Is there anything like this, but less defeatist...

Is there anything like this, but less defeatist? It seems like the overarching point he's trying to make is "you might as well just lay down and die right now, who cares".

I got into this expecting something a bit more, I don't know, affirming? I'm not saying the whole book is bad, but some parts do seem to read like a manual on how to live the life of a coward. The things he has to say about death and dying are so familiar to me through my own thoughts and conclusions, that there seems to be little point in me reading it. I am trying to stop being such a pathetic cowardly faggot, and this doesn't seem like it'd help.

Also, yeah, seems like "wisdom" picked up from books doesn't really translate into real, directly experienced life that well. So it's kind of naive, to want to change myself through reading.

I went to a job interview the other day, and it was honestly the lowest point in my life of the last couple of years. Nothing I could have read would have prepared me for that.

He loves the Stoics.

You could read positive psychology which at least has some empirical support even if most of their studies are dubious

Reading this now, interesting cover.

I don't think you fully understood it OP. It's not about living the life of a coward, it's how that tranquil life is NOT cowardly. It's natural. Try Seneca.

Epictetus

He was living through some of the worst stages of decline in the Roman Empire.

Of course he was defeatist.

>it's another episode of OP fails to understand stoicism

we have a winner!

>Considered to be at the pinnacle of Roman greatness with only minor problems starting to take root
Aurelius delt with some barbarian invasions, sure, but the wealth, power, and influence of Rome was virtually at it's max. He sounded defeatist because even if you were the emperor life fucking sucked and you could die at any moment.

>/pol/fags who read Aurelius before reading Heraclitus/Pre-Socratics

Yeah, may be, what do you specifically suggest I read before I read this? I've seen it mentioned here a lot, so I thought I'd give it a try. Also, if there were a book that tells you how to actually read books instead of wasting away on the internet, I'd have to read that first, because I fucking browse so much.

Actually, from both what I heard about it, and from reading it, I got the impression that it's not something that requires familiarity with the ancient Greek canon.

maybe try studying Buddhisim. It has some parallels to the stoicism in Meditations.

You don't need to start with the pre-Socratics to understand Stoicism.

Seneca is very accessible and in my opinion is the most interesting of the Stoic writers.

Do you have the chart?

Read "memories of hadriano" another emperor,secular grand father of marco aurelius, he openly distrusted marco aurelious love for estoicisim.

why did he not like him?

>thinking "reading" all 10 extant pages of the Pre-Socratics is necessary for anything

You took the start with the Greeks meme too seriously, lad. So little remains of the Pre-Socratics that the best you can do is form a speculation of what any of them meant.

You can't negate suffering through conceptual thought. Read all the books you want, it doesn't matter.

Learn 2 meditate scrub.

if you're a wimp the last thing you want to read is the stoics.
the best thing to do is stop reading any self-help and toughening up. despite what any autist will say the only way to learn to stay calm is by putting yourself in difficult situations where your ass is on the line. stop giving a shit about not freaking out or panicking, being nervous beats being passive any day.

enchiridion

What happened at the interview

It was for this German company expanding into my town. I hadn't been to a interview in forever, and had been dealing with a cold the whole week so I was in a good state to begin with. And then the interviewers were completely overbearing and caught me off-guard with a bunch of questions that I really should've been able to answer. Oh yea, and in the middle of the thing my stomach suddently felt like it it was rising up against me for whatever reason, which didn't exactly help me focus. Maybe I drank to much coffee.

man, that's awful, i'm sorry. you just had a bad day and you'll do well next time.

>Doesn't understand Stoicism involves meditation.
>Probably doesn't understand Stoicism at all.

Stoic meditation is visualization at best. It is not even remotely comparable to something like the Buddhist practice of Jhana, or the Yogic practices that culminate in samadhi, or any other form of contemplative practice for that matter.

Stoicism has all the difficult parts of the mystic traditions (primarily asceticism) and none of the benefits (the stages of mental refinement that are gone through in contemplative practices that then culminate into a lessening of suffering, if not cessation altogether).

Stoicism is shit tier, because it stays in the realm of conceptual and intellectual proliferation where something altogether different is required.

