How often do we embrace self-transcendence
compared to how often we accept our own fragility
and latch onto prosaic views?
This question is extremely challenging.
Not only because of its innate complexity,
but also because its essence can be interpreted in a plethora of ways.
What constitutes self-transcendence?
What constitutes prosaic views?
For now, let us leave these hefty questions aside
and focus on the bigger picture.
Life is struggle.
Life is struggle cloaked as a game.
It is cloaked as such in order to help us organize ourselves better.
For humans thrive more on structure and less on abstraction.
We come up with rules and laws and stages and prices
in order to create a more manageable version of reality
and forget the struggle that engulfs it.
We become part of a perennial game of adaptation
that attempts to alleviate that struggle.
Throughout that game, we encounter different players
that try to tear our inner world apart while we battle to establish balance.
For balance seems to be, according to our senses,
the state we seek, the state we demand, the state we desire.
Balance will always be the end goal for humankind.
It is a long and perilous journey that oscillates between chaos and boredom,
but it seems that we are on the right track to reach that state.
The when is irrelevant.
What is relevant, though, is the how and the why.
Self-transcendence is the answer to every question you might seek
that is connected to your search for inner purpose and balance.
Self-transcendence is the core vision every human ought to have
in order to explain his or her role in this world.
Whether this is manifested via a religious approach,
a spiritual approach, or a materialist approach, is not of importance.
The reality that is brought to the table by our ability
to keep pushing the envelope of our systems
and our desire to transcend our human condition is the gist of this idea.
This is the reason that the personal development movement
has gained so much steam over the years
and it keeps growing in an unprecedented way.
The need for every human that walks this planet
to escape the fragility of this existence
and become a higher consciousness being, will never fall out of fashion
because it is inextricably bound to the core of our paradigm.
Philosophers, thinkers, spiritual leaders and every agent
that strives to add another brick in the wall of self-transcendence
is at the epicenter of this verity.
That’s why we follow them, that’s why we admire them,
that’s why we listen to them. This is no joke.
This is one of the biggest truths that you will ever encounter
and one you should examine with enormous care.
The ultimate virtue of a person is their ability to speak the truth.
The truth mainly about themselves,
but also in a broader sense, the moral truth, and the scientific truth.
Morality and science are two terms
that have been flirting dangerously with each other
since the beginning of the scientific revolution,
but never really succeeded in merging or evolving together.
There are instances of hope throughout history
which indicate that we will eventually find a way
to create a universal moral framework free from religion,
that draws depth from scientific facts,
but this framework is still in the making
and it will probably take monumental events in order to be formulated.
Throughout that process, however,
we are able to discover glimpses of what such a framework should look like.
We are all humans and our capacity to understand right from wrong,
and moral from immoral,
is expressed by our ability to seek cooperation
and justice from a very young age,
mainly through play.
This “gift,” so to speak,
allows us to build variations of play as we grow older
and the rules embedded in the various “games” we create
help us assemble a version of reality that is more manageable
and more relevant to our needs.
The rules and the games are never perfect.
They are just there to remind us that we need them
and that we constantly have to adapt them and re-engineer them.
This is the substrate of our evolution
and this is what allowed our species to survive and thrive.
Unfortunately, this idea is arcane for most people.
Either because of lack of proper education
or because of a proclivity towards ignorance
and a general rejection of truth,
most people will cling to a very trivial
and oftentimes dangerous interpretation of reality
that will serve only their personal short term needs.
Since the ancient times,
people have been facing the ramifications of that situation
and have been trying to come up with solutions to this daunting conundrum.
Usually, a head on approach would result in friction
and would create even more tension
to the already capricious nature of our relationships.
So, the wisest among us realized our limitations and proposed philosophies
that would allow the thinking human to discover an intellectual solace.
One of these philosophies is stoicism.
It is a philosophy so potent that it has withstood the test of time
and it has, of late, become one of the most pertinent antidotes
to the lack of control we experience
while we attempt to enhance most aspects of our lives.
Seneca lived from 4 BC to AD 65.
We don’t know much about his early life.
What we do know is that he served as Nero’s advisor from AD 54 to 62
and that in AD 65 he conspired against the mad Emperor.
The conspiracy didn’t work,
Seneca was caught and he was ordered to kill himself.
We know Seneca mainly from the works that are attributed to him.
His focus was mainly philosophical essays and tragedies.
In his creations, there is a clear attempt to empower the individual narrative
through a belief in virtue, presence, patience and the embrace of human struggle
as an inevitable and much-needed tenet of life.
“True happiness is to enjoy the present,
without anxious dependence upon the future,
not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears
but to rest satisfied with what we have,
which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing.
The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach.
A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be,
without wishing for what he has not.”
When you read Seneca,
you can’t help but feel humbled and empowered at the same time.
Take this simple yet profound statement for instance:
All cruelty springs from weakness.
Weak is dangerous because usually, weakness can lead to cruelty.
It is because of weakness that we engage in immoral and atrocious acts.
It is because of weakness
that we fail to establish a canonical set of rules in our relationships
that can help them prosper.
