Ask Daily Stoic: Can You Be Informed Without Cable News?

Ryan talks about his upcoming talk in Italy and about James Stockdale, and answers questions from fans. Featuring today's entry from The Daily Stoic. You can also find these videos on the Daily Stoic YouTube channel. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to The Daily Stoic, where each day we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living the good life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at dailystoic.com.

• 0:31Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Weekend Edition of Daily Stoic. I'm actually just about to rush out the door. I am heading to Nashville for two talks, and then from Nashville, I'm flying to Frankfurt, and then to Venice, and I'm giving a talk at Aviano Air Force Base, which is a US military base in Italy. I'm going to talk to something like 8,000 service members. I'm a bit intimidated by it. I think that will be my largest audience that I've ever talked to at one time. So it'll be a little crazy. I'm excited. I'm going to talk about James Stockdale. If you guys aren't familiar too much with Stockdale, he is worth, like, read his New York Times obituary, read his book Courage Under Fire.

• 1:14Ryan Holiday?

  So Stockdale was a Navy pilot. He ends up being introduced to Epictetus when he's a graduate student at Stanford. And actually, as he's shot down, he's parachuting in to what will certainly be captivity, if not death, at the hands of the North Vietnamese. He says to himself, "I'm leaving the world of technology and entering the world of Epictetus." And so he spends something like seven years as a POW, almost no contact with the outside world. He spends the majority of that time in solitary confinement. But he manages to cultivate what they came to call sort of a culture of defiance, where they had this secret language between the prisoners. I tell a little bit of this story in the "Will" section of The Obstacle is the Way, but they have this secret language with each other.

• 1:58Ryan Holiday?

  They console each other when the prisoners inevitably do break under torture. I believe Stockdale's Medal of Honor commendation talks about how he inflicts a near mortal

• 2:10Ryan Holiday?

  Wound on himself the night before he's told that he has to go basically, I think, speak in front of these cameras. He was going to be used as a propaganda tool by his, his captors. And he says, you know, like, under no circumstances am I going to do this. And what I think so fascinating about Stockdale is that so many of these are still stories are like, really ancient, right? Like, you hear about Cato, or you hear about Epictetus's sort of defiance under slavery, you know, this sort of iron will that these characters had. And you go, okay, but that was different back then. I mean, Stockdale only died a few years ago. There are plenty of people walking the earth right now that knew him. We think that the world is so different that, you know, everything is safe and wonderful,

• 2:52Ryan Holiday?

  and that we don't need these sort of tools. But Stockdale is, is proof, one, that Stoicism has survived up until modern times, and that these sort of iron inspirational, larger-than-life figures still do exist, and that we can still learn from them, that we can be inspired by their example. But, but also that, you know, you never know, you, you, you may sort of need these things in real life. So I'm excited to talk about that. I'm less excited about the very long flight with a number of layovers. One of the things I try to do when I am flying is I try to walk through that pre-Meditatsho-Malorum thing we've talked about so many times here in these emails. I go, okay, what are the delays I could experience? How difficult is

• 3:32Ryan Holiday?

  it going to be? Can I resign myself in advance to all of those things happening? I'd rather be sort of pleasantly surprised that all the travel goes exactly as expected than pleasantly unsurprised when, oh, lo and behold, you know, the more complexity you introduce into your travel plans, the more delays you happen to experience. So I sort of go into that knowing full well what's going to happen. And then I, you know, what's my plan? I'm going to try to read. I'm going to try to relax. I'm going to try to experience some stillness in, you know, amidst the craziness. I want to be ready for all these things to happen. That's kind of how I think about it. Because, you know, I've done this long enough. That is what happens. I think I spent the night at Newark Airport a little less than a month

• 4:17Ryan Holiday?

  ago. It was not fun, but I knew that could happen. Did some work on my manuscript. I did some reading. I FaceTimed with my kids. I walked around. I just tried to not let that experience bring out the worst in me and not to make a really ridiculous comparison, but I think ultimately that's what made Stockdale so special, such an insanely powerful example of what Stoicism can do. Going into Vietnam, there'd been a number of sort of horror stories of prisoner of war camps in Korea. There was no sort of real framework for how POWs were supposed to behave, and it had brought out the worst in a lot of these prisoners, which is totally understandable and totally reasonable.

• 5:02Ryan Holiday?

