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A lighthearted reading of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. Join us as we read his private journal from 2,000 years ago and talk about how it makes us feel.
Good morning, Tom.
Good morning, Paul.
Nice, beautiful, sunny,
what, Thursday morning.
Yes, it has, it's finally light out
in the morning, I was realizing.
Yes.
When we record this podcast.
True.
When you got here, it was actually
often we're meeting in the dark.
Yeah.
I do think this weekend is
Daylight Savings Time, and we are
going to lose that morning light.
Okay.
So we have, we're enjoying one
nice sunny morning record here,
and then I think we're gonna go
back into the dark for a while.
All right.
Let's, we've got to enjoy it.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Okay, there's something that I wanted to
bring up at the, that I was reminded of
the last time we recorded this episode.
Yeah.
Which is I think we should have
a little bit of a movie club for
a second here on the podcast.
There's two movies we've watched recently.
Oh.
Both of us.
Yeah.
And I just think it might
be fun to talk about them in
relationship to this podcast.
Okay.
One, one of them that I have
in mind Is the holdovers.
Yeah.
Which we both saw and I think it's one
where the meditations explicitly gets
name checked because the main character
guy played by Paul ti, who's this like
unlovable, annoying professor guy Yeah.
Teacher at a like a New
England prep school.
Yeah.
Who's a teacher of the classics, or he
calls it like ancient civilizations or
something, but he gives as a Christmas
gift to everybody in his life, basically.
Copies of the meditations.
And it's.
I'm curious to get your reaction,
but to me that actually painted
this book in a very negative light.
Because that, at that point, even
though I won't spoil the movie, I guess
for our listeners, let's just say,
he doesn't turn out to be a totally
horrible guy for the whole movie.
But at that stage of the movie, the point
that's being made is, this guy sucks.
He doesn't know how to give gifts.
The spirit of Christmas is not in
him, it's a Christmas movie it looks
like a very bad gift in the movie.
Which offended me a little bit, I'm
curious if you had that reaction,
what happened for you when you
saw that book given as a gift?
That's interesting I already thought
he was lovable from the beginning, they
were really trying to paint him as this.
Even though he's calling all his students
Philistines and Visigoths the whole time.
Yeah, I thought that was hilarious.
It is pretty funny, actually.
Yeah I, from the, maybe it was
because I could anticipate the arc.
Yeah, you knew you were
supposed to like it.
I was a fan of I find that usually
very grouchy people are actually
really soft and tender inside.
The ones that are outwardly
grouchy, the ones that are like,
weird on their sleeves, tend to
be the nicest people in reality.
They just, they're so nice that they
can't expose their soft underbelly to the
world, that's why they have to be grouchy.
I see.
I always to begin with.
I see.
Okay.
His character's name is
Paul Hunnam, by the way.
Yeah.
I wonder then if you think, that's,
that sort of soft underbelly thing
is a thing, is a comment you've made
about Marcus, too, that you think
that Marcus, do you see similarities
between those two characters?
Yeah.
Exactly.
Marcus yeah, this guy, Paul.
Yeah.
I think maybe there's similarity there.
I think It was very in line with the
character to hand out meditations.
No one, I do think there's a statement
being made about how no one really
wants to read the meditations.
Yes, that is very much, it's
like the punchline of that scene.
But I, I get that.
Come on, we're on book six.
Yeah, it's true.
It is a bad gift, even though
I think we both like this gift.
I don't think I would give it as a,
or the book, we both like this book.
I don't think I would give it as a gift.
I'm not going to read
it myself on Christmas.
Yeah, that's true.
Okay, yeah, that's fair.
Yeah.
Yeah, alright.
But that's funny.
It did make me laugh.
Slight insult.
It made me, I laughed and was
slightly offended, but it made
me think about this podcast.
Yeah, it's a good movie.
Yeah.
I really enjoyed it.
You liked it?
I liked it.
Yeah.
Okay, cool.
Yes.
I liked it a lot.
Um, the opposite.
Thing to say is they don't make
movies like that much anymore.
Yeah.
'cause it's intentionally shot very
old school and is like all the, yeah,
everything is it feels like a movie from
the sixties or seventies or whatever.
Yeah.
But I think the script works that way
and the performances work that way.
Yeah.
It was well done.
Nice.
I had fun with that.
And then speaking of movies we
both liked, I don't really have
anything specific to say about
this, but Dune came out this week.
It was so good.
