Category: Philosophy

Some Thoughts on Stoicism and Walking

Some Thoughts on Stoicism and Walking

All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking. — Nietzsche

A few years ago, one of my friends, “Scottish” Thomas, was nearly beaten to death by four youths who tried to mug him down by the Halifax Waterfront, in Nova Scotia. He told them to “Get lost!” (or words to that effect) and clung on to his knapsack, although there was nothing in it but some dirty laundry.

They stamped his face into the boardwalk, fracturing his jaw in several places.Thomas had reconstructive surgery, requiring several operations. After he’d been discharged from hospital he got into the habit of walking around town for hours more or less every day, even during the frigid winters, passing by the spot where he was attacked. He told me that he found it therapeutic: both physically and mentally. Sometimes, I’d go with him and keep him company.

We used to talk and joke, sometimes about Socrates and the Stoics, and it made me think about the role of walking in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. (At the time, I was working on my book about Stoicism: How to Think Like a Roman Emperor.) Tommy reminded me of the Cynic, Diogenes of Sinope, albeit perhaps a softer, friendlier version. Diogenes was a “wanderer without a home” and a citizen of the whole world. He walked around Athens barefoot and naked except for a grubby woollen cloak and a small knapsack containing some basic food: some cheap bread, and a few lupin beans.

Diogenes taught that genuine freedom comes from within — from self-sufficiency rather than from wealth, power, or reputation. Not from having as much as possible, in other words, but from needing as little as possible. The most famous story about Diogenes the Cynic was that when Alexander the Great, paid him a visit and asked if he could do anything for him, Diogenes replied: “Yes, step aside, you’re blocking the sunlight.” (Alexander was sometimes portrayed as the child of the solar god, Apollo.) As he was walking away, with his retinue chattering in puzzlement, the Macedonian king reputedly said: “Truly, if I were not Alexander, I would wish to be Diogenes.”

Before emigrating to Canada, I was a cognitive-behavioural therapist in London, UK. I had published several books about my special interest: Stoic philosophy and modern psychotherapy. Diogenes is traditionally seen as part of a philosophical lineage spanning over half a millennium. It begins with Socrates, extends through his follower Antisthenes, via Diogenes and the Cynics, down to Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoic philosophy, and his many followers. I became interested in the Stoics because their writings constituted the original philosophical inspiration for modern cognitive-behavioural therapy. It struck me one day that a curious philosophical interest in the activity of walking permeates this Cynic-Stoic wing of the Socratic tradition.

Socrates himself was known for walking barefoot. His student Antisthenes, who inspired the Cynics and Stoics, likewise walked barefoot for miles to listen to him talk each day. It’s said they were both good friends with a shoemaker called Simon. (They discussed philosophy with Simon but weren’t giving him much business!) Among Socrates’ many followers, Antisthenes particularly espoused philosophy as a way of life, by embracing poverty and simplicity, and cultivating self-discipline and endurance. Socrates and Antisthenes were pioneers, in a sense, of the distinctive Cynic lifestyle made famous a generation later by Diogenes, who sought to return to nature through plain living, despite being in an urban setting.

Diogenes used to say that both mental and physical training are required to become a true philosopher. Constant physical exercise that is in accord with nature, leads to a fulfilled life. However, he reputedly also said that “no exercise is of any value unless it aims at the good order and fitness of the soul, as opposed to that of the body.” Later in his life, Diogenes was captured by pirates and sold into slavery. He was purchased by a wealthy man who entrusted him with the education of his sons. The Cynic taught the young men in his care to “go out dressed in nothing but a cloak, with no shoes on their feet; as they walked they had to keep silent, and not look around them in the street.”

The philosophy of Diogenes inspired various moral, spiritual, and psychological exercises that involved walking. He would walk into the theatre against the flow of people leaving, and walked around backwards in public arcades. Other Cynics walked around carrying fish, cheese, or bowls of lentil soup, down bustling streets, where they would be jostled by the crowds. This symbolised their desire to radically swim against the tide of popular opinion but it also served an important psychological function. Modern cognitive therapists treat social anxiety by prescribing “shame-attacking” exercises. Diogenes once tied a piece of string around the neck of a ceramic wine bottle and took it for a walk through the potter’s district. Today it’s a banana on a string. The idea is to do something embarrassing so often that, eventually, you completely extinguish your sense of shame.

Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, seems to have been socially nervous or shy until his mentor Crates instructed him to walk through the crowded streets carrying a bowl of lentil soup. When Zeno tried to hide the bowl under his cloak, Crates smashed it with his staff, leaving his student to walk around with lentil soup dribbling down his bare legs until he finally got over his embarrassment. It must have worked because about two decades later we’re told that Zeno was consulted by King Antigonus of Macedonia, one of the most powerful military and political leaders of the time. Although Zeno dressed like a beggar, Antigonus found himself looking to him as an equal, or even a superior, because of his wisdom, composure, and self-confidence — much as Alexander the Great had reputedly looked upon Diogenes the Cynic.

Like their Cynic predecessors, the Stoics had an interesting attitude toward walking. Zeno was renowned for lecturing on philosophy while walking briskly up and down the Stoa Poikile or “Painted Porch” where he started his school. (We’re told that prevented lazy students from slouching on the floor!) He disliked being among a crowd of people, such as at a drinking party or dinner, and preferred to spend his evenings either walking alone or with no more than two or three companions. His successor as head of the Stoic school, Cleanthes, walked around all night watering gardens to make a living. Chrysippus, the third head of the Stoic school, was a long-distance runner. He warned his students that when they’re consumed by passionate desires and emotions they resemble someone running too quickly to avoid obstacles in their path. The wise man resembles someone walking (or running) slowly enough to be able to stop or change direction whenever he chooses to do so — he’s still in control of his own actions.

Later Stoics also seem to have associated philosophy with walking calmly, in a self-possessed fashion. Cato of Utica, the great Stoic hero of the Roman Civil War, attracted attention because, unusually for a military officer, he generally avoided riding a horse and walked everywhere. Plutarch implies this was part of training himself in “shamelessness” (like a Cynic) as well as a means of developing physical endurance. Seneca, another Roman Stoic, likewise recommends walking in the fresh air as an exercise for Stoics. “We should take wandering outdoor walks,” he says, “so that the mind might be nourished and refreshed by the open air and deep breathing.”

However, Seneca also frequently says you can judge a man’s character by the way he walks. The ancient philosophers believed that walking barefoot encouraged circumspection. Epictetus says, for instance, that someone walking barefoot must obviously be careful where he treads, in case he steps on a nail or hurts his foot. He tells his students that, in the same way, they should be cautious not to harm their own character through the value-judgements they make, which Stoics believe to be the root cause of our unhealthy fears and cravings. To walk with wisdom is to walk with self-awareness, mindful of how we are using both our body and our mind, from moment to moment. It’s our ruling faculty, our faculty of judgement, that we have to watch like a hawk.

Indeed, Epictetus tells his students about a highly-regarded Stoic philosopher called Euphrates of Tyre who spent years secretly living as a philosopher, patiently training himself to eat with moderation and to walk around with mindfulness and in a self-possessed manner. Epictetus asks his students: “Do you read when you are walking?” No, he says, if they want to become true philosophers, like Euphrates, they should walk alone and silently converse with themselves about the deepest questions in life without paying too much attention to other people’s opinions or what’s written in books: “Man, if you are anything, both walk alone and talk to yourself, and do not hide yourself in the chorus.” Get into the habit of examining your own mind and the world around you while walking in deep philosophical contemplation, Epictetus says, so that you may come to know who you really are.

I’m inviting you to “eat like a Stoic” on Sunday 26th May. We want people from all over the world to make “Stoic Soup”, based on the ancient recipe attributed to Zeno of Citium, the founder of the Stoic school. It’s also a great opportunity to reflect on our relationship with food, from a philosophical perspective. What should we eat? How should we eat? And what does the way we eat say about our character?

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The Stoics were very interested in food. We’re told that the Stoic teacher Musonius Rufus “often talked in a very forceful manner about food, on the grounds that food was not an insignificant topic and that what one eats has significant consequences.” He believed that Stoic students should begin their training in self-control by mastering their appetite for food and drink.

