Hello there, For this week’s exercise, let us look at an excerpt from the last Great Emperor’s own journal. This is from the Meditation IX 5: “Often injustice lies in what you aren’t doing, not only in what you are doing.” As the Emperor of Rome, Marcus Aurelius fought “injustice” and “evil” in war, politics, natural disasters, economics, plagues and […]
Hello there, If there was a trophy for “most likely candidate to make it as a stand-up comedian” award for our ancient Stoic guides, then it would be unanimously awarded to Epictetus. For this week’s exercise, I will use some words from his Enchiridion VII: “Don’t seek everything to happen as you wish it would, but rather wish that everything […]
Hello there, For this exercise, let us look at an excerpt from the Moral Letters of Seneca to Lucillius XLVII: “Show me someone who isn’t a slave! One is a slave to lust, another to greed, another to power, and all are slaves to fear…No servitude is more abject than the self-imposed.” You may not like the sound of it, […]
Hello there, The Coronavirus (COVID 19) has changed the way we all live. If you’re like me, you are one of many who are living in extended isolation. But no matter where you are in the world, you have been (and continue to be) faced with uncertainties, panic and fear. With that in mind, we can still look back at […]
Hello there, I’m going to try and shorten our weekly exercises a little and simplify them. So let’s get started with a quote from Epictetus’ Discourses III 3.18: “What is bad luck? Opinion. What are conflict, dispute, blame, accusation, irreverence, and frivolity? They are all opinions, and more than that, they are opinions that lie outside of our own reasoned […]
Hello there, For this exercise, let us look at some words from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations II 11: “Let each thing you would do, say or intend be like that of a dying person.” I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: as much as I love Epictetus’ words for their humour and sarcasm, I love and appreciate Marcus Aurelius’ […]
Hello there, For this week’s exercise, let us look at an excerpt from the Moral Letters of Seneca to Lucillius XC 14: “How, I ask you, can you consistently admire both Diogenes and Daedalus? Which of these two seems a wise man – the one who invented the saw, or the one who, on seeing a boy drink water from […]
Hello there, For this week’s exercise, let us find inspiration in Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations IX 42: I have not owned cable television in almost a decade. But when I end up somewhere with cable TV access and flip on the boob-tube, I find nothing but reality TV shows. Even on channels (supposedly) dedicated to learning, we find series after series […]
Hello there, This week I’m going to draw inspiration from a different source, as our ancient guides tell us wisdom can be found anywhere and is in the public domain. This is from Nietzche ‘s famous work Thus Spoke Zarathustra: “It is the same with man as with the tree. The more he seeks to rise into the height and […]
Today, I would like to try something different, and instead of starting with a quote from one of our ancient guides, I would like to begin with a story about our ancient guides’ own historical guide: Diogenes. One day, Alexander the Great came up to Diogenes, whom he admired very much, and noted the vagrant philosopher was frantically digging around […]