Taking Wisdom From The Lives Of The Stoics | Ryan Holiday | Modern Wisdom Podcast 226

1. 0:00 – 1:03

   Intro

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      Can you explain why Stoicism is having such modern day popularity at the moment? It's not like I'm seeing tons of people turn into Taoism or Confucianism, but Stoicism is like the hot new girl in school at the moment.

   2. RHRyan Holiday0:13

      Yeah. I don't, I don't know exactly why that is. It's been a- an interesting journey. I mean, I've been writing about Stoicism for almost 15 years. So, I- I ... Even in my own time writing about it, I've seen some sort of peaks and valleys. But, I- I- I think ultimately it comes down to Stoicism is a philosophy designed both around and for dealing with adversity. So, I don't think it should surprise us that- that it- it- it tends to pop back up when, you know, things are difficult. I mean, Marcus Aurelius is writing Meditations during the Antonine Plague. So, the idea that, you know, it- it would have something to teach us during, you know, the COVID-19 pade- pandemic, I don't think should be that surprising.

   3. NANarrator1:00

      (instrumental music plays)

2. 1:03 – 2:36

   Why is Stoicism Modern

   1. CWChris Williamson1:03

      Y- you're totally right. It- it does read very modern. Why is it that Stoicism reads like it was written two weeks ago and not two millennia ago?

   2. RHRyan Holiday1:12

      Well, e- even- even when you think about how Marcus Aurelius is writing, so he's writing during the Antonine Plague, but- but his book, Meditations, it translates ... He was writing in Greek, uh, instead of the less formal Latin, and- and he was writing ... It- it- the title of it translates "To Himself." Right? So, he was writing his book to himself. It wasn't ever intended for publication. And- and even Seneca's writing, who's probably the most accessible of the Stoics, you know, a good chunk of it survives to us in the form of letters he was writing to his friend. Letters of a Stoic, Letters From a Stoic, is really Seneca writing to his friend, Lucilius. And so, i- if- if we can think of the literary implications of that, that instead of trying to sort of get down this brilliant theory or to perfectly craft their words in such a way, that it's accessible and- and I ... That's what I love about the Stoics is that a- again, it's not a collection of theories, it's just, you know, real people talking about real problems. And- and as it happens, the problems of the ancient world, although unique in many ways, were not that different than the problems we have today. Like pe- people are people, we get jealous, we, you know, we have urges, you know, we have ambitions, we make mistakes. You know, people are people.

3. 2:36 – 4:44

   Why havent we uncovered more Stoics

   1. RHRyan Holiday2:36

   2. CWChris Williamson2:36

      I understand that, yeah. I did some research. I- in the time that most of the Stoics were alive, the entire global population was somewhere between about 150 and 330 million people. So, at most, it was like the same as today's population of the United States. (laughs) Given that there's-

   3. RHRyan Holiday2:53

      Sure.

   4. CWChris Williamson2:54

      ... so many more people alive today, why- why aren't we finding an Epictetus in every country? Have all of the struggles of how to live been worked out? Or is no one asking the right questions anymore?

   5. RHRyan Holiday3:05

      No. I mean, what's interesting ... Yeah, you're right, that- that's the global population, but, you know, a- a very large chunk of even that population rests- rested inside the Roman Empire. You know, you- you can- you can, uh, you can make this ... You go, "Oh, the Stoics were dead white guys." But what's, to me, so fascinating is- is just how diverse, you know, they were. Obviously, there were some female Stoics, but, you know, Seneca is from Spain. There were Stoics from modern day Turkey and Iraq and, you know, Greece and all over the- the- the- the Roman world. So, I don't think it's that, uh, you know, why haven't we covered, you know, d- uncovered any more Stoics? Um, I think it's more like, you know, the- the Stoics are basically saying that- that history is this sort of loop on repeat. And so if- if we get the sense that what was happening in the ancient world is- is the same as what's happening today and that it's the same thing over and over again, it sort of helps explain why it doesn't feel like there's any of this ... Some new, exciting voice. I mean, you have Epictetus, who's a slave, who has his legs broken, who's clapped in irons. And then, you know, in 1960 se-, 1964, 1965, James Stockdale shot down over Vietnam, a fan of Epictetus, he actually is repeating Epictetus to himself as he's, you know, heading down into this camp, has his leg broken, you know, is clapped in irons, comes to a lot of the same conclusions as Epictetus did. So, in- in that sense like, uh, you know, I think it sort of confirms the idea that- that, you know, again, people are people and history is history.

4. 4:44 – 7:36

   The core premise of Stoicism

   1. RHRyan Holiday4:44

   2. CWChris Williamson4:44

      What was the unique insight that we had in Ancient Rome and Ancient Athens?

   3. RHRyan Holiday4:51

      Well, I mean, I think the- the core premise of Stoicism is basically, look, we don't control the world around us, but we control how we respond. And- and that- that seems very commonsensical, but if you actually look at how most people go through their lives, we spend an inordinate amount of time focusing on stuff that's not our- not in our control. And I- I did this this morning. I got off the call, I was on a conference call with someone, I got off and, you know, the first thing I did was call this other person. We complained about how ridiculous the other person was being.

   4. CWChris Williamson5:22

      (laughs)

   5. RHRyan Holiday5:22

      And it's like, what a colossal waste of- of both of our times, you know? Instead of focusing on what we're gonna do about it.

   6. CWChris Williamson5:30

      Yeah.

   7. RHRyan Holiday5:30

      You know, we did the easier thing, which is try to blame or whine or ... You know, it's- it's, uh ... Just like people wake up and they're upset that it's raining, you know? And the Stoics would say, "It's raining. What do you ... You know? What are you gonna do about it?"

   8. CWChris Williamson5:43

      New book, Lives of the Stoics: The Art of Living from Zeno to Marcus Aurelius. Why did you write this?

   9. RHRyan Holiday5:50

      Well, I- I've written a lot about Stoicism, and I've written a lot about what the Stoics have said. I've tried to illustrate these ideas in the past through, you know, through stories from sports and- and history and war and- and business, b- but ...I really wanted to and, and there, it, it hasn't existed and so that's why I decided to do it. There, the actual Stoics themselves have always been kind of a mystery. They're, they're, you know, they, they were not super famous in their own time, so a lot of conflicting sources, and it sort of all ... You know, there's a little bit here and a little bit there. And so what I wanted to do is create a, a, as, as I've, you know, been lucky enough to help popularize Stoicism, people go, "Oh, but who were these people?" And so I wanted to write a book that really puts like sort of, uh, you know, not faces to the name but, but puts events to the name and the face. And, and, you know, at the core of it, Stoicism is supposed to be a philosophy that you do, not something that you say. And so I, I was also really fascinated with, and I remain fascinated with, especially with someone like Seneca, you know, is it, is it actually possible to live up to this standard and, and how does a human, you know, fare trying to actually live by these teachings? You know, it, it says something about where philosophy is today that, you know, does anyone care what the life of a Harvard, you know, philosophy pr-

   10. CWChris Williamson7:22

       (laughs)

   11. RHRyan Holiday7:23

       ... professor looks like? No.

   12. CWChris Williamson7:24

       (laughs)

   13. RHRyan Holiday7:24

       Because we've kind of made this, this, this allowance that philosophy is the theory and then the person's life is irrelevant. But in the ancient world, that was just not how it was.

5. 7:36 – 10:28

   The armchair philosophizing curse

   1. RHRyan Holiday7:37

   2. CWChris Williamson7:37

      Yeah. I, I totally get that, man. The, the armchair philosophizing, unfortunately, appears to be a little bit of a curse, especially in the modern world, y- you, everyone has that friend that loves to talk a good game, loves to always be on it, talking about their plans, "This is what I've got coming up," and then never ever, uh, get his skin in the game and actually goes and does it. Um, certainly I'd agree, reading about the ancient Stoics in real life seems to give some extra depth to them and the historical context. Do you think that sort of helps us to understand some of the lessons that they taught by understanding that broader environment?