Musonius taught that Stoics should prefer inexpensive foods that are easy to obtain and most nourishing and healthy for a human being to eat. He advises eating plants and grains rather than slaughtered animals. He recommends fruits vegetables, which do not require much cooking, as well as cheese, milk, and honeycombs. “Zeno”, we’re told, “thought it best to avoid gourmet food, and he was adamant about this.” He thought that once we get used to eating fancy meals we spoil our appetites and start to crave things that are expensive or difficult to obtain, losing the ability to properly enjoy simple, natural food and drink.

Musonius also thought we should train ourselves to avoid gluttony:

Since this behavior [gluttony] is very shameful, the opposite behavior—eating in an orderly and moderate way, and thereby demonstrating self-control—would be very good. Doing this, though, is not easy; it demands much care and training.

Stoics should eat slowly and with mindfulness of their own character and actions. They should use reason to judge where the boundary of what’s healthy lies and exercise moderation wisely.

The person who eats more than he should makes a mistake. So does the person who eats in a hurry, the person who is enthralled by gourmet food, the person who favors sweets over nutritious foods, and the person who does not share his food equally with his fellow-diners. […] Since these and other mistakes are connected with food, the person who wishes to be self-controlled must free himself of all of them and be subject to none. One way to become accustomed to this is to practice choosing food not for pleasure but for nourishment, not to please his palate but to strengthen his body.

I think Musonius would approve of the recipe below because it’s very cheap, mainly uses common vegetable ingredients, which are easy to obtain, and it’s also very easy to prepare. You can easily make a large batch and store it in portions to reheat later. It’s unfussy but tasty and nutritious.

Therefore, the goal of our eating should be staying alive rather than having pleasure—at least if we wish to follow the sound advice of Socrates, who said that many men live to eat, but that he ate to live. No right-thinking person will want to follow the masses and live to eat, as they do, in constant pursuit of gastronomic pleasures.

Recipe for Stoic Soup

In Meals and Recipes from Ancient Greece, Eugenia Ricotti describes the following recipe called “Zeno’s Lentil Soup”. It’s a modern recipe based upon ancient sources, including remarks attributed to Zeno of Citium, the founder of Stoic philosophy, which are found in the Deipnosophistae (or “Dinner Experts”) of Athenaeus of Naucratis.

1 lb. (450g) lentils
8 cups (2 litres) broth
1 large minced leek
1 carrot, 1 stalk of celery, and 1 small onion, all sliced
2 tablespoons vinegar
1 teaspoon honey
olive oil
12 coriander seeds
salt and pepper to taste

She says to rinse the lentils and put them in a pot with the broth to boil. Then reduce heat and simmer for one hour. Then skim the top, add the vegetables, and leave to simmer until cooked, which should be about 30 minutes. She says that if it seems too watery either add cornstarch or pass some of the lentils through a sieve. Finally, add vinegar and honey for flavour.

After pouring into serving bowls, add a good amount of olive oil – she suggests about 2 tablespoons per serving. Finish by sprinkling on the coriander seeds and adding more salt and pepper to taste.

I’ve made this recipe quite a few times myself. I use dried green lentils, which I soak overnight and boil for a few minutes. I use red wine vinegar and often add a couple of garlic cloves and perhaps a few bay leaves, possibly also a little paprika. I’d also usually garnish it with a few fresh coriander leaves and serve with bread. This is a photo of my version…

Discussing Stoicism and CBT on the Hidden Why podcast

Discussing Stoicism and CBT on the Hidden Why podcast

Yes, we’d be best to sidestep the word “passion”, as its meaning has changed so much over time. What you mean by “passion” is arguably part of Stoicism, though. There’s certainly a central role for healthy emotions in Stoicism, particularly love. In fact, Stoicism was originally conceived as a philosophy of love, in a sense. Stoicism definitely never dismissed emotion, accountability or empathy — quite the opposite.

