Ryan Holiday || Lives of the Stoics

It's great to have Ryan Holiday on the podcast. Holiday is one of the world's foremost thinkers and writers on ancient philosophy and its place in everyday life. He's a sought after speaker, strategist, and the author of many best selling books, including The Obstacles, The Way, Ego Is the Enemy, The Daily Stoic, and the number one New York Times bestseller, Stillness Is the Key. His books have been translated into over thirty languages and read by over two million people worldwide.

He lives outside Austin, Texas with his family. His most recent book is Lives of the Stoics The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius. And He'll let me know if I mispronounced those names. Okay, So I want to start with Seneca. If you talked about turning words into works, you know, which puts works over words. Now, I really think this is super interesting his philosophy of philosophy, of the point of philosophy, Like, first of all, can

you explain what that means? And then second of all, like, how pervasive do you think that idea was among the Stokes because it kind of counters a lot of the stereotypes about Stoicism. Sure, So, like when people think of Plato, they think, Okay, this was this philosopher who had Plato's republic and he had these ideas about the world. When we think of Plato, we don't nobody instinctively goes but was Plato a good person? You know? What did Plato

do that we could contrast Plato with Socrates. Socrates is Plato's teacher. But Socrates was a soldier in the Athenian army, and then as a teacher he didn't have a classroom. He walked around Athens and just had conversations. So Socrates was considered a philosopher because of how he lived, and the famous stories of Socrates involved, you know, obviously famously his death but they also involved his relations with his wife, his children, how he dressed, and so for the Stoics,

and Seneca is drawing heavily on Socrates among others. For the Stoics, it wasn't look at the beautiful theories that this philosopher created, and much more like, what did they do? What did they contribute to Greece or Rome? Did they

live up to those theories? And I think for the Stoics they had this horror of being anything like the Sophists, who are these kind of like manipulative guru types who sort of half entertainer, half you know, law of attraction nonsense, the philosopher who tells people what they want to hear, versus the philosopher who speaks the truths that needs to be uttered, but then most importantly exemplifies those truths in the real world. They also still exmphasize a lot, right,

the cyclical nature of lots of these ideas. In modern day world, you still see the same different types right in the different books. Like you just talked about the type of the secret kind of type. What are the modern day stow I'm not saying the ones like you necessarily who are talking so directly about the stoics, but those that in their writing style are those kinds of philosophers? Yeah, Like I think, you know, Nasim Telab would be a great example of a person who's both influenced by stowed

philosophy and talks about it. But if you think about the kinds of philosophy he's speaking about, it's not how do we know we're not living in a computer simulation. He's like, what's the philosophy of risk? Right? Like, how do you take risk in the real world? How do you have skin in the game in the real world. So I think there's kind of a grittiness to stoicism, or a pragmatism or an applicability to it that I think is sorely lacking in a lot of self help

and even in psychology. Like I always sort of when I'm reading stuff, I'm always thinking like, and what am I to do with this information? You know? And if there's not a good answer, I just kind of like, Okay, cool, I'll leave that to someone else. Do you still see value in knowledge for knowledge sake? Yeah? Sure? And I'm still obviously intrigued by art and literature and cleverly made arguments I think our most urgent task and I sort of open lives of the Stokes, So this our most

urgent task is like to be better people. And I don't mean like more successful people. I just mean like we're all struggling against some of these sort of base or desires or impulses or temptations or just the lowest common denominatorness. And I think philosophy should be sort of calling a to greatness. I'm imagining you go into a department of philosophy, like NYU, the number one phosphy department

of the world. Imagine you going there giving a talk and basically telling that whole department, large majority of that department is they're writing papers just ideas. But I'm imagining you going there and saying, hey, philosophers, you know, are you living what you're writing? You know, and kind of holding them to that standard. It might be a bit awkward.

I think that's a really interesting point because it's like, so you said NYU is the number one philosophy department in the world, and it's like, could a normal person I don't even mean like, oh, a factory worker, I just mean like an ordinary middle class person name one philosopher in the NYU Philosophy Department, or even better, one idea from the NYU Philosophy Department that has had any irrelevance or impact on their lives. Like I mean, I

write about philosophy and I can't do it. That's a really interesting point because it's very easy for people in academia to amongst themselves kind of get a sense of greatness, right, but not looking into the world more broadly, well, the Stoics for virtues were courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom. That's interesting, you know. And the wisdom part maybe that's what is very very much a part of a lot of when you think philosopher, like the stereotypical conjuring up, you don't

you don't conjure up? Oh courageous, you know, Oh justice? Maybe temperance too. I would say temperance and wisdom maybe you conjure up and not the other. These were the four foundational aspects of the stoics. Is that right? Those virtues get absorbed into Christianity and we know them today as the cardinal virtues, which C. S. Lewis talks about. You know, the cardinal virtues don't have anything to do with cardinals, like the religious rank, but it's from the

