How to Think Like a Roman Emperor
If you have anger issues, this one is a great tool (h/t mindyourbusiness)
This week’s book:
Discourses and Selected Writings
Disclaimer: I’m not your Supervisor. These are my opinions after reading through these books a few times.
Epictetus was born a slave around 50 ad. His owner was Epaphroditus, a rich freedman who was once a slave of Nero. Though he was a slave Epictetus was sent to study philosophy under Musonius Rufus.
Epictetus was lame and there are some stories it was caused by his master and others that it was caused by disease.
He was a freedman when all philosophers were banished from Rome in 89 by the Emperor Domitian. He then started his school in Greece, and had many students. He did not leave any writings from his lessons, but one of his students, Flavius Arrian, took notes and wrote the Discourses.
Epictetus did not marry, had no children, and lived to be around 80-85. In retirement, he adopted a child that would have been abandoned and raised him with a woman.
He died sometime around AD 135.
He is my favorite Stoic teacher. I love his bare bones and very straight forward approach.
Following is a paragraph-by-paragraph discussion of one of his lessons. Epictetus’s text appears italicized in bold, my replies are in normal text.
Of social intercourse
To this topic you ought to devote yourself before every other, how, namely, you may avoid ever being so intimately associated with some one of your acquaintances or friends as to descend to the same level with him; otherwise you will ruin yourself. But if there slips into your mind the thought, “He will think me unmannerly and will not be as friendly as he used to be,” remember that nothing is done without paying for it, and that it is impossible for a man to remain the same person that he used to be, if he does not do the same things.
Choosing the right friends can help to influence me in positive directions. When I was younger, I was not as picky about who I hung out with. Even when I first joined the Marines, I was hanging out with all of the discontented Marines and did not have a very productive first enlistment. After I got out and was a married carpenter, I started to be friends with a better class of people. Once I came back into the Marines, I was much more mature and very picky about who I would consider a friend. This helped to influence me to be a better person and Marine.
Choose, therefore, which you prefer; either to be loved just as much as you used to be by the same persons, remaining like your former self, or else, by being superior to your former self, to lose the same affection. Because if this latter alternative is the better choice, turn forthwith in that direction, and let not the other considerations draw you away; for no man is able to make progress when he is facing both ways. But if you have preferred this course to every other, if you wish to devote yourself to this alone, and labor to perfect it, give up everything else.
Is it more important to be liked, or to be the best person I can? For me that is an easy question because I haven’t cared about being liked since I was about 13 years old. I tried to be myself and not pretend to get people to like me. I wasn’t always the best picker of friends, but that improved as I improved myself.
5Otherwise this facing both ways will bring about a double result: You will neither make progress as you ought, nor will you get what you used to get before. For before, when you frankly aimed at nothing worth while, you made a pleasant companion. You cannot achieve distinction along both lines, but you must needs fall short in the one to the degree in which you take part in the other. If you do not drink with those you used to drink with, you cannot in their eyes be as pleasant a companion as you used to be; choose, therefore, whether you wish to be a hard drinker and pleasant to those persons, or a sober man and unpleasant.
i had to make this kind of choice when I rejoined the Marines and went to parties with my wife. These were the ones all of the “popular” guys went to. It took maybe 2 weekends for me to figure out that this was not the group I wanted to be a part of. I stopped going to parties and had a few close drinking buddies instead.
If you do not sing with those you used to sing with, you cannot be loved by them as you used to be; choose, therefore, here also, which you wish. For if it is better to be a man of respectful and modest behavior than for someone to say of you, “He is a pleasant fellow,” give up all other considerations, renounce them, turn your back upon them, have nothing to do with them. But if that does not please you, turn about, the whole of you, to the opposite; become one of the addicts to unnatural vice, one of the adulterers, and act in the corresponding fashion, and you will get what you wish. Yes, and jump up and shout your applause to the dancer. 10But different characters do not mix in this fashion; you cannot act the part of Thersites and that of Agamemnon too. If you wish to be a Thersites, you ought to be humpbacked and bald; if an Agamemnon, you ought to be tall and handsome, and to love those who have been made subject to you.
I try to be a modest and sober person, even when I am drinking. I do not drink until I black out and o not do dumb things just because I am drinking. I would enjoy myself, but not to excess. I have known too many people that did unethical or stupid things while drinking and it cost quite a few of them their Marine Corps career.
This week I have been by myself, my wife went to Okinawa for 6 weeks on Sunday. Because of this, I haven’t been sleeping right. I don’t want to go to bed on time, and every night I stay up way too late. I need to correct this. I have also been a little more irratable then normal, both from the lack of sleep and the fact my house is empty. Then Wednesday morning, I found this:
Got a free Honda mirror.
