attention on what is up to you and trying to develop a good attitude of acceptance and equanimity

toward that, that is not up to you. That is the difficult part. It's not the conceptual

understanding, it's the actual practice. I did not start my life or my career as a Stoic or a

Stoic practitioner. In fact, I was something quite different. I began my academic career as an

evolutionary biologist. I've always been interested in science ever since I was a kid. I decided that

biology was my passion, and I went through all of the steps, formal and otherwise, that eventually

build a career in that field. But then, like many people, at some point, I got to a moment of crisis

call it a midlife crisis, if you will. So you get to a point where you say, well, this was fun

this was interesting. I've been doing this for, let's say, 20 years, 25 years. Do I really want

to do this same thing for another 25, 30, or however much time I have? And my answer was, no

I need to do something different. When I was back in high school in Rome, in Italy

I had a wonderful teacher of philosophy for three years, who really made the field come alive

and it really developed a passion for philosophy in me. So when the crisis came, the answer was almost immediately obvious

It's like, oh, well, I need to go into philosophy then, because that is the other thing that I'm passionate about

So I went back to school, and I... I got my degree, graduate degree in philosophy, and I moved, I switched career to philosophy

of science. But, you know, the midlife crisis was still going, and it wasn't concerned just with the

academic career, just with the job aspect of things, right? A number of things happened more or less at the same time in my life

My father died, for instance. I knew that this was going to happen, but when it did happen, it really hit very hard

I was hit by an unexpected divorce, for instance. I moved across country because of my career change

Now, any psychologist would tell you that one of those things is pretty stressful

If three or four happened, as they did to me in the span of a few months, that can actually

trigger a crisis. That can make you really reconsider your priorities. And that is exactly what happened to me

So I thought, well, I'm studying philosophy. I am becoming a professional philosopher

Philosophy means love of wisdom, literally. Surely, if there is an answer to my current predicament, surely if there are tools that

will allow me to overcome these challenges and to move forward, they're going to come

from philosophy. Yes, but where from philosophy? Which part of philosophy? Philosophy is a huge field

So I started more or less systematically. I looked into Buddhism, for instance, because several friends told me that Buddhism was a

good approach if you're looking for a philosophy of life. It didn't quite click, however. It didn't

speak to me at a deep level as I was hoping and expecting. So eventually I figured out that the

answer, whatever was going to be, was going to come from virtuetics. Virtuetics is the general

Greco-Roman tradition that has to do with self-improvement understood as improvement or your character

But even that is a large field. We have Aristotle. We have Epicurus

We have all sorts of ancient authors, all of whom have something interesting to say

And I did read some of these. But again, nothing clicked. Then one day, I was scrolling on my phone on the thing that at the time was called Twitter

now called X. And I saw a tweet that said, help us celebrate Stoic Week

and I thought, that's odd. Why would anybody want to celebrate the Stoics

Because, of course, I thought, like many people, of the Stoics as, you know

stiff upper lip and suppression of emotion kind of people, as sort of a Mr. Spock from Star Trek

But then I realized, I thought, wait a minute, hold on. The Stoics, that Stoicism also was a type of virtuetics

so it was in the general ballpark of what I was already interested in pursuing

Then I remember one of the Stoics was Marcus Aurelius, and I read the Meditations when I

was in college, and I found it an interesting, provocative book. I also remember that Seneca was another Stoic, and I translated Seneca from Latin when I was

in high school. So I thought, okay, maybe there is something here that might be worth investigating

So I signed up for Stoic Week, which, by the way, is something that happens every year

usually in October or November. In fact, now I'm on the board of the organization called Modern Stoicism that actually organizes Stoic Week

But at the time, I signed up and I downloaded their guide and their material, their readings

And the first thing that I read was by a guy who I never heard of before named Epictetus

And one of his students said, you know, wouldn't it be good for me to become rich and powerful

That way I can help my family, my friends. I can even perhaps do something good for my country

And Epictetus' answers was interesting. He said, well, who is going to tell you what the right thing to do is for your family, for your friends, and for your country

The money or the power are not going to tell you. Your faculty of judgment is going to tell you

Your pro-hiresis in Greek. Your ability to think carefully and rationally about things, which is the very thing that Stoics tend to cultivate and try to improve throughout their lives

That did it. I almost heard the click at the back of my mind

I said, this is my guy. Epictetus talks in a way that is no nonsense

It's very clear what he says and what he means. He doesn't suffer fools easily

It has a sense of humor that borders onto sarcasm, perhaps, and that I respond to that

kind of approach. And so I started devouring everything that I could possibly find by Epictetus and about Epictetus

