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.
To those who lightly talk about their own affairs Part II
Yes, but I trust you, while you do not trust me.—First, you do not trust me, either, but you are a babbler, and that is the reason why you cannot keep anything back. Why, look you, if that statement of yours is true, entrust these matters to me alone; but the fact is that whenever you see anybody at leisure you sit down beside him and say, “Brother, I have no one more kindly disposed or dearer to me than you, I ask you to listen to my affairs”; and you act this way to people whom you have not known for even a short time. And even if you do trust me, it is clear you trust me as a faithful and respectful person, not because I have already told you about my affairs.
I have never understood the compulsion some people have to tell everyone their life story. I have known some that want to tell everything and then get offended that I don’t reciprocate. I think Epictetus might be right that they think sharing indicates trust and my silence feels like a betrayal. My mom would love to share gossip with anybody willing to listen and she would question whoever she was talking to as she went. I am glad my brothers and I are missing that gene.
20Allow me also, then, to have the same thought about you. Show me that, if a man unbosoms himself to somebody about his own affairs, he is faithful and respectful. For if that were so, I should have gone about and told my own affairs to all men, that is, if that was going to make me faithful and respectful. But that is not the case; to be faithful and respectful a man needs judgements of no casual sort. If, therefore, you see someone very much in earnest about the things that lie outside the province of his moral purpose, and subordinating his own moral purpose to them, rest assured that this man has tens of thousands of persons who subject him to compulsion and hinder him.
i also try to remember when someone is sharing issues in their life with me that I am only hearing one side of the story and the teller has every incentive to make themselves look good. Also because of how I am wired, I usually have a different outlook on what they are telling me than “normal” people seem to.
He has no need of pitch or the wheel[2] to get him to speak out what he knows, but a little nod from a wench, if it so happen, will upset him, a kindness from one of those who frequent Caesar’s court, desire for office, or an inheritance, and thirty thousand other things of the sort. Remember, therefore, in general, that confidences require faithfulness and faithful judgements; and where can one readily find these things nowadays?[3]
A lot of the people I work with have tendencies to get upset at slight things. Between that and the occasional arguments they get into over Steve Harvey’s daily “Strawberry Letter”(people write to the radio show with their personal problems that are usually self-induced) it stays entertaining to me.
Or, let someone show me the man who is so minded that he can say, “I care only for what is my own, what is not subject to hindrance, what is by nature free. This, which is the true nature of the good, I have; but let everything else be as God has granted, it makes no difference to me.”
i strive to have this attitude, but even if I felt I was doing great at this, I would not share stories about it with others.
Quick question for everybody:
My boss went to our company’s 25th anniversary party in Washington DC and his wife forgot her shoes. They bought a pair at a Macy’s for $180. She wore them for 2 1/2 hours at the party. After he came back home on Saturday, he went to Macy’s and returned the shoes. I thought this was wrong but apparently I am the Lone Ranger on this one. Everybody else in the office thought this was an entirely reasonable thing to do.
I can not wrap my head around doing this in the first place, but then telling others you did this was even more surprising to me. I know I am correct in this, but what do you all think?
Objectively wrong, maybe not.
Low class, absolutely.
Also, how does one leave the house while forgetting their shoes?
It’s a 3 hour drive, so I would guess she was wearing traveling clothes and had the dress hanging up so they could change at the hotel.
Shoes especially. There had to be some foot sweat involved. Ew.
100%
I shall refrain from further commentary.
See below. May be another pointer to political differences. Everyone here is TANSTAAFL, not surprisingly. Orphan jokes aside.
Loss class and wrong. Not something 8 would do. I would look at the price of the shoes as the cost of being a forgetful dummy.
Agreed. Sell them on eBay later if you wish. But don’t make the store pay for your forgetfulness.
I agree. This was theft, pure and simple.
Yep, I’m even weirded out by the “buy, try, and return” model for online clothes. My wife regularly gets 5 packages of clothes and returns 4 of them, and evidently this is an accepted or even encouraged practice?
