The Stoic Guide To A Happy Life | Massimo Pigliucci | Modern Wisdom Podcast 239

Massimo Piggliuci is a Professor of Philosophy at City College and an author. The stoic teachings have helped people for thousands of years, Massimo is undertaking the not-so-small task of updating and improving on the ancient philosophy. Expect to learn Massimo's favourite lessons from stoicism, how to apply the dichotomy of control to your life, why Epictetus was so cool, why Plato might have had a big forehead and much more... Sponsor: Get 20% discount & free shipping on your Lawnmower 3.0 at https://www.manscaped.com/ (use code MODERNWISDOM) Extra Stuff: Buy The Stoic Guide To A Happy Life - https://amzn.to/2G9tFWJ Follow Massimo on Twitter - https://twitter.com/mpigliucci Check out Massimo's Website - https://massimopigliucci.com Get my free Ultimate Life Hacks List to 10x your daily productivity → https://chriswillx.com/lifehacks/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom #stoicism #epictetus #chriswilliamson - Listen to all episodes online. Search "Modern Wisdom" on any Podcast App or click here: iTunes: https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/modern-wisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: [email protected]

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  The people that came before us are not our masters, they are our teachers, they are our guides. But if I find a new way to proceed that is better, I'll do it because, you know, the truth is as is open to all and and will be uncovered by future generations.

• 0:17Chris Williamson?

  Twice in a year. What a treat.

• 0:18Speaker 00

  I know.

• 0:21Speaker 00

  Well, you know, it's the pandemic. It's easier to get people stuck at home.

• 0:25Chris Williamson?

  That's true. Well, we've got nothing else to do. We might as well just keep on talking about Stoicism. The Stoic, the Stoic guide to a happy life, fifty-three brief, brief lessons for living. Why did you write this?

• 0:39Speaker 00

  For two reasons. On the one hand, there's kind of a personal reason. The, the book is really ambitious, to some extent, rewriting of the Enchiridion, which is one of the classic texts in Stoicism, in ancient Stoicism. And in its, it wasn't written by Epictetus, but it, it is about Epictetus's teaching. Epictetus didn't write anything and one of his best students or most famous student, Ariane of Nicomedia, wrote, wrote down both the discourses and the Enchiridion. To some extent, this is my personal homage to Epictetus because he has been my steady guide throughout my Stoic path. You know, I love all of the Stoics. I read Marcus Aurelius, I read Seneca, I read some of the so-called minor Stoics

• 1:23Speaker 00

  that are not really minor, they're just minor because we don't have a hell of a lot that survived of his, of their writings. But Epictetus has been the one that really got me into it and it has been sort of a constant companion. So to one, in some, in one sense, it is just my personal homage to Epictetus. But more importantly, it is an attempt to update Stoicism and in particular Epictetus's version of Stoicism to the 21st century. And the reason for that is that Stoicism in a sense got interrupted. You know, it started out in the late 4th century BCE. It flourished for five or six centuries until the early 3rd century of the modern era. And then it kind of got interrupted by Christianity, just like every other, you know,

• 2:07Speaker 00

  Hellenistic philosophy, just like it disappeared from view. And in that sense, the Greek Roman philosophies are very different from, let's say, a number of eastern traditions such as Buddhism, Confucianism, or Taoism, which evolved and developed gradually over time in essentially uninterrupted fashion. So for instance, if you compare Stoicism with Buddhism, today it's not even correct really to talk about Buddhism in the singular, there are many Buddhisms, right? Because there's a number of traditions that evolved continuously over two and a half millennia. And clearly, nobody today is a Buddhist in the same sense in which somebody was a Buddhist 2000 and a half, you know, years ago.

• 2:48Speaker 00

  But that's not true for Stoicism, because it's like, after the 2nd or 3rd centuries, like, we have a lot of influence of Stoicism on other thinkers, like Christian writers throughout the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and, you know, early modern philosophers. But then we kind of have a jump to the 20th century essentially. And so, I'm not the first one to do this kind of thing. My friend and colleague Larry Baker, who wrote A New Stoicism, did a similar thing with the entire Stoic system. However, Larry's attempt is, on the one hand, more comprehensive than mine, because he didn't focus just on Epictetus, he focused like the whole thing.

• 3:29Speaker 00

  But it's also much more difficult in terms of, you know, it's not as accessible to a general public, because he wrote for philosophers, for, you know, in a technical fashion. If you don't have at least a couple of courses of logic under your belly, you're not going to get much out of that book. So my attempt has been to update Stoicism to the 21st century, but also to make Epictetus accessible again to a wider public. Because, you know, most people, I bet, today haven't heard the word, you know, the name of Epictetus. It's like, who the hell was this guy? People have heard Plato, people have heard Socrates, they've heard Marcus Aurelius, they might not have read them, but they've heard of them. Epictetus like happy, happy who?

• 4:13Speaker 00

  And this is unfortunate. And it's also rather anomalous. It is like a 20th century, early 21st century feature. Because before that, Epictetus was actually a household name. Year school in Nicosas in northwestern Greece was very famous throughout antiquity. You know, the Emperor Adrian went to visit. You know, a lot of, of sort of high level Roman aristocrats sent their kids to study with him. That sort of stuff. Then throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the Enchiridion was actually rewritten and updated several times because it was used as a tranval, as a training manual for, tranval is a new word that I just invented, a training manual for Christian monks. Right?

• 4:57Speaker 00

  So it was actually adopted by Christianity. And then all the way into sort of very recent, relatively recent times, like many of the American founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, John Washington, Thomas Jefferson, as well as several major British figures, early modern British figures such as David Hume and Adam Smith, they all had copies of the Enchiridion. They know, they all knew about Epictetus, whether they considered themselves Stoics or not, they certainly had read him. So, and so I think it is unfortunate that a lot of people today don't even know who Epictetus was. I think his, his philosophy, with or without my update, is, is incredible and it needs

• 5:37Speaker 00

  to be, you know, understood and appreciated because it changes lives like it changed mine.

• 5:43Chris Williamson?

  What's so special about him?

• 5:45Speaker 00

  Well, he's a no nonsense kind of philosopher. He talks very, in a very plain, plain language. He talks about important topics, anything from, from wealth to friendship to death to, you know, what are the important things in life? In fact, even actually gives you advice on what kind of conversation to engage in and whether to watch chariot races or not.

• 6:06Chris Williamson?

  Should we, should we watch chariot races?

• 6:07Speaker 00

  No, shouldn't watch chariot races really. It's like, it's a, it's a waste of time. Unfortunately, there are not many of those.

• 6:13Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I know. I love, I just want to see a, a boudicca, you know, I want to, I want to see some, some horses and some lions and tigers getting at it.

