We Can Go At Any Moment

It’s easy to nod along with a book (or even this email) when you’re reading it. Or to double-tap the like button when you see an inspiring Instagram post. But how long does this stay with you? How quickly will its message flutter away? It’s a critical problem for all of us out there who are trying to get better. Who are trying to actually live the principles of philosophy, and to rely on it in life’s stressful moments, as well as life’s ordinary hours. Inspired by the French painter Philippe de Champaign famous painting “Still Life with a Skull,” the sterling silver and brass ring, created by LHN Jewelry in Brooklyn, New York, features the three essentials of existence – the tulip (life), the skull (death), and the hourglass (time). The inside is engraved with Marcus Aurelius’s timeless words: “You could leave life right now…” What’s left to the wearer is to repeat to themselves the final half of his quote: “…Let that determine what you do and say and think.” Grab yours at dailystoic.com/MMring.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee 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.

• 0:03Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom in everyday 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, dailystoic.com.

• 0:30Ryan Holiday?

  We can go at any moment. It's easy to nod along with a book or this email while you're reading it, or double-tap the like button when you see an inspiring Instagram post. But how long does this stay with you? How quickly will the message flutter away? It's a critical problem for all of us out here who are trying to be better, who are actually trying to live the principles of philosophy and to rely on it in life's stressful moments, as well as life's ordinary hours. Stoicism as a philosophy was made to be kept in hand, always at the ready. Even the title of Epictetus's Incaridian shows this. As A.A. Long writes in his recent translation of Epictetus for the Princeton University Press, "In its earliest usage,

• 1:14Ryan Holiday?

  Incaridian refers to a hand-knife or a dagger. Arian may have wished to suggest that connotation of the work's defensive or protective function. It fits his admonition, the beginning and the end of the text, to keep Epictetus's message to hand." And that really tells you something about this philosophy, doesn't it? That it's not just a book. It's not just handy. It's designed to become almost an extension of ourselves, to protect and serve us in each day's task. When it comes to memento mori, this thing we talk about all the time here on Daily Stoic, different generations have attempted to keep this idea at hand in different ways. And the result can be seen across generations of writing and art and music and jewelry and ritual.

• 2:00Ryan Holiday?

  Roman generals employed aides to remind them of this fact at the moments of their greatest triumph. Philosophers have kept skulls on their desks for thousands of years. In the Sufi tradition, some were called the people of the graves because of their practice of frequenting graveyards to ponder death and one's mortality. In Renaissance Europe, memento mori prayer beads were a popular way to keep death in mind. Famous artists from Rembrandt to Damien Hirst have added to the memento mori genre centuries apart from each other. Beneath the Church of Santa Maria in Rome, there is a crypt built in 1630, decorated with the remains of 4,000 friars. In the middle, there is a plaque inscribed in three different languages that state,

• 2:44Ryan Holiday?

  "What you are now, we once were. What we are now, you shall be." They were all trying to remember, to keep at hand, the idea that we can go at any moment. And while times change and it may no longer be practical to have a servant whisper death in your ear, the benefits of memento mori remain and must be always kept at hand. And literally, at hand, right? This is what the memento mori signet ring we were talking about a couple of weeks ago was meant to do and is meant to do. And it's why I wear one. You can see me wearing it in a lot of interviews and onstage appearances.

• 3:25Ryan Holiday?

  I'm at the beach, so I took it off, but I was wearing it yesterday. The idea of the ring is that it reminds us not to obsess over trivialities or worry too much about what other people think, try to make more money we could possibly spend, or assume we're invincible, or make plans too far off in the future. Because all these things are humbled, negated by death, and we've got to stop pretending otherwise. That's one of the reasons I try to make cool stuff, though, that I'm proud of now, rather than, you know, cutting corners and... Saying I'll make up for it later. This one was designed and crafted by LHN Jewelry based in Brooklyn. They use this ancient process that they carve it into wax and they cast the brass and the silver. They sketched this by hand.

• 4:07Ryan Holiday?

  They, they used the model of the, the coin, the first, one of the first Daily Stoic products, the hourglass, the skull, the flower. And then they engraved in the inside of the ring. Let that determine what you do and say and think. All the sawing and engraving and hammering and soldering was done with precision and care right here in the U.S. The Memento Mori Premium Signet Ring is made of sterling silver and brass. The front has this cool antique patina on it. It's 17 millimeters by 17 millimeters. You've probably seen me wearing it a million times. I am, like I said, wearing it right now. You can go to dailystoic.com/mmring to purchase or just click in today's show notes.