   3. RHRyan Holiday8:11

      I, I think so. And look, I think there's another part. It's not just like, "Hey, you can talk a good game, but did you live it?" But also, like if you live a boring, sheltered, you know, false life, you know, uh, ho- how could you possibly understand what the world is and possibly teach or explain anything to people who, uh, are out doing those things, right? So, um, you know, T. E. Lawrence talks about this where he, he, he, he's saying like, "Know to, to translate the Odyssey, you have to have actually traveled. You have to have led men into battle. You know, you have to have experienced some of the deprivations that Odysseus went through." And so I think one of the things that's most compelling to me about the Stoics, even when they were somewhat hypocritical, even when they fell short, there's not a s- there's not a single Stoic in the book that did not live an interesting life, right? And, and, and that's, that's not just m- me choosing who I wanted to put in. I mean, there were a few boring Stoics that-

   4. CWChris Williamson9:18

      (laughs)

   5. RHRyan Holiday9:18

      ... you know, um, or, or only boring, only what's boring as far as what we know about them that I didn't include.

   6. CWChris Williamson9:24

      Yeah.

   7. RHRyan Holiday9:25

      But, but for the most part, every one of them was a soldier or a diplomat or a, a, you know, an artist or a world leader or, um, a businessperson or, you know, the ... What's, what I love about the Stoics is that they were there when it was happening, right? They were there as Rome was being overthrown and the republic transitions into, you know, an empire. They were there at the assassination of Julius Caesar. They were at, they were at Octavian, who succeeds Julius Caesar's, you know, right hand. They were literally advising him. And then this goes all the way on down to Marcus Aurelius, who was literally running the known world-

   8. CWChris Williamson10:05

      (laughs)

   9. RHRyan Holiday10:06

      ... and being a philosopher, you know. So I, again, I just contrast this to, you know, uh, I, I get the purpose of academic tenure, but I, I, I somewhat reject the idea that someone who has job security for life can tell me, a, a person who does not have that, how the world works.

   10. CWChris Williamson10:26

       (laughs) That's a great point.

6. 10:28 – 13:03

   The ancient world

   1. CWChris Williamson10:28

      I have to say, I'm quite wistful for the ancient world when reading this book. It seems like ancient Athens and Rome would have been a wonderful place to have lived as an aspiring philosopher. For instance, you got that story of Cleanthes getting a round of applause from the crowd around him, uh, because he wasn't fazed by an insult from some playwright on stage, which just seems like the opposite of the pop mob culture that we've got now. Or other things, like, like the prominent sort of master-slave relationships, to me, would just be prime tools for identifying themes in human behavior. How much do you think that the culture of the ancient world helped to foster this environment of where philosophers could learn and thrive? Is there anything else? You know, you've got these plagues going on. You've got the overtaking of different countries and falls of the Roman Empire. That must have, must have been a, a beautiful breeding ground for it.

   2. RHRyan Holiday11:17

      Yeah. I mean, look, I'm, I'm endlessly fascinated with Greece and Rome. And, and, and like, you know, I, I can go to Rome or Greece and imagine myself there-

   3. CWChris Williamson11:25

      (laughs)

   4. RHRyan Holiday11:26

      ... and, and I love it. And then, and then I also have to remind myself, like as bad as things are in this moment, like they would kill to be alive today. You know?

   5. CWChris Williamson11:37

      (laughs)

   6. RHRyan Holiday11:37

      And like, like CO- COVID-19 is, is absolutely nothing compared to the Antonine Plague, which killed millions of people. It lasted for 15 years.

   7. CWChris Williamson11:45

      (laughs)

   8. RHRyan Holiday11:46

      You know, it, it, it caused uh, all sorts of civil unrest. It was a disaster of epic proportions. And, and like I think that's one of the problems, too, with history. Like when we read history, we go, "Oh, I would have been..."You know, a senator li- uh, you know, alongside Julius Caesar and maybe I would have, I would have helped in the assassination, or, you know, I would have, I would have ... No. Like at best, we would have been like a slave, like Epictetus.

   9. CWChris Williamson12:12

      (laughs)

   10. RHRyan Holiday12:12

       You know, like the vast, the vast, vast, vast majority of people led, you know, brutish, brutish, uh, sorry, brutish and short and nasty lives. You know, they were the litter carriers and they were the, they were, you know, they were digging horrible mines and, and, uh, you know, dying of the plague, or, you know, they were, they were being sold into slavery or, you know, thrown a- against a wall of barbarians in some horrible war. Um, or just, you know, died from getting their finger cut because we didn't have antibiotics to fight infections.

   11. CWChris Williamson12:45

       (laughs)

   12. RHRyan Holiday12:45

       You know, like it ... I- I do- I- as much as I am fascinated by the ancient world, I, I try also to, to sort of feel grateful for the incredible, like, you know, sort of pleasures and gifts and, and, uh, luxuries that we have today.

7. 13:03 – 16:00

   The Stowapo

   1. RHRyan Holiday13:03

   2. CWChris Williamson13:03

      You're right. We can romanticize all we want about the ancient world, but it's been cleaned up since then. So I spent my birthday this year, uh, at the Stoa Poikile. Like I literally was there-

   3. RHRyan Holiday13:15

      Yeah. Sure.

   4. CWChris Williamson13:15

      ... like bir- birthplace of Stoicism. Beautif- it's ... I'm sure that you have seen it and it's beautiful and clean and i- i- i- it's wonderful. The weather was great and I went for a coffee. And you're totally right. Looking at it in this very rose-tinted glasses (laughs) uh, view is nothing like what the world would have been then. Um-

   5. RHRyan Holiday13:34

      I mean when ... It's like why did they have the plague? Why did these diseases spread? It's 'cause people shit in the streets and, and there were-

   6. CWChris Williamson13:40

      (laughs)

   7. RHRyan Holiday13:40

      You know, like, uh, you know, there, it was, it was a- y- like actually I opened Stillness, uh, you know, Stillness is the Key with this sort of story that Seneca writes in one of his letters. You know, he's sitting in this sort of apartment in Rome and he's trying to write, and he's just describing like the worst noise you can imagine, right?

   8. CWChris Williamson14:01

      Mm-hmm.

   9. RHRyan Holiday14:01

      Like noise that would make New York City seem quiet. And so that's the other thing is like, yeah, when we walk these city streets, they're, they're, they're empty and cleaned up and, and, and, and preserved, and you see these ruins but you don't, you don't get this ... You don't get this sense of the grime and the dirt and the-

   10. CWChris Williamson14:20

       Mm-hmm.

   11. RHRyan Holiday14:20

       ... and the, the animals and the, you know, like the, the, the ... Just ... I mean, just imagine fi- f- ... Like if the population of Rome is 50 million and five million people dying, like, uh, just imagine one in 10 million (laughs) people dying. Uh, we're having trouble in United States, like they're having to bring in freezer trucks for the bodies from, from the coronavirus pandemic. Imagine, imagine what they had to do then and, and actually that's one of, uh ... I don't know if you've had Donald Robertson on, but he wrote this great book about Marcus Aurelius recently, uh, and, and he describes ... And I, I rely on it in Lives of the Stoics, but he sort of in, in Rome during the Antonine Plague, they thought that incense could ward off the, the, the spread of the plague. And so Rome was this, this, this smell of like putrid bodies and incense, and then you can imagine the heat with n- and no air conditioning and ventilation. I mean, it would have been ... The stench would have been overwhelming, and so, you know, e- it ... It's, it's fascinating and endlessly, you know, intriguing, but I think we, we, we have to remember, and this is something I try to remind myself too, you know, when people say, "Oh, aren't you picking and choosing from the philosophy?" I mean, these are people that did not understand biology. These are people that had no understanding of psychology. You know, these like i- in some respects they were so far ahead of their time, and then in other respects were, were, you know, primitive really, and, and so i- it's, uh, it's just a, a unique situation to be sure.

