People have been procrastinating for thousands of years. Just like you, they put things off, they delayed, they made excuses, they hoped deadlines would never come due. This caused them anxiety, it pissed their colleagues and families off, it created problems and most of all it wasted time. Twenty centuries ago, the Roman era Stoic […]
By: Stephen Hanselman The Seeds Of Virtue For perception is the origin of all appropriation (oikeiosis) and alienation (allotriosis), and Zeno and his followers assert that oikeiosis (appropriation, or alliance) is the principle of justice. –Porphyry, On the Abstinence from Animal Food, 3.190 Porphyry, the great Neoplatonic philosopher writing toward the end of the third century […]
By: Stephen Hanselman The English language has done a great disservice to two of ancient philosophy’s greatest schools—Stoicism and Epicureanism. In the case of Stoicism, its popular meaning today suggests little more than a stiff-upper-lip, hyper-rational, emotionless automaton, not unlike the Star Trek character Mr. Spock. Similarly, Epicureanism’s popular meaning evokes a kind of sordid indulgence in food, […]
By: Stephen Hanselman [1] If You Want a Smooth Flow of Life, Live According to Nature At the core of Stoic teaching is the founder Zeno’s idea that a smooth flow of life (euroia biou) comes from “living in agreement with nature.” It was the second leader of the Stoics, Zeno’s student Cleanthes, who added the last part, “with nature” (te phusei; or […]