And here we are now, a dozen years later, we're still talking about Stoicism

The decision to start studying and, most importantly, practicing Stoicism had an immediate

effect on my life. Like in a matter of days, I was thinking about certain issues that had plagued me for a long time in a very different way, and I was beginning to act differently about those issues

For instance, ever since I was a kid, I struggled with weight

It's never exactly what I wanted or even close to where I wanted it

But as a biologist, I understand that weight is a complex matter

It depends on a large number of causes, some of which I can influence and some of which I don't

My genetic background and my early development are certainly not up to me

That means that there are limits to what I can do 40 years later, 50 years later about that particular problem

So I accept those limits. At the same time, however, there are things that I can do

I can and certainly do now eat a much more healthy diet

I go and exercise more often and so on and so forth. Those are things that are up to me

Now, these are not hearth-shattering things, but the important difference is that they sunk

inside me in a way that I never did before. It's not that I never heard before of exercise or healthy lifestyle or genetics

I'm a biologist after all. But I never really incorporated those things deep into my thinking, and therefore, they

were not reflected into my actions. Another thing that my friends and family noticed immediately was that I was getting much less angry and upset about things

Just like Marcus Aurelius, I did have an anger problem. I was sometimes stupefied by how people can say or do certain things without considering the effect that they have on others

And I would get upset. I would get angry at the perceived injustice, either toward me or toward people I cared

But stoicism made me realize that that's just the way the world works

That doesn't mean you cannot do anything about it. You can certainly talk to people about certain things

You can certainly reframe things in your own mind so that they will not upset you

But as Marcus Reuters says to expect that people are not going to do stupid things or that people are not going to say things that are hurtful is just to expect that the world is going to be completely different from the way it is And if there is anything about the Stoics is that they very realistic about the world

They accept the world the way it actually is, not the way you would want it to be

Again, let's be clear here. This is not a counsel for being a doormat and just take

whatever comes your way without reacting. Reactions, actions and reactions are important

It's the fabric of human life. But those actions and reactions need to be thought carefully

so that they're most efficacious and they need to be carried out in a way that is realistic

You do not expect miracles to happen because unfortunately that's not the way the world works

Perhaps predictably, there is a lot of discussion and even a little bit of confusion about what Stoicism is and is not

if you read a random writing about Stoicism or you listen to a random podcast about Stoicism

you would hear things like, oh, don't go that way because that's not really Stoicism

And in fact, to some extent, I've done this as well. I think I have arguments for it. These

arguments, I think, are based on a good understanding of the philosophy as well as on the

original texts. But I admit there are different opinions about the nature of Stoicism. This is

Not surprising. We see the same thing in other philosophies and religion

There are different opinions about what Christianity is. There are different opinions about what Buddhism is

And in fact, arguably, there are different Christianities and different Buddhisms, meaning

that there are different ways to interpret what the ancient texts say and also different

ways to update those texts and those philosophies to the 21st century

So the same goes for Stoicism. In fact, to some extent, this has happened from the beginning

One of the students of Zeno of Satyum, who was the originator of Stoas

was the guy who actually started the Stoas, one of his students is on record

disagreeing about some of the things that Zeno was saying and starting his own thing

He went in a different direction, and he started his own school

So this has happened since the beginning. Disagreement is the nature of philosophy

and possibly the nature of the human condition. Nevertheless, one needs to be cautious about what we read and how we think about things

because we need to make at least an honest, concerted effort, if we're interested in a

particular philosophy or religion, to get to the bottom of what the thing is actually about

and not what necessarily some people claim it is about. Stoicism at the moment is in resurgence

It's very popular for a number of years now. You will easily find new books and new articles and new podcasts and new essays on Stoicism

as a practical philosophy. And one might ask reasonably, why Stoicism all of a sudden

Well, on the one hand, Stoicism really never went away. It is true that all of the Hellenistic philosophies gradually disappeared from view between the

third and the fourth century, essentially contemporaneously with the rise of Christianity

And the two things are, in fact, more or less related. But it's also true that a lot of Stoic

ideas were, in fact, incorporated into Christianity, and they were transmitted by the early church

fathers into the Middle Ages. Eventually, they reemerged as Stoic ideas into the Renaissance

and later on into the Enlightenment. And so the fact that today we are talking about Stoicism and

people are practicing Stoicism isn't really that surprising. On the other hand, it is certainly the

case that the number of people who are interested in Stoicism has surged dramatically over the last