8. 16:00 – 16:55

   Bloodletting

   1. RHRyan Holiday16:00

   2. CWChris Williamson16:00

      Wasn't it Aristotle that thought the only purpose of the brain was to get rid of heat out of the body?

   3. RHRyan Holiday16:07

      I mean, Seneca in one of his things he's ... You know, he sort of ... Uh, h- he, you know, he goes into this big defense on, on, on blood letting, like on how you, you know, you cure diseases by, you know, cutting people open and letting them bleed, which, which was stupid then-

   4. CWChris Williamson16:25

      (laughs)

   5. RHRyan Holiday16:25

      ... but, but like people continued to do for another 1800 or so years, right? Like when you just ... When you realize like how ... I, I think that's the other thing. We, we have trouble just even wrapping arou- wrapping our heads around how new found a lot of the progress that we have. Like we don't ... As human beings, we don't often selves give ... Often give ourselves credit for just how recently we've pulled ourselves out of this muck, so to speak.

9. 16:55 – 23:02

   Top 3 Stoics

   1. RHRyan Holiday16:55

   2. CWChris Williamson16:55

      I agree. So we're gonna play a game. It's Top-

   3. RHRyan Holiday16:57

      Okay.

   4. CWChris Williamson16:58

      ... Top of the Pops, Ryan Holiday's Stoic Philosopher edition. (laughs)

   5. RHRyan Holiday17:02

      Okay.

   6. CWChris Williamson17:03

      So what, what I want you to do is give us your top three favorite characters featured in the book-

   7. RHRyan Holiday17:07

      Okay.

   8. CWChris Williamson17:08

      ... and a lesson or a story from each which explains why you're such a fan of them.

   9. RHRyan Holiday17:13

      All right. Um, I'll give you s- I'll give you ... So Marcus Aurelius is my favorite, of course. Uh, where should I go in, from top to bottom or bottom to top?

   10. CWChris Williamson17:21

       Oh, l- uh, oh, well, yeah. Let's go ... Let's ... We'll work reverse. We'll work in reverse.

   11. RHRyan Holiday17:25

       Okay. Um, so, (laughs) so for ... If we're going from, from reverse, uh, so let's start with Zeno, the founder of Stoicism. Uh, again, uh, for people who don't think this is modern, I mean, he's a merchant and he's leading a convoy of ships filled with dye and he suffers a shipwreck and a storm and loses everything. And you might think this is the worst thing that ever happened to him, but in fact, the disaster is what leads him to Athens where he discovers philosophy and then ends up founding Stoicism, and his quip about this was, you know, "Fortune, uh, gave me a great fortune by, you know, destroying my fortune." Or he says, you know, "I suffered a great, uh, you know, a, a great gift by this shipwreck." His point being the worst thing that ever happened to him was actually the best thing that ever happened to him. And so, you know, I think it's quite fitting that Stoicism would be founded, you know, in a moment of extreme adversity, and as a writer, you know, I love the idea that he's introduced to philosophy in a bookstore in Athens.

   12. CWChris Williamson18:24

       So cool.

   13. RHRyan Holiday18:25

       Um-Yeah, it's amazing. So the- the next one would be Rutilius Rufus, who is a, you know, not a particularly well-known Stoic, um, but- but someone I ended up wanting to focus on. He's a, like sort of an administrator. He's like the equivalent of a governor, uh, in- in United States terms. Uh, but- but maybe actually more of a... He- he's- he's the governor of a, of a colony, right? So this would be, uh, you know, he- he's- he's, uh, off in one of the far-flung provinces, and he begins to institute a whole bunch of reforms. And these reforms are designed to prevent the Romans from, you know, essentially looting the provinces, right? You know, obviously this is, this is the history of the sort of the British Empire, right? It's like, you know, the- these far-flung out postings that business people come in and they- they- they sort of bring home enormous fortunes, but at the grave expense of the- the people there. And so Rutilius starts to institute just some, like pretty basic, you know, reforms, nothing radical, um, but- but you can imagine even this tiny bit of fair dealing is cutting into the profits of the, you know, the robber barons making their fortunes there. And so th- uh, and- and I think this- this, uh, has some similarities to our, uh, you know, our moment today. So- so what do they do? They bring him up on charges of corruption, right?

   14. CWChris Williamson19:51

       (laughs)

   15. RHRyan Holiday19:51

       These sort of trumped-up charges of- of corruption. He's forced to defend himself, but he refuses. He's, he knows he's totally innocent. He knows this is a complete farce. So he refuses to offer even one, uh, you know, one word in- in his own defense. Uh, sort of just stoically takes the- the injustice. And so at the end, the- the pronouncement is that his property is to be confiscated and he is to be exiled. And the one bit of clemency or mercy that the judge offers, uh, is that he can choose where he will go into exile. And so he chooses to go back to the colony that he had been, uh, been, uh, been accused of stealing from. And that colony, knowing that he is innocent, uh, receives him with open arms and offers him honorary citizenship. And he actually never returns to Rome. And so I just, I love the idea of kind of the last honest man, uh, you know, the- the- the even in times of corruption, endemic corruption and crime and- and avarice, you have sort of one Stoic figure sort of above the fray, doing the right thing, um, and- and- and- and, you know, we- we have this idea that you'll be rewarded for doing the right thing. And unfortunately, that's not often how it goes. And then the final, uh, one I would do, I would do Marcus, uh, Aurelius, just 'cause he's my favorite and I think sort of the penultimate example of Stoicism. But in the darkest days of the Antonine Plague, uh, you know, there- there's, uh, tribes have rev- rebelled at the border. Uh, there's an invasion. Uh, there, you know, it's- it's as bad as it can get. Rome is- is essentially bankrupts. Uh, and- and what does Marcus do? I mean, we know what people with absolute power do, is they- they make it somebody else's problem, right? They- they invade someone or they plunder something or they, you know, they kick the can down the road or they levy high, you know, unpayable taxes, what- whatever it is. Marcus instead goes through the palace and selects the finest of the imperial treasures and he sells them on the lawn of the palace.

   16. CWChris Williamson21:58

       (laughs)

   17. RHRyan Holiday21:58

       Um, pa- paying down Rome's debt with the treasures that he has no use for. Uh...

   18. CWChris Williamson22:04

       Could you imagine, um, Donald Trump doing a car boot sale on the front lawn of the White House?

   19. RHRyan Holiday22:08

       No, I think-

   20. CWChris Williamson22:08

       Just selling a pen. Here's a pen. Here's a daughter. Do you want a daughter? I've got a daughter to give away.

   21. RHRyan Holiday22:14

       It's- it's so, it's so funny because like in a, in a sense, Trump is the opposite of Marcus Aurelius in literally every way.

   22. CWChris Williamson22:21

       (laughs)

   23. RHRyan Holiday22:22

       And it's like, not only can you not imagine him doing that, he's doing all the things that I said, you know, what do people with power do, right? People with power don't take responsibility. People with power, you know, force the suffering upon, you know, the most vulnerable in soc- in society because they have the, you know, the least amount of influence, right? They- they, uh, they run up huge bills that somebody else has to pay. They- they suffer while, uh, you know, they don't suffer while... They- they eat well while everyone suffers, so on and so forth. And so, yeah, I think, you know, Marcus Aurelius in that plague is sort of the, a paragon of- of what leadership in turbulent times is supposed to look like.

   24. CWChris Williamson23:01

       I love that, man. I

10. 23:02 – 24:22

    Stoic Failures

    1. CWChris Williamson23:02

       really do. Which Stoic do you think struggled the most with living their work? S- S- Stoicism, as you've said, it's a, a philosophy of action. It's one that you don't just learn, you have to live it.

    2. RHRyan Holiday23:13

       Sure.

    3. CWChris Williamson23:13

       Is there someone who was particularly defeated by vices in real life?