What Marcus Aurelius learned from Domitia Lucilla

What Marcus Aurelius Learned from Domitia Lucilla

The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius was the last famous Stoic of antiquity. His personal reflections on applying Stoic philosophy to daily life, The Meditations, begin with a chapter contemplating the virtues of his family members and most cherished tutors, including his mother, Domitia Lucilla.

His father died when Marcus was only a small child, aged around three, leaving him to be raised in the care of his paternal grandfather and his widowed mother.

Domitia Lucilla was a wealthy and cultured Roman noblewoman, the daughter of the statesman Calvisius Tullus, who had served twice as consul. She died while Marcus was Caesar, before having a chance to see him acclaimed emperor. We can see from Marcus’ private letters to his rhetoric tutor, Marcus Cornelius Fronto, that he loved her very dearly. In The Meditations, he thanks the gods that “although my mother was destined to die at an early age, she at least spent her last years with me” (1.17).

She was a woman of considerable means and influence, who owned an important tile and brick factory outside Rome, near the banks of the River Tiber. However, Marcus describes her generosity and the simplicity of her lifestyle, “far removed from that of the rich” (1.17). These qualities perhaps inspired his own love of simplicity and moderation, paving the way for his later education in Stoic philosophy.

Nevertheless, at first, Lucilla perhaps felt Marcus went too far in his embrace of the traditional Cynic-Stoic attire and lifestyle.

He studied philosophy with ardour, even as a youth. For when he was twelve years old he adopted the dress and, a little later, the hardiness of a philosopher, pursuing his studies clad in a rough Greek cloak and sleeping on the ground; at his mother’s solicitation, however, he reluctantly consented to sleep on a couch strewn with skins. (Historia Augusta)

A few years later, Marcus began formal study of Stoic philosophy and his main tutor was to be a Roman statesman called Junius Rusticus. Marcus also mentions that he learned from Rusticus, “to write letters in an unaffected style, as he did when he wrote to my mother from Sinuessa”, a city on the Italian coast south of Rome (1.7). Rusticus and Lucilla would have been around the same age. He and Marcus’ mother were clearly friends and it’s tempting to wonder whether she may have had some hand in the appointment of Rusticus as one of her son’s main tutors in Stoic philosophy.

Marcus lists the qualities he most admired in Lucilla and sought to emulate as follows:

From my mother, piety and generosity, and to abstain not only from doing wrong but even from contemplating such an act; and the simplicity, too, of her way of life, far removed from that of the rich. (Meditations, 1.3)

Lucilla’s notable generosity and love of simple living, despite her immense wealth, perhaps influenced Marcus’ decision to give away much of his own family inheritance.

Later, when his mother asked him to give his sister part of the fortune left him by his father, he replied that he was content with the fortune of his grandfather and relinquished all of it, further declaring that if she wished, his mother might leave her own estate to his sister in its entirety, in order that she might not be poorer than her husband. (Historia Augusta)

Later, the historian adds that Marcus gave away part of the fortune he inherited from his mother to his sister’s son, after her death.

Finally, he mentions in the passage above that his mother’s example instilled in him a sense of piety and a moral conscience that warned him against entertaining evil thoughts even in the privacy of his own mind, a theme that he returns to several times throughout The Meditations. For example,

I have often marvelled at how everyone loves himself above all others, yet places less value on his own opinion of himself than that of everyone else. At all events, if a god or some wise teacher presented himself and told him not to entertain any thought or idea in his mind without stating it aloud as soon as he had conceived it, he would not abide it for even a single day. So much greater is our respect for what our neighbours think of us than what we think of ourselves! (12.4)

Although The Meditations was probably written at least a decade after her death, Marcus is still reflecting on the lessons he learned from his mother and how the example she set in her own life shaped his character. Whether or not she played some role in introducing him, as a child, to Stoic philosophy, she certainly helped lay the foundation upon which his later training would be built by instilling old-fashioned Roman values in her son compatible with those of Stoic ethics.

The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse

The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse

This web comic is based upon a story from my latest book How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius.

Stoic Philosophy and Religious Practices

Stoic Philosophy and Religious Practices

The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, in his philosophical reflections, described how Stoics might pray as a form of self-improvement. He describes an approach to prayer that resembles the use of affirmations, and could be of value even to atheists or agnostics as a self-help technique.

