pixelatedcrap

When my father passed this January- I listened to The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (free version by Librevaux) and The Enchiridion by Epictetus from Audible on repeat for months.

I've been diagnosed with ADD (inattentive) for about a decade, and have a bit of a struggle with controlling my emotions. These two books have been very, very helpful. Especially as someone who is looking for distraction- you have to sort of interpret the ideas yourself instead of having some already successful person explaining to you why you're messed up.

To me, atleast- I found it better to take advice from someone long dead, that I had to interpret myself, than listen to a distilled ready-to-eat style. The Enchiridion and Discourses is an excellent introduction to stoicism, in my opinion. My problem now is that oftentimes I can't tell if I am being stoic or insensitive.

But I'm not very smart, so it didn't occur to me to focus on mastering "how to not break down crying at work or in public" but also "being nice and upbeat", something required for my job...and I suppose, life. We are social animals, after all. Excuse my babbling addition.

Exactly - I was too focused on one aspect to realize that I was behaving counter to my scheme of life. But receiving the feedback was a big help in addressing the issue I was honestly a bit blind to before.

With all of our educational access, I'm not saying we should all be Seneca or Diogenes (especially), but boy did they know how suffering worked.

Do you think that ultimately it was Marcus Aurelius being a stoic that made us aware of the philosophy in the general public? I feel like Epictetus (among others), a former slave (basically?) built much of the foundation for the way Marcus Aurelius writes.

But the poor aren't often carried through history- a rich man taking on the philosophy of one who doesn't strive to attain what is not his- that's a very rare thing. I think that's what makes his insight so interesting. Do you think Xeno, Epictetus, and Diogenes would have stood the test of time on their own?