10 to 15 years, and so it makes sense to ask ourselves, well, why? Possibly one of the answers

is that we live in turbulent times, which are essentially the same kinds of times that led to

the initial flourishing of Stoicism. Stoicism flourished during the Hellenistic period, which was a major period of lasting

two or three centuries of political change, social change. In fact, all of the so-called Hellenistic philosophies, not just Stoicism, but also

Epicureanism, two different forms of skepticism, and a number of others, were very popular

and arose at that time precisely because people were looking for answers

People were looking for ways to navigate a rapidly changing world that was difficult to make sense of and was even more difficult to cope with

Today, arguably, since, I would say, at least the 20th century and certainly into the 21st century, we live in a similar world

Last century, we went through two world wars. Then we developed enough nuclear weapons to destroy the planet many times over

Then near the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st, we started being more aware of yet another major challenge, which we refer to as climate change

Not to mention, of course, more local, national level or the regional level, political change, social change that keeps happening at a very high pace

And a lot of people are distraught by this. They don't know how to process this. They don't know what their place is going to be in a society that looks very different from not only the society of their parents and grandparents, but even the society that they experienced as younger selves

So it's no surprise that stoicism in particular, which is a philosophy, after all, of resilience and of coping with potential challenges and potential drawbacks, is having a moment of resurgence

I think it's perfectly reasonable and, in fact, it's perfectly useful. However, that does bring people to a misunderstanding

A lot of people seem to think that that's what stoicism, that's all that stoicism is

That is, that stoicism is good only as a remedy toward setbacks and challenges

For instance, during the recent COVID pandemic, I personally got a lot of calls from people asking me about stoicism

and say, you know, can I use stoicism to deal with the situation? And the answer was, of course you can

But you also don't want to forget that, We make decisions all the time in life, throughout our lives, whether it's good times or bad times, whether it's a challenge or an opportunity, it doesn't matter

We still have to make the best decisions we can. And stoicism, in a sense, is a philosophy about decision-making, about the best way to approach decision-making

So it's just as useful in good times, so to speak, as it is in bad times

It's just that people tend to reach for it only when they are in distress and then they become sort of a little bit relaxed, probably inappropriately relaxed, I should say, when it comes to the good times

We don think that if we are going through things that are positive let say we have a good moment in our career or we come into some money or something that those are problems But in fact they are problems

because they also carry the necessity of decision-making. If you came into some money

what are you going to do with that money? How are you going to invest it? How is that going to change your life for the better

The answer to those questions may not be that obvious. And so good decision-making is always useful

no matter what the situation, positive or negative. Whenever a philosophy or, in fact, even a religion becomes popular

inevitably there are people who are going to use it in a way that

essentially is a misunderstanding of the original idea or a significant distortion of the original idea

This is happening, not surprisingly, also with stoicism. There's a number of people, especially certain kinds of young men

who are attracted to what they think of as stoicism because it validates their notion that a good

person, a strong person, particularly a strong man, is somebody who is silent, who controls their

emotions, and so on and so forth. But that's stoicism with a little s. It's the stoic attitude

the stiff upper lip, the suppression of emotion, the Spock approach to life, which is not, in fact

what real stoicism, with a capital S, stoicism, the philosophy, is about. Of course, like any

misconception, there's a grain of truth. The stiff upper lip, for instance, comes from the fact that

endurance is in fact a stoic value. The stoics would say, look, if something is going to happen

to you that you cannot do anything about, then your only choice is really, your only rational

choice is to endure it. What are you going to do? You're either going to endure it, or you're going

to endure it and then complain about it. Complaining doesn't really add anything. It only

makes you feel worse. So just deal with it. Just endure it. But that's not the same as a stiff

upper lip because it's only a minor component of what Stoic philosophy is about. The notion

the misguided notion that Stoicism is about suppressing the emotions also comes from a

distortion of a real aspect of Stoic philosophy. The Stoics make a big deal about the notion of

talking to your emotions, modulating your emotions through reason. For instance, dealing with your

anger in a way that it's not anger anymore, but it becomes something healthy, something positive

For instance, a sense of justice that you want to pursue instead of a destructive sense of anger

That can also easily be misconstrued as suppressing emotion. There is no such thing as

suppressing emotions. We cannot suppress emotions because emotions are part and parcel the way our

brain works. The only way to suppress your emotions is to literally cut off a part of your brain

and that will turn you into a psychopath or otherwise somebody who has serious mental issues

