Questions On Stoicism.

[Lorcan]

Hello. My Name Is Lorcán. I am 14 years old.

This thread will be my questions on Stoic Philosophy I have taken interest in of late from reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. (I bought it with some other self help books that were on the free part of leo's book list)

 

1.What exactly is stoic philosophy?

Here is what google had to say.

stoicism

noun

1.

the endurance of pain or hardship without the display of feelings and without complaint.

synonyms:patience, forbearance, resignation, lack of protest, lack of complaint, fortitude,endurance, acceptance, acceptance of the inevitable, fatalism, philosophicalness,impassivity, dispassion, phlegm, imperturbability, calmness, coolness, cool; More

2.

an ancient Greek school of philosophy founded at Athens by Zeno of Citium. The school taught that virtue, the highest good, is based on knowledge; the wise live in harmony with the divine Reason (also identified with Fate and Providence) that governs nature, and are indifferent to the vicissitudes of fortune and to pleasure and pain.

From what I have read so far ( I have read up to part part 7 point at some point, but I noticed as I was reading I was not actually grasping what I was reading and more so just reading meaningless words in my head, so recently I have read up to part 4 with much more understanding of the content then when I had last read it) up to part 4, It seems to be a mixture of 1 and 2. Am I wrong? Is def 1 even that relevant to stoicism?

 

2.Is applying stoic philosophy better to live ones life then having no philosophy and living with solely ones own thoughts?

3. Are there any disadvantages?

4. What can I start doing to apply it? (Examples would help) Would sleeping on the floor work?

5.How much suffering is invovled?

 

I would really appreciate some insight into this, seeing leo hasn't made a video on stoicism, I feel like at my age the stoic philosophy could be beneficial to me rather then living like everyone else is living.

 

 

 

Edited October 3, 2016 by Lorcan

[kurt]

11 minutes ago, Lorcan said:

the endurance of pain or hardship without the display of feelings and without complaint.

synonyms:patience, forbearance, resignation, lack of protest, lack of complaint, fortitude,endurance, acceptance, acceptance of the inevitable, fatalism, philosophicalness,impassivity, dispassion, phlegm, imperturbability, calmness, coolness, cool; More

3. Are there any disadvantages?

5.How much suffering is invovled?

You're on the right track in my opinion.  The virtues are values that you should assimilate and use to interpret your experience, because you have control over these values, but you don't have much control over your experiences.

As long as you understand that these are values to aim for and not a substitute for the person you are, that these values also have a downside (think about what that might be) therefore if you take these two factors into account then suffering should be minimal.

Just to be clear try to investigate what passivity actually means, because it's not just taking flack from whoever, its actually responding to flack, doing what your desires drive you to do, but letting go of the results.  If people want to take you for a ride then passivity means you respond appropriately while consulting the rest of your values - dont just sit and be a doormat - as long as your number one value is non-injury and you do everything in that spirit then all your responses will be fine, and if the results are not what you hoped for you are still fine because your intention was honourable.  You can't do anymore than that!

Edited October 3, 2016 by kurt

[Lorcan]

'If people want to take you for a ride then passivity means you respond appropriately while consulting the rest of your values - don't just sit and be a doormat - as long as your number one value is non-injury and you do everything in that spirit then all your responses will be fine, and if the results are not what you hoped for you are still fine because your intention was honorable.  You can't do anymore than that!'

I don't understand what you are saying here accurately enough.

What do you mean by 'don't just sit and be a doormat - as long as your number one value is non-injury and you do everything in that spirit then all your responses will be fine'

Can you give an example of  Just sitting like a doormat (I assume by this you are trying to say "Don't just sit there and endure the suffering" (Whether this be someone saying slander about you or whatever)

Also an example on Not Sitting like a doormat and what you are supposed to do (in relation to stoicism)

Surely sitting like a doormat and enduring wrongdoing put on you is no different then retaining the non-injury value as mentioned above.

Which I assume from researching stoicism and reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius that you mean non-injury in the sense that you expecting the bad things in life to happen, hence Marcus Aurelius wrote:

"Say to yourself first thing in the morning:today I shall meet people who are meddling, ungrateful, agressive,treacherous, malicious, unsocial. All this has afflicted them through their ignorance of true good and evil. But have I seen that the nature of good is what is right, and the nature of evil what is wrong;and I have reflected that the nature of the offender himself is akin to my own - not a kinship of blood or seed, but a sharing in the same mind, the same fragment of divinity"

I'm sure there are more quotes relating to the "expectence and acceptence of the bad/good" in Marcus Aurelius meditations but I haven't read to deep into it yet.

