After reading a fair amount about Stoicism and still being unclear, I've found a good summary in Adam Smith's almost forgotten classic, "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" (1759) [1]:
"Human life the Stoics appear to have considered as a game of great skill; in which, however, there was a mixture of chance [...] In such games the stake is commonly a trifle, and the whole pleasure of the game arises from playing well, from playing fairly, and playing skilfully. If notwithstanding all his skill, however, the good player should, by the influence of chance, happen to lose, the loss ought to be a matter, rather of merriment, than of serious sorrow. He has made no false stroke; he has done nothing which he ought to be ashamed of; he has enjoyed completely the whole pleasure of the game. [...]
Our only anxious concern ought to be, not about the stake, but about the proper method of playing. If we placed our happiness in winning the stake, we placed it in what depended upon causes beyond our power, and out of our direction. We necessarily exposed ourselves to perpetual fear and uneasiness, and frequently to grievous and mortifying disappointments. If we placed it in playing well, in playing fairly, in playing wisely and skilfully; in the propriety of our own conduct in short; we placed it in what, by proper discipline, education, and attention, might be altogether in our own power, and under our own direction. Our happiness was perfectly secure, and beyond the reach of fortune."
I have this great collection from 1901 "World's Best Essays" -- 9 tomes. Everything from Seneca to Adam Smith.
It's sad how much knowledge and social/ethical advancement is being forgotten. Our schools and universities are failing society. We're just going to keep making the same mistakes.
It's not being forgotten. It was never widely known to begin with. Intellectual elites still know it, and if anything they've probably been growing relative to the entire population.
I feel like at best one could argue that those elites have less influence on the deciders of the world (at least those that are not part of them).
Based on the "Full Text", it looks like they used an automatic OCR to obtain the text from the PDFs, so they are full of many spelling and formatting mistakes. I prefer to get the B/W pdf and split it into files that are small enough not to lag on the Kindle hardware (I have the 2nd generation).
It was hard to find so thought I'd share. First go to the full-screen page, then click the "about this book" icon ("i" within a circle). There are links to the following:
PDF
Plain
Text
DAISY
ePub
Send to Kindle
It's always been there and is pretty heavily subsidized - it's good enough stuff that the actual intelligentsia ( as opposed to .. tourists like myself ) considers it a critical resource. It doesn't cost that much to preserve, either. What do you think the old guys at, say, Cambridge study? You see the odd Classics scholar on BookTv now and again, and it's ( for me ) riveting stuff.
It's just that mass culture has blown up so big so fast - driven by technological change - that it seems to get smaller.
It doesn't help that the Stoics were explicitly targeted by the Christians early in the Christianized Byzantine Roman Empire. You can see this in action in YouTube videos of Christopher Hitchens debating various Christian thinkers.
Doh! I thought I was onto something when I read Bertrand Russell critise the Stoics and thought "Don't you get it fool! To them, life is like football: play hard, play fair, that's what counts".
And, as I should have expected, Adam Smith has anticipated us all. I find it pretty funny that Smith doesn't even get a mention in Russell's history of western philosophy.
This reminds me of a quote by Renier Knizia, the boardgame designer, about playing boardgames: "When playing a game, the goal is to win, but it is the goal that is important, not the winning".
So many parallels to Zen here. Fascinating. For others, if you like this type of thinking, then I would recommend checking out the much larger body of resources and practices around Zen Buddhism.
Reading that felt strangely liberating. It's a refreshing and eloquent reiteration of the whole idea of the goal being the journey and vice versa. Contrary to what modern society has instilled in us..
Society sure loves mixed signals. I always had the impression the modern culture tries to push exactly the "journey is the goal" idea into people, and I vehemently dislike it. To use a silly example, if I want to eat pizza, I do want to get the goddamn pizza, I definitely don't want to "enjoy the journey" of calling up the joint and placing the order.
Or in more general terms, focusing on the journey instead of the goal leads to complete detachment from reality - running in circles and enjoying the patterns of your own thoughts, like a stoned hippie. It's vegetation, not life.
I do read Adam Smith's quote differently - the way I understand it, it says to focus on a goal, but to derive happiness from the process and make that happiness independent of whether or not the goal will be ultimately achieved. An impossible thing to do in full, but definitely worth pursuing.