You don't want to do that. However, there is a danger of what I sometimes refer to as the

bro-ification, as in bro, of stoicism, of this interpretation of stoicism that tends to be on

the darker side of things, tends to emphasize masculinity, tends to emphasize this view of

mythical view almost, of the man who doesn't really react in any external way to things and

just takes it and then is stronger because of that. One of the arguments that these people make

for instance, is that stoicism is a type of virtue ethics and that the word virtue comes

from the Latin ver, V-I-R, which in fact means men. So there you go, right? Even the etymology

tells you that it's about being a manly man and that sort of stuff. But that argument misses an

important, crucial point, which is the word ver itself, virtual in Latin, is actually a translation

of the original. The original was Greek because Stoicism ultimately is a Greek philosophy

not a Roman one. And the original word in Greek is arete, A-R-E-T-E, which just means excellence

It doesn't mean manly anything. It just means do the best that you can. And it's gender neutral

It's not a masculine word at all. So even at that level, we see sort of a superficial

understanding, even at an etymological level, and certainly at an historical level

We see a superficial misunderstanding, which turns into what I think is a counterproductive

and potentially even dangerous kind of attitude. Stoicism certainly does not condone a manly-man approach to things

The ancient Stoics themselves actually were unusual among Greco-Roman philosophers because they explicitly said in writing that women are rational human beings just like men, and

they're just as capable of understanding and practicing philosophy. It's right there in

you know, black and white. It's in the writings. It doesn't need any interpretation. Both Epictetus

and Seneca explicitly say that in multiple points. So to pretend that somehow this is a manly thing

and that women need to be treated differently is just not stoicism, demonstrably not the case

Also, if we're talking about virtue, well, the Stoics try to practice multiple virtues

One of these is justice. And justice is interpreted by the Stoics as treating other people, any other people, regardless of gender, race, nationality, ethnicity, religion, or anything else, any other people, with dignity, with respect, in the way in which you yourself will want to be treated

So it's clearly nothing to do with a manly approach to things, whatever that means

Perhaps not surprisingly, many people approach stoicism in a way that oversimplifies the philosophy

They want immediate results. They don't care about the historical background. They don't care as much about the complexities and the nuance of the philosophy

They just want something to work. And I understand that sort of need

At the same time, however, there's a danger in oversimplifying things. You may misconstrue things and you might act in a way that it's actually not at all in

line with the philosophy itself. There are, for instance, two common ways to misconstrue Stoicism

One is to do Stoicism by quotations. So you find all over the internet snippets of Stoic quotes

Sometimes they're misattributed. They're actually not from a Stoic, but let's say from an Epicurean

One of the most amusing mistakes that you find on the internet, for instance, is that

often people quote the Stoic Epictetus, but they accompany the quote with a picture of

Epicurus, who was most definitely not a Stoic, and Epictetus would have been seriously disturbed

by being mistaken for Epicurus. But this issue of quoting things is problematic because these quotation marks, the Stoics

are eminently quotable That is true There is a lot of memorable phrases and sentences that you find in the Stoic texts But when you abstract them completely from the background they not only begin to make less sense they actually might

lead people to think in a way that it's contrary to Stoic philosophy. In fact, apparently this was

happening already 2,000 years ago, because the Stoic Seneca, who lived in the first century

warns one of his friends, Lucilius, and he says, don't fall into the temptation of just quoting

bits and pieces of our authors because that will lead you to misunderstanding the philosophy

You have to read the whole thing. You have to read what Zeno was writing or what Chrysippus was writing, not just the

bits and pieces because otherwise you're not going to understand what's going on and you

are therefore going to act in a way that it's not in alignment with the philosophy

The other way to oversimplify Stoicism is to approach it as a series of life hacks as

opposed to a coherent philosophy of life. And perhaps one way to understand what I'm getting

at here is to make an ogy with another very famous and useful philosophy of life, which is

Buddhism. Most people associate Buddhism with meditation. And in fact, Buddhism does come with

a series of meditations. There are different kinds of meditations that you can do for different

purposes within Buddhist philosophy. However, it turns out that empirically speaking, a lot of

Buddhist practitioners do not actually meditate. And just because you meditate, that doesn't make

you a Buddhist. What makes you a Buddhist is, for instance, to accept the four noble truths or to

try to follow the eightfold path to enlightenment. That is the philosophy. That is what makes you a

Buddhist. Whether you meditate or not, it's a different thing. Meditation is supposed to be an

aid, a technical aid for doing the things that the philosophy says you should be doing

