>people try to get away from it all, to the countryside, to the beach, to the mountains. You always wish that you could too. Which is idiotic: you can get away from it any time you like. By going within. Nowhere can you go is more peaceful-more free of interruptions-than your own soul. Especially if you have other things to rely on. An instants recollection and there it is, complete tranquility.
What the fuck did he mean by this? How do I do this? Is it even possible?
/lit is probably the wrong place to ask, /x might be better. Just ask them about zen-meditation.
>What the fuck did he mean by this?
While I'm not sure what the original author meant, this quote is often used for describing certain kinds of self hypnosis and meditation.
>How do I do this?
Hard to explain. Basically you stop doing anything. You even stop stopping doing anything.
Some of the more common beginners crutches include sitting in a formal position (za-zen), deliberately listening to your breaths, staring at a blank sheet of paper without blinking and keeping forced stances (a kind of martial arts practice common in kungfu and trad. german martial arts, google "horse stance").
Once you have done it a number of times, you can use triggers to get back into this state, and at some point a single moment of will is enough to relax completely.
> Is it even possible?
Yes.
Is this from meditations? It's pretty clear what he's saying, applying it tho.......
He's basically saying people think by going places, somewhere new, they'll be happy. But they're wrong, happiness comes from within. Don't listen to this user, Marcus wasn't talking about meditations or any Eastern bullshit. Marcus was simply describing that one could find peace of mind from within, through control of judgement and sound reasoning. Probably watch or read an introduction to Stoicism OP.
Damn another arrow from Marcus to the heart. This line hits close to home because I was one of those who did bail on a good life to live a quite life in the mountains of alaska. I gotta say getting to know myself has been much better for me than this crazy trip. Still now that I got both and time to think I just wonder where it will take me.
>Which is idiotic: you can get away from it any time you like. By going within. Nowhere can you go is more peaceful-more free of interruptions-than your own soul.
Not if you're a highly neurotic person.
An external escape is not a viable option. You should fix your mind and align yourself with Nature, i.e. Reason, and be a better version of yourself.
He was high off his tits on opium. Stoicism is really, really easy when you're nodding out.
You're overthinking it, OP. Meditations was Aurelius's personal journal. He was just telling himself to quit his escapist fantasies.
>Just ignore your pain bro
Cuck philosophy for cucks.
these philosophers, monks, mystics etc. have all trained themselves to be able to enter into a particular state, and they don't realize that other people don't know how to do this, and that simply repeating the words or actions that are triggers for them personally will not work for other people.
>What the fuck did he mean by this?
People think that the adversities they face are because of where they live (people from actual shitholes excluded), so they assume they'll be happier if they are elsewhere. His proposition is that it won't help, and that they have to go within to actually reach this more peaceful state they yearn for (and here I'm assuming he's suggesting something like self-analysis of some sort).
Stoicism is a lot of obvious self help. It's cool and can actually help people, but don't analyze it too much.
kek, imply the mind is not an aspect of nature.
maybe yours is, brainlet
kek, display zero knowledge of basic stoic philosophy and how Aurelius defined "Nature"
this is the correct answer desu
Do you want to live "according to nature"? O you noble Stoics, what a verbal swindle! Imagine a being like nature - extravagant without limit, indifferent without limit, without purposes and consideration, without pity and justice, simultaneously fruitful, desolate, and unknown - imagine this indifference itself as a power - how could you live in accordance with this indifference? Living - isn't that precisely a will to be something different from what this nature is? Isn't living appraising, preferring, being unjust, being limited, wanting to be different? And if your imperative "live according to nature" basically means what amounts to "live according to life"- why can you not just do that? Why make a principle out of what you yourselves are and must be? The truth of the matter is quite different: while you pretend to be in raptures as you read the canon of your law out of nature, you want something which is the reverse of this, you weird actors and self-deceivers! Your pride wants to prescribe to and incorporate into nature, this very nature, your morality, your ideal. You demand that nature be "in accordance with the stoa ," and you'd like to make all existence merely living in accordance with your own image of it - as a huge and eternal glorification and universalizing of stoicism! With all your love of truth, you have forced yourselves for such a long time and with such persistence and hypnotic rigidity to look at nature falsely, that is, stoically, until you're no long capable of seeing nature as anything else - and some abysmal arrogance finally inspires you with the lunatic hope that, because you know how to tyrannize over yourselves - Stoicism is self-tyranny - nature also allows herself to be tyrannized. Is the Stoic then not a part of nature?.... But this is an ancient eternal story: what happened then with the Stoics is still happening today, as soon as a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates a world in its own image. It cannot do anything different. Philosophy is this tyrannical drive itself, the spiritual will to power, to a "creation of the world," to the causa prima.
Dumb stoic writers.
