I decided to become a stoic. You can seethe and cope but I only feel apatheia towards that because it is not in my control. I live according to logos which is good and will give me greatness. Greatness is my opportunity to project virtue and nobody can take that from me no matter how much he tries.
K.
>stoic
>great
moron. The great men of history were great feelers, they were primarily feelers, men of immense sensibility. Stoics have made relatively little impression compared to the men in history who felt deeply.
Marcus, Seneca, Cato, Socrates and Stockdale would disagree with you
Hitler, Alexander of Macedonia and Jesus Christ would disagree with you.
I would argue that all great men had Stoic character that made them great especially in the begging of every civilisation. People like Scaevola, Aeneas. In myth of Hercules his stoic qualities are very important. There is a contrast between Homer's and Hesiod's ideals but according to myth when they competed in poetry masses voted for Homer but nobility preferred Hesiod's work for his insistence for more stoic qualities.
What exactly does stoic mean to you?
Living according to reason of logos. That means doing good for yourself, family, country and finally humanity. Stoics think that is most natural thing a man can do. If you encounter hardship and don't feel happy you disregard it and continue working for reason. You should put only worth in acting according to reason. Everything else is irrelevant and outside of your control.
what's bad is bad, and not to be loved in order to make it tolerable; the horribleness of the truly horrible is to be relished for what it is. that's the only way to recover one's authenticity.
living according to logos is the trek away from honesty.
>Hitler
Caused the death of millions then blew his own brains out.
still more famous than santa claus
Literally who
All great men with large and prosperous families.
>reddit et al. would disagree with you
Okay.
Why do stoictroons worship one of the most mediocre emperors the Roman empire ever had?
This. I prefer the ruins of Classical civilization more than its actual course. I prefer the vast expanse of nature and her unconquerable, eternal domain to the vain, crumbling stonework of man.
>gets lost and passes away
Its always the people who talk like this about nature that have no fricking clue
>he says this as he adopts a thespian authorial tone only hear in cities
the irony
Its pronounced stoic
Its pronounced stoyk.
In Slav, standing is spelled 'stoiec', so being stoic literally means to stand, to be stoic, to stand ernstly and not abandoning the position you are standing at.
Someone watched Bridge of Spies recently
Very nice I like Hadot the most and I don't like modern adaptations very much
Stoicism is the weakest philosophy imaginable. Its the rejection of feeling because your afraid of pain
Stoic will acknowledge his pain but he will not assent to the thought that it is bad. Only thing that is bad is not acting according to a reason everything else is irrelevant.
>Stoicism is the weakest philosophy imaginable
I would say it takes incredible mental strength to not let everything you experience upset you and be ruled by your own emotions instead of rational thought. Self control is not weakness but the opposite, it also takes humility and intelligence to realize it's your own judgements what mainly harm you not the things what may happen, because responsible for your own beliefs and actions is not weakness. Getting upset over everything, blaming others for your feelings, and living in a state of ignorance is weakness.
Not being a stoic doesn't mean you have no control over yourself
I know, but you are less likely to generally, Stoicism is just an ancient explanation of how the human mind works, and has survived because what they taught was mostly correct. People do for example, get distraught because they place value in external things and people, rather than their own faculty of reason.
A healthy person balances his emotions and his rationality, one is not superior to the other. That's my main issue with stoicism is that it makes out emotions to be a bad thing
Emotions have their place in the universe as we evolved emotions were very useful for us. Animals that don't have capacity for reason would perish without emotions. But we as humans are on higher level and have reason as superior tool for regulating our actions. That means when emotion and reason is in conflict you ought to choose reason
But how often are emotions and reason in conflict? Like obviously if I see an attractive woman on the street I don't immediately run up and try to have sex with them, that's basic self control I mean I don't just act on every desire I ever have, I figure the best way of going about achieving that desire in my head. So that's basically making rationality a servant of desire
But maybe your desire is having a lot of casual sexo. It is often not in the best interest of you your family and country. In casual sex children are often not produced because of contraception or if they are produced with some bad specimen just because of sexors that children are often dead ends because of lack of care and other problems. So most natural and reasonable thing would be to instead use your energies to produce children only in family that has potential to be healthy prosperous good for you extended family and country. There is desire in stoicism but to do what is most natural and according to logos.
>That's my main issue with stoicism is that it makes out emotions to be a bad thing
Which ancient Stoic says emotions are a bad thing and that all of them should be avoided?, they say anger should be avoided because generally it is destructive rather than constructive, but they never say we should avoid positive emotions.
Emotions are simply the result of the judgements we make about things, Stoics never said we will never feel them, just that we should think rationally before we decide to act or not act.
Yes there is also the stoic method that helps you with that. First you need logic with it you can see what is and what is not in your control. Secondly you need to accept rational logos that rules the universe this is most challenging step for most people. I don't like modern adaptation of stoicism because they rejected this step and they accept undetermined and random universe. But if you read stoic doctrine you will realize that everything happens for a reason and universe is determined and good. Spinoza is not always viewed as a stoic but he explains this increadebly well. Third step is doing what is most natural for you that means working for your family, country and finally for humanity as a whole.
Isn't this just how intelligent well rounded people act anyway?
Yes it is rational but lot of people are not born with it. That is where stoicism can help. I don't deny that there were people who acted like that but didn't heard of stoicism
I'm a stoic as well. I sleep on the floor, take cold showers and let my gf have sex with other men.
You shouldn't let your girlfriend have sex with others if you can stop it but if you can't you shouldn't cry and chimp. You also should not kill her or her lover because it will sent you to jail so you, your family and country will be worse off
>I sleep on the floor
That is a Cynic trait, not a Stoic one.
>take cold showers
Showers didn't even exist when the Stoics were relevant, and none of them say you cannot use warm water.
>let my gf have sex with other men
A person who lives in ignorance would do that whether you like it or not, and just because Marcus Aurelius tolerated it doesn't mean others would, most people would just shrug realize this is what people do, leave her and move on.
Marcus forgave but it is not universally accepted that he tolerated it. There is a story that I read somewhere you can check it but I think it was good source. His woman liked gladiators, so he asked priests what he should do about it. They said that he should make the gladiator she desired and his wife have sex and when sex started they killed him and bathed her in his blood
From the Historia Augusta i think, and it's generally viewed as a unreliable source.
I'm not sure Marcus was seen as some major philosopher either until recently, i would be more interested in how someone like Epictetus generally lived.
I like Epictetus he freed himself from slavery got his own school and was very respected. Only problem I have with him is that he refused to have wife and children. He always advised his students to do that but for some reason he didn't. Later he adopted child from his friend who died.
He may not of been able to look after one properly, considering he was supposedly a cripple, and i think he had woman to help him look after the child he adopted.
I don't really, while meditations is interesting i don't find it to be some earth shatteringly amazing book, it's kind of too vague for someone to try and understand Stoicism for the first time too, as it's his work book/journal. I admire people more like Socrates and Diogenes.
If you want to be a chad
>Learn Latin and Greek
>Lift weights
>Read Nietzsche (this will give you a better mindset)
You will look good, appear interesting (because of Latin and Greek), and be in the right "chad" frame of mind
>Lift weights
slave behaviour
dyel spotted
don't have to i'm not 5'9
i just decided to be one too after semi reading your post
>I decided to become a stoic. You can seethe and cope
why would I? you are the one that decided to cope 24/7
stoicism seems like a cope for autismos who already have super diminished feeling for absolutely everything except model trains