But people can achieve the same result without actually meditating. Now, that said, meditation is, in fact, a standalone meditation is, in fact, useful

We have empirical evidence from modern medicine and modern psychology that meditation does

certain things. It allows you, for instance, to deal better with chronic pain

It certainly reduces your anxiety and things like that under certain conditions

But those are not the goals of Buddhism the philosophy. Buddhism the philosophy is not about anxiety or pain

It's about how to live your life. The same thing goes for stoicism

Stoic techniques are, in fact, very useful, even when they are abstracted from stoic philosophy

And proof of that is that cognitive behavioral therapy, the most popular evidence-based type of psychotherapy

that we use in the 21st century, did originate from an inspiration from stoicism, and it does use still today a number of techniques

that are found in stoic texts. But cognitive behavioral therapy is not a philosophy of life

You can be a very efficient practitioner of cognitive behavioral therapy. You can solve

your day-to-day problems and still be a psychopath or behave very badly toward other people

that would not make you a stoic. What makes you a stoic is if you try to live your life

in a reason-based, pro-social fashion. If you try to remind yourself that everybody on earth

every human being on earth is your brother or sister, that is what makes you a stoic

Whether you actually do your evening meditation in the way in which Marcus Aurelius did or not

That's a practical aspect of it. It's a useful aspect of it

But that isn't what makes you a stoic. One common assumption is that stoicism is the antithesis of pleasure

In fact, often, if we're talking about Greco-Roman philosophies, stoicism is opposed to Epicureanism

Most people think of Epicureanism as the sex, drugs, and rock and roll of ancient philosophy

even though that description definitely would have been surprising to any ancient Epicurean

It is true that Epicureanism is a hedonistic philosophy. That is, it's a philosophy that puts pleasure, and specifically, in fact, reduction of pain

at the center of their philosophizing, at the center of their life

And it's true that Stoicism is not a hedonistic philosophy. It's a virtue ethics philosophy

It's based on character. The notion is to improve your character to become a better human being

However, the ancient Stoic Seneca himself says, I'm not stupid. I prefer pleasure to pain

I prefer to be healthy to sick. I prefer even to be wealthy to poor, if possible

It's just that those are not my priorities. That is, my life doesn't depend

The worthiness of my life does not depend on being rich. It does not depend on being healthy even

And it certainly doesn't depend on feeling pleasure. If I do have all of those things, sure, I'll welcome them

But those are not crucial. The most important part of life for a stoic is to be a decent human being, a human being that acts reasonably and pro-socially

So, for instance, when I see articles that say such and such billionaire got his success by being a stoic, I internally laugh or cringe depending on the situation because that's not what stoicism is about

It's not about becoming rich or famous. wealth, reputation, even health, are what the Stoics call preferred indifference

An indifferent isn't, in the Stoic parlance, something that you don't care about

as in the modern English word. It's something that literally does not make a difference

Does not make a difference to what? To your character, to who you are as a person

Again, the Stoics are very explicit about it. Epictetus at some point tells some of his students

he says, he is a non sequitur. A non sequitur is something that doesn't follow in logic, right

He is a non sequitur. I am rich. Therefore, I'm a better, I'm a richer than you are

Therefore, I'm a better person than you are. He says that doesn't follow. What follows from the fact that you're richer than I am

is that you have more money. You have more wealth. That's the definition of being richer

It does not follow that you're a better person because being rich or being poor doesn't make

you a good person or a bad person. The two things are completely independent

You know, the misconception about stoicism is that it's about cultivating an attitude

of detachment from things and people. Kind of like Buddhism. Often, stoicism is presented as the Western alternative to Buddhism

But there, too, things are not quite that simple. For the Stoics, there is nothing wrong with caring about things and caring about people

We're human beings. That's what we do. It's just that those things do not define who you are, which for a Stoic is the most

important thing. In other words, they don't actually define your character, the way in which you behave

The ancient Stoic Epictetus puts it very nicely in an ogy that he uses with his students

He says you should try to go through life as if you were visiting an inn or a hotel

While you are in the inn, that's your... room. Nobody's going to come in just all of a sudden burgeoning in. It's your room. The lamp

on the table is your lamp. That's your table. That's your bed and so on and so forth. So those

things are, in a sense, yours. But you don't want to get attached to them, too attached to them

because you know that you are only passing through. At some point, you will be checking out

and moving on to something else. And when you do that, you want to leave all of those things

the table, the bed, the lamp, in as good a shape as you found them, if not even better

because somebody else is going to use them next. The same goes with things and people in life