>Meditations
Hmmmmmm
They have a good point desu.
false. Stoicism is about not allowing your emotions to cuck your will.
letting your emotions control you makes you a cuck
please read Stoicism, then you'll understand they had a completely different usage of the word "nature." virtually all ancient greeks and romans did
>If I misrepresent them, I win
hm
Tbh I feel like Stoicism as described is something to strive towards and not something that is achievable for 99% of people. I don't think I know anyone who is capable of being so in tune with themselves that they could go on vacations in their soul to rejuvenate. Even the self proclaimed stoics I know constantly get angry, feel ill will towards other, want revenge, get caught up in worldy desires, and don't even come close to the standard set by someone like Marcus.
>if you can't find yourself right here, right now, where else can you possibly hope do so?
my own experience concurs with this sentiment to some degree.
on the other hand, i also feel that although you may be technically capable of taking a dump right there on the sidewalk the moment you need to, sometimes there's nothing wrong with taking a strategic pilgrimage to the nearest shitter.
then again you'll probably learn something interesting about yourself and others by trying the first option!
>crazy trip in the mountains of alaska
sounds pretty wonderful user. care to share more? spent a good chunk of time in the rockies last year and will be driving back soon, perhaps for longer this time. as long as i can figure out how to earn a (bare minimum of a) living doing what i enjoy in the mountains
Just meditate brah.
I have been or still am an emotional zombie, I don't think it's a good thing anymore, and it's probably not what the stoics had in mind either. Anons, don't become emotionless to cope, it's shit.
I've felt like that too but I don't think its stoicism. Stoicism is more about controlling and reining in your emotions (mostly the negative ones) and not about being totally emotionless.
People went to the beach in Aurelius' time ?
lol. Whenever I read older books I'm surprised by how similar things still are. I was reading The Brothers K and Dostoyevsky was complaining about how the media was constantly fear mongering, got too big, people consumed too much of it, etc. and it sounds like the exact type of shit people bitch about today. I feel like we haven't really changed as much as we like to think.
>Stoicism is a lot of obvious self help. It's cool and can actually help people, but don't analyze it too much.
not exactly, it's just that the cosmology of stoicism has been proven wrong over time. like the stoics thought everything was made of fire in some form, and everything will eventually return to fire. those elements of stoicism are not at the forefront of the modern stoic movement so people tend to believe stoicism is ancient self-help.
>and don't even come close to the standard set by someone like Marcus.
you are being too hard on yourself user. marcus himself points out his flaws constantly in the meditations. he basically says he was a failed philosopher.
>I feel like we haven't really changed as much as we like to think.
that is a consistent theme in the meditations too. marcus says that nothing is really new, every theme or conflict is recycled.
>strawmans the Stoic's concept of nature
>causes decades of people not understanding or even attempting to understand what the Stoic's philosophy was about
well played Nietzsche, well played
The guy had a gladiator killed and fucked his wife in the blood, because his wife liked the gladiator too much.
Give Marcus some rest.
Is this true? Doesn't sound very stoic.
Where did you hear that ftom?
i seriously doubt this is true since marcus did not like having sex. he was a virgin until he was 27, which is more like 47 in today's years.
>don't become emotionless to cope, it's shit
it's only shit because you failed to be indifferent in attempts to cope with things.
>I have been or still am an emotional zombie
as you suggest, that is no fault of Stoicism. Epictetus is quite clear on the scope of things to be indifferent towards and what not to be indifferent towards. this is no reason to not try Stoic virtue. this is simply a misguided, and sadly common, application of Stoicism.
I think stoicism is more about emotional control. I.E. if it's something you can't change or influence then getting mad is useless and will only hurt you further. However if it's something you can change then it's fine to be proactive or passionate about it. I think Marcus even says that you should do what you're passionate about for a living or something like that when he talks about artisans.
Might be a bit of a simplistic example but I was really surprised when the graffiti in Pompeii were revealed, they're almost the exact as what we see on old buildings today. I think that people tend to believe that Ancient Rome and Greece were these majestic places where everyone was a philosopher/scientist due to popular media depictions but mankind really hasn't changed that much to be honest.
exactly. there's literally no Stoic text that states to be a complete zombie. in actuality, the Stoics argued that the logical result of their virtue was happiness. when you let externals forever control how you feel, you will never be happy
What should I read to *get* stoicism?
a concussion
epictetus' writings including the enchiridion and the discourses, marcus' meditations was more of a personal journal but he was not an "official" stoic philosopher like epictetus was, just sought to practice it
pull your head out of your ass you conceited asshole. Your vulgar prose doesnt mask your inability to critically think
Repeat with me small lad. Naya taya UN. DA. KA.
*gulps*
I would agree. Meditations is a good entry point as it's easier to digest, but Epictetus has more substance in my opinion. Seneca is last of the major known classical Stoics, but some have suggested he's the least Stoic out of the three, seeming almost Epicurian at times. I can't say from experience since I haven't read him yet. But I would definitely recommend either Meditations, Discourses & the Enchiridion, or both.