• 6:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, that would be kind of interesting, wouldn't it? So he's both straightforward and approaches in a number of topics that are really about concern for everyday life. He also has a wicked sense of humor, bordering on sarcasm. You know, he's, by modern standards, he's a little bit abusive of some of his students, calls them slaves, which he would know because he actually was a slave. He studied out his life in Hierapolis in Western Turkey, modern Western Turkey, as a slave. In fact, we don't even know his real name. Epictetus just means acquired in Greek. It literally means that he was a slave, right?

• 7:01Chris Williamson?

  So I only, I only learned recently that Plato wasn't Plato's real name, that it was Aristocles?

• 7:10Speaker 00

  That's right, apparently. We don't know for sure, but yes.

• 7:12Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, and Plato...

• 7:13Speaker 00

  Plato just means broad-shouldered because he was wrestler.

• 7:16Chris Williamson?

  Ah, now, if you, if you Google it, there was three, three suggestions for why he was called Plato. Plato is the broad. First one is the breadth of his shoulders, potentially because of all of the weight training he'd done through wrestling in the gymnasium. The second one is the breadth of his skills, again, going from the physical attribute. The third one is the size of his forehead.

• 7:46Speaker 00

  Oh, that's interesting. I'll go with the first two, which are, which are not actually mutually exclusive, right? One can have both broad shoulders and a broad understanding of things.

• 7:55Chris Williamson?

  And a broad forehead.

• 7:57Speaker 00

  And a broad forehead, yes, absolutely.

• 7:58Chris Williamson?

  It could be all of the above.

• 8:00Speaker 00

  Right, but the difference being that a broad forehead is not the result of your efforts. On the other hand, the other two really are, actually are, right?

• 8:07Chris Williamson?

  Again, so Epictetus, why is he so cool?

• 8:11Speaker 00

  Well, he's cool because he gives you very practical advice on life. For instance, if you, if you pick up the first, the very opening of the Enchiridion, it says, "Some things are up to us, other things are not up to us." And then it gives two lists of things that are and are not under our power. And if you actually, if, if you get anything out of the Enchiridion or of the field guide, the new, the new version, that would be it. If you just get that one and incorporate it into your daily life, that's just, just that one is going to change things for you because... It turns out that what it does, if you really understand the so-called dichotomy, this is referred to as the dichotomy of control.

• 8:52Speaker 00

  If you understand the dichotomy of control and incorporate it in your life and you're internalize it, because understanding it's easy. Sure, some things are up to me, other things are not up to me. Right, okay. Then we can have, we can have a discussion about what falls into each category. And actually, we should have that discussion because it is important. But understanding is not, it's not enough. You have to internalize it. You have to actually live it. And if you do, what that does is it results into a major reorientation of the way you conduct your life. Because it turns out that Epictetus says that the only things, the things that are up to us are actually very limited. There's essentially three categories of things that are up to us. Our considered judgments, our endorsed values, and our decisions to act or not to act.

• 9:37Speaker 00

  That's it. Nothing else. Right? So not even most of your mental life is under your control, as we know. You know, there's this all sorts of thoughts that pop up to in our mind and we can't control them. We don't even want to control them necessarily. Right? But those three things are the ones you control. The rest, you don't. You can influence it, of course, in some cases, but you don't control it. You don't control the outcome. For instance, we're talking, we're having this conversation in the middle of a pandemic. Right? So let's talk about health. Health is one of the things that Epictetus says is not under your control. And a lot of people find that rather counterintuitive. It's like, what do you mean? I, I can go to the gym. I can, you know, exercise. I can have a healthy diet.

• 10:17Speaker 00

  Now that I'm in the COVID, I can, you know, wear a mask when I go out, social distance, avoid crowds, wipe down my groceries and sanitize my hands, all that sort of stuff. Right? And you should do that. In fact, all those things are under your control because those are your decisions to act and not to act based on your judgments. Right? However, I'm a biologist. I can tell you viruses are sons of bitches. They, they will get you, they might get you even if you do everything right. It's, it's down to luck. Yes, you can influence that outcome, meaning that if you do everything right, you're less likely, probably far less likely to contract the virus, but you may. Right? All it takes is I go to a grocery, I had to go grocery shopping because I had to eat.

• 11:03Speaker 00

  And all it takes is somebody not wearing their mask, sneezing, you know, a foot away from me, and that's it. Then, then, then I'm, I got it. Right?

• 11:15Speaker 00

  If we understand this, then what happens is that you start worrying much less about outcomes because they're not under your control, not because they're not important. It is important whether I get sick or not from COVID, right? But it's not under my control, so why the hell am I worried about it? There's no, it's a waste of energy. It's a waste of of mental energy and emotional energy. I should focus, on the other hand, where my agency is maximized, where I can actually make a difference, right? In the kinds of judgments and decisions that I was talking about. If you do that for everything in your life, because if it says you should do that for anything, no matter, it doesn't matter what it is, whether it's important or not, large or small, et cetera, et cetera, he says, your life will change dramatically and you will

• 11:59Speaker 00

  be happy, you would not complain, you would not be angry with people, and you would not be angry at that circumstances. Like, okay, I sign up. I like that sort of stuff. And it works. It does take practice, obviously. As I said, one thing is to understand the idea, another thing is to actually internalize it. It takes a little bit of practice. But I can, I can tell you, it started making a difference in my life within weeks after I started practicing Stoicism, and now it's kind of second nature.

• 12:32Chris Williamson?

  That was something that I really enjoyed during our first conversation, which everyone can go back and listen to from earlier this year, if you enjoy this conversation, was talking about the automation of it, in the same way as people automate the other things in their life, a little trigger that reminds them to go outside, the trigger for the dichotomy of control. It's one thing to know it, it's another thing to internalize it, and then it's a third thing to automate it. And that gap between understanding how to do it and what it is, and then the removal of it being so arduous that it takes tons and tons of effort, is another step, right? And that's just repetition over time.

• 13:13Speaker 00

  It is just repetition, just like a lot of other things. You know, if you, if you wanna learn how to drive a car, or play an instrument, or, you know, anything, repetition is the key. You have to understand what you're doing. I mean, you have to have a sort of a cognitive understanding of, you know, why is it that you wanna hit the brake, let's say, if a pedestrian walks in front of you all of a sudden? But understanding by itself doesn't bring your ability to actually drive the car well, or play the instrument well, or do whatever.

• 13:38Chris Williamson?

  Precisely. What is a vademecum?

• 13:44Speaker 00

  Vad emecum is a Latin phrase for...

• 13:46Chris Williamson?

  Did I pronounce it correctly?

• 13:47Speaker 00

  Yes, yes, you did.

• 13:48Chris Williamson?

  Yes!

• 13:49Speaker 00

  Vad emecum just means bring it with you, or carry it with you.

• 13:54Chris Williamson?

