I wish someone showed me this when I was 14 years old...

Seem pretty defensive there, m8. That's not very stoic of you.

Cato was a pre-imperial stoic

He wasn't the only Roman stoic before the principate

A bunch of Greeks were too

These guys usually never read a sentence of philosophy. And you should read it even just as a program of ancient literature

I'm talking about what made the roman stoics adopt stoicism. My argument still applies to Epictetus retard

Why are Stoics so consistently and predictably fragile? You can't even lightly prod them without setting off all sorts of suppressed emotion

>le stoics are passive may may
You're a soyboy bugman.
Stoicism predates the Roman. Secondly, Marcus aurelius was a Roman emperor and had the power of a God on earth, yet dedicated his life to stoicism.

>Roman empire
Your argument is garbage. Marcus aurelius and other people in power were all stoics or influenced by it.

>Stoicism predates the Roman. Secondly, Marcus aurelius was a Roman emperor and had the power of a God on earth, yet dedicated his life to stoicism.
Thanks for pointing out the obvious but I'm talking about why stoicism was so popular with the romans. A single exception doesn't disprove a trend.

Why is it that every faggot attacking stoicism predictably makes strawman arguments? You haven't even read the stoics, get to sleep you brainlet.

>why stoicism was so popular with the romans
I think it fit their military yet intellectual society

It was popular with the Roman ruling class, people who had power and influence, you complete brainlet, which defeats the purpose of your armchair psychology argument.

They naturally exhaust themselves by trying too hard to control their inner lives.

Another day Master Sang-hu likewise said, "When Shun was about to die, he carefully instructed Yu in these words: `Mark what I say! In the case of the body, it is best to let it go along with things. In the case of the emotions, it is best to let them follow where they will. By going along with things, you avoid becoming separated from them. By letting the emotions follow as they will, you avoid fatigue. And when there is no separation or fatigue, then you need not seek any outward adornment or depend upon the body. And when you no longer seek outward adornment or depend upon the body, you have in fact ceased to depend upon any material thing.' ".

>It was popular with the Roman ruling class
Good god you're stupid. WHY IS THAT 99% OF ROMAN INTELLECTUALS OF THE PERIOD WERE STOICS?
Bonus question: WHY DID THIS TREND START?

TO BE CONSTRAINED IN WILL, lofty in action, aloof from the world, apart from its customs, elevated in discourse, sullen and critical, indignation his whole concern - such is the life favored by the scholar in his mountain valley, the man who condemns the world, the worn and haggard one who means to end it all with a plunge into the deep. To discourse on benevolence, righteousness, loyalty, and good faith, to be courteous, temperate, modest, and deferential, moral training his whole concern - such is the life favored by the scholar who seeks to bring the world to order, the man who teaches and instructs, who at home and abroad lives for learning. To talk of great accomplishments, win a great name, define the etiquette of ruler and subject, regulate the position of superior and inferior, the ordering of the state his only concern - such is the life favored by the scholar of court and council, the man who would honor his sovereign and strengthen his country, the bringer of accomplishment, the annexer of territory. To repair to the thickets and ponds, living idly in the wilderness, angling for fish in solitary places, inaction his only concern - such is the life favored by the scholar of the rivers and seas, the man who withdraws from the world, the unhurried idler. To pant, to puff, to hail, to sip, to spit out the old breath and draw in the new, practicing bear-hangings and bird-stretchings, longevity his only concern - such is the life favored by the scholar who practices Induction, the man who nourishes his body, who hopes to live to be as old as P'eng-tsu.

But to attain loftiness without constraining the will; to achieve moral training without benevolence and righteousness, good order without accomplishments and fame, leisure without rivers and seas, long life without Induction; to lose everything and yet possess everything, at ease in the illimitable, where all good things come to attend - this is the Way of Heaven and earth, the Virtue of the sage. So it is said, Limpidity, silence, emptiness, inaction - these are the level of Heaven and earth, the substance of the Way and its Virtue. So it is said, The sage rests; with rest comes peaceful ease, with peaceful ease comes limpidity, and where there is ease and limpidity, care and worry cannot get at him, noxious airs cannot assault him. Therefore his Virtue is complete and his spirit unimpaired.

Every anti-stoic poster on Veeky Forums is a weak willed teenage/early 20s hedonist virgin addicted to computer games and Veeky Forums, and invariably looks like pic related. Stoicism scares you. It reminds you of the authoritarian figures in your life and your own lack of masculinity.

>stoicism spread because romans felt they had no control because of the big bad emperor
>meanwhile the people with power in Roman society were all stoics or aware of it and at least educated in its basic ideas
Don't call others stupid when you can see the most basic contradictions in your 'argument'.

>btfo by plutarch, posts in memes

Post a pic of yourself. We both know you're a bugman soyboy.