Wow, that's a really interesting point. I've definitely seen the "enjoying the patterns of your own thought" thing with Leo from Zen Habits for example. He seems to rehash previous articles all the time, and I haven't heard a new thought come from him in years. No disrespect to him, he's probably found his contentment, but just an observation.
As long as the thoughts are helpful, that can be attractive for a short period. Often, they're not. Easy to get caught up in, and, even if they're positive, there is a big wide world out there that we have to engage in on some level, if only to satisfy our basic needs.
Edit to add: Just noticed one of your other comments, on paying attention to driving :)
Because said instillment has been done to give the industries and outlet for their products. that we should always be wanting something new, something "better" (as defined by the industries, not you or me). Turn on a TV, radio, read a magazine, newspaper, or even web sites, and we get carped bombed by this message.
Wow. I do not have much to say except that these lines have made me understand a lot. Or maybe it has always already been there but never formulated so clearly and poignant. Thanks!
I was only recently introduced to stoicism as a philosophy on a run.
I was asked what my technique is during a run, do I concentrate on pain or ignore it. Of course there isn't always pain and pain during a run can vary greatly, so I explained my answer is simply, yes. I have tried everything and nothing works, I explained like everyone some days I dominate and some days I struggle, but I'm always thankful for my character building days and hopeful I'll have new thought processes to try.
I don't know if it's stoic or not, but a cool way to be introduced to the philosophy. Then, I explained a specific thought I sometimes embrace during very difficult runs, I remember when I did a back to back half/full marathons, and on day 2 I was feeling great like there was nothing I couldn't do and just before the race I was introduced to a 67 year old cancer survivor running her first marathon, to this day the thought brings chills and humbles me.
> I was asked what my technique is during a run, do I concentrate on pain or ignore it.
There is a great story that I took a liking to, it centers around the idea that "this too shall pass"[0]. It resonated with me because regardless of how (un)happy you are, it shall pass, a new day will begin. The current state is simply current, it does not resonate over a span of a week, or month, year, decade, etc. Our current state should be approached in a stateless manner as to refrain being too high or too low.
In that frame of reference, all success/failure is part of the journey and doesn't defy ourselves.
> Do I concentrate on pain or ignore it. Of course there isn't always pain and pain during a run can vary greatly, so I explained my answer is simply, yes. I have tried everything and nothing works
I always remember my first motorbike accident (vs Bus), my foot was p mangled. I remember the first burst of the pain, I screamed a bit, and I distinctly remember thinking "So this is why people scream. Not because it makes things better, but because there's nothing else to do".
This 'hack' is known to drug addicts for centuries. Cyclic withdrawal from the drug to increase potency. Stoicism is the same principal used to recalibrate hedonic treadmill so you don't have to keep running faster and faster.
Don't give way to heedlessness
or to intimacy
with sensual delight —
for a heedful person,
absorbed in [concentration],
attains an abundance of ease.
When the wise person drives out
heedlessness
with heedfulness,
having climbed the high tower
of discernment,
sorrow-free,
he observes the sorrowing crowd —
as the enlightened man,
having scaled
a summit,
the fools on the ground below.
This is a question of virtue versus pleasure which is much explored by the Stoics because a contemporary, competing movement was Epicureanism, which extolled pleasure.
OP is referring, however, to the "life hack" promoted by the article's author which suggests keeping our baseline low so that we are constantly surprised to the upside.
I like a quote from Shogun by James Clavell (it's about mediaval japan getting discovered by a westerner for the first time, it is incredibly without exaggeration).
“Karma is the beginning of knowledge. Next is patience. Patience is very important. The strong are the patient ones, Anjin-san. patience means holding back your inclination to the seven emotions: hate, adoration, joy, anxiety, anger, grief, fear. If you don't give way to the seven, you're patient, then you'll soon understand all manner of things and be in harmony with Eternity.”
It is historical fiction. blackthorne did exist, did get samurai status and estate, did build ships for Toranaga (Tokugawa Ieyasu). The characters are real and James Clavell spent 4 years in Japan researching and writing the book. His depiction was rather accurate, though of course exaggerated and romanticized.
