Stoicism

Yes I'm aware of this stupid fucking stoic argument but then I see people with sciatica who basically can't move without crying and I don't go WOAH NATURE IS SO BEAUTIFUL WARNING THAT PERSON THAT THEY'RE IN PAIN. Retarded stoic appeals to nature do not persuade me and BRAH NATURE is all over stoicism.

If they go through enough pain stoics will take painkillers for the pain that is neither inherently good or bad. This is because stoics are full of shit.

Stoicism doesn't say that an absolute crippling state of pain is beautiful, no, it's infact horrible, like many realities of our existence, but we should not look at our or another's miserable existence as something that should be hated, life is the way it is and we cannot change nothing about the world except ourselves. Pain is not venerated, but is endured, not hated, but accepted.

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Reason doesn't have a will of its own, it's just a tool for your feelings. When you choose to be 'rational' and disregard your emotions, you're actually still being driven by emotions, but you're not aware of it. In the case of stoicism, you're driven by the desire of being in control of your existence, in control of yourself, and protecting yourself against anything the world may throw at you.

Obviously, since you can't prevent bad things from happening to you, the only way of protecting yourself is to devalue anything that's not under your control, and place the greatest importance on your own behavior, deluding yourself into thinking that so long as you act 'virtuously', you'll be happy and nothing else matters. Your best friend may betray you, your children may die, your city may get destroyed, but none of that can touch you, because only virtue matters.

It's just an incredibly transparent way of coping with the inescapable unfairness of life. Slave-tier philosophy.

P.s.: I've read Marcus Aurelius, Senecas and Epictetus, so think twice before you call me 'uninformed' again, kid.

So crippling pain is horrible but not bad.

>life is the way it is and we cannot change nothing about the world except ourselves

But that's not true. The only thing stopping you from changing the world is that you lack the power to do so. If you have enough power, you can even force people to do what you want, and if you have enough knowledge, you can do crazy things like travelling to the Moon or make blind people see again. Only a weak loser accepts the world as it is.

>P.s.: I've read Marcus Aurelius, Senecas and Epictetus, so think twice before you call me 'uninformed' again, kid.

This is amazing because I'm 100% unsure if this was said ironically or unironically.

So not "coping" with the unfairness of life is not something that should be "slave-tier"? In what way is accepting the inevitable bullshit of life as not liberating? You probably have a different definition of liberty but stoicism literally is based on de-shackling yourself from the illusion of meaning and embrace what he randomness of the cosmos gives you. Is being anxious, depressed and fixated on hating your life and existence as not being a "slave"?

>stoicism is slave tier I read Marcus
>"You should be nobody's slave and nobody's tyrant" Marcus Aurelius
Quote from abose is relevant too
Stoicism deals exactly with what we cannot control, evil , random suffering, etc. What we can control, our mind and ultimately with some work, our body, we can then serve humanity in any shape and form we possibly can (medicine, architecture, art). Again, the key is to be content with being human, a mortal and be a good, helpful man.

Stoics didn't believe in the 'randomness of the cosmos', quite the contrary, they thought the universe was ruled by reason and was perfectly balanced, even though it may seem otherwise from our individual perspective.

They explained bad behavior in other people as the result of ignorance. Evil is simply the absence of virtue, which is, knowledge of how one should act in accordance with universal reason. So if someone causes you harm, you shouldn't be mad at him, because he's only acting that way due to lacking wisdom.

'Accepting the inevitable bullshit of life' is another way of saying 'I give up', how is that liberating? Deep down you're still suffering. Even the great stoic philosophers had to constantly remind themselves to stop caring, it's not like once they understood stoicism, they were finally free from pain once and for all. They acknowledged the problem, and the pain, but found ways of rationalizing them away. You know what's really liberating? Solving the damn problem. Defeating your enemy, saving your children, protecting your city.

