Today's Meditation(s): Meditations 3.1 (Waterfield) Use my Inner Citadel as a temporary retreat when I need to recharge myself, to remind myself of my principles. Let me then return to life, prepared for what comes next. See the big picture. Stay on target to my goals by giving details their due, but no more. See what is right. Stay above popular opinion and keep sight of virtue.

Today's Meditation(s): Meditations 3.1 (Waterfield) This is true for me. My father and grandfather have both suffer(ed) from mental decline in their later years (though from different mechanisms). It wouldn't be a surprise if I do, too. How do I best ensure that I remain true to my principles if my reason is failing me? Will I avoid the fate? Will I find something to fix my brain? Will this become an 'open door' situation? Fate willing, I'll live long enough to find out.

Today's Meditation(s): Hadot's ch. 3, The Meditations as Spiritual Exercises , which I've been reading and using this space to make some notes, is broken into 6 parts: "Theory and" "practice" Dogma and their formulation The three rules of life or disciplines Imaginative exercises Writing as spiritual exercise "Greek" exercises Hadot's analyzes the Meditations as different ways of reinforcing Stoic effects in Marcus' psyche .   They are the "practice" part of Stoic "theory."   They allow Marcus to craft specific dogmas ("foundational and fundamental rules") which re-present the wisdom Marcus has learned in his way, restating and reworking them to make them stick in his mind.  They express three Stoic rules of life: 1. use your judgment to find truth; 2. accept the world as it is; and 3. practice justice and altruism towards others. They elicit images of important themes to illustrate them and make them vivi...

Today's Meditation(s): Watching kidlike remonstrations, it's interesting to take in my dad's behavior and try to understand the psychology behind it. Is he reverting to the most childlike of reactions — spitting out food, resisting a change, contradicting anything and everything, etc. — from a position of spite? Is he trying to 'get even with us' for 'not taking him home' or something similar? Maybe. He sometimes seems so distant, and his eyes so empty, I might mistake it for annihilation. Other times, he's right there, staring back at me from five inches away. I also wonder how much I project onto his canvas. Which of my fears are expressed in my imagined versions of his motivations? I wished again last night that I'd studied Stoic thought with him. Then perhaps the same Stoic thoughts which help me might also help him. And it's too late to introduce them now.

Today's Meditation(s): Hadot reviews more  kephalaia  (Κεφαλαία, "chapters" or "headings") in the Meditations today. Remember that Hadot is using  kephalaia in this chapter to mean repeated foundational themes; headlines or headings, as it were. Most often, they come in lists, but they're sometimes repeated individually as well. This is one of those chapters I'm going to have to read a few times to get a better feel for it. Once was not enough. ===== Staying with my folk's tonight. Helping take care of my father. He's doing pretty well tonight. My family came over earlier. It important that they see me helping with a glad heart. And, as we've discussed in our weekly lessons recently, to communicate effectively, to make common union with another, you must have the truth in your heart. It doesn't work, you can't convince someone of your sincerity without a kernal of truth, a grain of love in your soul.  So yes, I attend my dad with a ...

Today's Meditation(s): Take the win . Something I've tried to teach my kids is to say things positively . Instead of saying, ' Don't run ', tell them what you want them to do: ' Walk please .' or ' Be careful '. Another thing I try to instill: Don't sell past the close . In other words, once you have someone's agreement, shut up. They're already convinced. Anything you say after might be the words that stop that from happening. Perhaps you can see the issue here. I've always disliked the phrase 'Don't sell past the close', despite the fact that I love the advice. Today, I heard the heading up there: Take the win. Same idea. Positive phrasing. Instant adoption. Awesome.

Today's Meditation(s): Two quotes from Ryan Holiday's Daily Stoic and Daily Dad today, both about raising kids with emotional resilience. (edited for length, emphasis added) As Dr. Becky Kennedy writes in her wonderful book Good Inside , if you want to raise happy kids, you don’t try to make them happy. You try to make them resilient and self-aware . She writes, speaking of both kids and parents, “The wider the range of feelings we can regulate—if we can manage the frustration, disappointment, envy and sadness—the more space we have to cultivate happiness. Regulating our emotions essentially develops a cushion around those feelings, softening them and preventing them from consuming the entire jar. Regulation first, happiness second.” This is great advice. The ability to deal with frustration, to not be ruled by our temper, to catch ourselves when we’re comparing, to stop ourselves when we start to spiral, these don’t seem like happy things. But that’s the point: By dealing wi...

