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An introduction to Stoic philosophy and resilience-building [video]

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Re: An introduction to Stoic philosophy and resilience-building [video]

#61

Post by snowcrshd »

brndnmtthws wrote: post #25

A great book on the subject is called "A Guide to the Good Life", by William Irvine. It's a great read, and a good introduction to stoicism. I read it while recovering from surgery when I was unable to walk for a few weeks, and found it to be very helpful in keeping sane.

I second this. "A Guide to the Good Life" is a fantastic introduction to Stoic principles.

I also read "Stoicism and the Art of Happiness", but did not enjoy it as much. I think Irvine's book is more to the point.

I've found that stoic practices help me in things I would not have thought of: job interviews, for example. Doing negative visualization, imagining interviewers asking me stuff I don't have complete knowledge of, and imagining how I'd respond to it was extremely helpful recently.

Re: An introduction to Stoic philosophy and resilience-building [video]

#62

Post by snowcrshd »

coconut_crab wrote: post #52

I like the principle of Stoicism. But I don't see how can that help with the suffering of the people I care about. I am fine with losing my job, my home or my social position (or at least so I think), but what about my spouse? my children? How can I still feel calm when I fail to support them?

I don't think the point is feeling completely calm when things are going bad.

For me, at least, one of the points of stoicism is learning how to take a step back and look at the situation through more rational lenses, and then figure out how to deal with it.

Take the situation you mentioned: failing to support for one's family. I think someone who strives to practice stoicism would do something like this:

- What are the reasons I'm failing to provide for my family? Am I spending too much? Is my salary too low? Is the place I live too expensive? Does my family spend too much money?

- Of those reasons, which ones do I have full control of? (This is were you can actually act on).

- Which ones do I have some control of? If your family is the cause of financial distress, there are some actions you can take (like talking to them and explaining things have to change), but you can't fully control their actions and thoughts.

- Which ones do I have no control of? Don't worry about these, there is nothing you can do anyways. But here is the catch, you are eventually going to worry about them. This is what people fail to get about stoicism. It is not a silver bullet that is going to take away all your worries. It is an instrument to help you overcome them, with reason. It takes some practice to get good at it.

Re: An introduction to Stoic philosophy and resilience-building [video]

#63

Post by jotjotzzz »

Chiba-City wrote: post #44
colordrops wrote: post #6

Why is Stoicism the philosophical flavor of the month amongst tech people?

I studied Philosophy at Harvard decades ago while working for Unitarians in Emerson's old church, had the privilege of paying Brad Cox's salary for a few years and now read Pali Buddhist Suttas, Stoics and Christian Scripture. 1) Stoics had huge impact on both pre-Christian Hellenized Jews and then centuries of early Christians. They distributed Epictetus' Enchiridion with "Jesus" penciled in for "Socrates." Most lit…

Great explanation, thanks!

Re: An introduction to Stoic philosophy and resilience-building [video]

#64

Post by wu-ikkyu »

bykovich2 wrote: post #16
Barrin92 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>like bodybuilding, nootropics, hackathons and life-hacks, it presents rigid, rationalized mastery of the self as both desirable and achievable. This is a good observation. It reminds me of some kind of digital protestantism on steroids. The same kind of displayed humility, work obsession and so forth. I think it's very self-aggrandising in a way.

So you want to live “according to nature?” Oh, you noble Stoics, what a fraud is in this phrase! Imagine something like nature, profligate without measure, indifferent without measure, without purpose and regard, without mercy and justice, fertile and barren and uncertain at the same time, think of indifference itself as power – how could you live according to this indifference? Living – isn’t that wanting specifical…

>Imagine something like nature, profligate without measure

If by "profligate" he means "wasteful in the use of resources" then this whole thesis falls apart immediately.

Re: An introduction to Stoic philosophy and resilience-building [video]

#65

Post by wu-ikkyu »

bykovich2 wrote: post #10
johnchristopher wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stoicism movement has been going strong for more than a year (on HN and elsewhere).

Why, though? What has produced that effect?

Perhaps it may be the increasingly worrisome and out of control political climate?

Re: An introduction to Stoic philosophy and resilience-building [video]

#66

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

cousin_it wrote: post #32
bykovich2 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because being in tech is life-ruining and only can only be propped up by ascetic myth-making, lol. I suspect stoicism also appeals strongly to a personality that enters tech at a disproportionate rate -- like bodybuilding, nootropics, hackathons and life-hacks, it presents rigid, rationalized mastery of the self as both desirable and achievable. I'm hesitant to attempt to characterize the personality order to which t…

Easy fix: instead of Stoicism and weightlifting, choose Catholicism and BJJ. Similar benefits, but with much more human interaction.

