Socratic State of Mind Podcast

Virtue without power is benign, but power without virtue tears lives and civilizations apart.  So it’s a pity good people often don’t understand how power works, and what people holding the levers of power are up to. Part of wisdom is understanding that ignorance of reality leaves us susceptible to manipulation by those who lack scruples, and less effective in doing good.   If the United States br...

Early in his career, the famous actor Sir Michael Caine struggled with an errant chair disrupting a scene. It blocked the doorway he was supposed to enter through, and his teacher gave him a piece of advice that stuck with him:  “Use the difficulty,” Caine said. “If it’s a comedy, fall over (the chair). If it’s a drama, pick it up and smash it…Now I took that and I used it in my own life...There’s...

No one expected the toads to be killers. Or rather the Australians assumed the amphibians would stick to slaughter of the convenient and beneficial sort, a staggering failure of imagination.    Rhinella marina , a giant neotropical toad better known as the cane toad, was imported to deal with beetles ravaging Australia’s sugar cane industry in 1935. They devoured New World pests in the Americas, s...

Can we be cheerful when life sucks? Training yourself to be is a focus for Stoics. Seneca talks about the ideal Stoic sage we’re supposed to be aiming for: “ And if you come across a man who is never alarmed by dangers, never affected by cravings, happy in adversity, calm in the midst of storm, viewing mankind from a higher level and the gods from their own, is it not likely that a feeling will fi...

Our Universe isn’t known for leniency. Gravity will not be dismissed. The laws of thermodynamics aren’t fungible. Entropy stalks us in the night. Try to live in defiance of the universe’s underlying principles and you’ll quickly find out how unforgiving they are.  Yet an all-star cast of ancient philosophers — and not a few modern scientists and engineers — suggest there are other universal princi...

Self-love has to end somewhere, right? Only if we insist on a very limited definition of self-love. I suspect Marcus Aurelius was right to instruct himself to, “be tolerant with others and strict with yourself.” I consider being strict with myself to be one of the greatest forms of self-love. It's only when I consistently adhere to my values that I thrive.   Socratic State of Mind is a reader-supp...

Maybe you’ve felt it when you look at the stars at night, or see a picture of earth from space. It’s what French philosopher and Stoic scholar Pierre Hadot called that “oceanic feeling,” which overcomes us when we zoom out our awareness and notice our insignificance against the vast scope of the earth, our universe, or time itself.  In one sense it’s humbling. We might feel adrift when we realize...

Surging floodwaters nearly killed me in 2015, and swept away almost everything I owned.  In the shocked aftermath, as I gathered up the mud-smeared detritus of my life, I remembered the words of Seneca — Omnia mea mecum sunt: All that is mine I carry with me .  Seneca thought our most valuable possessions couldn’t be taken from us — our character, our freedom to choose, our knowledge and logic.  P...

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines,” Ralph Waldo Emerson famously mused in his essay, Self Reliance . He recognized that new evidence often renders previous stances untenable, so an insistence on consistency often leaves us misaligned with our reason and our moral character over time.   A devoted Democrat or Republican i...

The hospital and public library of Brattleboro Vermont were shocked to receive their largest donations ever in 2015 — a $5 million bequest from Ronald Read, a former janitor and widower who drove a second-hand beater, chopped his own firewood, and wore worn-out clothes.  His riches resulted not from a large income, but from frugality and steady investment in blue-chip stocks. Read would perhaps ag...

Stoics try to be prepared for life. To best way to prepare is to train yourself a react to everything with equanimity or indifference while seeking to respond with virtue.  * Imagine different “disasters” that might befall you today or in the future as if they’re happening. Imagine your initial reaction (probably overblown), and see yourself pull back from it so you can take a more critical look....

Practicing philosophy and living by our values can leave us looking strange and out of touch.  The Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau thought we should embrace this. “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer,” he wrote in Walden ,  “Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.” But your out-of-step marching ma...

Watch the video . It seems like a paradox— Stoics want to be relaxed and at peace, and yet dedicated to achieving things. How can we be serious about justice or reaching a business or personal goal if we have to also be relaxed about it? A serious drive to achieve anything seems to sabotage peace of mind.   The answer is simple but not easy — as Epictetus says, “Make the best use of what is in you...

