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Ryan Holiday
Welcome to the daily Stoic podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice and wisdom, into the real world.
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Marcus Aurelius called them the touchstones of goodness, courage, temperance, justice, wisdom. To millions, they're known as the cardinal virtues, four near universal ideals adopted by Christianity and most of Western philosophy, but equally valued in Buddhism, Hinduism, and just about every other philosophy and religious tradition you can imagine. They're called Cardinal, C.S. lewis pointed out, not because they come down from church authorities, but because they originate from the Latin cardo or hinge. It's pivotal stuff, the stuff that the door to the good life hangs on, like the cardinal directions, the four main points on the compass, north, south, east, west. The four virtues are a kind of compass, a guide to what to do, who to be, how to behave, how to respond in every situation, to respond with courage or bravery or fortitude, honor, sacrifice, temperance. That's self, control, moderation, composure, balance, justice. That's fairness, service, fellowship, goodness, kindness, and then wisdom. That's knowledge, education, truth, self reflection and serenity. These are the key to a life of excellence in every sense. If at some point in your life, Marcus wrote, you should come across anything better than justice, prudence, self control, courage, if you find anything better than that, embrace it without reservations. Must be an extraordinary thing indeed. And that was 20 centuries ago. And there's no question we've discovered a lot of things since then. Automobiles, the Internet, curious diseases that were previously a death sentence. But have we found anything better? No, we have not. And it's unlikely that we ever will. So memorize those four virtues, act on them, live on them, tell everyone you meet about them, and keep them close to your heart.
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Always.
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I started this series of books way
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Ryan Holiday
back in 2019, and now, more than
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seven years later, the first time all four books are available in the Stoic Virtue series box set, which Penguin Random
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Ryan Holiday
House is putting out. It's coming out on May 19th.
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Sponsor/Advertiser
Check it out in the show notes.
- [02:36]
Ryan Holiday
Thanks, everyone. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic podcast. We are going to sit down and spend some time with Seneca today. This is an excerpt from Tim Ferriss Wonderful the Dao of Seneca, his audiobook of Seneca's letters. You can even get the PDF of it totally for free at Tim Blog Seneca. But in this letter, one of my favorite letters from Seneca, Seneca is talking about pleasure and joy.
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But why we keep doing things that
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are not good for us, even though we ought to know better. It's, you know, we think of the epicureans as well as like lovers of pleasure. But really, even for the Epicureans it was about how much is enough? How do we make sure we don't get carried away? How often do pleasures turn out to be punishments when we lack that critical Stoic virtue of temperance? Seneca talks in this letter about that idea of preferred indifference, meaning things we can pursue but shouldn't pursue too hard, things we can enjoy but don't necessarily make us better human beings. And it's just a wonderful Stoic letter from a guy who seemed like he largely enjoyed a pleasurable and nice life, but was also fine going without, as he ended up having to do towards the end of his life. So here is Seneca on Pleasure and Joy from the Dao of Seneca, produced by Tim Ferriss, which you can get for free at Tim Blog Seneca in PDF or you can buy as an audiobook if you click the link in today's description. Thanks to Tim for providing this, and of course thanks to Seneca for writing this letter to his friend Lucilius, which we can now enjoy and benefit from 2000 years later.
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Seneca
Letter 59 on pleasure and Joy I received great pleasure from your letter. Kindly allow me to use these words in their everyday meaning without insisting upon their Stoic import, for we Stoics hold that pleasure is a vice. Very likely it is a vice, but we are accustomed to use the word when we wish to indicate a happy state of mind. I am aware that if we test words by our formula, even pleasure is a thing of ill repute, and joy can be attained only by the wise. For joy is an elation of spirit, of a spirit which trusts in the goodness and truth of its own possessions. The common usage, however, is that we derive great joy from a friend's position as counsel, or from his marriage, or from the birth of his child. But these events, so far from being matters of joy, are more often the beginnings of sorrow to come. No, it is a characteristic of real joy that it never ceases and never changes into its opposite. Accordingly, when our Virgil speaks of the evil joys of the mind, his words are eloquent but not strictly appropriate, for no joy can be evil. He has given the name joy to pleasures, and has thus expressed his meaning, for he has conveyed the idea that men take delight in their own evil. Nevertheless, I was not wrong in saying that I received great pleasure from your letter for although an ignorant man may derive joy if the cause be an honourable one, yet since his emotion is wayward and is likely soon to take another direction, I call it pleasure for it is inspired by an opinion concerning a spurious good. It exceeds control and is carried to excess. But to return to the subject, let me tell you what delighted me in your letter. You have your words under control. You are not carried away by your language or borne beyond the limits which you have determined upon. Many writers are tempted by the charm of some alluring phrase to some topic other than that which they had set themselves to discuss. But this has not been so in your case. All your words are compact, suited to the subject. You say all that you wish, and you mean still more than you say. This is a proof of the importance of your subject matter, showing that your mind, as well as your words, contains nothing superfluous or bombastic. I do, however, find some metaphors, not indeed daring ones, but the kind which have stood the test of use. I find similes also, of course, if anyone forbids us to use them, maintaining that poets alone have that privilege. He has not apparently read any of our ancient prose writers who had not yet learned to affect a style that should win applause for those writers whose eloquence was simple and directed only towards proving their case, are full of comparisons. And I think that these are necessary, not for the same reason which makes them necessary for the poets, but in order that they may serve as props to our feebleness, to bring both speaker and listener face to face with the subject under discussion. For example, I am at this very moment reading Sextius. He is a keen man and a philosopher, who, though he writes in Greek, has the Roman standard of ethics. One of his similes appealed especially to me, that of an army marching in hollow square in a place where the enemy might be expected to appear from any quarter ready for battle. This, said, he is just what the wise man ought to do. He should have all his fighting qualities deployed on every side, so that wherever the attack threatens, there his supports may be ready to hand and may obey the captain's command without confusion. This is what we notice in armies which serve under great leaders. We see how all the troops simultaneously understand their general's orders, since they are so arranged, that a signal given by one man passes down the ranks of cavalry and infantry at the same moment. This, he declares, is still more necessary for men like ourselves, for soldiers have often feared an enemy without reason, and the march which they thought most dangerous has in fact been most secure. But folly brings no repose. Fear haunts it, both in the van and in the rear of the column, and both flanks are in a panic. Folly is pursued and confronted by peril it blenches at everything. It is unprepared. It is frightened even by auxiliary troops. But the wise man is fortified against all inroads. He is alert. He will not retreat before the attack of poverty, or of sorrow, or of disgrace, or of pain. He will walk undaunted, both against them and among them. We human beings are fettered and weakened by many vices. We have wallowed in them for a long time and it is hard for us to be cleansed. We are not merely defiled, but we are dyed by them.
