Sean Murray 6:38
Well, like you, I have a natural affinity towards stoicism. I find many of the principles and techniques really work for me. And I know we’re going to get into those in just a few minutes here. But it’s also important to note that it’s not for everyone, I get that. I think the larger point about finding a philosophy of life is to make sure that you find one; you find one that works. Because you pointed out in the book, “If you don’t define your philosophy of life, then our culture will give you one.” There’s a sort of default philosophy of life that is reinforced in our culture, our movies, our television, our myths, our cultural beliefs, and, and you call this, “enlightened hedonism.” So maybe you can touch on that as you introduce the concept of philosophy of life.

William Irvine 7:23
Yeah, it’s amazing because we have a life to live, and we live it every single day. And then, the question is: What are we trying to accomplish with our days? So what most people do is they don’t give it a lot of serious thought. They just look around, and they see what other people have as goals. They assume that somebody somewhere has done their homework and figured out what’s really worth having. And so, they just follow the herd, and what the herd is interested in, and this is to put it in the most stark terms possible. The herd is interested primarily into things, and that is fame and fortune. And fame can mean, you know, fame with a capital F. But it just means social acceptance; means having other people admire you. Even better and more darkly, it means having other people envy you. And then, the fortune part, that’s just the acquisition of sufficient wealth that you can live, you know, materially good life. But I suspect that there is a double motive there. And it’s also partly so, you can experience the envy of other people, who wish they could be living the life you’re living. In the research on human desire. You know, I very quickly realized what many, many wise people before me have already figured out, and that is to pursue the goal of fame and fortune is a self-defeating goal. So here’s how human desire works. You find yourself wanting something, and then you convince yourself that if only you had the thing you want, then you would be happy. Happy forevermore. But then, the problem is that once you get it, you just find something new to want. And so, it’s a never ending pursuit. You adjust to whatever you have; want something new, you get it. And once again, you adjust and want something new. So it’s a recipe for a life of dissatisfaction. And what philosophies of life in their most enlightened form had figured out, that’s not the answer. There’s another answer. There’s another thing; another goal we should be pursuing. And both the stoics and Zen buddhists agreed on the goal. This surprised me that they would because they seem so different. But the goal they agreed on was tranquility. Now, it’s a little bit more complicated than that because, you know, when you say tranquility, what many people will assume that I mean is just this a blissed-out state; drug-like state, where you are just tuning out everything and aren’t really a very laid back sort of individual. But tranquility instead, for the stoics, at least; tranquility meant the absence in your life of negative emotions and negative emotions such as fear; anxiety; hatred. Envy would be another negative emotion. The positive emotions were fine, but the negative emotions are the ones that disrupt our tranquility. And before I go any further, just to make clear on this, this is what the Roman stoics said. The Greek stoics were much bigger on discussions of virtue as a goal, and they have a specific characterization of virtue. But when you read the Roman stoics, and these are, are the names you’ll normally associate with stoicism, people like Marcus Aurelius; people Mike Seneca; people like Epictetus. They had, the word that keeps popping up is tranquility. That was their goal. And I agreed with them. It’s an admirable goal. But you know, if that’s all the goal was then hey, a toss up, which do you do? Zen Buddhism? Oh, by the way, the epicureans also are misunderstood. They weren’t simply party people. They were also pursuing tranquility. So were the skeptics of the ancient world were pursuing tranquility. And then, it becomes an interesting second question, and that is they all have different formulas; different strategies for reaching their tranquility. And it becomes a practical issue then; a–which of those; which of those strategies is more likely to get you to the goal? And I finally decided that for me, at least, the stoic strategies would be easiest to use and most likely to deliver the goods.