Watch the video . As artillery shells exploded on the beach around him, Theodore Roosevelt Jr. knew he had a problem.  The vanguard of the allied attack against Nazi Germany, which Roosevelt was leading, had come ashore far from its target. His soldiers were pinned under heavy fire and panicking.   The 56-year-old son of President Teddy Roosevelt was the oldest man on Utah Beach that day. He walke...

Journaling is, on its surface, pretty easy: Get a notebook. Get a pen. Write about your life. Done. But not all journaling is created equal. One of the most powerful journaling techniques is simply talking to yourself the right way — like a philosopher. What does a person gain from practicing philosophy? Antisthenes, one of Socrates’s students, had a strange answer to this question. He said he gai...

Watch the video version . If we don’t know what we value, how can we know how to live?   One of Socrates’s aims was to clarify what was actually good and truly important so he could live up to those values.  Therapist and author Donald Robertson suggests one surprising way to find our values: Look for what we despise.   If you dislike a politician because they’re a hypocrite, it implies you value...

Watch the video version . “This is not the body your mother gave birth to,” the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote in a seemingly strange entry in his journal .  But wasn’t he right? Our cells are constantly being replaced. The childhood you, physically and psychologically, is, in a sense, dead. Today’s you will be gone before long. You’re not the person you were yesterday.   It’s as the philosop...

Watch the video version . If you opened this article, it implies you care about finding passion and a meaningful path forward. Congratulations! You now have at least one thing you know you care about. Until something else lights a fire under you, I suggest you organize your life around the goal of gaining further clarity about what’s really important to you. * If you want passion and purpose, ask...

Watch the video version. The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius put his training as an orator to good use, crafting beautiful turns of phrase to express timeless wisdom in his journal .  “The universe is change and life is opinion,” goes one of his most memorable lines.  Marcus penned short, memorable epigrams like this to recall whenever he faltered in life, often linking together important lessons. T...

Watch the video version . Stoic author and therapist Donald Robertson talks about his personal Stoic practice, whether or not venting is psychologically helpful, how Society acts as a kind of negative therapy, and much more. 0:24 Is venting valuable or harmful to psychological health? 7:41 Venting vs externalizing a thought to better grasp it. 12:39 Objectivity creeping into vented subjects 17:34...

Watch the video . Sharon Lebell gives a great explanation of what Stoicism is designed to do in her reimagined enchiridion . “Philosophy’s purpose,” she writes, “is to illuminate the ways our soul has been infected by unsound beliefs, untrained tumultuous desires, and dubious life choices and preferences that are unworthy of us. Self-scrutiny applied with kindness is the main antidote.” Philosophy...

Watch the video . If you want to stay present, contemplate death:  * Each morning remind yourself that today could be your last. What can you do to make sure you’ll live it well and not waste it?  * Each night, think of the day behind you as if it was the last. What do you regret in light of your inevitable death? What will you do better tomorrow so you don’t waste another? * You’re a guest at a b...

Your beloved family member dies in a car crash — A tragedy, everyone assures you. But was it fated? That's a loaded term, so let's clarify. I'm not asking if a bearded sky god willed the accident, or if the event was somehow etched in cosmic stone at the beginning of time. But might be fated nonetheless? Maybe your family member was killed by a woman driving a pickup truck. She was crying and dist...

Watch the video . What if I gave you three million dollars and just one goal — be happy? A year later, after the dopamine rush had died down, would I find you busy with the typical things people claim make them happy? Would you be drinking great wine, eating your favorite foods, and watching netflix? Would you actually be happy? The pursuit of leisurely pleasure wasn’t what the Socrates and the St...

Watch the video . If someone has a bad leg, we give them a shoulder to lean on. If they have an intellectual disability, we have sympathy and help them cope as best we can. So why do we hate the shameless, the manipulative, the self-interested people of the world? Why aren’t the morally disabled worthy of our sympathy, since they don’t understand what is good, or how their actions harm themselves?...