Today's Meditation(s): Hadot, ch. 3, The Meditations as a Spiritual Exercise  Now, Hadot delves deeper. Now he's exploring the text itself and the method behind Marcus' madcap 'organization'.  They're process. They're moves to a goal. Repeated steps in a dance of learning, behavior, and self-direction. Repetition is a primary goal, not a mistake or ill-advised literary choice. It's a mantra in extended format. I love this.

I grow tired of these — These too poor imitations. I should stop. Today's Meditation(s): The  haiku  abominations I put in front in my entries are going away.  I think, of the 1000+ I've written, maybe two or three are any good.  What started as a silly way to stretch some mental muscles has turned into a chore which usually turns out poorly. References obscure to anyone but me. (And most of those will be unknowable by me, as well, on that day far in the future when I reread it.) Song lyrics which pass my brain. Snippets of overheard conversation.  All of which I cram into a 'poem'. Not a lot here to recommend that I continue to pursue them. I may still compose one every once in a while, when the Muse hits me upside the head, but, since she stopped returning my messages, that probably won't happen often. ===== Hadot's first chapter ( The Emperor-Philosopher ) discusses the king himself.  What was his life like? Who were his family, friends, and tutors? When...

Another day dawns With lessons to plan and prep. Teaching is so fun! Today's Meditation(s): (And no, my-ku up there is not sarcastic. I genuinely do enjoy teaching my kids.) Annnnnd another post gets pushed to the next day.  I'm sensing a pattern here.... I'm one chapter into Hadot's Inner Citadel and am enjoying it a lot.  It's fun to learn about the idiosyncrasies of Marcus' life and the speculations on when / how / why it was written, when the Emperor first truly adopted philosophy as life, etc. I could read about this stuff all the time. But . . . that's not what philosophy is for, for me.  Philosophy is for living, for changing, for improving myself. Academic philosophy, on the other hand, is for entertainment and not meant to be taken too seriously. (Wish I'd known that in my grad school days. I thought all the navel-gazing I was doing was Important . Quick! Parse this paragraph to within an inch of it's life! What does is mean? Is there a m...

Publishing is late. Marcus didn't write each day. Why should I? Because . . . . Today's Meditation(s): Well, because I want  to. Sometimes (e.g. yesterday) I miss / skip a day.  Yesterday was a skip. I realized, laying in bed, that I had not done the day's entry.  Could I have done it? Sure.  I could have picked up my phone and forced something out, but I've done that too much and wanted to correct my error. It seems to me that publishing a poor entry is a bigger sin than postponing publication until I can produce something worth reading. So. There you have it.  Fin. Yeah, yeah. Just kidding. Anyway . . . so . . . yeah . . . um . . . Consolations. Thinking forward to when my dad passes and trying to find ways to help comfort my mom in the aftermath, I considered buying a physical copy of Seneca's Consolations today. (I already have the Kindle version). Unfortunately, she's not a philosopher at heart. Philosophy, the specialized effort of examining life and idea...

A night out they would Remember a Very. Long. Time. Just jump to the left.... Today's Meditation(s): I need to fix my priorities, reset my inner dials to be content without my crutches. When I go out, when I stay home, when I'm not at work, I have a tendency to seek escape. It seems that the normal, unaltered world is not enough and I can't really enjoy life without adjusting my perception. Seneca's admonition that we will be unhappy on vacation if we're unsatisfied at home rings true for me. I'm still in the denial phase and need to get tired of my bullshit before I can get down to serious work. I just wish I found it as easy as some. Just flip a switch and — poof! — it's all different now. Yes I've done that before. Yes, I know I can do it again. But every time I've pulled it off, it was exactly because I'd hit that sub-basement of intense dissatisfaction which let me springboard onto my new path. It's never happened without that nadir. Cur...

A night out with friends A night in with my sweetheart. A night to enjoy. Today's Meditation(s): Now that I read this stuff for fun, it's much easier to go slowly and enjoy looking deeper into the text. I take notes. I blog about it. Yes, some days when I am busy or tired, I find it a burden to get done, but I feel better once I do.

Not such a good game. A lightless night southern sets And grasps nettles. Today's Meditation(s): Maybe I'm wrong and Hadot will offer more practical ideas than I thought. Got some good house news. The repairs I worried about are not a problem. On the other hand, I took the news of a different bill (that was more than triple what I expected) quite well, remembering to respond with kindness and care, and to put people before money and things.

