stoicism

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>>2160177
*your family

>>2160177
If you understand that your family is human, and that humans are destined to die than you won't be as troubled when they die. He's right.

>>2160177
I don't think you are getting it

>>2160177

Yeah OP, what >>2160188 said.

It's a question of how you see Desire. The mantra that Epictetus is laying out for you is about trying to reconfigure the way you see the things you desire. Here he's saying that a big part of the pain that we experience when a loved one has died stems from a long built habit of ours wherein we don't ever think of the ones we love as passing away or dying.

It's kind of like how most of us spend practically every day fairly sure that it 'wont' be our last. Well, overtime, this builds up a 'habit' of a false view that runs up against a wall when we're dying. This applies too with the way we view our loved ones. Every day we treat them as though they'll always be around.

By reminding ourselves on a daily basis of this, we can sort of build up the habit of reminding ourselves of this natural order of things

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> The quote is said by Epictetus.
> This is clearly the bust of Epicurus.

>>2160177
Well in Buddhism monks do this ritual where they create really elaborate and detailed sand paintings, taking months to finish, and then destroy them. People might think "What the fuck? Why do that?" But the point is that you can appreciate life's beauty and the good things in it without getting overly attached. So it's not like you "don't care" about your family, rather that you love and appreciate them, but also accept the fact that they're not going to be around forever since death is inevitable, so there's no point getting upset over it.

>>2160177
Expectation. If you expect something to happen then it won't be that bad when it actually does since you've known that it was going to happen for a long time. All of the mini-exposure/thinking about the future event desensitizes you so that you don't feel much when it finally occurs. When people don't expect things is when they become overly emotional. If you think about all the possibilies then there will be few things that shock you.

>>2160177
I feel like this is only a philosophy for people with amazing willpower. I tried it and it was so energy draining it's just not possible. The kind of mindset you get into also leave you very vulnerable to committ mistakes, then forgive those mistakes because you're always saying "Okay, what is in my control, I fucked up, but what can I do now" which leaves you open to just committ another mistake and then on and on

>>2160177
My father died when I was a teen and I wasn't upset much about it, stoicism or not. I just accepted the new reality. He was a good father and I didn't have anything against him or something of the sort, I just never saw any purpose in crying, grief and mourning. Some people are just like that.

>>2164119
You don't start out a master stoic over night. Apply the principals to your life and you'll slowly advance.