A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy | Hacker News Reader

A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy

hn-books.com

I can't seriously be the only one who read this review and was amazingly frustrated by the lack of detail. I have not read the book but, to the author's credit, this review made me want to read it because there is so little information about the book and so much attention to cheerleading for it.

    "One of the first things I learned was that ... [Stoicism is] just another way to lead one's life"

This doesn't tell me anything about it except that it's different. Give me some detail! Something to grab onto, to pique my interest! A few paragraphs later:

    "Several times while reading I was amazed at the insight the Stoics had.

Okay so if it happened a lot, just give me some tidbit. Anything. I don't mean to be intentionally negative but this is a book review and the author has included nothing but a buzz-wordy sounding definition of the purpose of Stoicism: "to have a joyous, happy, fun-filled life by better learning the art of living". I understand the "you have to read it man!" kind of attitude about books that lead to huge paradigm shifts but there's a middle ground where one or two ideas can be explained, an outline of content can be created, modern ideas and these ideas can be contrasted.

Thanks for your comment. I'm the author of the review.

I struggled with this as I wrote the review. How much of the material should I paraphrase? Not being a classicist, and only having a layman's view of things, I felt very uncomfortable trying to put words in the book author's mouth.

As you can see from another comment on this thread, from what I've said, I'm already being told that I seriously misrepresented Stoicism (I disagree with that commenter's point, but it's not important). So after some thought I felt that the more I tried to make the review into a tl;dr the more I'd probably screw it up. I put in as much detail as I was comfortable with.

If you read down to the bottom of the page, there's a product description from Amazon. It goes over things from a different angle. You can also click on the search box to see what hackers on other technical sites thought of the book. That's just below the review in the box titled "the buzz". As I was researching other reviews before I wrote mine, I found a heckuva lot of detail around exactly what you are asking about. I suggest you give it a couple of clicks and see if your questions aren't all answered.

I also didn't want the piece to sound too cheerleading-ish, but heck, I really liked the book. I read 30 or more books a year, and this is probably the best book I've read so far this year. While I have my doubts about lasting impact, what can I say? I really liked it. Not going to lie or exaggerate about that one way or the other.

I assume there's so little detail because he wants you to click his affiliate link and buy the book.

Derek Sivers reviewed this book recently http://sivers.org/book/StoicJoy

Reading this book right now, and loving it. It's weird, though, the more I read of it, the more I realized that I have always lived my life this way, I just haven't been conscious of it. The more aware I am of it though, the more I seem to get from life.

An excellent, excellent book.

I haven't read the book, but the more I learn about the Stoics (far beyond the simplistic modern definition of the word), the more I concur with you. I'm still a weekend Epicurean though :)

The interesting thing about stoicism is that most of the surviving texts (Letters from a Stoic, Meditations, The Handbook) are extremely readable. Letters from a Stoic particularly is fascinating. Making the connection between what Seneca talks about and issues in your own life is extremely rewarding.

A series of three essays on the topic by the author of the book was recently published on boing boing:

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/10/27/twenty-first-century-2....

It's undoubtedly an interesting book, but it's also beautifully written. Any reader would be hard pressed not to be interested simply because of the way in which the author engages the reader.

As well as the historical education, I took away some great techniques -- that I already use daily to my betterment -- and a philosophy of my own own that simply strives for tranquillity -- my preferred state.

This is absolutely not a religious book -- which would be wasted on me. It requires no belief in anything remotely metaphysical. It's wholly introspective in a very positive way. It's not explosive, more a series of gentle nudges, any of which you can ignore.

CBC radio's Ideas program recently had an excellent hour long program that featured the author http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/episodes/2010/07/29/a-guide-to-the-g...

I've read the book and while I enjoyed it, there were a couple of things I wish had been included.

I wish the author had included more contemporary examples of stoicism in practice. He mentions Admiral Stockdale's experiences but does not get into any detail. It would have been nice to see how people in recent history have put Stoicism into practice, instead of just hypotheticals. It would have also been interesting to tie ancient stoicism to contemporary work done in psychology, neuroscience, and sociology.

Stockdale's "Stockdale on Stoicism II: Master of My Fate" is mostly about his time as a POW: http://www.usna.edu/Ethics/Publications/Stoicism2.pdf

Thanks, I will take a look. It's these sorts of stories that I think would have made the points in the book stronger.

I am sorry, but that is a pretty poor review.

Zeus (often translated as "God") features heavily in stoic writing. The stoic philosophies are compatible with Christianity, which is why it attracted a lot of attention from Christian scholars over the past 800 years.

It is also thought the stoics had a influence on early Christians.

Sounds interesting. I have been reading Aurelius's "Meditations", but something like this targeted at the modern reader might be easier to digest.

I'm about halfway through the book right now. It might as well be called "How to Be Derek Sivers", in a very, very good way.

I am not sure if this is the same book/author that was featured on NPR some time ago, but the subject matter is the same.

What I found interesting was that I had already been using many of the stoic techniques throughout my entire life.

Ill have to pick this book up.

How does it compare to reading Marcus Aurelius?

If I remember correctly, I could sum up his philosophy "the only slave is the one who thinks himself so." I've found that sort of thought very consoling when I've felt down about something.

I struggled with Marcus -- he's been on my kindle for months and I still haven't plowed my way through. It always seemed so rambling, so disjointed. The book I found very accessible.

I think that I could read another book or two on stoicism and then go back to Marcus and pick it up more easily. That's the plan, at least. I've got my eye on a couple of books on stoicism next, but the priority queue is getting bumped by some important technical material that needs reading.

The problem here -- and I didn't go into this in the review -- is that nobody really knows exactly what the stoics taught. Or rather, the things they taught at different times. Stoicism was both Greek and Roman, and there were schools that adapted (and stole from each other and competed for students). So the situation was very much in a state of flux. It also had a deep spiritual component, although it's definitely not religious. (The book author is an atheist)

What Irvine did was take later Roman Stoicism, used famous Romans as an example (including Aurelius) and pieced together his best version of a mish-mash of what stoicism can mean for us. So there's a bit of creative license going on, but the author is clear enough about what's happening for it not to be a problem. Because Irvine was so clear about how he put it all together, and the book so well-written, I didn't view the religious roots or the mish-mash nature of the presentation as an important detail. Others might be upset that I didn't mention it. Meh. Part of the pain in the ass of being a book reviewer, I guess. Whatever you put in or leave out, its important to somebody.

I found this to be a much more pre-digested and easily presented stoicism than reading Marcus Aurelius. A nice, light introduction.

There are some common themes off the top of my head: 1. Pantheism: everything is one, evil is only apparent, so don't let stuff stress you out (ties into my previous quote). 2. Eternal re-occurrence: everything has happened before in a cycle, so whatever bad stuff is happening will eventually pass.

It's essentially a bunch of thought patterns to keep people calm during bad times. Believable? Like I say it helps me, but I don't believe it that much.

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