What Can You Notice?

Summary

The Daily Stoic Podcast: "What Can You Notice?"

Host: Ryan Holiday
Date: March 11, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Daily Stoic delves into the theme of attentiveness to the world around us—a central Stoic practice. Ryan Holiday draws inspiration from Chloe Dalton’s memoir Raising Hare, exploring how her unexpected relationship with a wild leverette during the pandemic led her to rediscover the subtleties and rhythms of nature. Holiday ties Dalton's experience to classic Stoic teachings on stillness and noticing, emphasizing how true presence and appreciation of everyday moments leads to peace, wisdom, and deep connection.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Rediscovering Wonder through Attention (02:09–05:01)

• Chloe Dalton’s Story:

  • Dalton, swept up by a busy modern life, rarely noticed seasonal or natural changes—nature was just a vague backdrop to her obligations and ambitions.
  • The pandemic interrupts this blur. Alone in the English countryside, Dalton becomes caretaker to a leverette (a young wild hare).
  • Through hundreds of quiet hours spent observing and caring for the leverette, Dalton notices nature in “delicate brushstrokes” rather than broad outlines.
  • Her attentiveness grows:

    “I now marveled at the purple ting on the back feathers of the house marten… observing the gleam of sun on the mirror finish of its plumage before releasing it into the air.” (Chloe Dalton via Host, 03:54)

• Transformation:

  • Dalton’s ability to see and appreciate small, everyday miracles becomes a source of solace and inspiration.
  • She reflects on how, before this, the seasons and their wonders “had largely passed by my perceptions,” with only functional concerns (“dry enough to walk or warm enough to eat outside”) guiding her observation.

Stoic Parallels: Marcus Aurelius and the Art of Noticing (04:10–04:44)

• Holiday draws a direct line to Marcus Aurelius:
  • Marcus admired the frailty and beauty in everyday things—a loaf’s crack as it bakes, figs on the verge of bursting, olives about to drop.
  • This “shadow of decay” wasn’t tragic but beautiful:

    “There is beauty and peace in noticing the small daily transformations, the subtle shifts of life through the windows, the cracks on the sidewalk, the sounds of the birds.” (Host, 04:35)

The Call to Stillness and Attention (04:45–05:01)

• Holiday emphasizes that true stillness—central to Stoic practice—isn’t about absence of activity but about cultivating a mindful awareness.
• Challenges listeners:
  • “Are you noticing them? Are you cultivating the stillness that allows you to appreciate them?” (Host, 04:50)

Book Recommendations & Personal Note (05:01–05:03)

• Holiday praises Dalton’s Raising Hare, mentioning that if it had been published earlier, he would have featured it in his own book, Stillness Is the Key.
• Encourages listeners to grab both titles for further exploration into stillness and attention.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Chloe Dalton (quoted):

  “For many years the seasons had largely passed by my perceptions of the steady cycle of nature disrupted by travel and urban life. I had observed nature in broad brushstrokes, she writes in primary colors. At a surface level, I had been most interested in whether it was dry enough to walk or warm enough to eat outside with friends.” (03:01–03:44)

• Ryan Holiday:

  “There is beauty and peace in noticing the small daily transformations, the subtle shifts of life through the windows, the cracks on the sidewalk, the sounds of the birds. The world is filled with things to see and hear. Are you noticing them?” (04:35–04:50)

• On stillness:

  “Are you cultivating the stillness that allows you to appreciate them? Obviously, that’s the idea of Stillness Is the Key.” (Host, 04:50–05:01)

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Important Timestamps

• 02:09 – Introduction of Chloe Dalton’s story and her transformation through attentiveness
• 03:44 – Specific observations Dalton made about nature, learning to see in detail
• 04:10 – Connection to Marcus Aurelius’s meditations on the ordinary
• 04:35 – Host’s reflection on noticing daily transformations
• 05:01 – Recommendation of Raising Hare and Stillness Is the Key

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Conclusion

In this concise yet evocative episode, Ryan Holiday urges listeners to embrace a Stoic mindset of deep observation—not just as a philosophical exercise, but as a route to genuine wonder, peace, and rootedness in daily life. Through Dalton’s pandemic experience and Marcus Aurelius’s timeworn wisdom, the episode invites us to slow down, pay attention, and notice the quiet miracles continually unfolding around us.

Transcript

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What can you notice? For years, the seasons passed Chloe Dalton by in a blur, like they do for most of us. Travel deadlines, work, the constant churn of ambition and obligation. Then during the pandemic, trapped in an old house in the English countryside, on a walk, one day she comes across a leverette that's a baby wife wild hare, and she nurses it back to life. What ensues is a surreal and moving friendship as the hare becomes a free range companion, hopping around the house, snoozing quietly by Dalton's side as she writes, running in from the fields when called, drumming softly on her duvet cover to get her attention, even giving birth and raising babies inside Dalton's home. Spending hundreds of lonely, quiet hours with this leverette which she never names, she learned to understand its habits and its needs. Seeing the world from someone else's point of view, I found a new spirit of attentiveness to nature, Dalton writes in her lovely book Raisin Hair, no less wonderful for being entirely unoriginal for as old as it is as a human experience, it was new to me. For many years the seasons had largely passed by my perceptions of the steady cycle of nature disrupted by travel and urban life. I had observed nature in broad brushstrokes, she writes in primary colors. At a surface level, I had been most interested in whether it was dry enough to walk or warm enough to eat outside with friends, I could identify only a handful of birds and treats by name. I hadn't observed the buds unfurling, the seasonal passage of birds, the unshakable rituals and rhythms of life in a single field or wood. I now marveled at the purple ting on the back feathers of the house marten, the smallest creature I had ever seen, which flew into the house one morning, observing the gleam of sun on the mirror finish of its plumage before releasing it into the air. It's a passage reminiscent of Marcus Aurelius, noticing the way loaves of bread split open on top in the oven, or how ripe figs begin to burst and olives on the point of falling. The shadow of decay gives them a peculiar beauty. Stalks of wheat bending under their own weight, the furrowed brow of the lion, flecks of foam on the boar's mouth. There is beauty and peace in noticing the small daily transformations, the subtle shifts of life through the windows, the cracks on the sidewalk, the sounds of the birds. The world is filled with things to see and hear. Are you noticing them? Are you cultivating the stillness that allows you to appreciate them? Obviously, that's the idea of stillness is the key. I also love Dalton's book Raising Hair, which if it had come out while I was writing Stillness, it would be in the book for sure.

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