    4. RHRyan Holiday23:17

       Well, sure. I mean, I talk about a Stoic named Diotimas, who sort of is guilty of this kind of literary crime. But I, but... And- and so there's some failures like that, but I think Seneca is kind of the ultimate example of the tension of a worldly philosophy, because here you have this guy who writes these beautiful letters about virtue and about courage and about moderation. And then, you know, he works for Nero. Uh, he's Nero's top advisor and, you know, he throws these Gatsby-esque parties and he's one of the richest men in Rome. And so it's this question of, you know, is he a massive hypocrite or is it more complicated than that? You know? Uh, is he working for Nero because, you know, he doesn't believe any of the things that he's written about? Or is it that, you know, he feels that in working for Nero, he is containing Nero's worst impulses. You know, and so much of this is obviously unknowable, but I think Seneca, of all the Stoics, raises the most interesting questions.

11. 24:22 – 26:40

    Resilience

    1. RHRyan Holiday24:22

    2. CWChris Williamson24:22

       Yeah. You mentioned that apart from Epictetus, most of the Stoics were rich or famous or powerful.

    3. RHRyan Holiday24:28

       Yeah.

    4. CWChris Williamson24:28

       Uh, why were rich men talking about resilience? Is it just armchair philosophizing about problems that they had the luxury not to encounter?

    5. RHRyan Holiday24:37

       I mean, uh, maybe a little bit. I mean, look, e- even the richest man in Rome would've had to be far more resilient than probably your average person in today's-

    6. CWChris Williamson24:47

       (laughs) Yeah, you're right.

    7. RHRyan Holiday24:47

       I mean, like, if Marcus Aurelius wanted to read at night, that was a-

    8. CWChris Williamson24:53

       (laughs)

    9. RHRyan Holiday24:53

       ... you know, a-

    10. CWChris Williamson24:53

        That was a big operation.

    11. RHRyan Holiday24:55

        ... that, that involves torches and slaves and, you know, unrolling scrolls of writing and, you know-

    12. CWChris Williamson25:01

        You can't just w- like, open the Kindle up and, and crack on.

    13. RHRyan Holiday25:05

        Yeah, I mean, Warren Buffett has talked about this. He's like, "Look, like, a poor person today is warm during the winter and cold during the summer." You know, that's something that Louis XIV couldn't have said, right?

    14. CWChris Williamson25:17

        (laughs)

    15. RHRyan Holiday25:18

        Um, so, so I think resilience was a real fact of life. And, and as rich as they were, most of them were at the whims of, uh, you know, of a... It... Seneca is working for Nero, but he's, you know, he's, he's riding the tiger's back there. I mean, ultimately he's killed by Nero, right? So these are capricious, uncertain, chaotic times, even for the rich and privileged. Um, so I think that's part of it. Um, I think the other part of it is, you know, uh, the... when the Stoics were talking about resiliency that... or, or freedom even, you know, they're talking about that not just literally, but also figuratively. So, you know, Se- uh, Epictetus is watching these incredibly rich people in Nero's service, you know, kissing the feet of this madman and-

    16. CWChris Williamson26:11

        (laughs)

    17. RHRyan Holiday26:11

        ... you know, forced to put on elaborate parties and events. Like, it was a... It's not that it was a grind in the way that working in a, you know, in a diamond mine is a grind, but it was a grind in that, you know, uh, nobody was actually free to be who they wanted to be. So there, there... you know, it, it was privilege relatively, but also, you know, uh, by no means an easy life.

12. 26:40 – 29:21

    Universal Truths

    1. CWChris Williamson26:40

       I mean, look at the sycophantic inner circle that Adolf Hitler had.

    2. RHRyan Holiday26:45

       Of course, sure. And that, and that-

    3. CWChris Williamson26:48

       Same thing.

    4. RHRyan Holiday26:48

       ... that is the, that is the norm, not the exception for absolute rulers.

    5. CWChris Williamson26:54

       Yeah. Yeah, i- it's... I... The thing that strikes me as so interesting about Stoicism are these universal truths about how to live a good life, right?

    6. RHRyan Holiday27:02

       Yeah.

    7. CWChris Williamson27:02

       The fact that kind of the same as mathematics, there's this knowledge which is to be discovered somehow, and there's this universal thread that ties all humans together, and the fact that you can go from a pre-Christ era where, as you say, there's people dying in the streets and we think that trepanning will help to relieve a headache or that the brain is getting rid of heat out of the body, all the way up to the 21st century where we're consuming the world news in immediate time and flying off into space. And yet, the challenges that we face are still the same ones.

    8. RHRyan Holiday27:43

       Well, what, what I'm, what I'm fascinated by is Seneca and Jesus are born in the same year in different provinces of the same empire and are walking around for a good chunk of their lives, you know, in the same planet, in the same universe. I mean, Seneca's brother is in the Bible. So the idea that, you know, that, that, that this wisdom is somehow just the word of God, it's, it's... What I love is, like, you know, there are quotes that come out of Marcus Aurelius that you... sound like they should be in the Bible.

    9. CWChris Williamson28:17

       (laughs)

    10. RHRyan Holiday28:17

        Just as there's, just as there's quote... You know, Ecclesiastes and Marcus Aurelius sound very similar at times. And... But by the same token, there are also things that Confucius said centuries before Marcus-

    11. CWChris Williamson28:29

        Yeah.

    12. RHRyan Holiday28:29

        ... or Stoicism was, was, wa-... you know, was, was even a thought. And, and that sounds really similar. So, you know, I think I sort of liken it... Because I, I did end up exploring this in, in my book On Stillness, but, but I think what it is is like when you're responding to the same fundamental problems, there's only so many solutions, right?

    13. CWChris Williamson28:52

        (laughs)

    14. RHRyan Holiday28:52

        And, and I sort of liken it from an evolutionary standpoint, like we're just evolving similar adaptations. We might come from different ancestors, but, but, you know, flying makes sense, right? Or an opposable thumb makes sense, or eyesight. It makes sense, right? And you could see why from different sources you could get somewhere close to the same outcome.

13. 29:21 – 32:54

    The Lindy Effect

    1. RHRyan Holiday29:21

    2. CWChris Williamson29:21

       We've been asking these questions for a long time, and-

    3. RHRyan Holiday29:24

       Yeah.

    4. CWChris Williamson29:25

       ... I think the Lindy effect, which everyone who's listening should be familiar with, but if you're not, it's the, uh, lifespan of a non-perishable good. So, for instance, an idea, and the presumption is that newer is always better. I think a lot of people in the modern era get seduced by that, right? You have the, the, the, the newest this thing, I think the, the newest iPhone is different, but has, uh, trickled down to, "Well, this book is more recent, therefore it should be better." But the classics are the classics for a reason. I can't remember who it was. It might have even... I might even be quoting you back to yourself here, but that you would sooner read the hundred best books 1,000 times than read 100,000 books.

    5. RHRyan Holiday30:04

       That, that quote's definitely not me, but I agree with the sentiment.

    6. CWChris Williamson30:07

       Take it. Right, take it, mate. You can have that one. That'll be yours. (laughs)

    7. RHRyan Holiday30:11

       Well, no, I, I mean, look, I think about that because look, when I, when I set out, you know, almost 10 years ago now to write my first book on Stoicism, and I was actually just... I had, uh, my editor at Portfolio Penguin on my podcast, and I was like, "What did you think when I came to you with this book proposal about a book about, you know, an obscure school of ancient philosophy?"

    8. CWChris Williamson30:34

       (laughs)

    9. RHRyan Holiday30:34

       And she was like, "Honestly, your marketing books had done well, and so we were thinking, well, maybe he'll just get this out of his system."

    10. CWChris Williamson30:42

        Oh, God, yeah.

    11. RHRyan Holiday30:43

        It won't, it won't do well, and then he'll go back to his other stuff. And, and the reason why I knew better and I knew differently is that...This stuff had a 2,000-year track record, you know?

    12. CWChris Williamson30:57

        Yeah.