Sean Murray 11:57
I find it’s interesting, there are a lot of similarities because between Zen Buddhism and stoicism. They both have as a goal to achieve tranquility, a sort of peace of mind, a stillness, or equanimity. And both of these traditions were developed independent of each other, yet they converge on a very similar aim or goal. And it sounds like stoicism, at least for you, was the path that appealed the most. And maybe this is a good time to address the confusion that often pops up between the word stoic with a small s, which in our modern English describes people who can manage through difficult situations without showing emotion, and stoicism with a capital S, which is an entire Greek philosophy. And the stoics were not about suppressing all emotion. They were more about avoiding negative emotion. And while we’re at it, we should clarify the term epicurean, too. Epicurean with a small e as someone, who enjoys the good life. In our modern English, we describe people eating fine foods, drinking fine wines, maybe even leaning towards a more hedonistic lifestyle. You know, the party people as you say. An epicurean with a capital E, which again is an entire Greek philosophy. And it’s not really about hedonism, per se, but it is a philosophy that says there’s a role for pleasure in the good life, so long as it is within moderation. So now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s, let’s go back to stoicism for a moment here. What was it about the stoics that appealed to you? How are they suggesting we achieve this tranquility?

Patrick Lee 13:26
Yeah, the stoics, as you say, weren’t anti emotion; they were anti negative emotion. I listed some of the negative emotions they thought you know, you’re going to be miserable, while experiencing those emotions. So then, the question is: Can you avoid them? They had nothing against positive emotions, and of those positive emotions. And there are emotions like my favorite emotion is delight. It’s very interesting emotion to experience, but the world is full of delights if you’re looking for them, and the appreciation of those delights is a wonderful thing. And stoics are even willing to talk in terms of joy. Now, there can be joy that’s over the top, which will disrupt your tranquility. But there is a joy that’s compatible with that tranquility. So right, they weren’t emotionless beings. They were people, who avoided the negative emotions in favor of the positive emotions. The strategies, they developed are psychological strategies. So this is another thing I’ve noticed in my kind of development as a philosopher is, I have had an increased interest in human psychology. So in the book, On desire, for example, I talk about more about psychology than it is about philosophy as traditionally done. And the stoics do the same sort of thing. So they were preeminent psychologists. I think they were the preeminent psychologists of the ancient world. They came up with strategies, and one of the easiest ones. So your listeners if they want to sort of play with this, one of the easiest strategies to use is the one called negative visualization. And to do that, what you do is you, you look at your life, and you look at the things that you’ve got, and you allow yourself to spend some time thinking about the absence of that thing from your life. So what are the things that you’ve got? Well, you probably have relationships; you have your health; you have certain possessions. The stoics said, “What you need to do is periodically imagine that you’ve lost those things. Imagine that those things are not part of your life.” Now at first, that sounds like a glum existence, where you’re going around imagining that your spouse has died; imagining that you’ve lost your health. But the stoics don’t say you should dwell on it. Instead, you should allow yourself to have a flickering thought about the loss of it. So for instance, when it comes to your home, you know, homes are destroyed. Hurricanes hit. There are fires. So allow yourself to have a flickering thought about that. And then, the interesting thing is, afterwards, there’s a very good chance you will have recalibrated your happiness spectrum here, and afterwards, you’ll realize you’re a lucky person. You’re a lucky person to have the house you’re in, and that’s true whether you live in a mansion or whether you live in a very humble dwelling. Life could be a lot worse. Your health, think of all the things you can do that some people can’t do. I can see in color. And there are an interesting number of people, who lack those abilities. And then, just think of what it would be like not to be able to see. And if you’re having trouble thinking of that, that you got a solution, close your eyes for a while, then when you open them again, then you’ll realize what a miracle you have possession of; this miracle of sight. And it’s yours. And it didn’t need to be, but it is. And isn’t that cause for a minor celebration? For one more example, think about the relationships in your life that means something to you. Do you realize relations are in a sense, fragile things; all of them will come to an end. If nothing else, your own death will do the job. So think about somebody who is important to you. And just for a flickering moment, imagine that the relationship ended. And the interesting thing is that there’s a very good chance that the next time you encounter that person, there will be new freshness; new intensity in the relationship because you won’t be taking them for granted. You’ll realize what a lucky human being you are. That, that relationship is part of your life. Those are some interesting experiments to try. And I know that was one of the first things that I did that really kind of opened my eyes about stoicism.