Yeah, my wife does the same thing.
Except she “forgets” to return them, thus credit card bills.
Stitch Fix? Isn’t that their exact business model?
Anyway yes, Ron is entirely correct on both counts.
I would not return the shoes.
Many stores won’t accept returned shoes once they’ve been worn. This is why I lean trifling and low-class rather than wrong – Macy’s has the power to refuse the return, but for whatever reason they didn’t.
There are no victims, only volunteers.
Ron, you’re not alone.
My daughter would go to Sears, get her 3 daughters all outfitted up, go to Sears Photo shop, Christmas pictures taken, return the clothes.
I chided, chastised her for that but her explanation was they couldn’t afford new clothes and she wanted the girls to look nice in the pictures.
I was happy to see the girls, not the clothes. The grandchildren routinely sent phone pictures of great grand kids in candid situations. Much preferred.
It’s wrong to return the shoes.
I expect the majority of people who thought that was okay would be greatly offended if they bought new clothes and then found out someone else had worn them for a couple hours before hand.
i also try to remember when someone is sharing issues in their life with me that I am only hearing one side of the story and the teller has every incentive to make themselves look good.
This is my oldest kid’s favorite tactic. She’s lived with 6 or 8 different people, and when anyone calls her out on her behavior, she goes to the next person and tells them a sob story about how she’s being mistreated and yelled at for no reason. Eventually she finds someone else willing to take her in. I would say she’ll learn, but my wife’s cousin (who used to live with us) is over 50 and using the same tactic. It seems there is no shortage of people who only consider one side of a story.
My first 1SG would tell troops that “Sympathy is only a word that is between shit and syphilis in the dictionary.”
My father tells the same story
My wife worked at Montgomery Wards, had an employee discount.
She came home one day, raving about the great deal she got on a pair of shoes, marked down plus her discount.
She was showing them to me, happy, happy with the new shoes.
I asked her, “Why didn’t you get a pair of the same color?” One shoe was black, the other dark, dark blue. She never wore them.
That’s funny, I don’t care who you are.
I hope you enjoy sleeping on the couch.
Out of curiosity, does your boss lean left or right politically? Maybe we found yet another difference in thought processes. My guess is lean left. Not respecting the labor of others is a lefty thing.
My office is full of ex-Navy lefties.
Ex navy.
You didn’t have to say lefties.
It’s not gay when it’s South of the equator.
Dear powers that be, I will be out of town on vacation without computer access next week Wed 6/10 to Sun 6/14. Please do not post my article during that window.
Thanks
you are a babbler
I hate that.
I have never understood the compulsion some people have to tell everyone their life story.
Interesting timing.
My next article is almost entirely personal. But, I was as loathe to write it. Yet, it is actually necessary to understand the conclusions in part 3.
I rarely share much of my life story. When I do, it usually comes out as a list of the mistakes that got me to my present situation.
One shoe was black, the other dark, dark blue. She never wore them.
I saw a girl the other day wearing one white shoe and one black shoe.
I saw a movie about a guy with one red shoe back when he was funny.
Street people are happy to have shoes…
Total dirt baggery.
People do that crap all the time with big TVs for game day and clothes.
It’s immoral.
It’s theft of labor for the seller and value.
I suspect this is why plenty of outfits have a no return policy on electronics and a restocking fee.
Particularly when Rent-A-Center exists.
I worked at Walmart when I was young. The shit the customer service desk would take back was mind boggling. I had a baseball mitt once that was like 20 years old. So used and worn that it was barely hanging together.
Every day there were completely empty canisters for pellet guns.
It’s blatant theft and at least when I worked there it was just accepted. It wasn’t worth the argument or losing the “business” of people who were just there to steal.
I mistakenly bought some clorox2 with scent, when I wanted unscented from walmart.
I returned the regular clorox2 at a store near my office in a more urban environment, they opened the bottle and made sure it looked like the right color and thickness while processing my return.
