The Past Is a Lie | Would Ryan Holiday Ever Run for Office?

We are lucky to live in this moment, however flawed. 📚 Grab signed copies https://www.thepaintedporch.com/search?type=product&q=steven+pressfield* of Steven’s books at The Painted Porch https://www.thepaintedporch.com/search?type=product&q=steven+pressfield*: The Arcadian https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/the-arcadian?_pos=6&_sid=17e25241f&_ss=r Turning Pro https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/writing8?_pos=5&_sid=17e25241f&_ss=r Put Your Ass Where Your Heart Wants To Be https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/put-your-ass-where-your-heart-wants-to-be-signed-by-steven-pressfield?_pos=13&_sid=17e25241f&_ss=r The War of Art https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/war-of-art-break-through-the-blocks-and-win-your-inner-creative-battles?_pos=8&_sid=17e25241f&_ss=r The Daily Pressfield https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/the-daily-pressfield?_pos=1&_sid=17e25241f&_ss=r The Warrior Ethos https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/the-warrior-ethos-signed-edition?_pos=7&_sid=17e25241f&_ss=r A Man At Arms https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/a-man-at-arms-a-novel?_pos=14&_sid=17e25241f&_ss=r Gates of Fire https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/war11?_pos=3&_sid=17e25241f&_ss=rhttps://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/war11?_pos=3&_sid=17e25241f&_ss=r The Virtues of War https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/virtues-of-war-a-novel-of-alexander-the-great?_pos=10&_sid=17e25241f&_ss=r Follow Steven on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/steven_pressfield/?hl=en| @steven_pressfield https://www.instagram.com/steven_pressfield/?hl=en Check out more of his work on his website: https://stevenpressfield.com/ 🎟️https://www.dailystoiclive.com/DAILY STOIC LIVE https://www.dailystoiclive.com/| Ryan Holiday is coming to a city near you https://www.dailystoiclive.com/! Grab tickets here https://www.dailystoiclive.com/ | https://www.dailystoiclive.com/ 🎙️AD-FREE https://dailystoic.supercast.com/| Support the podcast and go deeper into Stoicism by subscribing toThe Daily Stoic Premium https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ - unlock ad-free listening, early access, and bonus content:https://dailystoic.supercast.com/ ✉️ FREE STOIC WISDOM https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail | Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email athttps://dailystoic.com/dailyemail -- Stop online threats before they become real-world attacks. Visit ironwall.com/DAILYSTOIC and request a free Risk Assessment to see exactly how exposed your executives are. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

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

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Well, I just went for a long run here in Perth, Australia. And it was hot, let me tell you. And I notice when I'm not hydrated, it affects like everything, my energy, focus, speeds when I'm running, my writing ability. I'm glad I brought some instant hydration with me. The premium electrolyte drink designed to support hydration, energy, recovery, focus, and overall performance without sugar or unnecessary additives. Over 70% of Americans are chronically dehydrated, even though they're drinking tons of water. But Instant Hydration is made to be an electrolyte drink you can actually enjoy every day, not just after intense exercise.

• 0:44Speaker 00

  For a better way to stay hydrated, go to instanthydration.com/stoic and use my promo code STOIC for over 40% off your first subscription order. It's Instant Hydration's best offer available. That's instanthydration.com/stoic, promo code STOIC. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues: courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. The past is a lie. It's very easy to glamorize the past. We did it in yesterday's Daily Stoic email and podcast, marveling at what it must have

• 1:28Speaker 00

  been like to live in an age of Cato's or Marcus Aurelius's, a time of philosopher kings, a time of honor and virtue, to see the Forum before it fell into ruin, the glory that was Rome, Caput mundi, the center of the world in all its marble splendor. Except, this is a lie, or at least it's an illusion. After all, Cicero had to remind Cato that they did not live in Plato's Republic, but in the dregs of Romulus. There was corruption everywhere in those days. There was political violence and nearly unimaginable cruelty. Life was incredibly difficult and capricious. Marcus Aurelius buried eight children. This was not particularly unusual.

• 2:10Speaker 00

  It's easy to glamorize the past and sleep on the present. For all that's wrong today, for all the old fashioned values we have forgotten, this is almost certainly the greatest time to be alive in human history. The rule of law, current administration notwithstanding, is better now than it was 100 years ago, the gangster days of prohibition, and far better than it was 1,000 or 2,000 years ago with slavery and wars of conquest. We are lucky to live in this moment, however flawed, and better yet, we have a chance to make it better. We were looking to spruce up our front porch. The weather's finally getting better. We wanted to spend some time hanging out outside with the kids.