I couldn't sleep the night before because I was so nervous, and before the actual interview I was in that kind of sleepy state where everything seems unreal and feels like your in thick fog, but I didn't know it at the time because of how exhausted I was.

I probably came of as an inert and inept turd because I didn't ask any questions or show interest. He also mentioned (twice) that I have the shortest CV he's seen. It is, because it would have been my first job since NEETdom and I don't have a single fucking thing to put in there. The funny thing is, despite all that, I feel like I was qualified for the job more or less.

Also, after I got home and unwound a bit, I came up with perfectly obvious questions that I should have asked, but they were so simple, that I'd be stupid to ask them in an email after the interview. So there's that.

the way out of anxiety is pills if you have faith in materialism, or samatha mediation otherwise

autism or underage

>but less defeatist

If you think that life is about enhancing pleasure and ignoring reality than you're more suited to Epicureanism

Try reading "Captains of the Soul" by Michael Evans for examples of the synthesis of Stoicism with the unpleasant realities (namely warfare) of the world, or just stay in a postmodern bubble

>Stoicism has all the difficult parts of mystic traditions, and none of the benefits. (the stages of mental refinement)
Vague, and lazy assessment.
> Stoicism is shit tier, because it stays in the realm of conceptual and intellectual proliferation where something altogether different is required.
Once again vague and lazy assessment. This section is like reading a poorly translated fortune cookie.

A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy - William B. Irvine is pretty good and easy read.

Your post is a vague and lazy assessment.

Any which way, the original point was that meditation -as it is defined in the various contemplative traditions around the world- isn't a part of Stoicism. This is a stone cold fact, that's all I care about. If you want to adhere to some homo cuck philosophy feel free, I don't care.

I'm curious, do you practice Buddhism? If you do, if find it a bit curious when your thoughts seem to be so scattered, and you don't seem to be "one with the universe". If your outlook on life is anything like your posting, I would even go as far to say that you have a malicious spirit residing in you. As a Buddhist(assuming you are one), how do you come to terms with this?

first post worst post, this book sucks

Epic tit us

Here's a tip, go outside and actually do something.
You're an autist who can barely speak or prepare for an interview. Reading philosophy is not going to fix that.

It's not even a passable book. No idea how it got so popular. Tiresome musings and half philosophizing.. yikes.

That's why you train for interviews.

If anything true philosophical mettle is accepting the basic dourness of everything, with no need for further illusions such as those supplied by a Nietzsche or even a Camus.

t. Silenus

the meditations of a roman emperor are somehow below you. pull your head out of your ass.

>roman emperor managing a collapsing empire with an exceptional amount of poise and skill
>coward

What did this fucking idiot mean by this?

The crucial part is knowing when you can change things and when you can't. If you are someone with learned helplessness like most of these Jordan Peterson clean-your-room type anons then Stoicism can potentially make things worse by enabling inaction and laziness.

I'm sure the bookstore is full of self-help books for you.

I think you're letting your current emotions shape your perception of the text. Aurelius wrote Meditations partly to keep his own ego in check with constant chastisements, and partly to help himself find meaning in an otherwise meaningless existence. To interpret that as a manual for living life as a coward does Aurelius and yourself a disservice.
Despite harboring a passion for study and philosophy, he dedicated the second half of his life entirely to repeated campaigns against Germanic tribes along the Danube. He disliked it, but remained at his post until he contracted the plague and died. He looked past himself and did what was best for his empire. In my opinion, he was one of the bravest Roman emperors ever to have lived. The one act of cowardice I would accuse him of was to allow his son Commodus to succeed him instead of killing him and allowing someone more capable to lead after his death.
I would recommend rereading Meditations, being more mindful of the character of the man who wrote it. He resigns himself to his fate, understands that his actions on Earth have no bearing on the finality of his death, and yet he allows himself to suffer for his ideals, and of the welfare of the citizens of his empire. The tenets of stoicism have been scrutinized and attacked for centuries, and I don't think it's especially relevant today, but Aurelius himself should be admired.

>to be "one with the universe".
this is what whites believe