The Trouble Of Too Many Opinions | Ask DS

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2:11The trouble of too many opinions. It goes without saying that the man has changed the world for the better. He's reinvigorated the American space program. He's popularized electric cars. His solar panels cover the roofs of countless homes. his batteries save electricity for emergencies, taking pressure off overwhelmed grids. And this is to say nothing of the payments company, which has processed billions of payments for things we've all bought. Yet these days, the reputation of Elon Musk is not what it once was. The brilliant and disruptive entrepreneur has, in a relatively short span, managed to upset not only many of his supporters and fanboys, but also upset many of the people who were excited about his acquisition of Twitter.

2:54He's gotten into petty fights, insulted disabled employees, spread misinformation and propaganda. He's attacked journalists, gave preposterously bad takes on current events, weighed in on people's private medical decisions, and like a lot of people, been sucked into the culture wars. This was perhaps inevitable because the social network he owns is itself a violation of a timeless stoic principle, one that we actually reminded Elon of directly recently, When he responded to a Daily Stoke tweet about what's in your control and what's not in your control, and he said, I mean, one does control what happens a little.

3:31And we said, a related Marcus Aurelius quote that might be of use, though probably bad for Twitter, you always have the option of having no opinion. Marcus Aurelius, as a leader, understood that the more opinions one has, the more likely they are to cause unnecessary conflict at home or in the world. Having strong opinions about how your children should live their lives, weighing in on every piece of gossip or news, especially before these matters are settled, publicly airing your disagreements with employees or subordinates, this is a recipe for misery and also chaos and also exhaustion. This isn't to say that a Stoic has no opinions.

4:15That's not only impossible, but also far too disengaged for an active participant in the world. It's that the Stoic ignores what doesn't matter, what is largely outside of their control, so they can focus solely on what does matter, where they can have impact, what their unique talent and resources suit them for.

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5:40Hi, good morning. Lieutenant Colonel Nick McCurrier on the commandment of the 316 Security Support Squadron. Sir, are you familiar with the concept of moral injury as popularized by Dr. Sherman at Georgetown? Yeah, and Dr. Sherman is great and a fascinating professor and scholar of stoicism. She wrote a book called Stoic Warriors, right? Yes. Which is just fascinating. Yes, go ahead. So with that concept in mind, the concept of moral injuries is sort of a hazard of our profession. Do you have some thoughts on, if those of us have experienced it, if combat or non-combat related, how do you locate that experience within the broader tapestry of your life?

6:26Yeah, I think this also pertains to what we were just talking about, sort of processing one's emotions, right? So if one feels things or one experiences something, one has questions about something and we tell ourselves, that's uncomfortable, that's dark, I don't like it, I feel bad about it, we stuff that down. I think it tends to come exploding out. this is true not just in your work lives but this is true issues from our childhood issues in our marriage, things we go through, we don't deal with those we don't process those things it metastasizes the effects of it compound and I think that's the that is the problem with the image of the stoic warrior which is like I do this stuff, this is who I am I'm the professional and so I'm not feeling it.

7:17You are feeling it. There's another great book, I'm forgetting the author's name, it's Dutch, I think, but it's called The Body Keeps Score. And basically the idea is that we're feeling these things. We feel deeply our body sort of tracks all the things that happened to us, you know, from the moment we're born. And this idea that even if you're not feeling it, even if you're not dealing with it, the consequences are there. So obviously therapy is a part of this. Relationships are a part of this. Sharing, connecting with others is a big part of this. Which I think we have to understand as being part of the stoic experience.

7:57Seneca is a fascinating figure. You know, he's this philosopher, he's a politician, and then he gets assigned a tour of duty that ends up being pretty rough. He's brought back from exile, which would have been a traumatic experience in and of itself is sort of exiled these trumped up charges. He's brought back and they say, you know, you come back to Rome, but your job is you've got to tutor this young kid who will one day become emperor. And that kid is Nero. So he basically has the worst boss of all time. And he is wrapped up in this administration that is corrupt and violent and terrifying and probably wakes up every day and he goes, is this the day that I get killed, right?

