Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. You were unsuspecting, not unwarned. It was out of the blue. It caught you off guard. It hurt you. It took some time for you to get your wits back around you to make sense of it all, to bounce back.
That's not to say you're blameless here. In fact, you had plenty of warning. Haven't you read a history book or a memoir? These things happen to people, and they've been happening for thousands of years. Did you think you were special or exempt? To quote the Noah Kahn lyrics, you might have been unsuspecting, but you were not unwarned. The Stoics warned you many times, in fact. Always take full note of fortune's habit of behaving just as she pleases, Seneca wrote wisely, treating her as if she were actually going to do everything it is in her power to do.
Just because it caught you by surprise, just because you weren't expecting it, just because it wasn't what you wanted, doesn't mean it happened out of the blue. It doesn't mean it was unusual. It doesn't mean it was unfair. You were warned and you are being warned again. Things happen. Things are going to happen to you. Be ready. Be prepared. Deal with it.
Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to The Daily Stoic Podcast. We've talked about Epictetus here quite a bit, but Epictetus is fascinating because unlike all the other Stoics, he actually experienced profound and real adversity without any of the privileges that would have balanced out the life of Marcus Aurelius or Seneca or Cato, right? He's born a slave. He spends 30 years in slavery. In fact, even his name, Epictetus, it means acquired. Like this dude doesn't even get his own name. Now, Epictetus doesn't write anything down as far as we know. Epictetus that we're going to hear from today, even the Epictetus that Marcus Aurelius quotes in his meditations.
is coming to us from lecture notes from his students. Was Marcus's from his philosophy teacher Rusticus? Are these Rusticus's notes? Or is Rusticus himself just handing Marcus Aurelius the notes from Arian, who also writes a fascinating book about Alexander the Great, who was a favorite of Hadrian, the emperor? Anyways, that's why Epictetus's work is called The Discourses, because it's the lecture notes. It's what Epictetus is talking about in his philosophy school in Nicopolis in Greece, the early second century AD. And there's a bunch of different translations. I like the Panic Classics translation. In today's episode, we're reading one from an older translation. This is going to be read to us by Michael Reed. But Epictetus starts...
at the beginning, right? He says, this is about what's in our control and what isn't, how to make use of what's in our power and treat the rest as something we accept, something we put up with, something we come to terms with, something we find out how to use, how to be made better for having gone through, which is all the more poignant, again, when you think about what Epictetus went through in his life, the things he had to come to terms with, things he had to accept. You know, he's not being glib about, he's not talking about being stuck in traffic, right? He's talking about... his lame leg, which was broken by a cruel slave master. He's talking about the years of his life that were stolen. He's talking about the injustices of the society that he lives in, which came down so hard on him. So I wanted to bring you some thoughts directly from Epictetus himself, although not direct. Epictetus gives his lectures, Arian, and other students write them down. Then these get translated and translated and translated, and then they're read. And then this excerpt from book one of Epictetus' Discourses is brought to you by Daily Stoic and Michael Reed. I hope this is a little intro into the one and only Epictetus.
Book one concerning what is in our power and what is not. In general, you will find no art or faculty that can analyze itself. Therefore, none that can approve or disapprove of itself. The art of grammar is restricted to analyzing and commenting on literature. Music is conned to the analysis of harmony.
Consequently, neither of them analyzes itself. Now, if you're writing to a friend, the art of grammar will help you decide what words to use, but it will not tell you whether it is a good idea to write to your friend in the first place. Music is no different. Whether this is a good time to sing and play or a bad one, the art of music by itself cannot decide. So what can? The faculty that analyzes itself as well as the others, namely the faculty of reason.
Reason is unique among the faculties assigned to us in being able to evaluate itself, what it is, what it is capable of, how valuable it is, in addition to passing judgment on others. What decides whether a sum of money is good? The money is not going to tell you. It must be the faculty that makes use of such impressions. Reason. Reason, in addition, takes the measure of music, grammar, and the other arts, judging their benet, and deciding when it's best to use them.
