Being an emperor and even trying to do a good job is damn near impossible in my eyes. Lot of respect for that. My tiny life sometimes overwhelms me already.
Because you (presumably) have to deal with every tiny thing in your life. Even having to buy and cook food can feel overwhelming when you’re busy trying to accomplish other things.
Marcus Aurelius had slaves. He was the emperor. He did not have to worry about the multitude of minutiae required just to continue to exist.
When it seems to you rich people are able to achieve more, remember that’s because they need to do less. If you did not have to think about basic necessities, you too could do more of what you dream about.
He wasn’t “rich people” like some Russian oligarch. He had shit to do and deep moral obligations. Millions of lives depended on it. Things of vast strategic importance stretching both thousands of miles and many decades.
Slaves don’t manage your long term ambitions and juggle your various mental and moral anguishes. They keep your house clean and provide you with food, sure. But to be honest, as a rich Westerner, I’m not too far off that.
He didn’t dream about standing knees deep in foreign horse shit managing the nitty gritty of brutal wars for the continued existence of an empire that looked solely at you.
All this could be handled with great nonchalance and incompetency which would have made his life relatively easy. But he decided to try and do a good job, now that’s something to take serious.
I get that “rich people” have some leverage, but this is another thing altogether.
You know yourself better than I, obviously, but if you're assuming that because your path differs from theirs, I think you should have some doubt that the difference is because you are less capable. It may be that you have different values.
He seems to have resisted, or rather, his particular ethical framework provided the power to resist two very big and very real problems:
"Mo money mo problems" (~Socrates)
"Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely" (~Shania Twain)
Well, sure, I didn't say anything that disagrees with that at all. But you phrased it in a more general sense of being less capable.
Perhaps I read it wrong, but that didn't sound like you were saying "I'm less capable at X", rather that you were saying you were less capable in general. That was the sentiment I was pushing back on.
And I wasn't even saying that assessment was wrong. I was just saying that it's the sort of sentiment that can easily come from incorrectly underestimating one's self and so deserves a deeper look.
He was a fine emperor, but I have my specialties. Also, I have a good simple life for which I am grateful. Being an emperor sucks.
Lol. Actually Lord Acton
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dalberg-Acton%2C_1st_Baro...
This is cracking me up, thanks.
Even serious physical symptoms from withdrawal are basically just a week of headaches and other minor things.
Realistically speaking, that's not true. I did some voluntary experiments on myself during Ph.D. corrections process and, besides resistance, when coupled with a lot of hard work for a prolonged time, it's certainly very unhealthy for the body.
If you regulate your consumption and pair it with good sleep, it's a boon. Otherwise, it's a slow-killing drug.
Could you expand on what you found and what were the specifics?
I'm not a body hacker, and I don't like to mess with my body much, however I had limited time, this was once in a lifetime situation, so I had to put some regular hours to finish my Ph.D. corrections.
Also, it's worth noting that I'm an avid black tea drinker since 6 or so. I didn't change my tea consumption habits through my life.
First, I read about resetting caffeine resistance/dependence. The method is simple and clear: "Give up coffee for a week. You'll have headaches in day 3-4. Endure. You'll be fine". Then I started to consume coffee to the point where I felt productive, yet not tipsy. I have a Starbucks mug, it's "Tall" in Starbucks parlance. I started with two cups. One morning, one after lunch. As the resistance built up, I started to increase in a controlled manner, to the same line. Productive, but not tipsy. I was putting 10-12 Pomodoros a day (250+ minutes of truly deep work), and my mind was mushy and tired everyday at ~5PM. I never pushed my body beyond that point, because I needed that brain tomorrow. Left my desk and got rest.
I finished everything on time, left coffee for ~3 months, had the headache on day 4, alleviated with 2 sips of coffee that day.
As of today, I drink half a "Tall" every day, and feels enough. If it's too stressful, I also drink another half on the other half of the day, and these are my findings about my body.
Considering I'm not in "battle mode", I can really work well with half a mug of coffee/day.
Coffee shorts my hunger regulation and appetite, and makes me lean to sugar. That's not good. Considering my brain has less brakes and way higher idle than most people (per my doctor's words), this is double bad. So regulating coffee has a net positive effect on everything.
I can reliably build and reset coffee reliance/resistance now, since I know how my body reacts to caffeine.
I always think 10-12 hours ahead since it's caffeine's life in your body. Will I be awake 10 hours later, or will I be battling against caffeine to sleep? This is important for me.
Coffees with mild/mild-high caffeine concentrations works best for me. I don't like high-caffeine or ultra-caffeinated coffees. They make me tipsy causes heart palpitations and creates stress for no reason.
Black tea is a good aid for sustaining my focus. It improves focus, but doesn't create the same stress on my body. I can almost drink infinite amount of coffee until 2 hours before sleep, and it'll keep me collected and focused. What I live is it doesn't create an illusion of being not-tired by priming the body, so I can reliably feel how tired I am and plan accordingly.
Hope this helps, and please don't hesitate to ask for further specifics.
I started taking coffee at 20, for some two or three years, I later started taking black tea instead. One teaspoon of Twinnings Earl Grey, to be precise.
Thing is, by any calculation I do, a cup of coffee ought to have more caffeine in it than the cup of tea. Especially since I sometimes had not one, but two cups of coffee back then. I can still do this, if I'm travelling or I spend the day outside for some reason I'd rather take coffee than tea.
Problem is, tea wrecks my sleep in a way coffee just doesn't. It feels as if tea stays with me way, way longer than coffee does. If I ever take more than one cup of tea in a day I know that I'll be feeling it the next day, maybe even the day after, whereas with coffee, as long as I don't take it too late in the day I'm largely ok. Sleep does worsen somewhat but nothing I can't manage.
It puzzles me, since as far as I know it's caffeine in both cases, I don't understand why my metabolism seems to act in such a different way.
Black tea contains 30–90 mg of caffeine per cup (and some theobromine and theophylline, which are similar to caffeine, and also stimulants.) Giving up coffee because of the caffeine but dinking black tea instead is self-defeating.
I don't reduce coffee because of caffeine, but because it affects my appetite, makes me tense when I drink too much, and causes heart palpitations and makes me uncomfortable. Black tea doesn't do any of that.
Much like nicotine, it fools the user into thinking the cessation of withdrawal is part of the positive effect, rather than just removing a negative you wouldn't have if not for caffeine dependence.
And is nothing compared to the next most frequently used drugs, alcohol and nicotine, hell it has plenty of positive effects.
So my initial statement I believe still stands that humanity could hardly happen upon another substance that they could use in such a huge amounts with minimal negatives.
I don't think caffeine is particularly harmful, but it is a huge stretch to paint it as purely beneficial and without side effects. As a point of fact most people getting their "morning jolt" are just treating the side effects of extended caffeine usage - they are physically addicted.
About once a year I spend a month doing no caffeine. Every single year it is quite illuminating to do through first withdrawal and then to experience the first cup of coffee. I recommend it, and you might change some of your thoughts on caffeine if you do this.
if I'm tired or sleepy and drink it, I'm still tired/sleepy but with a higher blood pressure/heart rate.
sometimes I wonder if it's just people that oversell the effect of coffee.
I can drink coffee/red bull all day and it'll do very little. Can drink just before going to bed and sleep just fine.
I'll try to find the study on this again if you're interested.
Taken now and then, sure, probably worth it. The part in which a lot of people's brains are seemingly unable to wake up without taking caffeine? Probably not good.
That’s very likely just placebo/power of habits, similarly to many people can’t go to sleep without brushing their teeth.
Having access to Aurelius' cleaned up mind chatter is a blessing.