>Life has been really better since it.
yet you are still here on r9k

Yes, the universe is perfectly balanced in the eyes of the stoics, but the problem arises from our limited,humanly understanding of it, which creates its unpredictability in our eyes.

Stoics means not only tolerating but also flexibility and perseverance in dealing with other fellow humans. We acknowledge their problems, we delete our resentment for them and we try to better them and ourselves through them (through good arguments like Marcus Aurelius would say).

Yes, any person suffers, but the stoic accepts it. It's not about the suffering that you should endure and accept from a school bully, but the amoral, unconventional suffering that is placed upon you at random through life. Can you truly solve the problem of being randomly in an airplane that is about to crash, or being randomly shot by a stranger? No, it's random. But that's what life is.

Whats wrong with coming here? Pls explain

That's not stoicism. Wanting to appear collected for vanity's sake is not stoicism, it's just pretentious and shallow.

Absolutely nothing, people think Jow Forums should be this bastion of sadness and inceldom but it can be so much more. It was entirely based on originality but now it has become this...thing.

pain makes you stronger
if you tolerate pain that doesn't permanently damage your body you're threshold for pain will increase making you more capable following a serious accident/attack/emergency

If that doesn't work for you then how about how effective exerciser is painful?

Whether Marcus thought he was a slave or a tyrant is quite meaningless. Many tyrants think they're actually serving the common people and many slaves don't know they're slaves.

If it was possible to control our mind, why did Marcus feel the need to remind himself of the stoic truths, even after many years of studying and practicing them? And when we say 'control our mind', who's controlling what, exactly? It's the mind controlling itself, in other words, certain feelings establishing dominance over others. And how is that any different from what everyone already does?

If we could control our body, we wouldn't get sick and grow old, so obviously, we can't control our body any more than we can control the outside world.

>Again, the key is to be content with being human, a mortal and be a good, helpful man.
What a boring, submissive, weak humanity that is.

I've got a book about it but I haven't read it yet. it's called a guide to the good life

>Stoics means not only tolerating but also flexibility and perseverance in dealing with other fellow humans. We acknowledge their problems, we delete our resentment for them and we try to better them and ourselves through them (through good arguments like Marcus Aurelius would say).

The problem is that tolerance only leads to further abuse. The stoics were wrong to think that you can help people become better versions of themselves through good arguments. How naive can you be to believe that? Anyone who's spent 5 minutes on the internet could tell you that reason is powerless against ignorance and selfishness. The only way to stop someone from hurting you is to force him to stop.

>It's not about the suffering that you should endure and accept from a school bully, but the amoral, unconventional suffering that is placed upon you at random through life.
So we should just accept that people die from cancer and stop looking for a cure? Go tell that to the father of a child with bone cancer, let's see if he agrees. If a plane crashes, we find out why it crashed and then we build better planes that have less chance of crashing. We don't just accept that oops, planes crash sometimes.

>Whether Marcus thought he was a slave or a tyrant is quite meaningless. Many tyrants think they're actually serving the common people and many slaves don't know they're slaves.
That quote is meaningful because it reminds you to be cautious of your own importance in society, to try to not overestimate or underestimate yourself, to try to have a clear understanding of yourself AND of your virtues of being tolerant and unharming to being ambitious and rational when it comes to your social status.
>If it was possible to control our mind, why did Marcus feel the need to remind himself of the stoic truths, even after many years of studying and practicing them? And when we say 'control our mind', who's controlling what, exactly? It's the mind controlling itself, in other words, certain feelings establishing dominance over others. And how is that any different from what everyone already does?
Why shouldn't people remind themselves when they are falling in the traps of their own emotions? I said to control "their mind" but I worded that wrong, I should bave said control their emotions and body with a rational, conscious mind. It is well known that stoicism is one of the hardest ways of life and it's quite easy to fall pray to our emotions, but reminding ourselves the virtues we begin to take control of our "wheel" through rational thinking
>If we could control our body, we wouldn't get sick and grow old, so obviously, we can't control our body any more than we can control the outside world.
To certain extent we can control our body, through stoic discipline which emphasizes exposing ourselves through uncomfortable situations: for example what this user says: >What a boring, submissive, weak humanity that is.
So being good, helpful, orderly, rational is seen in your eyes as being "weak"?