All of this reads like projection that you want to distant yourself from by mentally cosplaying as a Roman

That's a very pathetic projection, user.

>p-post a pic bro
>but I'm not going to even though I'm a modern day Achilles

Epictetus BTFO

You know, you can separate the sociological origin of a philosophy from an individual's adoption of it.

Epictetus taught those very people. It's how he earned his money.

Anger is some rral shitty emotion to operate in. It just clouds good judgement and you can do real dumb shit if you take decisions in that state (lots do). Whats better is not supress anger but enter a more aware state, knowing sometjing is angering you but not being manipulated by the adrenalin rush. Little, very little things in our waking lives deserve all the anger we generate constantly.

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only soyboys can't into stoic virtues

>all this hate against stoicism
didn't know Veeky Forums was so pleb

Based Seneca

there are some followers of Stoicism who would consider themselves "noble warriors", sure. but do you have a genuine criticism of the content of the philosophy itself? is trying to let go of your negative emotions bad? is trying to reach your full potential bad? is trying to be virtuous bad?

you people need to all be rounded up and liquidated, this is unacceptable in every sense. Who is responsible for this meme spread? Is it an unintended side effect of hyper domestication? Is this the final stage of the metamorphosis from beast of burden to bug? Self domestication from the unwilling ruler and the resentful slave, brought back from Magian Roman decadence into this neo-babylon we're hurtling towards? What kind of person, besides the most simple minded or hard-done pleb, could possibly embrace such a plain, stunted, inflexible, life-hating, static existence as the stoic? Lacking all of the charm of the Epicurean, all of the wrathful power of the Machiavellian, the ingenuity of the utilitarian, the irrational beauty of the fascist warrior. Truly despicable, not even the slavish christian peons are as dull witted or insensitive. The last man's ideology birthed in the final great Empire, and by this I mean worthy of imitation and study, as opposed to merely noteworthy like the Austro-Hungarian, British empires were. Fucking unbelievable man
go suck off an investment banker and thank him for raping your unborn children, oh wait you won't even have any kids! Because you're strong and don't need such things. Go nibble on some stale bread

if you truly understood the lengths of things in your control and non in your control, you would not be upset. seek virtue my friend.

not***

>if you really understood hell you would repent
>if you really understood power you would submit
>if you really understood ideology you would be an apolitical faggot
begone feeb

I'll always be here in case you need me user

If you truly understood strawmen you would not employ them.

>reddit

I was just about to say that lol.

those statements brought up are in no way similar to my control comment. you can take another stab at it if you like though

nobody else cares about the stoics

This is all well and good, but we didnt sign up to this. We are not working humans because we decided to be, our parents dragged us in.
How can we ever accept what we never requested?

by accepting the facts; none of that was in your control. outside of suicide or other death, there's nothing you can do to get out of this life. being upset or down about it isn't going to change anything, or ultimately help. they would argue to either live the most virtuous life you can, or end up being miserable that you can't change reality. or (unironically) kill yourself. though I don't recommend the last one.

no, that's what stoic posters are and have been their whole lives and are trying to fight against it
quite fine, but don't drag me into it

I think he's saying that it is our very nature to be working humans, to toil and to suffer so it doesn't matter if you requested it or not, it is merely human nature. And that to pursue pleasure over duty is to defy your humanity.

enjoyable post, gets the blood flowing, makes me wish to ride a horse through the pines, pounding along the lakeside, against the rapids... to write evil poetry...

Our conciousness is a curse

>every time
Stop this pls.

that's your estimation of it. it's not inherently anything. you can choose to ultimately see it as good or live your life wallowing because you see it as bad

You wouldn't have read it back then. You would have thought you were smarter than him and not listened. It's not your fault though, everyone is dumb and arrogant at that stage of life.

>This is pretty much everything young man needs to know to live his life.
You mean this?

I think it's fair to say every young man already knows how to clean his lobster. they don't need that garbage user

>not having your own philosophy derived from first principles

youtube.com/watch?v=i76VrRf-aZI

what the fuck is that gay logo on the table? is this kind of gamer fag shit?

But stoicism isn't any of these things. I thought like you did, until I re-read Epictetus. What you're describing is like the flaky crust of the Stoic palate.

It teaches you to be humble, but also to be "like the rock against the beating waves". If you have it in your mind what is honorable, not even Caesar himself should ever frighten you. God ( Zeus, Deterministic fate, Reason, Logos ) will guide us through to the end.
It teaches that man can't truly control anything, but if "like a captain, a man is given a ship, he will set sail to the best of his ability. If the waves and a storm thrash his vessel, and the man has done his very best, what else can he do? Should he curse the wave maker? Shall he curse himself?"
The slavishness you see, is just your own desires deceiving you. We are mostly slaves, to many things, not just ourselves. A stoic teacher wishes us to feel tranquility. In love of man, and his mighty virtues. Not just man against man.

