Learning Stoicism

"KEEP ON AS you have begun, and make all possible haste, so that you may have longer enjoyment of an improved mind, one that is at peace with itself." What is the better way to live? To live to be happy, or live to be at peace?  To live to be happy means persuing with ambition to acquire a fleeting moment that will pass in time. It's a reinforcing spiral. Happiness can never be achieved. Peacefulness is being content with what is there. It's point in time where there is no need for anything.  "No man can have a peaceful life who thinks too much about lengthening it, or believes that living through many consulships is a great blessing. Rehearse this thought every day, that you may be able to depart from life contentedly; for many men clutch and cling to life, even as those who are carried down a rushing stream clutch and cling to briars and sharp rocks." Being afraid to die implies being scared to live. The long life is not the good life.  Learn to let go. Ev...

"If you consider any man a friend whom you do not trust as you trust yourself, you are mightily mistaken and you do not sufficiently understand what true friendship means." "Ponder for a long time whether you shall admit a given person to your friendship; but when you have decided to admit him, welcome him with all your heart and soul."  "As to yourself, although you should live in such a way that you trust your own self with nothing which you could not entrust even to your enemy, yet, since certain matters occur which convention keeps secret, you should share with a friend at least all your worries and reflections." "Regard him as loyal, and you will make him loyal." "There is a class of men who communicate, to anyone whom they meet, matters which should be revealed to friends alone, and unload upon the chance listener whatever irks them. Others, again, fear to confide in their closest intimates; and if it were possible, they would not trus...

  discursive. / (dɪˈskɜːsɪv) / adjective. passing from one topic to another, usually in an unmethodical way; digressive "The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man’s ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company." "... reading of many authors and books of every sort may tend to make you discursive and unsteady. You must linger among a limited number of master thinkers, and digest their works, if you would derive ideas which shall win firm hold in your mind."  Reading is not a passive exercise; the passing on knowledge from writer to reader. Reading is conversation and involves questioning and verifying the author.  Reading many different opinions around a subject matter should be encouraged provided that, from these many readings, you derive opinions that are your own through critically engagement of the authors point of view. Focusing on a limited number of thinkers only through doubting the master thinkers. Remain crit...

"What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily?"  "For we are mistaken when we look forward to death; the major portion of death has already passed. Whatever years be behind us are in death’s hands." Seneca writes of time as it was a valuable resource that should be spent with care, that should never be thoughtlessly given away, and that should never be stole from us. There will always be people who will take/steal our time; however, those who offer nothing in return for the time they take are the types to be mindful of.  The length of time we have has been allocated by the fates and as it passes away it that time can never be re-lived again; in this way our past is already a death. It has passed away. "While we are postponing, life speeds by." "Nothing, Lucilius, is ours, except time. We were entrusted by nature with the ownership of this single thing, so fleeting ...