This is true. However, it's also true that your attitude towards things is complex and not fully in your control. Hence PTSD, trauma, phobias, etc. It does mean, though, that by trying to modify your attitude over time, you can become happier.
The point is to reframe the ordeal as an adventure as it is happening. Two people can face the same circumstances, yet one will be challenged and the other miserable. Be the first.
I see no reason why I can't have gone through an ordeal in the past or currently be on an adventure. It's probably easier to look back at ordeals and call them adventures because your state of mind is now positive, but at the time it was an ordeal because you had a negative state of mind. It's rarer to have a positive state of mind while dealing with something and looking back with a negative state of mind...
I dunno, I'd have thought the major difference there is tense. It's an ordeal while it's happening; it's an adventure once it's over.
Not really - it's about mental reframing. I was in the hills yesterday, moving fast with 45lbs on my back. Many people don't like cold, they avoid it and fear it. But in my mind the cold is my friend, it keeps me awake and alert. Many people, even serious runners, hate and avoid uphills, but in my mind they are a gift, sent to make me stronger. Teach yourself to believe these things - actually say them out loud - and your perspective on what is an ordeal will surely change.
Funny you would say that. I'm in West Africa right now, moving through some of the poorest countries in the world.
I would say, on the whole, people here are happier than people in Australia / Canada / USA (where I have lived).
Obviously there are some severely sick or malnourished people where that is not true, but it's actually extremely uncommon. There is a lot of food and water here.
I'm not knocking stoicism, it's a great outlook. But it asks us to have some perspective. A weakness of Stoicism is that it can allow people to attribute too much of thier emotional and intellectual success to thier own powers, when lack of physical comfort can be a limiting factor on having any intellectual life at all.
You should remember that stoicism was concieved amongst the elite of their time and place, who worried least.
Modern population density also makes comparisons of the contemporary 3rd world with ancient Greece rather far-fetched.
> You should remember that stoicism was concieved amongst the elite of their time and place, who worried least.
If you read Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, three of the main authors of the Stoa, that is probably the last conclusion you would come to. Seneca was accused of conspiracy and forced to suicide by Nero. Epictetus was a slave who was "so poor that he didn't have to lock up his house". Marcus Aurelius spent the last years of his life (when he wrote the "Meditations") on the battlefield. They were meant as self-reassurance in a very troubled time.
>Modern population density also makes comparisons of the contemporary 3rd world with ancient Greece rather far-fetched.
Rome, btw. Which was already relatively densely populated.
Wikipedia: When Demetrius of Phalerum conducted a population census [of Athens] in 317 BC the population was 21,000 free citizens, plus 10,000 resident aliens and 400,000 slaves.
Many greek slaves had decent enough lives, especially if they were educated, they might be running their masters business and have quite a lot to lose in a rebellion and not much of an upside. Greek slavery was not at all like the antebellum South.
I believe thats a ridiculous philosophy that denies the suffering of billions of people all over the world.
And even worse encourages them to be satisfied and tolerant of their repression and not take action.
Why vote? Why criticise? Why try to fight injustice?
This is what Tyrants want people to believe.
I think negative feelings exist for a reason whether its internal or external reasons and the only healthy way to handle them is not to try to change them into some positive force, but bear it until you can change it.
The parent's comment is actually incorrect: what he described is not Stoicism. Stoicism is the philosophy whereby you accept things that are outside your control and view them with indifference.
In contrast, the examples you gave are situations in which the person does have some manner of control, no matter how small. Even those oppressed by tyrants can rise up and overthrow them.
It's interesting that ivm's repoiste wasn't even hard.
But also completely outside your control is the wrong bar. You should triage and fix the things that are most fixable. And even then, there is no point wallowing in angst when fate stymies your efforts.
This idea moves it to the metaphysical territory where axioms about the nature of existence will collide. But in case yours are right, I doubt that going to such extent to evade death can keep anyone in peace with life.
I think the stoic would say that other people's suffering, or in just political systems, or whatever other bad event that happens doesn't affect their own happiness. That doesn't mean you shouldn't try to do better, or to help. They're separate problems.
I can give to charity, and be happy with my own life at the same time, even knowing that others are suffering.
