Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light | Reject Tantalizing Gifts

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

• 0:03Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Friday, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation, but also reading a passage from The Daily Stoic, my book, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful collaborator, translator, and literary agent, Stephen Hanselman. So today, we'll give you a quick meditation from the Stoics with some analysis from me, and then we'll send you out into the world to turn these words into works.

• 0:44Ryan Holiday?

  Rage, Rage Against the Dying of the Light. On this day in history, more than 20 centuries ago, Cato the Younger died. In one sense, you might say that he died willingly, as he chose to die by his own hand, rather than live under Julius Caesar's tyranny. But certainly, no one who ever met Cato, nor anyone who reads of his death, could see anything resigned about the man. When Cato grabbed his sword and said, "Now I am my own master," and then plunged it into his chest, that should have been the end of it. Reeling from the blow, Cato fell from the bench he had been leaning on and then passed out. The wound should

• 1:28Ryan Holiday?

  have been mortal, but even Roman steel could not kill Rome's Iron Man. Cato passed out and was discovered by his sons, who rushed in a doctor to save him. As they finished stitching him up, Cato awoke and began to tear the wound apart. That was how he died, literally disemboweling himself with his own hands.

• 1:53Ryan Holiday?

  The point of this story is not to glorify suicide, not at all. In fact, Cato's story shows a man who clung to life with almost superhuman tenacity. Cato had always, but especially in his death, embodied that beautiful line in the Dylan Thomas poem, "He raged, raged against the dying of the light, even in old age. He did not go quietly into that good night, not when Caesar had wanted him to roll over, and now not when death was here." No, Cato was such a fighter, had such life force, that even suicide had trouble taking him. For Cato, it was a choice between becoming Caesar's slave and a propaganda tool, and

• 2:38Ryan Holiday?

  death. He refused to betray the public for which he had lived, even if it meant the loss of his life. But it should be noted that he fought like hell for years before it came to that, and even dying did not come easily. Death wins over all of us, that is inevitable. Dylan Thomas knew that. He just thought we should fight hard while we still could, as Cato did, proving, as Plutarch said of him, "That even if we can't beat fate, we can nevertheless give fortune a hard contest."

• 3:19Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. Today's entry, that's April 12th, "Reject tantalizing gifts," comes from the Daily Stoic book. And today's quote actually comes from one of Seneca's plays. People don't necessarily see Seneca as a playwright. In fact, James Rahm points this out in his fascinating biography of Seneca, that for a big chunk of the last 2,000 years, it was inconceivable to scholars that Seneca the playwright and Seneca the philosopher were the same person. Many different people had the same names, and so they just assumed that the themes

• 4:01Ryan Holiday?

  and the styles seemed so different that they couldn't possibly be the same. I would argue they thought that the plays were so good that someone couldn't be that great at both things. And what James Rahm points out, which stuck with me because I did a version of this in Lives of the Stoics, he said, "It would be like if..." Goethe had written Faust and was the right-hand advisor to Napoleon or Frederick the Great, or something like that. Anyways, I'm getting ahead of myself. Basically, Seneca wrote some really good plays. And this quote is from Seneca's play Theestes, which is a very, very dark play. Atreus says, "Who would reject the flood

• 4:43Ryan Holiday?

  of fortune's gifts? Theestes, anyone who has experienced how easily they flow back." And then we describe it a little bit. Theestes is one of Seneca's darkest and most disturbing plays. Even 2,000 years later, it remains a classic of the revenge genre. Without spoiling it, the quote comes from the scene in which Atreus is attempting to lure his hated brother Theestes into a cruel trap by offering him tempting and generous gifts. At first, Theestes declines to the complete bafflement of his enemy. The point is, we are typically surprised when someone turns down an expensive gift or a position of honor or success. General

• 5:25Ryan Holiday?

  William T. Sherman emphatically rejected offers to run for president of the United States, and at one point, "I will not accept if nominated, and I will not serve if elected." If his friend, Ulysses S. Grant, had made such a Shermanesque statement, as such rejections are now known, Grant certainly would have preserved his own legacy from the disastrous turns of events that it suffered. Despite his initial misgivings, though, in the play, Theestes is ultimately tempted and persuaded to accept fortune's gifts, which turned out to be a ruse-hiding devastating tragedy. Not every opportunity is fraught with danger, but the play was intended to remind us that our attraction towards what is new and shiny

• 6:08Ryan Holiday?

  can lead us into serious trouble. Now, look, I wrote The Daily Stoic.

• 6:14Ryan Holiday?

  Eight plus years ago, I have studied and read a lot more about Ulysses S. Grant, and my opinion of him is has evolved and changed. I've always admired him. I saw his presidency as more flawed than I now see it. I see it more as heroic and up against an implacable enemy, which was the unreconstructed South. And I see that he did actually a lot of good. And I think a lot of his reputation is more is the negative parts of his reputation, although there were many corruption scandals, although he was not personally implicated. I see his negative reputation in that regard being undeserved and actually his time in office being quite heroic. In fact, maybe he was the only person who could have done

• 6:54Ryan Holiday?

  it. That being said, Seneca himself, much more embodimented this idea. Seneca gets power and access and all sorts of wonderful things from Nero. They come at a very, very high cost. And he would have known later, and I think this is what he's writing about, that there's no such thing as a free lunch, that none of these gifts came without strings, and that he should have been much more skeptical or preserved when Nero's mom came calling. And then when Nero showered gifts and reputation and fame and access upon him, because it did

• 7:38Ryan Holiday?

  ultimately haunt him, and he ultimately cost him his life. So I guess what I have always taken this to mean is that I think about this in my own career, right? Everyone wants to be more successful, more well-known, get to the next level. But do you actually? There is some sort of Goldilocks principle at play where you're just the right amount of the things, right? You're at the preferred indifferent stage, right? Where if you could choose, you'd have more, but you wouldn't want too much more. And, you know, sometimes I think about that. I've watched my friends whose books have sold many, many more copies

• 8:17Ryan Holiday?

  than mine, and I they don't have anything that I want but don't have. And they do have some things that I don't want.

• 8:28Ryan Holiday?

  And it's interesting when you know, we hear about people complain about being famous or their lack of privacy, or the stress, or you know, whatever. And you sort of go, oh, they don't know what they're talking about, or, oh, these are champagne problems, but you don't actually think about the costs of these gifts. And I think that's really important when you're jealous, when you're envious, when you're comparing yourself against other people, and then also when people sort of dangle you things in front of you. There's a reason they're dangling them in front of you. They want something from it too. They benefit from it too. They know there's a hidden cost to it. And so that is why today's message is to beware tantalizing gifts.

• 9:13Ryan Holiday?

  And I hope you enjoyed this little lesson about Seneca. And sorry for the interruption. My son Jones came running out, but I thought it was fun. Talk to you soon.