Fuck you for shilling this book /fitlit/. I will never listen

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Is this true? I was about to fall into the same meme as you?

Are you double memeing me, son?

>>28971
>don't better yourself
>I'm a Roman emperor
W E W L A D
E
W
L
A
D

alright, now develop some intelligence and then read it again, you dumb fucking idiot.

>>29087
go suck a bag of roman cocks

I just saw this on pol you fat faggot

>>29006
No it's not true. Learn what Stoicism is before reading it though.

>>28971
M. Aurelius is pretty basic Stoicism, try Seneca. Better yet start with Plato or Boethius.

>>29006
Stop judging things based on their "meme" status.

>>28971
>Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

>It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.

>Look well into thyself; there is a source of strength which will always spring up if thou wilt always look.

>Do every act of your life as though it were the very last act of your life.

>What we do now echoes in eternity.

>The universe is change; our life is what our thoughts make it

>A man’s worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions.

>Perfection of character is this: to live each day as if it were your last, without frenzy, without apathy, without pretense.

>Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish.

>A noble man compares and estimates himself by an idea which is higher than himself; and a mean man, by one lower than himself. The one produces aspiration; the other ambition, which is the way in which a vulgar man aspires.

>Do not act as if you had ten thousand years to throw away. Death stands at your elbow. Be good for something while you live and it is in your power.

Perhaps you should learn to read critically and take from it what is useful in your life. You are endowed with a mind. Use it. Original thoughts are cool. Have some, then refine them by reading great works.

>>28971
you're a thicko if this is what you believe he's saying
its like Daoist ideas, not seeking control does not mean you should remain destitute forever.
and being content regardless of your situation does not mean you need to accept nothing else besides this.

>>28971
I think you missed the core philosophy in the book anon. It's context is within its time period, but can be applied to our Era too by viewing hardships and setbacks as a natural occurrence on one's path to wealth. Among other interpretations.

>>29374
Funny thing. By not seeking to control(or seeking to not control), you unironically seek to control.

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>>29342
>You are endowed with a mind. Use it.
But I want people to tell me how to think... like I do with celebrities not educated in anything but acting/writing/directing telling me how to think about geopolitics/international politics/science/economy...

seriously thought, why does anyone listen to their shit?

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>>28971
>Dude life is meaningless, don't try and get rich or anything, just enjoy being poor and miserable
>Don't like, try and better yourself or anything
>Don't pursue power or glory
How could someone get it so wrong...

>but it's OK when I do it because I'm a Roman emperor
Ok you are retarded.
Here is some /his/ perspective.

>Be born into uber rich family
>Get adopted by uncle, becoming heir to the Empire
>When immediately make Lucius Verus you're adopted brother co-emperor for the first time in history because someone has to run shit while you go to war
>Could spend entire life in Rome, living the high life as the most powerful man on the planet while the empire declines
>nah
>Immediately set out to war
>Spend most of you're life with the army
>Beat the shit out of the Germanic tribes
>Have to sit through triumphs, hate it but trappings of power
>Write the meditations in you're free time as actual meditation.

I don't know what you think a early 100 A.D. military camp was like. They had no canned or preserved food, no vaccines, awful sanitation, few comforts.

He's not telling you not to never pursue power or glory if that is what you're nature compels you to do. He's warning you about becoming a slave to it.

>>29628
>I don't know what you think a early 100 A.D. military camp was like. They had no canned or preserved food, no vaccines, awful sanitation, few comforts.
Did they have BIG, FAT anime tiddies?

>>28971
Damn I didn't think it was possible to miss the point so hard. Don't ever become a sharpshooter because you'll end up shooting yourself somehow.

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Not sure which translation you read.

Hume was right, stoicism is self-defeating to its core and in practice strives toward the suppression of all emotion in an attempt to blunt the force of negative feelings.

>>30090
please see the quote above your post. Stoicism isn't suppression of emotion. It's simply choosing how you respond to stimulus.

>>30006
Check your living privilege

>>30090
>Hume was right
No he wasn't. He fundamentally misunderstood stoicism.

>in practice strives toward the suppression of all emotion
You need to learn what the Greeks actually meant when they word they used is translated as emotion. The Greeks idea of "emotions" is so different from ours that to simply imagine our own when reading the book will make you heavily misunderstand what they are talking about.

>in an attempt to blunt the force of negative feelings
No, just no. That's not how virtue ethics works.

>>30090
If those were his thoughts than you and Hume have no idea what Stoicism is, you can't critique something without understanding it. Even just read the Wikipedia page on it for fuck sake.

>>28971
>written by a literal roman emperor the most powerful mortal on Earth during his reign
You have browsed /lit/ before, this is old bait.

>>30216
>Check
He means appreciate and value life.
Catchphrases like that got you banned on unfit /lit/

Has anyone here read it in the original Latin? I haven't read it yet and am considering doing so

>>32257
Pretty sure that was a joke my dude

>>32476
>original Latin

heh...

>>32476
It's written in greek you fucking mongoloid

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I love this board already

>>32778
Crucible/Gladiator fight threads between fit and lit fucking when?

