A Stoic Philosopher in a Hanoi Prison: I am the captain of my soul

In the situation that they were in, if you had someone that was holding up fine and doing what you thought should be done - there is no reason to tell them the stoic terminology for what they are doing.

If you are trying to share knowledge and best practices throughout the camp, you don't need to explain how the ideas came from someone dead for thousands of years.

But saying that Stockdale is turning in his grave because we associated him with Epictetus I think is actually the opposite of what is true.

Like it is this "first focus on yourself, and then maybe the world around you might be a bit better for everyone" type mentality.

So, the best version of you could involve sharing and hoping that others follow a similar philosophy - but at the same time you need to not define yourself as having failed if others disregard it?

"In this case, Epictetus said everybody should play the game of life-that the best play it with "skill, fonn, speed and grace." But like most games, you play it with a ball. Your team devotes all its energies to getting the ball across the line.

But after the game, what do you do with the ball? Nobody much cares. It's not worth anything. The competition, the game, was the thing. You play the game with care, making sure you are never making the external a part of yourself, but merely lavishing your skill in regard to it.

The ball was just "used" to make the game possible, so just roll it under the porch and forget it, let it wait for the next game. Most important of all, just don't covet it, don't seek it, don't set your heart on it. It is this latter route that makes externals dangerous, makes them the route to slavery"

phew.

So, I think the analogy is meant to say that our current era's secular glorification of victimhood achieves a similar goal by encoding quotidienne experiences of failure or rejection with a larger meaning, in this case being part of an oppressed group.

But that's just how I read it.

edit: JW childhood, here.

Being stoic is not giving up on the world altogether; it is understanding what you can control. You can control how you handle a situation if you do not view yourself as a victim. The moment you start thinking that you are a victim, you lose control of the situation.

Some people truly ARE VICTIMS - but it is rare that thinking that you have some power over the situation and there is something that you can do about it is a bad idea.

Something like this: https://butwhatfor.substack.com/p/takeaway-tuesday-facing-ad...

Think beginner that has mainly focused on western ideas wanting to get a foundation in eastern philosophy and then go from there.

https://www.history.com/news/laos-most-bombed-country-vietna...

What commonly passes as skepticism is a very tame effort. To say accept 50% of the claims, rather than 100%. You should accept 0% of claims that you have not verified. This is also known as the scientific method. (But don't look to science to be upholding it...)

The elites govern us. They have always governed us. One of the methodologies is that is to sell us on stories from the cradle that allow them to operate in reality, while we are living in unsubstantiated stories.

When we take no action to verify, when we trust our experts, politicians, anyone apart from ourselves, when we accept the authority of another over our own experience, we are badly lost.

Do you recollect when it was going to be 2 weeks to flatten the curve? Do you think the curve will be flattened? Do we need to 'mask harder'? Get vaccinated? Why didn't we have cold vaccines previously? Do we need to isolate healthy people, is that how it works? The contradictions in the current narrative are impossible to resolve if you are a thinking person with authority over your own thinking.

McCain is clearly from the governance clique. His father was an admiral. He then does a dog and pony show in the intimidating country of 'Vietnam', and comes back into governance and plays his role. He is an actor. We get indications of this, eg the broken leg that changes legs! Here's the explanation:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5113233/John-McCain...

He says:

"Finally on Thursday, McCain himself took to Twitter to put the conspiracy theories to rest. 'My left leg was doing extra work to compensate for the boot, so I'm giving it a break,' the senator tweeted. 'I still hate wearing this boot, but it won't slow us down from frying 7 turkeys today!'"

That explanation explains nothing. NOTHING. But the headline says it "solves the riddle of his moveable leg". Maybe you read it wrong? Perhaps you had better doubt yourself, and trust the experts! And then you have to read a load more soft spin and fluff about how wonderful man, what a wonderful family, etc, etc, and nothing about him being a criminal that should have spent most of his time in jail for being an enemy of humanity - being part of the governance system.

The reality unfortunately is that no one is checking anything, and that people's brains are turned off. Especially well educated brains. They have fully accepted the stories, and are better at filling in the blanks, rather than letting the evidence do the talking.

All the best.