Latin word cardos. It's these are like the pivotal virtues of life. Yeah, for the Stoics. Obviously, there's all sorts of writing. For the Stoics, it was not writing about these things but ideally living these things. Okay, living these things. Now this interesting connection between living one's life well and that idea and then living the good life and preparing yourself. It almost seemed like you talked about two different ultimate

versions of philosophy. Like in the first part you talk a lot about philosophy as exemplary, being an exemplary person and doing things in the world, but then at one point you say, well, the ultimate of philosophy is really so Cicero in fact, said to philosophis is to learn how to die. So that actually seems like different things, but maybe they're not. No, I don't think so. I

mean so Marcus realized. He says, like, if you can ever find anything better encourage justice, wisdom, and moderation, it must be an extraordinary thing. Indeed, and his point was, yeah, these are sort of our moral obligations, but these are

actually the best ways to live as well. And I was just talking to to someone the other day who'd previously sort of been been very overweight and a drug addict, and we were sort of talking about you might think that it's wonderful to just eat whatever you want, ingest whatever you want, but he was talking about how utterly horrible it was, like he was a prisoner to himself and to his own urges, and that just walking around

was painful and miserable. So when the Stoics are talking about temperance, it's not like, hey, if you are intemperant, you will go to hell because you have sin. The Stoics are not making any sort of metaphysical argument. There's no threat or promise of an afterlife. I think the Stoic argument which is interesting because it's evolving right alongside the Christian argument. I mean, Seneca and Jesus are born the same year. Seneca is saying, if you're intemperant, your

life will be hell, you know what I mean. And he's pointing over and over again to these romans who have unlimited wealth or an insatiable desire for conquest, whether it's sexual or militarily or financial, and that actually, like it's a horrible existence, and they're sort of deserving of our pity, not our jealousy. Yeah. Ben Franklin talks about a lot about all that. Did he like the Stoics. I don't remember him ever actually referencing the Stoics. He

references the Stokes a few times. Almost all of the Founders were intimately familiar with the Stoics. I mean, George Washington is introduced to the Stoics at like sixteen or seventeen years old. Jefferson dies with a copy of Seneca on his nightstand in French. Washington was considered the least educated of the Founders, and in that sense he only read the Classics in English, not in Greek, Latin or French. Right, And so that generation, that sort of Enlightenment generation, was

sort of born and raised on these classical texts. And ironically, the Hamilton of its Dead, the most popular play in the world in the late seventeen hundreds was a play called Cato by Joseph Addison about Cato, the famous Stoic philosopher. So even some of the lines in the American Revolution, like give me liberty or give me death, is like quoting from that play. It's only because we're no longer familiar with the play that people don't quite get what

that allusion is too. Just a meta level observation I'm having of you is, even though you're not in academia, you talk with the passion and nerdiness of an academic. I hope you take that as a compliment. You know, like you could fit in so well in like the lunch room or you know, and yeah, we're all just like each geeking out of our own PhD dissertation topic. You really get excited. It seems like by the details going into seeing new analyzes of the texts and things.

You're an interesting hybrid model in the world of like an academic kind of mind, you know, with like this entrepreneurial aspect too, and a good writer. Over the years, just fallen in love with this topic and this rabbit hole, and so as a result of spending so much time with them, all this sort of people are kind of real to me and sort of this conversation. I don't

know what happened. I wasn't like a bad student. It really wasn't until I was in college and in the process of dropping out of college that I really ever heard from anyone that was like, hey, you're not just like pretty good at this, but you're really good at this and you could. It was almost like I'm a baseball player that had an arm, but I was discovered like too late. Normally, you're sort of selected for that

path to go to Yale. You have to have shown a certain amount of promise or potential, you know, at certain junctures where somebody has to sort of take you by the shoulders and direct you down a certain path. And for whatever reason, that never happened for me. But how much has that affected who you are today and what you do? You know, not much in some respects. That would have been kind of a gilded cage, I think.

And I'm not complaining about it. It's just it's a weird thing sometimes when I think back to my childhood, just sort of like, was it I didn't see it in myself? Was it not? There? Was I poorly served? You know? I'm just something I'm fascinated with, especially now having kids of my own. You're just like, sort of, how does that happen? Yeah? For sure? How old are your kids now? By the way, we really haven't caught up in all you have kids. Yeah, I've got almost

a four year old and then like a fifteen month old. Congratulations, that's a whole other philosophy you live there. So how much do you talk to like Massimo Pigliucci or like Sky Cleary, those who in the scholarly you know, they write scholarly papers and books, And have you checked out their recent book, How to Live a Good Life? I think it's called and I think you'd love it. I'd love to connect you more with them in some way. I know Massimo a little bit. We've talked to a

handful of times. I went to a party once at his house, so we sort of know each other. We were talking about this a little bit earlier. I just sort of identify more as like this is this is what I do, and it's over here, and it's I'm sort of pursuing my own path. It's also a little weird on the Stoicism front, because I've tended to find the academic writing on Stoicism, in my experience, tends to leave something to be desired. It tends to be a lot of then Cato said, and then Seneca said, and

