Episode 65: Stoicism

Welcome to Wisdom from the Aerial View, the podcast for those who wish to crush their anxiety and find meaning and purpose in their lives. How are you today, Dr. Mark Klein?

I'm very good. How are you today, Miss Borden?

Very good, too. I want to begin today, today's podcast. I want to read something to you. And it was written by Marcus Aurelius who was of course a Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a stoic philosopher. He said, "When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive, to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love. So today, let's talk about stoicism." And and that's a fascinating concept. It's a fascinating philosophy and you and I and your wife have been talking about it for a while and it's a philosophy of resilience. There's no question about that. Um, and there's so many things about it that remind me of the aerial view. And so I think it's a great starting point to talk about stoicism and why you in particular said to me, "Let's talk about stoicism." So go ahead, tell me why you did. Let's start that conversation. Well, you know, you actually just nailed it because as I was I don't remember why I was looking at some of this, but it's it's so aerial view in so many ways. Um, which just goes to show you that there are not any new ideas under the sun. And I've told anybody who's willing to listen many many times that I don't have a single idea that's unique or never been thought of by another human being on this planet. You know, there are there are very few new ideas. uh but they keep popping up again repetitively in different generations and different eras and which tells you that they have they have legs right they have power because if the same ideas keep recurring they tell you that they're there's probably something to them um and the reason I wanted to talk about stoicism was because I was reading a book that actually my wife recommended uh it's called the pursuit of happiness it's about the concept of the pursuit of happiness in the constitution what he does is he looks at the founding fathers and talks about what influenced them

because the founding fathers didn't just get together one day have a cup of coffee and go, "Hey, uh, let's, uh, let's create something new. Let's, um, how about a new government? What what sounds good to you?" No, these people were extremely learned. Franklin and Jefferson and Adams and the list goes on and on, right? These people were really smart. They studied the classics. They studied Greeks and Roman literature and history. And they weighed and and even the philosophers like John Locke and Hume they they the enlightenment philosophers they looked at all these things and studied them and learned them and took them very seriously uh in terms of forms of government also to figure out what would work what might not work understanding how people work. So this was very thoughtful stuff. This wasn't a bunch of cowboys thinking hey let's just have some fun and build something new. These were really thoughtful smart educated people. The first thing I thought was when I studied when I was reading this is that oh my god I can't believe we don't teach this to every single high school kid in the country again and again and again. I mean I can't believe we have left this out. This is

this is why our education system is a disaster. This is why our society is somewhat of a disaster.

So the pursuit of happiness. So if you stop somebody on the street, you know these like roving reporters stop these like 20somes on the street and ask them um can you you know how many people are in the Senate? And they go six. right? They don't know anything, right? It's it's it's you know, it's very sad obviously that there are so many people like that. But if you ask them, you know, in the Declaration of Independence, there's a line about the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I would say, what is to you, what do you think they meant by the pursuit of happiness? I'm going to guess they'd say, "Oh, doing what you want, having a good time, having a fun life. You know, no, nobody's telling me how to what to do, how to live."

Completely wrong. That's completely wrong. It's like uh it's like how meanings of words change over time. This is a meaning of a phrase that has changed dramatically over the last couple 250 years. The pursuit of happiness to them had nothing to do with fun and partying. It had to do with living a good life uh through cultivating virtue and inner strength, inner resilience. So if you were to say to them, what does it mean to to pursue happiness? It means to pursue a virtuous life. That's what it meant. You tell somebody like that in their 20s now and they go or even their 30s or 40s, who knows? They'd say, "No, no, that's not pursuit of happiness. Happiness is doing what I want to do, man. You know, have a good time, you know, live my life."

Right. Right.

No, let me stop. The whole thing about stoicism is this whole notion of virtue. And I think maybe the issue here, Mark, and let's go a little dig a little bit deeper. What is virtue? What is it? What does it mean? And how in fact does that help us pursue happiness? Talk about virtue.

Well, there are virtues, right? So, I mean, you know, the these guys had virtues. I think there's a there's a list I had here somewhere. I don't know if I can find it, but it's like um some of them you'd say were are kind of silly like not silly, but you wouldn't take them as seriously like frugality, right? Yes. Yes.