First of all, Marcus does mention a simpler and more direct approach to prayer:

A prayer of the Athenians: ‘Rain, rain, dear Zeus, on the ploughlands and plains of Attica.’ We should either pray in this simple and artless fashion, or not pray at all. (Meditations, 5.7)

According to legend, during one famous battle his legionaries were trapped on a plain, surrounded on all sides by numerous Quadi, and dying of thirst under the sun. In one version of the story, Marcus prayed and the heavens opened up pouring rain down upon his men, which they caught in their helmets and gulped down as they fought their way to freedom. This was known as “The Rain Miracle” of Marcus Aurelius.

Elsewhere in The Meditations, though, Marcus says something much more subtle and philosophical about prayer. He asks why those believing that the gods truly have power to help pray for external things rather than for their own freedom and wellbeing. Ironically, rather than praying for rain, in general, a Stoic should pray for strength of character and to neither crave the rain nor be afraid of the drought.

If they have power, why do you not pray to them to grant you the ability neither to fear any of these things nor to desire them, nor to be distressed by them, rather than praying that some of them should fall to you and others not? For surely, if the gods have any power to help human beings, they can help them in this. But perhaps you will object, ‘They have placed this in my own power.’ Well then, would it not be better to make use of what lies within your power as suits a free man rather than to strain for what lies beyond it in a slavish and abject fashion? In any case, who told you that the gods do not assist us even in things that lie within our power? Begin at least to pray so, and you will see. (9.40)

The last remark suggests that Marcus himself tried praying in this manner. He goes on, in the same passage, to give an example:

That man prays, ‘May I come to sleep with that woman,’ but you, ‘May I not desire to sleep with her.’ Another prays, ‘May I be rid of this man,’ but you, ‘May I no longer wish to be rid of him.’ Or another, ‘May I not lose my little child,’ but you, ‘May I not be afraid of losing him.’ In a word, turn your prayers round in such a way, and see what comes of it. (9.40)

Elsewhere, Marcus mentions two more examples of short Stoic prayers. The first expresses his attitude of Stoic acceptance or amor fati:

“Nature, give what it pleases you to give, and take what it pleases you to take” (Meditations, 10.14).

In another passage, he provides a slightly longer Stoic prayer addressed to universal Nature, the “Dear City of Zeus”, which expresses the same basic attitude of acceptance:

Everything suits me that suits your designs, O my universe. Nothing is too early or too late for me that is in your own good time. All is fruit for me that your seasons bring, O Nature. All proceeds from you, all subsists in you, and to you all things return. (Meditations, 4.23)

Stoics, in other words, pray as a means of expressing certain philosophical attitudes that it is within their own power to adopt. We could perhaps compare this to the repetition of a mantra or affirmation. They’re not so much asking the gods for help as reminding themselves to think about events in the way they’re describing. Modern Stoics, even if they’re atheists or agnostics, could adapt these “prayers” for use in daily life as a technique of self-improvement.

If you’re interested in learning more about Stoic philosophy and how it can be applied to daily living, see my latest book How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius.

📝 Read this story later in Journal.

My jargon-free guide to putting Stoicism into practice

My jargon-free guide to putting Stoicism into practice

I think a lot of people who get interested in Stoicism are looking for a simple guide that tells them how to actually put it into practice in their daily lives. I’m going to try to explain in plain English how I actually make use of Stoicism myself, without any reference to Greek jargon or too many quotes from ancient texts. If you do want information about the technical terms employed and detailed references to the original sources, see my book How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius (2019).

Stoicism is a pretty big subject. I could easily write a whole series of articles like this, focusing on different aspects of Stoic theory and practice applied to daily life. I’m going to keep this as simple as possible, though, to help you get started. If you’re completely new to this subject, all the background you need to know right now is that Stoicism is a school of Greek philosophy that was founded at the end of the fourth century BC by Zeno of Citium, and that it endured for about five centuries. The ancient Stoics who are best known today, though, lived during the time of the Roman empire: Seneca the Younger, Epictetus, and the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. Most people begin by reading The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, which is what I recommend you look at next after you’ve finished reading this.

