Stoic Week 2015

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mistermack
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Re: Stoic Week 2015

Post by mistermack » Thu Aug 31, 2017 1:21 pm

JimC wrote:To a cold and uncaring universe, virtue and vice are both simply human illusions...
I wouldn't say illusions, but unimportant.

It's importance that is the real illusion, and that applies to everything human, and everything else.

Or you could say that importance does actually exist, but it's only local in space and time.
What's important to you is totally unimportant to virtually all of the rest of the universe over infinite time.

Vice and virtue, good and bad exist, in a tiny speck of space and time, but they don't matter.
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Re: Stoic Week 2015

Post by DRSB » Sun Sep 30, 2018 4:27 am

Starting tomorrow: Stoic Week 2018!
The theme this year is "Live happy".
Modern books drawing on their ideas and repackaged as guidance for how to live well today include A Guide to the Good Life by William Irvine, Stoicism and the Art of Happiness by Donald Robertson, The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman, and How to Be a Stoic by Massimo Pigliucci. What all these books share is the conviction that people can benefit by going back and looking at the ideas of these Roman Stoics. There’s even an annual week dedicated to Stoicism.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/se ... 59126.html

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Re: Stoic Week 2015

Post by cronus » Sun Sep 30, 2018 9:03 am

There's something called decision inertia that's left many a person still in their bunks after the ship is resting on the sea bed. Where are the Romans today?
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Re: Stoic Week 2015

Post by DRSB » Sun Sep 30, 2018 9:16 am

They were living a happy life while they were living, isn't this the point?
Look it is not black or white, take what your want, I like the idea of putting things into perspective and rising above the trivia.

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Re: Stoic Week 2015

Post by cronus » Sun Sep 30, 2018 10:34 am

DRSB wrote:
Sun Sep 30, 2018 9:16 am
They were living a happy life while they were living, isn't this the point?
Look it is not black or white, take what your want, I like the idea of putting things into perspective and rising above the trivia.
Taking points that are helpful is a whole lot different from the lifting of the entire philosophy. That resembles fatalism...some things are impossible to deal with and so the Stoic doesn't, but the leading edge of life does attempt the impossible. Later realising that what was thought impossible was actually merely very, very difficult to achieve.
What will the world be like after its ruler is removed?

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Re: Stoic Week 2015

Post by DRSB » Sun Sep 30, 2018 10:51 am

cronus wrote:
Sun Sep 30, 2018 10:34 am
DRSB wrote:
Sun Sep 30, 2018 9:16 am
They were living a happy life while they were living, isn't this the point?
Look it is not black or white, take what your want, I like the idea of putting things into perspective and rising above the trivia.
Taking points that are helpful is a whole lot different from the lifting of the entire philosophy. That resembles fatalism...
It is not lifted, it is adapted to modern life. Many have taken individual points and not even acknowledged the source. Or a great deal has been reinterpreted, misinterpreted, misquoted, mistranslated. Plus, different schools, countries, thinkers involved, Seneca is different from Zeno for example, it is not a single ideology or religion. It is philosophy, it is attitude, up to you. If something is worth doing, you'll do it regardless of how you feel, this is attitude. You don't have to like a problem in order to be happy while having it. My two cents!

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Re: Stoic Week 2015

Post by cronus » Sun Sep 30, 2018 10:57 am

DRSB wrote:
Sun Sep 30, 2018 10:51 am
cronus wrote:
Sun Sep 30, 2018 10:34 am
DRSB wrote:
Sun Sep 30, 2018 9:16 am
They were living a happy life while they were living, isn't this the point?
Look it is not black or white, take what your want, I like the idea of putting things into perspective and rising above the trivia.
Taking points that are helpful is a whole lot different from the lifting of the entire philosophy. That resembles fatalism...
It is not lifted, it is adapted to modern life. Many have taken individual points and not even acknowledged the source. Or a great deal has been reinterpreted, misinterpreted, misquoted, mistranslated. Plus, different schools, countries, thinkers involved, Seneca is different from Zeno for example, it is not a single ideology or religion. It is philosophy, it is attitude, up to you. If something is worth doing, you'll do it regardless of how you feel, this is attitude. You don't have to like a problem in order to be happy while having it. My two cents!
Ideas evolve, new times and new ideas emerge. The world today is not the ancient one. All ideas are of value but don't rely on the specific ideology, fairly unique times these - best to think outside the box and not rely on any one idea too much.
What will the world be like after its ruler is removed?

