There’s Two Ways It Goes Now | Do Not Be Deceived By Fortune

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0:56There's two ways it goes now. As Caesar overwhelmed and dismantled the Roman Republic, the Romans faced an impossible choice. Neither option was good, but it was all they had. They could allow it to happen, except the bridal, as Plutarch put it, and with some humiliation, hold on to their estates, their status, and their lives. Or they could resist, desperately, hopelessly, against overwhelming odds. It's like the lyrics to the Mount Joy song. And by the way, we had a great conversation with the lead singer, Matt Quinn, on the podcast who came by the studio not long ago. It's one of my favorite verses.

1:34Let me play it for you real fast.

1:54Cicero chose to go quietly along. Cato refused. Both were powerless to stop what was already in motion. Caesar was too strong, the republic had already fallen. But Cato's resistance, even at the cost of his own life, made a lasting statement. It was a declaration about freedom and principle so powerful that it inspired the founding fathers of the United States 1 ,700 years later when they built a new nation around those same ideals. A Stoic doesn't always win, but they never go quietly along. They don't default to convenience or comfort. Whether it's standing against corruption in the workplace or resistant injustices in society, a Stoic speaks out.

2:36They act with courage and conviction, not just for themselves but for the principles they believe in and for the generations who come after them. As the Mount Joy lyrics suggest, there is always a choice to let the flame burn out or to keep the fire alive. That's what a Stoic does. They fight to keep the light from going out, to preserve what matters. Because the Republic, literal or metaphorical matters, and what you stand for, what you believe in matters. It's worth the fight. It's actually funny. We had Matt Quinn on from Mount Troy pretty early on when the band was small, but I was a big fan.

3:18That was a remote one. And then he was going to be in town two years later and they are selling out the Moody Center. How incredible is that? What a cool arc. Anyways, I think the themes of today's email are obviously pretty relevant to what is happening in the world now, unfortunately. And obviously, these are some themes I explore in Courage is Calling and in Right Thing Right Now. So check some of those things out and do enjoy the interview.

3:49you. We just took our kids to an outdoor performance at the Nutcracker. They had a snow cone and then they went insane in the car ride home. And one of the things I try to remind myself when that's happening is that I don't control my kids' behavior, especially when they're too far gone like that, but I do control how I respond, right? That's stoicism, but it's also what Dr. Becky talks about. Dr. Becky is a clinical psychologist and a best-selling author, and she founded Good Inside, which is there to give parents practical, actionable tools for handling those everyday challenges with confidence.

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6:52Do not be deceived by fortune. This is the September 8th entry in the Daily Stoic. And our quote today comes to us from Seneca in his letter on consolation to Helvia. That's his mother. It's a beautiful essay. You can read it on the shortness of life, one of my favorite little collections of Seneca's writings. But we'll get to the quote now. He says, no one is crushed by fortune unless they are first deceived by her. Those who aren't pompous in good times don't have their bubbles burst with change. Against either circumstance, the stable person keeps their rational soul invincible. for it's precisely in the good times that they prove their strength against adversity.

7:34In 41 AD, Seneca was exiled from Rome to Corsica. For what exactly, we're not sure, but the rumors were that he had an affair with the sister of the emperor. Shortly thereafter, he sent a letter to his mother seeking to reassure her and comfort her in her grief, her grief being that she missed her son. But in many ways, he must have been speaking to himself as well, scolding himself a little. for this unexpected twist he was taking pretty hard. He had managed to achieve some measure of political and social success. Maybe he chased some pleasures of the flesh, but now he and his family were dealing with the consequences, as we all must bear for our behavior and the risks we take.

8:15How would he respond? How would he deal with it? What the very least, his instincts were to comfort his mother instead of simply bemoaning his suffering. Though some other letters show that Seneca begged and lobbied for his return to Rome, and to power, a request that was eventually granted. He does seem to have borne the pain and disgrace of exile fairly well. The philosophy that he'd long studied prepared him for this kind of adversity and gave him the determination and patience he needed to wait it out. When he found his fortune restored as he returned to power, philosophy prevented him from taking it for granted or becoming dependent on it.

8:52This was good because fortune had another turn in store for him. When the new emperor turned his wrath on Seneca, philosophy found him ready and prepared once again. It's a tension, right? Seneca says we suffer more in imagination than in reality. You don't want to just be thinking of all the terrible things that could happen. You don't want to be biting your nails in anticipation of this or that. And yet, if you are naive, if you trust in fortune, you are setting yourself up for pain. He says, never forget of fortune's habits of behaving exactly as she pleases. As we become successful, as we get things, we start to go, this is how it should be.

9:29I earned this. I made this. It's mine. And maybe a lot of that is true. You're not the ultimate decider. Something can take that from you. Unfairness can take it from you. Injustice can take it from you. Tragedy can take it from you. The emperor can take it from you. So if you are deceived by fortune, that this is yours now, that this is the new normal, that this is stable, you have bought into an illusion and that you can be disabused of that illusion at any moment. How painful will that disillusion be? My favorite line is an invisible man. It says, how does it feel to be free of illusion? It's painful and empty.

10:06When we build our lives around these illusions, around the sense that this is how it should be, all is right in the world, you are begging. You are begging for life to visit some humility upon you. So we have to be careful. We have to be aware. We have to practice. We have to prepare. We have to train. We can't take any of it for granted. None of it is nearly as stable as it appears. That's what Seneca realized, not just at this exile, but early on his life when tuberculosis sent him to Egypt to convalesce. Nero turned to be insane. That's what life does. It reminds us. It doesn't go the way we want it.

10:43And I think it's problematic how often we say things like, this is unprecedented. This is not normal. This has never happened. This has always happened. This is always how it's going to be. Normal is crazy. Normal is chaos. Normal is sudden reversal. I was just reading Morgan Housel's The Psychology of Money, and he has this line in there, unexpected things happen all the time, or things that have never happened before happen all the time. That's the wisdom of what Seneca is trying to say there. That's what we prepare for, train in this philosophy for, is to be ready for precisely those kind of events.

11:19So imagine, again, and if you haven't read On the Shortness of Life, pick up the copy there in The Painted Porch, if you could. I'll link to it in today's episode. There's something sweet about the fact that Seneca is the one exiled, but he's writing the consolation to his mother. It's not his mother saying, you got this, kiddo. It'll be all right. He's saying, mom, I'm okay. It's going to be all right. He's comforting the people who are grieving and missing him. that's what this discipline of philosophy can be that's what Seneca practiced for and that's what we're working towards I'll leave that here today self-control, that's what Seneca was embodying there in his stoic, lowercase stoic handling of the terrible injustice dealt to him

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