I don’t return much but that was a new one.
Theft and skimming of cleaning products is big.
In the long ago, I worked retail at OfficeMax. I learned some amazing shoplifting and fraud tips from watching customers. There was the guy who would come in at the beginning of every month, buy a dozen printer cartridges, and return them the next week. He did this for months, he never had the receipt, but was happy with store credit. Turns out he was buying the cartridges, expensing them to his company (who needed the receipt), and returning them. He used that to buy himself a nice computer and printer set up before management stopped him.
Another guy knew that we were not allowed to call the cops if we didn’t have him under constant observation. Dude would cut through shelves to break line of sight. At one point he managed to get a desktop computer into a lamp box, and buy the “lamp” (new cashier). The over the top part was when he came in a couple days later with an empty lamp box, went and took a lamp out of another box to shove it into that one, and return it.
I was running late for work this morning, driving rather briskly, thinking about what I needed to get done. State Patrol clocked me at 70 in a 55 mph zone. He let me off with a warning. I remained stoic throughout the stop which seemed to calm the officer.
I was driving my girlfriend’s son’s truck. He has a row of knives attached to the sun visor. I was scared of what might fall out of the glove compartment. I don’t know if his insurance is current. It could have gone much worse.
It could have gone much worse.
I said, “How much ya pay for this?”
Said, “Nothin’, man, it’s stolen”
Happy National
Gun5 Gallon Bucket Violence Awareness Day!https://x.com/BskiMike22802/status/2062174728953958446
Back in the CRT days TVs falling on kids was higher in deaths than a lot of shit people crusade about to.
I got a message asking me to confirm I’m not a bot when coming to the site today.
I had never pondered such a question before. It took me a moment to respond.
I got one just now too, after a 403 forbidden error.
Yes, you have. Otherwise it would have been a first, and everybody knows you’ve never firsted.
I’m 90% certain I’m a real boy.
I got one just now as well.
First time.
There’s no time like a First time.
Damn, I get them all the time. I guess I look under 21. Seems like any gun/shooting product…
I am relieved that it is not just me. The last 48 hours I been asked multiple times.
I got one Captcha that just showed a jungle and asked me to click on all boxes with Viet Cong. (JK)
That captcha test would actually be awesome. And the secret to it is you can’t be wrong. They’re all Charlie.
A fucking Turing test to refresh the page?
How awesome.
Better than you
This is especially potent when you consider that your average Texas voter is probably dying for an excuse to justify voting for Paxton.
Ironically, some of the very qualities that make Talarico a ripe target today — the way he talks about his faith, his youthful and wholesome vibe, his advocacy of servant leadership — were once traits that many conservatives would have regarded as virtues.
Then again, masculinity once meant things like humility, fidelity, responsibility, sacrifice, and service. Somewhere along the line, we seem to have replaced those attributes with a model more suited to professional wrestling.
Texas is full of cro magnon manospherical simpletons who couldn’t comprehend true masculinity if it hit them with its purse.
“the way he talks about his faith, his youthful and wholesome vibe, his advocacy of servant leadership — were once traits that many conservatives would have regarded as virtues.”
They still do. They just aren’t buying his obvious bullshit.
I guess it couldn’t possibly be that Talarico is a very obvious fraud, and anyone with a normal chromosomal count can tell so.
It’s almost like it’s not just how you say it, but what you say matters too. Whoda thunk??
They still think they can sell anything as long as they use the right messaging.
The Facederp showed me a headline form Slate (couldn’t comment on that post, banned non-followers). The assertion is that while Wyoming has stand your ground laws, it apparently doesn’t apply to the trans.
They point to a trans activist who pulled a gun on a guy who insulted either “her” or the bar she bartended at. The Slate article claims that the guy who said it charged the trans individual and shoved them down only for the trans individual to draw their gun without firing.