We both loved it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't, it has really richly written
characters and maybe the connection
to this podcast is just that Paul
Atreides also has this dimension.
Yeah.
Loneliest man in the world.
Yeah.
That's true.
Obligation, tension between what he
might want and what his obligations are.
Yeah.
Actually, now that I'm saying that, I'm
convinced this is a pretty good point.
Good job, Tom.
You did it.
I think he, as far as like fictional
characters I can think of, has a
lot in common with Marcus Aurelius.
With Marcus Aurelius.
Yeah.
So much of his arc throughout that
is like resisting his destiny where.
He doesn't, doesn't want to be the
Lisan Al Gayyib or the Kwisatz Haderach,
but he has to be both of them, and he
ends up realizing that he has to go
through with his obligations because
they've been handed to him, basically.
Yeah, and he has that scene
small spoiler, he has that scene
where, He's just okay, fine.
I'll be these people, but you guys,
but I'm not going to be a nice about
I'm not, I'm no longer going to be
humble and all these other things
that I've been in my past life.
Cause I'm the Al Haib or whatever.
Like I am the one I'm going to
ignore your customs and we're
just going to do it my way.
And I do think that's reminiscent of
Marcus talking about the, Ineptitude of
everyone around him and these people like
don't understand yeah, that's interesting.
Yeah, because in paul's case, there's
this transformation from he starts
out as this very humble almost Yeah.
Kind of too yeah, every time
they talk to him, all he can say
is no, I'm just here to learn.
I'm just one of you.
Learn your ways, and fight
with you, or whatever.
And then he'd yes, totally flips a
switch and is fine, actually no, fine.
You want me to be this guy?
I'll be the guy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Breaks up with his little
girlfriend and Yeah.
Yeah.
With Marcus, we never see that pre, I
guess he never really had it because he's
the emperor of I, I wonder if he had a
moment early in his life where he was.
He had that moment where he forced
the Senate to elect a second emperor
as a condition for his election.
And that was an act of humility.
That was an act of humility.
That was him saying, actually I think
we should go back to the old ways and
split power and no man is going Yeah.
Important enough to Yeah.
To be mper.
You guys have put too much
faith in charge in me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then I think by the end
he is yep, I'm in charge.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Interesting.
Yeah so there you go.
A bit parallel.
That's cool.
Yeah.
So if anybody wants a dramatization
that has a bit to do with this
book, highly recommend going.
Check it out, dude, too.
It's very good.
Yeah.
It's yeah I really bought the characters.
Yeah.
The every character I bought.
Which is rare for me.
That's usually where movies break down
for me, is when I just don't believe that
someone would do the thing they're doing.
Yep.
Timothee Chalamet.
He's excellent.
Pretty great performance.
He's excellent, yeah.
Very well cast in the role, I think.
Zendaya was great.
Yeah, lots of other people.
Lots of other fun performances.
I think Javier Bardem plays
a very fun character, he's
very important in the movie.
And Austin Butler, who played,
plays Fade Rautha, is also
very awesome in this movie.
Yeah.
Anyway.
Alright.
Good stuff.
End of our finale.
And now The movie club segment.
Which It'll be a recurring
segment on this podcast.
Yeah.
We're done with the first instance of it.
Yeah.
Okay.
Now we get to do something
fun, which is start a new book.
Book six.
We finished book five.
This is book six.
I think there are twelve books.
That's right.
Our, so we're halfway.
Yeah.
We're halfway when we finished this one.
But Tom Tone, come on.
not, I'm not trying to be
the arithmetic police, but we
have finished five chapters.
Five books.
We have, we're starting the
sixth, which means but it's great.
It means we have something to work
towards here when we finish this one.
Yeah.
We will have read half of the meditations.
I have a strong association with
half the halfway as a concept.
Which is somewhat stoic I spent a lot of
time in, in high school and especially
high school, like doing these endurance
sports, so running and swimming.
Yeah.
And, in those sports you have
these very strenuous periods of
time where you're doing a set of,
whatever, twelve of this thing.
Yeah.
And I remember this feeling of being
halfway was really important to just
over time you learn how to just be like,
Okay, I'm halfway, and You just keep
that little concept of being halfway
and you suckle it as long as you can.
Yeah, you meditate on it.
Cause you cause otherwise what,
you think about what, the pain
of doing what you're doing.
So you just, you're, you sing the
little song in your head halfway there.
And you're, and like that whole thing
can almost take you to two thirds.
Wow.
