"You desire to LIVE "according to Nature"? Oh, you noble Stoics, what fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: imagine to yourselves INDIFFERENCE as a power--how COULD you live in accordance with such indifference? To live--is not that just endeavoring to be otherwise than this Nature? Is not living valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different? And granted that your imperative, "living according to Nature," means actually the same as "living according to life"--how could you do DIFFERENTLY? Why should you make a principle out of what you yourselves are, and must be? In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you: while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature, you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players and self-deluders! In your pride you wish to dictate your morals and ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein; you insist that it shall be Nature "according to the Stoa," and would like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal glorification and generalism of Stoicism! With all your love for truth, you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, and with such hypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY, that is to say, Stoically, that you are no longer able to see it otherwise-- and to crown all, some unfathomable superciliousness gives you the Bedlamite hope that BECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over yourselves--Stoicism is self-tyranny--Nature will also allow herself to be tyrannized over: is not the Stoic a PART of Nature? . . . But this is an old and everlasting story: what happened in old times with the Stoics still happens today, as soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise; philosophy is this tyrannical impulse itself, the most spiritual Will to Power, the will to "creation of the world," the will to the causa prima."
Nietzsche
What the Stoics did for us
61–66 of 66 posts
Re: What the Stoics did for us
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
anybody here was surprised realizing how much of life was known to people 2000 years ago, and no matter what the society and technology .. these ideas do matter
The people then were the same human species as today, and there's no reason to think that they understood human nature any less (in fact I think people today have a lot of trouble understanding human nature).
whats two thousand years to a species of over a hundred thousand? even considering the time from the last ice age only, the relative difference is that of an 8 to 10 year old. yet, it is astounding nevertheless.
Re: What the Stoics did for us
#63I'm a forensic psychiatrist, and I work in corrections. I have been finding myself recommending books on stoicism to some of my patients after reading a few myself. It's a useful counterpoint to the modern idea that if your life is not Instagram/Pinboard material then you are a failure.
> modern idea that if your life is not Instagram/Pinboard material then you are a failure. what is this idea, and is it new?
for example, HN is ment for constructive discussion and some people mistake it for a chance to post snidy, rhethorical questions or sarcastic answers.
Re: What the Stoics did for us
#64You can download Marcus Aurelius' Meditations for free at my project, Standard Ebooks: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/marcus-aurelius/meditation... The translation is good and Meditations is one of my favorite books. Super interesting to get an inside look at how the most powerful man in the world used Stoicism to deal with both the weight of an empire, and with day-to-day trivialities. The Enchiridion is another…
There is also a youtube video by the same guy that wrote the article. I found it to be quite interesting (much of the points in the video are the same as in the article, maybe in a little more depth).
Re: What the Stoics did for us
#65You can download Marcus Aurelius' Meditations for free at my project, Standard Ebooks: https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/marcus-aurelius/meditation... The translation is good and Meditations is one of my favorite books. Super interesting to get an inside look at how the most powerful man in the world used Stoicism to deal with both the weight of an empire, and with day-to-day trivialities. The Enchiridion is another…
For what it's worth, the Hays translation of Meditations is much easier reading.
Totally agree, thats Modern Library publication.
Re: What the Stoics did for us
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. The Stoics allowed themselves to have emotions. It is a common misconception that stoicism is about deadening feelings and reactions to the world. Stoics acknowledge and even embrace our emotions, but what stoics aim for after experiencing emotions and gut reactions is some of the most interesting parts of stoicism for modern readers. I always direct people to http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/goldsay.html fo…
It feels like an older version of "sheeple". In terms of modern Stoic writing, I find Ryan Holiday's "The Ego is The Enemy" and "The Obstacle is the Way" (as well as his "Daily Stoic", although that's more of a daily devotional) to be very enjoyable and help to reframe the often hard-to-read writings of Aurelius, Seneca and Epictetus into actionable advice.
Met Ryan in person when he was on a book tour for Obstacle is The Way. Predominantly he is the one to introduce me to Aurelius and Stoicism in general. What do you think of Ego is The Enemy, a worthwhile read?