    13. RHRyan Holiday30:57

        Or a 2,500-year track record almost. So, I think what the Lindy Effect helps you with, and I- it's a, it's a concept that I'm very familiar with and, and very fond of, what the Lindy Effect does is essentially vet things for you. So, you know, if I had come up with some totally new philosophy that was, but at its core, identical to stoicism, you would have no idea i- you know, you'd be like, you'd have to take my word for it, right? It's like, you know, I'm giving you, these are the virtues, this is the stuff.

    14. CWChris Williamson31:29

        Yeah.

    15. RHRyan Holiday31:29

        You know, you'd have to hope that either I'd have to be a very seductive, you know, compelling writer-

    16. CWChris Williamson31:34

        (laughs)

    17. RHRyan Holiday31:34

        ... or, you know, you'd have to be very gullible to, to take that seriously. But when I, when I say, "Hey, look, this isn't me. This is me, you know, slightly updating or organiz-" Like, my book, uh, The Daily Stoic is not me coming up with principles of stoicism, it's just, I said, "Hey, wouldn't it be convenient if there was a way to just read one quote from the stoics every day?" So, the reason that book worked is that, you know, obviously there was some sort of organizational innovation there, but, uh, the reason that book has sold a million copies is because, uh, it was vetted by millions of people for 2,500 years.

    18. CWChris Williamson32:16

        (laughs)

    19. RHRyan Holiday32:16

        And, and, and those weren't even ordinary people, right? Like, like Marcus Aurelius is stress testing these ideas at like, the absolute testing point of the human experience. Like, you know, he's, he's not like, "Oh yeah, this held up pretty well at my job at, you know, uh, th- this tollbooth or something," right?

    20. CWChris Williamson32:36

        (laughs)

    21. RHRyan Holiday32:36

        You know, he's, he's running an empire of 50 million people and he's given absolute power. And so, if the ideas don't work there, and if they don't work in the laboratory of, of Epictetus' experience, you know, uh, we'd have, we'd have known about that.

14. 32:54 – 39:27

    David Perrell

    1. RHRyan Holiday32:54

    2. CWChris Williamson32:54

       It's like the equivalent of evolution, right? The good sh- it's a Tim Ferriss-ism, the good shit sticks.

    3. RHRyan Holiday33:00

       Yes.

    4. CWChris Williamson33:01

       And one of the things David Perell, past Modern Wisdom guest and good buddy, he has this really interesting insight where he talks about the vast majority of the content that people now consume has been created within the last 24 hours. It's like we have a society which is wrapped around being anti-Lindy.

    5. RHRyan Holiday33:20

       Uh, that's totally right. And, and I did a piece about this a while ago, I said, look, like, if, if you wanna, if you wanna understand what's happening in the world, you gotta stop watching the news and you gotta start reading books. Like, if you wanna understand, like the geopolitical jockeying between, say, America and China, like, you should study the jockeying between Athens and Sparta, the ascendant empire and the declining empire. You know, if you wanna understand, you know, Russia today, look at Russia 1,000 years ago. And you'll, it, because people are people, you know, cultures are cultures. And I think people are, you know ... Uh, like for instance, in, in the United States, we're having a reckoning over race, and a lot of people are rushing out to buy these books by these gurus, you know, whether it's White Fragility or whatever. And it's like, these are management consultants, you know, putting in out books-

    6. CWChris Williamson34:20

       (laughs)

    7. RHRyan Holiday34:20

       ... to capitalize on a trend. Meanwhile, you know, Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man is one of the greatest novels ever written. You know, James Baldwin is one of the greatest writers who ever lived. Um, you know, you can, you can read, uh, Frederick Douglass. You know, you can, you can go directly to the source in a lot of these instances, uh, and, and learn so much more. And most importantly, it's stripped of the modern assumptions or biases or interpretations or speculation. And, and so like, that's, uh, what I often tell people the role of my books are. My books are to, you know, capture someone's interest, and hopefully the next book they read after mine is something from the ori- you know, from the original canon. And, and, uh, a- and so like, I, I take almost as, as much pride in, in how my books have done a- as I do, you know, why every, every, you know, few months there's some trend piece about the sales of the, of the ancient stoic texts. And having, you know, seen, I, I watch a lot of those sales come through my websites and links that I put out-

    8. CWChris Williamson35:30

       Mm-hmm.

    9. RHRyan Holiday35:30

       ... I know that what I'm ultimately doing with a real important contribution that I'm making, is driving people to the classic text, which is, you know, in a sense, me paying forward the, you know, the break that I got when someone did that for me.

    10. CWChris Williamson35:45

        It's a shame that, uh, Marcus Aurelius can't get you on an affiliate deal. You know, that would be d- if you were the, the lead magnet for Marcus Aurelius, he'd be, you'd both, you'd both be laughing. It'd be, it'd be brilliant. Uh, what-

    11. RHRyan Holiday35:55

        I mean, I, I, I more think about I, I wish that someone at that, that I'd been on a track where I could have learned Greek or Latin and then done the translations myself, you know? Um ...

    12. CWChris Williamson36:04

        Are you tempted by that?

    13. RHRyan Holiday36:06

        I mean, am I tempted in my 30s to learn Greek or Latin and, and become a classic scholar? (laughs) Not, not as much. Uh, I, it's a fantasy, sure.

    14. CWChris Williamson36:17

        What do you think the ancient stoics would be most and least proud of about modern society? We're talking about how those ideas now map onto our ex- experience today.

    15. RHRyan Holiday36:29

        Well, you know, I was, I was, uh, I was, been fascinated in writing a lot. I, I think early on my writing about the stoics was primarily about the resiliency. We talked about productivity, about success, about, you know, self-discipline. But, you know, there's probably no concept that Marcus Aurelius talks about more than justice. You know, he, he refers to the idea of the common good, something like 40 or 50 times in Meditations, and I was-... re-reading, uh, one of the... Here, let me see. I, let me actually see if I can find it. I'll, I'll read it. It's pretty beautiful. Um, he's thanking Sextus, uh, tch, tch. Okay. Uh, he... Sorry. He, he's thanking his brother, Severus, who's not really his brother, just a friend. But he says, "To love my family, truth and justice, it was through Severus that I encountered Thrasea, Helvidius, Cato, Dion, and Brutus, and conceived of the society of equal laws governed by equality of status and speech and of rulers who respect the liberty of their subjects above all else." And so obviously a bunch of those names are people I profile on Lives. But the, the, the idea that, you know, what Marcus... Marcus' idea of justice and equality and freedom and a ruler that respects, you know, h- their subjects, you know, that was an idea only in its infancy, just in... You know, Thomas Jefferson is writing about, you know, that all men are created equal. But, but it's only the subsequent generations that manage to get even remotely close to realizing that idea. So I'd like to think that the Stoics would be, you know, imp- impressed and encouraged by our ability, you know, our ability to get from where they were to where we are now.

    16. CWChris Williamson38:17

        Mm-hmm.

    17. RHRyan Holiday38:17

        You know, Seneca talks about slavery and Zeno talked about slavery. And although they sort of accept it as a, as a, you know, an assumption of their time, they're, they're by no means making the sort of defenses of slavery that even Aristotle is making. And so I'd like to think that from the... The, the Stoics would be impressed in, with our sort of progress. You know, they'd probably be, uh, disappointed conversely with our, you know, that 60% of America is obese, you know, that, uh-

    18. CWChris Williamson38:50

        (laughs)

    19. RHRyan Holiday38:50

        ... you know, what percentage of marriages end in divorce. And, you know, not... They wouldn't be looking at these things from a, uh, you know, the perspective of, like, sin and the way that a Christian, you know, if you, if you pulled Saint Augustine from around the same time and brought him to today. I think the Stoics, you know, had this, this key virtue of moderation and self-discipline, and I think it's our abundance and our, you know, our, our, our... the bounty of the modern world that they would be disappointed in our inability to manage.

15. 39:27 – 45:09

    Stoicism

    1. RHRyan Holiday39:27

    2. CWChris Williamson39:27

       Absolutely. It's a Naval Ravikant-ism where he says that all of our problems in the modern world are problems of abundance and not scarcity.

    3. RHRyan Holiday39:35

       Yes, definitely.