Sean Murray 18:30
You know, I’ve tried this technique of negative visualization as well. And I find it works for me. And the way I think about it, is that it enables me to want or desire what I already have. Desire can be a tricky emotion. It’s been described as a contract we make with ourselves to be miserable, until we get what we want. But with negative visualization, we’re triggering the desire for a split second, and then we’re, we’re satisfying it, so we’re avoiding the miserable part. We’re cutting that out. You talk in the book about this concept of hedonic adaptation. Where as humans are; it’s human nature to adapt to new situations. We sort of take things for granted. But when I use negative visualization, I’m wanting what I already have. So I’m reframing the situation, which–it’s pretty amazing what that simple difference can make. And all of a sudden, I’m feeling gratitude, and a higher sense of well-being.

William Irvine 19:28
Yeah, that’s well put. And the problem is we are just so–we get accustomed to things, and once we get accustomed to things, they lose their value for us. You know, and if you put it in evolutionary terms, I think in the ancient world, this would be 70,000 years ago, 100,000 years ago, our evolutionary ancestors, the ones who were just really satisfied, probably didn’t make it through a long and productive life. They were in trouble because they were all was living on the edge of starvation. You know, there was danger all around. So, you know, one of your ancestors, who got up in the morning, and said, “Hey, I got a coconut. I’m good to go!” probably didn’t last very long, whereas the ones who always thought in incremental terms of, you know, “However much I’ve got, if I had a little bit more, that would give me a kind of a margin of error.” So that was probably, I mean, that’s a kind of a scientific explanation of why we are that way. That’s how that came to happen. But the thing is, we live in a radically different world than our evolutionary ancestors did. We don’t have a problem with not having enough food. We have a problem with having too much food. We have too much of everything. We live even people with moderate means live in houses that 100 years ago, would have seemed like palaces, okay? Here’s an example, summer two ago I visited John D. Rockefeller’s mansion, and got thinking about it. And if somebody actually said, “Hey, you know, it’s your call if you want to swap your house for his mansion, would you do it?” And the answer is no. How come? Well, we didn’t have a microwave. He had clunky indoor heating. He didn’t have air conditioning. You go through the list. And he had a very nice big bathroom. Mine is just fine. It doesn’t have marble tiles, but it’s just fine. It, it does the job. Oh, he also didn’t have the internet. This isn’t part of his, his house, of course. But there are so many things that he didn’t have. What did he have? He had a lot of money, and he was the object of a lot of envy. And if that’s your definition of success, well then, there you are. But it’s a fool’s game. It’s a fool’s game and don’t play fool’s games. You can’t win them.

Sean Murray 22:01
Yes, that’s an interesting thought experiment. And when you throw in the fact that back then, people didn’t have antibiotics, so they could die from a small cut or wound if they got infected and spread. They didn’t have access to the kind of dental care we have today, or medical care in general. So it’s not a world, many of us would be willing to trade places and go back to that time, even if we were the wealthiest person in America as Rockefeller was.

William Irvine 22:27
Yeah, and here’s a–speaking of antibiotics. Here’s another little thought experiment for you. They tell us that they’re losing their effectiveness because the bugs are just outsmarting us; the bugs that they’re meant to treat. So next time, you have a minor something and you get a shot, and it works. Yeah, first of all, realize it hasn’t always been that way and realize that there could come a day, when you’re back, you know, a hundred fifty, a hundred years, where you get a minor cut on your hand and a week later, you’re dead. Isn’t it wonderful that we don’t live in that world? You know, you can spend your day thinking about how things could be better. And you should spend part of your day thinking about that. But most of your day should be spent luxuriating in what a blessed existence you have. And you know, we can do it in historical terms like I just did. We can do it in geographical terms, too. There’s a large part of the planet where, you know, people’s big concern getting up in the morning is: “What am I gonna eat today? What am I gonna drink? Oh, that’s right. I need to walk three miles to get some water. I need to carry that water three miles back.” Whereas, we just have to walk into the kitchen. Think about, I mean, there are other things think about, you know, your existence is an accident. You had a lucky birth. You could have been born to somebody, who was a terrible parent; an impoverished parent. All sorts of things could have gone wrong, but they didn’t. I hope they didn’t. I hope that’s true. Isn’t that a wonderful thing? So, when I spend my days around college students, and when I come across one, who’s just severely disaffected and complaining about the miserable existence, I look for an opportunity to butt in and set them straight that if they’re complaining about this, that’s a pretty amazing thing.