Unfortunately, you're misunderstanding stoicism. It's a very different way of looking at life, that can take a very long time to grasp.
You should read up on Cato the younger, who for generations was held up by stoics as an example of a very virtuous person, and his fight against Caesar and tyranny.
Coincidence, or life maybe, is just incredible. I bought "A guide to the good life" a couple of days ago, and started reading it 2 hours ago. I finished the first two chapters, and checked hacker news for the first time today, this post was in the top 10...Good article, even better writing. Cheers.
Maybe it isn't strictly sticking to the definition of stoicism I've found this effective, surprisingly, in road rage or what some would call bullying situations. When someone is getting aggressive, I have just stayed serious, calm and looked slightly determined. I keep eye contact and try to think about being bored as well. When bully-types blow up at a stranger, they usually do it to someone that they think will back down. When they don't, they get confused.
Similarly I find it useful when some little thing is irritating me. I can't remember where I read it, I think it was related to Marcus Aurelius, but basically the idea that when something negative comes up, either say/do something, or let it go.
That person who just cut in line in front of you? Say something, or let it go. That guy on the plane obnoxiously tilting his seat way too far back? Say something or let it go.
As soon as I think that to myself, I let go and feel a wave of indifference and serenity.
These are of course pretty minor examples, but also really common everyday occurrences. Like, practice.
A gorilla could back up the initial bluff. I look pretty mild mannered but in my youth, I fought a lot in high school. In college and just after, I usually stayed out of it but there were quite a few of my buddies who took a bit longer to learn and thus quite a few weekends included a bar fight here or there. Point being that I'd try to avoid it but if a person moved the situation to a fight, I'm not tough guy but I can handle myself okay. Bullies don't often target someone they think might be able to handle them.
The "Obstacle is The Way" is a very popular book and now sits on my nightstand. I have drawn a lot of strength from it as I endure difficult struggles:
"Stockdale rejected the false optimism proffered by Christianity, because he knew, from direct observation, that false hope is how you went insane in that prison."
Perhaps the author is interjecting something.
Stoicism and Christianity share many traits. Consider, as but one example, this statement by James:
"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."
This reminds me of a part of Taleb's "The Black Swan", which I've been rereading in light of recent events.
In it, Taleb describes how a process or event can be misperceived as strengthening those who go through it, when actually it weakens all of them, killing some.
His example is submitting a cohort of rats to radiation. As they are subjected to higher and higher levels of radiation, more will die, the ones who are naturally stronger will survive. Our cohort will appear stronger and stronger as the radiation increases and the dead drop out of the group. But crucially, all will have been weaker after the radiation than before it.
But since we observed a stronger group the more we increased the radiation, we may say that it "hardened" them, in the sense of "that which doesn't kill one makes one stronger".
>It is our attitude toward events, not events themselves, which we can control. Nothing is by its own nature calamitous -- even death is terrible only if we fear it.
>There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power or our will.
Nice article. A little off topic, but the book "A Guide to a Good Life. Writings of Marcus Aurelius" is a fantastic read. He was one of the last "good" Roman Emporers, and his ideas on Stoicism are excellent.
Not at all. Indifference is quite a different thing. Apathy is pretty much the opposite of Stoicism.
Here is a paragraph from Marcus Aurelius:
XVII. So live as indifferent to the world and all worldly objects, as
one who liveth by himself alone upon some desert hill. For whether here, or there, if the whole world be but as one town, it matters not much for the place. Let them behold and see a man, that is a man indeed, living according to the true nature of man. If they cannot bear with me, let them kill me. For better were it to die, than so to live as they would have thee.
Remember, Aurelius was a soldier and emperor. These are not the words of someone given to apathy. It's all about taking control of oneself.
That is a much better choice of word. Where "indifference" connotes negatively (not caring about something you should care about), "equanimity" connotes very positively (maintaining an even temper and a mind unclouded by instinctual reaction in circumstances where others fall to rage or terror; "keeping your head when all about you are losing theirs").
Ecclesiastes (contained in the Tanakh and the Old Testament) has a streak of stoicism. Written around 25 centuries ago, author unknown. Here is the NJB translation of a part of 1 and 2:
"I, Qoheleth, have reigned over Israel in Jerusalem. Wisely I have applied myself to investigation and exploration of everything that happens under heaven.
