Today's Meditation(s): Discourses , 3.17.7-9 (Waterfield) Change my perception, impression, mind, reality. Stop catastrophizing, adding unnecessary judgments to impressions. Dealing with reality as it is rather than as I wish it were, I'll have my best chance to find the best solution available.

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses , 3.16.7 (Waterfield) This is my version of imposter syndrome about philosophy: that my explanations are so inept that I actively harm my listener by giving them bad ideas and that my own beliefs are at the point when I can easily divert myself onto a false path due to mistaken reasoning. The worst thing that can happen to a good cause is, not to be skillfully attacked, but to be ineptly defended.  ~ Frédéric Bastiat, Economic Sophisms (1845) I have found myself out of my depth explaining Stoic principles or other philosophical ideas that I thought I'd known pretty well. But I have a much longer way to go to be competent with just the basics (up to me v not up to me, right use of impressions, following Nature, amor fati, etc.).

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses , 3.15.13 (Waterfield) Sometimes I choose philosophy, sometimes worldly affairs. I work on moving that needle, though it doesn't always pan out. I'm still trying to get the basics. Still on 'up to me v not up to me.' Still on loving fate and following Nature. Too much to do here to move on yet.

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses , 3.13.22-23 (Waterfield) Actions should speak louder than words or I'm doing it way wrong.

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses , 3.13.8 (Waterfield) I am fully capable of identifying my shortcomings. I do not always do so because I am lazy and it's often hard to be better. But when I come up with the courage to do it, I have no shortage of options to choose from. Often, additional proof of my recidivism. From there, it's usually not too hard to come up with an idea of how to ameliorate this flaw in my character. Achieving that goal, however, is usually a less than straight path. That this difficulty often makes me shy away from the task is a challenge I am still working on.

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses , 3.12.4 (Waterfield) One of Epictetus' three disciplines: train my desires and aversions so that I always get what I desire and avoid my aversions. Or, to say it a differently, that I always want what happens to happen and what does not happen to not happen. If I can align my will properly, I will never be frustrated and always be satisfied. If.

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses , 3.10.18 (Waterfield) Only things that are up to me carry my moral weight. Only they can be good or bad. All else is indifferent, unless my mistaken judgment erroneously calls them such. And I need to love my fate. Follow the lead of the world. Follow the cart to which I am tied. Stop resisting reality and learn to live with it in equanimity.

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses , 3.9.11, 15-16 (Waterfield) Control my judgments, control my response to the world.

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses , 3.8.5-6 (Waterfield) I sometimes find it hard not to catastrophize events. Strangely, I seem more able to avoid unnecessary burdens on impressions when they apply to me, specifically: my sympathy reflex is stronger for others than for my own loss. I feel worse when I see family or friends in pain than when I experience it myself. And I still fret sometimes when I display my true feelings after loss that others will find me heard-hearted or uncaring. That I didn't show much emotion when my father died seems to have surprised many people. Perhaps they thought I was being (small s) stoic, stiff upper lip and all that; stuffing down my feelings so that they didn't peak through the curtains and reveal what was really going on inside. But I truly did not feel a loss when he passed. It was a relief, given his physical and mental states. He was 'living' a life he would have hated and, had he a moment of pure clarity and permis

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses , 3.7.36 (Waterfield) Epictetus explains to a guy how everything is permissable to an Epicurean and the damage that can do. And that he should become a Stoic to live a good, consistent, life.

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses , 3.4.9-11 (Waterfield) Keep an open mind, avoiding prejudicial assumptions and forgone conclusions. NGo beyond that until my desire also flows with Nature: not just acceptance, but want.

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses , 3.3.8-9 (Waterfield) Rather than making me an uncaring brute, focusing on will will strengthen my relationships. I will not grade things or position or reputation as above people and my conduct toward them.  Perfectly executed, I would demonstrate judgment, wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice toward all. As is, I do my best and atone for my lapses.

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses , 3.2.16-18 (Waterfield) Continuing from yesterday . . . . My early masters lead me down the wrong path — a winding path, eager I was to chase down, but wrong nonetheless — into a garden of subtle beauty I was not ready to appreciate, or, even, to understand that I could not yet appreciate elegance as it was laid before me. My schooling skipped the first two disciplines.  Epictetus knew of this, 2000 years ago. Hells! I'd not even heard of this tripartite division of philosophy until my studies began again more recently.  Now I am back to the beginning, working to recast my mind, to throw off the habits of decades, to identify how to use those first principles in my life: where do I place my values? How do I constrain and reshape my desires and aversions so as to live according to Nature, never facing something I do not want and never being denied that which I do? How does amor fati live within me? And to think I was p

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses , 3.2.11-12 (Waterfield) If my actions do not demonstrate who I really am, I don't know what could.  My actions, as they betray my judgments to inspection, display my values for all.

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses , 2.26.4-5, 7(Waterfield) This seems more than difficult. Trying to convince a starving mother not to steal to feed her children because she's aiming for worldly goals not up to her rather than for virtue to protect her soul . . . human psychology is not wired this way. Many people can be, are, convinced that theirs is not the right approach, but the only option they have. It's sin or die. Viciousness or extinction. I can blame myself all I want, but this is asking that we teach a person in dire straits the whole of philosophy so as to overcome their innate reproductive and parental instincts. Yes, philosophy is, in part, about learning to do exactly that, but now it's the difference between teaching a student who has time to study and a student who spends all their energy simply surviving. Is philosophy only for Veblen's leisure class? See also ....