It is because of weakness that we fail to see our own weaknesses
and we stay trapped in a distorted version of reality
that propels us towards misery and distress.
Seneca knew that well.
Most probably because he could see through Nero’s cruelty
and understand that weakness is the source of it.
A strong character is only cruel when cruelty is inflicted upon them.
Strength of character demands resilience towards weak views,
an appreciation of life, a responsibility towards people
who admire you and a constant fight to achieve self-ownership.
This is what Seneca fought for and this is probably what he died for.
Epictetus was born a slave,
and throughout the journey from a slave to a philosopher,
he confronted all the nuances that the spectrum of his journey entailed.
That is perhaps the reason his philosophy is so powerful.
His experiences allowed him to live his philosophy
and use it as a means for survival and prosperity.
The name Epictetus in Greek means “gained” or “acquired.”
I am assuming that this was a very typical name for slaves during that time
and probably a word that allowed Epictetus to experience the incessant death
and rebirth of his persona through constantly acquiring more and more wisdom.
Epictetus lived from AD 50 to AD 135.
He was released from slavery somewhen after his 18th birthday
and he then began to teach philosophy in Rome.
He was considered a vigorous speaker that could mesmerize his listeners
and as one of his pupils pointed out in his notes:
"induce his listener to feel just what Epictetus wanted him to feel."
“There is only one way to happiness
and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.”
“Man is not worried by real problems so much
as by his imagined anxieties about real problems.”
“Philosophy does not promise to secure anything external for man,
otherwise it would be admitting something
that lies beyond its proper subject-matter.
For as the material of the carpenter is wood, and that of statuary bronze,
so the subject-matter of the art of living is each person's own life.”
One can easily see that
Epictetus’ main concern was how to adopt an intellectual framework
that will allow the individual to unshackle himself from the limits
that our problematic relationships create.
He was a firm believer of the fact
that an individual can only be free if he frees himself from his limiting beliefs
and also his addiction to the opinions of others.
He was one of the first to see that
there is a way for one to be in control
insofar as one can control only the things that are within his control.
Opinions, perceptions, views, beliefs, stories,
are all manifestations of how our mind adapts to the stimuli of the environment.
Sometimes they are true and sometimes they are untrue.
One can’t control the extent to which truth is being spoken by others.
But one can certainly control the extent to which he speaks the truth
and how one reacts and perceives the truth or untruth spoken by others.
Marcus Aurelius was the Stoic Emperor.
Epictetus and Seneca were philosophers and advisors.
Marcus Aurelius was at the top of the dominance hierarchy
and his authority exerted respect not just because of his power
but also because of his philosophy.
That is something very crucial to ponder.
The archetype of the emperor, as it has been portrayed throughout time,
is usually that of the oppressor or the narcissist or the totalitarian.
Marcus Aurelius convulses the foundations of that archetype.
During his reign, he had to deal with a lot of challenging events,
among which are the war with the Parthian Empire,
the push back of barbarian tribes,
the rise of Christianity and the Antonine plague.
It becomes apparent that, unless you are a ruthless ruler,
you can’t stay sane amongst such precarious times.
Marcus Aurelius did whatever was within his power
to avoid ruthless tactics as much as possible and follow a more stoic path.
He was heavily influenced by Epictetus, Rusticus, and Heraclitus
and one can notice a more forward-looking
and conclusive philosophy in his aphorisms:
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”
“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact.
Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.”
“If you are distressed by anything external,
the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it;
and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.”
“It is not death that a man should fear,
but he should fear never beginning to live.”
There is subtle optimism and positivity encompassing his views
and that’s also one of the reasons
his dictums have been more popular than the rest of the Stoics.
There is enough ugliness and adversity in this world
to make us feel demotivated in perpetuity.
Choosing not to focus on the ugliness but on the beauty
and not on the adversity but on the blessings,
is Marcus Aurelius’ way to battle demotivation.
Individuals can act in any way they find plausible,
and this allows them to accrue benefits or suffer costs,
depending on the circumstances.
The responsibility that our actions necessitate is the only true weapon
we can exploit in order to antagonize the nefariousness of the world around us.
Marcus Aurelius realized the power of that weapon
and that helped him become an exemplary emperor
despite adversity and despite his weaknesses.
That is what makes him a respectful example for all of us.
You have probably noticed that all three major Stoics lived in Rome
during the first and second century AD.
This was the time when the Roman Empire was at its greatest territorial extent.
I cannot say for sure how this affected the rise of stoicism,
but I do know that during prosperous but at the same time turbulent times,
great philosophies emerge.
There is one thing I know for sure, though:
Becoming enamored with stoicism is definitely a life shaping experience.
Hi everyone, This video has been a bit long,
but I tried to present stoicism from a more holistic perspective.
I added some personal commentary in the beginning
in order to reveal some truths that stoicism attempts to convey
but very few actually notice.
I considered this commentary essential because I wanted to communicate
that stoicism entails way more than
the quotes you will find on the Internet nowadays.
It is actually the most potent antidote to human suffering
and a philosophy that, if understood deeply,
can transform your life in monumental ways.
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See you in the next video.