But it would be or um prudence or um patience, things courage. These are things that make up a virtuous life. And then you know Aristotle talked about all these things. So um but really the number one thing is to to live a virtuous life is to live a committed life where you care about others. You do good. We had we had a conversation with Bruce Levenson a couple weeks ago about doing good. Yes.

Where you do good, right? You do good for others. You do good for your society. You do good for your community. You know, these are all part of living a virtuous life. Being courageous, being brave, being honorable. Um, you know, like I said, frugality for some of them. Uh, controlling your emotions.

Fortitude, right?

Mhm.

Fortitude. Controlling your emotions. Big one. Very big one. And in fact, one of the things I liked, oh, here I go. I found this. U four core virtues of stoicism. Um,

wisdom.

Wisdom. You know these, right?

Justice.

Yes.

Courage.

Yes.

Temperance.

Temperance. That's exactly right. Right. Right. So, these are the core virtues, right? Um,

yeah. Notice justice. What is justice? It's it's acting in the benefit for the for the greater good, right? Justice doesn't mean to them um you know uh you stole my property and therefore I want the law to adjudicate this properly.

You right. No, it's fairness, isn't it? It's fairness.

It's doing what's good for your community, right? To seeing that what's best for your community. Now, we have different opinions about what

what is the right thing for a community. We can differ on that, right? you know we talk we have this big immigration thing going on now so we can differ about what the right way to approach it is but if the bottom line is to let's do the most good for the most people that's it so the point about pursuit of happiness is that it's very stoic in its under underpinnings it comes from stoic philosophy that that to pursue happiness is to have this journey towards virtue towards gaining virtue it is not about having a good time nowhere do these guys ever talk if You read this book or you read Jefferson and Adams, they never talk about having a good time. Never. Right? It is not about that. The pursuit is so much higher on a higher plane. Why? Why did they feel this way? They were very influenced by the Stoics particularly and other philosophers that this is a purpose of human life that there is what do we talk about in this what was the introduction to our podcast? Meaning to find to find meaning and purpose, right? These guys were all about meaning and purpose, right? So for them you know you know they argued a lot about how do you get the public to live a virtuous life. They worried about that a lot you know um all of them all of them worried about that you know Adams for instance was John Adams was very uh

he was very skeptical about the public's ability to to do the right thing. You needed a strong government a central government to do it. You know uh others disagreed that the central government could get too powerful and so on. They had all these you know very high-end uh discussions about what the proper way proper government to create was but they all shared the same idea live a virtuous life create a society full of virtuous people that's what the aim is that is the pursuit of happiness now we have gone off the rails in our society about that and I think the reason is because and this struck me we we we don't teach any of this I mean honestly even you and I 155 years ago didn't get a lot of this in high school right

no of course not exactly We didn't call it civics. We called it social studies.

Social studies,

right?

So, we did talk about certain, you know, how governments work and organizing, but we didn't talk about this kind of stuff.

Well, because maybe because we didn't talk about a philosophical notion about things. It was purely um textbook. There was nothing seriously um thoughtful about it. It was just sort of wrote just learning how many how many members of the how many people are are senators, how many are congress. It wasn't about the the philosophical underpinnings of what it all means. And I think that's the issue about happiness. That's why I think kids nowadays and and we did when we thought talk about happiness. It means having fun because there's no philosophical underpinnings. It seems to me

100% agree. This is why you know you mentioned earlier how the aerial view uh yeah

kind of mold melds very well with this. It is you know if you want to talk about purpose right uh if you just live a life you know just in the sense of what we of the 21st century think of happiness which is fun right you know fun having plenty having things you know

you know activities whatever you know then that's very that's a very sup superficial way to look at it from the aerial view of course we we're always f focused on purpose because has that's where the meeting comes and all the things we've talked about adnauseium about, you know, time and the jukebox of time and all these things we we've talked about uh repeatedly, they're all focused much more on on purpose because we realize that to that to get joy out of life, to get meaning out of life, it's more than just, you know, what's fun today. I'm not against fun. I love fun, right? You know, and we talk about you. I love laughing. I mean, there's few things better than laughing. So, fun is great. Entertainment is great. Enjoying yourself is great with your friends and family. It's fantastic. Nobody's saying don't do that. But what these guys are saying, what the Stoics were saying is that's not enough. That won't get the job done. That won't lead you to a fulfilling and meaningful life. Only virtue will get you there. So, um, you know, that's why I'm so glad we decided to talk about this because now it is it is I look at this as I'm reading this book, I'm thinking, boy, this is a you know, you and I talked about curricula and creating curricula for, you know, middle school and and high school students. And boy, this should be right at the beginning, right? Obviously, it's hard to get people to read meditations by Marcus Aurelius that's 2,000 years old. But but the messages are there. You can put them in modern day language, right? You don't ought to be done and it ought to be done. There's no way.