I drove to work and I was PISSED! I had to talk myself down, first by hearing my wife in my head saying, “Stoic”. She always says that to me when I start getting wound up. Then I looked at it logically,I had to fix it whether I was mad or not, so anger would not help anything. I got cooled down quickly, in the past I would have been mad the whole way to work.
I did fix it:
$80, I hate people
Well now we know Ron isn’t secretly Bruce Banner — the rage would have certainly helped drive the new post.
Hope it was just an accident, Ron — it does seem like mailboxes are frequent targets in these parts as well (mine hasn’t been hit, it just leans on its own because I think the soil by the road is shifting… have a section of driveway that is broken off / lower than the rest and will shift if you step on corners as well…. I used some cement after digging out the post a bit a couple of years ago to set it… but it isn’t quite straight.. just stable as if I lived in Pisa… some drunk driver tried to kill one of my favorite shrubberies a few years back though — dwarf spruce or something that was perfect for an outdoor Christmas tree decoration… now it is leaning and a little dead on the impact side… such is life).
If they left the wing mirror behind, it was likely an accident.
I had such an accident once, let shifting cargo distract me and a mailbox took off my wing mirror. I was new to driving, in fact, it was my first time driving alone. The car took more than the mailbox in damage. Admittedly, it wasn’t a plastic mailbox.
“I was new to driving, in fact, it was my first time driving alone.”
Well, I’m glad that event inspired further confidence. Ya didn’t mail it in, and it certainly didn’t box you in.
Uncivil’s Spurious Postal Submission.
Got a free Honda mirror.
You never know when that might come in handy.
Seriously, sorry about the mailbox.
Just as long as it isn’t an E. Honda mirror…. he can get handsy instead.
🙂
If a Vampire looks in an E. Honda mirror does it become a Blanka mirror?
Only Pie knows — for everyone else, it is beyond their ken.
Yeesh, I don’t have the guile for this. My zen-grief is overpowering. Hurts the stoicism.
Could have attached the mirror to the new mailbox.
Like putting your enemies’ heads on pikes.
I’m a little disappointed, Ron. That new mailbox does not appear to be mounted to a chunk of 6″ A106C steel pipe, set three feet into a poured concrete base…
Look, what do you want for $80?
4 rounds downtown?
That won’t get you a mailbox.
Just a female one rented out, yes.
…
Just make sure to attend all the appointments to get treatment for your STDs.
Sorry SDF, it got you a malebox all 4 times.
I used to drink at a place in Houston called Walter’s Ice House. That got bought and became a gay bar called, The Malebox. We quit drinking there for reasons.
Too many red flags raised and you were afraid of becoming a carrier?
A lesson a lot of people learn around here, a street light pole getting hit will cause it to fall. Hitting a tree that’s half the size in diameter will wreck your car.
Things that aren’t designed to break away and are properly anchored will stop a lot.
The thing that always gets me in the movies, is cars knocking down chainlink fences.
And does it even have a lock?
Would Epictetus have made his new mailbox out of a mountain of Grecian granite that could not even be moved by mighty Hercules?
I doubt it.
ストイック? I chuckled because when you wrote that heard it in my head with a Japanese pronunciation.
At least you know it wasn’t a kid with bat or something intentional since he or she left you a present.
What does it mean?
It’s a loan word. It’s rare, but it is used “as is” and simply converted to the limited syllables that katakana allows – sutoikku.
Stoic?
I see.
They should do a literal translation, person on a porch, which raises the interesting idea that you could actually translate stoic as porch monkey…
Look at (((Jarflax — taking it back!
Ok, Google tells me the Japanese word for porch is pochi. Does Japanese have an affix for the genitive case?
https://www.japaneseprofessor.com/lessons/beginning/modifying-particle-no/
So:
ポチの
??
So would ポチの be correct here?
I mean for a value of correct that has nothing to do with actual Japanese and exists only as a figment of my ignorant but curious imagination lol
Yes.
猿 , さる (saru)
monkey (esp. the Japanese macaque, Macaca fuscata), ape, non-human primate
Hence Science Saru.
Google translate fun:
エピクテトスはポーチモンキーの創始者だった
Fun with Google yields
エピクテトスはポーチモンキーの創始者だった
And interestingly wordpress rejects comments that end on the Japanese for some reason. No error message just I click submit and it refreshes the page but does not post
Oh no…
19 people missing after bomb factory explosion in Tennessee
Need more information. Could be anything from accident to sabotage.
