Rating: ⁸⁄₁₀ Read: 2016.08.16

William Irvine’s book about the philosophy of stoicism, and its practical effects to our modern 21st century live. Good to theory-to-practice ratio, its a good book to introduce people to the Stoic philosophy.

So stoicism is came from the greeks and then made famous by the roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. The main idea behind is creating a philosophy thats practical to the everyday life, not just pretend to beileveing in faith is enough to direct us on the path of our life.

Notes

• Negative visualisation
  • Loss of family, friends, life, possessins
  • Daily practice or at least few times a week
  • Reverse visualisation: if something bad happened, think about that this experience is not just special to us, it’s happening to everyone (be it death, break up, or losing our job)
• Trichotomy of control
  • There are things which we have over total control<-some control<- no control
  • These can be values and goals <- “we will win this competition” <- weather / politics respectively
  • We should let go the no control group, creating goals for the semi-control things, and focusing the majority of our attention to things which are under our total control
• Fatalism
  • Doing things today does not have any effects to our past (what a Coelho)
  • Examine the faults of the past, but do not be obsessive about it
• Self-denial
  • From time-to-time experience some kind of discomfort
  • Like cold, hunger, nakedness
  • Try to refuse pleasures
• Meditation on our actions
  • “Has been there anything today that bedazzle your tranquality? Some anger or envy?”
  • Did all our actions meets with our values? If not, why?
• Duty on loving mankind
  • Stay away from whining people
  • If we rage about someone, thinking about our own faults will place the situation in perspective
• On putting up with put-downs
  • If someone hurts you and you do not respect him, just ignore
  • If someone insults you, try:
    • Humour with self-deprecation
    • Ignore
    • Try to teach him with arguments
  • The insult comes from our judgements, do not create a one-man drama in our head
• On vanquishing tears with reason (death and loss)
  • Negative visualisation: Expect for death beforehand
  • Retrospective negative visualisation: imagine your life without him/her
  • There is no rationality in suffering, majority of the cases the lost person would not want us to suffer
• On overcoming anti-joy and anger
  • Humour
  • In the long term, the majority of the things are not that important
  • Relax your muscles, your voice, slow down
• On seeking fame
  • Be indifferent to social status, due to timesaving and stress saving (you wont be offended, if something not work out because of your (lack) of status)
  • Freedom beats everything in the long term. If we fight for status, we let others to budget our times and resources
  • Be neutral to external opinions
  • Have friends who have got the same kind of values
• On luxurious living
  • Avoid hedonic treadmill. If we get used to luxury, we can’t value the simple things
  • We should eat to live, not the other way around
  • Natural needs can be fulfilled (hunger, thirst), unnaturals can’t (luxury)
• On becoming stoic
  • Follow this order in terms of excersises for the best bang-for-the-buck
    • Negativ visualisation -> Trichotomy of control -> Handling insults -> Voluntary discomfort