It's not that they're not yours in that limited sense. Absolutely, enjoy your friends, your loved ones

Enjoy the material possessions that you have. But the notion of not developing too much of an attachment is in that particular sense

treat everybody and everything as if you were passing through, because you are passing through

Absolutely take advantage of what's there, but then be ready to let go, because at some point

you will have to let go, and your only two choices are you're going to let go graciously or ungraciously

Those are your only choices. Eventually things are going to go, because you are going to go

One of my favorite metaphors by Epictetus that is related to this concept is the notion of figs in

winter. At some point, one of his students is complaining because a friend of that student has

just left. We went overseas. And so he's not going to see him possibly for years, maybe ever. And he's

very sad and all that. And Epictetus says, well, what you're doing now is pining for figs in winter

You want, in other words, something that is not possible because it's not the right season

And Epitida says, not only you should accept that right now it's winter, and therefore you're not going to have your fig

but this should be a lesson to you to cultivate the notion that you should be enjoying the figs during the proper season, during the summer

And that's a great lesson because very often we don't pay attention

We take people and things for granted until they're gone. And then, I mean, this has happened to me as well

One of the things that triggered my midlife crisis that eventually brought me to stoicism was the death of my father

And even though I knew that my father was suffering from cancer, he had been suffering from multiple cancers over a period of years

And as a biologist, I understand what cancer is. So I had a knowledge of what was happening

And yet, I still went on in my life as if my father was going to be there forever

and then something happened. He died, and I was not there. I was not present

So I regret that, but I learned the lesson. And so I've lost other people since

and I internalized the figs in winter lesson, and I've been making and I'm still making

a concerted effort with relatives and friends to actually be there and to savor that experience

to savor those fruits of life, so to speak, because I know that the summer is going to go eventually

it's going to turn into winter. And that way I will be happy. I will not be complaining about opportunities missed

because I will not have missed them. One baffling misconception for me about stoicism

is that it turns people into doormats. It's a quietist philosophy. It's about not reacting

It's about not doing things, just trying to retreat into yourself and sort of isolate yourself from the rest of the world

I am not sure exactly where that particular misconception comes from, if not, again, as a byproduct of the notion that Stoicism values endurance

But it's clearly contradicted by both the latter of the philosophy, by what you read from the Stoics themselves

and more importantly, perhaps, by the actions that we know those philosophers actually took in their life

In the discourses, Epictetus gives us several examples of Stoics who, as we will put it today

spoke truth to power. In fact, there was a whole group of Stoic philosophers and Roman senators

during the reigns of the emperors Nero, Vespasian, and Domitian who were known as the Stoic opposition

These were people who were actually going to object to the dictates of Nero, Domitian

and Vespasian because they saw them as tyrants. And liberty, freedom, independence, those are

actual Stoic values. And a Stoic could not abide by a tyrant. So these people risked their lives

In fact, some of them lost their lives as a result of a direct opposition to tyranny

There are other examples as well. Seneca talks a lot about a guy named Cato the Younger who was a contemporary of Julius Caesar Cato opposed Caesar on the floor of the Senate They were both senators at one point in their political career

And Cato saw Caesar as increasingly developing sort of tyrannical aspects to his way of doing things

And so he opposed him on the Senate floor for many years. Then at some point, famously, Judas Caesar picked up arms and moved to war against the Roman Republic. He crossed the Rubicon River, famously saying, you know, the die is cast. In other words, I am now cognizant of the fact that this is irreversible action

Well, what did Cato do? He thought, okay, the time of debate is over

I need to pick up arms as well. And so he organized an army and he led an army against Julius Caesar

So both Julius Caesar and Cato the Younger pick up arms. There is a civil war

It's a horrible thing and there's nothing civil about it. Lots of people die on both sides

Eventually, Julius Caesar prevails because he was an excellent general and he defeats the Republican army

So now Caesar is after Cato. He wants to capture Cato alive

because he wants to use him as a political piece. He wants to essentially show his magnanimity

by saying, here is my enemy. He actually picked up arms against me

but I'm okay with that. I'm going to forgive him. But Cato was a man of principle

and he was not about to let Caesar take advantage of the situation that way

So Cato decides that the only way to avoid that is to take his own life, to commit suicide

The Stoics have a whole literature about suicide. They take the issue very, very seriously

They say that it ought to be the last resort only under extreme circumstances

But Cato finds himself in a last resort under extreme circumstances. So he very calmly prepares himself