Sean Murray 24:28
Yeah, you know, Warren Buffett likes to say I won the DNA lottery. And he’s referring to the fact that he was born in America at the time he did; to two loving parents, who cared for him and provided a great education. And when, he says this, he’s really reflecting on his good fortune, which is something we all should do from time to time, especially if we find ourselves complaining too much. And I’m, I’m a big fan of negative visualization, but I want to shift gears here because negative visualization is about avoiding negative emotions like envy or desire, and it opens the door for other positive emotions like joy and delight, as you say. And that’s part of stoicism, but stoicism is also about pursuing excellence and virtue. It’s about maintaining tranquility and peace of mind. And when you picture someone in this state of tranquility, at least when I do, I picture like a Zen buddhist monk meditating at the top of a mountain; sitting in silence all by himself; isolated from the outside world. And that’s not the case for stoics at all. As you mentioned in the book, these guys were, were men of action. They were movers and shakers in Rome. They were social. They were the complete opposite of someone in a zombie like state. So, so talk about that.

William Irvine 25:48
Okay, two things there. One is the Greek stoics had much more to say about virtue than the Roman stoics did, but another aspect of stoicism worth exploring is what they call the dichotomy of control. So in your life, there are things you could control, and there are things you can’t control. And if you spend your days thinking about the things you can’t control, you’re wasting your time for the obvious reasons that you can’t control them. Things you can control, that’s what you should pay attention to. So for instance, if you’re in an athletic contest, say you’re near a tennis player, you can’t control what the other person is going to do in their game. You can affect what the other person does, you can’t control it. What you have control over though, is how, how much you practice; what you do to prepare for your game; what sorts of things you do during the game. That’s what you should focus your attention on. And the stoics claim that do that, and you’re gonna have the best result that you can have. But back to virtue. Your own character is one of the things that you have in your control. It’s one of the things that you can fine tune. And so, one project for you is to take your character and reshape it into a better character. So among the character traits you wanna work on if you’re a normal human being, one of them is self control. To be self controlled doesn’t mean to be this, this obsessively locked-in person. It means that the word suggests, it means to be in control of yourself. Cause if you’re not in control of yourself, then think about it, who were or what is in control of you? And do you really want to spend the one life you’ve got to live with something or someone else in control of what you do? So that would be one of the so called virtues. And it would be one of the most significant virtues. You know, there are other, other virtues to work on. Courage would be one of them. The stoics were courageous bunch of people. The evidence is they seem to have been getting themselves into trouble routinely. So stoics often got themselves exiled, and it isn’t clear the exact nature of the political offense that they committed. But they got themselves exiled. Seneca for instance, got himself exiled. Misonias Rufus, who I would call the fourth of the great Roman stoics, got himself exiled. And then, they also had a tendency to get themselves executed. So they apparently took dangerous stance against powerful people and paid some kind of price for it. So they seem to have been a courageous bunch. Seneca and I talk about him, but he was exiled; later choice of being executed or committing suicide. And so he did commit suicide and seems to have been remarkably brave right up to the end. His death is described in stoic literature. And people were crying, and complaining, and everything else, and he was just giving them the stoic line of, “Hey, buck up. Where are your stoic principles now that you need them?” So that’s remarkable that a human being could do that to the end.

Sean Murray 29:22
Well, Seneca was able to live out his stoic principles right to the end. And it reminds me of Socrates, the courage and resolve that he showed, when he drank the hemlock. And there are parts of Socrates that are very stoic.

