What Can You Notice?

0:00Ryan Holiday: So I am recording this in an Airbnb. I'm out doing a little speaking gig and didn't stay in a hotel, stayed in an Airbnb. And let me say, this place is pretty dated. I'm sure it was fancy and cool when it came out, but it's got a lot of old wood stuff. It needs a refresh. And maybe your house needs a little refresh. If you want to upgrade your space with quality pieces that work within your budget, plus enjoy fast shipping and easy assembly options, well, you should check out Wayfair because Wayfair makes it easy to find exactly what fits your style and needs. Wayfair makes it simple to narrow down to exactly what works with your style and budget.

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1:12Ryan Holiday: Shopping at Whole Foods is one of the things I do in our family. The grocery shopping is my job, so I was glad to be able to do that even on vacation. And then, you know, being here in Hawaii, it was the same Whole Foods experience we're thinking about, but then also a bunch of regional stuff, too, that they only have at this Whole Foods. We love shopping at Whole Foods because there's always new flavors and foods to choose from, whichever Whole Foods you are like, whichever Whole Foods you happen to be at. So save on regional flavors at Whole Foods Market, and maybe I'll see you at the Whole Foods in Austin sometime.

1:47Ryan 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.

2:01Ryan Holiday: What can you notice? For years, the seasons passed Chloe Dalton by in a blur, like they do for most of us. Travel, deadlines, work, the constant churn of ambition and obligation. Then, during the pandemic, trapped in an old house in the English countryside, on a walk one day she comes across a leveret, that's a baby wild hare, and she nurses it back to life. What ensues is a surreal and moving friendship as the hare becomes a free-range companion, hopping around the house, snoozing quietly by Dalton's side as she writes, running in from the fields when called, drumming softly on her duvet cover to get her attention, even giving birth and raising babies inside Dalton's home.

2:46Ryan Holiday: Spending hundreds of lonely, quiet hours with this leverette, which she never names, she learned to understand its habits and its needs, seeing the world from someone else's point of view. I found a new spirit of attentiveness to nature, Dalton writes in her lovely book Raising Hair, no less wonderful for being entirely unoriginal. For as old as it is as a human experience, it was new to me. For many years, the seasons had largely passed by, my perceptions of the steady cycle of nature disrupted by travel and urban life. I had observed nature in broad brushstrokes, she writes, in primary colors at a surface level.

3:26Ryan Holiday: I had been most interested in whether it was dry enough to walk or warm enough to eat outside with friends. I could identify only a handful of birds and treats by name. I hadn't observed the buds unfurling, the seasonal passage of birds, the unshakable rituals and rhythms of life in a single field or wood. I now marveled at the purple ting on the back feathers of the house martin, the smallest creature I had ever seen, which flew into the house one morning, observing the gleam of sun on the mirror finish of its plumage before releasing it into the air. It's a passage reminiscent of Marcus Aurelius noticing the way loaves of bread split open on top in the oven, or how ripe figs begin to burst.

4:09Ryan Holiday: And olives on the point of falling, the shadow of decay gives them a peculiar beauty, stalks of wheat bending under their own weight, the furrowed brow of the lion, flecks of foam on the boar's mouth. There is beauty and peace in noticing the small daily transformations, the subtle shifts of life through the windows, the cracks on the sidewalk, the sounds of the birds. The world is filled with things to see and hear. Are you noticing them? Are you cultivating the stillness that allows you to appreciate them? Obviously, that's the idea of stillness is the key. I also love Dalton's book, Raising Hair, which if it had come out while I was writing stillness, it would be in the book for sure.

4:54Ryan Holiday: You can grab both of those at the Painted Porch, or I will sign your copy of Stillness is the Key. You can grab that at store.dailystoic.com.

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