>That quote is meaningful because it reminds you to be cautious of your own importance in society, to try to not overestimate or underestimate yourself, to try to have a clear understanding of yourself AND of your virtues of being tolerant and unharming to being ambitious and rational when it comes to your social status.
If you do that, you'll just fall prey to the people who want to have power over you. While you try to act in a way that benefits society, everyone else (that is, society) are only thinking of their own benefit, and many of them are actually thinking of how to harm you. Life is struggle, it's competition. Cooperation only happens when there's a mutual benefit. You ignore this fact at your own risk.

>Why shouldn't people remind themselves when they are falling in the traps of their own emotions? I said to control "their mind" but I worded that wrong, I should bave said control their emotions and body with a rational, conscious mind. It is well known that stoicism is one of the hardest ways of life and it's quite easy to fall pray to our emotions, but reminding ourselves the virtues we begin to take control of our "wheel" through rational thinking
As I've stated before, being rational doesn't mean that you're not being controlled by your emotions. Your emotions determine what you're doing; reason determines how you do it. You wanna know why stoicism is so hard to follow? It's because there are no emotions strong enough to completely defeat the most primitive parts of your psyche (lust, need for dominance, etc). Any ascetic way of life is going to be a lifelong battle against your deepest instincts. And for what?

>To certain extent we can control our body, through stoic discipline which emphasizes exposing ourselves through uncomfortable situations
Yeah, and to a certain extent we can also control the world around us, so why should we disregard the world and focus only on ourselves?

>Pic related
Reason is inherently yours and some people lack that or try to ignore it with all their hearts, is that a bad thing for yourself? No. That's how society is and has been. This is the stoic view.
>How naive can you be to think you can change people
>The only way to stop someone from hurting you is to force him to stop
This is what society is to a stoic, we emphasize our rational mind and experience over the other's cause when can't truly predict or control them, but nonetheless help people, and as a result maybe we become an example, if not the person next to you but maybe for the 4th or 15th away from you.
>So we should just accept that people die from cancer and stop looking for a cure? Go tell that to the father of a child with bone cancer, let's see if he agrees. If a plane crashes, we find out why it crashed and then we build better planes that have less chance of crashing. We don't just accept that oops, planes crash sometimes.
People will still die regardless of social revolution. If we assume that all planes can be enhanced to sometime never have malfunctions, some planes would still be taken down by a rocket randomly by some country. We might cure cancer someday, but a superbacteria would come and we will still die. Stoics deal with this constant and unending stream of random suffering placed upon us, when we take something, another takes its place, that's the nature of our existence, best we can do when it comes to absolute terminal death situtaions is accept it and live out how many days we have as free from anxiety or regret as possible.

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>So being good, helpful, orderly, rational is seen in your eyes as being "weak"?
If that's your whole strategy in life, yes it's weak because people will simply take advantage of you.

>If you do that, you'll just fall prey to the people who want to have power over you. While you try to act in a way that benefits society, everyone else (that is, society) are only thinking of their own benefit, and many of them are actually thinking of how to harm you. Life is struggle, it's competition. Cooperation only happens when there's a mutual benefit. You ignore this fact at your own risk
So why should we conform to the unfairness of some people when we can hold our virtues high? How can someone take advantage of stoic when he learns to deeply analyse the external influences on themselves and eliminate them ? Being rational also means to be aware of any predicament against you, if you had received an insult, when once it has been keeping you awake at night and made question yourself is now just a small petty human mistake place on you, if you've been beaten up, you should acknowledge both your interior mistakes and fix them (Your physical body, battle knowledge and so on). YOU adapt to the world, not the world to you, nkt in the sense you become a passive person, but you can face it in all its forms, both good and bad.
>As I've stated before, being rational doesn't mean that you're not being controlled by your emotions. Your emotions determine what you're doing; reason determines how you do it. You wanna know why stoicism is so hard to follow? It's because there are no emotions strong enough to completely defeat the most primitive parts of your psyche. Any ascetic way of life is going to be a lifelong battle against your deepest instincts. And for what?
Stoicism is not entirely ascetic, you acknowledge your desires and your emotions and you control them as much as they don't interfere with your life goals or healthy being.
>Yeah, and to a certain extent we can also control the world around us, so why should we disregard the world and focus only on ourselves?
"What is good for the city is also good for the person, and vice versa" Marcus Aurelius

