The Terror of Knowing What The World Is About | Try The Other Handle

0:00Ryan Holiday: Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

0:14Ryan Holiday: The terror of knowing what the world is about. There is a burden to the study of history. It not only takes a lot of work, it's heavy. Knowing what people have done to each other, knowing what they do to each other, making sense of the contradictions, the failures, the stupidity, does not exactly fill one with hope for humanity. And perhaps this explains some of the weariness in Marcus Aurelius' meditations. Marcus was not just a student of history, but an aspiring historian, even working on at one point a little book called Deeds of the Ancient Greeks and Romans. He knew that history was so often the same thing happening over and over again.

0:54Ryan Holiday: He knew it was cruelty and awfulness. It was bloody and pathetic. There is no escaping the terror of knowing what the world is about, except perhaps not knowing. And ignorance, however soothing, is unfortunately a vice. It is a violation of our responsibility to seek wisdom. And it is also a childish luxury that people involved in public life do not get to indulge. So yes, you will have to face facts. you will have to get uncomfortable. You will have to take up the burden of history. And this will not always be fun. It will strip you of some of your illusions. It will also, it should be said, make you stronger and wiser and ultimately more just.

1:37Ryan Holiday: It will make you great, as it did for Marcus Aurelius, who despite his understanding of the world, still strove to be good and decent, refused to give in to despair or cynicism, and did his damnedest to be the exception to history's rules.

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4:09Try the other handle. Epictetus offered a powerful tool in his handbook, the Enchiridion, which the Stoics use as an exercise in decision-making about difficult events. Everything, Epictetus says, has two interpretations or handles by which it can be grabbed. One that will make it harder, one that will make it easier. Do you take offense or do you focus on a common ground? Do you focus on all that's gone wrong or what has gone right? Ask yourself these questions about everything you see and feel. Try to always grab the right handle. That's from this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal, 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living, which you can get anywhere books are sold, including, of course, my bookstore, The Painted Porch, which you can check out at thepaintedporch.com or come see us on Main Street in Bastard, Texas.

4:59Let's listen to Epictetus drill down on this. Every event has two handles. He says, one by which it can be carried and one by which it can't. If your brother does you wrong, don't grab it by its wrongdoing because this is the handle incapable of lifting it. Instead, use the other, that he is your brother, that you were raised together. And then you have hold of the handle that it carries. This is Epictetus in Coridian 43. And then he says in Discourses 4.1, No, it is events that give rise to fear. when another has power over them or can prevent it, that a person becomes able to inspire fear. How is the fortress destroyed?

5:35Not by iron or fire, but by judgments. And it is here that we must begin. And it is from this front that we must seize the fortress and throw out the tyrants. So this idea of grabbing things by the handle, in fact, there's this interesting list, you can Google it. Thomas Jefferson wrote a bunch of rules for one of his young relatives. and he says somewhat elusively, he says, you know, always grab things by their smooth handle. And I think it was Donald Robertson who pointed out to me that he's referring to Epictetus grabbing by the right handle. Instead of the rough handle, grab the smooth handle.

6:06The point being, stuff happens. Are you going to try to say this was done to me? Or are you going to say this is done for me? Are you going to say, look at all I've lost? Are you going to say, look at all I've gained? As Epictetus says, you're going to say, look at my brother. What did he do? What an asshole? Are you going to say, this is my brother. I love him. He would never hurt me on purpose. You grab the handle that makes you stronger, the one that gives you agency, not the one that strips you of agency. You grab the one that gives you hope, not the one that strips you of hope. You grab the one that gives you a path forward, not the one that freezes you hopelessly in place.

6:41What's the right handle? That's what we're thinking about. And every situation has a handle. And are you going to get mad? Are you going to use it as an opportunity? I think about this with my kids. They do something. Am I going to lose my temper and show them that I lose my temper and that they should be afraid of me or that they should hide things from me? Or am I going to use it as a chance to talk to them, to teach them something? Famously, the story of George Washington and the cherry trees teaching this lesson. His father catches him chopping down the cherry tree. He asks who does it. George Washington tells the truth.

7:09His father could be angry. He just has a confession from his son that he chopped down a priceless cherry tree. Instead, the moral of the story is, I'm glad that you told me the truth. and you can trust me, I'm not going to punish you for having told me the truth. I'd rather you chop down my trees than tell a lie, right? What handle are you going to choose as a parent, as a teacher, as a boss? By grabbing the right handle versus the wrong handle, are you making the relationship stronger, better, based on trust, based on aligned incentives, based on shared history? Or by grabbing the wrong handle, are you showing them to lie?

7:45Are you showing them to hide things? Are you showing them that you should be feared, that you should be ignored, that you can't be taken seriously, that you're not really their ally or friend, right? The handle we choose matters. Even Epictetus, you've got to imagine, he's trapped in slavery. It's horrible. He spends the first 30 years of his life that way. Does he choose to see this as the worst thing that could have possibly happened or does he learn from it? Even the so-called Stockdale paradox. I knew that I would survive. He says, if I did, I would turn this into the very best thing that happened to me.

8:16that's choosing to grab the right handle. That's choosing to grab the smooth handle, which is what you must do, which is what we must all do in any and all situations. Talk soon.

8:26Ryan Holiday: Hey there, just a heads up. I'm going to be on tour this summer and fall. You can come see me in San Francisco and Portland in June. You can see me in Australia and New Zealand in October, in August. I'm mixing my months up here, but in August, you can see me in Chicago and Minneapolis Minneapolis and Detroit. Then I'll be on the East Coast sometime in November and December. Anyways, grab tickets to that, dailystoiclive.com. I hope to see you there.