You know what's hilarious is that I refused to read this for the longest time because I had a math teacher in high school who was super into stoicism, and the way he quoted this book and others and described it made the philosophy sound exactly like this guy's interpretation.

I don't think it deserves its hyped meme status, but it's interesting to read.

>>28971
What artful copypasta.

What must be understood is that this isn't meant to be a coherent piece of philosophy, this is one man trying to deal with his life. And that's what makes it such a fascinating read. What really are the differences between that of a Roman Emperor and us? Reading this book makes you feel like there is not really that much difference at all.

>>29897
yes anon. lots o fthem.

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>>26430

>>28971
You need to read the Inner Citadel by Pierre Hadot to understand it

>>30090
>blunt the force of negative feelings
let's be bitter and bitchy instead of purposeful and constructive
>what is negative visualisation?

>>28971
I don't think you're ready for philosophy.
Start with coloring books and build up from there

>>28971
Read letters from a Stoic first and then go to meditations, without any knowledge of stoicism meditations seems pretty dull.
Take what you like from it and ignore the rest.

>>28971
Read the discourses of Epictetus. He's even better.

>>29342
Literally instagram tier philosophy

>>33607
Your rating terminology reveal that you're a retarded faggot.

>>33631
I did a masters in philosophy at durham. Just from that short summary not only is it superficial and stupid its also contradictory.

Trash. Guess he was the marilyn monroe of his time.

>>33641
top kek.
> "if you can't handle me at my most plebeian you dont deserve me at my most patrician"

>>33641

tough not to be superficial if you're summarizing it into one sentence. how is it contradictory though?

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>>33641
wew

>>33675
I accept errors or trivialities might be the result of it just being a 4chan summary. The contradictions are the nieztsche tier promotion of ambition one sentence then condeming it as a vulgar aspiration the next.

>>33910
well part of that is probably because it was aurelius just writing shit as it came to his mind on top of translation

>>28971
Read it with some historical and ironic distance. I did that and felt like some parts of it are funny, some were even straight ugh but most of it is pretty good.

Inb4 the Nietzsche copypasta that BTFOs stoicism in like one stanza

>>28971
>>29009
He didn't even like being Emperor. He wanted to quit his job constantly, but couldn't, and he certainly didn't write the Meditations for others - it was like his own personal diary of reminders to keep him from getting miserable

>>29542
Wut

>>29342
>>Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.

Sounds like a good philosophy for insecure dictators who can't soberly look at the complexities of life and ethics.

>>28971
Completely agree, OP. Stoicism is really just plain not the /fitlit/ philosophy. But I figured that if I objected early then people would stubbornly defend it without thinking. Thank you for seeing it for what it really is.

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>>33457

>>29542
wat

>>34093
>Stoicism is really just plain not the /fitlit/ philosophy.
I wouldn't say plain but simple, what makes it good as an ethics philosophy. What would be your philosophy?

>>34084
>>34445
He's saying that by trying to stop controlling things, you try to control your own trying to control of things.

>>29542
Because in Stoicism you're seeking to control your passions and the way you react to the Universe, the only things that are truly under your control.

>>28971
that's what you get for not researching beforehand and taking "recommendations" alone

if you did your research you would know that Evola is /ourguy/

>>33641
>masters in philosophy
>hasn't read the meditations before

wew lad

>>34565
Well, it's not like he went to Oxbridge.

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>>32778
Holy fuck

>>34002
sounds interesting, post it

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>>34606
Seconding this.
Never liked Nietzsche but I would like to hear what he had to say.

I would never argue that stoicism is without it's flaws.

It's just that it has a proven track record of being a helpful philosophy to cretin types of very successful people.

>>28971
read Epicurus instead

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>>34468
>I wouldn't say plain but simple, what makes it good as an ethics philosophy.

I didn't mean to communicate "Stoicism is really just plain, and not the /fitlit/ philosophy."
I meant to communicate "Stoicism is really just *plainly* not the /fitlit/ philosophy."

By the way, I'd like to concede that I was not fostering a good rhetorical environment by asserting this without explaining *why* it is plainly not the /fitlit/ philosophy. I did not explain it because me and OP were already in agreement, but I must keep in mind that my dismissiveness without substantiation will come off as a power play, and I don't want to set that public precedent, because that would diminish the potential of this board to help users improve by scaring them away. I apologize to any stoicists I may have made feel unwelcome.

>What would be your philosophy?

Do you mean to ask what my best alternative to stoicism would be? Stoicism is multi-faceted and attempts to answer multiple questions, and the questions you would like alternative answers to are unclear.

Or maybe you are asking which philosophy I think would be best aligned with the culture of /fitlit/?

>>34739
>Do you mean to ask what my best alternative to stoicism would be? Stoicism is multi-faceted and attempts to answer multiple questions, and the questions you would like alternative answers to are unclear.

>Or maybe you are asking which philosophy I think would be best aligned with the culture of /fitlit/?


I'm not him but I think he meant what philosophy you follow.