then so and so said. I feel like they're almost trying to take something and force it through the same model that you would force Kant or you know, one of these other philosophers. And and that's not really what the Stoics were meant to do. I think the Stokes were meant to be broadcasted out to a more general accessible audience, not sort of endlessly dissected. I should get those two and you on the Psychology podcast all of

us together. Okay, would you be open to something like that? Yeah, sure, sure, I'll ask them. I think we could dive into some of the examples. These are fascinating people that you profile in your book. They are, and it's amazing how how much we know about them, considering how long ago they lived, the cyclical nature, how relevant a lot of ideas are to social justice issues are seeing in America right now? To pandemic? Who meditations markets? Didn't he live through like

a pandemic? Is that right? He wrote it during the Antonine plague. That might be a good thing to read now. But how many pages? Isn't that a lot? It's like a pretty meditations? No? No, it's very short. How was it short? All? Right? On? Yeah, I don't know if you've ever read it, but it's very Yeah, it's like, okay, so here's book ten, number four. If they've made a mistake, correct them gently and show them where went wrong. If you can't do that, then the blame lies with you

or no one. So they're just like they're literally just little meditations or aphorisms or ideas from his mind, meant entirely for himself. Right, And that's the interesting thing is just you know how timeless it is, you know when those just meant for himself. I'm trying to remember Carl Rogers quoter. Now, the more deeply personal something is, the more universal it is. Yes, it certainly certainly applies to meditations. I mean what's so incredible is like, yeah, never intended

for publication. It's full of all these like deeply specific like he's like, you know what the toll booth operator said in Cartinium or you know, like impossibly obscure references that no one could figure out. We don't know what he's talking about. A lot of it's just random quotes that he likes or you know, some of it almost feels like sort of poetry as he's going to sleepers thing.

But because it is what he tried to live by, and it's so sort of deeply personal and yet also just vague enough it manages to be relevant, I think continually. And so are all these other people that you profiled. So let's talk about some of them. So Xeno the prophet. This kind of kicks off Stoicism, Is that right? And it began in misfortune? How did stors Stoicism begin in misfortune? Zeno is the founding member of Stoicism. But he's a

prominent merchant. His father's a successful merchant, you know, takes over the trade. And then from what we know, he suffers a shipwreck and he loses everything. He basically washes up penniless in Athens and so and then and then wanders into a bookshop one day, and and here's someone reading a collection of thoughts from Socrates, and this is

his introduction to philosophy. He gets sort of a mentor after this, but he would later you know, I suffered a great stroke of good luck in misfortune, or you know, I found a fortune in philosophy, even though in truth you've lost everything. But in losing everything, he discovers philosophy. And so he's I sort of present him as the prophet in that he's the he's the founding member of

the school. He's the he's the one that sort of puts this you know, five hundred eight hundred year sort of period into motion, and it all stems from this run of bad luck. And he views life as living in harmony with nature. And I think that's a very interesting idea because they're also talking about your own inner nature when our ego is prominent, Are we fighting with

our own nature? Seems like that's what they're saying. I think so, I mean, and one of the interesting things about Stoicism is not being you know, Aristotle sort of so articulate and definitive and systematic that it's like, we know what he thought. What all that survives from Zeno are like a handful of fragments. And this is true for a lot of the Stoics. So a bunch of the Stoics go, you know, like the you know, the goal of this life is to live in in accordance

with nature. That's sort of how the phrase is rendered a lot of times. But nobody really ever defines living in accordance with nature. There's not like and then you scroll down into the glossary and like here it is right, and so I think you're right. I think it's a combination of our nature as sort of human beings and animals in the world. Sort of everything has its place, you know, the sort of the ecosystem. But I think more it's referring to your inner nature, to your character.

I think the Stoics are probably pushing back against this idea of eternal sin, that we're born flawed. I think they would see it as we're inherently good, we know what's right, but we sort of drift away from it or are pulled away from it, and so it's the philosophy is about sort of cultivating that inner nature and then following it. Yeah. There, Their idea of the harmony and flow of life being kind of effortless through virtue

is very very interesting. I mean there's some times where I feel like I'm I'm accessing the naughtiest bits of myself and I'm still in flow though, I mean, is it like, do you you're only in flow when you're being virtuous? Is that right? I don't know. I mean maybe I was thinking about this the other day, like I don't I don't know about you, and I can

feel a little flip to be talking about it. But it's like the last six months of my life have been, you know, as as quite wonderful in the sense of obviously what I see going on the world I find to be horrifying. I'm sort of worried about certain things. But on the other hand, I'm kind of I've so zoomed in and I'm not traveling, I'm not chasing things. I am. I'm in a routine. I'm surrounded by family, I'm outside in nature because you know, I don't live

in a big city. I'm active. I might be anxious a little bit about, Hey, what's the latest news on the pandemic, But I'm not anxious as I have to get across town in thirty minutes or I'm going to be late for this appointment because they don't have any appointments. And not only do I not have any appointments, I don't even feel I don't even have inquiries for appointments, and I don't feel guilty that I can't manage all

