The Stoics were realists. Not necessarily in the geo-political sense but in the ‘what’s real is real’ sense. They would have agreed with Bulgakov when he said that “fact is the most stubborn thing in the world.” No amount of denying, crying, or trying changes what has happened. Or changes something you didn’t want to […]
The Stoics saw opinion as the source of most misery. It’s what takes objective situations and makes them good, bad, wrong, unfair, essential, deserved or outrageous. It’s also what takes things that have nothing to do with us and makes them problems for us. Not liking what some other person is doing, not believing something […]
It is in Budd Schulberg’s wonderful and underrated novelization of his time with F. Scott Fitzgerald, at the end of Scott’s sad and needless collapse, that Marcus Aurelius makes a sudden appearance. “He heard the warning of Marcus Aurelius; cease to be whirled about; and of Baudelaire: ‘Pleasure consumes us, work strengthens us. Let us choose.’” Fitzgerald, who was born 121 […]
You’re driving along, minding your own business, and some jackass comes in front of you and cuts you off, then slams on the brakes. You’re totally fine, but still it upsets you. Quite a bit actually. Except, why? Why are you upset? What wrong has actually been inflicted? Is your car damaged? Are you bleeding? […]
There is nothing worse than the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. It’s not a physical pain; but it’s not all mental either. You can actually feel whatever it is sitting there, in your gut, tying you up in knots. Stop. Take a breath. What is the source of this actually? No one […]
This is a famous optical illusion. Before we go any further, what do you see? You might see a duck. You might see a rabbit. (If you only saw one, look for the other.) Your brain decides what to see, and then once it fixes on it, […]
In August 1933, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote a letter to his young daughter Frances who was away at camp. It’s a beautiful, personal letter from a man whose lifestyle could hardly have been described as Stoic yet would repeatedly illustrate Stoic themes in much of his writing (interesting fact: Budd Schulberg, who spent a lot of time […]