>>33641
t. Daniel

>>34739
>Or maybe you are asking which philosophy I think would be best aligned with the culture of /fitlit/?
This is what I was asking

>>34780
hedonism, obviously.

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>>34623
>>34606
You desire to LIVE "according to Nature"? Oh, you noble Stoics, what fraud of words! Imagine to yourselves a being like Nature, boundlessly extravagant, boundlessly indifferent, without purpose or consideration, without pity or justice, at once fruitful and barren and uncertain: imagine to yourselves INDIFFERENCE as a power--how COULD you live in accordance with such indifference? To live--is not that just endeavoring to be otherwise than this Nature? Is not living valuing, preferring, being unjust, being limited, endeavouring to be different? And granted that your imperative, "living according to Nature," means actually the same as "living according to life"--how could you do DIFFERENTLY? Why should you make a principle out of what you yourselves are, and must be? In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you: while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature, you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players and self-deluders! In your pride you wish to dictate your morals and ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein; you insist that it shall be Nature "according to the Stoa," and would like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal glorification and generalism of Stoicism! With all your love for truth, you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, and with such hypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY, that is to say, Stoically, that you are no longer able to see it otherwise-- and to crown all, some unfathomable superciliousness gives you the Bedlamite hope that BECAUSE you are able to tyrannize over yourselves--Stoicism is self-tyranny--Nature will also allow herself to be tyrannized over: is not the Stoic a PART of Nature? . . . But this is an old and everlasting story: what happened in old times with the Stoics still happens today, as soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise; philosophy is this tyrannical impulse itself, the most spiritual Will to Power, the will to "creation of the world," the will to the causa prima.

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>>34799

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I saw this exact thread on /pol/ a month ago. Makes me want to finally get around to reading it.

>>34799
>>34801
Do people really believe Stoicism is that or this is just pasta?

>>34623

>cretin

Freudian slip, as stoicism is a shit philosophy for wankers.

>>34860

Perhaps to the extreme, but isn't accepting nature for what it is, and accepting life for what life is, at least in part, a good thing?

And aren't a lot of criticism for it, such as this comic here, misrepresenting some of its tenants anyways? Stoicism to my understanding would be for if the purse was stolen, for example, to not dwell on that anger and accept the fact that you will not have those things returned, it happened and to move on. And not, in fact, to allow bad things to happen to you because of nature?

Sort of a "change what we can, deal with what we cannot" sort of thing perhaps?

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>>34799
This is actually a perfect argument as to why stoicism is not a perfect fit for everyone and a lot of this has merit.
> imagine to yourselves INDIFFERENCE as a power
Not indifference. Acceptance. Acceptance of the indifference of nature. Acceptance of mortality. Acceptance that pain and suffering are an unavoidable part of life. Once you can accept these things they stop ruling over you and you are more able to live a better life and peruse what you want out of life.

But yes I can see how a zealot could take this to the extreme and following the same line of logic try to become everything Nietzsche is going on about. It would be a radical misinterpretation, but I could see it happen.

>In reality, however, it is quite otherwise with you: while you pretend to read with rapture the canon of your law in Nature,
>you want something quite the contrary, you extraordinary stage-players and self-deluders!

Stoicism is a philosophy lived, not read. If it were to become as zealous and dogmatic idea as what the Islamist's today are sure this is completely true, but this is not how it is meant to be used.

>In your pride you wish to dictate your morals and ideals to Nature, to Nature herself, and to incorporate them therein; you insist that it shall be Nature "according to the Stoa," and would like everything to be made after your own image, as a vast, eternal glorification and generalism of Stoicism!
This is not the goal at all, but again I see how a deluded person could turn it into this easily.

>With all your love for truth, you have forced yourselves so long, so persistently, and with such hypnotic rigidity to see Nature FALSELY
I just have to pause here. This is a man who spent all his time thinking and writing about nihilism and the pointlessness of life, saying the most powerful man on the planet and one of history's great generals perceives nature falsely, mid campaign while he is massacring the Germans.

This is why I don't like Nietzsche.

>But this is an old and everlasting story: what happened in old times with the Stoics still happens today, as soon as ever a philosophy begins to believe in itself. It always creates the world in its own image; it cannot do otherwise; philosophy is this tyrannical impulse itself, the most spiritual Will to Power, the will to "creation of the world," the will to the causa prima.

This entire bit makes me think some people during Nietzsche's time period actually thought like this and Nietzsche is arguing against them. His argument is logically sound, it's just wrong in what it accuses stoicism of being about.

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>>33641
>masters in philosophy
>thinks this is a qualification to speak among adults

Please leave, the fact that you've wasted your life doesn't help your case.

>>34890
>And aren't a lot of criticism for it, such as this comic here, misrepresenting some of its tenants anyways?
Pretty much.

>And not, in fact, to allow bad things to happen to you because of nature?
Exactly. If you have the power to prevent the bag from being stolen. Use what power you have. Humans exercising power is part of nature. If it is stolen, accept that you can move on in life without it, or kill yourself if the pain of living without the bag is truly to great for you to take.