the appointments. I think this is the kind of crap that they're talking about that has been built up in our lives, and we sort of lose the forest for the trees. So when I think about living accordance with nature, I've probably lived more in accordance with nature the last six months than probably at any time in my life. Because I really had no ability to do anything else. Makes a lot of sense, and I really resonate with that in a lot of ways. I'm kind of digging,

you know, not having to talk to people in person. Yeah, no, no no, no, I mean I think that's going to be a question. You know, you know, people go when this goes back to normal. I don't think that's really going to happen. I think some things are going to be permanently changed. But it's like, like, you know, Texas was a little insane where I live, where like it seemed like maybe in June everyone decided collectively we were over it and we were going to pretend that the

virus didn't exist anymore. So there was this brief period where all of a sudden, people started inviting me to do stuff again. And even though I didn't agree, like I wasn't planning on doing anything, just the pressure of suddenly getting the requests, I thought I had this equanimity that I possessed it. Really, the equanimity was the absence

of the disturbances of the equanimity. And so I think one of the questions as life does eventually move on is how do you preserve you know, like, nobody's asking me to get on a plane and fly to Denmark to give a talk, and so I'm not tempt by the ego of it or the financial element of it to do it. And it's revealing to me that I clearly actually don't want to do it because I'm happy you're not doing it. But the temptation to accept the offer isn't there. But I imagine when it is there,

that will be attention for me. I really resonate with that. And you have no idea. I really resonate with that. I never got a chance to have you on my podcast to talk about your book Stillness. Yeah, so if you'll please allow me the opportunity to fold it in and then sneak it under the sneak it in under the rug of all these ideas are related. In my hoar. They are right because you try to live in a harmonious way. So what are the stoics Because I don't

think they would have used the word stillness. I would have thought that because stillness does feel like a very Eastern word. And I've read Meditations, you know, well over one hundred times over the last fifteen or so years, and it wasn't until maybe like two years ago, when I whatever the you know, when the student is ready,

the teacher appears. I'm rereading Meditations, and I notice within a couple pages Marcus uses the word twice, and then I search on Amazon uses directly refers to stillness, I think nine times, and then in several other instances is referring essentially to the same idea. And so that was kind of the breakthrough on that book, was like, oh, actually the East and the West may may be very

much in alignment on this, on this idea. And how do you try to like, I almost feel like what we're we're both saying is right now during COVID, during the situation, we're guiltily you know, able to have more stillness than we've ever had in our lives ever before. How's it making you like, rethink how you've reacted, maybe been more reactive than usual to life the way it was a year ago. This contrast is interesting, isn't it? Sure? And look, I do think there's an element of guilt

to it, but I don't. I do want to make sure that still doesn't become somehow like a synonym for privilege, because the main example I use in the book is like Kennedy and the missile crisis. He's not still there because he's this rich guy sort of relaxing as the world burns. I mean he's still because he manages to zoom in and understand fully the essence and the demands

of the situation. So I think there's an element of stillness that is sort of like, hey, I'm only going to do the essential activities right now, And there's a little bit of privilege in that. But there's also a stillness just in concentration and in purpose and in deliberation and all of that. So I think you can be still in a moment of extreme chaos and dysfunction if

you've cultivated the ability to do that. It's not Actually when I contrast Eastern and Western stillness, I do think there is a well, go on a thirty day silent meditation retreat stillness that has become in vogue with the sort of modern Buddhist kind of movement. And I think you know that Marcus Aurelius would go, no, no, no no, you could be still right here in the middle of Rome leading the empire. And I think it's that latter one that I'm one both more interested in, but that

I think is more important. I love that. Doesn't he have a quote like you could go, we go on vacation, you know, we go to beautiful places thinking we get away, and you don't have to do that, something like that. I love your mark, sarelis accent, well well done. I yes, he says, you know, people retreat to the countryside or the ocean or the mountains to get still. So he says, you can, you can turn into your own soul at

any time. Seneca has a very similar thing. You know, you compairs, and I'm sure we both know some of these people, like I'm even seeing it. It's almost more appalling with some of the sort of lifestyle lye bloggers I know where it's like you should be flying around to different hotels right now, like this is a bad,

shitty thing to do. What are you doing? But he compares those people to like a person who can't sleep, who's flipping their pillow over, you know, side to side, pretending that if they just get in the right comfortable position, then they'll sleep. And that's just not how that works. By the way, You've always had a great sense of the absurd and people. That's right, I guess your earliest writings and just medium manipulation and how we fall for it.

We're all absurd in a lot of ways, you know. No, No, I don't. I definitely don't think stoicism and humorlessness are synonyms either. Chrysippus on the Stoic Philosophers, quite literally dies of laughter as an old man, which is like my favorite. It's like on the list of like preposterous ways to die, that's like gotta be up on the top. I mean, yeah, if that happened to me, I hope there's an afterlife so I can laugh at that fact that that happened.