Sure. Posted more on the “19 missing” than anything else.
Missing is euphemistic in this situation
That’s the number of people expected to have been working in the building. From the pictures, I’m not sure anybody in that structure could have made it out, but we can’t be sure that all 19 were in there – and that there were no guests.
So much that.
I wasn’t trying to be funny. But from the look of that ‘building’ no one inside survived, even as a body identifiable other than by dna samples.
I didn’t read it that way. Unless they stepped outside the facility or didn’t come to work, it is highly likely everyone in that building is not just missing, but dead.
Until remains are identified or people found alive, the people expected to have been on site are missing.
It will take time to sift the rubble.
It’s not a ‘bomb factory’, media shitheads. It’s an explosives plant. A ‘bomb factory’ is what the Weather Underground had in Greenwich Village.
Yikes – the cars in the parking lot were pulverized. Inside the building, people were probably atomized.
OTH some good news!
White House Says Government Layoffs Have Begun
Let’s see how stoic FedGov workers can be.
And a bonus too!
Behind the scenes: Unknown to many, GEFTA was quietly amended nine days after its initial passage to indicate that furloughed workers weren’t automatically entitled to back pay, according to the 2019 email correspondence.
The Glibertarian Pin:
https://www.glibertarians.com/2025/09/free-as-in-beer/
Wasn’t intended to be an exercise in Stoicism but waiting for one to arrive may well be. The two Glibs who reported their pins were never delivered later reported they eventually were, after I sent out replacements. If you’re one of those I e-mailed on the 29th saying your pin was in the mail be aware the USPS is sometimes taking weeks to get a simple cardboard envelope to its destination. The last time I saw service this slow was when I bought a rare coin and it was shipped USPS Registered Mail. Every few days that coin would move from one city to another sometimes getting closer to Vermont and sometimes losing ground. Alas, the pins don’t have tracking.
If I promised you a pin and you think it’s been added to the FBI collection let me know and I’ll send another although you may wind up with the unbearable burden of having with two.
Mine arrived! Thnaks!
I have two now. I’m rich! I’m a happy miser!
You bloated Plutocrat exploiter of the masses!
I got my two pins and I thank you! My pin is on my hat full of pins. I probably owe you a picture. My daughter treasures her pin and keeps it with her silver dollars.
My pin has arrived. I had completely forgotten! Such a pleasant surprise! Like Christmas!
It traveled with me to Seattle on my laptop bag. It did not get me pulled aside for special screening by TSA.
My pin has also arrived. Merci beaucoup!
Thanks to Richard I hand delivered 6 pins to grateful Glibs, last month. Still have 4 extras.
I watched an interview of Jalise Williams about being in South Africa.
She had private security that accompanied her everywhere.
Her Air B&B was a literal fortified compound, on top of a hill with multiple layers of fencing fences reinforced security doors, etc.
My level of interest in visiting has dropped to below none.
It is a failed state. Violence and plunder are the rule. It will take a brutal hand to bring order, after which law may be re-established, then perhaps rebuilding.
Until then, people will simply steal the materials intended for any project, rob the workers of any pay, and rape some for good measure.
steal the materials intended for any project, rob the workers of any pay, and rape some for good measure.
And if you’re very, very lucky, they’ll do it in that order.
The Reavers are in contracting now?
Always take outside reports of how unsafe a foreign city or country is with a huge grain of salt.
When I was down in Ecuador this past spring, all my research indicated that Guayaquil was basically an urban warzone, the cartels ran the place, there were whole neighborhoods where foreign tourists couldn’t show their faces on the streets for fear of getting drugged, kidnapped, or murdered.
What I found when I got off the plane was a modern, very pleasant city that reminded me a bit of Miami, with nice hotels, restaurants, parks, and museums, and people who were very outgoing and friendly. I didn’t get in one single gun battle, damnit.
(As an aside, Ecuador apparently has a *HUGE* practical shooting scene.)
So, what you’re saying is – you are a Cartel member?
Does it help that I’d be worried about being drugged, kidnapped or murdered if I went to Miami?
I mean, between the cartels… the plethora of TikTok idiots apparently and the abundance of Florida Man — combined with my loathing of urban areas in general… who could blame me?
EvilSheldon… the biopic!
Apparently thre next World Shoot is in Hungary? I need to get IROA certified quick and see if I can work that match, maybe go meet Pie for Țuică and whores.
I thought Europe outlawed guns.
Well, there aren’t World Shoots in the UK…
The more recent ones in Europe have been Czechia and Greece. But Asia and South America are pretty popular continents.
