Stoic Meditations

Cicero and Brutus begin a conversation on the nature of pain. Brutus immediately concedes that pain isn't the worst possible evil. Infamy, which indicates a bad character, is to be avoided even at the cost of pain. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

How few philosophers will you meet with whose life is conformable to the dictates of reason! Who look on their profession, not as a means of displaying their learning, but as a rule for their own practice! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Some people have a natural talent for music. But everyone can learn to play an instrument, even if they don't get to perform at Carnegie Hall. The same goes for philosophy: everyone can benefit from it, but not everyone is a sage. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

We who pursue only probabilities, and who cannot go beyond that which seems really likely, can confute others without obstinacy, and are prepared to be confuted ourselves without resentment. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Cicero explains to his friend Brutus why he writes about philosophy, and why in order to do so well he has to be acquainted with a large variety of fields of inquiry. Philosophical knowledge leads to the good life. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

How can that be miserable for one, which all must of necessity undergo? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Cicero recounts an anecdote involving Trophonius and Agamedes, who built the temple of Apollo at Delphi. They asked the god for whatever was best, and the god granted it: three days later, they were found dead. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

People carry out all sorts of rites to "take care" of the dead, even though there is no one to take care of. How about, instead, taking care of the people you love while they are still alive? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Diogenes the Cynic famously didn't care what happened to his body after death, since he believed there would be no sensation. That's an excellent reason to check your driver's license and see if you signed up for organ donation. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Aristotle discovered some insects whose entire life lasts one day. Compared to the vastness of time, our lives are not much longer. The question is whether we are able to live them fully. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Away, then, with those follies, such as that it is miserable to die before our time. What time do you mean? That of nature? But she has only lent you life, as she might lend you money, without fixing any certain time for its repayment. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

The process of nature is this: that in the same manner as our birth was the beginning of things with us, so death will be the end; and as we were not concerned with anything before we were born, so neither shall we be after we are dead. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

It never occurs to a man that such a disaster may befall himself. As if the number of the happy exceeded that of the miserable; or as if there were any certainty in human affairs. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Cicero argues that sometimes people live too long for their own good. Which makes the Stoic point that life itself is not an intrinsic good, but the means by which we exercise virtue. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Death, says Cicero, overtakes us quickly, and it is therefore endurable. It is the thought of leaving people and things behind that is painful. But the Stoics have a unique argument for why we should overcome that fear. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

For the whole life of a philosopher is, as [Socrates] says, a meditation on death. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Why exactly to we grieve when loved ones are gone? Is it about them, about us? Does it depend on what we think will happen to them after death? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

How, then, can you, or why do you, assert that you think that death is an evil, when it either makes us happy, in the case of the soul continuing to exist, or, at all events, not unhappy, in the case of our becoming destitute of all sensation? --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Cicero mentions a number of accounts of the nature of the soul, explaining that the Stoic take is that the soul is a physical attribute responsible for our faculty of judgment. And it perishes with us. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support

Nature has presented us with this bargain: either not being born at all, or being born a mortal. Everything else is the fantasy of priests bent on scaring and controlling us, as Epicurus put it. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/stoicmeditations/support