Yeah. You know, the other thing um I was thinking about when I'm looking at stoicism, I'm thinking in that in relation to the uh the aerial view. One of the things that they talk about greatly in the Stoics was about self-governance versus being controlled by the world that you are in control that you are in charge which is exactly what you've been saying in your writings and this is your writings really evolved from stoicism when you think about it

you know I read about the stoics many many many years ago and of course as we well know things fall in and out of our heads yes and you don't remember where things necessarily came from right so I remember studying philosophy In college of all things, believe it or not, even though I was premed, I did take philosophy courses, which I loved, right? Actually, my favorite courses in college were not, you know, physics and chemistry and math, you know, did them and biology, but they were the other things. And so, you know, when I went back and read, I went, "Oh, yeah, now I remember this stuff." You know,

you know, and so,

you know, and then, of course, obviously it gets inculcated into your personality and you forget where it came from. Right? That's why I said I've never claimed that I have any new ideas. I'll tell you something interesting, though. So all the stoic ideas and a lot of phil philosophical ideas were people's opinions and what they've derived from their own lives and and and from what they've read before they've seen before previous societies and cultures.

But one thing the that the aerial view provides now that wasn't available before is the science behind it. So you know you know for instance um Marcus Aurelius who you mentioned uh he talks about impermanence how things are transient and you know fleeting um you know he mentions of course everybody's going to die we talked about that I think last episode

uh everything you have is going to vanish you know we talked about that fame is going to go away right

um but when you get to but when you understand um the jukebox of time meaning Einstein and you understand that time all ex time exists contempor or ananeously and you see the world in its entirety all moments existing forever. It does it gives an underpinning a fundamental physical underpinning to these um philosophies and to me that was you know maybe doesn't everybody doesn't get excited as I do about this stuff but but that's why it's that's how you know it's true right when you put that together with the physics that the real the science behind it then all of a sudden philosophy has has a different has an an additional value to it so as I'm reading this I'm thinking about all these things And that you know the fact that we talked about how when you're young you're foolish and when you're older you're smarter and it's completely backwards and why all these things why a world must be experiential why each of us must go through this why we can't just read about from Marcus Reer or Pictitus I think it was his name right the one of the stoics I like that name a pictitus right

um or Seneca or Cicero and go ahead why why isn't it enough to just read these things um why do you have to go why is life experiential Why do you have to do this? And again, we've talked about all this because it's we're preparing, you know, we it's not enough to read. We each have to go through this to experience it ourselves to prepare for whatever it is that comes next, which we don't know what of course what that is. But when you put it all together, it's such a dramatic um story. It's so compelling and which is why if we want to have a society like the society that the founding fathers envisioned for our country, you have to get back to this underpinning philosophy. You must address it. You must teach it to our young people. Otherwise, they're just running around randomly with no with no purpose. What you know, just have a good time. What's the difference? Pursuit of happiness says it in the Declaration of Independence. I can do what I want. No, that's not what they meant. They meant you must lead a virtuous life,

right? Yeah. I get back to Cicero. Cicero actually in his philosophy, he had a philosophy which is how to learn how to die. And he talked about um how we have command over ourselves. I mean, very fascinating view of things. No question about it. And and um part of the the Cicero philosophy was a to manage yourself not the outside world only manage yourself. Everything is an opportunity including suffering and that's an interesting concept and he said choose virtue over comfort. So he talked a great deal about um suffering as an opportunity which is an interesting concept when one thinks about that that suffering is an opportunity. What do you think about that? What what are your thoughts about that? Cicero's feeling about that.

Well, I'm sure he's right. I'll tell you why. Um, nobody chooses suffering.

Yeah.

But one of the things we've talked about a lot and you know, as as we've gone on now for well over a year, we're into our 60s in terms of episodes.