And then you're two thirds of the way.
Yeah.
And once you're two, once
you're 75 percent of the way,
you're like basically done.
Yeah.
So it's just about extending the kind of.
Yeah, I guess , the this
semantic kind of halfway there.
Concept as long as you can.
Interesting.
I really like that.
Yeah.
I never heard you say that before.
Yeah.
I also remember I did not participate
in exactly the same kind of activities.
I participated in much shorter distance
athletic activities than Paul did, and I
was not nearly as good at them as he was.
But I also would have, would do
mental mathy kind of stuff during,
but what I remember during hurdles.
Or just track practice.
We'd run like, we'd do
like intervals or whatever.
There would be other opportunities
for that kind of mental reckoning.
But I think the thing I really
like what you just described.
And I think I wish I knew about it in
high school because what I remember doing
is lots of calculating exact fractions.
Okay.
So we're five 11th of the way done.
So what is that as a decimal?
And okay now it's seven
twelfths or whatever.
That could work.
It works, but it was
also a kind of torture.
Yeah, that is, but truly I remember
spending a lot of time computing
those kinds of like, all right, this
means that we are 53 percent done now.
Oh, good.
Now it's 54 based on whatever
fraction math I can put in my head.
I don't know.
I actually think that.
Yours is much better and you want,
it's a little more positive . Yeah.
Yeah.
I think mine was actually a sort of a
mild form of self torture to be like sure.
Because you keep doing this.
That's arithmetic and
thinking like, okay, good.
This will be a big number now.
And you're like, no, fuck 10
17 turns out to still only
basically be 50% , that's great.
That's funny.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
We're halfway there.
Halfway there.
Whoa.
We give it a try.
Living on a forever.
Okay.
Book six Untitled.
We, he went through a brief phase
of titling his books back no more.
That was a mistake.
Book.
Book two and three, I think had titles
and now we're back to no titles.
No.
Okay.
The way nature intended, Tom.
Yeah, number one, nature is pliable,
obedient, and the logo that governs
it has no reason to do evil.
It knows no evil, does none
and causes harm to nothing.
It dictates all.
All beginnings and all endings.
Interesting.
Alright.
This is a new-ish thought I think.
Yeah.
Pliable and obedient is are,
my initial reaction is no.
Yeah.
. What do you mean nature is obedient?
Isn't the whole point that things are
done to you that you can't control?
Yeah.
Obedient.
To whom?
I guess I don't think it's obedient to us.
Oh.
Maybe obedient to the laws of nature
or that's an odd thing to say.
Sure.
It's obedient to itself.
Yeah, I think
Boy actually, I don't quite know what to
make of pliable and obedient yet I think
the second sentence is also interesting
that yeah, he's interested using this
concept that there's nothing evil in
nature yeah Which yeah I think is makes
sense that in his conception of nature
that all things just are here to do their
own Yeah, they're predestined purpose.
Yeah evil is does not fit anywhere Yeah
This is more of like how you interpret
the things that happen around you, like
none of it is evil, it just is what it is.
Yeah, pliable and
obedient are interesting.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Pliable?
Okay, so one theory is that he means
that it's nature accommodates the either
what the gods want, or whatever the sort
of like good virtues of the world are,
nature folds that into its creation.
It doesn't need evil
or anything like that.
Sure.
So if nature was evil, then it
wouldn't be pliable and obedient.
Yeah, exactly.
It has no agenda.
Yeah, exactly.
It just takes what it's
given and builds out of it.
But evil's not a part of that equation.
Okay.
Yeah, okay.
Alright.
Also, obedient and pliable might have
been huge compliments back in the day.
Maybe it was like a
really nice compliment.
Yes, now they seem at least
a bit backhanded to call
somebody pliable and obedient.
Yeah, exactly.
If not straight up insulting
to call them those things.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Alright I'll just say, I'm positing, and
we'll see, he seems to be in a slightly
better mood as we're starting this.
That's true.
He was, he had some fun.
Yeah.
Some pretty little psychotherapy
on Marcus are right.
Little emo moments in the
last little emo moments.
This one seems like
we're starting off Yeah.
On a better, he loves nature now.
Yeah.
And there's no evil in it.
No evil.
Yeah.
So he's put whatever
was, thorn in his Yeah.
Side has been pulled out.
Causes harm to nothing.
Yeah.
All right.
Number two, just that you do the
right thing, the rest doesn't matter.
Colder, warm.
Okay, alright, maybe a little more back.