I signed the letter. I chose promotion. Movin'. Now to get looking.... Today's Meditation(s): Started reading Pierre Hadot's The Inner Citadel yesterday. Just barely into it, I'm really looking forward to learning more about Marcus Aurelius and his Meditations . Still working on A Companion to Marcus Aurelius  and Long's Hellenistic Philosophy . But I know this is all vanity. I'm just learning because it's fun and I enjoy it. Perhaps it will help me be a better Stoic, but so much of academic philosophy is just analysis without soul.* For instance, the Companion , while a great read and interesting as hell, has, so far (seventeen chapters in), not offered much in terms of helping me be a more virtuous person. ====== Watching my dad's mental regression is tough. He's no longer the man who raised me. So I think back to my Stoic lessons... He's only loaned to me for a time and I must, at some point, return him to Nature. I've known all along he ...

Yet another tall tale, Told to tell a story of True and faithful love. Today's Meditation(s): Another exciting day. Got a promotion, (but not a raise [yet]). Got to 'argue with a drunk.' Got plumbing problems. Got internet problems. Got phone problems. But that's ok. I have my reason. I have my family. I have my philosophy. I have a why. I see the path of Nature before me.

Can I deliver? Can I face the aftermath? Can I keep moving? Today's Meditation(s): " Their childhood isn’t something we should rush through, that we should wish away. " (The Daily Dad newsletter) I skipped bedtime just now so I could go to sleep earlier. I should have chosen my kids.

Didn't stop her from — I'll be right back. — Going now To know that we care. Today's Meditation(s): Meditations 3.12 (Waterfield) I like that Marcus mentions kindness* here. It's something I try to emphasize in my own Stoic practice and to model for my children. I have kindness right up next to justice, courage, and temperance under the umbrella of wisdom, closest to justice. To me, kindness is fundamental and, if I keep myself anchored to it, I am much more successful at following Nature. I'm not stupid. I understand that sometimes a person will not respond to kindness. That some men 'just want to watch the world burn'. I get it. And thus I take my brain along with me wherever I go. Just because I do my best to default to kindness doesn't mean I allow others to abuse me or mine. ===== * Other translations use patience, calmness, grace, and good will. Hays Long Hammond Hicks and Hicks

Dust and crap wrappeda Round the little wheels of kind Ness. So slow your roll. Today's Meditation(s): Which will make a better memory? Staying home, warm, and letting him play online for a few hours while I futz around on my phone or read a bit? Or braving the cold to play pickup with our friends, in a special activity just for us? Choose to make a memory, even if it seems unpleasant at the time. 'God. Remember that time it was cold as a well digger's butt and we went out anyway? Man, so-and-so had that great play and him-and-such did zxy? Then we picked some burgers and.....' I can be warm later. Too soon we'll play together for the last time. I'm not giving away this one just because of a little cold.

Pause. Collect. Ponder. You can't fool me, Impression! I see what you are. Today's Meditation(s): Meditations, 3.11 (Waterfield) Learn to judge the truth of things. Stoics use the word assent to describe how they interact with the impressions they receive from the world.  When an impression impinges upon our mind, a Stoic will pause for a moment and reflect on it. Impressions often come bundled with undesirable emotional content: anger, anxiety, envy, frustration, disappointment, etc.  (Ditto catastrophic thinking, if you are prone to that.)  These feelings are usually unwanted and unneeded.  But . . . they can be stopped before they take hold — or interrupted as they try to take over and 'drive the bus' — and discarded to positive effect. Epictetus, Discourses 2.18.24 Personally, I like this version of the idea: When I pause, I win. I place my reason in charge and give myself the time to choose, rather than simply allowing myself to be overcome with the natural, bu...

You silly billy! He says, jumping on the bed. Joyful in motion. Today's Meditation(s): Following on  yesterday's quote , here's a bit more from  Meditations 3.7 (Waterfield) . Yesterday was about how vice is a choice I must avoid.  Today is about the what happens if I choose virtue instead. Reduced drama. Contentment with myself, with or without others. Freedom from pain and desire, pushing and pulling. No fear of death. Not a bad list.

My thoughts just go on And on and on and on and Then evaporate. Today's Meditation(s): If it costs me my virtue, it's not worth it. Virtue is the only good; vice the only bad.  Vice is always self-inflicted: I  choose  whatever tempts me over virtue, over living in accordance with Nature, over wisdom, justice, temperance, and courage.

Meandering slow, Miles that into distance stretch. Look! A diversion! Today's Meditation(s): Meditations 3.6 (Waterfield) Discourses 4.12.1 (Hard) Every slip up, every mistake, every forsaken thought makes it harder for me to do as well tomorrow. It's harsh, but that doesn't make it false.  Nor is it untrue just because I don't like it. I have two choices: I can wish for the universe to change for my benefit, or I can accept reality sometimes sucks, do the best I can, get back up when I fall, and continue on despite setbacks, difficulties, hardships, and disappointments. These things exist in the world and in my life; to pretend that they don't is unwise.