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses , 2.24.29 (Waterfield) Philosophy requires effort. Like an instrument or a sport, it requires practice to progress from the basics to higher levels of skill. Like a teacher or a coach, a philosopher won't respond to someone who shows no true desire to learn. If I think I already know what I came here to learn, of what use are mentors and instructors? And if I have the raw materials — a mouth or limbs for art, a body for athletics, reason for philosophy — but neglect them until their natural aptitude is squandered, of what use am I to these who already know and whose job it is to show me?

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses , 2.23.35 (Waterfield) Yesterday was the end of our trip. Two weeks in Europe and back home. After the way too long flight, I would have welcomed a pleasant inn halfway home to stop at. (I got sick with a few days left in the trip and it made the flight just that much more unpleasant.) But Epictetus is being metaphorical here. This passage appears in a discussion of rhetoric and speaking well. He is reminding me not to be distracted by flowery words and intricate and interesting arguments. They are there to teach me, not to enrapture me. They are necessary to get across some important point, but not the important point itself. In my youth, this was certainly the case. In my dotage, I am finally getting past them to the core of the matter.

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses , 2.23.35 (Waterfield) Like yesterday, Epictetus is railing against mistaken judgments: those about people and mistaking them for something we can count on, something equal to our internal states and will. He gives lots of examples of people who supposedly love one another, either as friends or as family, who allow external things to come between them. A necklace. A slight. A political position. An inheritance. All things people care about gaining or avoiding more than they are committed to loving the other . . . despite years of previous felicity.

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses , 2.22.29-30 (Waterfield) Only a sage can be a true friend. Because only a sage constantly sets their values on the will and the right use of impressions. Anyone who puts their values in external things is liable to be an unfaithful friend should an external object of desire come between them and their friend.

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses , 2.21.21-22 (Waterfield) If I come for the wrong reasons, and I have and I do and I will, I won't get what I need from my studies. I may get what I think I need, but any relation between that and what I actually need will be wholly accidental.

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses , 2.20.35 (Waterfield) The other day, I was trying to explain amor fati to Mrs. Student.  X happens. I don't like X or wish it were Y. I tell myself no, X is good, I can find ABC in X and thus it is something I can learn from or benefit from, there is some virtue I can practice in these circumstances. She listened and said it sounded like rationalization after the fact. I objected to having my favorite philosophy challenged like that, and explained that " you're not getting it. My thing is different so shut up ." ( alt ) I'll finish this tomorrow....

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses , 2.19.14 (Waterfield) Study is important. Study is necessary. But study is not sufficient. I must also think .

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses , 2.18.24-25 (Waterfield) I love this section, 2.18. So clear, so clever, so concise. I could read it over and over again. ( It was much better than Cats . ) Donald Robertson uses Marcus's version of 24 so often in How to Think Like a Roman Emperor, you'd think it was a mantra. “You are just an impression and not at all the things you claim to represent,” or “It is not things that upset us but our judgments about them.” (p. 65, Kindle version) "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."  ~ Viktor E. Frankl Delay, stop, interrupt the process and a new world opens up to me. It's about recognizing the stimulus for what it is: an ill-formed, uninformed impression which carries strong emotional weight, but unknown true import; ignorant of all examination; untested and frequently lying; urgent and insistent, almost

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses , 2.17.39 (Waterfield) Ive got so much to learn. I'm not even close to counting as a beginner of the first domain.

Today's Meditation(s): [There's a] story we know about Cato, who traveling ahead of his baggage train was received rudely by the town who did not recognize the powerful dignitary in front of them. Cato shrugged the slight off and went about his business and when the town’s mayor came later to apologize, Cato smiled and reminded him to treat strangers better. Not all your visitors will be Cato’s, he said . ~ The Daily Stoic 240606 I'm traveling today. I hope the people I meet have heard this tale. If they haven't, I have. I will do my best to 'be a Cato' in at least this little way.

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses , 2.17.27 (Waterfield) If this doesn't describe my schooling, I don't know what could. I spent years getting degrees in philosophy only to come away from it thinking of it as a dodge, as an easy way to get credentials and perhaps impress people — employers, at least — enough to get what I wanted from them: praise, respect, a job. It took me far too long to realize how much I had wasted, in time and effort and potential and contentment, by approaching it this way. It would have been so much better to realize this and begin my journey all those decades ago. The second best time was as soon as I realized my error. And that has made all the difference....

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses , 2.16.47 (Waterfield) Amor fati . If I want something that isn't happening, if I assent to desire for or aversion from a thing or status or event that is not up to me , I will only be content by accident. If it happens to happen, I'm good. Otherwise, I'm destined for dissatisfaction and unhappiness. A good thing to keep in mind as I travel.

Today's Meditation(s): Discourses , 2.16.32-33 (Waterfield) I love that I find this as I explore a distant land, looking for marvels. Mrs. Student and I are traveling, not to Athens, though. Still, I was able to see bits from the Acropolis in a museum this morning. It was my favorite part of the day. I even got a picture of some famous busts of famous philosophers: Socrates, Antisthenes, Chrysippus, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius.  I meditated long on Bucakroo Banzai's wisdom before we left: No matter where you go . . . there you are. Or, in more hifalutin' language: Or, from Seneca (Letters from a Stoic, CIV): I've worked hard to put myself in a good place for this trip. I didn't want to be unsatisfied because I brought myself along on my super cool adventure.