  And that is the reason that you make a book into something that's small and that is with you at all times? And yeah, that's cool. I really like that. Vad emecum, I'm gonna... And it's... Go with you, did you say?

• 14:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, it comes with me, literally.

• 14:09Chris Williamson?

  Cool. So what are your favorite lessons? You've, like you say, not a small undertaking to try and do Stoicism 2.0. Before we get on to where you diverged and where you amended work, what were some of the lessons, your favorite lessons, that didn't require any modification from the original text?

• 14:29Speaker 00

  Well, let's see. We can open some kind of a random... The first one I just told you, the number one, right? Number 11, I think it's particularly interesting. It says, it starts out, my version starts out, "You should go through life as a traveler who stops at an end, never regarding anything as truly yours, but as on loan from the universe." And then it continues for a couple of other paragraphs. And that's a notion that you find in Epictetus, and in fact, you actually find in earlier Stoics like Seneca, this idea that we don't actually own anything. We use a language of ownership for a lot of things. My house, my wife, my friend, my this and that or the other, right? But in fact, you don't own anything.

• 15:11Speaker 00

  Even if you legally own your house, it's not really yours. Meaning that somebody probably lived in it before you did, and somebody's gonna live in it after you're done with it. Even if it's a new house, at some point, somebody else will inherit it, or somebody else will buy it. It's not something you can carry with you into the, under the grave, right? And of course, even so, more so for things like relationships, right? I mean, nobody is actually your, no human being is yours. You have a relationship with them. And the relationships change over time. Sometimes they end. And they are, however, an important part of life. So what Epictetus is saying there is like,

• 15:53Speaker 00

  "Hold on to everything as if you were a traveler in a hotel." When you check in your hotel... The room that you're given is your room, quote unquote, right? Not as in I own it and that's it, I can do whatever I want with it, I can trash it, I can do whatever I like. No, I don't, I can't, but it is my room, nobody else is gonna get into it. You know, unless I give permission for the duration of my stay. Now, what is the proper way to stay at a hotel? You use everything you have available, but you don't trash the place. You leave it as, you know, clean and orderly as you found it, even better actually ideally and so on and so forth, right?

• 16:32Chris Williamson?

  I've never left a hotel room better than I found it, Massimo. If that's the way that you, that might be your cultural heritage speaking for you there, but us Brits are nowhere near as polite and tidy as that.

• 16:44Speaker 00

  Granted, that's not a normal thing, but you see, you certainly wouldn't trash it, right? That's the notion is. So the idea is that that's the attitude that you should, that you should have for pretty much everything in life. Just hold it lightly, remember that it's not yours, it's on loan from the universe and the universe can take that loan back at any time.

• 17:06Chris Williamson?

  Wasn't there a, a little further down the line of that particular thinking? Wasn't there a place that you diverge from the work, the original text whereby you had a problem with the way that describing dealing with the death of a family member was basically to be treated with equanimity? It was like, it doesn't matter, like you shouldn't cry if your wife or your son or your daughter dies. You shouldn't cry if this happens. And I think that you said that kind of we forget or that is ignorant of the way that interpersonal relationships work. Is that right?

• 17:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, so, so what Epictetus said, that's actually one of the major places where I diverge from Epictetus. And I diverge with respect and understanding, not because I thought he was, I think he was an idiot. It's like, oh, look at the kind of stuff that he was believing. So let me set the stage first. The Stoics believed in a type of providence, which is not like the Christian providence. You know, Christian providence is based on the notion that there is a creator God that loves us and cares about us and has a plan for the universe. That's not what we're talking about. However, the Stoics believed that the universe itself, which they called God, or nature interchangeably, is a living organism endowed with logos.

• 18:29Speaker 00

  Logos is the ability to reason. So it's its own organism. It's a thing. It's this gigantic organism that does its own thing. We don't know what exactly it does, but it does its own thing. We are literally bits and pieces of that organism, like cells in the organism or organs in the organism. In fact, Epictetus uses a metaphor that I find beautiful. He says, "Imagine you're a foot that has to step into the mud. If you think of it from the point of view of just the foot, without realizing you're connected to a whole organism, you'd say, 'Well, this is disgusting. I don't want to step into the mud. What the hell? I'd rather take a shower. I'd rather have a bathroom. I don't want the mud.'" But if you understand that you are, in fact,

• 19:12Speaker 00

  connected to a body, the body has to get home. And the only way to get home is to cross a muddy path. Then not only you're going to do it because it's your duty, but you're going to be happy to do it because you're fulfilling, you're literally fulfilling the reason for your existence. You're allowing the body to get home, right? If you believe in that kind of conception of the universe, then it follows, as Epictetus says, that when something tragic happens to us or something that other people think tragic, not only we should endure it and accept it, we should actually be happy about it. It's the concept of amor fati, love your fate, although the phrase comes from Nietzsche much later on, and he was not a Stoic.

• 19:56Speaker 00

  But that's essentially the idea, right? So when he says, in the original Incaeridion, "Look, remember when you kiss your child or your wife, remember that they're mortals. Therefore, if they die, you will not be disturbed."

• 20:12Speaker 00

  People read this passage out of context, like, what kind of a monster is this guy? It's like, what do you mean?

• 20:17Chris Williamson?

  Psychopathic sage from back in the ancient times, yeah.

• 20:23Speaker 00

  Right, but they don't understand that if in context, that Epitetus is absolutely right. This is no different, in fact, from a Christian who really believes that his now deceased, you know, father or mother or loved one is in heaven, he should be happy. I never understood, you know, I grew up Catholic and I never understood, even when I was a Catholic, why is it that so many people who profess to be Christian go to funerals of their own loved ones and cry in desperation? It's like, so you think the guy is in hell? Because that could be the only reason why you would be in desperation. But if you actually think that he is in a better place, that he is with God, in the presence of God and all that, you shouldn't, not only you shouldn't be upset, you should actually celebrate.

• 21:08Speaker 00

  Funerals should be parties, it's like, alright, and I'm coming, you know, I'll join you in a few, in a little bit of time, and compared to eternity, even if you live a long time as a human being, it's laughing, so it's like, okay, great, let's celebrate. But they don't. And I suspect that they don't because a lot of people don't actually believe deep down what they're saying.

• 21:27Chris Williamson?

  To interject there, obviously, your background, which a lot of the listeners might not know, is actually evolutionary biology, right? That's what you spent a lot of time doing. There is, our genetics are one hell of a drug and our genetic predispositions are capable of overpowering pretty much anything, I think, and that includes faith. Like, the inherent horror that we feel when a loved one passes away is like gravity. It's that strong, you know? And to believe, obviously, the Stoics weren't privy to the work of the evolutionary theory,

• 22:10Chris Williamson?

  but I think you are right to highlight the fact that It's inherently unrealistic to expect humans to be able to transcend their own nature because of some clever cerebral trick that we've taught ourselves. "Oh, well, don't forget about the dichotomy of control." Like, "My daughter was 11 years old and the light of my life." Like, "What do you expect this person to do?"