    4. CWChris Williamson39:36

       And, uh, it, it's bizarre that for almost all of our evolution we wanted more than we had. So it's kind of not that surprising that when we have more than we need, we're going to binge. Um, I know the Stoics were very anti-information overload as well, weren't they? And I w- I think they'd probably have a lot to say about us spending five-plus hours per day connected to the rest of the world through a device in our pocket.

    5. RHRyan Holiday40:01

       Yeah. I mean, Marcus Aurelius would probably say, like, "Look," like, "I managed to run an empire of 50 million people, you know, through, through couriers who, you know, gave-"

    6. CWChris Williamson40:11

       With a piece of papyrus. Yeah, exactly.

    7. RHRyan Holiday40:13

       Yeah. It was weeks after it had happened, you know?

    8. CWChris Williamson40:16

       (laughs) Yeah.

    9. RHRyan Holiday40:18

       Uh, the i- the idea that you need this real-time breaking information when you're not a head of state or running a hedge fund. You know, and I obviously I talk about this in my first book, my book on media. But, like, you know, what are you doing with this information? You're not doing anything. It's just trivia, you know? It's just, uh...

    10. CWChris Williamson40:36

        (laughs) It is trivia.

    11. RHRyan Holiday40:37

        In the same way that you, you know, you don't need to eat that bag of Cheetos. You don't need to watch MSNBC tonight. But you do it because... Like, I was thinking about this to- today. Like, like, uh, why am I gonna watch the presidential debates? Like, because I'm not a shitty person, I already know who I'm gonna vote for. And, uh, why would I bo- like, why would I consume this mediocre, uh, entertainment?

    12. CWChris Williamson41:03

        What do you disagree with about Stoicism?

    13. RHRyan Holiday41:08

        Yeah. It's a (laughs) it's a good question. Um, I mean, look, this... I think the Stoics have a somewhat conflicted on this idea of predetermination, for instance, you know. Like, uh, they're, they're... I think, I think the Stoics, because of the world that they lived in, had, um, much... had a very realistic, uh, pessimism about human agency, right? Although Marcus Aurelius does say, "If it's humanly possible, you can do it," so and so forth. I find it illustrative that Epictetus the slave doesn't say anything about slavery. You know what I mean?

    14. CWChris Williamson41:45

        Mm-hmm.

    15. RHRyan Holiday41:45

        Like, even he doesn't question the moral legitimacy of slavery because it's so ingrained, um-

    16. CWChris Williamson41:53

        Just sees it as an, an immutable part of human life.

    17. RHRyan Holiday41:57

        Yeah. Yeah. And, and look, right? He's just sort of chosen for it. And then, and then he doesn't see... Like, even as his son is drifting towards taking over and is sort of proving himself to be inept, yet, like, it doesn't occur to Marcus Aurelius that he can do anything about it. You know? So I think that human agency is something that I would, I would probably ultimately disagree with on the Stoics. And, but, uh, but I, you know, I credit that to the, the, the progress we've made as a human species. Like hu-... I don't think they quite believed in human dynamism, in the, in the benefits of a dynamic fluid society, of a meritocracy. You know, these were things that, you know, in England, you know, they didn't even fully understand until, you know, probably the second World War, right?

    18. CWChris Williamson42:43

        Mm-hmm.

    19. RHRyan Holiday42:44

        Like, we, we, we just... we, we had some unquestioned beliefs about how society should be organized, just as we have them today and are, you know, sort of struggling to wrap our heads around them. But, but I think that would certainly be a, an, an area for improvement for them.

    20. CWChris Williamson42:58

        Yeah, for sure. Do you see Stoicism as a spiritual practice?

    21. RHRyan Holiday43:03

        I mean, i- is it a religion? No, and I like that about it. You know, I like that the Stoics aren't saying, "God," you know, "said this is true, therefore you should believe it." But, but I do think there is something deeply spiritual about it and I think, I think honestly if you study anything enough, it takes on a kind of a r- a ritual and a, and a profundity. So I think y- you get out of it what you put in it. If you read it once, it's not gonna be a particularly spiritual experience. But, you know, if it's something you really turn yourself over to, I think you'll be immensely rewarded.

    22. CWChris Williamson43:38

        I like that. I like the fact that if you dedicate, uh, your interest, your curiosity to anything, you know, you find people who find gardening to be, like, almost spiritual. You know, it's like you're planting plants. They're not even conscious.

    23. RHRyan Holiday43:53

        Yeah, I mean, physics can be spiritual, you know what I mean?

    24. CWChris Williamson43:56

        Yeah.

    25. RHRyan Holiday43:56

        Uh, and, and, and religion can be very unspiritual. It can become rote and, you know, traditional-

    26. CWChris Williamson44:04

        Predictable.

    27. RHRyan Holiday44:04

        ... and, yeah, it, or you could do it for some, you know, evil reason too, right? So I think it's, it's about what you bring to it and I think it's ultimately about how you practice it.

    28. CWChris Williamson44:15

        For sure. Speaking of the words practice, which Stoic practice do you find most useful in life?

    29. RHRyan Holiday44:21

        I mean, jur- journaling certainly, you know, and, and I have a somewhat expanded version of journaling. I mean, I journal, but then, to me, writing about Stoicism is, even my books, is a form of sort of journaling and discussion and, and so I, I think, you know, the Stoics were writers. Almost all of them were writers, uh, and it, it was a tradition that survives to us because of the writing. So I think writing about it is a big one. Um, probably memento mori is the, is k- kind of the most profound for the Stoics, you know. Uh, there's no theme probably that, that in, in the Stoic works more prevalent than the reality and inevitability of death and that, that's something I try to think a lot about as well.

    30. CWChris Williamson45:05

        (smacks lips) Yeah, it's a great way to start the day, isn't it? (laughs) One of the-
16. 45:09 – 47:40

    Balancing Desire For Excellence

    1. RHRyan Holiday45:09

    2. CWChris Williamson45:09

       Uh, I wanted to ask, I wanted to ask you this for a long time.

    3. RHRyan Holiday45:12

       Okay.

    4. CWChris Williamson45:12

       Um, I heard you speaking to Greg McKeown about this recently, past Modern Wisdom guest and wonderful guy. Um, how do you balance the desire for excellence with not being too hard on yourself?

    5. RHRyan Holiday45:26

       Yeah, it's, uh, it's tough. I was thinking about this last night. I w- I've been burned out a little bit and I was like, "Why am I, you know, why am I feeling this way?" And it's like, oh wait. First off, it's a pandemic. I have not had a break-

    6. CWChris Williamson45:40

       (laughs)

    7. RHRyan Holiday45:40

       ... since March. I've got two kids at home, uh, no childcare, and, you know, I'm two-thirds of the way through, like, my next book. And it's like, oh shit, that's why I feel burned out. I'm literally burning the candle at both ends, right? Like, like, uh, that's why I feel that way. So I think part, part of the way you have to do it, you have to realize that, like, you're not a machine. Or if you are a machine, you have to take care of it, you know? Like, you have to keep, you have to, you know, keep it in, in, and you have to take good care of it. Um, but, but I think, uh, the, the m- what I've really worked on more is just becoming more and more detached from results. So, like, excellence, like on this book, excellence is like, what does it look like on the page? Did I get there? You know, did I succeed within the, you know, the, the bounds of what was conceivable for that project? And like, I mean, I'm sure my publisher doesn't wanna hear about it-

    8. CWChris Williamson46:44

       (laughs)

    9. RHRyan Holiday46:44

       ... here, but I, I really don't give a shit how it does. Do you know what I mean? Like, it won't, it won't affect... It, it could, it could certainly affect the bottom line for me, but it doesn't affect my day-to-day perceptions of myself or the project because, like, I know it's good, I know what it does wa- that it's supposed to do, and I know that for the people who will read it, it will do that for them. And so, I think I, you know, this is something harder for me to understand in my career, but like, you really, as you do get closer to mastery of something, and, and close can be relative, I just mean as you get closer from, you know, c- complete hack to, you know-

    10. CWChris Williamson47:24

        (laughs) Semi-competent. Yeah.