So Aristo the challenger, so this is the challenge is interesting because he's like, hold on, he would be against hacking today, right, everyone's intol you know, hack your mind, you know the body. But he Aristo would probably be the challenger today to that, right. Yeah, I think I think Aristo is sort of the purest There's a threat of cynicism that runs through the Stoics, and they were

inspired by you know, Diogenes the Cynic and others. But there's kind of an antisocial element to the Cynics, a kind of a it's almost like a form of nihilism where it's just like, well, what about this, what about this? What about this? Sort of pointing out the hypocrisy or the lack of purity and this or that and and so I sort of find him not to be an objectionable character, but I sort of see him as a cautionary tale in the book, to be sure. So let's

talk about Zeno the Maintainer. Now, why are there two Xenos? Yeah? I was just killing you exactly, Like what's up with that? Like, didn't they get all get confused with each other at all? Well? The Romans were ridiculous about names. I mean, like it's even worse with the female characters in that, like Julia Julius Caesar's Like all the women in Julius Caesar's entire

family line are all named Julia. Right, So, like the Romans and the Greeks were really big on recycling names, and then kind of like the Russians, they all have like three different names and then a nickname and people render it differently, and it's like impossible to know who is who. So that was actually one of the one of the struggles on the book was like, how could I just clearly and obviously identify these people so they

don't get them mixed up. I mean, there's a Diogenes the Stoic that I talk about in the book, but the most famous Diogenes is Diogenes the Cynic, who lived many years before the Stoics and is not at all affiliated with the school. So it's very confusing. It'd be like if there was five Aristotles, You'd be like, what imagine if every one of the Stokes was named like mil Haley, Christian Mahaley or whatever that guy's name. You're

just like, oh, this is impossible. Well, there weren't any that were completely diametrically opposed to what they were, though. Was there like a Zeno the court jester and Zeno the boring motherfucker? And then they accidentally like called the wrong Zeno to the party, you know, and it's like, oh, that's awkward. No, So this Zeno is like about one hundred years after the first Zino, so they don't quite overlap.

But yeah, it is a bit a bit confusing. For instance, Cato is actually Cato the Younger because his great grandfather is Cato the Elder. But then like every one of them in between was named like Marcus Porsche Porschous Cato, and then his daughter is named Porsche Cato. It's all very confusing. Did you name any of your children something for you should? I'm surprised you didn't like name your your son Zeno or something. Well, I didn't like Zeno as a name. I mean, I love obviously Mark Surrealis.

I think it's the stoke I'm most fascinating with. But that feels like a very heavy thing to put on a kid. And then so Marcus's stepbrother is named Lucius Verus, and I love that name, but he was sort of the nair dwell brother, like he was his co emperor,

but he wasn't great. So then I was kind of like, it feels shitty to name your kid, Like it almost feels the opposite to be like, we didn't want to name you Marcus because like that's too much, So I named you Lucius Verus just because you suck, you know, like there's an element, So so so we decided to skip it all together. Okay, let's talk about Antipater the ethicist.

Antipater the ethicist, his formula for virtue was in choosing continually and unswervingly the things which are according to nature, and rejecting those contrary nature. We talked about that a bit before. Oh, by the way, we didn't. We didn't talk about z you know, the maintainer, did we. We just went off about his name. He was the cyclical guy very briefly. But he's just sort of yeah, he's

just a transitionary figure. He's like, I know, it's like, whoever was the dean of you know, the Harvard Divinity School in nineteen sixty four. Nobody knows that guy's name, you know what I mean? But I'm sure he did important work. Black to Antipater, this idea that we were talking about earlier about nature. But what's interesting is that he says it's important that our self interest doesn't override the innercompass. So he's talking about our moral compass, so

or our self interest overriding our moral compass. Well, and I think he's talking about the idea you talk about in your book a little bit, which is sort of transcending the individual selfishness and replacing it with a sense of the common good or commitment to the common good, and so that you know, if in the early days of the Stokes they were very much concerned with sort of individual actualization, as the philosophy becomes more integrated with

Greek and Roman life, suddenly they're you know, they have these important jobs, right, and they're they're asked with, you know, just just in the way that you know, America wins the Second World War and suddenly like we're the leader of the free world, and there's all this work that has to be done right. And I think this Stoic stoicism and its expansion is really kind of a response to to to some of that Panitus the Connector. I think he might have been fun to hang out with, Yes,

I mean he was. He was definitely the sort of elite power broker type, right the the uh you know he would have had in the modern day, he'd have he'd have had the Ivy League education, and then he would have been on the National Security Council and he would have thrown great parties that always had the best speakers and debates. You know, he's kind of like a but but there was a heterodoxiness to him. But he's kind of you know, like uh yeah, uh, what we'd

call public intellectual today. You wrote, according to Oh, I won't be able to pronounce this name, Diogenus Latterus you mentioned it earlier, that and many Pants was the first Stoic to believe that virtue was not self sufficient, claiming that strength, health, and mature resources are also needed. So that was like an evolution in the ideology of Stoicism.