What a wearisome task God has given humanity to keep us busy! I have seen everything that is done under the sun: how futile it all is, mere chasing after the wind! What is twisted cannot be straightened, what is not there cannot be counted.
I thought to myself: I have acquired a greater stock of wisdom than anyone before me in Jerusalem. I myself have mastered every kind of wisdom and science. I have applied myself to understanding philosophy and science, stupidity and folly, and I now realise that all this too is chasing after the wind. Much wisdom, much grief; the more knowledge, the more sorrow.
I thought to myself, 'Very well, I will try pleasure and see what enjoyment has to offer.' And this was futile too. This laughter, I reflected, is a madness, this pleasure no use at all. I decided to hand my body over to drinking wine, my mind still guiding me in wisdom; I resolved to embrace folly, to discover the best way for people to spend their days under the sun.
I worked on a grand scale: built myself palaces, planted vineyards; made myself gardens and orchards, planting every kind of fruit tree in them; had pools made for watering the young trees of my plantations. I bought slaves, male and female, had home-born slaves as well; herds and flocks I had too, more than anyone in Jerusalem before me. I amassed silver and gold, the treasures of kings and provinces; acquired singers, men and women, and every human luxury, chest upon chest of it. So I grew great, greater than anyone in Jerusalem before me; nor did my wisdom leave me. I denied my eyes nothing that they desired, refused my heart no pleasure, for I found all my hard work a pleasure, such was the return for all my efforts.
I then reflected on all that my hands had achieved and all the effort I had put into its achieving. What
futility it all was, what chasing after the wind! There is nothing to be gained under the sun. My reflections then turned to wisdom, stupidity and folly. For instance, what can the successor of a king do? What has been done already.
More is to be gained from wisdom than from folly, just as one gains more from light than from darkness; this, of course, I see: The wise have their eyes open, the fool walks in the dark. No doubt! But I know, too, that one fate awaits them both. 'Since the fool's fate', I thought to myself, 'will be my fate too, what is the point of my having been wise?' I realised that this too is futile. For there is no lasting memory for the wise or the fool, and in the days to come both will be forgotten; the wise, no less than the fool, must die.
Life I have come to hate, for what is done under the sun disgusts me, since all is futility and chasing after the wind. All I have toiled for under the sun and now bequeath to my successor I have come to hate; who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all the work into which I have put my efforts and wisdom under the sun. That is futile too.
I have come to despair of all the efforts I have expended under the sun. For here is one who has laboured wisely, skilfully and successfully and must leave what is his own to someone who has not toiled for it at all. This is futile too, and grossly unjust; for what does he gain for all the toil and strain that he has undergone under the sun since his days are full of sorrow, his work is full of stress and even at night he has no peace of mind? This is futile too.
There is no happiness except in eating and drinking, and in enjoying one's achievements; and I see that this too comes from God's hand; for who would get anything to eat or drink, unless all this came from him? Wisdom, knowledge and joy, God gives to those who please him, but on the sinner he lays the task of gathering and storing up for someone else who is pleasing to him. This too is futility and chasing after the wind."
==
For a contemporary take on Ecclesiastes see "American Beauty" or read "Beyond Futility, American Beauty and the Book of Ecclesiastes' by Robert Johnston in "The Gift of Story: Narrating Hope in a Postmodern World"
https://books.google.nl/books?id=2WP_KMBmf7UC&pg=PA85
Doesn't it sound more like some sort of fatalistic nihilistic hedonism?
Nothing matters so just do the short term things that bring pleasure, or do long term things, nothing really matters (including the fact that nothing matters).
Eric S. Christianson-Ecclesiastes (Blackwell Bible Commentaries)-Blackwell (2005) academically show how various commentators perceived Ecclesiastes over the last few millenia.
Understandably up to mid 17-18th century most writers/commentators tried to show that Ecclesiastes was being critical of this nihilism / proto existentialism.
However, once you realize that Epilogue (12:9–14) is a tacked on commentary itself, then you are back to nihilism.