>you're driven by the desire of being in control of your existence
Wrong. The first thing you do is learn to let go.

I've grown out of puberty

Crippling pain just is. Your frame of reference and attachment makes pain something (horrible, bad). When I had experienced my first cancer patient, a curious young boy that had so many metastatic growths in a tissue sample the team stopped counting after 27, I just cried in the shower that evening. Stoic people, people that meditate consistently have demonstrated higher pain tolerance just by learning to observe and accept it with detachment. A lot of suffering is just from the fact that you are afraid of the next second.

Stoicism is just trying to cope with the fact you're a cuck thinking you're better just shows how retarded your Facebook ideology really is.

Incels don't like it because they don't understand virtue. The existentialist idea of being your best self regardless of what's wrong in your life. Despite having no gf a person can start with improving life in hundreds of ways they can control more easily.

Why are you an incel if it's so easy to change???

I never said it was easy.

i have Letters from a Stoic laying around here somewhere, should i give it a read?

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Definitely, pick up also "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius.

Give me an example of a Chad stoic in today's world. You can't.

I've been reading Meditations but it's such a slog to get through. There's a handful of meaningful passages, but it's all followed by Marcus rambling about nonsensical shit and repeating himself a million times. But you can't actually skip through it, because there's all these tiny bits of wisdom mixed in with the ramblings. I can't really criticize it though because it was just the dude's personal journal and I can't imagine he wrote it to be coherent to anyone but himself. Am I just a brainlet or is this a pretty normal reaction to reading ancient philosophers?

no, it's not the easiest book to read;

>marcus wrote it in his native language
>marcus wrote it solely for himself, not aware millions of people would ultimately read it
>translated from language to language over 100's of years
>often times reiterated by authors, which may make it easier to read but it just muddles the original context and flow

chances are there's shit that's in the book/not in the book that should/shouldn't be there, it's hard to be 100% accurate when dealing with literary works from a thousand years ago

That's good to know. Is there another stoic that would be easier for me to start with? I just grabbed Meditations because I thought it would be cool starting with a Roman Emperor, and because I keep seeing the guy referenced everywhere. I get the feeling I picked a bad starting point for just getting into philosophy though.

>The existentialist idea of being your best self regardless of what's wrong in your life. Despite having no gf a person can start with improving life in hundreds of ways they can control more easily.
based and existentially stoic pilled
i've been doing this for years, much happier this way

honestly if i had to pick 3 books/stoics, mediations would still be 1 of the top 3, other than that though you can try seneca or epictetus, but seneca is definitely more of the wordy, winding sort of writer, so i'd probably go in the order of:

>meditations (since you already have it and it's among the easier ones to consume)
>epictetus' discourses and selected writings
>seneca's letter from a stoic

after that just browse around between the 3 primary stoics. there are others, but these guys are considered the most prolific and well preserved philosophers in terms of reading material of their time

also, just to add, if you're looking for a more casual approach into stocism rather than these recorded discourses and academic texts, try epictetus' enchiridion, or just don't read meditations like a book - open it to a random page and take a couple likes when you need it - sitting down and just trying to consume page after page like any old novel is nonsensical and doesn't really work