• 22:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly. So, it is not only impossible in practice, it's also not tenable in theory anymore. Because today, you know, move 18 centuries forward from Epictetus, look at modern biology and modern physics, and there is no reason to think that the universe is anything like what the Stoics thought it was. It's not a living organism endowed with reason. It is a set of dynamic processes regulated by what we call the laws of nature. And yes, we are bits and pieces of the universe, but not in any sense that we are functional bits and pieces. We're not like the foot in the organism. We're just there. And the universe doesn't care one way or the other. What happens to us is irrelevant to the rest of the universe.

• 23:16Speaker 00

  It's not like we're causally connected in a very loose way, but it's not that nothing like that could provide you something like Stoic providence. Which means, I argue in the Field Guide to a Happy Life, that we should do away with amor fati. But this notion that I should love my fate no matter what it is, it's non-tenable anymore. I understand and I respect why it was tenable in Epictetus' time. There was a beautiful notion of providence that they have. But I can't buy into that notion of providence, so it's gotta go. Now, if you suggest that, and immediately somebody says, "Oh, but then you give up Stoicism." It's like, "Well, no, hold on." First of all, in the introduction to the book, I explain that change within the Stoic

• 24:01Speaker 00

  system is nothing new. Even the ancient Stoics themselves constantly debated about what stays and what goes. Cleanthes, the second head of the Stoic, disagreed with Zeno, the first head of the Stoic. Chrysippus, the third head of the Stoic, disagreed with both Zeno and Cleanthes. Seneca actually writes explicitly, like, "Look," he writes a beautiful letter to his friend Lucilius, and he says, "Look, my friend, the people that came before us are not our masters, they are our teachers." There are guides, but if I find a new way to proceed that is better, I'll do it because, you know, the truth is, as is open to all and and will be uncovered by future generations. So so this notion that Stoicism is like this thing that was stable over time for five centuries.

• 24:46Speaker 00

  And then all of a sudden, you know, who the hell are you to change it? Like, no, that's that's fantasy. It has never been stable. That said, of course, there is only a certain amount of change you do, you can do, and then still call it Stoicism. I mean, to some extent, it doesn't matter what we call it. Right? Because names are names, labels are labels. But I am sensitive to this notion that, you know, if you change too much, and especially if you change too much without readjusting the bits and pieces of the system, without seeking coherence within the system, then then you're open to the to the accusation, I suppose, that it's not Stoicism anymore. That's why I do it very carefully. You you notice that at the end of the of the book, there is an actual actual detailed table.

• 25:31Speaker 00

  And there is a a section which I described bit by bit, all the changes that I made and why they were made and how they fit into the general system. So one of the reasons this is still Stoicism is, in my mind,

• 25:46Speaker 00

  well, there's two reasons. First of all, because the Stoics insisted

• 25:50Speaker 00

  that the three parts of philosophy, ethics, which is about how to live your life, metaphysics, they call it physics, but metaphysics, that your understanding of how the universe works, and logic, meaning your your ability to reason, they have to go together. Because if you're if you don't reason correctly about things, you're likely to mislive your life. Your ethics isn't going to work very well. And if you are under deep misunderstandings about how the universe work works, that also implies that you're going to likely mislive your life. Right? So the three things are connected. If I change the metaphysics, in this case, I'm suggesting a change in the metaphysics, right? Do away with the notion that the universe is a living organism in doubt with reason.

• 26:33Speaker 00

  Then you have to change the ethics, which is what I do. You throw out the amor fati and you retain what? Well, you still retain notions that come out of the dichotomy of control. You still retain this idea that, okay, maybe I'm not going to love my fate, but I can prepare myself mentally to deal with things that are inevitable and accept them as for what they are and still try to get the best out of life as it actually happens to me and not as I would like it to be, right? So not engaging in wishful thinking. So you're still using, adopting a Stoic attitude. You're still adopting a lot of Stoic metaphysics because Stoic metaphysics includes determinism.

• 27:16Speaker 00

  These people were compatibilists, as we would say today about free will. These people were, believed in universal cause and effect. We still do. Modern science essentially is based on the notion that there's universal cause and effect. And they were materialists, meaning that they believed that the only things that exist are physical stuff. It's not, we today would say matter and energy, of course, but stuff, not, you know, there's no transcendental thing, there is no immaterial thing, there is nothing out there that along those lines. Those are still true, as far as I can tell. And so that's why we're still retaining much of the Stoic system, but we're making some changes.

• 28:00Chris Williamson?

  I like it. How do you think the Stoics would define a happy life? Obviously, this is the Stoic guide to a happy life. We need to define our terms. What is a happy life?

• 28:12Speaker 00

  Yeah, the word happiness, of course, is fraught with problems because people have very, very different ideas about what counts as a happy life, right? In fact, the word happiness itself can take a number of meanings. On the one hand, for instance, I can say, "Oh, I'm happy that tonight I get to relax with my wife and watch a movie." Sure, but that's not the happiness that we're talking about here. The word applies, but not in the broader sense. In a broader sense, happiness could be a life of flourishing, a life where you get to enjoy the good things about it, your amount of pain and suffering is reduced to a minimum, you pursue your projects, etc., etc., right? That would be the Aristotelian version of the happy life.

• 28:56Speaker 00

  The word that we should be using, actually, is the one that the Ancient Greeks used, regardless of which school they belonged to, and that was eudaimonia. Eudaimonia is the life worth living.

• 29:08Chris Williamson?

  That seems very circular. What's a happy life? A life worth living? Okay, what's a life worth living?

• 29:14Speaker 00

  Right, except that what breaks the circularity is that each one of those different schools had an actual conception of what counts as eudaimonic life and why.

• 29:25Chris Williamson?

  Lay it on us, lay it on us, Massimo. We're here to listen.

• 29:28Speaker 00

  Let me give you three. Actually, let me give you four, including the Stoic one, because that actually kind of gives you a very, I think, I hope, a very clear understanding of not only what the Ancient Greeks and Romans thought, but actually how to think about the happy life. So Aristotle thought that a happy life was a life of virtues flourishing. Virtues flourishing means you want to act virtuously, meaning you want to be an ethical human being, and however, you also do need, need, not just prefer, but need certain external things, such as health, well, a little bit of wealth, a little bit of education, a little

• 30:12Speaker 00

  bit of good looks, and things like that. Otherwise, your life sucks. Even if you're virtuous, your life sucks. That's Aristotle.

• 30:20Speaker 00

  The Epicureans thought that the good life is actually defined by one thing and one thing only, and that is absence of pain.

