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How Stoicism can help us

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Re: How Stoicism can help us

#11

Post by spamizbad »

wavefunction wrote: post #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 fi…

It's just this generations spin on new-age spiritualism. Boomers were there decades ago. The difference: we're now mining Zeno instead of Jung.

Not necessarily a bad thing in some ways. There's lots of anxiety and neuroticism in our generation and we need tools besides benzodiazepines to address them.

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#12

Post by pewpewpew777 »

Marcus Aurelius is responsible for raising and empowering his son Commodus - the emperor depicted in the movie Gladiator.

It's useful to keep this in mind when reading his meditations. Yes, the message can be nice and joyful to read. Yet the man who wrote them created a tyrant and contributed to untold suffering.

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#13

Post by unmole »

chess93 wrote: 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.

Hay's translation is the only one I found readable. The rest as you found out are full of archaic verbosity.

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#15

Post by elchief »

wavefunction wrote: post #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 fi…

Stoicism isn't about not showing feelings, it's about thinking about the world in different ways so that losses don't matter

A regular Joe might like his coffee mug and be sad if it smashes. A Stoic has already imagined the loss of his mug, knows it belongs to the Universe, and the Universe wanted it back.

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#16

Post by Swizec »

elchief wrote: post #15
wavefunction wrote: post #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 fi…

Stoicism isn't about not showing feelings, it's about thinking about the world in different ways so that losses don't matter A regular Joe might like his coffee mug and be sad if it smashes. A Stoic has already imagined the loss of his mug, knows it belongs to the Universe, and the Universe wanted it back.

Well once it’s smashed no amount of whining sill bring it back, will it? Best buy a new mug and move on.

And imho the reason us millenial tech workers need stoicism is precisely because our lives are cushy. We have too much time to spend emotional energy on shit that doesn’t matter. Stoicism is a good way to fight that and remind yourself that hey this ain’t so bad.

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#17

Post by ohaideredevs »

bitexploder wrote: post #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.

I got nothing out of reading meditations after reading Aurelius' quotes. I feel like the whole back can be summarized "Focus on what you can control, don't stress over what you truly can't." Same with ALL of Buddhism.

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#18

Post by darkpuma »

pewpewpew777 wrote: post #12

Marcus Aurelius is responsible for raising and empowering his son Commodus - the emperor depicted in the movie Gladiator. It's useful to keep this in mind when reading his meditations. Yes, the message can be nice and joyful to read. Yet the man who wrote them created a tyrant and contributed to untold suffering.

Consider the existence of good people with bad parents. Should those bad parents be credited with the success of their children? It seems perverse to assume parents deserve full 'credit' in either scenario. There are many things other than parents that may influence that child's direction for better or worse.

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#19

Post by asark »

chess93 wrote: 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 did a pretty deep survey of the various translations (there are a lot) and landed on Maxwell Staniforth's as the best balance between readability and faithfulness to the original language. It's a fairly straight translation rendered in modern-enough English, unlike some of the older ones which add difficulty due to the age of their language, pointlessly, since it's a translation anyway and they're (obviously) so much more recent than the original that they are in no way contemporary so there's no claim to be made on that merit, as one might for, say, a 19th century translation of Jules Verne.

I think the only hardcover is from Folio Society, so medium-pricey as fine books go, but his translation's also the one used by at least some editions of the work from Penguin Classics, so, cheapish paperbacks. I'm having trouble verifying which editions of theirs are his translation, but it may be all of them.

Re: How Stoicism can help us

#20

Post by garrigou_lag »

Stoicism was an intriguing topic for me in college, but I've since been more drawn towards the works of St.Thomas Aquinas. It's interesting how St. Paul encountered Stoics and Epicureans in Athens (Chapter 17:18+ of Acts). From there, you have Dionysius who followed him and was an author of some influential writings that shaped Christian thought (including Aquinas). It's also interesting exploring Heraclitus' understanding of "Logos", which is very important (and with differences in the Who and What) for both Christianity and Stoicism.
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