William Irvine 29:37
Yeah, Socrates himself was not officially a stoic as Zeno of Citium, who walked the earth about a century later, was considered to be the first stoic. But sure you have echoes of this in Socrates. And that idea, you know, the idea of living a good life in the idea of having a good death. They seem like opposite ends of some kind of spectrum. But death is just the last act in life. And, you know, you can treat life as, and this sounds really gruesome, but I’m going to put the best possible spin on it. But life is a preparation for that last act of your life. You want to develop the traits; the character traits; the state of mind; the techniques that will let you deal with that last act of life. I refer to it in The Stoic Challenge book; I refer to it as your exit exam. The last big exam you will take; the one you should have spent your life studying for. It can be a gruesome event, but it can also be the best death that you are capable of making it happen. Now, having said that, I should add that there are circumstances you know, when people are near death, they become senile. There are a number of things that would interfere with them having the kind of death stoics have in mind. But you can hope that that isn’t the case.

Sean Murray 31:09
To go back to stoic virtue for a moment, one of the things that appeals to me about stoic virtue is how stoics value or measure their life. The way stoics measure success in life is different than how our culture measure success. The conventional wisdom says you must be wealthy; you must have good health; be attractive; maybe even fame. And it’s interesting to note that all these things are out of your control in many ways, but that’s not how stoics measure success or flourish in life. The stoics said, “Look, if you have these things in your life, great. It’s better to be healthy than sick for sure. But that’s not what gives your life meaning. That’s not the basis for a good life. What we’re really after; what really matters is our virtue.” Are we living in accordance with nature? Are we living up to our own character; our values: courage, pursuit of wisdom, excellence? If we’re living this day to day, then, then, we’re living a flourishing life. And what’s interesting is these, these things, our character, and our virtue, and so forth, these are under our control.

William Irvine 32:16
The interesting thing is if you–well, Seneca, you can look at their puzzles back there. So Seneca besides being a stoic philosopher, he was also a playwright. He was also the principal counselor to a Roman emperor. He was also one of the richest men alive at his time. And the striking thing is the stoics tend to be, and again, you know, we have this idea of, well, they were stoical, right? They, they were just sort of these passive individuals, who could take it. In fact, they turn out to be very active in their days. They had objectives. They attempted to get things done. And so, the curious thing is, if you’re that kind of person, a bunch of curious things happen. One is that things like saving money, if that’s your goal, become easier because most people are on this hedonic treadmill, and whatever money they save is soon gone, satisfying their desires. But if the desires start falling away, or if they’re replaced by simple desires; a desire to take a look at the blue sky that’s out there, or to walk down the street; to see that beautiful orange Maple against that blue sky. That comes with the price of admission, you know? That’s just a free kind of thing. Enjoy the relationships that you have, when you’re with your friends; when you’re with your relatives. Don’t stand there taking it for granted. Soak it up! You can be wealthy then in some sense of the word that’s different than financial wealth, but the stoicism hardly precludes more materialistic kind of wealth. And a stoic like Seneca is going to say, “You know what if you have the wealth, enjoy it. But while you do, prepare yourself for the loss of that bell (*inaudible*).” So they always have these kind of contrary bits of advice. And it sounds, again, like a difficult thing to do, and you’re going to always be worrying. But they aren’t worried. Hand up a stoic a glass of champagne, and he will probably enjoy it. While he’s drinking it, he might think to himself just for a flickering instance, there will be some time in my life; there will be the last glass of champagne that I drink. So I’m really gonna enjoy this because this could be it! So it’s a curious thing. It sounds negative, and it sounds gloomy, but it can actually have the effect of intensifying the experiences you have in life.

Sean Murray 34:55
There will be a last time, I found that so powerful. It’s very poignant at times. I think about my spouse and my kids. I have two children, ages 15 and 13. And as a parent, there’s so many last times. And you you don’t know, when they’re going to come. Take holding your child’s hand as you cross the street or parking lot, when they’re 3, 4, 5. That’s just something you do as a parent. You reach out for their hand; they reach out for your hand, and it’s a beautiful thing. But then, one day, it’s gone. That phase is gone, and it, it’s touching. So, so now I’m always on the lookout. What am I experiencing today as a parent that’s going to be gone? I should enjoy that. Soak it up as much as I can. And that little reflection, “There will be a last time,” it helps me appreciate life.

