A Guide to the Good Life

pupil of Socrates, founded the Cynic school of philosophy, which advocated an ascetic lifestyle. Aristippus, another pupil of Socrates, founded the Cyrenaic school, which advocated a hedonistic lifestyle. In between these extremes, we find, among many other schools, the Epicurean school, the Skeptic school, and, of most interest to us here, the Stoic school, founded by Zeno of Citium. (Location 102)

It is for this reason that in the following pages I focus my attention on the Roman rather than the Greek Stoics, and it is for this reason that the primary focus of my examination of the Roman Stoics is not their advice on how to attain virtue but their advice on how to attain and maintain tranquility. Having said this, I should add that readers who follow Roman Stoic advice on attaining tranquility might thereby attain virtue as well. Should this happen, so much the better! (Location 560)

Indeed, he claims (as we have seen) that someone who practices Stoic principles “must, whether he wills or not, necessarily be attended by constant cheerfulness and a joy that is deep and issues from deep within, since he finds delight in his own resources, and desires no joys greater than his inner joys.” Furthermore, compared to these joys, pleasures of the flesh are “paltry and trivial and fleeting.”6 (Location 611)

Misfortune weighs most heavily, he says, on those who “expect nothing but good fortune.”2 Epictetus echoes this advice: We should keep in mind that “all things everywhere are perishable.” If we fail to recognize this and instead go around assuming that we will always be able to enjoy the things we value, we will likely find ourselves subject to considerable distress when the things we value are taken from us.3 (Location 798)

Note: All things are perishable Everything is temporary Good and bad

This means that besides finding a way to forestall the adaptation process, we need to find a way to reverse it. In other words, we need a technique for creating in ourselves a desire for the things we already have. (Location 825)

Note: This might be a good goal for 2021

that the easiest way for us to gain happiness is to learn how to want the things we already have. (Location 827)

THE STOICS THOUGHT they had an answer to this question. They recommended that we spend time imagining that we have lost the things we value—that our wife has left us, our car was stolen, or we lost our job. Doing this, the Stoics thought, will make us value our wife, our car, and our job more than we otherwise would. This technique—let us refer to it as negative visualization— (Location 829)

As we go about our day, we should periodically pause to reflect on the fact that we will not live forever and therefore that this day could be our last. Such reflection, rather than converting us into hedonists, will make us appreciate how wonderful it is that we are alive and have the opportunity to fill this day with activity. This in turn will make it less likely that we will squander our days. In other words, when the Stoics counsel us to live each day as if it were our last, their goal is not to change our activities but to change our state of mind as we carry out those activities. (Location 865)

ONE MIGHT IMAGINE that the Stoics, because they go around contemplating worst-case scenarios, would tend toward pessimism. What we find, though, is that the regular practice of negative visualization has the effect of transforming Stoics into full-blown optimists. (Location 899)

We normally characterize an optimist as someone who sees his glass as being half full rather than half empty. For a Stoic, though, this degree of optimism would only be a starting point. After expressing his appreciation that his glass is half full rather than being completely empty, he will go on to express his delight in even having a glass: It could, after all, have been broken or stolen. And if he is atop his Stoic game, he might go on to comment about what an astonishing thing glass vessels are: They are cheap and fairly durable, impart no taste to what we put in them, and—miracle of miracles!—allow us to see what they contain. This might sound a bit silly, but to someone who has not lost his capacity for joy, the world is a wonderful place. To such a person, glasses are amazing; to everyone else, a glass is just a glass, and it is half empty to boot. (Location 901)

Note: Nice little example of deep optimism Reminds me a bit of the Buddhist “the glass is already broken”

Furthermore, there is a difference between contemplating something bad happening and worrying about it. Contemplation is an intellectual exercise, and it is possible for us to conduct such exercises without its affecting our emotions. It (Location 987)

To the contrary, we must take care to be “the user, but not the slave, of the gifts of Fortune.”17 (Location 1017)

If we want our life to go well, Epictetus says, we should, rather than wanting events to conform to our desires, make our desires conform to events; we should, in other words, want events “to happen as they do happen.” (Location 1240)

Note: Like walt whitman whatever is is right Or my version, whatever is is

We can spend our days wishing our circumstances were different, but if we allow ourselves to do this, we will spend our days in a state of dissatisfaction. Alternatively, if we can learn to want whatever it is we already have, we won’t have to work to fulfill our desires in order to gain satisfaction; they will already have been fulfilled. (Location 1291)

If all we know is comfort, we might be traumatized when we are forced to experience pain or discomfort, as we someday almost surely will. In other words, voluntary discomfort can be thought of as a kind of vaccine: By exposing ourselves to a small amount of a weakened virus now, we create in ourselves an immunity that will protect us from a debilitating illness in the future. Alternatively, voluntary discomfort can be thought of as an insurance premium which, if paid, makes us eligible for benefits: Should we later fall victim to a misfortune, the discomfort we experience then (Location 1356)

Likewise, we can (as Diogenes observed) greatly enhance our appreciation of any meal by waiting until we are hungry before we eat it and greatly enhance our appreciation of any beverage by waiting until we are thirsty before we drink it. (Location 1369)

There are some pleasures, the Stoics would argue, from which we should always abstain. In particular, we should abstain from those pleasures that can capture us in a single encounter. This would include the pleasure to be derived from certain drugs: Had crystal meth existed in the ancient world, the Stoics would doubtless have counseled against its use. (Location 1388)

Epictetus takes Seneca’s bedtime-meditation advice one step further: He suggests that as we go about our daily business, we should simultaneously play the roles of participant and spectator.3 We should, in other words, create within ourselves a Stoic observer who watches us and comments on our attempts to practice Stoicism. (Location 1460)

Throughout the millennia and across cultures, those who have thought carefully about desire have drawn the conclusion that spending our days working to get whatever it is we find ourselves wanting is unlikely to bring us either happiness or tranquility. (Location 1593)

Fine wine, thus analyzed, turns out to be nothing more than fermented grape juice, and the purple robes that Romans valued so highly turn out to be nothing more than the wool of a sheep stained with gore from a shellfish. When Marcus applies this analytical technique to sex, he discovers that it is nothing more than “friction of the members and an ejaculatory discharge.”15 We would therefore be foolish to place a high value on sexual relations and more foolish still to disrupt our life in order to experience such relations. (Location 1664)

As it so happens, Buddhists recommend the use of this same analytic technique. When, for example, a man finds himself lusting after a woman, Buddhists might advise him to think not about her as a whole, but about the things that compose her, including her lungs, excrement, phlegm, pus, and spittle. Doing this, Buddhists claim, will help the man extinguish his lustful feelings. (Location 1668)

And having married, a wise man will bring children into the world. No religious procession, Musonius says, is as beautiful as a group of children guiding their parents through the city, leading them by the hand and taking care of them.19 Few people, Musonius would have us believe, are happier than the person who has both a loving spouse and devoted children. (Location 1684)