    11. RHRyan Holiday47:26

        Pro in the spectrum. Um, yeah, as you get o- as you get there, you, you become less obsessed with results or you, you become less obsessed with what other people define those results as.

17. 47:40 – 51:00

    Becoming Less Obsessed With Results

    1. RHRyan Holiday47:40

    2. CWChris Williamson47:40

       "It's far easier to transcend our ma- to, uh, fulfill our material desires than it is to transcend them," is a quote that I've been thinking about a lot this year.

    3. RHRyan Holiday47:49

       What does that mean?

    4. CWChris Williamson47:50

       So, the fact that it's much easier for you to drive around in a bashed up pickup truck if your last car was a Ferrari.

    5. RHRyan Holiday47:57

       Mm-hmm.

    6. CWChris Williamson47:57

       Th- I think that there are... I, I wonder whether Ryan Holiday, the no times best-selling author, would be able to be as, uh, equanimous about the success of his next book.

    7. RHRyan Holiday48:10

       Sure.

    8. CWChris Williamson48:11

       You know what I mean?

    9. RHRyan Holiday48:11

       Yeah, th- no, I, I know exactly what you mean. I think about this, uh, like with my parents. Like, would my parents, like, my parents are proud and happy with my career. What if I was just as fulfilled and, and happy with it, but was a starving artist, would they be able to understand it the same way? Probably not, and, and I'm not sure I would be able to actually get there either, right?

    10. CWChris Williamson48:35

        Mm-hmm.

    11. RHRyan Holiday48:36

        So yeah, there's a, there's a pla- it's like when you win a Super Bowl, you can go, like, it's, it's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play. You know that, that, it's like, it's much easier to get there. At the same time, one of the reasons you're able to get there is because now you know.

    12. CWChris Williamson48:54

        Yeah.

    13. RHRyan Holiday48:55

        You know what I mean? Like-

    14. CWChris Williamson48:55

        Yeah.

    15. RHRyan Holiday48:56

        ... when, when, what, what's been weird for me is my books have been successful, but, but for a long time, they were successful but without ... So they had the impact, like I, they were selling, they were reaching people, I was hearing the people that it reached and what they were able to do, and yet some of the external markers of success were lagging indicators for me.

    16. CWChris Williamson49:18

        Mm-hmm.

    17. RHRyan Holiday49:19

        So, like-... The Obstacle is the Way had sold probably 600,000 copies before it hit a single bestseller list, right? I, it was, I think Stillness is the Key was my ninth book, maybe my tenth book, I don't remember. But the point is, that was my first, not just my first, uh, n- that was my first New York Times bestseller, period, under my own name. Uh, I had ghostwritten books that hit, but that was my- the first time my books hit the bestseller list and it debuted at number one, which is great. But then, like, two weeks later, you know, Donald Trump Jr.'s book hit the bestseller-

    18. CWChris Williamson49:53

        (laughs)

    19. RHRyan Holiday49:53

        ... like, took the number one spot. And, and it was revealed that he cheated his way on the list, right? So, like, you, you, I think w- you, that was ha- illustrated for me in a lot of ways. One, that, you know, critical or, you know, uh, verifiable success, um, external success in that sense, is not the same as actual success. And then also, that actually getting those markers, winning those awards or getting that recognition or whatever, um, it's a lot more anticlimactic than you would think, right? And that it doesn't, doesn't really solve your problems, it doesn't really ... So I think there was a Jim Carey quote where he's like, "I wish everyone could be rich and famous so they'd realize that it doesn't mean anything." Now, that's kind of like the ultimate privileged thing to say and like-

    20. CWChris Williamson50:45

        (laughs)

    21. RHRyan Holiday50:46

        ... it's, you know, preposterous or whatever. But it, but there is an element of truth in it, in that, like, when you actually get the things that you think you wanted, you realize that they were never capable of giving you what you thought you

18. 51:00 – 53:55

    Frontload The Discomfort

    1. RHRyan Holiday51:00

       wanted.

    2. CWChris Williamson51:01

       The sad fact is that it's so hard to internalize that lesson without having been ... Y- y- like, imagining the view of the mountain mindfully. You're there, you can feel the wind on your face. But if you haven't gone to the top, there's always that ... You know, we hate open loops. There's iconic effect.

    3. RHRyan Holiday51:17

       Yeah.

    4. CWChris Williamson51:17

       Humans hate open loops. And I think a lot of these, um, unfulfilled desires, which is one of the reasons that I've been trying to advocate to my friends and everyone that listens for a long time, to try and fr- front load the discomfort and the, um, socialized objective measures of success in life. Because as far as I'm concerned, the sooner that you can do that and tick that box, the sooner you can get on to what actually matters. 'Cause over time, you see your grandparents, you know, they don't care about the car that they drive, they don't care about the brand of shoes that they wear, so you know that's the trajectory that you're on.

    5. RHRyan Holiday51:50

       Yes.

    6. CWChris Williamson51:51

       Everyone's on this same trajectory; that's where you're gonna end up because every grandparent kind of doesn't give a shit, and is kind of a little bit disgruntled and kind of just wants to spend time with their family. That's where you're going to end up. So front load the stuff that you can do, and get it out of the way.

    7. RHRyan Holiday52:06

       No, that's, that's totally right. When they do studies, like old people tend to associate happiness with contentment, young people with achievement. And obviously, you need a certain amount of achievement to be content or, you know, you, you live under a bridge somewhere probably.

    8. CWChris Williamson52:19

       (laughs)

    9. RHRyan Holiday52:19

       But, but, but yeah, f- uh, front loading is important, and then, and then I think where people can somewhat, can be a little blase about it, they go, "Oh, you know, you, you only know that, you're only saying it doesn't matter 'cause you, yeah, you had the success of being a number one bestseller."

    10. CWChris Williamson52:34

        Yeah.

    11. RHRyan Holiday52:34

        So, the, the reality is, life is constantly teaching us that lesson. It's like, you know, you thought, "Hey if I can get the, you know, if I can get the, the popular girl to go out with me, then I'll feel good about myself."

    12. CWChris Williamson52:44

        (laughs)

    13. RHRyan Holiday52:44

        "I won't feel like a, you know, I won't feel like a loser." And then you got it, and it turned out actually she was awful, and, you know, wasn't that awesome.

    14. CWChris Williamson52:53

        Bad breath.

    15. RHRyan Holiday52:53

        Yeah, whatever it is. Like, you, you, you are constantly being taught that lesson, and then we plug our ears and close our eyes to the message. So, like, you know, there, uh, I was saying about Super Bowl, plenty of people have been there. Like, they've, they made it to the top of the mountain and they won a Super Bowl, and it was anticlimactic, and they didn't, it didn't trigger self-awareness. What it triggered in them was the idea that, "Oh, it's, I have to win back-to-back Super Bowls, right?"

    16. CWChris Williamson53:23

        (laughs) Oh no, you're going in the wrong direction.

    17. RHRyan Holiday53:26

        Right, 'cause people will go, "Oh, I- if, if you do it once, it doesn't feel good because it could be a fluke. You have to, you have to prove ... You know what I mean? Like, the mind very ...

    18. CWChris Williamson53:36

        The dose wasn't high enough, yeah.

    19. RHRyan Holiday53:38

        Yeah, the mind in- insidiously manages to always find a way to motivate us to go forward. And we can understand why, from an evolutionary standpoint, this is, is perfectly logical, but from an individual standpoint who wants to be happy, it's a recipe for misery.

19. 53:55 – 57:26

    The Moral Animal

    1. RHRyan Holiday53:55

    2. CWChris Williamson53:56

       I don't know if you're familiar with Robert Wright's book, Why Buddhism is True?

    3. RHRyan Holiday54:00

       Yeah, mm-hmm.