• 30:29Speaker 00

  A good human life, no matter, you can, you can live your life in a number of different ways, so long as it's painless, particularly in terms of emotional pain.

• 30:38Speaker 00

  So that's true. The cynics, cynics were the in-your-face philosophers of antiquity, the people that, you know, went in the streets and reminded people constantly how bad they were. And the cynics thought that the only thing that matters is virtue. What, the, uh, health doesn't matter, wealth doesn't matter, possessions don't matter, that nothing else matters. The only thing about, what, what makes a good human life is acting virtuously, acting, why, uh, we would say today, prosocially, engage with other people in a, in a prosocial fashion. And then there is the Stoics. The Stoics kind of fall in between the Aristotelians and the cynics. So the Stoics said, yes, the overarching thing that is important, you know,

• 31:23Speaker 00

  the, the top thing that is important in life is to act ethically toward other people. Why? Because that's human nature. Human nature is the nature of a cooperative, social being. Yes, we do nasty things to each other on occasion. Yes, we use violence. Yes, we cheat. Yes, we do all that. But those are actually negative aspects of human nature that get in the way of social, a social life. Fundamentally for the Stoics, we're essentially social beings, and we depend on each other in a very interconnected fashion in order to have a good life. So the most important thing is, in fact, to act ethically toward other people. But it's okay to also pursue on the side, so to speak,

• 32:09Speaker 00

  the kinds of things that Aristotle thought were absolutely necessary for life, such as... Wealth, health, education, etc., etc. Because other things being equal, it's better to be healthy than sick, better to be wealthy than poor, better to be educated than ignorant, and that sort of stuff. But the crucial difference with Aristotle is that the Stoics thought that even if you don't have any of those things, your life is still worth living. And the reason for that is because it is still in your power to do good in, in, in, in, in life, to do good to other people, even if you are sick, even if you're poor, even if you are, you know, if your means are very limited. So let me give you an example of a good Stoic life, even though the person that I'm about to mention was not actually a Stoic.

• 32:54Speaker 00

  Nelson Mandela. So we all know that Mandela spent, I forgot what it was, 18 years, I think, in prison during the apartheid regime. That's not flourishing. Aristotle would have said, "Sorry, dude, your life sucks." Right? It's like, that is definitely not flourishing.

• 33:09Chris Williamson?

  So were the Epicureans, yeah?

• 33:11Speaker 00

  Exactly. Epicureans would have said, "Ah, that's a lot of pain, my friend." Both physical and mental pain, so no, your life sucks as an Epicurean as well. But the Stoics would say, "Uh, hold on. Yes, of course, you're not flourishing, of course, you're not, you know, you're not enjoying the, the, the kinds of material life that other people might be enjoying, but you're doing something that is very worthwhile. You're fighting for a good cause, you're fighting for improving the human condition. Therefore, your life is worth living, even if you don't succeed." Because in the end, as we know, he actually succeeded in the end. But even if you don't succeed, Epictetus actually mentions some people who lost their

• 33:52Speaker 00

  lives in opposition to the emperors of Vespasian and Domitian, who the Stoics considered, you know, tyrants. And Epictetus, one of his students, at one point says, "Well, that was a wasted life, right? What, what was the point of that?" And Epictetus says, he gave the example. It was like the purple on the toga. The purple on the toga is the, is the, the, the thing that actually makes you look at, at the, the whole garment and say, "Okay, that's interesting. That's, uh, that's, uh, that's well done." Right? So a life... Like Nelson Mandela's, even if he had failed, it would have still been worthwhile because it would have set the example for others on what to do and how to live your

• 34:37Speaker 00

  life. So, all of these different conceptions are the result of different understandings of what's important about human nature. Right? So, what breaks the circle that you brought up is that the claim is not just that the happy life is the life worth living. That would definitely be circular. That would definitely not, you know. The idea is the happy life is the life worth living and here it is and here is how I cash it out and why.

• 35:04Chris Williamson?

  I like it. I'm worried and thankful that we are revisiting ancient wisdom on modern wisdom and generally kind of in the 21st century because it seems like so many of the things that people presume are going to make them happy have become hijacked. You know, like the Instagram, TikTok, 21st century transactional sex porn hub world of the race to the bottom of the brainstem, which you'll be familiar with from evolutionary psychology, which is how a lot of the apps that people spend a lot of time on are getting them hooked. It really does feel like this is a little bit of an antidote to that. So

• 35:46Chris Williamson?

  hopefully that's opened some people's eyes to it. In terms of some strategies or your favorite strategies en route to the happy life, we've got the dichotomy of control, which is, I would say, perhaps more useful at avoiding suffering and pain than perhaps it is at pursuing happiness. I might have got that a little bit wrong, but that's at least how it seems to me. If you see pain as being in the way of happiness as opposed to, it removes the negatives rather than adds the positives, to me, as far as that seems.

• 36:21Speaker 00

  I'm gonna disagree with that on, with you on that one a little bit. I mean, I can see why you say that because yes, one of the major outcomes, one of the major goals of the dichotomy of control is in fact to, as a Peteris puts it, do not get disturbed when events don't go your way. Right? So that's, I can see where that comes from. But at the same time, there is also the positive, you know, the flip side of the coin is. You don't get disturbed. The notion of not getting disturbed by the fact that events don't always go your way, that's because, that's one side of the, one half of the economic control. It's because you're focusing on the things that you don't control, right? You say, "Okay, I don't control this, so I shouldn't be worried about it.

• 37:02Speaker 00

  I should activate, I should actively cultivate an attitude of equanimity toward outcomes, because I don't control the outcomes." But that's only half of the dichotomy. The other half is, "And I should be focusing my energy and efforts on the stuff that I actually control." Now, it turns out, as we all realize, there's a pretty damn good correlation between your efforts and your outcomes, right? So let me go back to the initial example of the COVID infection, right? While it is true that I don't control the outcome, that I could still get COVID, no matter what I do and no matter how careful I am, it is also equally true that my chances of getting COVID go dramatically down because I'm doing all those kinds of things that I'm doing.

• 37:47Speaker 00

  Vice versa, in terms of positive outcomes, because that would be a negative outcome, obviously. But in terms of positive outcomes, I don't know if I'm applying for a job, for instance, right? Yeah, if I focus on the outcome, which is actually getting the job, I'm focusing on the wrong thing, according to Epictetus, because that's not up to me, that's up to whoever is interviewing me, right? However, focusing on the effort, putting together a resume, focusing during the interview, dressing well, not going out drinking the night before the interview, you know, that, all that sort of stuff, those are up to me, and those obviously raise significantly the chances that I will, in fact, get the job, right?