Back to being morbid a bit here.
Yeah.
Yep.
Okay.
First two sentences are
stoicism in a nutshell.
Yep.
The rest doesn't matter.
Cold or warm, tired or well rested.
Yeah.
And yeah, dying too is, we're all
charged with doing these tasks
as a part of responsibilities in
life and dying is one of them.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's interesting.
There, there's something
interesting about this.
So this mentality of
like despise or honor.
It really does take away
agency from yourself.
It really does I guess that's
what stoicism is in a nutshell.
It's Give away agency You
trade agency for happiness.
Or for satisfaction.
So it's like You know You can't
control There's nothing right or
wrong about being despised or honored.
It just is what it is.
Maybe your job is to be despised.
And just make peace with that.
Yeah.
Which is that's bold.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That to me sounds like
he's not in a good place.
It raises this question for me that
I think we maybe talked about really
early in the podcast and then I've
just let go of, but it's something I've
always struggled with this philosophy,
which is that, the whole thing is like,
there's the things you can control and
the things you can't control, and you
should only worry about the former and
the latter should give you no trouble.
But it goes without saying for
Marcus that it is easy to tell the
difference between those two things.
Yeah, exactly.
Oh yeah, you're right.
. Yeah.
For instance, being despised
or honored has nothing to do
with doing the right thing.
Yeah.
But it, yeah, doing the right thing.
But yeah, that is something
that feels like it is on some
level under your control.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But for him, it's that is an example
of not relevant, not a part of
your job, but it could totally
like it's thought about in one way.
It totally is a part of your job.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a pretty frustrating part of this.
That's so true, actually.
I wish he had gave us a list of ways to
know which things are in your control.
I need a flowchart, Marcus.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fair enough.
Yeah, I guess maybe let's keep an
eye on that as we move forward.
Number three, look inward.
Don't let the true nature or
value of anything elude you.
Whoa.
Okay.
I don't know what those two sentences
really have to do with each other.
Other I guess I read this as,
uh, so look for the silver lining
and anything that happens to you.
Look for the teacher.
What is the Buddhist
version of saying this?
It's like what every moment
you're in as a teacher.
You just need to listen
to what it's telling you.
Yeah.
I see.
So you look inward to do that listening.
Yeah.
I see.
And don't ever think that
a moment is just a moment.
. It's a teacher.
Yeah.
I agree with that, I like that reading
of it, which is Also, don't let the true
nature or value of ANYTHING get over you.
It is a lot of work, yeah.
A really scary word there, by the way.
Yeah, Yeah.
Because it also Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
But maybe, so maybe there's a deeper
point there, though, too, that he actually
thinks that the sort of pace at which
value and meaning is meted out to us in
our lives It's like an acceptable pace.
It's slow enough that you can handle it.
Nothing will elude you.
Yeah.
That you, whatever, those moments
may be teachers, but they I see.
You're reading this as like
They teach you slowly enough.
You can do this.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Sure.
Sure.
Yeah, all that's more challenge or that's
more positive in a way because I think
yeah, especially maybe in modern life
We're a customer like the idea that you
can squeeze the juice out of all your
experiences Feels like overwhelming
and impossible because life is moves
quickly and we have a lot of different
experiences But maybe that was less true
at the time Yeah Number four Before long
All existing things will be transformed,
to rise like smoke, assuming all things
become one, or be dispersed in fragments.
Okay.
Awesome.
Uh, he's weirdly not sure what's
going to happen to everything here.
Assuming all things become one.
Yeah, it's a funny little, and
then he also provides a possible
alternate explanation, which is that
we'll be dispersed in fragments.
That's cool.
Yeah.
Feels like he alright, here's my theory
of what's going on in this book so far.
He's he's getting more
concise in expressing certain
ideas that he's had before.
Huh.
But he's come back to his book
and he's ah, I can say this
even more simply than I did.
Okay.
Before.
Yeah.
I think all of these bullet points.
have that vibe to me where he's
expressing ideas that might have
taken him a long time to express
before in one to two sentences.
Interesting.
So he's he puts out, excuse me,
he puts out book five and he
was like, okay, this was, let's,
yeah, let me take a pause here.
Tighten it up.
And then he comes back, three months
later he's I'm feeling ready to.
To philosophize once more.
Yeah.
And these are gonna be pithy,
they're gonna be memorable and short
versions as opposed to these long,
complicated sentences I was writing
before where the subject gets lost.
And is he practicing?