If stoicism is a kind of proto-Cognitive-Behavioral-Therapy, and CBT improves depression, it really should. Gratitude is IMO very important to improve depression, and stoicism could help with that. Personally I must say that the negative visualization that Irvine proposes causes me problems rather than solve them, because it adds anxiety. Also, imagining things worse than what you have does not automatically make all things right - you can still long for a better version of your world while imagining a horror scenario.
Accepting reality as the only possible (and thus, best) reality works a lot better for me.
Identifying misalignments in my views of other people (or the world), which lead to negative knee-jerk emotions or general low-tune malaise, is another "mind hack" that works for me, but I would not necessarily call this stoic - but a CBT therapist might suggest that.
I wish to strongly second your observation that focusing on the worst case results in one steering towards the worst case and leads to rumination which results or at least worsens depression. And acceptance of reality as it is seems to he roughly the antidote. The below is dangerous for some minds.
"By keeping the very worst that can happen in our heads constantly, the Stoics tell us, we immunise ourselves from the dangers of too much so-called ‘positive thinking’"
I wouldn't ignore physiological causes of depression, but on the other hand why not try? Who knows, maybe it will help you? A lot depend on what actually is going on in depressed person's life. There are different depressions, different people, and different cures for depression. In ancient times stoicism was recommended as remedy for melancholia. I'm subscribing to /r/stoicism on Reddit and this topic comes up sometimes, some people report that it helped them, e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/Stoicism/comments/1kljc5/stoicism_a...
So where is the International Stoicist Front fighting today against the evil in the world and the suppression of the poor? Oh, they aren't. They are working for international cooperations in a middle management position.
Why is meditation and Stoicism so hyped these days?
Stoicism is fundamentally subversive to the Hobbesian leviathan that has been constructed from within the post-enlightenment university system. It is the foundation of western morality and ethics, (the Bible borrows heavily from it).
Stoicism is not taught in public schools because it would make citizens ungovernable. Most education today is about training dependents, where stoicism teaches a kind of spiritual freedom. No grand conspiracy or anything. When education was elite, students learned elite ideas. Now that it is common, for cohesion they must learn common ones instead. Universities wouldn't have survived centuries if they produced graduates who would overthrow their governments, or obviate them entirely.
To cosmopolitanism, great and principled men are dangerous and anathema. Irony is that its most prominent works were by the rulers and elites of city states. Some people on the alt-right spectrum have taken that strain and created a kind of genre-philosophy out of it, like what John Williams is to classical music, some alt right thinkers are to classical philosophy.
With all due respect but this is ridiculous. I guess you forgot the irony tags. Most (now famous) stoicists where governors or in high ranks. As such they were utmost conservative. Stoicism is the art of being governable despite of you thinking it all sucks.
I'm not sure I agree. If I understand Stoicism correctly a Stoic wouldn't work on changing the system or getting into a better position himself. A real Stoic at heart would therefore be just as good as a believer in your system.
The reason why it's not widely taught may come from that Stoicism hasn't growth wired into it, like Christianity or Islam has. If a Stoic is content with a world outside of his power, then he has no need to convert others to Stoicism.
I tend to agree with both you and OP in different ways. Perhaps this Epictetus quote will contribute to the discussion:
>I must die. Must I then die lamenting? I must be put in chains. Must I then also lament? I must go into exile. Does any man then hinder me from going with smiles and cheerfulness and contentment?
> Someone who does not give a shit about the stupid things in this world that most people care so much about. Stoics do have emotions, but only for the things in this world that really matter.
There's no objective answer to that, therefore no such "limit" exists. Just pick one that looks reasonable to you, continuously review its validity through the course of your life.
Strongly thought about downvoting it, because it basically says "what I care about is important, what you care about is not". It sounds good, but it is certainly not a definition. (and this text is not meant as harsh as it sounds)
I don't think he cares, so in that sense Trump is stoic w.r.t. stoics.
Seriously tho, I couldn't sleep on Election at the thought of all the hateful, racist, anti-immigrant rhetoric that put him in office. The next day, I felt physically ill and that's when my Dad told me "Beta (son), stop worrying about sh_t that you have no control over. Just ride out the next 8 years* , stop watching news and stop reacting and arguing about it, because all said and done, he was DEMOCRATICALLY Elected into Office by a Majority of Voters who got off their butts and cast their vote."