You know, there there are these recurring themes. And one of them that I've tried to uh discuss is that all moments are equivalent. There are no special moments. All moments count. And we need to embrace every moment. In fact, I think one of the maybe was Epictetus, one of these guys talked about embracing every moment, right? In in in his own language, right? You have to embrace every moment. So the point here is that um that when you you realize that all moments are equal, then the bad ones, the sad ones, the unhappy ones are just as important or maybe even more important in some ways. I think I would say equally important to the good ones. Why? Because they're all part of the story. If we are here to evolve, if we are here as you and I have talked about

to make this evolution from selfish to selfless, from inward focus to outward focus to to complete our mission right to to reach that so that we can so we're prepared for whatever comes next. Then every moment's equivalent every moment counts then you have to appreciate the moments of suffering. I have another story for you. No, you know the story, but I'll share it. Um cuz you know when when things happen to me uh that are not so pleasant um after the initial shock, I often do what?

Laugh.

I laugh. Right. Cuz it's so ridiculous. So

your own happiness. Yes.

We were on vacation and um recently and I had developed this sudden weird pain in in one of my knees which has never had a problem before. I never had an injury, right? And you know it was it became very debilitating very quickly. So that it was really limited what I could do. I didn't stop doing it but every step was difficult painful and I didn't enjoy it one single bit. Um but I did find myself on more than one occasion laughing about it because it was so like it was so life. It was so part of life. It was so part of the story. You can't get away from it. So what do you do? Do you pitch a fit, get mad, scream, cry, put your head in the pillow, lock yourself in the bathroom. You could do all those things people do. Or you just say, "Wow, this is an interesting part of my story. I didn't see this coming." Right? That's kind of interesting. Look what's on page 447. Wow. Right. This comes out of nowhere when you're in Europe. How how what a terrible time for this to happen, right? But as when you when you're in the aerial view and you're the become you can become the disinterested observer. And I recommend people doing this every day at some point in their day. Become the disinterested observer. Get yourself out of yourself. Get yourself out of the street view. Just look at it from afar. Look at it as that disinterested observer. You go, "Well, that's kind of interesting." Because remember, all moments are equivalent. You know, people aren't going to a lot of people aren't going to take my word for this. And you know, I'll never try and sell anybody anything, but it is true. All moments in that jukebox of time are equivalent. There is no way to differentiate them, right? So they're all part of your story. So you have to embrace it. So getting back to your question about suffering. So was I suffering a bit? Yes, I was.

Did I like it? No. Um

what was the opportunity that you took from the suffering? So if you look at what the stoic said, if you look at the suffering, suffering is an opportunity for something else. So tell me what was it the opportunity?

It's an opportunity for reflection to understand what your place is in this world. You're not you're here for a limited time, right? That's it. stuff is going to happen. Every moment's equivalent. Make something of it. Do something with it. Don't lament it. You know, I was talking to somebody the other day about grief. So, grief um I've you've heard many people say this in this current culture that I haven't gotten over my grief yet. I haven't dealt with my grief yet. I'm still grieving over something that happened.

Yes.

Six months ago, a year ago, three years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago, whatever.

Okay. And I'm never going to tell anybody what to do. I'm not interested in telling people what to do. I'm interested in helping people as much as I can, but I'm not interested in forcing them to behave in a manner that I think appropriate. But I watch this and I go, "Oh, you you know, in my head I'm going, you're getting this wrong." No, no, don't. No. Grief. No, no, no, no, no. Grief. Grief quickly. A short grief should be as quick and short as possible. You can remember, you can embrace, you can love that person forever or whatever, but don't grieve. Don't grieve because the clock is ticking.

Grief isn't going to help.

It's not going to make you any better. It's not going to move you along your course of your own mission.