• 38:30Speaker 00

  So, so there is actually a positive aspect to it. And it's essentially, you know, we also mentioned this bit on 11, on section 11 of the book, about going through life as if you were in a inn, you know, checking in at a hotel. There, too, another analogy that the Stoics use is the seasonal, the seasonal way of thinking. So Epictetus says, for instance, "Don't..." Don't wish for figs in winter. Wishing for figs in winter is hopeless because figs are not winter, you know, they don't bloom in winter, they're not winter fruits. I can tell you, I'm a botanist.

• 39:13Speaker 00

  And on the other hand, not wishing for figs in winter, and he applies this to, you know, missing your loved ones. If your parents died, for instance, as in my case a few years ago, to wish that they were here now is wishing for figs in winter. It's like, okay, I'm just making myself feel bad because now my mind is on purpose going in a direction which is not, it's not a productive one. However, there was a season during which they were alive and well, right? There was a summer there. And so the notion is that, so the other side of the coin, the flip side of the coin is,

• 39:56Speaker 00

  and when it's summer, you really should enjoy the figs because they're in season, right? So the upshot of this is that Stoics tend to concentrate on the here and now, of what they have now. We try not to regret things that we no longer have because they're gone. We try not to hope too much for things to come because they're also not in my control. I mean, who knows what the hell is gonna happen? But in the meantime, I can focus on what I have right here, right now. I have a good life, I'm healthy, I have a wife that loves me, I have a daughter that is starting her life as an independent, all of that, I have friends. You know, there are all these things that eventually will be gone, right? At some point or another.

• 40:41Speaker 00

  But why the hell should I worry about the fact that they're gonna be gone? When they're gonna gone, they're gone, that's it, okay, fine. End of story, that's how life works. But right now, they're here. And so I need to pay attention to here now because too often, we actually take people and things for granted.

• 40:57Chris Williamson?

  And we can also take ourselves out of the moment of enjoying the brief time that we do have with those people and things worrying about the time when they're not going to be here. And that's a surefire route to misery. That's like the Mark Twain quote, which is worrying is like paying a debt that you don't owe.

• 41:15Speaker 00

  Yes, exactly. That's exactly right. Mark Twain had a little bit of a stoic.

• 41:19Chris Williamson?

  Well, good. Obviously, I've done my research on Mark, so I know that precisely. In terms of one more lesson that you think you didn't need to change, but would help people to lead a happy life, what would it be?

• 41:37Speaker 00

  Number 30. You're a social animal, and whether you like it or not, living in a society comes with certain duties. How do you figure out what these duties are? Just look at the various roles you play. So this is, this comes out of what is sometimes referred to as Epictetus' role ethics. There's a wonderful book about just about that aspect of Stoicism or Epictetus' philosophy by Brian Johnson, who is a colleague of mine at Fordham University, and he wrote a book on the role ethics of Epictetus. The notion that Epictetus put forth is that like, look, what's your best guidance in life on how to actually live your life? Well, just ask yourself what kind of roles you normally play. And he distinguished three types of

• 42:18Speaker 00

  roles that we all have in life. The first and most fundamental one is, of course, the member of the human cosmopolis. We are human beings, all of us, right? And since the Stoics were cosmopolitan, the implication of that is that we should never do anything that undermines the human cosmopolis.

• 42:37Chris Williamson?

  What do you mean by cosmopolitan in this definition?

• 42:42Speaker 00

  Considering every human being on earth as brothers and sisters, right? So, which means you should never do anything that undermines the human cosmopolis. Now, whenever I say that, often people say, I can't, even if I wanted to, I can't undermine human cosmopolis. I don't have that kind of power, right? It's like, I'm not an emperor, I'm not a president of the United States. But that's not true. For instance, if, if you live a, the kind of life that contributes to global warming, you're undermining the, the, the, the human cosmopolis. If you live, if you shop, uh, let's say, for your daily life into places that are known to exploit other people, you're undermining the human cosmopolis.

• 43:22Speaker 00

  If you are eating, uh, animals that have suffered unnecessarily in order to be, uh, served on your dinner plate, you are undermining the human cosmopolis. So, you know, there's all sorts of ways where you can actually undermine the human cosmopolis. So that's number one, the first, first role. The other two classes of roles are the, the types of roles that circumstances give you. You don't choose them. For instance, you know, you're somebody's son, right? You didn't choose that. That was not your choice. You, that's, that's what it is. But now that you're there, you have some duties, you know? Children have certain duties toward their parents. Uh, even if, Epictetus says, even if their parents are not good, they're, they're, you

• 44:05Speaker 00

  know, they're not the best parents you can, because the deal that the universe gave you wasn't, "I'm gonna give you the best parents." The universe just said, "I'm gonna give you parents." And, you know, sometimes you, it works out well, sometimes it doesn't, but the point is, your parents' behavior is not under your control, your behavior is under your control, so you still have certain duties. Now, those duties don't expand to, you know, being abused physically or mentally by your parents. That's not, that's not a duty that you have. But you do have a duty to be forgiving, a duty to be helpful, et cetera, et cetera. And then the third class of duties, of roles, sorry, sorry, are the, the ones that we choose given our circumstances. For instance, "I'm a father," that was a choice.

• 44:47Speaker 00

  Uh, "I'm a friend to some people," and, and that's another choice. Uh, "My career was a choice," to, to some extent, and so on and so forth, right? My, obviously, my relationship with my wife was a choice. All of those carry their own duties, right? So if I put somebody into the, into the world, then I have certain duties toward that person. I have to take care of that person. I have to, you know, make sure that she has as many instruments as possible to actually live a fulfilling life. If I am in a relationship with my partner, that carries certain other duties. And again...

• 45:23Speaker 00

  Those duties don't imply necessarily that the other person reciprocates or reciprocates on the same level. I mean, I'm lucky enough actually that, you know, my friends and relatives and

• 45:34Speaker 00

  you know, loved ones actually do then to reciprocate. But sometimes they won't. Sometimes that's not the case. And Epithetus says it doesn't matter because other people's behaviors is not under your control. And Seneca says that when it comes to what the ancients called benefits, so being generous, giving to other people. He says, "The thing to do is always to have your ledger such that you owe, you give more than you receive." Right? So don't look at what you're getting. Look at what you're doing, what you're giving. And of course, once again, the two are often connected.

• 46:13Speaker 00

  Without being Pollyannaish about this kind of stuff. But look, if you're a generous person who actually genuinely loves other people and wants to be that typically the people realize that and typically the people will give back. Precisely because as the Stoics say, human beings tend to be social and highly proactive and interdependent of each other.

• 46:35Chris Williamson?

  I think that we agree on something that other people got angry at me for talking about on a podcast a little while ago.

• 46:43Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 46:44Chris Williamson?

  Try me.

• 46:46Chris Williamson?

