Wisdom Takes Work CHAPTER UNLOCKED: Hear It Before Anyone Else

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.

0:56Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic podcast. As you know, the Stoics are writers. I am a writer, but long before me, the Stoics were writers. They had to be, right? Because as we've said here many times, Stoicism and writing are basically the same thing, right? Sitting with a journal, sitting down with meditations, as Mark Scurlus is doing. We sit down and we write to help us think right. And that's actually one of the chapters in the new book, Wisdom Takes Work, which is now out, available everywhere. It would mean so much to me if you could support it. dailystoic.com slash wisdom.

1:36It's up on Audible. It's out as an ebook, and we still have some signed first editions at dailystoic.com slash wisdom. But I wanted to bring you a chunk of the audiobook here today where I dive into this very thing. This was one of my favorite chapters to write in the book. This was a chapter I knew I was going to write from the very beginning. And honestly, it was one of the chapters in the book where I had way more material than I knew what to do with. And the reason I had the material is that I've been writing about this very idea for as long as I have been a writer. I had so many note cards because note cards are where I sort of process things.

2:14That's my form of a commonplace book. That's another chapter in the book about keeping a commonplace book or a second brain, as it's come to be called. But in this one, we're talking about how sitting down and writing, doing the evening review that Seneca was talking about, or just sitting down with a journal in the morning, or sitting down to write a memo, or an email, or a strategy paper, how sitting down and doing that helps us not just think right, but avoid sloppy thinking, avoid mistakes, marshal your arguments, get all your ducks in a row. And I think I did a good job on this chapter because I spent many, many, many weeks and months writing it, and then many, many weeks and months editing it, as I did with the whole book, which I am excited for you to read.

3:00Thanks to everyone who's supporting it. And as I said, you can grab those Priora bonuses, which we are still honoring, at dailystoic.com slash wisdom. Check out the book. Talk to y 'all soon.

3:16I'm recording this on a Monday, and Monday is our grocery store day in our family. I usually pick my kids up from school and we go over to Whole Foods, get all our groceries for the week. Although here very shortly, we're going to go over there to get our Thanksgiving turkey because they've got a bunch of great options. Turkeys start at$149 a pound if you have Prime with organic birds at$299 a pound. And they only carry no antibiotic ever turkeys that will bring quality to your table at a great price. Whole Foods has great everyday prices on all your Thanksgiving essentials, whether you celebrate with a massive family or just a few close friends.

3:54Everything they sell has high standards to help you shop with confidence. Enjoy so many ways to save on your Thanksgiving spread at Whole Foods Market. 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. What 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.

4:34There 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. Toyota 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.

5:11And 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.

5:38Right to think right. For a Trappist monk, Thomas Merton sure talked a lot, on the page at least. After converting to Catholicism in the 1940s, he moved to the monastery of the Order of Cistercians of the Strict Observance, otherwise known as the Trappists in Kentucky. With strict in the name, Merton must have known he was signing himself up for chastity and obedience and poverty, as well as manual labor and ritual. Trappists are not literally sworn to silence, but solitude and silence are the basis of their religious practice. They have been known for centuries as the monks who don't talk. To live at the Abbey of Gethsemane, Merton gave up nearly everything but his love of writing.

6:33I must also put down on paper who I have become, he wrote in his journal in 1949. It is not an easy vocation to be as good a monk as I can and to remain myself and to write about it, to put myself down on paper with the most complete sincerity and integrity, masking nothing. A supportive superior agreed, assigning Merton a job translating and meditating on various ancient and religious texts, a long-standing tradition for monks. This was no easy task. At times it was torture, almost a kind of crucifixion, Merton said, a toil that anyone who has ever written would immediately understand. That was the point, though.

7:20He did it because it was hard. There is a kind of penance in writing, a willingness to be exposed and to put yourself up for review. Yet writing and editing is also a chore like any other manual labor. Merton turned this into a spiritual process, part of his journey to and through his faith. He published books of poetry in a 500-page memoir that became an instant and perennial bestseller called The Seven-Story Mountain. He wrote biographies of saints and mystics. He wrote letters to monks and practitioners of other faiths. He became politically active. His unpublished writings alone amounted to nearly one million words.

8:05His writings would reach a generation of seekers and thinkers. His labors supported his church. He was challenging himself. He was getting to know God. Yet not everyone liked the idea of an outspoken monk. Tell this talking Trappist who took a vow of silence to shut up, wrote one angry critic. His editor thought the whole criticism absurd. Writing, he explained, is a form of contemplation. In fact, that would be the title of one of Merton's best books, Seeds of Contemplation, spiritual classic. In his books, letters, and notepads, Merton was not telling people what he thought. He was figuring out what he thought.