He sends away his friends and his loved ones, picks up a book

We know actually which book he read. He read one of Plato's dialogues about the nature of the soul

He has his dagger nearby. He picks up the dagger and he stabs himself, as the Roman did, in his stomach

However, he had been injured in battle. And so his hand, particularly in his hand, and his hand was not strong enough

So he falls down, makes noise, therefore, and so everybody rushes in from the other room

And a doctor sees what's happening. He realizes that no vital organ is being punctured, even though there is a mess around the blood all over

And so the doctor tries to stitch the wound, to put back things, and then try to save Cato's life

Cato, in the meantime, comes back. He had lost consciousness. He sees what the doctor is trying to do, pushes the doctor away, reaches with his hand inside his own guts, tears them away, and throws them on the floor, thus dying

it takes a lot of courage and determination to do that sort of thing

I mean, I think that even the first part, the taking your dagger in your hand and stubbing yourself

that takes courage and determination. But going as far in the second bit as Cato did

means that this was a man who had a high sense of honor

a high sense of his own virtue, and a high sense of what the meaning of his existence

Caesar realized what had happened, And he was really upset about it

He admitted that Cato had bested him at this. And in fact, Cato became a hero of the Republican cause for many, many years afterwards

So here we have an example of a stoic who actually was fighting and eventually died as a result of understanding what the right thing to do was and wanted to do the right thing

not endorsing injustice, not retreating into a passive, inactive situation. So that should be inspiration to modern Stoics, not necessarily in the sense that we're going

to have to pick up weapons, hopefully, against anybody. But certainly it is about speaking out

Certainly it is about defending one's own liberty and other people's liberty

It's about personal autonomy and the autonomy of other people. And whenever you see as a Stoic, as a Stoic practitioner, you see those things threatened, you really ought to speak out

It's your duty as a Stoic practitioner to do so and then face the consequences, which may not be pleasant, of course

One of the features of Stoicism that I find most attractive is that built into the system

there is an openness to new ideas and to adjust the philosophy internally so that it adapts

to whatever it is that we may discover moving forward. In fact one of the ancient Stoics Seneca writes at one point that look the people that came before us are not our masters They just our teachers They knew a lot of things and some of those things were very useful and that why we

adopt them. But that doesn't mean that they discovered everything. That doesn't mean that there are no new things to be discovered

And if we do find new ways and better ways of doing things, Seneca says, the only rational

thing to do is to adjust our philosophy accordingly and move in a different direction

Stoicism, of course, is a philosophy that is over 2,000 years old. It started out in the 4th century

BCE in Athens. You might expect that some things that we've learned in the meantime might be

problematic in that respect. That is, the Stoics didn't know everything that science and even

philosophy have achieved over the intervening almost two and a half millennia. That means that

if you're a practitioner of Stoicism today in the 21st century, you cannot simply take everything

that the ancient Stoics said and go with it, pretty much in the same way in which nobody today

is a practitioner of, say, Buddhism or Christianity, in exactly the same way in which people were

practicing Buddhism or Christianity two millennia or two and a half millennia ago. For instance

The Stoic concept of providence is both interesting and beautiful on the one hand

and yet I think deeply flawed and needs to be rejected on the other

And this is going to have practical consequences. Let me back up for a second and explain what this is about

The ancient Stoics were pantheists. That is, they believed that God is the same thing as the universe

It's coincident with the universe. and therefore they thought of the universe itself as a living organism endowed with reason

The universe is God. Nature is God. God is thinking. And therefore, everything that happens in the universe

is the result of the thinking and doing of God, the cosmos, or God, the universe

Now, I find this a very beautiful idea. If only I could believe it. As a modern biologist and as somebody who does a little bit

knows a little bit about physics, I don't think of the cosmos as a living organism. I cannot

imagine that sort of connection. Now, you might say, well, so what? This is just a metaphysical

dispute, right? The ancient Stoics thought about God and the universe that way. You don't think of

it that way. What difference does that make in practice? Turns out it does make a big practical

difference. There are a few passages in the Discourses of Epictetus, as well as in his manual

where he says something really surprising, really interesting, and at the same time disturbing

He says, remember, when you go to sleep, kiss goodnight to your wife and your child

because they're mortal and they might not be alive tomorrow morning. That way, you will not be disturbed

Now, the first time I read that passage, I thought, what kind of a psychopath is this guy

He's telling me that I should realize that my loved ones are mortals

I'm okay with that. Yes, we are. We're all mortal. And therefore, that means that someday I or them will die

