Today's Meditation: The Pocket Stoic by John Sellars, 3: The Problem with Emotions I can maintain my equanimity by maintaining my pause, my 'space between stimulus and response.' I need to teach myself, or rather train myself, to act not  re act, just as we can learn to mitigate our startle response.  Take a soldier. They live their lives around guns and explosions. Do they jump and shiver every time one goes off? Not if they've been trained properly. Repeated exposure to the sounds, from practice on the firing range to hearing artillery and fighter planes race around the sky, they learn to stop panicking every time something sudden and loud happens near them.* So do the same for what penchants I have for impulsive anger, jealousy, envy, panic, offense, embarrassment, and outrage. Practice my premeditatio malorum . Imagine in great detail, with as much versimillitude as I can, situations in which I am slighted or insulted, jostled or struck, embarrassed or...

Today's Meditation: On Providence , Seneca, 4.11 Save for losing my son and now my parents, I've had too soft a life. Worse, I've inflicted this on my children as well. I've some searching and thinking to do. How to improve myself. To become more tolerant to cold and lack of comfort. To find my gumption traps and fix them. To practice my premeditatio malorum . even when it's less-than-fun. How to help my children. Mostly to become more resilient and perseverant.

Today's Meditation: The Daily Stoic 260816 I made bad choices yesterday. I excepted myself from my own rules. I indulged when I knew I should not. Today is an opportunity to be better, to make choices that are wiser, kinder, sustainable . . . better. The start has gone well. Let's keep it going.

Today's Meditation: A Calendar of Wisdom by Leo Tolstoy (trans. Cockrell) Innocence allows for joy, but is it sufficient? Perhaps. In my appetency, I cannot know. ===== Wise Thoughts for Every Day by Leo Tolstoy (ed. and trans. Sekirin) How central is forgiveness. It unburdens the psyche (soul / heart / mind), freeing me to become better. "Why are you still carrying her?"  becomes "Why am I still carrying it*?" Let. It. Go. ===== * 'it' = the sins committed against me that I allow to undermine my serenity, my happiness, my innocent joy at life

Today's Meditation: A Calendar of Wisdom by Leo Tolstoy Anything put on long enough seems deemed to be from the heavens.  Life without force seems otherworldly, unwise, foolish. But it's not.

Today's Meditation: The Tower of Life: Letters from a Stoic to His Son  by Mihail Yonkov, Anima Pingitur Cogitationibus Suis Excellence (virtue) is a habit. As I consistently do, so I am. So do already! And do again! And again! It's worth it. It gets easier. It reinforces. Do and be happy.

Today's Meditation : The Tower of Life: Letters from a Stoic to His Son by Mihail Yonkov, IX: Luck Sorta like Premeditatio Malorum . Imagine the 'bad' situation (I lose my job, someone tells me a lie, someone is ill, divorce, losing a loved one . . . the kind of thing normally thought of as bad in the usual sense of the word). The more and better I think through these 'bad' things, play with them and examine the situation and my role in it the more capable I'll be if / something 'bad' happens.  Note the technical distinction between Stoic good and bad and good and bad in the vernacula: Stoic good is living a virtuous life,. They do this trying to live in agreement with reason and follow Nature. Bad = living viciously (from vice). 

Today's Meditation: The Tower of Life: Letters from a Stoic to His Son by Mihail Yonkov, Aedificium Tuum, Speculum Tuum A great take. As I've heard and said myself, happiness is a crowded table. Let me not look for others for validation. Focus on my family and friends, and others I can bring into my world.

Today's Meditation: Letters from a Stoic to His Son by Mihail Yonkov, VII. Associate With Those Who May Improve You Some bits to not dislike in this section and a few things simply wrong . First, the bad: --- First he denigrates shepherds (read: people who aren't interested in 'building a tower' [read: personality] in his mold — which, I need remember is so far not distinctly Stoic in any way). Then he says "don't judge others' 'structures' " (same as tower above) as good or bad. Then he states plainly a moral relativism utterly antithetical to Stoicism. Stoicism has virtue, excellence, as it's only good. Nothing else matters. Not money nor property nor high birth nor expensive trinkets and fancy friends. If you are not pursuing virtue, you are doing it wrong. Other choices are not just as good. === Let me end with some good advice he offers: Forgiveness is key if we want to live together in social harmo...

Today's Meditation: The Tower of Life: Letters from a Stoic to His Son by Mihail Yonkov, VI. Consistency What Mr. Yonkov is saying is 100% true and 100% important. But . . . I'm not even going to say it. Cf. Calvin Coolidge's quote on persistence: "Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On!' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."

Today's Meditation: The Tower of Life: Letters from a Stoic to His Son by Mihail Yonkov, V. On Meaning and Purpose Considering the reality of the situation is a Stoic precept: deal with the real world as it is.  Don't add my assumptions and fears and hopes to the mix: what, in it most straightforward sense, is presented to me?

Today's Meditation: Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse (trans. by Joachim Neugroschel)  The Tao that can be told is not the true Tao. It's a reflection, a piece, an incomplete expression of a whole that must be experienced to be approached.

Today's Meditation: The Tower of Life: Letters from a Stoic to His Son by Mihail Yonkov, IV. Labor Omnia Vinclt (Good thoughts here. A good lesson to teach a child. Still not Stoic, though. I'm beginning to wonder if the title was a ruse....) I'm certainly guilty of this one: thinking more than doing. I've been lucky in life. I've been privileged. I've also worked hard. Always full effort? No. Not in the slightest. But ignoring the things I really wanted to do? Well, yeah that, too. Sometimes, not all the time. Still way more than I should have. Many years of 'wasted efforts' but not a complete loss as it taught me enough to be where I am today. Prokopton .