Semifinals . . . start! Young men striving for the win. Emotions run high. Today's Meditation(s): Meditations 3.4 (Waterfield) No big deal. Just make sure my thoughts are always publishable. Not a problem. Unless I'm supposed to actually mean it when I say that..... What a demand! Sheesh. I'm not sure I can go 5 minutes without some unprintable notion crossing my mind. Maybe not one. Whether it's an intrusive thought of violence or self-harm or cruelty or a more mundane sudden flash of lust or simple inappropriateness, so much of what goes on between my ears is not for public consumption. Dear Emperor, I may need a while on this one.

Yes I do. This guy... This one smells funny. It is The underground scene. Today's Meditation(s): Meditations 2.17 (Waterfield) Reason v hedonism, aimlessness, dishonesty, dependence. This list is so like the last , perhaps these ideas were important to the Emperor....  And here, it's presented as (part of) a definition of philosophy. If I were creating a list of sins, would it be the same?

A good route helps us Follow Nature's common paths. Maps necessary. Today's Meditation(s): Meditations 2.16 (Waterfield) Fives sins: resentfulness; enmity; dissolution; dissimulation; desultoriness with lack of cosmopolitanism. RE the fourth sin, Cicero allows for feigning emotions when necessary (e.g. if you need to appear angry to motivate someone) so long as you are simulating only. Actually feeling these passions is unnecessary and usually unproductive.  Marcus seems to forbid even that. I like to combine Cicero's approach with Aristotle. Don't really be angry. When you must pretend to be angry, do it with this admonition in mind: Anyone can become angry…That is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way —that is not easy.  ( Nicomacean Ethics.) (See  also .)

Sliding from moments Into holes none can open Life is an instant. Today's Meditation(s): Meditations 2.14 (Waterfield) Marcus writes about death a lot. Considering his health (weak since birth, never robust in his best days) and circumstances (living in military camps for years in his later days, when the Meditations were written), this isn't surprising.  Given my dad's declining health over the past several months, it's been on my mind as well. In this passage, the Emperor argues that Death is not frightening because no matter what the circumstances, you can only lose one, infinitesimal, thing: now. * The Past doesn't exist. It did, but it doesn't now.  It's not real (anymore) even if its effects are still around us. The Future doesn't exist. It may, but it doesn't now. It's not real (yet, if ever) even if tiny slices are continually falling from it through the now and into the Past. I wish I might help my dad think of Death in philosophical te...

Damnit. I hate it When the poem delays my Post without warning.... Today's Meditation(s): Meditations  (Waterfield) 2.11 6.1 9.42 11.8 All harm is internal since only vice is harm.  Lose a thing a limb a person a job . . . no harm no foul unless I let it convince me to act improperly. And if I do act not in accordance with Nature, I choose to do that.  No one else. Not the person who hits my car. Not the person who fires me without warning.  Nor the person who gives me attitude at the restaurant. I choose my actions. At. All. Times. Without. Exception. ===== (I blamed it on the poem up above, but really, I just plain forgot to finish this entry yesterday so up it goes, today, with an asterisk.  Guess this fits in with the idea of a self-inflicted harm, eh?)

She was appointed Lady queen of midnight spice, A sultry melange. Today's Meditation(s): Impulsive passions aren't as bad as passions driven by desire, Marcus tells me in Meditations 2.10. Someone swept up by a sudden rage, overcome by a passion they could not check, is less culpable than a person who, under the spell of desire, purposefully arranges all the vicious machinations necessary to perpetrate their sin. Oh, what a sinner am I.

Changing on the fly, Catching up with the Joneses And comparing stuff. Today's Meditation(s): Finished the introduction to Robin Waterfield's Annotated Meditations and ch. 16 of the Companion to Marcus Aurelius (about the famous equestrian statue of the Emperor). I like how Waterfield stressed Marcus' version of assent and passions. And this section — — about Marcus's repetition. And about why he practiced that repetition: he was following established practice of drilling the basics regularly. And he swelled on areas which we're particularly challenging for him. This makes me feel better about the fact that certain themes show up here so often.

First day of a new Not good enough for the lead. Walk-on club member. Today's Meditation(s): "He" is, of course, Marcus Aurelius. Gotta say, I disagree with the Emperor here: I happily content myself with avoiding anything remotely political or governmental. BTDT. (Literally.) No thank you. I am capable of ruling myself, if but barely and intermittently. What on Earth would make me presume so egregiously as to think I should, or could, justly and effectively rule another? I have moral obligations to help others and to be a benefit to My Community, writ large. But that involves doing all I can to promote voluntaryism, not trying to force others to live according to my preferences, either directly or by a third-party such as government.