One Tricky Part

What makes Stoicism Stoicism? I have to say something about this because, unfortunately, the essence of the philosophy is misunderstood by a lot of people. There are a lot of misleading articles online that contribute to the confusion. Normally this is a bit of a technical issue that requires some patience and wrestling with ancient Greek. However, I think it can potentially be simplified and expressed in plain English. At least, I think we can say something that’s not too misleading and good enough to get started. Stoicism is fundamentally a philosophical worldview with a specific set of ethical values. These values are the basis of a whole range of psychological practices designed to help us flourish and, in the process, become more emotionally resilient and less easily upset by events in life. Stoics believe that the only truly good thing is what they call “virtue”, by which they really mean a sort of practical or moral wisdom. In other words, our character matters more than anything else in life. That’s because it’s ultimately down to us how we choose to respond to situations in life whereas we don’t have complete control over the events that happen to befall us. Life is what you make of it. The goal of life isn’t pleasure, fame, or wealth — because these are partly in the hands of fate. Rather it’s about having the wisdom and strength of character to deal well with whatever fate sends us, whether it’s pain or pleasure, fame or condemnation, wealth or poverty.

However, that doesn’t mean that Stoics are completely indifferent to everything except virtue. (This is the key point that a lot of people get wrong about the philosophy so think about it carefully.) Stoics do have a light preference for pleasure over pain, having friends over having enemies, and having wealth over being in poverty. However, they don’t feel strongly enough to get upset about it if their luck is out and things work out otherwise than they had initially intended. Stoics learn to accept what befalls them, in this sense. They don’t complain about things. They just make the best of the situation and get on with their lives. I think the best way to understand the essence of Stoic ethics is that it’s about striking a balance between two apparently competing states of mind. On the one hand, Stoics are committed to pursuing specific goals in life with courage and determination, doing what’s both in their own interest and in the interests of humanity. On the other hand, they calmly accept setbacks and other forms of misfortune without becoming emotionally frustrated or upset. This isn’t just a vague idea, though, it’s a whole way of life, which Stoics try to follow on a daily basis. Let’s get into some of the main concepts and practices they use to help themselves live according to these values…

Two Basic Concepts

There’s actually an ancient handbook of Stoic practice called the Enchiridion of Epictetus. I said I wasn’t going to get into the primary sources here but I can’t help but mention that the opening sentence of the Stoic handbook contains one of the foundational concepts: “Some things are up to us and other things are not.” Modern Stoics tend to call this the “Dichotomy of Control” — sorry, I did also say no jargon, but that piece is quite widespread! Of course, this is a truism, right? It’s obvious that some things are up to us in life and other things aren’t. However, the Stoics were definitely on to something here. People do tend to lose sight of this distinction and worry about, or struggle with, things they can’t control. A good example would be the past — all of it. You can’t change it now, it’s too late, it’s already happened. Morbid rumination about the past is extremely common among people suffering from clinical depression, although we all do it to some extent. I like to paraphrase Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth and tell myself: “What’s beyond remedy is beyond regret.” As an aside, those of you who have heard of the Serenity Prayer made famous by Alcoholics Anonymous will spot that it’s saying virtually the same thing:

God, give me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change
the Courage to change the things I can
and the Wisdom to know the difference.

The Stoics aren’t just talking about things we have degrees of partial control over, though. They want to make a clear-cut distinction between what’s entirely under our control and everything else. In other words, we should be continually mindful of the difference between our own actions and what merely happens to us in life, i.e., between our volition, our acts of freewill, and the events we experience. What matters isn’t what happens to us but how we respond. Stoics train themselves, throughout life, to take more responsibility for their own actions while becoming more emotionally accepting of the events that befall them.