Thank you.

[kurt]

@Lorcan

Passivity means taking a step back and not reacting emotionally but being internally accepting of what is happening.  

For example, if somebody causes you harm the stoic response is to hold back, accept the situation and think about it first, rather than be manipulated into reacting immediately.  

So when you spend time contemplating others ignorant behaviour while consulting the rest of your values - tolerance, understanding, careful analysis, non-injury, compassion, forbearance etc. etc. it is impossible that you will respond (if a response from you is appropriate) in a harmful way that will bring yours and their self image and reputation into question.  

If you resist it and then react, you internalize their actions and then condition yourself to react to injury and this will be an action that will be out of alignment with your values.**  If your actions don't match your values you have created a dichotomy of dooer vs. knower and they are are odds with each other.  The result is inner conflict and agitation = suffering

** When you judge another person and avoid them you create a victim mentality and this clouds every experience.  Resistance means internalizing.  So don't internalize, instead keep a clear mind so that you have the ability to approach the person with a response.  Sometimes if you don't respond to the person you internalize their ignorant behaviours.

Avoiding another person because you judged the person rather than their behaviour is a form of mutual injury, because you are communicating to them and yourself that something is wrong with both of you.  Address the behaviour, not the person.  Only children develop "hurt feelings" in response to what other people say and do, as an adult you should not let this happen.  Respond, don't react.  You ideally want to be assimilating every experience as it happens in the moment, and this means not harbouring judgements about a person, but responding to them in real time as they appear to you.  The dick can be a saint, all people have an opposite side to them, so to remain free is to remain in contact with the situation rather than clouded by prejudice.

Edited October 3, 2016 by kurt

[Smurf]

1. Not displaying feelings when in hardship makes people think that stoic people are grim, introvert people or something which is not true and that's why I don't like that particular definition. But yeah I would say that def 1 is relevant to stoicism.  

2. I definitely think that applying stoic philosophy to your life would be much more enriching as it serves as very effective guidelines as how to handle life. I know I have benefited a lot from doing that. 

3. The disadvantages could maybe be that you get neurotically consumed by it. Always be critical and do what feels right for you.

4. Sleeping on the floor would be a stoic way of pushing your comfort zone, so yeah go ahead and do that. Generally, always seeking to push your comfort zone in different aspects of your life would be a way of applying stoic philosophy. Also a psychological trick they used was negative visualization, which means to visualize yourself in a scenario, in excruciatingly detail,  where you lost something you took for granted. Your own life for example, so imagine yourself dying in all kinds of different ways but also loosing persons you love and materialistic things you think you depend on. Negative visualization has number of positive rewards such as when things do get shitty and you loose someone or something, you will be more prepared for and it will be much easier to process the loss. It also makes you want the things you already have and you will learn how to appreciate it and not taking it for granted. 

5. There will definitely be quite some suffering involved but only for a time, and compared to the suffering you're spared from by not applying stoicism in your life I think its a real bargain.  

If you haven't already, read "a guide to the good life (the ancient art of stoic joy)" by William B. Irvine. Like a stoic self help book,  (I think it's on Leos book list even) and I think it would answer all your questions .

Peace

[Harry]

@Lorcan  The best thing you can learn from Stoicism is how to differentiate between:

 

1/ Situations in which you have full control.

E.g.  Your reaction to getting punched in the face

 

2/ Situations you have some control over.

E.g.  Persuading someone to do something.

 

3/ Situations you have no control over.

E.g. Getting to the airport on time when you are on a train. 

 

Stoicism advices you to focus all of your mental effort into what you control. This means no more stressing, worrying or mourning over things you cannot change.

 

Also, it advices that you try to convert goals which are 2/ based into goals which are 1/ based. 

For example, if your goal was to persuade someone to buy a chocolate bar, you would change it to be as persuasive as I possibly can in my next interaction. This subtle difference means that even if the person rejects your chocolate bar, you wouldn't have failed your goal if you were as persuasive as you could be. 

 

This mindset will shake anyone out of a victim mentality and force them to focus on what actions they can take.