With this guy, you get a sense as the Stoics go from from Zeno through Panaitias to them, particularly to the Romans, they're like getting tougher, you know, like they're getting they become soldiers and generals and statesmen. There's an element of them, like the sort of physical discipline of it, which obviously was so essential in Greek and Roman life. You know that training in the gymnasium and you know,

fighting in wars. You get you get a sense of there's like a there's a there's a tough guy element to it, which again isn't what we think about when we think about philosophers, right, but when we think about Stoics, we do think guys Is there a female Stoic from that time, Yes, So two ideas from this, So one Musonius Rufus, who comes later in the Roman Empire, sort of gives a bunch of speeches and essays which we think he's drawing on some earlier Stoics, so it's a

longer threat. But he basically says, there's your genitals have nothing to do with virtue, and that both sexes need to cultivate virtue, should be taught philosophy, that both men and women are as capable of being good philosophers, as a male and female hunting dog are capable of doing the job, where a male and female horse are equally capable of, you know, running at high speeds or being

used in battle. So there's that. And then obviously we don't know a lot about the daughters and wives of most of the Stoics, but Cato, this is in the Roman Republic, famously does teach his daughter philosophy, poor Schacado, and she I profile her in the book. She's the main female Stoic that I talk about. You know, she is integral in the assassination of Julius Caesar, so plays not just not just a role in philosophy, but like in one of the most significant events in world history.

I mean, she's like right there. Some people might say, just cancel all the Stoics. You know, you know, people are tearing down statues right of just because like they just represent a time period. What do you say is almost like, cancel Stokes because they're all men. I'm pro tearing down statues. So I say this as someone who loves history. People go, but but we can't just forget our history, and as I totally agree. That's why I've

dedicated my life to writing books about history. Like there are many better ways to remember history than than in publicly funded and maintained stone monuments of shitty people. Right, So I'm not opposed to say taking down Confederate statues, and I don't think the Stokes would be Most famously after commedists Marcus Aurelius' son dies, there's a cathartic sort of release of the Roman people who who rush out to tear down all of his statues because he was

a shitty emperor. And so I look, and I do try to talk about it in the book, but definitely more in the email that I do every day for daily Stoic, like the Stoics, are not perfect and had

enormous blind spots which we should probe and question. You know, how does Marcus Aurelius, whose life is changed by his reading of Epictetus a slave, not come to question the institution of slavery and Roman slavery was different than chattel slavery here in the United States, and that there was there wasn't a hereditary very race element to it, although from what I understand, Seneca was born or Epictetus was born a slave, so there was sometimes a hereditary element

to it. But the point being that it wasn't based on this pseudo race, pseudo science of genetic inferiority. It was much it was much more of a power dynamic, like we conquered this country and we sold the you know, the victims into slavery, which is a horrendous, heinous practice. And my point is, how does Marcus, a person who writes thoughtfully about all these things we've been talking about, not question that. I mean, I think it's a it's

it's it's certainly it's certainly a moral failing. Do we tear down his statue? I don't know. I guess the argument I've made. For instance, people go, should we tear down Marcus Aurelius his statue in Rome? And I and my argument is, well, you know, did did Marcus tear the Roman Empire apart for the explicit purposes of propagating slavery? You know? Did? Did half a million Roman soldiers die in that you know, futile war? No? Did? Was that

Marcus's sole and and and solitary contribution to humankind? Know? And what why did the statue of Marcus Aurelius go up? Right? Did the statue of Marcus Aurelius go up decades and decades after his death in a in a perverse f you to the victims of racism and slavery? Uh? You know,

in the way the Confederate statues did? Know? And and then my final point if the people in Rome, you know, bound the Marcus Aurelia's statue to be deeply painful and made a very articulate, you know, sort of reasonable argument about why you know, they don't want it to be up. I would listen to that. I mean, what do I care? Like? He doesn't care, he's dead. The statue doesn't mean anything. You could still read his books. So anyways, I know this is a digression, but I don't think we should

cancel the Stoics. I really like this cat, Possidonius. Posidonius, yes, the genius, the genius, definitely the most gifted and brilliant of the Stoics. I would say, well, I like this cat. I felt like I also, that's one of my favorite sections of your book, because it really talks about this battle between our lower urges and our higher nature that Martin Luther King called the civil war between the north and south of our souls. You know, we can have

flight the civil war within ourselves. I was wondering if you could just, well, first of all, you know, talk a little bit about Posidonius. Well, so he's this sort of brilliant polymath, you know, a sort of a one center generation talent. He's good at everything. He makes all these scientific breakthroughs, and yet he's not just some egghead. He's kind of involved in government affairs. We were sort of talking about this when I had you on my podcast.

