If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
(I'm mostly being facetious.)
Marcus did achieve the title of emperor, but dismissing him because of his accomplishments, especially when stoicism was a key and integral part of his life along the way, is odd.
(1) a person who mostly experiences challenges at or just above their ability to solve them
(2) a person who mostly experiences challenges way above their ability to solve them (even plausibly so)
Stoicism, political conservatism, rugged individualists, etc. are just those in camp-1 unaware there's a camp-2.
(Likewise, social radicals are in camp-2, saying of 1, they're privileged as if that isnt desirable!. So both sides are superstitious about the other).
He found himself not only largely unable to help better mankind, but could not even better his own son. Aurelius is generally regarded as one of the greatest leaders of humanity to have lived; his son (Commodus) - one of the worst. Father deified, son assassinated (to great celebration) and struck from all official record.
And it wasn't simply failure to achieve, but also failure of circumstance. He was surrounded by death which climaxed with a many years long plague that by some estimates killed more than 30% of the entire empire's population, including some of Aurelius' own immediate family.
[1] - http://files.libertyfund.org/files/2133/Aurelius_1464_LFeBk.... # That book has a lengthy, and necessary, intro (well multiple actually) explaining stoicism and providing various historical context. Aurelius' writings themselves only begin on page 25 of the book, 59 of the PDF.
Hence "champagne socialists" and "temporarily embarrassed millionaires."
Can we put some numbers on this? A few offhand examples of "champagne socialists" and "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" doesn't really support your claim.
I'm not giving examples just citing these popular phrases which exist to note the phenomenon.
I think the main difference is disagreement on what constitutes a solvable problem and the value of trying.
If you just learned programming and apply to faang you are in camp 2, etc.
It is not a passive thing.
No
Except it isn’t that. Its the internal monologue of a roman emperor dealing with the extreme stresses of his life and his role in the world.
It's a good remark that it's effectively the emperor's diary instead, though. I didn't know that.
Unless you also believe that the entire universe including yourself is a single sentient being and every event is perfectly predetermined, you're gonna find some contradictions here.
It's not really a unified coherent practical philosophy when separated from that cosmology. Individual parts of it can still be individually valuable of course, but other parts truly are just an emperor telling people to deal with it.
A more western-digestible analogy would be believing in the resurrection of christ without believing in his divinity. You could still get useful advice from the sermons but it stops being a coherent foundation of belief for your role in the world.
- logos - Dao - Brahman - Wralda
> It's not really a unified coherent practical philosophy when separated from that cosmology.
I absolutely agree with this, and I'd say anyone who wants to take Stoicism seriously should adapt a similar metaphysical perspective. I'd also say that anyone who already understands one of the above religions already has the ability to readily understand the others, at least compared to the standard Westerner.
The advice says nothing about how the downtrodden should act about their situation of downtroddeness.
Focusing and making assumptions on the unfairness of the statement is a bit of victim mentality. In fact, your statement reminds me of an article I read somewhere. I think it was titled "Feeling like a victim is a perfectly disastrous way to go through life"
My point exactly.