Is he like practicing for
what he is gonna say that day?
Yeah, that's interesting.
I wish we knew something about what
his actual, how much his speech in
real life resembled any of this.
Yeah, we basically know
nothing about that.
I wonder if he ever talked like
this at all, or if this was totally
his sort of private language.
Imagine, yeah, being told these things.
Yeah, exactly.
It must be actually pretty cool.
If you go to the emperor and you
ask for something, and he's Yeah,
we're all, it's all smoke, yeah.
And the logos that governs
it has no reason to do evil.
Yeah.
A pretty cool response.
You definitely go back
and chew on that one.
That's true.
Is that what I want though?
I've got, I have a problem.
You're like, my goat is missing.
My neighbor stole my goat.
But this guy, yeah.
Yeah.
Nature is pliable.
Yeah.
Obedient.
Yeah.
It knows no evil.
Yeah.
Don't let the true nature
of this situation elude you.
Yeah.
Look inward.
Yeah.
Okay, thank you, emperor.
Yeah.
That is probably the right thing.
What's he gonna do?
Okay, let me go, what?
Yeah, no, you have to respond
in, in, in ways like this.
Yeah, I guess if the choice is between
this and like a YC style animal parable,
that, I'm not sure which one I want.
Animal parable would also be nice,
he doesn't do that very often.
Yeah, Tom is referring to how So my
okay, so five years ago we were on YC
and we had this, we, you're assigned to
these group partners who are these like
fairly impressive, like people in their
late, late stages of their career who are
they're assigned to 30 different companies
and it's this very kind of pseudo
accessible kind of vibe where you have
these Office hours with them where you
can bring them all your problems, right?
Yeah, and everything's going wrong at
the beginning and everything's going on
wrong You don't know what you're doing.
And so David and I like the guy we
had was like he's he's Yeah, I don't
know what I can say besides like he's
an important dude and He we brought
to him all of our biggest problems
at the time, which were you know?
This company that doesn't really
exist We'd like to rename it.
We're thinking about maybe
it could have a better name.
We like our current name, but
maybe the name could be better.
And maybe that's the problem.
And maybe that's the problem
that we're really fixing.
And so we've been thinking about all
these different names, and we talked
for 15 minutes non stop about the
debate about the different names.
Yeah.
And I can imagine that he's just like
He's oh my god, like what am I gonna tell
these guys right as an external party,
especially for something like naming?
Yeah, you don't have any context
on this like really what you
want to tell them Yeah, go away.
Go figure out your actual business, right?
But instead he told us this parable
about How you know the way to find
the well is to follow the stream Into
the river and then the river deposits
into the lake and then the lake will
deposit into the well To the stream.
So cool.
And into a well.
Yes.
And we and David and I
were like, lapped it up.
We just, we were like, wow, that's
amazing, . And we went home and
we thought about the river and the
well, and we realized he did not
answer our question . And actually,
even though it sounded really good.
Yeah.
It didn't help us.
Yeah.
And the reason I think, we have had a
subsequent conversation about how fun
that job seems though where he, yes,
it's annoying that he has to listen to
these noobs be like, we don't know what
our company's name should be and on.
But it does seem like a fun job
to be handed situations like that.
And really your responsibility
is to come up with a fun analogy.
Make it complex enough where they can't.
It's like a form of mysticism.
Yeah, exactly.
That seems fun, and it's, Marcus
does it, or we're hypothesizing that
Marcus is doing it as the emperor too.
All the time.
But he's got a different flavor
of it, where it sounds like his
writing as opposed to fun animals.
I like this theory, that these are,
he's practicing the night before.
Yeah, this is actually the entire text
of what he said all day during the day.
Yeah.
One followed by the other.
He's like a magic 8 ball or something.
Yeah, exactly.
Okay, Paul has started reading number
five, so I'll finish it for him.
Number five, the Logos knows where
it stands, and what it has to
do, and what it has to work with.
Come on.
Wow, this is an especially, if I get this
roll of the magic This is infuriating.
This is, I'm pissed at my magical
outcome here if I'm getting this one.
If it's said in a Mystic tone.
I think it could grasp, grab
my attention for long enough.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're off to the next
post of the way home.
Logos knows where it stands, what it
has to do, what it has to work with.
Yeah, okay, so like
The Logos.
So to me, the Logos, when he
refers to the Logos, it's like It's
also like the logic of the world.
It's not just like you.
It's it's also kind of
nature and stuff, too.