But to say that I should remind myself of this so that I'm not going to be disturbed

Are you kidding me? Of course I'm going to be disturbed if my daughter or my wife were to die

But then I understood where it was coming from. In fact, Epictetus himself clearly makes an ogy

an interesting ogy that shows where it's coming from. He says, look, you are like a foot

that is part of an organism. Let's say that the organism, the body, has to get home

and in order to get home, it has to cross a muddy path

it is up to you as the foot to step into the mud. Now, if you think of that only from the point of view of a foot

without remembering that you're connected to a body, that's disgusting. Why would I want to step into the mud

This is not a pleasant thing. But if you remember that you are connected to a body

and then in fact your entire purpose in life is to bring that body wherever it needs to go

including stepping into the mud, then not only you're going to do it

but you're going to do it gladly. You're going to embrace, not just accept your fate, so to speak

but embrace your fate. So what Epictetus is saying there is not being psychopathic

as far as we can tell. He's just being realistic in the way he understood the world

He said, look, we're all literally bits and pieces of the God universe

And whatever happens to us, including the unpleasant bits, is actually for the good of the God universe. So if you understand things that way, not only

you're going to accept what happens to you, you're actually going to embrace it

Now it makes sense when he says you know if your loved ones die you should not be upset You should not be disturbed because you realize that whatever is happening even though you may only get a small portion of that picture but whatever is happening is part of this

universal cosmic plan and you should feel good about it, not disrupt

It's a beautiful way of looking at life. Unfortunately, I don't think it's the right way to look at life

I wish I could bring myself to being a Pantheist in the way in which the ancient Stoics were

That would definitely provide me with a lot of comfort whenever something bad happens to me or to my loved ones

But I don't believe in the cosmic God. And therefore, I think that whatever happens to us is the result of neutral forces

The universe doesn't care one way or the other. That means that I cannot avail myself of the stoic concept of providence

So what do I replace it with? Well, acceptance is still part of it, right

I have to accept the reality of things. I am a biologist

I understand that people die. In fact, I understand that death is a natural part of the process of being alive or the process of life on earth

If other people had not died, I would not be here because I would not have been born

And so my death, the death of other people, it's natural. And as such, it's reasonable to accept it as much as one can at a rational level

But at an emotional level, I'm still not going to be happy about it. And I think that's OK not to be happy about it

So that's one example of something that the ancient Stoics thought at a metaphysical level

and had consequences in terms of their day-to-day life, their ethics. And modern Stoics have to modify, I think, because in the meantime, both philosophy and

science have progressed to a point that makes the original idea untenable

In fact, if you're still not convinced, let me give you one bit, one more bit of evidence

that things work pretty much in the way I just described it

If one asks, well, what was Epictetus' argument for thinking that the universe is a living God

He does actually provide us with an argument. In fact, several of the Stoics do

Seneca does as well. And some of the other earlier Stoics, people like Zeno, who was the founder of the Stoic approach in the first place, does the same thing

They all use an argument from design. They say, just like the sword perfectly fits the scabbard

and that tells you that somebody designed both of those objects to actually fit together in a functional way, in a way that works

If you look around, you'll see that the universe is built in the same way

And frankly, if I lived 2,000 years ago, I would probably buy into that argument

It's a really cogent argument. You look around the complexity of the world and you say, yeah, that makes sense

But I don't live 2,000 years ago. I live in the 21st century, which means that I live after two major objections were raised

to that way of looking at things, to the design argument specifically

The philosopher David Hume in the 18th century criticized the design argument on philosophical

logical basis and showed that it's not really coherent. And then, about a century later, Charles Darwin, a biologist, actually proposed an alternative mechanism

We called it evolution by natural selection for why things seem to be designed in a certain way

Given that knowledge, I have to reject the argument from design, as pretty much every biologist does

And if I reject that, then I also reject the Stoic view of pantheism

and if I reject that, I have to revise my notions of ethics and providence. So this is a good example

I think, of how all of these things work together. Scientific advancements will question

our philosophical views and it's a good thing if the philosophical views are able to adapt

to what comes out of the new science. Of course, science in another century or five centuries or

10 centuries may tell us something different. And if they're Stoics 10 centuries down the road

they will themselves face the same problem and have to adapt somehow. I find that very refreshing

because unlike other philosophical or religious systems, which tend to be much more rigid

resistant to change, this notion that change is inherent in the way in which we do Stoic philosophy

is very useful, very reasonable, and very refreshing. Want to support the channel

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