- [10:03]
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- [11:20]
Ryan Holiday
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Seneca
stoiC netsuite.com stoic but to refrain from passing from one figure to another, I will raise this question, which I often consider in my own why is it that folly holds us with such an insistent grasp? It is primarily because we do not combat it strongly enough, because we do not struggle towards salvation with all our might. Secondly, because we do not put sufficient trust in the discoveries of the wise and do not drink in their words with open hearts. We approach this great problem in too trifling a spirit. But how can a man learn in the struggle against his vices an amount that is enough, if the time which he gives to learning is only the amount left over from his vices? None of us goes deep below the surface. We skim the top only, and we regard the smattering of time spent in the search for wisdom as enough and to spare for a busy man. What hinders us most of all is that we are too readily satisfied with ourselves. If we meet with someone who calls us good men or sensible men or holy men, we see ourselves in his description, not content with praise and moderation. We accept everything that shameless flattery heaps upon us as if it were our due. We agree with those who declare us to be the best and wisest of men, although we know that they are given to much lying, and we are so self complacent that we desire praise for certain actions when we are especially addicted to the very opposite. Yonder person hears himself called most gentlemen when he is inflicting tortures, or most generous when he is engaged in looting, or most temperate when he is in the midst of drunkenness and lust. Thus it follows that we are unwilling to be reformed just because we believe ourselves to be the best of men. Alexander was roaming as far as India, ravaging tribes that were but little known even to their neighbours. During the blockade of a certain city, while he was reconnoitering the walls and hunting for the weakest spot in the fortifications, he was wounded by an arrow. Nevertheless, he long continued the siege, intent on finishing what he had begun. The pain of his wound, however, as the surface became dry and as the flow of blood was checked increased. His leg gradually became numb as he sat his horse, and finally, when he was forced to withdraw, he exclaimed all men swear that I am the son of Jupiter, but this wound cries out that I am mortal. Let us also act in the same way. Each man, according to his lot in life, is stultified by flattery. We should say to him who flatters you. Call me a man of sense, but I understand how many of the things which I crave are useless, and how many of the things which I desire will do me harm. I have not even the knowledge which satiety teaches to animals. Of what should be the measure of my food or my drink, I do not yet know how much I can hold. I shall now show you how you may know that you are not wise. The wise man is joyful, happy and calm, unshaken. He lives on a plane with the gods. Now go question yourself. If you are never downcast, if your mind is not harassed by my apprehension through anticipation of what is to come, if, day and night your soul keeps on its even and unswerving course, upright and content with itself, then you have attained to the greatest good that mortals can possess. If, however, you seek pleasures of all kinds, in all directions, you must know that you are as far short of wisdom as you are short of joy. Joy is the goal which you desire to reach, but you are wandering from the path if you expect to reach your goal while you are in the midst of riches and official titles. In other words, if you seek joy in the midst of cares, these objects for which you strive so eagerly as if they would give you happiness and pleasure are merely causes of grief. All men of this stamp, I maintain, are pressing on in pursuit of joy, but they do not know where they may obtain a joy that is both great and enduring. One person seeks it in feasting, in self indulgence, another in canvassing for honors, and in being surrounded by a throng of clients, another in his mistress, another in idle display of culture, and in literature that has no power to heal. All these men are led astray by delights which are deceptive and short lived. Like drunkenness, for example, which pays for a single hour of hilarious madness by a sickness of many days, or like applause and the popularity of enthusiastic approval, which are gained and atoned for at the cost of great mental disquietude. Reflect, therefore on this that the effect of wisdom is a joy that is unbroken and continuous. The mind of the wise man is like the ultra lunar firmament. Eternal calm pervades that region. You have, then, a reason for wishing to be wise. If the wise man is never deprived of joy, this joy springs only from the knowledge that you possess the virtues. None but the brave, the just, the self restrained can rejoice. And when you query, what do you mean? Do not the foolish and the wicked also rejoice? I reply, no more than lions who have caught their prey. When men have wearied themselves with wine and lust, when night fails them before their debauch is done, when the pleasures which they have heaped upon a body that is too small to hold them begin to fester, at such times they utter in their wretchedness those lines of Virgil Thou knowest how amid false glittering joys, we spent that last of nights pleasure lovers spend every night amid false glittering joys, and just as if it were their last. But the joy which comes to the gods and to those who imitate the gods, is not broken off, nor does it cease. But it would surely cease were it borrowed from without. Just because it is not in the power of another to bestow, neither is it subject to another's whims. That which fortune has not given, she cannot take away. Farewell.
- [19:43]
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Seneca
Com.
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