To The End They Remain | Watch Over Your Perceptions

0:05Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, where each day we bring you a Stoic inspired meditation designed to help you find strength and insight and wisdom into everyday life. Each one of these episodes is based on the 2 ,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women, to help you learn from them, to follow in their example, and to start your day off with a little dose of courage and discipline and justice and wisdom. For more, visit dailystoic.com.

1:09lecture, they are dead, long, long dead. Even their graves are lost to us. Much of their writing, even the details of their life have been lost to the centuries. And yet, do they not feel real to us? Do they not still inspire and speak to us? Will they not continue to do so as long as there are people, as long as the world remains unpredictable, capricious, difficult, and painful? In a way, the Stoics and their insights are not unlike the beautiful sentiment in Lawrence Binion's World War I poem. As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust, moving in marches upon the heavenly plain, as the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness, to the end they remain.

1:53Marcus Aurelius wrote of imagining ourselves among the stars and running alongside them. Zeno was told as a young man that the secret to life was to have conversations with the dead. Today, all these centuries later, the Stoics remain bright. They lighten up our darkness and guide us through the night. They endure because truth and wisdom, when deeply rooted in the human experience, are timeless. Shining is a steady beacon for those who seek to navigate the trials of life with courage, clarity, and virtue. Thanks to Toyota Trucks for sponsoring this episode. When I bought my ranch in 2015 out here in Bastro County, I drove my car about halfway down the dirt road that we live on, thought this isn't going to work, stopped, parked it, walked the rest of the way home, borrowed my wife's car, drove into Austin and bought a truck.

2:43What I bought was a Toyota Tacoma. And this truck wasn't just transportation getting me to and from my house. It unlocked a whole different style of living for us, not just on the ranch, but in our little Texas towns. There were places I could go now that I couldn't go before, especially out here in the piney forests, through the fields, and on the unpaved roads like the one that I lived in. We got to go deep into the hill country's wild beauty. We've driven all the way out to East Texas. We've driven across the country. And by we, I mean not just my wife, but both my kids who I drove home from the hospital in that truck.

3:25Toyota trucks are built for those who understand that the best adventures happen when you're willing to veer off course, because you never know when you'll end up on a Toyota adventure detour. And of course, this is stoicism, too, because every detour, every obstacle is an opportunity. But it's helpful if you can handle the difficulty inherent in that. If you've got the resilience and the right companion to make it wherever the road takes you, discover your uncharted territory. Learn more at toyota.com slash trucks slash adventure dash detours.

4:06Watch over your perceptions. This is from this week's entry in the Daily Stoic Journal, 366 Days of Writing and Reflection on the Art of Living by yours truly and my wonderful collaborator, Stephen Hanselman, who I also worked on The Daily Stoic with. Today's entry, every moment brings a flood of impressions of the world around us, and our minds are filled with the perceptions that arise with them. The Stoics teach us that we must keep a constant watch over this flood, as if we are standing guard to protect something of vital importance. What is it that we are protecting? Our peace of mind, clarity, and freedom, all of which are anchored in our perceptions.

4:49Epictetus reminds us that we need to pay attention to what matters and learn how to ignore so many of the relentless provocations that come our way. That's from the Daily Stoke Journal, obviously. And here we have Epictetus telling us, Keep constant guard over your perceptions, for it is no small thing you are protecting, but your respect, trustworthiness, and steadiness, peace of mind, freedom from pain and fear. In a word, your freedom. For what would you sell these things? Epictetus' discourses. An important place to begin philosophy is this, a clear perception of one's own ruling principle.

5:29That's Epictetus' discourses as well. I don't agree with those who plunge headlong into the middle of the flood and who, accepting a turbulent life, struggle daily in great spirit with difficult circumstances. The wise person will endure that, but won't choose it, choosing to be at peace rather than at war. Seneca, Moral Letters, 28. It's tricky, right? I mean, the Stoics ask us to be active, they ask us to be involved, they ask us to be engaged, and then somehow they expect us to be at peace, to not be bothered by what's happening in the world. That's the tricky thing, right? Like, you can go off in your cave, right?

6:11You can go on your 10-day meditation retreat and get some semblance of peace or stillness. The tricky thing, and this is what I was trying to write in that book as well, the tricky thing is to find peace now within yourself while engaged, while fully aware of what's happening in the world. What you don't know about, what you tune out, what you pretend doesn't exist, it's easy not to be bothered by. But the key to Stoicism is finding the ability, the strength to have that peace and stillness despite everything that's happening. I hope in stillness is the key with the story of Seneca trying to write a letter to Lucilius, and he's in this noisy apartment in Rome.

6:53And he's saying, look, I didn't choose this. I had to do it. That's the cost of what his philosophy is demanding to him. The Epicureans said, hey, go flee to the garden. Seneca has to be engaged. He has to live in the city, has to be involved. But can he find peace within that? And he says, you can find peace. You can become, as Marcus Aurelius talked about, the rock that the waves are crashing over, but eventually become still around. And we do this by keeping guard over our perceptions, as Epictetus is saying. It's knowing what to care about and what not to care about. I've had Mark Manson on the podcast before.

7:29The subtle art of not giving a fuck is not caring about anything. It's about finding the right things to care about and things not to care about. So that sort of discernment is really essential to managing our emotions and our perceptions, which is the theme in the journal this month. As we say, every moment brings a flood of impressions, a flood of news, a flood of interruptions, a flood of things that we're called to have opinions about, to react to, that are vying for our attention. And our ability to stand guard against this, to let the good things in, to keep the bad things out. That's the key.

8:05That's the struggle. That's the fight that we're all engaged in. So, you know, even me, obviously, I live out in the country a little bit. I live the life of a writer, which allows me, you know, some shelter from the craziness of, you know, a person who has to commute into a, you know, a major city and work in an office with dozens of other people or hundreds of other people and TVs blaring and phone calls and meetings. And yet even there, even amidst my sort of privileged situation, I have to decide what to let in and what not to let in. You know, what role does the phone play in your life? What role does, you know, your colleagues or your partners play in your life?

8:45You know, how disciplined are you about staying on task while you're in it? How long are you able to maintain your focus on what matters? Even if nothing's going on, are you, is your mind the enemy of itself? Are you drawing yourself towards here? Are you drifting? Are you daydreaming? How to stay focused, how to concentrate like a Roman, as Marcus said, that's the most important thing. And so having a clear perception about our own mind, our own limitations, our own temptations, this is really the key. That's what we're working on here. That's what I want you to think about today and this week.

9:18Remember, keep constant guard over your perceptions for it's no small thing you are protecting. You're protecting your respect, your trustworthiness, your steadiness, your peace of mind, freedom from pain and fear. In a word, what you're protecting is your freedom.

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