Spending time with you. Knowing you have your own life.  Being better now.    Daily Stoic: How often do I act unkindly toward others?  How often do I not notice them or, even more likely, notice them but treat them like an NPC — using them for my own purpose but never acknowledging, even internally, that are fullly real people with their own desires, goals, and independent lives? Every person is a chance to be kind. To be helpful or supportive, whether or not they can do something for me.  Time to be better.  Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: J. S. Mill, On Liberty, Chapter 2, Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion  Today's Meditation III: Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance   Daily Shakespeare: Sonnet 97

Happy fish. Blue fish.  But not a one fish two fish.  Satisfied rhymes calm.  Daily Stoic: Let me live so that my life is a testament to my principles.  Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: Today's Meditation III : Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the art of Motorcycle Maintenance 

A favorite place . . . Closing it doors forever. Dust will take it soon. Daily Stoic: I've talked many times about rushing to judgment or making assumptions not justified by the circumstances.  Marcus' reminder today is a warning about that very thing. When I feel myself having a problem, when I'm fretful or frightened or angry, if I stop for a moment and chase down the unnecessary assumptions with which I have burdened my perceptions, I find that often my anxiety releases and there was no call for it in the first place. Today's Meditation: Robert M. Pirsig, The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Daily Shakespeare:

Meditation's meant To smooth the waves in my mind. Now to stop paddling. Daily Stoic: Life's usually easier when I try a direct approach before  something bothers me.  That's a lesson I need to use more often with my kids. As with many people's families, mine can push my buttons with ease.  They know just where to poke me to get my ire up.  (They don't usually do it on purpose, of course, but, through long association, I emotionally anticipate their behavior and cause myself unnecessary annoyance.) If only I had the forethought to anticipate this reaction and prepared myself to more successfully weather such vexations. Hey, wait a minute. I have a thought . . . . Time to be better. Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: Today's Meditation III: Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance , on technology Today's Meditation IV: J. S. Mill, On Liberty

Sleeping different  Always tough in the first days.  Gotta try some more.  Daily Stoic: Other than family, I rarely have conflicts with other people. (Family only because I see them constantly and there are more opportunities for trouble, not because we naturally fight often.) The primary issue I would have with people would be encountering bad drivers.  Someone will cut me off or drive slowly or not signal and I would find my ire stoked way beyond necessity. I used to take traffic mishaps and annoyances personally.  This jackass just made me slow down!  He must have done that on purpose!  He's an asshole who is trying to piss me off! Then I heard a notion that if you treat other drivers as acts of nature, as things that just happen and are not personally directed against you, it becomes easier to let it slide.  Since I started this, my drives have become much calmer and less stressful. I learned to control my anger on that level and it translate...

Love others.  Love them more. Make love the base of my life. Share it.  Live it.  Be. Daily Stoic: If loving others isn't the secret of life, I don't know what is. Not that that would be anything special — me not knowing something — but sacred writings from all over the world, from all throughout history, emphasize this theme.  If everyone prior to me was wrong, then I prefer the mistake and will go on trying to convince the world that love for others is the highest expression of virtue in our communal sphere. Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: John M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Today's Poem: Robert Browning

He's saved by the bell. Cut, exhausted, like his foe.  Who will survive more?  Daily Stoic: If you know me and consider me untrustworthy, please let me know what I did to earn your distrust.  Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: J. S. Mill, On Liberty   Today's Poem: Robert Browning, Porphyria’s Lover

Justice looks at life.  Funny faces bound around Lending light to dour.  Daily Stoic: So . . . virtue. But, my giving a different way to say it, to think about it, Marcus offers a guide for when things are murky.  If I can't immediately discern what would be virtuous in this instance, I can fall back on reverence and justice.  If I can suss out what to do by focusing on treating others with love (reverence) and being truthful and following the rules we have in place to make society run properly (justice),i will approach virtue as close as I can.  Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: J. S. Mill, On Liberty , on some thresholds necessary to access liberty Today's Poem: Robert Browning, Bells and Pomegranates No. VII: Dramatic Romances and Lyrics

Stoic stoa sit Parsing wisdom among friends.  Nothing came of it.  The ten thousand things  Arose from it! All our world  Contained in one night.  Daily Stoic: [Stoicon today. Look it up. The recordings will be available soon, hopefully.]  If I have a standard, it's not a standard if I don't adhere to it. Either morality is my driving force, the base from which I live a life in attune with Nature, or it's an add-on I can deploy when it's convenient or easy or costless or the default.  Time to be better.  Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: J. S. Mill, On Liberty   Today's Poem:

A night of Stoic thought  Interrupted my posting.  Today is the time.  Daily Stoic: Pleasure is a poor replacement for happiness. How many years did I waste chasing ephemeral phantoms? I'm happiest when I do good. When I live my life in accordance with Nature and virtue, it's easy to be satisfied with life.  Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: John M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Breaking bread postponed,  Luscious provisions, waiting. One more day, then feast! Daily Stoic: If my goal is to be a virtuous person, any evil that I do, regardless of its profit to me or my temporary aims, harms me and retards my life goals.  What good does it do me to gain the whole world yet lose my soul?  Today's Meditation: Today's Meditation II: John Stuart Mill, On Liberty , Chapter 1, Introductory  Today's Meditation III: Arthur Schopenhauer, Aphorisms, On Law and Politics , 5 Daily Shakespeare: Julius Caesar , Act 2, Scene 1

Games all around me.  But I've forgot how to play. Picasso had it right. Daily Stoic: This is something I have practiced for years, celebrating my friends achievements. Luckily envy is (almost) not one of my vices.  I find it easy to rejoice in the success of friends and family. Certainly, I sometimes wish I shared in what reward they have received, but I don't wish they did not have it. It's possible to desire something for myself without wishing I was enriched by taking it from someone else. Today's Meditation: Do not be afraid of illness, and do not think that being ill frees you from your moral requirements. That seems important.  Today's Pirsig: On being afraid of / not getting technology  Today's Poem: Dante Allegheri, Inferno , Canto II