You have a mission. You're here for a purpose. You don't have the you don't have the latitude to to waste it. You know, you have been given a gift. You know, if you believe in God, then God gave you the gift. If you don't believe in God, well, you got the gift from somewhere else. I don't know where it is, but it's a life, right? Do something with it. Remember all those records of your life, those moments are always going to be playing forever. You want them to, you want good stuff on them. Don't waste your time on grief. It doesn't mean you forget or you become callous. You just move forward. You just continue to move forward. You can't change what's happened. It's all it was always going to happen. It was the story. It was always going to be. Remember, all time exists forever. The future as well. So don't lament it. You know, recognize it. Embrace it for a short time and then move. Then move. Don't forget, but just move forward. Focus on on the next part of your life. Focus on the next day. What are you going to do the next day? What impact are you going to have on the world? Right? What how are you going to improve yourself to move yourself along your mission? Grief. My god. Don't you know I I I know it's this is such an unpopular concept. People are going to just some people are going to listen to this and go, "Well, you haven't had then you don't know what grief is if you feel that way." No, I know what grief is. I know what it's like. Have I had the worst? No, of course not. You know, there's plenty of people have much much more grief than me, but it won't change anything for me, right? I recognize what it is. Nothing is permanent. There's it there is it's so interesting when the when um Marcus Realist talks about impermanence. When I read that, I went

I get the idea, but but be careful because there there is permanence and impermanence meaning that whatever record every moment of your life lives forever. It doesn't ever go away. It's alive and playing, you know, just as this moment is permanent forever. It's not only in the record. It is happening, right? It is happening forever. So that's why we never really lose anybody. That's why nobody ever really dies. People listen to me when I say that and they go, "This guy is a lunatic." No, it's true. You know, give a call to Albert Einstein, right? He'll tell you all moments exist contemporaneous forever. Okay, that means you can't be you can't die if you're on those records during your life. You're not on the records. The right way to think of death is is that you're not on the records after your last record that you're on. But the records you were on from the moment of your birth, the moment of your death, your lifespan, those things are going on forever. Well, you can't die if you're still alive on those. So, death has a different concept. It just means you you're done with the records that you're on on this earth. You're not on anymore, but you're still very much on the ones you were on during the moments of your life. Okay. So, these these these are such so important. And what the stoics were were saying was yes make you know your life is a journey the journey is what counts a journey towards virtue the outcome doesn't really matter they never talk about outcomes they talk about process and journey that you're on this mission to become more virtuous things we've already talked about um there was a couple of quotes here that I thought were just fantastic understood in these terms happiness is always something to be pursued rather than obtained this comes from this book quote the mere search for higher happiness happiness. Cisora wrote, "Not merely its actual attainment is a prize beyond all human wealth or honor or physical pleasure." Let me read that again. The mere search for higher happiness. What does he mean? He means virtue.

Virtue.

Mhm.

Not merely as actual attainment is a prize beyond all human wealth or honor or physical pleasure. It's the effort. It's the journey that counts. Right? So know the Stoics are very big about don't try and control things you can't control. Right? We talk about this a lot. This is the Victor Frank Franklin rule, right? Exactly.

What are you in charge of, how you react to things? Another thing, I forget which one of the Stoics said this, but that there that events I might have been Marcus Aurelius. I might got be getting this wrong because I'm not a philosophy major, but that events have no meaning. Remember how we've talked about this that events have no meaning. It's our interpretation of events that count.

Oh, we see it. Yes.

Yeah.

And that's that's a very stoic philosophy also. I forget which one, but one of them said it. Um you know so th this is the point this is the point that we're on this mission we all they all agree we're on this mission to virtue that it's the journey towards virtue that counts and that virtue involves assisting other people doing good doing good for the world for your community these are all part of it we have lost that is nowhere in our education system at the moment you can't find that good luck finding that in a you know anywhere I mean it's it's I I shouldn't be too harsh I mean I'm sure it exists in some places But it is not in the mainstream of thought, right? We do not have a society that whose thought is I'm going to try and live a virtuous life.

It should be when you think about it. If it was life, liberty, and the pursuit of virtue, we might think twice in that in that that may be a better way to school our children instead of this word. And again, we get to this notion of semantics. We talk about that all the time. It's what these words conjure in our minds, what they mean, what are the meanings of these words. So if it was life, liberty, and the pursuit of virtue, perhaps we'd be on a better course.

I agree with you. Yes.

But but but but we can do that. We don't have to change the wording in the Declaration of Independence. We can just explain to to to

only Trump can do that.

Yeah.

We we just need to explain to people as young as possible, you know, middle school, high school, so on

and continually that that the pursuit of happiness is the pursuit of a virtuous life.