  I mean, this is not what humans are supposed to be subjected to. And so there is an argument that with what Stockdale and McCain and Bud Day and a lot of these people were heading into, that it would bring out the worst in them. And somehow, because of their training, because of their character, because of their commitment and their sense of duty and honor, actually the opposite happened. It brought out the absolute best in them. And I think that's the, one of the things I'm excited to talk to these airmen and their women about. That's one of the things I'm excited to talk to the leadership at the base about. And it's going to be exciting and fun, although intimidating, and as I said, a bit stressful to get there. So, thanks for listening. Really excited about the stuff we've got for you

• 5:44Ryan Holiday?

  today. We've got a reading, and then we've got some Ask Daily Stoic, and I hope you check it out, and we will talk soon.

• 5:56Ryan Holiday?

  I'm going to do a quick reading of the February 8th entry from the Daily Stoic. "Did that make you feel better?" The quote is from Seneca, Moral Letters 78. "You cry. I'm suffering severe pain. Are you then relieved from feeling it if you bear it in an unmanly way? The next time someone gets upset near you, crying, yelling, breaking something, being pointed, or cruel, watch how quickly this statement will stop them cold." I hope this is making you feel better, because of course it isn't. Only in the bubble of extreme Extreme emotion, can we justify any of that kind of behavior? And when called to account for it, we usually feel sheepish or embarrassed. It's worth applying that standard to yourself.

• 6:40Ryan Holiday?

  The next time you find yourself in the middle of a freak out or moaning and groaning with flu-like symptoms or crying tears of regret, just ask, is this actually making me feel better? Is this actually relieving any of the symptoms? I wish were gone. So that's from the Daily Stoic Audiobook, which you can get on Audible and I think all the other audiobook platforms. And I think what that message is, I would probably, if you're married, apply this more to yourself than to your spouse. I don't think asking your wife if getting angry is going to make her less angry. But I have found when my wife has asked me that, when I've gotten upset, when I've found myself increasingly inconsolable and wanting to yell or shout or hit something, she goes like, look, is this alleviating any of the symptoms? Is this actually making you feel better?

• 7:25Ryan Holiday?

  Or is in fact, your reaction actually not only making you feel worse, but causing damage to the people or the things around you? And so I think that's what Seneca's point is, is like, look, things suck. We get upset, bad things happen, we get frustrated. But the question is, is acting like a jerk about it or acting like a brat about it or throwing a tantrum about it, does it actually make it better? It might make you feel better for two seconds, but does it actually make it better? And in the long run, does it make you feel better? And I think the answer to that is almost always no.

• 8:00Ryan Holiday?

  Our first question today is, how do you balance the tension between being a good informed citizen and not paying attention to the news? I have an obligation to make decisions as part of our polis, that means city in Greek. But I don't want to spend a ton of time watching the news. And I also don't want to ignore the news. So I think the Stoics would agree. You absolutely have an obligation to be an informed citizen. I think where they might push back is whether watching the news is the best way to be an informed citizen. And here's an easy way to maybe determine that it's not. Did they have the news 2,000 years ago? No, they didn't. They read books, they had conversations, they observed things firsthand. I think what the media has done a really great job of is

• 8:41Ryan Holiday?

  convince us that consuming the news is the best or only way to be an informed person. I would actually argue the people who watch the most news are the least informed. They know the most trivia, they know the most breaking information, but do they know the big picture? And the example I use in some of my talks is like, if you worked in the State Department right now, or in the armed forces, and you're trying to wrap your head around this conflict the United States is in and China, are you more informed watching tweets or reading intelligence reports? Or would you do well, as many people in the State Department are doing, to go read a history of the Peloponnesian War, which is about the sort of trouble of the ascendant Athens and the dominant Sparta? And this

• 9:25Ryan Holiday?

  is a sort of a timeless battle. They actually now call this the Thucydides trap. And another example, when General James Mattis, who is a sort of practicing, you know, fan of the Stoics, is sent to the Middle East, the first thing he does is go read the campaigns of Alexander, because not that much has changed, right? When the conflict with North Korea started to bubble up while he was Secretary of Defense, he reread this kind of war, Farenbeks' fascinating sort of timeless book about the Korean War. And you learn often more from history, from studying human psychology than you do from breaking news. So I think you're absolutely right to want to be informed. I would just argue that books, conversations,