So I think he's also saying, like,
nature, which is weaving together this
whole tapestry, it always knows what
threads are available to it, and it
picks the right one, like it You're
right, Logos is not a human it's not
your quality, it's nature's quality.
Yeah, so I interpret this as Like
nature knows what it's doing.
At all times.
Nature has this like
perfect self-awareness of
what needs to happen now?
Ah, yes.
Just a dash of this.
And then a little bit of that
is what needs to happen now.
Yeah.
And it always does that
and it's always perfect.
Yeah.
Is what he said here.
Yeah.
Love it.
Perfect response.
What it has to do and
what it has to work with.
Yeah.
Where it stands.
Yeah.
That's funny because where it stands
sounds like there's some sort of like
it's trying to oppress good and bad.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That might be a more modern reading.
I love number six.
Number six.
Wow.
It's just very modern.
The best revenge is not to be like that.
Perfect response to the GoPro.
Just perfect.
Whatever you're doing
right now, don't do that.
The best revenge.
How true is that?
I actually I think they're steep.
I like this one.
Yeah, turn the other cheek, but.
Yeah.
Ah, the best revenge.
Best is the word here.
It's not the sweetest revenge.
No.
It's not the most enjoyable.
It's certainly not.
It's the quote unquote.
It's probably the least enjoyable.
The least enjoyable revenge
is to not be like that.
Yeah.
It's such a good example of what
Marcus, both, I think there's both
wisdom here and frustrating lack
of specificity where it's on us to
figure out what the, that is classic.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Cause probably the person I want revenge
on, I have five different complaints about
the way they are and what the that is.
It's gonna be hard to
not do all five of them.
I'm supposed to pick one, but
Marcus can't help me there This
is like this is a fringe magnet.
This is like It's you're right.
It's so pithy.
Yeah, exactly.
That's what I yeah at least so far That's
why I think he's that's why I think
he's just making a list for the next
day Because this can you can say this
to anything any complaint that comes?
Yeah, that's true They feel more like what
you put in a fortune cookie or something.
Yeah, then But they used to
Yes, fortune cookie Marcus.
Yeah, exactly.
Number seven.
To move from one unselfish action
to another with God in mind.
Only there, delight and stillness.
Ooh, I like this.
Wow.
To move.
A little more yeah.
Reverential and.
Yeah.
But yeah, if you just
string together Marcus.
Type actions.
Yes.
Where you just act fully
unselfishly and perform your duty.
Yeah.
And you just do it over and over again.
Yeah.
Then the little transitions
between those decisions, you get
this delightful little taste.
Oh, I like that reading of the in between.
That's what I think he means.
Wow.
Yeah.
To move from one unselfish action
to another, only there delight.
And you get this little oh, I'm doing it.
I'm pulling off my, forwarding
my thing and you get the.
Tasty moments.
Is that true?
I get it.
It sure sounds nice anyway.
It sure sounds nice.
Want unselfish action.
I like your reading that
it's in the in between.
Because during the unselfish
actions, you're like, Oh,
okay, I'm doing this thing.
This person doesn't deserve it, but
I'm going to do it anyway because
it's the right thing with God.
Yeah.
And then I think it's the word stillness
too that clues me into this idea that
oh, it's in these little transitions.
The stillness only lasts for a little bit.
Yeah.
But And there's something nice about
the transition moment because that's
technically where you're deciding what
the next unselfish action should be.
So it's, you have a choice.
Yes.
And you're actively choosing.
And you can feel that you're making that.
It's that delight in stillness.
Yes.
I think there's truth in that.
There, like whenever there's a
really hard decision that I feel like
I've had to make, that there's this
moment, the moment where I'm like,
I know I'm gonna do the right thing.
Yeah.
But it's so delicious to think about
how I could also do the wrong thing.
That's interesting.
. And it's the, there's a delights and I
suppose a stillness in that I give into
to I want to just do the right thing.
And there's, I suppose that's stillness.
Yeah.
It calms all the other
voices in, in my head.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
This is interesting to me because
it feels like he's A lot of stoicism
feels Doing it right, you should
experience no pleasure or reward in it.
Except delight and stoicism.
But this is, he's actually talking
about By the way, if you do this
thing that I keep hammering over and
over again, There's stuff that is
pleasant about it now, As opposed to
just the sort of Robotic execution of
your obligations over and over again.
Over again.
Yes.
I definitely prefer this more
selfish angle of like Totally.