William Irvine 35:42
Yeah, in life once you start to appreciate life, I’ve noticed these moments because I’m appreciating life probably as much as I ever have. But that means I have these moments, when I’m simultaneously struck by how beautiful and sad the world is. So it’s two emotions come together at the same time. And I used to think those were incompatible emotions, but that’s all a symptom of a deep appreciation of what’s going on. Yeah, my advice to you–I have grown children they’ve grown and flown; they’ve flown the coop, but my advice to you is soak it up, while it’s there. Another kind of background activity in life should be to do what we can to avoid future regret. So in Challenge Book, I think it’s the Challenge Book, I describe two different parents, you know? One who just kind of the kid is part of his life in some peripheral way, and he’s always busy, and he’s always preoccupied. The other father is a very much involved; not involved in the sense of being a controlling parent, but involved in the sense of the moments with the child you extract the full value out of those moments. The interesting question then, is if the child did–that something happened, and the child died; the parents would probably react in two different ways. You might think it was the parent, who really was connected to the child, who would grieve the most, whereas the other parent would be indifferent. But I argue that in many cases, it will be the opposite. Because the parent that didn’t really take full advantage of the relationship with the child will now feel that regret of having missed opportunity, whereas the other parent will, at least, will be sad. The stoic said, you know, “Even a perfect stoic will experience negative emotions because we’re human. We’re half God and we’re half animal, and that’s just our lot in life.” But the parent who did extract the value of the relationship will be free from the regrets, and the regrets are a major part of the equation. Regret is a really interesting, complex emotion. It’s maybe one of the most mixed up emotions that there is. And you can avoid regret by living from day to day; living from moment. When you have something in front of you that is capable of giving you delight, soak up that delight ’cause it’s not always going to be there.

Sean Murray 38:29
I like to think that these things I cherish in my life: my wife; my kids; material wealth; my health. I don’t really possess these things. I think to myself, “I, I don’t own them.” I think it was Seneca or one of the stoics who said, “You should think about these things as being on loan, and that loan can get revoked at any time. Our fortune can turn.” And this is related to another concept in stoicism, this idea of fate. We don’t know how things are going to play out. That’s essentially out of our control. But what is in our control is our ability to accept that fate.

William Irvine 39:09
In The Stoic Challenge Book, I talk about the fates we can experience; the things that can happen to us in life. And they had a really interesting technique. This was primarily Seneca, who pushes this technique, but a very interesting technique for dealing with the setbacks we experience in life, and that is to treat them not as setbacks; not as things to be miserable over, but as challenges as you’re being tested. And then, the interesting thing is, who would be testing me, you know? My car broke down, who’s testing me? Their technique was a kind of a mind game. So they said, “What you do is you treat the event as if the stoic gods were testing you.” Now, follow up question is, “Well, why would they do that?” And the answer is, “Because they want you to be strong and brave.” It’s for your own good. And so, what they do is they give you little challenges as you go through life; as you go about your daily existence. Your job is to go through those challenges; get to the other side. And that means come up with a solution or a workaround for the obstacle that’s been presented, and keep your cool as you do it. It’s another technique that works really wonderful in Stoic Challenge Book. I tell the stories of many people, who even though they weren’t stoics seem to have mastered that technique, and then, the stoic spin on those same techniques. And I tell stories of–from my own life of when there’s been a setback. You realize people respond different ways, you know? Some people will just complain at length about something bad that happened to them. But a stoic will react at the time of the setback. He’ll be thinking in his mind, “Okay, I’m being tested, and I want to look good in this test. And I want to pop up the other side with a story to tell. Got to be a true story. It’s gonna be a story about what I did; what happened to me; how I handled it; how I overcame it; how I kept my cool throughout.” Now, you may tell other people that story; you may not. Stoics were not a boastful bunch of individuals, except it’ll help him put it in its proper psychological space. This, this a potentially bad thing that’s happening to him, and it’ll put the best positive spin that he can on it.

Sean Murray 41:48
If we’re going to strive to reach our goals, change the world, achieve things for our community and family, we’re gonna run up against obstacles. We’re going to need resilience to overcome these obstacles, and, and this is a great technique to prepare for that. There’s also the mindset of almost welcoming obstacles, right? Because A: They’re going to make us stronger. They, they’re going to test us; test our ability; test our mettle. And B: By overcoming the obstacle, we’re going to improve; we’re going to, going to get better. It’s going to help us in the long run; in some way, move forward. Maybe not in the same way we thought or expected. Maybe the obstacle will force us to find a new path, but as Marcus Aurelius says, “The obstacle is the way.”

