When I was 17 or 18 years old, one day I sat down and drew a line on a piece of paper. I don’t remember why I did so, but it turned out to be a special moment. At the… Read More ›
Reason
We Have Risen Because of Reason
Being focused on reason, the ancient Roman Stoics exhort us to rely upon it greatly, for if we don’t, we are mere animals; it is because of reason that we have risen above all other species on the planet in… Read More ›
Enemies of Tranquility [On Vice and Friendship]
We all have vices. Everyone. They range on a spectrum, of course, from either having three packs of sugar in our coffee all the way up to mainlining heroin. In the Stoic context and for our purposes here, there is… Read More ›
Your Life: Habit or Freedom?
A friend once asked me, “With all the years you’ve studied the mind and its functions, why have you not written a book? Especially since you love to write?” I could have given him a dozen different answers, but what… Read More ›
Don’t Believe. Understand. Then Do.
Since the time of the Roman Stoics, philosophy has generally been turned into a field inhabited solely by intellectuals that like using multi-syllabic words, writing almost incomprehensible texts that only their academic friends could understand (I’m looking at you Hegel.)… Read More ›
2+2=4, Not Fish
In the writings of the ancient Roman Stoics, there is much talk about God (Zeus), and the gods, having designed humans, utilizing their divine reason to give the same to us. The Stoics put forth that since we were created… Read More ›