  Can we just take a second to talk about how much bollocks is in The Secret?

• 46:50Speaker 00

  Oh, yes. A lot.

• 46:53Chris Williamson?

  So the best lies have a kernel of truth in them, right? And what you've just brought up there with the, what you could quite easily call karma, like things come back around.

• 47:06Speaker 00

  Right.

• 47:07Chris Williamson?

  But there isn't some metaphysical magnetized aura of nebulous, ephemeral, supercharged good tions or whatever they were called in The Secret. I was about to call it the bollocks there, but in The Secret.

• 47:26Chris Williamson?

  And yet, because of that kernel of truth, it seduces people into believing it.

• 47:31Speaker 00

  Right, that's exactly, I mean, that's how a lot of pseudoscience works. There is a kernel of truth, there is a kernel of plausibility, right? And people don't think too carefully about it. They also engage in all that wishful thinking is, oh, that sounds good, so I want to believe it. I mean, that's how the psychology of pseudoscience actually works. But yeah, actually, I've used The Secret as an example of a type of metaphysics that is entirely incompatible with Stoicism. Because it violates the economy of control. Essentially, it says that you do control the universe, that if you really want it, if you really make the effort, if you really are into certain things, the universe somehow will rearrange itself so to, you know, favor your goals. Epictetus, who had not read, obviously, The Secret.

• 48:16Chris Williamson?

  Thank God for that.

• 48:17Speaker 00

  Right. It explicitly says so to one of his students. He says, one of his students, apparently, came in complaining about the fact that his nose was running all the time. Right? So he had a cold or something like that. And Epictetus says, okay, wipe your damn nose, but stop complaining about the fact that there are such things as running noses in the universe. What do you want to do? He literally says, what would you want? The universe to rearrange yourself for the sake of your running nose? It's like, when I read that, I said, wait a minute, this guy must have read The Secret.

• 48:48Chris Williamson?

  The Secret, yeah, him and Rhonda Byrne would have fallen out. I remember, man, there was this story, do you remember, it was about 2003, the big Christmas Day tsunami, or Boxing Day tsunami in Thailand, was it?

• 49:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:01Chris Williamson?

  In East Asia. And Rhonda Byrne, author of The Secret, said, the reason that the tsunami happened was because the people of East Asia were giving out bad energy that attracted the tsunami.

• 49:14Speaker 00

  Right, that's awful.

• 49:16Chris Williamson?

  In what world is that acceptable to say? Hundreds of thousands of people displaced from their homes, and then some bourgeois writer, sitting at the back of a couple of million sold copies of a book that is based on bullshit, is able to say, oh, well, if only you'd been giving off some more positive vibes, then this tsunami wouldn't have come and annihilated the next generation.

• 49:41Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, I'm completely on board with that. In fact, not only I think that metaphysics, remember we were discussing earlier that according to the Stoics, logic, metaphysics, and ethics are connected.

• 49:54Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I love the field, I love the ring, the fence around the field analogy that you gave, I think it's very nice, yeah.

• 50:01Speaker 00

  Well, think about it in terms of the secret, they're connected in exactly the wrong way, right? Because the metaphysics is bullshit, I mean, the universe simply doesn't work that way. The logic is flawed, because clearly you should be able to realize that the universe doesn't work that way and draw the right conclusions. And the ethics is horrible, because it ends up blaming the victims, as in the case of the tsunami that you just brought up, right? So, oh, it's their fault. What do you mean it's their fault? Those people are, they are suffering, some of them died as a result of a random natural event, and you're saying that it's their fault, essentially? What kind of monstrous ethics is that?

• 50:39Chris Williamson?

  It really is. Do you know what it is? Identifying the fact that it is the flipped reverse of the dichotomy of control. I mean, if ever there needed to be a nail in the coffin of the secret, it could be right there. Do you know what it is as well? I had one of the guys on, oh, I'm gonna forget his name. I had one of the guys that featured in the film, The Secret, really smart cognitive psychologist, understood what he was talking about, and he, it felt like was in it begrudgingly, or perhaps for clout, and even him, this is a person who featured in the film very prominently, and even he had highlighted his own issues. We can continue badmouthing The Secret for the remainder of the episode,

• 51:24Chris Williamson?

  but I feel like we've...

• 51:25Speaker 00

  We can, we can just summarize it this way. The metaphysics is bullshit, the reasoning is bad, and the headaches is horrible.

• 51:32Chris Williamson?

  There we go. That's it. Job done. Last lesson, another one where you diverge from Stoicism, something else that you think would help people lead a happy life.

• 51:43Speaker 00

  You're talking about fifty, you're talking about fifty-two?

• 51:46Chris Williamson?

  Whichever you think.

• 51:47Speaker 00

  Oh, oh, I'm sorry. I thought you literally thought the last lesson.

• 51:50Chris Williamson?

  No, no, a final lesson from you, Massimo.

• 51:55Speaker 00

  I think, let's see, there are several, of course, that are, that are interesting to me in that sense, but for instance...

• 52:05Speaker 00

  I tend to go back over and over on this notion of... One thing that is missing from the original Stoicism is an appreciation of what we would today call "social justice", right? And I don't mean, as in "social justice warriors" or anything like that. I'm just mean the basic concept in philosophy of "social justice", meaning that we should try to come up with a society that is as just, as equanimous as possible, right? Stoicism doesn't have that, and it's not a fault necessarily, because Stoicism is a personal philosophy. It's not meant to be a broad societal level, kind of umbrella type of philosophy. For instance, when people accuse the Stoics, "Oh, but you don't have a theory of social justice",

• 52:49Speaker 00

  or anything like that, well, would you ever accuse Christians or Buddhists of the same? Buddhism doesn't have a theory of social justice, neither does Christianity, because those are personal philosophers. They tell you how you should behave, not how other people should behave. However, it is still the case that the ancient Stoics started moving in that direction, and I think that it behooves us to keep moving along the same trajectory. Let me give you two examples. The Stoics were, the ancient Stoics I'm talking, were fairly unusual in the ancient world, because they thought that women have the same mental abilities as men, and therefore they actually ought to study philosophy and practice the virtuous life, right? Seneca says that explicitly.

• 53:33Speaker 00

  Epitetus said that explicitly, it's there, okay? But, of course, they were not what we would call feminists, you know, in modern terms. I mean, they were, you know, Seneca in fact, on the one hand says this kind of stuff, very explicitly, and there's no, this is not even implied. He actually says so explicitly in a letter of consolation that he writes to his friend Marcia, who had lost an adult son. At some point, he says, "You know, you think that I'm talking out of steps here, because you're a woman, but in fact, women have the same ability as men, they should be, etc., etc." So he actually says that. But then, you know, like a few paragraphs later, he says, "Don't be womanish, don't be..."