• 2:55Speaker 00

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• 4:36Speaker 00

  Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On one level, Stoicism is something we do alone, right? We read our books, listen to podcasts, we're writing in our journals, we're trying to get better as individuals. But the Stoics didn't take philosophy as something that disconnected them from others. They found it as something that reiterated the imperative of being involved and of service to others. Almost all the Stoics were involved in politics in some way. It's sad that when we talk about getting political, we think it means like having some disagreement. No, getting political is volunteering. Getting political is running for office.

• 5:20Speaker 00

  Getting political is protesting. Getting political is moving back to your hometown and opening a small business, or in my case, opening a small business in a small town that you have nothing to do with, but it's where you decided to make your home base and you want to make a civic contribution. It's getting to know your neighbors. It's being involved. Actually, that was in the ancient world, like the word idiot meant someone who was not involved in politics. Stoicism is about not being an idiot. It's about not being an idiot in a lot of ways, and literally in this way, like being involved in public life. Seneca said that was the difference between the Stoics and the Epicurus. One was involved in public life and one wasn't. This is something I talked about with my dear friend, Stephen Pressfield, who's been one of my writing heroes for a very long time.

• 6:05Speaker 00

  Stephen Pressfield wrote The War of Art, Gates of Fire, Do the Work, Turning Pro, The Daily Pressfield, has a new novel called The Arcadian. I've loved all his stuff. I've raved about all his stuff. I was walking with my father-in-law the other day. We saw a little lending library by the side of the road. Again, talking about politics. The decision to put one up is a political act. Someone put one up. We have one next to the bookstore. We have one in front of Tracy's, my wife's coffee shop. Anyways, there was a copy of Tides of War in there, one of my favorite Stephen Pressfield books. I was like to my father-in-law, you've got to have this. You haven't read this, right? And I took it, he went home and read it. In this episode, Stephen and I are talking about this obligation, the one that writers and citizens have to get involved. How unfortunately, too often though, we take that to mean opining on social media about

• 6:48Speaker 00

  national politics, not enough about actually participating in local politics, and how politics and morality are ultimately intertwined. I think this is a great episode, and I think hopefully it will explain where I'm coming from. I know sometimes people get upset when I do get quote unquote political. I explain a bit of that in this conversation with Stephen. You can grab signed copies of Stephen's books at the painted porch. He's signed a bunch while he was here. He's the best. Check out his new novel, The Arcadian. You can follow him on Instagram, at Stephen underscore Pressfield. And I've subscribed to his blog for, I don't know, 15 years. It's one of my favorite things to read when it pops up in my RSS reader. That's stevenpressfield.com.

• 7:24Steven Pressfield?

  I have to ask you this question.

• 7:27Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 7:28Steven Pressfield?

  Do you ever think about getting into politics?

• 7:30Speaker 00

  Not really. I've been asked, why?

• 7:33Steven Pressfield?

  Well, because you sort of are bordering on politics now.

• 7:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:38Steven Pressfield?

  And being outspoken about the political situation now. And it certainly wouldn't surprise me if there was, there were many people out there who thought, Ryan, on holidays, this guy should, you know, we should run, I'd vote for him, you know? But then again, if it were me, I would think, well, you can probably do more good in other ways than being trapped in Congress or something like that, you know? But I wondered if you were thinking in any of those terms.

• 8:03Speaker 00

  Do you know what the word idiot meant?

• 8:04Steven Pressfield?

  Yes, I do.

• 8:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. It means like not being involved in public affairs.

• 8:08Steven Pressfield?

  Yeah.

• 8:09Speaker 00

  It is weird that, like, on the one hand, if you speak out about what's happening in the world, people go like, why'd you have to get political? As if like, you know, defending sort of basic values is the same as lobbying for a tax bill. You know, like, that doesn't strike me as political. That strikes me as ethical sometimes.

• 8:31Steven Pressfield?

  Yeah.

• 8:32Speaker 00

  So on the one hand, people are like, don't get political. And then when people go, you know, we should get involved in politics, we seem to think that means you have to run for office, as if you can't contribute and be involved politically in other ways. It's like all or nothing. There's something weird about that.

• 8:49Steven Pressfield?

  Yeah. But like, say Timothy Snyder.

• 8:51Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 8:52Steven Pressfield?

  He's not running for office, but he's very definitely contributing.

• 8:56Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 8:57Steven Pressfield?