Why should I be stoic?
Yeah.
Yes.
And I think he's getting at something
in human nature that he doesn't,
that he's missing a lot of the time.
Yeah.
Which is that we reward, actually reward.
We want these to feel like we're
fulfilling our obligations Yeah.
And serving the universe or whatever.
Yeah.
And it feels good to us and we shouldn't
just do it because whatever that's,
abstractly what we're supposed to do.
Yeah.
I agree.
Yeah.
This is very nice.
This is the most I've connected you with.
I like, so the other theme that we're
going to keep going with is like
what we put on a poster or whatever.
Oh yeah.
Delight and stillness are a combination
of of words that I really like.
Yeah.
Delight and stillness.
It's a cool, uh, you know
how in, sorry I'm going to go
ahead and reference Dune again.
Sorry listeners.
No, you should.
And I've also.
But still thinking about, dude, we didn't
even talk about the gladiator folks.
I know.
Okay.
Which are very relevant to this.
But go ahead.
So there's that scene where like
the atrocities or whatever, always
raise their knife and they're like,
may your knife chip and break.
Chip And shatter.
Yeah.
Shatter.
This feels like a similar delight
and stillness seems like a similar,
like if I had a house, it could
be, if I had a great house motto.
Yeah.
I would want my motto to be delighted.
Stillest.
Delighted Stillest.
Yeah.
. I like that too.
It totally resonates for me as I read
it, but it's also a combination of
words that I don't think many modern
authors would put together necessarily.
They're not Yeah, exactly.
There's something about that combination.
It's not an obvious pairing to us.
Because stillness isn't Stillness It's
rarely the light of it can be, but
just It's a nice way of saying it.
Yeah.
The light and stillness.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We associate stillness with, Peace.
Contemplativeness and peace.
Yeah.
Contemplativeness.
And that kind of thing.
Where stillness Delight is a
very proactive Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Part of what I'm really enjoying
is the word delighter actually.
So some delight.
, some of this is is hats off
to the translator, I think.
Yeah.
That is a I wonder what it said
originally, but whatever it is you,
I hope it was actually delight.
Yeah.
Like the most extreme version of that.
Not.
Contentness, but just, yeah,
like the more gleeful version.
Joy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
. Yeah.
Yeah.
It comes through as a very,
as a lovely English phrase.
Yeah, I think I like it.
Whatever it started as.
I do think, just to touch on your,
the idea of that, yes, we want
something to like a home decoration
based on what these phrases, yeah.
Delight and stillness is great,
but I don't want this whole one as
a no, because basically because it
says God with a capital G in it.
I think people would be weirded
out by that part, even though
it's a lovely sentiment.
Remember, think back to item two.
The rest doesn't matter.
Honored or despised.
Yes, okay.
You're saying, you're positing that
I might be despised if I put this
up on my wall, but I shouldn't care.
That just you do the right thing.
I just did the right thing at me.
Yeah, just that you do the right thing.
Tom's.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know.
It's persuasive actually.
look inward.
Don't let the true nature or
value of anything allude you.
Okay.
Yeah, that Tom, I'm gonna start responding
to anything you tell me with, I'm starting
to really react negatively to that.
This is freaking impossible.
Tom, the best revenge
is to not be like that.
Okay, that one I'm on board for.
Okay.
Also, the logo knows where it stands.
Yeah, that one is useless.
What it has to do, and
what it has to work with.
If this is a magic show, The ratio of the
useless can't tell now try again to the
actual good yes no outcomes is not good.
It's not, I'm not happy with the magic
eight ball, but some of them are lovely.
So yeah, I guess that's the.
Tom I have a challenge for you.
Okay.
So one of the things we read today
needs to be a verbatim response.
You give for the next.
Okay.
Including the ones we've already read.
Those are options for me.
From between one and, seven,
which we've read so far.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
Only out of the stuff we've already read.
That's fine, because
they're about to get longer.
Okay.
I think, will you agree to
honor that challenge as well?
Okay, I'm going to do it to you
at some point later this week.
And I think it's almost certainly
going to be number three, Don't
let the true name get out.
Okay.
As you point out is it's the
most universal I think it's
the most you can truly say
Where it's gonna be hard to do number
four for example before long all existing
things will be transformed to rise like
smoke or be Dispersed into fragments.
Yes, that one's gonna feel
like a non sex letter Insane.
Most of these, you would
sound insane if you said Yeah.
Number three, you sound
annoying, but not insane.