Plus it comes with an extra helping of pedophilia!

Re: An introduction to Stoic philosophy and resilience-building [video]

#67

Post by munchbunny »

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #50
munchbunny wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually happened upon Stoicism through both CBT and researching meditation. I had some anxiety issues that I more or less learned to control by implementing CBT on myself alongside meditation. Those issues aren't gone, but I now have the mental tools to manage them such that it doesn't affect my life. Later, I found that if I tweaked those techniques, they were also useful for staying focused and clear-headed in s…

How would you best summarize those mental practises?

I'd probably summarize it into three general exercises:

1. Notice when I am feeling stress, anxiety, fear, anger, etc. Mentally identify and acknowledge the feeling, and then step out of the cycle. Meditate if I'm really having trouble detaching from the immediate situation.

2. Once I'm no longer stuck in the immediate situation, I have the space and mental presence to figure out the source of my problem. Why was I feeling anxious or stressed? What event caused it? What about it was bothering me?

3. Once I have that answer, I can understand my emotional situation rationally, and I can decide what I'm going to do about it. My goal isn't to stop feeling emotions, but rather to address the root cause or the mental pathway leading to it.

For the anxiety issues I mentioned, the conclusion to step 3 was to slowly recondition myself by exposing myself gradually to the triggering condition. Rationally, nothing bad was going to happen, so I needed my brain to learn that. I combined that with developing mental exercises to distract myself and get me away from the downward feedback loop of anxiety.

For general life situations, the answer comes closer to Stoic philosophy: understand what I can and cannot control, and then either decide to do something about it, or let go because further worrying about an effective dice roll is a waste of energy. Trying to influence the odds and making contingency plans counts towards "doing something about it."

The key to my happiness day to day was understanding that I actually have much more agency than I might initially assume. One or even several setbacks don't necessarily mean I fail my actual goal, and situations that look bad often only look that way because I think I'm out of options, or because I'm trying to eat my cake and have it too when I actually need to make a hard choice.

Among all of this, the key insight for me that CBT and meditation unlocked was that many of my limitations had a huge internal mental component, and if I can intentionally mold how I perceive the world, I can live much more effectively, and happily. The goal isn't to delude myself so much as to put myself in a mental state where I can be be more open-minded and deliberate.

Re: An introduction to Stoic philosophy and resilience-building [video]

#68

Post by reality_hacker »

snowcrshd wrote: post #62
coconut_crab wrote: post #52

I like the principle of Stoicism. But I don't see how can that help with the suffering of the people I care about. I am fine with losing my job, my home or my social position (or at least so I think), but what about my spouse? my children? How can I still feel calm when I fail to support them?

I don't think the point is feeling completely calm when things are going bad. For me, at least, one of the points of stoicism is learning how to take a step back and look at the situation through more rational lenses, and then figure out how to deal with it. Take the situation you mentioned: failing to support for one's family. I think someone who strives to practice stoicism would do something like this: - What are…

Overspending is the first class citizen problem, there are many other problems can happened.

Billions of people live surrounded by crimes, wars and poverty.

Re: An introduction to Stoic philosophy and resilience-building [video]

#70

Post by Malician »

bykovich2 wrote: post #10
johnchristopher wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stoicism movement has been going strong for more than a year (on HN and elsewhere).

Why, though? What has produced that effect?

Stoicism unites key principles of early Christian thinking, Buddhist thinking, and modern humanist techniques for transcending mental illness (CBT/DBT.) It filters down from here through almost every bit of psychological self help you can find. (See Scott Alexander's "CBT is in the water supply") - and through it, stoic principles.

The modern world confronts us with a planet of people who are better than us at one thing or another and a planet of risks we have no ability to confront. We might work five years on a project that never ships without ever experiencing the gratification of chopping wood to burn that night. I would bet there's a genetic correlation between programmer / good at tech and overthinking / predisposition to anxiety; even if not, humans placed in an environment which causes our brains to run wild will look for some sort of peace. We find this from many sources - especially through addictions (legal, illegal, television, refreshing HN) - prescription medications (different from addictions? sometimes!) - but the idea of being able to train ourselves out of our internal agony is quite appealing.

Stoic philosophy itself is the foundation of the ideas which come to us through every part of culture, so people who are into tracing the source are liable to find it sooner or later.

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