Epictetus - Discourses Pt. 4: On Progress

In today’s audiobook reading, Ryan presents an excerpt from one of the seminal texts of Stoicism, the Discourses of Epictetus, read by Michael Reid. As a series of lectures given by Epictetus that were written down by his pupil Arrian in 108 A. D., these discourses provide practical advice to think on and practice in order to move oneself closer toward the ultimate goal of living free and happy. In this third section, Epictetus discusses how we should see ourselves in comparison with the gods.✉️ 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.

• 0:04Speaker 00

  Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Sundays, we take a deeper dive into these ancient topics with excerpts from the Stoic texts, audiobooks that we like here or recommend here at Daily Stoic, and other long-form wisdom that you can chew on on this relaxing weekend. We hope this helps shape your understanding of this philosophy, and most importantly, that you're able to apply it to your actual life. Thank you for listening.

• 0:44Speaker 00

  Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another Sunday episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. The way we have Epictetus's thoughts are not through anything that he wrote. He gave his lectures. His lectures were written down by his student Arian, Arian who also famously wrote a book on the campaigns of Alexander. Arian writes down Epictetus, and then obviously, there's not an audiobook that we can take directly from Epictetus. But in today's episode, we have Michael Reid bringing you Epictetus by way of Arian. He's bringing us a chunk of Discourses IV where Epictetus is talking about progress and making progress, and I hope this episode helps you make a little progress yourself.

• 1:22Speaker 01

  Whoever is making progress after learning from philosophers that desire is directed toward good things and avoidance directed toward bad, and having also learned that impassivity and a good flow of life are not attained except through unerring desire and unfailing avoidance, that person will do away with desire altogether, or else defer it to another time, and exercise avoidance only on things within the moral sphere. Because they know that if they try to avoid anything outside the moral sphere, they are going to run into something contrary to their aversion and face disaster.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  But if virtue holds this promise, to secure happiness, impassivity, and a good flow of life, then progress toward virtue must involve progress toward these other states as well. For wherever the perfection of anything tends, progress is always an approach towards the same thing. So how is it that, although we are now agreed about the nature of virtue, we still try to demonstrate progress in areas that are unrelated? What is the goal of virtue after all, except a life that flows smoothly? So who is making progress? The person who has read many of Chrysippus's books? Is virtue no more than this, to become literate in Chrysippus?

• 2:50Speaker 01

  Because if that's what it is, then progress cannot amount to anything more than learning as much Chrysippus as we can. We are agreed, however, that virtue produces one thing, while maintaining that the approach to it, progress, results in something different. This person can read Chrysippus already by himself. "You are making progress by God," someone says sarcastically. "Some progress, that is." Why do you make fun of him? Well, why do you try to distract him from coming to an awareness of his faults? Don't you want to show him the purpose of virtue, so that he will know what real progress consists in?

• 3:35Speaker 01

  "Look for it in your volition, friend, that is, in your desire and avoidance. Make it your goal never to fail in your desires, or experience things you would rather avoid. Try never to err on impulse and repulsion. Aim to be perfect, also in the practice of attention and withholding judgment." But the first subjects are the most essential. If you aim to be perfect when you are still anxious and apprehensive, how have you made progress? So let's see some evidence of it. But no, it's as if I were to say to an athlete, "Show me your shoulders," and he responded with, "Have a look at my weights."

• 4:19Speaker 01

  "Get out of here with you and your gigantic weights," I'd say. "What I want to see isn't the weights, but how you've profited from using them." Take the treatise on impulse and see how well I've read it, idiot. It's not that I'm after. I want to know how you put impulse and repulsion into practice, and desire and avoidance as well. I want to know how you apply and prepare yourself, and how you practice attention, so that I can decide whether with you these functions operate in harmony with nature. If you are in fact acting in accord with nature,

• 5:00Speaker 01

  then show me, and I will be the first to say that you are making progress. But otherwise, be off. And rather than just comment on books, you might as well go write one yourself. But in the end, what good will it do you? You know that a whole book costs around five dinari. Is the commentator then worth more than that? Don't put your purpose in one place and expect to see progress made somewhere else. Where is progress then? If there is anyone who renounces externals and attends instead to their character, cultivating and perfecting it so that it agrees with nature,

• 5:44Speaker 01

  making it honest and trustworthy, elevated, free, unchecked, and undeterred. And if they've learned that whoever desires or avoids things outside their control cannot be free or faithful, but has to shift and fluctuate right along with them, subject to anyone with the power to furnish or deprive them of these externals. And if from the moment they get up in the morning, they adhere to their ideals, eating and bathing like a person of integrity, putting their principles into practice in every situation they face, the way a runner does when he applies the principles of running, or a singer, those of musicianship,

• 6:28Speaker 01

  that is where you will see true progress embodied and find someone who has not wasted their time making the journey here from home. But anyone whose sole passion is reading books, and who does little else besides having moved here for this, my advice for them is to go back home immediately and attend to business there, because they left home for nothing. A student should practice how to expunge from his life sighs and sorrow, grief and disappointment, exclamations like "poor me" and "alas." He should learn what death is, as well as exile, jail, and hemlock,

• 7:10Speaker 01

  so at the end of the day he can say, like Socrates in prison, "Dear Cretos, if it pleases the gods, so be it." Instead of "poor me, an old man, is this what old age held in store for me?" Don't imagine that I am referring to anyone humble or obscure either. Priam says it, so does Oedipus. In fact, all the kings of legend can be found saying it. For what else are tragedies but the ordeals of people who have come to value externals, tricked out in tragic verse? If I had to be deceived into believing that externals,

• 7:52Speaker 01

  which lie outside our power, are not man's proper concern, personally, I would consent to such a deception, provided it really could enable me to live an untroubled life in peace of mind. Which condition you prefer, you can determine for yourself. What does Chrysippus give us? "To make certain," he says, "that these doctrines promising freedom from passion and serenity are legitimate. Take all my books, and you will find that the knowledge that makes me impassive is faithful to and in accord with nature." How lucky we are! A benefactor, and how great a benefactor, has shown us the way.

• 8:38Speaker 01

  Men have erected altars to Tryptolomus for giving us the art of farming. But the man who found, disclosed, and explained the truth to everyone. Not the truth that pertains just to living, but to living well. Who among you ever raised an altar, built a temple, erected a statue, or venerated god for that? We offer the gods sacrifice because they gave us wheat and wine. But they have produced such wonderful fruit in a human mind as part of their plan to bestow on humanity the true secret of happiness. Are we going to forget to express our gratitude to them on that account?

• 9:27Speaker 00

  Thanks for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Just a reminder, we've got signed copies of all my books in the Daily Stoic store. You can get them personalized, you can get them sent to a friend. The Obstacle is the Way, He Goes the Enemy, Stillness is the Key, the leather-bound edition of The Daily Stoic. We have them all in the Daily Stoic store, which you can check out at store.dailystoic.com.