I think.
I think I could say, I could
maybe pull off number two.
The problem is it's too long.
It's really long.
Long.
It's too long.
Yeah.
Maybe you could say just that you do the
right thing, the rest doesn't matter.
Also, the grammar of that is
really weird to actually say.
Yeah.
I'm imagining if I said number
two, I'd just keep going and going.
Exactly.
Can I stop?
Cut you off?
Yeah.
Cut me off.
Yeah.
Dying would be, Yeah, you, Yeah, it's
very, That's the most like a soliloquy,
Like a stage performance soliloquy thing.
I guess number six is also an option.
I think, Number six would be pretty easy.
The best revenge.
Yeah.
The best revenge is not to be like
that and look inward and don't let
the true nature of anything elude you.
Those feel like the low hanging fruit in
terms of But you gotta do it at work, Tom.
You can't just say it to me.
Say it work together.
I can do it to you at work.
Good luck.
I'm not gonna give you any prompts.
Okay.
Interesting.
Alright.
Alright, fine.
Yes okay.
Next episode we can check back in
on how it went, deploying our Yeah.
Our phrases.
Yeah.
Should we do one more here?
Let's do it.
Okay.
Number eight.
The mind is that.
Which is roused and directed by itself.
It makes of itself what it chooses.
It makes what it chooses
of its own experience.
Whoa.
Okay.
Boom.
The mind is not directed by itself.
It's just a bunch of chemicals in
your gut that are like, Telling
your mind what to think, but okay.
Yeah.
But he thinks that you
can control your mind.
We've touched on this a little bit before.
His concept of like mind and soul is
pretty different from, it's one of the
ways that I think his concepts are right.
Okay.
So mind is feel more distant from
ours because he's got this he's
described the mind as being, it's
not your brain, it's something else.
Or not your conscious
thought it's something else.
Yeah.
I remember him describing it more as being
like downstream of your soul in a way.
Oh but less.
We think of those as pretty independent
concepts that you have a soul in mind.
And he thinks they're like
related the soul colors your
mind or something like that.
Is this thing that he says, I forget.
Exactly.
Anyway, I think so his, so it might
be like morality or something.
Yeah.
So mind includes sub concepts
that I think we would assign
more to the soul for him maybe.
Okay.
So the soul is that witch is
roused and directed by itself.
He's providing a definition
of the mind here.
Yeah.
Is that witch?
Classic it makes of
itself what it chooses.
It makes what it chooses
of its own experience.
Yeah.
So your mind has certain
experiences and it, I think there's
some truth to this generously.
It is like your mind, processes, all
this experience that you have, and then
it's the thing that like, it turns it
into your story of yourself and it.
Makes all these choices about
what it, what you are, yeah.
What it is in response
to those experiences.
So roused and directed by itself is
like a weird and confusing way of
saying it, but I think one, one way of
parsing that is the mind is the thing.
The process is the experiences,
and it's the thing that defines
you and who you are to yourself.
So it's okay, mind you, you
have had these experiences.
Now go to work on yourself.
Turning that into a person.
Wow.
Roused and directed by its own right.
Processing of experience makes, it, makes
what it chooses of its own experience.
Okay.
And what's interesting is that it, yeah,
it gets to exercise choice in that.
Yeah.
So this is the, This is the
perspective that you can interpret.
It's also a love perspective.
You can interpret the things that happen
to you and take away different things.
And that the mind is unique in that way.
Sure.
That almost everything else is in
his conception, its hand is forced
by nature and fate and whatever else.
But the mind, is all about choice.
It's all about yeah.
He loves that.
I'm sorry I'm not good at this.
Okay.
All right, with these tough ones, I
just let Tom be the rock in the ocean
that gets hit by the cold salty water,
and I generally just agree with him.
I sufficiently enjoy the
sound of my own voice.
I like just Yeah, I'm pontificating
once we read a hard one.
I don't think I'm going to use that one.
No!
No, Tom, look at the word.
Yeah, I think it's got to either be
Actually, the more I think about it,
the best revenge is to not be like that.
Is honestly, if I type that in
lowercase into Slack, that looks
like a message I might actually
send, as opposed to everything
else here, which sounds like Yeah.
Yeah, so that may well be
the one I end up deploying.
There'll be points for
style, I see, okay, yeah.
Yeah.
Okay, fair enough.
Consider that.
We'll see who wins on our next episode.
Alright.
Okay.
Bye bye.
See you then.
Bye.