    4. CWChris Williamson54:01

       Yeah, it's a-

    5. RHRyan Holiday54:01

       I love his, his evolution books too. He wrote a great book called The Moral Animal.

    6. CWChris Williamson54:04

       Dude, everyone that's listening, there we go, that's Moral Animal bingo for you today, um, I, I must talk about that book every single podcast. And thankfully, you've brought it up on this one, so I don't need to. Uh, but-

    7. RHRyan Holiday54:14

       Good, good.

    8. CWChris Williamson54:14

       ... in, in that, he talks about the, um, translation of life as suffering, and the word is ...

    9. RHRyan Holiday54:19

       Mm-hmm.

    10. CWChris Williamson54:19

        ... dukkha, um, but some scholars contest that it's not suffering, but unsatisfactoriness.

    11. RHRyan Holiday54:26

        Sure.

    12. CWChris Williamson54:27

        And holy shit. Man, when I read that, I just thought, it fits in so neatly with everything that we know about hedonic adaptation, and the present self versus the remembering self. Like, it was just, I love when things fall together like that, um, I, I thought it was a really beautiful idea. So I've got two quick things that I want to go through.

    13. RHRyan Holiday54:47

        All right, yeah.

    14. CWChris Williamson54:47

        One of them relates to what we were just talking about, and it's an idea I've been playing around with since a conversation I had a couple of weeks ago. I'm a big fan of trying to lead a consciously designed life. I want to step into my programming as much as possible. I don't want to be constrained by societal norms or genetic predisposition, or the way that I deal with past traumas, or any of that. I want to be as conscious as I can with the actions and the thoughts and the words that I do. But I had a conversation with a guy called Justin Tosi, who's a philosopher from the University of Texas Tech, and he, um, advocated instinct a lot more.He was like, "Dude, you, you have to remember that your body does an awful lot correctly unconsciously." And it actually gave a good counterpoint to this kind of, um, super consciously designed life rift that I've been on for probably the last 18 months, and has given me a second's pause to think, "Actually, hang on, should I have, shou- should I be consciously looking to design every single action that I can? Should I be second guessing all of my, uh, uh, uh, choices and virtues?" What do you think the, the Stoics would say about that, and what do you say?

    15. RHRyan Holiday55:59

        Well, there's actually a big debate amongst the Stoics, and, uh, uh, early on, it's kind of a hard fork between Zeno and Cleanthes, and then one of the other early Stoics, a guy named Aristo. And, uh, you know, the early Stoics and some of the later Stoics were really interested in, like, precepts, like great quotes, reminders, this is what the writing was all about, "Do this, don't do that, think about this, think about that." And he was like, "That's not how it works. You have to do the reading, do the work," but he says, "The wise man knows," you know, that it, it, that a lot of this comes ultimately from a place of intuition and instinct. Um, I, I kind of am a, you know, split the difference kind of a thing. I think, like, look, if you're, if you're constantly referring to some sort of rule book, you know, if you're a slave to, like, a set of constraints or systems, you're probably, you know, not as fluid and, and, you know, free-flowing as you oughta be. At the same time, you know, some of our instincts are bad, you know? And so, uh, I, I, I think it's kind of a mix between the two. I like making it kind of a muscle memory that you can rely on. At the same time, I think it's so easy to go astray that it's really important to have reminders. Like my desk and w- the walls of my office are c- are covered in pictures and quotes and, and statues and, and I, you know, I carry these challenge coins in my pocket. I, I, the reminders are really, really helpful

20. 57:26 – 1:01:04

    Effortlessness

    1. RHRyan Holiday57:26

       to me.

    2. CWChris Williamson57:27

       I get that. I'm, uh, I'm just about to pull up one of my favorite quotes from, uh, Confucius, and it's, um, part of an article that I found f- through Kyle Eschenroeder, who is this wonderful writer. I brought him on the podcast.

    3. RHRyan Holiday57:40

       Yeah.

    4. CWChris Williamson57:40

       I loved, I loved his, uh-

    5. RHRyan Holiday57:41

       I know Kyle.

    6. CWChris Williamson57:42

       Yeah, Kyle's just... I mean, what a guy. Um, so he says, "In the early stages of training, an aspiring Confucian gentleman needs to memorize entire shelves of archaic texts, learn the precise angle at which to bow, and learn the lengths of steps with which he is to enter a room. His sitting mat must always be perfectly straight. All of this rigor and restraint, however, is ultimately aimed at producing a cultivated, but nonetheless genuine form of spontaneity. Indeed, the process of training is not considered complete until the individual has passed completely beyond the need for thought or effort."

    7. RHRyan Holiday58:17

       Yeah, that's right. And I think that, what is that term, like sprezzatura or whatever, it, it, uh, that, uh, the highest form is effortlessness.

    8. CWChris Williamson58:23

       Yes.

    9. RHRyan Holiday58:24

       And I think that, that's where you're trying to get and that, that's what all the efforts are, are aimed at, that, that sort of effortlessness.

    10. CWChris Williamson58:29

        Final question, what area are you hoping to improve on most over the next year?

    11. RHRyan Holiday58:36

        That's a good question. I think a- as always, temper, uh, you know, temper and, uh, you know, I, I never... I feel like I'm never proud that I've lost my temper. I find that it, I, you know, I get angry or more than I need.

    12. CWChris Williamson58:49

        Does that happen at all?

    13. RHRyan Holiday58:50

        Not, not a lot, I just, I, uh, you know, things piss, piss me off-

    14. CWChris Williamson58:54

        (laughs)

    15. RHRyan Holiday58:54

        ... as, as they do for all of you. Uh, I, I think, you know, to, to, just to sort of be able to flow more naturally to things and not, you know, the Stoics talk, like, "Why are you asking why," you know? It just, it is what it is, right? I think getting there is a big one. And then I think the thing I, w- we're talking about effortlessness, the thing I struggle with is, and obviously this is why I wrote a book on it, but, you know, the ability to not do is, in some cases, the hardest thing to do, right? And, and, you know, I'll find myself, you know, things have been easy or clean or simple, and then the next thing I know I'm in the middle of something. And th- and when I really trace back how that happened, you know, I invited myself into that, right? I s- I sought it out. It didn't, uh, it's not like this thing dropped in my lap, right? And so, I think-

    16. CWChris Williamson59:45

        Yeah.

    17. RHRyan Holiday59:45

        ... one of the things I've taken from the pandemic is just how much less I need and how much simpler and better life is when there's less going on. Uh, but, but maintaining that is really difficult. And the, it's like you cut out drinking and then the next thing you know you're smoking-

    18. CWChris Williamson1:00:01

        (laughs)

    19. RHRyan Holiday1:00:01

        ... and then you cut out smoking and you're doing, you know, whatever. You know, like, uh, it's sort of like Whac-A-Mole with the, with our inability to sit quietly in a room alone.

    20. CWChris Williamson1:00:11

        Life is unsatisfactoriness, man. That's sadly-

    21. RHRyan Holiday1:00:14

        Yeah.

    22. CWChris Williamson1:00:14

        ... what it is. Uh, Ryan, I've, I've adored today. Thank you so much for coming on, man. Lives of the Stoics will be linked in the show notes below. Where else do you want to direct people, dailystoic.com?

    23. RHRyan Holiday1:00:25

        Yeah, and then, uh, we do an email every day about stoicism, uh, at, at, at Daily Stoic, and then, uh, YouTube videos at youtue.com/dailystoic.

    24. CWChris Williamson1:00:33

        Go and check him out, linked in the show notes below. Ryan, I, uh, I'm gonna have to get you back on, man. Whenever this next book, uh, book is out, wherever you're two-thirds of the way through, we're gonna have to get you back.

    25. RHRyan Holiday1:00:42

        Yeah, and hopefully my internet connection will be better next time.

    26. CWChris Williamson1:00:44

        (laughs) That would be wonderful. For now, man, thank you so much.

    27. RHRyan Holiday1:00:48

        I appreciate it.

    28. NANarrator1:00:50

        (instrumental music)

Episode duration: 1:01:04