  To the debate.

• 8:58Speaker 00

  So what do you think about him moving to Canada?

• 9:00Steven Pressfield?

  I actually applaud that.

• 9:03Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 9:04Steven Pressfield?

  Because, you know, this is for real.

• 9:06Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 9:07Steven Pressfield?

  You know? And you know, he's on a list. He's on a lot of lists.

• 9:10Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:11Steven Pressfield?

  And there are people who are thinking, how are we going to get this motherfucker?

• 9:13Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 9:14Steven Pressfield?

  And so I hope Canada's far enough away. I don't know if he actually, did he move there or he just took a job teaching at?

• 9:22Speaker 00

  He gave up tenure at Harvard or whatever.

• 9:24Steven Pressfield?

  Oh, he did.

• 9:25Speaker 00

  Yeah. As far as I understand it, it is weird to even think. That reprisal and persecution is part of the political equation now.

• 9:37Steven Pressfield?

  Yes, but

• 9:38Speaker 00

  And it is. Yeah.

• 9:40Steven Pressfield?

  Uh huh. You know, and you think of all of the Jews that later that came to the States, you know, in the 30s, and even somebody like Billy Wilder, or some of the, you know, the movie director, that really contributed.

• 9:54Speaker 00

  True.

• 9:55Steven Pressfield?

  And what would have happened had they not?

• 9:56Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 9:57Steven Pressfield?

  You know, which is another pathetic thing that they, they came here.

• 10:00Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 10:01Steven Pressfield?

  Now people are leaving here.

• 10:03Speaker 00

  There is something darkly ironic about the Nazi war machine being ultimately undone by the people that it pushed out. You know, like, like their inability to deal with people that they disagreed with or disliked or were different was an enormous brain drain that

• 10:22Steven Pressfield?

  Yeah.

• 10:23Speaker 00

  that fueled America, not just for the five years of, of the war, but, but for the rest of the 20th and 21st century. And now, yeah, now we're labeling everything as woke and, you know, silly because we don't like it and, and, um, you know, driving those people out of the armed forces, driving those people out of public life, driving them to move to other countries.

• 10:44Steven Pressfield?

  Yeah.

• 10:44Speaker 00

  It's the biggest self-owned

• 10:47Steven Pressfield?

  Yeah.

• 10:47Speaker 00

  since then. It's going to be, it's a huge strategic and cultural error.

• 10:51Steven Pressfield?

  Yeah. On the other hand, speaking of Timothy Snyder, maybe I'm reading you wrong, but you were thinking like, if he stayed here, that would be a, a different statement.

• 10:59Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 11:00Steven Pressfield?

  You know, to fight from inside.

• 11:01Speaker 00

  I don't like the don't obey in advance guy moving to Canada before they've actually rounded anyone up.

• 11:08Steven Pressfield?

  Yeah, I'm of two minds there too.

• 11:11Speaker 00

  It's like, I understand it on a personal level.

• 11:13Steven Pressfield?

  It's a statement though. It is a statement that's, uh, that's powerful, you know?

• 11:17Speaker 00

  It's a canary in a coal mine.

• 11:19Steven Pressfield?

  Yeah.

• 11:19Speaker 00

  Kind of a thing that you don't like. But anyways, to go to your point, your question, I do think about that. Like, I think it's very important to be engaged politically, to not just pretend that what's happening isn't happening and to speak up and to be involved. I just think it's, you know, it's interesting. Today I have to vote. For some reason, this small town, we have to vote like every three months. It's like some primary runoff and mayor thing. And I was like, I don't know if I have time. And then I was like, you know, we talk about being engaged and then 50% of the population doesn't even vote.

• 11:49Steven Pressfield?

  Yeah.

• 11:49Speaker 00

  Right? Like the mayor of this town, the election's going to be decided by like a few dozen votes.

• 11:55Steven Pressfield?

  Uh huh.

• 11:55Speaker 00

  You know, and, and so it is interesting how we tend to, I think we focus too much on geopolitics and national politics and not enough on

• 12:06Steven Pressfield?

  Yeah, the local school board and all that kind of thing. Yeah.

• 12:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, where the actual decisions get made.

• 12:10Steven Pressfield?

  Yeah, right. Yeah.

• 12:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 12:11Steven Pressfield?

  Anyway, I was just curious what you were

• 12:13Speaker 00

  No, and I, I do sometimes wonder too, if talking about these political things pushes people out of being interested in Stoicism, that they, they would have found a lot of value in the philosophy, but maybe we do have different views on, you know, some basic policy issues. So there's a trade off, but at the same time I do, it feels weird not to say what you think because you're worried about losing your audience.

