August 28th - What luxuries can I practice not needing?

August - Pragmatism

August 28th

The Opulent Stoic

“The founder of the universe, who assigned to us the laws of life, provided that we should live well, but not in luxury. Everything needed for our well-being is right before us, whereas what luxury requires is gathered by many miseries and anxieties. Let us use this gift of nature and count it among the greatest things.”

—Seneca, Moral Letters, 119.15b

Even in his own time, Seneca was criticized for preaching Stoic virtues while accumulating one of the largest fortunes in Rome. Seneca was so rich that some historians speculate that major loans he made to the inhabitants of what is now Britain caused what became a horrifically brutal uprising there. His critics’ derisive nickname for him was “The Opulent Stoic.”

Seneca’s response to this criticism is pretty simple: he might have wealth, but he didn’t need it. He wasn’t dependent on it or addicted to it. Nor, despite his large bank account, was he considered to be anything close to Rome’s most lavish spenders and pleasure hunters. Whether his rationalization was true or not (or whether he was a tad hypocritical), his is a decent prescription for navigating today’s materialistic and wealth-driven society.

This is the pragmatic instead of the moralistic approach to wealth. We can still live well without becoming slaves to luxury. And we don’t need to make decisions that force us to continue to work and work and work and drift further from study and contemplation in order to get more money to pay for the things we don’t need. There is no rule that says financial success must mean that you live beyond your means. Remember: humans can be happy with very little.

WEEK XXXV (35) - A Cure For Procrastination

25th to 31st August

To the Stoic, procrastination almost looks like a form of delusion and entitlement. Who is to say you’ll even be around next month or next week to deal with it? If it’s important, they’d say, don’t wait. Do it now. As Marcus says, if it needs to be done, do it with “courage and promptness.” Procrastination seems like it makes things easier, but it damns us to a low-grade, gnawing state of anxiety. Is that how you’d want to spend this week? Any week? Your last week? Ask yourself: What am I avoiding? What can I handle today instead of tomorrow? What can I do promptly and bravely, right now?

“Anything that must yet be done, virtue can do with courage and promptness. For anyone would call it a sign of foolishness for one to undertake a task with a lazy and begrudging spirit, or to push the body in one direction and the mind in another, to be torn apart by wildly divergent impulses.”

—Seneca, Moral Letters, 31.B-32

“This is the mark of perfection of character—to spend each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, laziness, or any pretending.”

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.69

“You get what you deserve. Instead of being a good person today, you choose instead to become one tomorrow.”

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 8.22

Stoic Guidance - Cardinal Virtues

If we were to describe Stoicism in one sentence, it would be this: A Stoic believes they don’t control the world around them, only how they respond—and that they must always respond with courage, temperance, wisdom, and justice.

Summary of Daily Stoic 4 Stoic Virtues.

Wisdom

“The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own”

—Epictetus

Wisdom is harnessing what the philosophy teaches then wielding it in the real world. As Seneca put it, “Works not words.”

Temperance / Self-Control / Moderation / Discipline

“‘If you seek tranquillity, do less.’ Or (more accurately) do what’s essential—what the logos of a social being requires, and in the requisite way. Which brings a double satisfaction: to do less, better. Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, ‘Is this necessary?’”

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 4.24

Temperance is the knowledge that abundance comes from having what is essential. The Stoics often used temperance interchangeably with “self-control.” Self-control, not just towards material goods, but self-control, harmony, and good discipline always—in pleasure or pain, admiration or contempt, failure or triumph. Temperance is guarded against extremes, not relying on the fleetingness of pleasure for happiness nor allowing the fleetingness of pain to destroy it.

Justice

“And a commitment to justice in your own acts. Which means: thought and action resulting in the common good. What you were born to do.”

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 9.31

Justice is “the principle which constitutes the bond of human society and of a virtual community of life.”

Epictetus said, “Seeking the very best in ourselves means actively caring for the welfare of other human beings.”

Courage

“Don’t you know life is like a military campaign? One must serve on watch, another in reconnaissance, another on the front line. . . . So it is for us—each person’s life is a kind of battle, and a long and varied one too. You must keep watch like a soldier and do everything commanded. . . . You have been stationed in a key post, not some lowly place, and not for a short time but for life.”

—Epictetus, Discourses, 3.24.31-36

Epictetus was once asked which words would help a person thrive. “Two words should be committed to memory and obeyed,” he said, “persist and resist.”

Courage to face misfortune. Courage to face death. Courage to risk yourself for the sake of your fellow man. Courage to hold to your principles, even when others get away with or are rewarded for disregarding theirs. Courage to speak your mind and insist on truth.