William Irvine 42:34
Yeah, there were two levels at which you can do this. One just as you go through life, they’re gonna be setbacks that you experience. And then, the question is: Can you deal with those setbacks without experiencing negative emotions? At the next level up, that’s a curious thing. You don’t feel satisfied with the setbacks you’re going to experience in everyday life. You need more training than that. So you go out of your way to do things that are likely to trigger setbacks. And for a lot of people, that’s just gonna sound bizarre, self-defeating kind of behavior. But it’s a difference between the person who says, “You know, I want to be comfortable. So what I’m gonna do is just hang out, sit around, and don’t do anything.” That’s one take on life. But then, there are other people who say, “Well, I want to be comfortable. So what I’m going to do is I’m going to become physically fit. I’m gonna watch my diet. I’m gonna do a number of things, so that it’ll require some effort on my part, but the chances are that I’ll be more comfortable than if I had taken the other approach to it.” So stoics might go out and I described in Stoic Challenge. I mean, I do two things. Number one: I, I’m a competitive athlete. Not a very good one, but, but a competitive athlete. And then, the second thing is I’ve been doing a lot of traveling ’cause in the process of traveling, what you do, if you go to distant places, you get yourself out of your comfort zone; that zone, where you can just hang out. And everything is pretty predictable and pretty soon surprising things if you travel start to happen. So it’s, it’s an exercise; it’s a conscious exercise. And when you encounter the kinds of surprises that happen, then you think, “Ah, it’s another test! It’s another challenge. Let’s see how I can handle this.” So what happens is, you become more resilient. You gain self confidence. You gain the confidence that as life sets you back in various ways, you’ll be able to cope with it. And there are people, who are emotionally brittle. When life sets them back, they can’t cope with it. They feel aggrieved; they feel hurt; they feel it’s an, an injustice. And that’s one way you can live your life. But the stoic said, “You know, it’s not the choice you should make. You should learn how to become resilient. Learn how to bounce back. You’re going to have a better life than you otherwise would.”

Sean Murray 45:17
The parallel I see here is the concept from Nassim Taleb in his book, Antifragile, and the idea is when something is fragile, when you apply more stress, it breaks. So think of a wineglass. If you stress it by dropping it from four feet in the air, it smashes on the ground. So antifragile is the trait, where when you apply more stress to an object, it gets stronger. And Taleb points out that many things in our body are in fact antifragile. Our bones for example; our muscles. If you want healthy muscles, you have to stress them by going to the gym, lifting weights and so forth. So our physical bodies antifragile, but what the stoics seem to have figured out 2000 years ago is that our mental state; our emotional well being is also antifragile. It requires some stress to continue to stay healthy and to improve. They didn’t use the term “antifragile,” but essentially they were saying, “Hey, you need you need obstacles to prepare your emotional state.”

William Irvine 46:16
Sure, yeah! No, that’s what you’re doing. You’re developing those skills. They are skills that aren’t going to develop by themselves. And if you don’t ever put yourself in a position, where you’re setback, they will start to atrophy. And then, any small thing will seem like a setback. Now, I can’t advise following stoic trading, but some people would do it. And that is, you know, climb Mount Everest. For the record, I have no interest in doing that. I’ve seen the pictures of people lined up for 400 yards at the top of Mount Everest, waiting for their moment to be there, and do it. But just imagine that you had accomplished that, and you did it because it was hard to do. And imagine you’ve accomplished that. And now you’re back in the lowlands. If some challenge comes up; if some setback comes up; and, you know, somebody says, “Hey, do you think you can cope with this?” You don’t need to say this out loud. But here’s something to think. And that is, “Hey, I climbed Mount Everest. I think I can probably handle it.” Somebody who’s never gone out of the way to challenge themselves, and who have always had somebody else make things right, just has no immune system developed. And the smallest of things; the smallest of setbacks will seem like a catastrophic event in their life.