• 54:14Speaker 00

  It was like, so, it was not to her, actually, in a different letter, "Don't be womanish." Like, "What do you mean? Hey, hold on a second here." So, Seneca and the Stoics moved, started moving in that direction, but of course they were, naturally, a product of their own culture and time. These were people that lived 2000 years ago in an incredibly misogynist society by modern standards, right? So modern Stoics can pick up on that. And there are actually a couple of scholars who have written technical papers about the relationship between Stoicism and feminism, for instance. Feminism here understood very simply and very broadly. I'm not talking about specific waves or specific, you know, current, ongoing controversies. I'm simply talking about the basic notion that women are human beings just as men,

• 54:59Speaker 00

  and therefore they ought to have the same rights and etc. That's it. That's what I'm talking about. So there is more modern scholarship that moves us in that direction. It argues, and I agree, that feminism in that bare-bones sense that I just mentioned is actually logically entailed by Stoic philosophy. And so that a Stoic should be feminist. It's inconsistent for somebody to be a Stoic and not being a feminist. The second example has to do with the environment. So the ancient Stoics were not, of course, conscious of the value of the environment in the way in which we are, right? In fact, explicitly, they thought that what we call the environment, particularly other animals and plants, are there for our consumption. They're there because, you know, the logos of the universe set it up in a way

• 55:44Speaker 00

  that that's what we're going to do with it. However, they did have this notion of the expanding circles of concern. One of the second-century Stoics, his name was Hierocles, said that we should try to practice this notion of expanding our concern. We're naturally concerned about ourselves. That comes natural to a human being, right? It's the self. But then it also comes pretty naturally, immediately, early on in our lives, to be concerned with our caretakers, you know, typically our parents. And then we expand that kind of concern to other family members and friends. And then he said we should make an effort to expand that kind of concern to further and further circles out there.

• 56:28Speaker 00

  Citizens of their same city, citizens of the same country, and eventually humanity at large, right? Well, today, some scholars, modern scholars in Stoicism, like Chris Gill, for instance, say, "Yeah, and there is one more step." And then a couple more steps. The immediate obvious step after that is other sentient animals. Why? Because they suffer, because they're capable of suffering. And then after that, so the environment as a whole. But not in any kind of, again, Pollyannaish or Gaia kind of sense in which, oh, well.

• 57:01Chris Williamson?

  Spooky, wishy-washy energy stuff, yeah.

• 57:03Speaker 00

  No, just because we depend on a healthy environment to, as human beings, to live. So it's up to us. It's the same version, it's an expanded version of the same concept that the Stoics have. But, which is one of the things I, one of the reasons why I really like Stoicism. We tend today to make a sharp distinction between self and self-regard, you know, and other regard, right? So if you're an altruist, you're doing something that sacrifices yourself for the sake of another. The Stoics didn't see it that way. The Stoics thought that whenever you help other people, you're actually helping yourself because you're making yourself a better person. And whenever you're working on becoming a better person, you're automatically helping other people.

• 57:46Speaker 00

  Because that's, you know, that's the way your interactions are gonna go. And so similarly, they wouldn't see, I think, a sharp distinction today with modern scientific knowledge between ourselves and the environment. Of course, you wanna safeguard the environment because our own damn survival depends on it. Our ability to flourish depends on it. The reason you want good air and good quality water for everybody is because that's how you live a good life. Otherwise, you're gonna literally poison yourself. So you should be concerned with it. So those are some of the things also that I expect. It's not as much a disagreement with Epithetor as much as an expansion of Epithetus' concerns.

• 58:25Chris Williamson?

  I think that it's really interesting to hear the way that you can synthesize new world information, you know, and adapt it to ancient wisdom. I really am intrigued by what you said at the very beginning, that it hadn't come to me, that Stoicism had this, you know, half millennia or so to develop, and then very quickly got...

• 58:48Chris Williamson?

  Muted by the new kid on the block, which was Christianity for about a thousand years and then came back Renaissance, then really sort of kicked on enlightenment, then stopped again. And now people like yourself and Ryan Holiday, so on and so forth are repopularizing it. But I wonder, I wonder what we would have if Stoicism had been allowed to continue unfettered, or even a couple of schools of it, you know, had been able to keep going for 1500 years. It would have been very interesting.

• 59:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, we would have something similar to modern Buddhism. We would have a number of schools of thought. Some of them would probably have developed certain strands of ancient thought into new directions and others would have picked up on other strands. And some of them are even becoming compatible. I mean, there are some versions of modern Buddhism that you could argue are actually incompatible with each other, even though they all come from the same root. Their emphasis, their development has been such that they are actually not compatible. And that's great because that means that there is more variation, there is more to pick from in terms of when you're thinking about your philosophy of life, you say, okay, well, that there is different ways of thinking about this stuff. And, you know, let me see which one actually resonates with me and which one is actually useful to me.

• 1:00:04Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I really love that quote and I'd written it down and then you said it. So I couldn't say it. Those who have advanced these doctrines before us are not our masters, but our guides from Seneca. And with that as well is a lovely way to kind of remind us all that the vast majority of what I spend my time thinking about and talking about on the show, which is how to lead a good life and how to be virtuous and be happy and be feel fulfilled is an ongoing process. There is wisdom of the past that we can take in and think, oh, my God, this is, there's so much of the work has been done already. But there's a massive amount of imposter syndrome or over, over respect, I guess, for the sages of the past to presume that there's no more work to be done on top of

• 1:00:49Chris Williamson?

  that. So the Stoic guide to a happy life will be linked in the show notes below. If you've enjoyed today, I highly, highly recommend that you go and check it out. Very easy book to read. What we are 150 pages, pocket sized, your vade may come to take with you. Anywhere else that people should go and check out, Massimo?

• 1:01:08Speaker 00

  Well, if anybody's interested in pretty much everything I do, from podcasting to writing essays and books, they can go to massimopigliucci.com.

• 1:01:16Chris Williamson?

  I imagine that was a very easy URL to get.

• 1:01:20Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:01:21Chris Williamson?

  No one else competing for that.

• 1:01:22Speaker 00

  It's a little bit more difficult to spell, but it's.

• 1:01:25Chris Williamson?

  It'll be linked. There's a link in the show notes below. Do not, I implore you, you will lose brain cells trying to write it yourself. Just click the link below. It's been a pleasure to have you on twice in 2020, mate. I'm looking forward to the next time.

• 1:01:36Speaker 00

  So do I. Thank you.

• 1:01:49Speaker 02

  Mr. President, my company tore me of the explosion on our rig on October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me.

• 1:01:59Speaker 03

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 1:02:06Speaker 04

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stop, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 1:02:10Speaker 03

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:02:13Speaker 04

  I'm not the first then.

• 1:02:15Speaker 03

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17 not a middle without parent.