8:42And some of Seneca's most beautiful works are actually not his philosophical works, but these plays that he writes, and they're these dark, disturbing plays. And I'm forgetting who I talked to about this, but there's a great playwright who's put on some of Seneca's plays. He basically looked at Seneca's plays as Seneca's way of processing the world injury that he went through. he's fictionalizing his experience creating an artistic outlet for that experience because he can't just come out and say Nero's a psychopath, what are we going to do about this guy he's having to find a way to experience this and in ancient Greece and Rome for all men most of whom had to participate in the military life at that time the theater was a way of processing this moral injury.

9:41I think it's Euripides and then Aeschylus too both fight in the Persian Wars. And their plays, their art that they do is seen now through the light of our sort of modern understanding of these ideas as a way of processing and working through these experiences. So I don't have a great answer for you other than have to deal with it. We have to find our own way through that experience. But the idea of being the stoic word doesn't feel that thing, I think, is to miss the point. One of my favorite passages in Marcus Aurelius' meditations, one of the few passages where he deals with his sort of military experience directly, he says, we're like soldiers storming a wall.

10:28He says, if you fall, he says, and you need to reach up to a comrade for help, he says, so what? His point is asking for help is not only not something to be ashamed of, it's so normal to him. It's so part of what being a stoic philosopher is. He's shrugging at it, but he's clearly not shrugging at it because he's having to remind himself that this is natural and normal and he should be able to do it. There's a book I read to my kids many, many times. It's this great sort of little allegory. It's called The Boy, the Fox, the Horse, and the Mole. And there's a scene in it that I've tried to talk to them about a number of times.

11:15But anyway, the horse says something like, asking for help isn't giving up. Asking for help is refusing to give up. And again, if we think about these ideas of asking for help, processing things, seeking our resources, I think it's really important that we see that not as sort of cowardly in some way, but actually as the final sort of act of courage or the final act of fortitude or strength to be like, I'm struggling with this, my body has kept score on this, I need to ask for help, I need to get help. I think that's a really important way to think about this stoke philosophy? Good morning. Hi.

11:58So, about a month or two ago, I think I saw one of the daily basis grab emails that talked about we've become a society that tends to overshare. So, if I'm misrepresented, please correct me 100%. But then I thought about, as I identify with that, I feel more introverted in your previous definition of what we think of the lower case stoic. Yes. So, but then I also reflected, like, I think I'm that guy now that I tell people too much. I'm not on social media, but things just start to flow. So I'm kind of curious on your thoughts on why we become a society that typically is introverted, has our heads down and have devices, but we like to share so much about our feelings and our personal lives.

12:34I've got no problem sharing feelings. I think what I was talking about there was your basic boundaries. and I think what happened is social media sort of comes along and says how can I get you to say every emotional thing that you feel as you are feeling it, right? So there's a difference between saying I'm struggling with this or this is what's going on with me and in the moment when you're frustrated with someone or something expressing that opinion for the permanent record, right? We see this in sports Two athletes on the same team are struggling with each other. They go back to the locker room and the other one is tweeting about how he's done with the team or frustrated with so-and-so.

13:17This isn't how... That is oversharing, not sitting down with that person and talking to them about the conflict between those two people. So I think we live in a social media-driven culture that the economics and the algorithms of those networks depend on us sharing every thought that we have as we're having it. And the smartest people in the world spend a lot of time and energy to make that very addictive, very hard to not do. So I think there's a difference between oversharing every thought that pops into your head or things that are best discussed privately amongst people who know each other and sort of opining on everything as it's happening.

14:08I think we even see this, you know, not just in politics, but every sort of confirmed confirmation hearing where, you know, the senators have clearly pulled up every tweet this person has ever thought or ever said, and then they're just sort of forcing them in. Six years ago, you said X, And how many of those things did that person think, you know, how is this going to age over time? Is this really something that I need to opine about? There's a great line in Meditations also where Marcus says, you always have the power of having no opinion, right? Or you can have the opinion, but you don't have to tweet the opinion.

14:51And I think when we see the costs of, you know, sort of popping off or in the heat of the moment, you know, opining about this or that, That's kind of, I think, what we mean about oversharing. That's a great question.

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