Who do you really cast stones at, if not at yourself?

>stoicism

johnsonessays.com/the-rambler/stoicism-necessity-patience/

What's your fucking problem? It's 2k18, it's okay 2b gay.

Stoicism is about self-awareness, acceptance and conscious overcoming

Do you ask me what you should regard as especially to be avoided?

I say, crowds; for as yet you cannot trust yourself to them with safety.

I shall admit my own weakness, at any rate; for I never bring back home the same character that I took abroad with me.

Something of that which I have forced to be calm within me is disturbed; some of the foes that I have routed return again. Just as the sick man, who has been weak for a long time, is in such a condition that he cannot be taken out of the house without suffering a relapse, so we ourselves are affected when our souls are recovering from a lingering disease.

To consort with the crowd is harmful; there is no person who does not make some vice attractive to us, or stamp it upon us, or taint us unconsciously therewith. Certainly, the greater the mob with which we mingle, the greater the danger.

You must either imitate or loathe the world. But both courses are to be avoided; you should not copy the bad simply because they are many, nor should you hate the many because they are unlike you. Withdraw into yourself, as far as you can. Associate with those who will make a better man of you.

Welcome those whom you yourself can improve. The process is mutual; for men learn while they teach. There is no reason why pride in advertising your abilities should lure you into publicity, so that you should desire to recite or harangue before the general public.

> he hasn't read the stoics

But hey man it's cool if you want to be blinded by ignorance and frustration its just i dont fuccs wit that bro

>the irrational beauty of the facist warrior
Lol

Just wait until you hit your late 20s early thirties - that’s when things will start.

That said as long as you continue to read you should be able to get through it.

Stoicism is the alignment of self with the stupidity of the age

Good goals don’t equal good doctrines and reasoning Hubbard and the Scientologists want to create a world without insanity or war where people are able to live to their true potential that doesn’t mean thetans and engrams exist.

Some good starting points -

1. Look at the stoic understanding of virtue and how that view is determined accurately. What are their assumptions ?

2. Just what exactly do we have control over when it comes to how we think and act . When does letting go become suppression and frustration.

3. What role does God and revelation play ?

I'd also add Montaigne's Essais

Veeky Forums rarely discusses him because they are long and that would require reading.

All the collective "wisdom" of stoicism can be summed up in the phrase "don’t cry over spilled milk." Do you lads really need to resurrect an ancient philosophy just to control your emotions? Did you not have parental guidance?

Have you even read op pic? It's about much more than controlling emotions. It's about living lifestyle of a sage.

What is this quotation from?

>living lifestyle of a sage.

good idea

saged

He's right you know.

Stoicism helped me to deal with my anger, and is helping me with my depression

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That typesetting is fucking beautiful

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Nice advice but I get the feeling that this is only half of wisdom. Learning not to be upset when people get what they earn is one thing, but the real test is not getting upset when people get what they don't deserve.

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Have you ever worked hard at something and realized all the effort went to waste? How did it make you feel?

i understand the gist, the only thing related to this that ever truly angers me is being questioned about my envy over someone's gain borne at least in part from positive qualities that did not and cannot have derived wholly from that person's conscious effort (innate physical appearance and development, early childhood environment, hobbies and interests gotten from association with family members etc.). The just world fallacy is thrown around too often, but i genuinely think that at its core it cannot be refuted as a counter to instances where someone seeks to silence dissent or irritating spectacles of discontent by implicating the complainer as imperfect and in need of improvement. All people are, an I think that lowhandedly jeering at people to fix their personality in its entirety before daring to voice their issues again is a cheap criticism that neatly sidesteps any wrong committed by other individuals, something which is obviously far harder to judge and potentially impossible to control

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stop mimicking, the cringe is unbearable.

>Parental guidance
>From the generation that replaced religion with narcissim

>>From the generation that replaced religion with narcissim

The boomers?

Yes mate.

it's the man-dad of philosophy
>when something happens that makes you angry, just sack up
>so deep, I’m such a normal functioning male in my community
wouldn't hurt some of you to try it

stoicism is literally the polar opposite of the current life strategies and philosophies of the youth.

>See yourself as a victim
>whine endlessly about things outside your control
>muh depression
>I have and need tons of pills and I can't function
>give up at the first sign of problems
>isolate
>stick to childhood fantasies

I used to think like that but one day I realized I'm a bitter and spiteful sack of shit who is only hurting myself with the anger and hatred I direct at the world. Not even defending stoicism necessarily but as cheesy as it sounds negative attitudes yield more negativity.

T. Hasn't read any stoic literature

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This book is hard to read