Today's Meditation: The Tower of Life: Letters from a Stoic to His Son by Mihail Yonkov, III Knowledge is Your Foundation So far, I've seen little that is particularly Stoic in this book. The advice isn't too bad. Some wisdom can be found, but it hasn't been readily apparent to date: I've had to look carefully to find something to meditate upon. This wisdom could lead a person to put down this book, if they are not satisfied a mere three short letters in. But I will continue. I can approach it as training, if nothing else: everything has something to teach me if I can just see it.

Today's Meditation: The Tower of Life: Letters from a Stoic to His Son  by Mihail Yonkov, II As the World So the Man  Continuing the methphor, Mr. Yonkov explains to his son that where he developed has an immense effect on him. The buildings, the cities, the country, the businesses, the gov't, the religion, the mores and habits and background assumptions that are that perticular world. The resources available to him play a part as well. What does he have? What is available he can get? Land? Vehicles? Natural resources? Infrastructure? Farming? Livestock? Are there intangible assets to explore and employ: social capital, community trust, local brainpower and organization, personal connections? And who are the people? Who can help? How can they help? What can I offer them? How can we form a cohesive unit working toward the same end? And it's sadly all too often we refuse to believe that we need these things — places, stuff, people — until we get older and have dis...

Today's Meditation: The Tower of Life: Letters from a Stoic to His Son by Mihail Yonkov, I The Ground Beneath the Edifice Mihail is writing to his son about building his character over the course of his life. Laying foundations. Building structures. Tearing down the same to build new upon it. The metaphor is about how Rome sits atop the ruins of millenia of discarded, destroyed, or simply forgotten older buildings. Each layer becoming the foundation of the next. And how, via the metaphor, the layers below are made of the memories and experiences the son collects on his way through life. Keep building. Build the best you can each time, hopefully better than the last.

Today's Meditation: Stoic Lessons by Chuck Chakrapani, p. 14 The shit I go through / went through for money, for objects, for food, for love and sex (esp. when I was young), for reputation and praise, to avoid looking like a fool.... And yet, I balk at reading some words on a page to improve my mind or from moving my ass to improve my body. I avoid taking on extra work that would advance my goals and wallow in my bed rather than "rise and do the work of a man."  "When it comes to working, you are quick to look for limits and do as little as possible." ( Meditations , 5.1, Hicks and Hicks)

Today's Last Night's Meditation: My journey last night involved a lot of realizations.  I can be truly happy even when I don't indulge my vices. People of all abilities strain against their limitations and it's wonderful and worthy. Look for expression and talent and art everywhere. I can appreciate things better when I actively try, when I deliberately put my expectations, assumptions, and biases aside. I need to be better about what I eat. And it's possible without deprivation. I need to exercise more. My wife deserves better from me: better attention, better care, more respect. I have friends I need to reconnect with. I need to stop intoxicating myself so much. The occasional beer or bowl is one thing. Daily, and in quantity, is too much. I need to examine my assumptions about people more often and...

Today's Meditation(s): Stoic Lessons by Chuck Chakrapani, p. 13 How will I know if I can stand up to adversity if I never put my beliefs into practice? If I never test my mettle against a real and active opponent or situation? I can't. If all I do is think, what good am I?

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses 2.5, 15 by Epictetus (Waterfield) Do all I can to perform the best I can and, après la, deus vult . (May god forgive me for that.) It's not the ball, it's the player. It's not the instrument, it's the musician. It's not the indifferent, it's the Inner Citadel. Accept reality as it is and move on.  I cannot change what has happened, but only what I do now.

Today's Meditation(s): My partner gets the benefit of the doubt . If there's more than one way to interpret something, especially an emotional something, and one way of looking at it assumes that whatever happened was innocent — an accident, a mistake, an overreaction — rather than malfeasance, then I must accept that version unless proven otherwise. It's a foundational premise on which my spouse and I built our relationship and it has forestalled many a dispute between us. And yesterday I failed to do that. One of the Stoics great points was to insert some time before we act. In Frankl's words, "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom." In Haidt's metaphor, it allows time for the elephant to be thwarted, to be turned back to the rational path by the rider. And, in the 10 minutes I had between a phone call and meeting in person, I failed both of these...

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses 2.5, 6-8 by Epictetus (Waterfield) The things are indifferent. What I do with them is not: I can use a gun villainously or valiantly. I can run an organization ruthlessly or responsibly. I can spend money wickedly or wisely. All of those involve preference and choice. These are things that are  mine. These are things that cannot be taken from me. I can relinquish them, but they cannot be taken.

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses 2.4, 10-11 by Epictetus (Dobbin) Interesting non sequitur . Anyway.... I have to do more than study. I have to live what I learn. I have to practice my Stoicism. I have to take being a prokopton seriously.

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses 2.2, 21 by Epictetus (Waterfield) ( This one's going in the book. I'd forgotten about it. ) Learn the basics, set my foundation, build slowly, practice . . . flow. When I get confused or uncertain, go back to the beginning: what is up to me? what is consistent with reason? what follows Nature? what can wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance offer? are my values focused on the right thing? And my own: am I being kind?

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses 2.1, 40 by Epictetus (Waterfield) And I get it wrong. Acting as though nothing is at stake when judging internal states with ease and assuredness while approaching things that don't matter with consummate care. My virtue is dependent on only of of there. Perhaps that's where my concern should be, too.