Only problem is there’s video footage of this. The man did say something to them first, but was walking and going about their day. The trans individual decided to cross the street and escalate the verbal confrontation. At least according to the guy who did the shoving, they had their hand in their bag on the gun the whole time before taking it out. So they were shoved to the ground and the dude started to walk away when they pulled the gun.
This same person staged a “bathroom protest” two months prior and looks about how you’d suspect. Like an androgenous man with long hair.
Regardless, you don’t have to be an expert on self-defense or stand your ground to know that you can’t charge at someone because they said words you don’t like and escalate a conflict to draw your gun on them.
https://cowboystatedaily.com/2026/06/03/transgender-bathroom-protestor-faces-felony-assault-charge-claims-self-defense/
It’s like all these people can do is lie to validate their worldview. Crazy I know.
Here is the lying Slate account:
My question is why would a business willingly hire that person? One glance at the picture and you would know that this was a lawsuit waiting to happen.
What did you do to the site?
It accused me of being a robot!
It never used to do that.
/END OF LINE
Unrelated, I got a letter stating that the municipal water supply hasn’t been properly disinfected for months because the soak time of the chlorine was too low.
I feel better about always filtering my tap water, but that had been to remove the metallic taste from it. I’m not convinced my filters would help against the biological hazards.
I’ve heard of people using the Costco in Hawaii as a vacation rental and then returning their vacation goods on the way to the airport. Crazy to me.
Scummy, but if Costco wants to put up with it, that’s their business.
I enjoyed living in a high trust society, while it lasted.
I red that the used to include everything in their “return anything, anytime” policy but had to take out electronics when people would just upgrade their computers every year.
I bought a pair of Herter’s (remember them?) top o’ the line waders, guaranteed for life. After several, maybe 10 or more years they started leaking in a seam at the crotch. Never had abused them or even used them a lot. Sent them back and guess what?
Rejected!
I knew my life was about over…
One of my best purchases was my Doc Martens For Life shoes. They released them for a couple of years, they cost about 20-30% more than the regular shoes, but had a lifetime warranty. They wear out, wear down, get holes, ship them back and get a new pair for $20. They no longer have replacements, so you get stuck with a standard lower quality shoe now. But considering I would wear the soles out of a pair of Docs in a couple of years, it meant I was paying $20 for a new pair instead of $150.
I hate the condensed PC notebook keyboards. MS makes as good of a laptop as they do software. That I shouldn’t be surprised about.
Why are electronic referee whistles a thing?
COPD?
Myth: BUSTED
The American dream of buying your own home is a lie. You aren’t throwing your money away on rent — you’re throwing it away on your mortgage.
Every year, millions of Americans make one of the largest financial decisions of their lives based on financial folklore so deeply embedded into our culture that it is no longer questioned: “Renting is throwing your money away.”
Your friends say it. Your parents say it. The National Association of Realtors has spent billions in lobbying dollars drilling it into your head and into the tax code.
But here is the problem: The data simply do not support it.
Based on this cherry-picked data and my carefully crafted model, you’re a fool to buy a house.
You’ll be happier and better off if you own nothing. True freedom is living life on the subscription model.
It was the smartest thing I ever did.
Me too.
Wait, I meaning buying and owning and enjoying the appreciation.
There’s something to be said to not being tethered to a piece of property whose value fluctuates. And also not being responsible for all upkeep of course.
I don’t see many reasons for a single guy with no kids to own one unless it’s easy for them to do so and/or they feel it helps them get laid.
My costs have dropped like a stone after I stopped renting. Even the repairs to the back steps and storm door are not going to be more than what two months rent used to be.
I don’t even return online orders when I get the wrong item. I wonder how many people do the buy/wear/return with underpants.
I don’t either, my mistake, I eat it. Always a nice gift for someone you don’t like.
I should not be smelling weed at this particular place and time.
Small update on the convict/rapist with a phone thing.
I’m going to have to see baby mama (don’t think I mentioned that aspect directly in the second post) tomorrow. Ironically enough they at least pretend they’re scared of me so they’ll probably scurry away without much happening and it’ll all end rather uneventfully.
