Re:Stoicism's Appeal to the Rich and Powerful
by Amygaz on Thursday March 28, 2019 @02:21PM
(#19515020)
That’s still not what stoicism is. Those quotes are one of many about not holding your success or who you are to materialistic goals, or infinite goals.
while reflecting on yourself via meditation can be useful, it is not the only way, it doesn’t need a one week retreat, and if the goal is to meditate on the next idea that will revolutionize everything then that is definitely not stoic.
Re:Stoicism's Appeal to the Rich and Powerful
by Emma_Goldman on Friday March 29, 2019 @05:05AM
(#19520118)
I did not say that it was all that stoicism is. I am not even claiming that it is especially central to stoicism. But it is undeniably a part of stoicism, as any fair reading of those two quotes indicates. Yes one of the central beliefs of stoicism is that we should inculcate within ourselves an ability to withstand any change in our external circumstances. But it is a complex philosophical system. It is perfectly possible for stoicism to admit both that belief, and the view that I'm ascribing to it.
'Though thou shouldst be going to live three thousand years, and as many times ten thousand years, still remember that no man loses any other life than this which he now lives, nor lives any other than this which he now loses. The longest and shortest are thus brought to the same.'
'How quickly all things disappear, in the universe the bodies themselves, but in time the remembrance of them; what is the nature of all sensible things, and particularly those which attract with the bait of pleasure or terrify by pain, or are noised abroad by vapoury fame; how worthless, and contemptible, and sordid, and perishable, and dead they are- all this it is the part of the intellectual faculty to observe.'
Both quotes are from this online edition: http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.2.two.html