Jim and Jamie Dutcher lived with a wolf pack for six years. The wolves were so comfortable with them that they were almost part of the pack. Jim would howl and the wolves would answer. Jamie was permitted by the alpha female to inspect her newborn pups. A wolf pack is a hierarchy. The alphas…
Bubbles burst and get blown again. Grass gets mowed and grows again. What’s short-lived often lives again. What’s done is done but invariably gets done again. Each keystroke I’m making right now is repeatedly lost forever and replaced by the next until words appear. The words may endure briefly but will soon be forgotten as…
In Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer, the main character, Binx Bolling, periodically muses on the concept of a repetition. He first explains it as follows (if you’re like me, reading the explanation will need several repetitions before it sinks in!): “What is a repetition? A repetition is the re-enactment of past experience toward the end of…
Check out the infographic or text below for a very brief timeline of the origins of Stoicism, the philosophy founded over two thousand years ago by Zeno of Citium! Around 301 BC The first Stoics The founder of Stoicism, Zeno of Citium, begins teaching in the colonnade in the Agora of Athens known as the Stoa Poikile. Taking their name…
In his Meditations, Marcus Aurelius wrote, "The soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts." In other words, what you frequently think about affects who you are and it's within your power to think mostly of things in line with your principles. If that seems too abstract, thanks to the centuries-old practice of tattooing,…
This post covers the third and final week of the Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge. Click below for the first two weeks! Week 1Week 2 Day 15: Cut Out One Recurring Expense Of all the things that are, some are good, others bad, and yet others indifferent. The good are virtues and all…
This post covers week 2 of the Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge. Click here for week 1! Day 8: Open Your Mind: Read Something by Someone You Disagree With “It is likely that you will ask me why I quote so many of Epicurus's noble words instead of words taken from our own…
In July I took the Daily Stoic Freedom Challenge and documented my progress here. It was an interesting experience, a challenge in discipline which I found worthwhile and rewarding. So when Daily Stoic announced their New Year New You challenge I was happy to sign up and use it as a kick-start for 2020. I…
One of the stranger misconceptions about Stoicism is that it is an individualistic philosophy focusing only on self-discipline. The reality is quite the opposite - Stoics believe, as Marcus Aurelius put it, that humans exist for the sake of one another. The extension of that message is that we should make an effort to socialise…
The next time someone judges you, remember this: everyone judges everyone else by their own standards. The judgemental “I can’t believe you did that” is a thin mask for “I wouldn’t have done that”. The spotlight is projected onto someone else’s actions, often in a denigrating way, when actually the judgement is saying more about…