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Re: Stoic Week 2015

Post by DRSB » Sun Sep 30, 2018 11:01 am

cronus wrote:
Sun Sep 30, 2018 10:57 am
DRSB wrote:
Sun Sep 30, 2018 10:51 am
cronus wrote:
Sun Sep 30, 2018 10:34 am
DRSB wrote:
Sun Sep 30, 2018 9:16 am
They were living a happy life while they were living, isn't this the point?
Look it is not black or white, take what your want, I like the idea of putting things into perspective and rising above the trivia.
Taking points that are helpful is a whole lot different from the lifting of the entire philosophy. That resembles fatalism...
It is not lifted, it is adapted to modern life. Many have taken individual points and not even acknowledged the source. Or a great deal has been reinterpreted, misinterpreted, misquoted, mistranslated. Plus, different schools, countries, thinkers involved, Seneca is different from Zeno for example, it is not a single ideology or religion. It is philosophy, it is attitude, up to you. If something is worth doing, you'll do it regardless of how you feel, this is attitude. You don't have to like a problem in order to be happy while having it. My two cents!
Ideas evolve, new times and new ideas emerge. The world today is not the ancient one. All ideas are of value but don't rely on the specific ideology, fairly unique times these - best to think outside the box and not rely on any one idea too much.
Precisely, The Stoic Week is exactly that:" Stoicism for modern life" old and new scholars, not one single idea or strategy. It is online, so it is highly individual who and what makes of it and takes away for themselves. It is about education and trying things for size.

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Re: Stoic Week 2015

Post by cronus » Sun Sep 30, 2018 11:08 am

Might try being a hedonist one week and a stoic the next for a while.
What will the world be like after its ruler is removed?

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Re: Stoic Week 2015

Post by DRSB » Sun Sep 30, 2018 11:09 am

cronus wrote:
Sun Sep 30, 2018 11:08 am
Might try being a hedonist one week and a stoic the next for a while.
Sounds like a plan! Nothing to lose!

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Re: Stoic Week 2015

Post by cronus » Sun Sep 30, 2018 11:48 am

DRSB wrote:
Sun Sep 30, 2018 11:09 am
cronus wrote:
Sun Sep 30, 2018 11:08 am
Might try being a hedonist one week and a stoic the next for a while.
Sounds like a plan! Nothing to lose!
Experiment in living a counterpoint lifestyle, not a plan there's a book in this if it works for a year though. ;)
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Re: Stoic Week 2015

Post by Brian Peacock » Sun Sep 30, 2018 11:52 am

cronus wrote:
Sun Sep 30, 2018 10:34 am
DRSB wrote:
Sun Sep 30, 2018 9:16 am
They were living a happy life while they were living, isn't this the point?
Look it is not black or white, take what your want, I like the idea of putting things into perspective and rising above the trivia.
Taking points that are helpful is a whole lot different from the lifting of the entire philosophy. That resembles fatalism...some things are impossible to deal with and so the Stoic doesn't, but the leading edge of life does attempt the impossible. Later realising that what was thought impossible was actually merely very, very difficult to achieve.
Erm, if 'some things are impossible to deal with' then isn't trying to deal with them kind of futile? What do you find impossible to deal with, and why haven't you tried harder? ;)
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Re: Stoic Week 2015

Post by Hermit » Sun Sep 30, 2018 12:00 pm

cronus wrote:
Sun Sep 30, 2018 10:34 am
That resembles fatalism...some things are impossible to deal with and so the Stoic doesn't, but the leading edge of life does attempt the impossible.
The irony of this statement coming from you has not escaped my notice.
cronus wrote:
Sun Sep 30, 2018 11:08 am
Might try being a hedonist one week and a stoic the next for a while.
You can be both simultaneously. I believe stoics make better hedonists than people who are not.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops. - Stephen J. Gould

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Re: Stoic Week 2015

Post by cronus » Sun Sep 30, 2018 12:07 pm

Hermit wrote:
Sun Sep 30, 2018 12:00 pm
cronus wrote:
Sun Sep 30, 2018 10:34 am
That resembles fatalism...some things are impossible to deal with and so the Stoic doesn't, but the leading edge of life does attempt the impossible.
The irony of this statement coming from you has not escaped my notice.
cronus wrote:
Sun Sep 30, 2018 11:08 am
Might try being a hedonist one week and a stoic the next for a while.
You can be both simultaneously. I believe stoics make better hedonists than people who are not.
I might blur the edges on a Saturday night by getting drunk at home from now on.
What will the world be like after its ruler is removed?

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Re: Stoic Week 2015

Post by Rum » Sun Sep 30, 2018 12:14 pm

I think 'living by' a philosophy is a bit juvenile. By the time we are old we have an outlook on the world and the universe that has developed over decades and we live according to that. I don't feel I have much choice about that - it is based on what I believe the universe to be - in my case, big, empty and meaningless in terms of anything relating to human beings. I'm probably positive in my outlook more because of my biology and psychological outlook that because I choose to be. Nothing humans do amounts to much at all, in the short run. let alone the long run. Live and enjoy as best one can!

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