Sean Murray 47:45
That’s a great way to think about it, building up your immune system. You also talk in the book about rowing. You, you use the sport of rowing to build your own mental strength, and, and I use running. My daily practice of running is a way to test myself each day to push through resistance. Yes, it has a physical benefits. But I think the mental benefits are just as impactful. There are times in my daily run, where there’s this voice that says, “Ahh, Sean! You, you can walk the rest of the way. You’re tired. You didn’t sleep well last night. You didn’t eat well, it’s okay. Just, just slow down.” And, and I do have conversations with that voice. And you talk about hearing that same voice, when you’re rowing. And it might sound crazy, talking two voices in my head, but I think it’s healthy.

William Irvine 48:32
I think it means you’re normal. But yeah, I hear voices. One of them I call them “Lazy Bill,” and I’ll be in the middle of a workout. Or even worse in the middle of a race and Lazy Bill will speak up. Normally, he just sleeps in the back of my mind, as far as I know, but he’ll speak up, and he’ll say, “You know, Bill, if you would just cut back a bit.” And so one of the things that training is it’s practice on giving Lazy Bill the slap down; putting him back in his place; showing him who is boss. And we talked about self control earlier. And this is one example of self control. The other time, I hear, it’s not Lazy Bill, but it’s another voice. I typically limit myself at dinner to one five ounce glass of wine because my doctor says it’s good for me, and I enjoy it, too. And the interesting thing that happens is after I finish that glass, some evenings there will be a voice that says, “You know, Bill, you’ve been working hard. You’ve earned a second glass of wine.” And I wrestle with that voice. And some nights it wins; some nights I win. And that’s, again, that’s the human condition. So modern neurologists put firm footing under this, but the ancient stoics realized we’re half God and half animal. Those two forces are competing within our mind. And sometimes one horse has the high ground; sometimes the other, but the voices we hear come from that deeper, more animalistic part of our brain. The higher functions; the rational functions, get to listen to them; get to deal with them. It’s also amazing how often our rational brain will simply step aside, and let the animal portion do what it wants to do. Stoics would have said, “You know, that’s how it should be because we are a mixed being.” And that’s what we’ve got to live with. And so, all we have to do is come up with strategies for doing that; for living that life. So in Stoic Challenge, I described one such technique. That is when you realize your setback, I call it, The Five Second Rule. You have five seconds in order for you think in terms of treating it as a stoic test. Because if you don’t, your anger is going to have time to arise. And once your anger wakes up, it’s very hard to put back to sleep. So it will take control during that setback, instead of consciously, calmly working your way through the setback. You’ll find yourself yelling at the people around you. You’ll find yourself cursing. You’ll find yourself doing any number of things unbecoming of a stoic. And just to anticipate the next question. Yes, that does periodically happen to me. And while it’s doing it now, it’s kind of like a double thing. And you know, I’m thinking, “Gosh, I’m yelling. And gosh, whatever became of the stoic strategy?” But Seneca, he says it well. He says, “You know, at bedtime, before you fall asleep, take a moment to think about your practice of stoicism that day, and think about the times, you were less than ideal.” And then, what’s the takeaway? The takeaway is that tomorrow you’re going to redouble your effort. You’re gonna work on that. You will never achieve stoic perfection. But that’s the goal at which will lay (*inaudible*).

Sean Murray 52:15
That’s a great way to end our discussion. If our listeners want to learn more about stoicism, where can they go?

William Irvine 52:22
I have a website, williambirvine.com. That’s B as in boy. And it points you to in a bunch of different directions. There are a number of podcasts I’ve done; there are videos I’ve done; there are articles that I’ve done. I have a now dormant website called twentyfirstcenturystoic.org, I think, where I wrote a series of stoic essays. So again, those are absolutely free. Good place to dip a toe if you want to give this stoicism a try or investigate it further.

Sean Murray 53:01
I’ll be sure to put those links in the show notes. William, this has been a wonderful conversation. Thank you for being on The Good Life.

William Irvine 53:10
Oh, thank you for asking me.

Outro 53:12
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