The second basic concept follows on pretty closely from the first and it happens to be perfectly summed up in the most widely-quoted saying from the Encheiridion: “It’s not events that upset us but our opinions about them.” Every cognitive-behavioural therapist knows that quote, incidentally, because for decades it’s been taught to many clients at the start of treatment. We’ve said that some things are up to us and other things are not. The only thing really up to us are (some of) our own thoughts and actions, including the way we choose to look at the situations we face in life. There’s another Stoic saying: everything has two handles. There’s a good handle and a bad handle. People get upset and frustrated when they try to pick up events using the bad or broken handle. For example, suppose that during an important presentation you’re giving at work someone asks you a question that you can’t answer. Telling yourself “This is a catastrophe, I look like a complete idiot — I can’t handle the embarrassment!”, would be trying to pick it up by the broken handle. You could just tell yourself “It’s not a big deal, all that matters is I do my best — I can handle this just by pausing, admitting I don’t have the answer right now, and offering to get back to them with it later”, which would be a good handle to use.

Our thoughts shape our emotions, at least to some extent. For the Stoics, more specifically, it’s our underlying beliefs about what matters, our values, that are the key to our emotions. That brings us full circle to the fundamental principle of Stoic ethics that I mentioned at the beginning. If we believe that external things and other people’s opinions are all-important that’s a recipe for neurosis — we’re setting ourselves up to feel frustrated and distressed if things don’t turn out as we’d have liked, which can always happen. The Stoics want us to be more realistic about life and bear in mind that events are fickle, we’re fortunate one day and unfortunate the next. Wisdom consists in accepting our fate at a very deep level and being a bit more detached and emotionally indifferent toward things in this regard.

The trick is to notice that our values don’t exist in reality, we project them onto external events. Our fortune goes up and down, like a stone being tossed in the air and falling down again, but it makes no difference whatsoever to the stone whether it goes up or down. It only matters to us because of our opinion that one condition is so much better than the other. We only get upset when we turn that into a rigid demand: I must not fall down, I have to succeed! Maybe it doesn’t really matter that much, though. Maybe it’s not worth getting upset about. The Stoics don’t think any external events are worth getting upset about. The only thing that really matters is our own character and how we choose to deal with things that happen to us in life.

Three Daily Practices

Those are some of the foundations of Stoicism as a daily practice. That’s a very simplified version but it’s enough for now. You should realize that there’s no clear dividing line here between theory and practice. Looking at the world in a particular way is, in a sense, an important psychological practice in its own right. It’s also something that takes effort and practice to maintain. Stoics return to these ideas on a daily basis, assuming that it’s a lifelong business to fully absorb them and turn them into your philosophy of life. The Stoics employed lots of different psychological exercises to help themselves cultivate this philosophical mindset. (In my first book on the subject, I counted roughly eighteen.) Here are three of the simplest things you can do…

Objective Descriptions

As we’ve seen, Stoics bear in mind that our values don’t live out there in the real world but are projected onto events like a beam of sunlight illuminating an object. If we look at the world through rose-tinted glasses everything might look very different than if we look at events through a glass darkly, perhaps through gloomy blue lenses. One way Stoics try to remind themselves of this is by describing events to themselves in very objective language, avoiding any strong value judgements or emotive rhetoric. You can think of this as training yourself to be more matter-of-fact or down-to-earth about events. Napoleon reputedly said that a throne is nothing more than a bench covered in velvet. When the most exquisite wine in the empire was set before Marcus Aurelius he’d silently mumble to himself that, in the final analysis, it’s only a bottle of fermented grape juice — nothing worth getting excited about. When you’re faced with a stressful situation it can be particularly helpful to view it in this way. Actually take time to describe the events to yourself as accurately and objectively as possible. If it helps, imagine you’re a scientist documenting events that you’re observing happening to someone else. Don’t turn a setback into a drama, by striking a tragic pose. Don’t tell yourself that it’s terrible, in other words, just lay out the bare facts and begin looking for realistic solutions.

Contemplating Virtue

Sometimes people struggle with the Stoic concept of virtue. It’s important because for Stoics virtue is literally the only true good in life, and vice the only true evil. That’s like saying that, ultimately, only our own character and actions matter. The ancient texts have a lot to say about virtue but there’s also a simple way of approaching the subject. We should assume that everyone is confused about the definition of virtue. That’s our starting point, not an obstacle. The process of training in Stoicism is, in part, about clarification of our own core values. Now, it’s true that the Stoics believe those values should be rational — it’s a philosophy, based on reason, not a religion based on faith, tradition, or revelation. However, from Socrates the Stoics inherited a very simple tool for clarifying our values and making them more consistent, which is perhaps the biggest step toward making them more rational.

