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How Stoicism can help us

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Re: How Stoicism can help us

#6
I think there’s a fundamental human drive to regret - evolutionarily, it makes sense that we’d be optimized to know exactly how we would do better in a bad situation we recently faced.

But in the modern world, this isn’t a matter or life or death, and it affects our mental health significantly. I always think of Stoicism as a sort of patch to override this bug - the you can’t change what you can’t change, whatever happens, happens.

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#7
post #2

What is everyone’s favorite translation of Meditations? I bought a cheap copy and the translation is unsurprisingly hard to read and distracts from the text’s content.

I think the Gregory Hays translation is the most readable and "modern."

It's on Github[1], fork your own translation! :)

[1] https://github.com/marvindanig/meditations

Disclosure: I'm the developer behind it.

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#8
Aurelius is the most approachable, but I find Epictetus more rewarding. Check out A. A. Long on Epictetus to get more deeply into what Epictetus was all about. Stoicism is like a missing manual for how to live a fulfilled life regardless of your station.

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#9
I enjoy studying and considering stoicism but I have to think statements like >one of the biggest groups of people interested in it seems to be millennials who work in the tech industry

and considering a simplified description of stoicism

>the endurance of pain or hardship without the display of feelings and without complaint.

To be an indictment of our industry. We're not coal-miners. We're not picking out in the fields or roofing in the hot sun. Cafeterias and RSUs aren't hardships.

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#10
post #2

What is everyone’s favorite translation of Meditations? I bought a cheap copy and the translation is unsurprisingly hard to read and distracts from the text’s content.

Tangentially related: it's a pity there aren't more websites like this one: [0]

It's nice to compare different translations in-line. The last line of section 3 is an excellent example of how different translations can be: [1]

Enchiridion is well worth a read (I gather Carter has the best translation but I've gleaned this from places like Reddit so pinch of salt!), and I also enjoyed Derren Brown's Happy [0] which draws heavily on stoicism, summarising a lot of famous works on it as he goes.

[0] - https://enchiridion.tasuki.org/display:Code:ec,twh,pem,sw/se... [1] - https://enchiridion.tasuki.org/display:Code:ec,twh,pem,sw/se... [2] - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30142270-happy

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