So it's only appropriate that the gods have given us the best and most eccacious gift, the ability to make good use of impressions. Other capacities, they did not put in our power. Was it because they did not want to? Personally, I believe that they would have endowed us with those others too, had they been able. But they were not. Since we are on Earth, you see, bound to a material body and material things, we can hardly avoid being limited by these extraneous factors. Well, what does Zeus say?
Epictetus, if it were possible, I would have made your little body and possessions both free and unrestricted. As it is, though, make no mistake, this body does not belong to you. It is only cunningly constructed clay. And since I could not make the body yours, I have given you a portion of myself instead. The power of positive and negative impulse, of desire and aversion. The power, in other words, of making good use of impressions.
If you take care of it and identify with it, you will never be blocked or frustrated. You won't have to complain and never will need to blame or alter anyone. Is that enough to satisfy you? It's more than enough, thank you. And yet, while there is only the one thing we can care for and devote ourselves to, we choose instead to care about and attach ourselves to a score of others, to our bodies, to our property, to our family, friends, and slaves.
And, being attached to many things, we are weighed down and dragged along with them. If the weather keeps us from traveling, we sit down, fret, and keep asking, which way is the wind blowing? From the north? That's no good. When will it blow from the west? When it wants to. Or rather, when Aeolus wants it to. Because God put Aeolus in charge of the winds, not you. What should we do then? Make the best use of what is in our power, and treat the rest in accordance with its nature. And what is its nature?
However God decides, must I be beheaded now and alone? Well, do you want everyone to be beheaded just because misery loves company? Why not hold out your neck the way Lateranus did in Rome when condemned by Nero to be beheaded? He held out his neck willingly to take the blow, but the blow was decent, so he recoiled a bit, but then had enough self-command to offer his neck a second time. The grounds of his conspiracy, he replied, if I want anything, I will tell it to your master.
I refuse, as this is up to me. I will put you in chains. What's that you say, friend? It's only my leg you will chain. Not even God can conquer my will. I will throw you in prison. Correction. It is my body you will throw there. I will behead you. Well, when did I ever claim that mine was the only neck that couldn't be severed? That's the kind of attitude you need to cultivate if you would be a philosopher. The sort of sentiments you should write down every day and put in practice. Brazia used to say, I would sooner be killed today than banished tomorrow. And what did Musonius say to him?
If you choose death because it is the greater evil, what sense is there in that? Or if you choose it as the lesser evil, remember who gave you the choice. Why not try coming to terms with what you have been given? Agrippinus used to say, I don't add to my troubles. To illustrate, someone once said to him, you are being tried in the Senate. Good luck. But it was 11 in the morning, and at that hour, he was in the habit of taking his bath and exercise. Let us be to exercise.
When he was done, word came that he had been condemned. To exile, he asked, or death? Exile. In my estate? What about that? It has not been confiscated. Well then, let us go to my villa in Orisha and have lunch there. This shows what is possible when we practice what is necessary and make our desire and aversion safe against any setback or adversity. I have to die. If it is now, well then I die now. If later, then now I will take my lunch, since the hour for lunch has arrived.
And dying, I will tend to later. How? As someone who knows that you have to return what belongs to somebody else. It would be wonderful if Epictetus was as popular as Mark's realist, but he simply is not. And he's intimidating to people and therefore a little bit more obscure. Well, we wanted to solve that. And that's what we're doing with our How to Read Epictetus, a daily Stoic digital guide. We're diving all into it. And we're gonna be doing a live Q&A call about it with thousands of other Stoics all over the world. I'd love to see you in there on August 27th, but that means you got to sign up by the 26th. You can get a copy of Discourses for 50% off. As I said, his work changed my life. I think it'll change your life. I can't wait to see you in there. Just go to dailystoic.com.
Epictetus to find out more and we'll get into it. Talk soon.