It is not the pursuit of I want to do anything I want. you can't tell me what to do.

Which is where we are, right?

We are, you know, but but we've done that. I mean, we've done that to ourselves. We've done that to our children. And now's make this day, whatever day we're doing this, that's the day that things change because if we don't, we just continue along this rocky road. And I'm not sure it's going to get us very far. We're not going to be virtuous. We're not going to have a virtuous society if all we think about is our own happiness.

100%. And you know, look at our politics, right? that you know they are. Imagine if we if we substituted and I'll give you an example. So I was listening to John Federman. We've talked about John Federman, senator from Pennsylvania. And this guy had a very near-death experience. He hovered over death. Now I've never met John Federman, but I I've watched him before his stroke and I watched him after his stroke. And this is a guy who clearly is different. And it's not that he lost blood supply to his brain and he's not thinking clearly. He's seen the world a different way. He does believe I in in in sense of virtue. He does focus on this. He doesn't care. I think he could care less now if he gets re-elected. I don't think he cares one whiff once you've had this kind of experience like that. And that's what we need. We need politicians. I don't want them to all have to go through a near-death experience. Certainly, but I would like to have see them have a revelation of sort that it's not about me. It's not about how do I get reelected? How do I contain my power? How do I grow my power? How do I go from being a mayor to a congressperson to a senator to a governor to a president, right? Which is what they're focused on instead of what these stoics and what our founding fathers were focused on and living a virtuous life. Now, I'm not saying the founding fathers didn't have their problems. People are going to go, "Yeah, well, Jefferson owned slaves and and he didn't give them up and George Washington owned slaves." And I get it. I get it. These were not perfect people by any stretch, as my wife often says,

and nobody is, right? My wife often says if we if we if we're going to only look for for perfect people, we're going to run out of people. So to do things right so but still they they you know they did focus on this idea of a virtuous life of a meaningful life that journey towards virtue. And so that's what's missing in our politics. Well, it's missing in our society. No wonder it's missing in our politics. So you know this is something we should and you know I don't know actually uh it's a big project. Let's put it that way. But it is something that I that after reading this book and having this discussion with you, it seems to me that this should be priority, right? Priority number one, you know.

Yeah. Couldn't agree more. I And look at this. We're running out of time. I Let me end I'll end just my little piece here by reading something again. We started with Marcus Aurelius. Let me end with it. He said, "It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live." Good ending, isn't it?

Yeah, that guy was And you know what's interesting about about Marcus Aurelius, his book Meditations, those were that was like his personal journal, right?

Yes, it was.

Right.

He wasn't writing this to publish and you know, Right. Right. And and and you know, one other thing I think before we leave,

I forget who it was. It might it might have been Epictetus. One of these I like having Epictetus obviously but one of these guys uh talked about having a list every day of and I know cuz Ben Franklin used to do this. How did I do every day? Yeah.

And I think I've told you at the end of every day for many many years

um I would come home from work and I'd say how did I do today?

Every day I would say how did I do today? How many people did I help? Some days I'd say oh okay you did an okay job today. Somebody say you didn't do enough today. Right? uh you know now that I'm not seeing patients it's a little I don't have as much of an opportunity but I still I still like to think about it and when I read that these guys were doing the same things it just struck me that yeah the story the story goes repeats right these are common there's something inside each of us the these these this need this we understand this need to to move forward to progress to do the right thing so you know we have a lot to owe the stoics and I think it's time to to bring them back to uh mainstream education in our country.

I totally agree. Let's let's do that. And if there are teachers out there who are listening, uh consider it. Consider it. And if not, choose a new profession. Anyway, I thank you. I thank you. The other reason that I think that the our founding fathers um didn't think about happiness the same way because when you had to wear those wool suits that they wore throughout the summer, you know, they weren't happy. That wasn't happiness. But anyway, I thank you for the time. I hope everybody listens and starts thinking about the stoicism, reading some of the books. Uh there are some wonderful podcasts as a man by Ryan Holidayiday who does a terrific podcast and writes wonderful books about the stoics and stoicism and I think it's something that we all think about and if not then read wisdom from the aerial view because that'll be a good first step into the world of stoicism. With that I thank you doctor.

Thank you. Thank you everybody for listening. I think we're good. I think thank you all for listening. We'll see you next time. Peace.