If you're an avid podcast listener and a student of the Stoics, you're probably always on the look out for good Stoicism podcasts to plug into. If you're not familiar with them, podcasts are a great way to absorb information when reading isn't convenient. That could be while driving, while working out, or any time…
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…
In his Consolation to Helvia, Seneca The Younger posits the following: “Is it not madness and the wildest lunacy to desire so much when you can hold so little?” He goes on to say how unwise it is “to think that it is the amount of money and not the state of mind that matters!”…
Recently I heard a song that I hadn’t listened to in years. I make the distinction between heard and listened because this time the song moved me in a way it never did before. It’s easy to listen to something without really processing it, it’s more difficult to hear it and thereby digest it. The…
When Chinese author Zhang Wei paid £7,600 to drink the world’s most expensive dram of whisky, he said, “In a nutshell, it tasted good. I was drinking not so much the whisky but a lot of history.” 139 years of history to be exact. Or so he thought. It was July 2017 when Mr. Zhang…
I’ve never been one for New Year’s resolutions. The first day, the first month, the year incrementing by one - none of these things have ever held any weight for me. I’ve always thought Epictetus’s forcefully direct question to be apt: “How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself?”Enchiridion…
When the book A Million Little Pieces was published in 2003, it was a huge milestone of vindication for author James Frey. He had spent the previous twelve years in France trying to become a writer. He could now finally say he was one. But it wasn’t getting published that made him feel like he…
The Stoics were avid writers, often for no other purpose than collecting and reviewing their own thoughts. In fact, Marcus Aurelius' best-known work, Meditations, was a series of his own notes and never intended to be read by anyone else. Epictetus and Seneca also recommended regular journaling to their students in order to exercise their…
“We’re all gonna die.” If you’ve ever seen the movie Predator, you’ll remember the character Billy Sole using that line in a much calmer, matter-of-fact manner than might be expected in an action film. In that instance it was used to convey the danger of a more imminent demise, but if you think about it,…
One of the most attractive things about Stoic philosophy is how relevant the 2000-year old teachings still are today. Let's face it, pearls of wisdom like "If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it" and "While we wait for life, life passes" never really go…