• 10:08Ryan Holiday?

  studying human nature is a better way to become informed. Look, watch the debates if you don't know who you're going to vote for. If you know who you're going to vote for, watching the debates is just entertainment, probably bad entertainment at that. So that's my attitude. Look, I subscribe to the New York Times, I just try not to read it every day, and I try not to, you know, obsessively scroll on Twitter as well. So what non Stoic books have changed your philosophy and the principles you base your life on? I'll give you a couple. Man's Search for Meaning, I got this from my aunt when I was in high school. Apparently, my grandmother had loved it and she sent me even her copy. Yeah, I got this in June 2005. I think this is one of the greatest books ever written by a human being. Steven Pressfield's The War of Art, The Concept of the Resistance,

• 10:50Ryan Holiday?

  which holds us back from accomplishing what we want to do, our fears and worries and laziness, super influential to me as a writer. Thich Nhat Hanh, not a Stoic, he's a Buddhist, but his books have been super influential to me. Thich Nhat Hanh's Taming the Tiger Within is one I would definitely recommend. Also, his book on healing the inner child is very good. No living writer's writing has influenced me more than Robert Greene's The Forty Eight Laws of Power, his book Mastery, his book Thirty Three Strategies of War. I'm not saying I base my life on the Forty Eight Laws of Power in the sense that I'm always observing the laws, I'm always crushing my enemy totally, or taking credit and letting others do the work. What I am always aware of is how these laws are operating

• 11:35Ryan Holiday?

  in the background, if not for me, then for other people. Being aware of this sort of timeless levers of power, the flaws and tendencies of human nature is deeply important to anyone trying to do anything in the world. So I strongly recommend reading Robert Greene's works. How would you respond to a bully as a Stoic? It's a great question. I think it's complicated. On the one hand, Marcus Aurelius says, you know, the best revenge is to not be like that. And so he might, you know, ask you to think about what's going on in that bully's life. Why are they the way that they are? Is it actually fun to be them? Even though they are hurting you, is it actually because it's coming from a place of great pain and

• 12:18Ryan Holiday?

  weakness and misery for them? I think he would say this to get you to realize that reacting, lashing out, is probably not going to make the situation better, and it allows you to put it in some perspective. The other thing Marcus really talks about, he talks about, he's like, his metaphor is boxing. This is your, so you're in the ring and someone is cheating and gouging and butting me with your head. He says, what do you do? Right? You don't cry about it. You don't, you know, complain to the referee. You take note of it. You adjust your strategies accordingly. So you probably don't spar with this person anymore. Right? You don't set yourself up to be abused by someone, but at the same time, you're not so thrown off by it. The reality is the world

• 13:01Ryan Holiday?

  is going to have bullies. People suck. People do mean things. They don't always know that that's what they're doing. As I was saying, a lot of times it can come from pain and weakness. But I would say that where I think the Stoic would take action most clearly is if they saw someone bullying someone else. So I think the idea of that those two Stoic virtues of courage and justice, I think a Stoic would be willing to step in. And there is a story in Cato's life. There was some game where older kids were playing a game with younger kids and they locked this kid in like a cage or a room or something. And the story is that Cato sort of jumps in, lets the kid go and he stops the game and he says, you know, we're not going to do this. So I think where the Stoic would draw the clear line,

• 13:45Ryan Holiday?

  they might be willing to endure or tolerate or not complain about bullying directed at them. But what they would not tolerate, where they would step in, where they believe they could make a difference, would be protecting someone else from bullying. So maybe that's a, that's a way to think about it. All right, guys, this has been another episode of Ask Daily Stoic. Thanks for listening. Remember, please send in your questions, [email protected]. I love the more specific questions. So someone was asking like, how would you respond to a bully? I'd love to know like some specifics. What's going on? These things aren't just generalities. What I love about Epictetus is that most of it is him answering questions to his students, but it's clear that there's lots of sort of context there. Like he really

• 14:29Ryan Holiday?

  is asking specifics about what's going on. So send over as many specific questions as you want. This is your chance to get free advice from me and us at Daily Stoic. So fire those questions at us, [email protected]. And we'll see you next week with more answers and more questions. Thanks. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or your favorite podcast app. And if you don't get the Daily Stoic email, go to dailystoic.com/email.