* 8 years = My dad believes that Trump, like Dubya, will get re-elected no matter how bad his Presidency is, because in his own words "When a White Republican President sh*ts, People call it Honey"
Well he was democratically elected according to the rules. If the rules had been different, he might have also have got the majority of voters. We will never know.
Have any concrete connections between the two been drawn? The timeline generally works out that Greeks from Alexander's armies could have been exposed to Buddhists in some of his eastern campaigns.
The idea that your own happiness or suffering is created by your reaction to events rather than the events themselves is utterly Buddhist.
But I wouldn't say that Buddhism was some Indian equivalent of Stocism. I also read about Epicurianism or even Cynisym and say "hey, that idea is totally the Buddhist, POV". I suspect the same can be done for other Indian schools.
Sages of the axial age from around the old world discovered many similar good ideas, and people later built philosophical schools around them combining things in different ways.
This is why I don't think there was much idea transfer between India and the West. They simply had the same good ideas. (But I am sure the Greek Buddhists of Ghandhara had a field day with the parallels. I wish we had written records of their ideas, to go with their art.)
>The interaction between Hellenistic Greece and Buddhism started when Alexander the Great conquered the Achaemenid Empire and further regions of Central Asia in 334 BC, crossing the Indus and then the Jhelum River after the Battle of the Hydaspes and going as far as the Beas, thus establishing direct contact with India.
You don't have to live on bread and water to be a Stoic. You don't have to be a big thinker either. It's a practical philosophy not a theoretical one. Also it seems to me that you could be surrounded by adherents of this philosophy and not know it because they are hardly likely to make a great fuss about it. You might infer it from their behaviour.
I came upon stoicism in the Andreas Eschbachs - "the Last of his kind" (great book by the way). Its really quite a fascinating worldview- not at all the "depressed punching bag" of the universe as it looks from the outside.
What is the relevance of the image at the top here of a sub-Saharan African to an article about an ancient European philosophy.
An ancient European philosophy we know of today thanks to written language and a European civilization that developed, preserved and cultivated countless worldchanging ideas.(like the controlled conveyance of photons into your eyes relaying this information)
Written language was never even devised in sub-Saharan Africa!
These agenda driven, Magical Negro juxtapositions are becoming obscene.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man's_Search_for_Meaning
I was about to bring up Victor Frankl. I'm happy you beat me to it.
In addition, consider the story of Admiral James Stockdale, who was kept in a P.O.W camp in Vietnam for 7 years. His memoir explicitly mentions Stoic philosophy as having been key to his ability to endure.
Viktor Frankl, concentration camp resident, might have words with you:
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
For exploring the (Theravada, but really 'fundamental/historical') Buddhist perspective, the best resource I have personally found online is Access to Insight at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/
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Key quote: "All the classical philosophers that some alt-righters claim to revere put virtue before brute power. The Stoics, in particular, were cosmopolitans – they believed in a universal moral code that transcends race, gender or nationality."
In other words, some people wind up cherry-picking pieces of Stoicism, like equanimity in the face of misfortune, and ignoring others, like cosmopolitanism and considering virtue as the highest/sole good.
"Human life the Stoics appear to have considered as a game of great skill; in which, however, there was a mixture of chance [...] In such games the stake is commonly a trifle, and the whole pleasure of the game arises from playing well, from playing fairly, and playing skilfully. If notwithstanding all his skill, however, the good player should, by the influence of chance, happen to lose, the loss ought to be a matter, rather of merriment, than of serious sorrow. He has made no false stroke; he has done nothing which he ought to be ashamed of; he has enjoyed completely the whole pleasure of the game. [...]
Our only anxious concern ought to be, not about the stake, but about the proper method of playing. If we placed our happiness in winning the stake, we placed it in what depended upon causes beyond our power, and out of our direction. We necessarily exposed ourselves to perpetual fear and uneasiness, and frequently to grievous and mortifying disappointments. If we placed it in playing well, in playing fairly, in playing wisely and skilfully; in the propriety of our own conduct in short; we placed it in what, by proper discipline, education, and attention, might be altogether in our own power, and under our own direction. Our happiness was perfectly secure, and beyond the reach of fortune."
[1] http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smMS7.html