• 12:39Steven Pressfield?

  Yeah.

• 12:40Speaker 00

  So that strikes me as a political act. What about you? You don't, you talk about it sometimes.

• 12:44Steven Pressfield?

  Not as much as I, I think maybe I should, but I, I look at it, you know, I don't know if I'm making excuses for not doing it or not, but, um, there's sort of, somebody was talking about a point of leverage. Where can you place yourself where you make the most of what you're, of what you're doing? And there are, at least this is what I tell myself, maybe I'm just rationalizing, but there are so many voices

• 13:09Speaker 00

  As ominous thunder goes in the background. Yeah.

• 13:12Steven Pressfield?

  So many voices out, including yours, that are saying what I believe.

• 13:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:17Steven Pressfield?

  And am I going to help by just repeating? I'm sort of, maybe I'm, I'm waiting for a moment, you know?

• 13:24Speaker 00

  There's a book in the books here. I'll give you Stephen Greenblatt, um, who's this amazing Shakespearean scholar. He wrote this book called Tyrants. It's similar to Snyder's book, but it's, it's a look at Shakespeare's political plays.

• 13:37Steven Pressfield?

  Uh huh.

• 13:38Speaker 00

  And he talks about at the beginning that Shakespeare sort of makes one contemporary political reference in his life, and it like immediately lands him in jail.

• 13:48Steven Pressfield?

  Oh, really?

• 13:48Speaker 00

  And almost gets him sort of deplatformed.

• 13:50Steven Pressfield?

  Ah.

• 13:51Speaker 00

  So he decides in that moment, like never again.

• 13:53Steven Pressfield?

  Uh huh.

• 13:54Speaker 00

  And yet, almost all of his plays are statements on government and personality and rights and courage and virtues. And so basically his argument was that he just slightly subsumes his political and moral and ethical beliefs in, he, he decides it's much safer to talk about Roman politics as a means of making political commentary on, you know, Elizabethan England.

• 14:22Steven Pressfield?

  Yeah.

• 14:22Speaker 00

  And, and

• 14:23Steven Pressfield?

  And aren't we glad he did?

• 14:24Speaker 00

  Of, of course. And, and by the way, if he had mostly talked about Elizabethan England, would we still be talking about him 500 years later?

• 14:32Steven Pressfield?

  Yeah.

• 14:32Speaker 00

  And so I think most of the political writing I do is in the Stoics themselves.

• 14:39Steven Pressfield?

  Politics and morality are really, you know, in many ways, the same thing, you know?

• 14:44Speaker 00

  I don't know if everyone believes that.

• 14:46Steven Pressfield?

  Certainly these days, they are, I think, you know?

• 14:49Speaker 00

  Yeah. And, and I think the founders obviously believed that you couldn't separate the two. Like it was inconceivable to them. It was funny. I, I just did this event at Stanford with General Mattis.

• 15:00Steven Pressfield?

  Uh huh.

• 15:01Speaker 00

  And watching, he's such a calm, contained guy. And they were asking him about the political situation. He goes, you know, things have been bad before. He's like, this country almost elected Aaron Burr, you know? And he, it was like, like you could tell how animated he was. But the point was that the founders believed that you really couldn't let people without honor or virtue anywhere near the levers of power, or you'd have

• 15:26Steven Pressfield?

  Yeah.

• 15:26Speaker 00

  a problem.

• 15:27Steven Pressfield?

  Yeah.

• 15:27Speaker 00

  And that's, I think, why we're in the mess that we're in.

• 15:30Steven Pressfield?

  So true. So true. They couldn't, they couldn't inoculate us in advance against that, you know?

• 15:36Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 15:36Steven Pressfield?

  And that's what, that's the sort of the crack that let the, you know, the cancer into the, into the body politic.

• 15:43Speaker 00

  That's right. Yeah. John Adams said, uh, a country without virtue in the people would go through the constitution like a whale through a net.

• 15:51Steven Pressfield?

  Ah.

• 15:52Speaker 00

  And so you get some singular figure who doesn't have shame, who doesn't feel compelled to be honest, who, who embraces corruption and cruelty. And, and all of a sudden you find it's like they're speedrunning through all these checks and balances.

• 16:08Steven Pressfield?

  Yeah.

• 16:08Speaker 00

  It's crazy.

• 16:22Speaker 03

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