When I was down in Ecuador this past spring, all my research indicated that Guayaquil was basically an urban warzone, the cartels ran the place, there were whole neighborhoods where foreign tourists couldn’t show their faces on the streets for fear of getting drugged, kidnapped, or murdered.
What I found when I got off the plane was a modern, very pleasant city that reminded me a bit of Miami, with nice hotels, restaurants, parks, and museums, and people who were very outgoing and friendly. I didn’t get in one single gun battle, damnit.
I was in Cuenca a little bit before the ‘Rona Panic. Lots of security (including armed guards) and evidence of people taking precautions. According to my relatives there and their friends, there is crime in Cuenca but if avoid certain neighborhoods and take precautions in the public markets, you’ll be OK. In other words, except for the armed guards at some stores, basically like any city in the US.
(As an aside, Ecuador apparently has a *HUGE* practical shooting scene.)
Really? When I was there, I took a brief look at Ecuador’s gun laws. I saw laws that made it difficult to own guns.
I thought Europe outlawed guns.
Not even close to true.
“I thought Europe outlawed guns.
Not even close to true.”
Agree, for two reasons. First, “Europe” is far too broad a term here. Second, a lot of bans around the world (including Australia) focus on “automatic” weapons and/or handguns. Despite Australia’s laws, obtaining a shotgun license is not super-onus. Of course, there is a list of “approved” reasons and self-defense is not one.
My brother in law was beaten up by a group of youth who tried to steal his wife’s purse. They made the mistake of going out in Johannesburg.
My old co-worker has a massive knife scar on his torso from a robbery gone wrong in Jo-berg.
He emigrated to the US shortly after that.
The son of a friend visited SA some years back. The report I heard was that 1) you don’t keep anything of value on the first floor, and 2) the second floor (where everyone sleeps) is barricaded like a prison.
Tennessee bomb factory? Was it in Oak Ridge?
My level of interest in visiting has dropped to below none.
My parents went to South Africa in the ’80s. As reasonably well off mostly apolitical Americans, they thought it was a beautiful place. They did not visit any Bantustans.
The standard of living in the Bantustans were higher than what the people have these days.
The ANC worked damn hard to prove the most racist Apartheid politicians right.
Before I left for Boot Camp I talked to a family friend who had already done an enlistment in the Marines. “Choose you friends carefully” he said.
I took that advice seriously, and avoided some trouble because of it.
That is sound advice regardless of where you’re going.
Some people are just bound for trouble, and can drag you along for the ride, irrevocably damaging you and your future over some little piece of stupid.
Look — I said I was sorry, UCS!
I thought Europe outlawed guns.
If I recall correctly, the British Olympic pistol team has to cross the channel and practice in France because they cannot legally do so in England. Which makes me wonder what sort of legalistic hoops were jumped through for the London games.
I remember those stories too. The rules for rifles and shotguns are different. It is six years old, but but this video gives a run down on being a legal owner of rifles in the UK.
Here’s a 2019 video of target shooting at Bisley.
Though the UK NRA has a handgun league with a competition this month at Bisley.
If that’s a relatively new mirror and it appears that it is, it has a camera on it (for right hand turns) and probably cost the owner $500 just for the part. Some from that standpoint, you won.
Good thing it wasn’t an Audi.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Audi/comments/1o11hlo/busted_my_s8_side_mirror_dealership_is_quoting_16k/
Why is auto insurance so expensive?
I don’t think I pay more than $100/mo amortized.
https://www.experian.com/blogs/ask-experian/average-cost-car-insurance-new-york/
Depends on the what insurance you want and the vehicle.
$1,200 is well below your state average even with minimum limits liability only. I also hope you don’t have minimum liability limits.
https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/wheelgun-wednesday-booligan-s-snubbies-less-barrel-more-character-44823040
Less practical than my NAA Pug.
I hope people that carry that don’t value their hearing but at least it’s not .357 mag.
Thanks Ron. As the leaves of the calendar keep on turning I have to recognize that not only are some things getting more difficult for me so to they are getting tougher for
others. Fortunately or not I still have my mind, such as it is. Some of my close relatives are getting forgetful, particularly the more recent memory and events. My problem is
difficulty in finding some words/names and then have to use another word that doesn’t quite fit. Seems that is quite common when one reaches senior citizen status.
“…hearing my wife in my head saying, “Stoic”. She always says that to me when I start getting wound up.”
Everything about that is fantastic. Good gal, yours. She clearly doesn’t truck with Winston’s XY-vat of origin.