He watches Marius die. Marius is one of the most ambitious, powerful romans of his time, and Posidonius is there at his deathbed and he watches this guy who'd been console that's basically being president of Rome seven times in his life, which more than anyone had ever done it. And Posidonius watches just how miserable and awful and gluttonous and terrible

this guy's death was. And so that I think that comes back to this stoic idea of temperance and their point about living in accordance with nature, not taking more than one needs. So yeah, just again, a really fascinating sort of connected guy who's sort of classroom or laboratory. Is the whole world as opposed to just some narrow

domain or specialty. Yeah, for sure, Posidonius said, when was designs one's life to live contemplating the truth and order of the universe and promoting it as much as possible. Being led in no respect by the irrational part of the soul. That's a bit dramatic, Like what really no respect? Like you don't need ice cream, Posadomas, You know, like you don't do you have sex at all? Like in his life like indiscriminately just like once like do you go through a phase when he was twenty two, I

don't know, it's a good question. There's always this sort of uh, you know, an omission in the Stoics. It's like they talk about all these serious things. But does that mean that that that there is no room for the more frivolous things or the lighter things, or is it is it that they just didn't talk about them? You know, it's I think it's a question. I would tend to think that they were they there was also an epicurean streak to the Stoics. It was just balanced

out by their their their sterner impulses as well. Wait, now, was it was it them who they all had like a little boy on the side. A lot of romans, the Stoics don't talk about it too much, but certainly you do get some sort of sneering comments from the Stoics about other Romans who are dependent on or kind of at the mercy of like Seneca talks about men who are slaves to their mistresses or to their slave

boys and stuff. So so I think, you know, unfortunately the folks aren't talking about it so much from a moral moral context, but they are, they are. They are appalled more by the addictive dependent element. You know what I mean that that someone is is is at the mercy of an urge. Yeah, that's that's what it is, right at the end, they being a you know, a

slave to your urges. Yeah, Kiddo was Rome's iron Man. No, No, I mean maybe that appears somewhere, but I'm just saying that these sort of the he's the Roman among the Romans, like he's the I mean even in his own time. It's sort of it's attributed to him and his great grandfather. But there was an expression, we can't all Cato's right, like, uh that that's that's what a figure he cut, even

in his own time. Sort of incorruptible, incapable of being scared, always committed, always driven, temperate, you know, just just a real badass. Was he like the jolunk Willuk or Jocko Willims Jocka Wilke of that time? Yeah, I get yes, I would think so, Although that's not a perfect analogy I'm trying to think of maybe who we it's almost beyond it's it's beyond that. It's just it's he was. He was like a christ like figure to the Stoics,

just above and beyond anyone and anything. Just a George Washington, if you will, of just like everything you're supposed to embody, he embodied to them. That's a lot to live love to. That's a lot of pressure. And imagine, not only did so his grandfather was world famous, you know in that sense,

so is his great father his father. And then like poor Shoa Cato, her last words she tragically commits suicide basically as a result of her attempted assassinate Caesar, but you know, her last words are I am Cato's daughter. It was this like sort of intense example that everyone had to live up to and very few could measure up to. Yeah, have you talked to Hollood producers about turning some of these lives into something? I I have not?

I have not. Now you're just saying that because like it's top secret and you have or you know, like you signed the deal and it's like private. Oh yeah, my book Conspiracy is being hopefully adapted into a movie, but so far, no one's come calling about the stoics. It'd be cool, though, I think it'd be cool. Maybe, yeah, I would watch it. Well, Hollwood producers, if you're listening to this podcast, call call Ryan Holiday and give me ten percent royalties for that idea. Sure. Sure. By the

way you came I just want to clarify you. You came up with a lot of these descriptors, right of some of these people, Oh yeah, all of them? Yeah yeah, yeah, the nicknames, yes, I love it. So you have some that are like fearless, some that are unbreakable, you know. So you do see certain common themes of what you would typically think of a stoics. I'm trying to highlight

those that maybe you wouldn't typically you know. So you have epic epic tit us the Freeman because he was a stud the one you said was born slave, right, yes, yes, but was one of the few that didn't have a life of privilege, right right, Yeah, he spends the first thirty years of his life as a slave. So then

explain a little bit why how is freedom of metaphor? There, So freedom is a metaphor and obviously a literal thing as well, but his point is that, you know, Okay, as an example, so he's crippled as a result of

his experiences as a slave. His slave master very painfully deliberately breaks his leg, and so he walks with a limp for the rest of his life and so Epictetus his famous quote is that being crippled is a is a feature of the body, but not of the mind, or a lameness is an impediment to the body with the leg, but not of the mind. And so for him, freedom was a player. And I think he saw this in Rome. Right, So he's he's the slave of one of Nero's top executives or not executives. Like it's like

it'd be like he's Jared Kushner's slave. Right, he's like the slave to a top advisor to the president, do you know what I mean? And so, what what Epictetus sees is that these are the most powerful, important, richest men in Rome, but have no freedom because they've you know, he watches somebody basically kissing the ass of Nero's shoemaker to win, you know, to get on Nero's good side, for instance, and he and near and so Epithitez is going, I'm a slave, but I don't. I don't have to

kiss the ass of this cobbler. You know. His point is is that all these people have all this freedom, all this power, and yet because of all their power and their wealth and their drives and their urges, they may well be far more, far less free than he is. All right, so an you end with don't dum Marcus Aurelius. You know, that's like the climax, you know, Marcus is the climax, the philosopher king. Where do we want to

talk because there's so much to talk about this cat? Well, what I find incredible about Marcus is so we have this expression, right that absolute power corrupts absolutely and Marcus has absolute power, like more absolute power than you know, more than a handful of people have ever had through history. And he's kind of the one exception to the rule and and sort of what is that critical difference? And I think ultimately it's the philosophy. And so yeah, just