I called them trashy and that was before I knew all the details on their rather interesting relationship with the baby daddy and staying with them and having the kid well after knowing they were a registered sex offender. Some part of me would love to rub their nose in it and at least hint at it, but that would be very stupid. I’ve been known to get pretty fucking stupid so we’ll see.
I stoically replaced the cabin filter on my Tesla Model 3.
They’ve improved the design in later iterations, but it’s still awful. It takes two filters stacked on top of each other. The bottom filter is perpetually exposed to condensate. In humid climates people have them start to “funk up” in under 12 months. I can usually get 18-24 months before it starts to smell. Given my use – it’s never full of material. If it wasn’t for the smell there would be no need to change it.
To change the filter you have to pull 5 or 6 plastic trim clips. Remove a footwell panel. Disconnect connectors for light and a speaker. Pull a side panel held in with clips. Replace 40% of the clips that stay on the center console back onto the side panel. Thread T-20 driver with an extension into a blind area at the top of the HVAC box. Unscrew the cover and push it to the side. Why not remove it? because it has wires zip tied to it. Remove the two filters.
Now, because of the funk you need to buy a $20 can of evaporator cleaner. You spray that on the evaporator and let it set for 20 minutes. You temporarily replace the cover. You run the fan on high for 5 minutes. After that you can reverse the procedure.
The first time I did this it was easily 1.5+ hours. Now I’ve got this down to about 15 minutes to disassemble and 10 minutes to reassemble. However you still have 25 minutes of no labor cleaning waiting and drying.
What a dumb design.
That’s retarded.
Yes. Yes it is. But I’m sure it made assembly and HVAC construction cheaper.
The Model 3 is an economy car. It’s minimalist design initially beloved by everyone before they hated Musk saved them boatloads of money. All the money is in the battery costs.
They actually do screens fairly well. Other manufacturers jumped on this cost saving bandwagon and completely blew it.
I guess after Saab went defunct, their interior engineer went to Tesla.
Except for the spray and wait portion, it sounds like the procedure for my 9-5.
“It met specifications.”
Returns:
My aunt-in-law’s sister bought an REI coat at a yard sale. It was missing a button, so she took it to REI and asked them if she could get a matching replacement button. They said, “Just grab another coat off the rack.” She explained the situation, and said, “That’s crazy, I just need a button for this coat I paid three dollars for at a yard sale. There’s nothing wrong with the coat, it just needs a button.”
She ended up with a brand new coat. She never wore it because she felt like she had stolen it. She wished she had just sewn a random mismatched button on the original coat.
Having a conscience can be weird. Easy to see how people without them get ahead in life.
Many moons ago I worked in a bookstore. Woman came in one day to return a book on how to plan a marriage.
I said, “oh I’m sorry things didn’t work out.”
She smiled and said, “no, I got married last week and I don’t need the book any more.”
About the shoe returns. I bought a used Snap-on tool box that needed drawer slides real cheap. When I called to get the ones on their warrantied (life time guarantee) I was asked if I bought the box new off of a S-O truck. No, so no new free slides, as the warrantee only covers original purchase. Fine, I bought it knowing the issue. But when I mention this to people, left or right, the universal response is to just lie and say you bought it new, often with examples and anecdotes of this.
9 years ago, my downstairs A/C went out a couple months after we bought the house and my boss suggested I get a home warranty wait a couple weeks and then claim it just broke.
When I told him I couldn’t see myself doing that, he told me I was too honest.
I’m OK with that.
That reminds me – what’s the current status of the old Craftsman Tools lifetime guarantee?
I don’t know, but I have a set of 2004 Craftsman tools that are holding up better than some I bought a few years ago.
The ratchet I used the most got dead spaces in it and a few of the sockets have chipped chrome.
I didn’t try to return them, I went with Gearwrench instead, much nicer quality.
Well, the tools aren’t made in the US anymore, and the quality has dropped as the brand has been bought and sold.