8:52He was meditating on the page, sharing generously and courageously his thoughts with the world. He wasn't so much writing as he was thinking with his fingers. Peter Burke, one of Montaigne's biographers, believed that Montaigne's essays were precisely that, a man's attempt to catch himself in the act of thinking. Montaigne said that he wrote as though he was speaking to another person, but that doesn't mean that his essays were casual or off the cuff. Montaigne had to sit and really think, and the act of his thoughts flowing from his brain down his arm, through his pen, and onto the page was a process by which much reflection was transcribed.

9:39And since he continued to edit his writing until the day he died, also refined. Only a fool goes with their first thought. A wise person takes time to contemplate. In 1941, just days after the attack on Pearl Harbor, a promising general named Dwight D. Eisenhower was called in to see George Marshall, the chief of staff of the U.S. Army. Japan was going to seize the Philippines and dozens of other islands in the Pacific, Marshall explained. America faced a war in two theaters with supply lines that would stretch thousands of miles. What should be our general line of action, Marshall asked Eisenhower.

10:25A certain type of officer might have started thinking out loud. They might have riffed or brainstormed. Not Eisenhower. He understood that his career and potentially millions of lives hung in the balance. Give me a few hours, he said. At a spare desk down the hall on the War Plans Division, Eisenhower requisitioned some paper, a pen, and a typewriter and got to work. What did Marshall want to accomplish? What was possible? What was of the highest priority? What risks were acceptable? What resources did he need? After a period of reflection, Eisenhower began to write his thoughts out, understanding that what Marshall needed from him was short, emphatic reasoning and not oratory, plausible argument, or glittering generality.

11:14This exercise helped Eisenhower synthesize all the conversations he'd had with his mentor, General Fox Connor, bringing out ideas from the books he'd read, the courses he'd taken at the Army War College, the work he'd done for the previous chief of staff, and the experiences he'd had in his three decades in uniform. As dusk fell, Eisenhower handed Marshall a 300-word briefing on yellow-lined paper titled Assistance to the Far East slash Steps to be Taken, which he supplemented with an oral briefing. Almost certainly, Marshall had already considered most of what Eisenhower had written. This assignment was, in a way, a test.

12:01What kind of thinker was this young officer? How did he approach problems? How good was he at responding under pressure? Could he see the big picture? Could he effectively communicate what he knew and what he wanted to do? I agree with you, Marshall replied about Eisenhower's plan, and then he told him to execute it. And thus began one of the most effective partnerships of the war, leading to victory and propelling Eisenhower to the presidency. Successful campaigns and careers, whether they involve leading men into battle or saving their souls or selling them things, depends on this kind of thinking.

12:38A few years ago, Amazon executives got tired of their valuable time being wasted by pointless or foolish meetings, so they banned PowerPoint presentations and brainstorming sessions. Instead, they dictated that before any meeting begins, the executive leading it must spend the preceding days writing a six-page structured memo in a narrative form with all the necessary information about the subject, the choices available, the objectives desired. Memos are written, edited by colleagues, set aside for a few days, Jeff Bezos once explained to Amazon's shareholders. And then the memos are reviewed again for a final tightening.

13:20Each company meeting begins not with chatter and pleasantries, but with a 30 or so minute period of quiet, reflective reading, almost like study hall. Instead of pulling answers out of their ass, Amazon executives, like Eisenhower, are supposed to get their thoughts in order first. And then, as Bezos has said, after this quiet bit of focus and after everyone is on the same page about the basics of the problem or the opportunity, then they can have a messy discussion. I like the memos to be like angels singing from on high, he explained. So clear and beautiful. And then the meeting can be messy.

14:03Joan Didion described writing as a hostile act. By that, she meant that the writer is trying to make someone see something the way you see it, trying to impose your idea, your picture. But Keynes was even closer to the mark when he referred to writing as the assault of thought on the unthinking. We are in a battle against our own wild thoughts, against the preconceived assumptions of others, against all the alternative ideas and tempting facts out there. Winning requires contemplation and clarity. We cannot make others see what we have first not properly considered ourselves. Could you have artificial intelligence do it for you?

14:49Or a ghostwriter? Maybe, but it would defeat the purpose. We think as we write. Indeed, we cannot finish a sentence until we have carried the thought all the way through. We ponder opposing ideas as we pause between keystrokes. The pen becomes our third eye. It doesn't even need to be prose. A drawing can help. A diagram lets you see the problem in a new way. On the page, we see the pattern. Transcribing the passage or a quote, we get to feel real genius and insight pass through our mind and our fingers, processing each word, weighing and understanding the wisdom. We see what we didn't see before.

15:33And when we take edits and feedback from others, we see even more because editing is a kind of interrogation, a process by which we are refining and sharpening our thinking, a way to get our story straight. It doesn't matter if we publish. It doesn't matter what the audience thinks. It was the doing that did the work. Every book I write, Merton reflected, is a mirror of my own character and conscience. We are writing to think right, to understand what we feel and know and who we are.

16:37Thank you.

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