find him a fascinating character. I mean, his story is incredible too. Like his father is not the emperor, right, He's not a royal by really any means. He's a well born boy. But at some time, you know, between seven and ten years old, he catches the attention of the Emperor Hadrian, who has no male children, no children at all, and for whatever reason, Hadrian gets the idea that this guy, this boy will eventually make like the

perfect king. But he's way too young, and Hadrian is about to die, and so Hadrian adopts an older man named Antoninus Pius, who had been a good administrator and leader in Rome but relatively undistinguished, on the condition that Antoninus Pious in turn adopted Marcus Aurelius, and it sets in motion the element, you know, the the eventual contingency that Marcus will become king. But Antoninus, they think, because Antoninus is old, he'll die soon. Antoninus ends up living

for like another twenty years. So Marcus Arelius is kind of the king in waiting for twenty years. But there's never any sense that he's conspiring against Antoninus. He really just like uses it as a twenty year apprenticeship. And when you look at it, the opening of Meditations is is, you know, Marcus's whole it's called Debts and Lessons, and

it's all the lessons that he learned from people. And there's like three pages of just all the things that he learned from his stepfather, and so it's just it's really an incredible story with almost no precedent in history. It is truly incredible. You could have obviously read a whole book just about his life. Wow. Well, thanks so

so much for chagging me today. I think that a big lesson from so much of this is that these folks, I don't think they claim to be perfectly virtuous and moral, and they certainly weren't in action, but they were always trying to be the best version of themselves. That's what you wrote. They were trying to be the best version of themselves they can be. They're reading and practicing, trying and failing, getting up and trying again. Just ask a

final personal question to you. You've been so immersed in you have so many of their ideas in your head, and you know, how have you changed and grown in the last ten years of your life. The very first time I met you was like maybe nine years ago or something like. It feels like Malibu dinner. Yeah, I was just thinking about that. That must have been like the winter of twenty twelve or the late fall of twenty eleven, right something right around there, And it feels

like a lifetime ago to me. I don't know how it feels, and I feel like I'm a very different person. Do you feel like you're a different person in any significant way? Yeah? I mean I certainly felt like a kid at that meeting, and I compared to everyone else's age, like I was, I'm thirty three now, so I would you know I was in my early twenties. I mean, my first book hadn't come out. I'd really like I'd not even sort of my whole writing journey begins some

time after that. I mean I'd written before, but you know, my first book doesn't come out for months after that, so like even even identifying or feeling like a writer wasn't the case then. So and that's been who I've been for a third of my life, you know what I mean, that's a weird feeling. I would say my

initial sort of attraction or interest in Stoicism. And this I think is very much rooted in your take on Maslow unintentionally obviously, but no, I originally and I think a lot of my early writing on this reflects it. There's all sorts of personal productivity, resiliency, you know, self management, management of emotions. That's primarily what I was writing about as far as when it was like sort of how

does dosism help you succeed? Right? And there's certainly a lot to be said there, and I think it's been a whole life writing about it. But the more I've read, the more I've experienced, the more this has sort of injected itself into my DNA. I've just become much more interested in personally, in the justice side of things, like what does one o society? What is a good use

of one's life? How does one make a difference? How does one you know, like I mean, we live in crazy times, how does one not be corrupted by those times? And how does one you know not become jaded or bitter in those times? I think these are all the questions that I think about more and right about. Like if you think about the promise of a book, like stillness is the key versus the promise of a book like obstacles the way, I think that's a good arc

on that journey as well. How is your own ego changed? I've spent so much time around really, really egotistical people, and I've seen the costs to them professionally, personally. Relationship was I just always found it very repugnant, even if I was able to be friends with them, even if we could collaborate for extended periods, I just it just always was anathemato how I wanted to be so I mean,

I'm by no means exempt from it. It's just always been sort of something that I've not wanted to be as a person, So I mean it's something I think about a lot, certainly. Yeah, And have your motivations for writing changed a lot? You know, you're always writing because you have something to say. And I think that was always true, especially for me, because I could have just gone on and continue to do what I was doing, which was lucrative and exciting, challenging. So I didn't, like,

you know what I mean? Yeah, I didn't need to be a writer, do you know what I mean? I had another thing I needed at like a soul level, but I had an alternative. And so what I feel like I was choosing it because it was important to me and I had something to say. But there's also another part of me that is that likes the marketing stuff,

that's competitive, that likes to win. And so I would like to think that the longer I've done it, the results have become less important to me, Like the product is more important to me than ever, the rising and falling of the product is less important to me. Some wisdom from the stoics there, right, Hey, Ryan, Thanks so much for chatting with me. I always enjoy chatting with you, and for good work you're doing. I'm proud of you, if I may say so, and the journey of the

ears watching you. Oh no, that's so nice. Thanks for chatting with me today. Thanks man, I appreciate it. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some way to something you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion at the Psychology podcast dot com. That's the Psychology Podcast dot com. Also, please add a rating and review of the podcast on iTunes and subscribe to the Psychology Podcast YouTube channel, as

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