We can describe this as a sort of “double-standards” strategy. Get a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle to make two columns. Write “Desired” at the top of one column and “Admired” at the top of the other. Now write down, under the first heading, some of the things you actually get most upset about in life or find yourself spending time pursuing. Let’s say those are the things on a daily basis that you desire to avoid, change, or to achieve — the things you find yourself investing your energy in. For example, people tend to write things like “Finding a partner”, “Impressing people at work”, or “Watching the news”, etc. They’re currently acting as though these things are important. Now think about the qualities you most admire in other people. It doesn’t really matter who they are. It could be friends or colleagues but you could even think about historical figures or fictional characters that you admire. Which of their character traits do you actually find most praiseworthy? Thinking about the qualities you genuinely admire most in other people is a simple way to clarify your own values.

Finally, what would happen if you copied some, or all, of those “virtues” into the first column? In other words, how would it change your life if you invested more time and energy in developing the character traits you admire in other people? What would the consequences be today, tomorrow, and the day after? What if that became a longer-term habit or your whole way of life? For example, a young man called Critobulus once asked Socrates to help him make new friends. Socrates asked him to list the qualities he was looking for in an ideal friend, and helped him to reflect on these and clarify them. Then, in typical Socratic fashion, he turns the whole discussion around by asking the young man how many of those qualities he possessed himself. The answer was basically: none of them. They both concluded that the youth was approaching things back to front and that he should invest more time and energy in making himself into the sort of person others would naturally wish to have as a friend. Their discussion is related to of one of Socrates’ recurring motifs, incidentally, which says: you should be, in reality, as you wish to appear.

The View from Above

Let’s get metaphysical. We’re going cosmic for the big finale. Remember that Stoicism is a philosophy, not a religion. The Stoics wanted to firmly grasp the truth about life through the use of reason. They naturally pointed out that in order to do so we have to think of events in terms of the bigger picture, something we very seldom do in daily life. When we view events narrowly we effectively take them out of context, which is like committing a lie of omission because we’re potentially leaving out key information. So the Stoics generally tried to broaden their perspective on events. They understood that when we’re angry or upset we tend to narrow down our scope of attention as if we’re placing the worst parts of the situation before us under a magnifying glass. There are several ways we can try to counter that tendency. One is to imagine that we’re looking down upon our lives from high above, though, like Zeus looking down from atop Mount Olympus. The Stoics sometimes talked about imagining how fleeting events are when considered in terms of the whole history of the universe, the whole of cosmic time. Likewise, they reminded themselves how their current environment seems like a tiny a speck compared to the vastness of the universe as a whole. Nothing seems worth getting very upset about from this perspective. However, arguably, that’s a more rational and objective way of looking at things because, in truth, our lives do take place within that wider context, the whole of space and time. This is quite an easy technique to use. Of course, it’s impossible to visualize the whole of space and time but we can certainly relate to the concept by picturing things from a broader perspective.

What Next?

So the central idea behind Stoic philosophy is that virtue is the only true good and everything else is relatively indifferent, in the sense that it’s not worth getting upset about things that aren’t up to us. We’ve looked at two of the fundamental concepts: that some things are up to us whereas others are not, and that it’s not events that upset us but our opinions, or rather our value judgments, about them. Then we briefly introduced three simple techniques: describing things more objectively, clarifying our values, and picturing events in terms of the wider context, or even the whole of space and time. That’s a good start but there’s so much more.

If you’re interested in learning more about Stoicism there are loads of resources available, including tons of free articles, videos, courses, and downloads. Without a doubt, though, the best place to start is the Modern Stoicism website, home of the nonprofit organization that runs Stoic Week and the annual Stoicon conference. I’ve written several books on Stoicism, the ones that would be most useful to beginners are Teach Yourself: Stoicism and the Art of Happiness (2013) and How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius (2019).