How to Think Like a Roman Emperor
If you have anger issues, this one is a great tool (h/t mindyourbusiness)
Discourses and Selected Writings
Disclaimer: I’m not your Supervisor. These are my opinions after reading through these books a few times.
Traveling for work in New Jersey and Long Island and I am having trouble with formatting my usual book, so anyone that actually reads these are getting some of my quotes from my favorite Stoic…me!
These are from Stoic Friday 67-77
When I was in the Marines, sometimes I had to tell junior Marines harsh truths that they didn’t want to hear. Most of them didn’t do anything different afterwards but there were some that took it as intended and improved themselves. Just trying to be nice to them would not have improved them and they would not respect me.
Strong emotional reactions are sometimes impossible to avoid, but knowing if it is caused by a normal circumstance, like the death of a loved one, or caused by anger can change how I react to it and help to keep it under control.
Having a more advanced understanding of Stoicism is a requirement before understanding of how to deal with strong emotions is feasible. If I don’t understand the difference between external factors and internal ones, there is no way to focus when I am having an anger attack about something way outside of my control. I would just try to fight it without knowledge that makes self control easier.
What I have studied and learned is not as important as what I believe and how I act. I don’t care if people like me, and if they respect me, that is nice, but it’s more important to be a man that I respect than it is to try to impress people.
If I keep my impressions in accordance with nature, than I am only concerned with the things I control. If I get out of whack and stress about things I have no control over then I am not in charge of my own principles.
Not Stoic related, but as I reread it I laughed again:
One funny story about my mom: We had just moved into the farmhouse after she married my stepdad, so I was 14-15 years old. There was a lunar eclipse happening in the middle of the night and I wanted to stay up and see it, but it was a school night. Mom said that she would record it for me on her fancy new video camera. The next day I asked her about the video, and she said it didn’t turn out too well. I badgered her that evening and she reluctantly showed it to me.
As a side note, this happened in December in the middle of the night in Pennsylvania, so it was COLD. My mother refused to wear coats, or any warm clothing. She slept in a flimsy nightgown. Obviously if you were going out to film something you should put clothes on, but not my mom.
The video starts and you see a tiny moon and mom zooms in and loses it. She zooms back out to find it again and she starts cussing. “It’s fucking cold out here.” “This is stupid Dot.” (Her name was Dorothy, she went by Dottie) “FUCK it’s cold.”
She basically repeats these three lines over end over as she zooms in and out trying to focus on the moon. All you would see would be a white ball bouncing rapidly up and down from her shivering and the cussing was getting louder. Then she would zoom out, find the moon, zoom in and the ball would start bouncing again.
This is one of the funniest videos I have ever seen and eventually, she yells “FUCK IT, that’s good enough, it’s too fucking cold out here!” and the video ends.
Unfortunately, we have no idea if the tape still exists but recalling it, we were dying laughing.
We all are going to die, no matter how we spend our time. A worrier will die just as a person with true tranquility will. Doing what needs done without adding to the effort by being concerned about external factors is much easier than stressing about things I have no influence on.
In the Marines, I learned to appreciate being uncomfortable and separated from my wife and kids. Those experiences made the comforts of home and joys of family life that much sweeter.
The more I think I understand Stoicism, the more it can challenge me. I think for normal daily life I have a good grasp, but things out of the ordinary can be difficult to deal with.
God is not to blame for misfortune. Life can be fickle sometimes. Being couch bound for almost 2 weeks now is threatening to drive me insane, but other than one lapse, I have been in a good mood. My ankle has finally started to improve, today was the first day I could put any weight on it. Still can’t walk yet, and a little part of my brain is wondering if this is my life now. If I never run again, it would be difficult to deal with, but not the end of my life.
While there is no way to see the future and know what will result from whatever actions I take, if I have the correct judgement about it, then the outside results will not affect my state of mind.
Following Stoicism will not improve my life materially, but it helps me deal with life as it comes whether it is what I prefer or not.
Also not Stoic related, but please make sure you have good tires on your vehicles.
On Wednesday, my wife and I were going to Mitsuwa in New Jersey for dinner and shopping. As we came out of a toll booth, the Corolla in the far left lane hit a patch of water, slammed into the guardrail and ricocheted off it straight across the road about 5 feet in front of me.
She went into the woods so I stopped on the shoulder and ran down the path she made, expecting the worst. She managed to go in between 2 trees and ended up in a creek. I helped her out of her car, she was fine, but very shaken. Then another guy showed up and said he had called 911. She got her child out of his car seat and we stood talking until the tow truck showed up.
Her front tires were almost drag slicks and as she accelerated out of the toll booth the car hydroplaned and she was just along for the ride.
She said her husband was going to buy new tires, but they kept putting it off. Don’t be that guy.
NJ and LI – either will require lots of stoicism.
OT – have you ever been to Blue Seal? It was totally new to me.
https://youtu.be/CD_37M7v_q0?si=HHnrmxUI84vXWL_A
Blue seal?
“No, I just had some ice cream!” said the penguin.
Ron, why did you procrastinate on replacing the tires?
It wasn’t Ron it was the car in front.
🤔
And here I thought he was being self-depricating.
She said her husband was going to buy new tires, but they kept putting it off. Don’t be that guy.
That husband will need more than stoicism to get through this.
Almost 100% she only had liability insurance on that.
Am I the only person to opt for comprehensive?
Given where Ron was and the type of car and its condition almost 100% she has no insurance at all.
A Toyota at a Toll Booth?
Am I the only person to opt for comprehensive?
I’ll admit it, I have it. But all my cars in my stable are newer. In the past, when the car’s value drops enough due to age, I drop comprehensive.
I have five vehicles; all fully covered. Model years 2006, 2013, 2017, 2017, and 2019. Of course, it’s Iowa, and insurance rates are cheap compared to most other places.
UCS:
If you have sufficient savings, comprehensive (to me) isn’t worth the extra cost. As I said recently in a work chat (someone was asking about appliance/homeowners insurance), “On average, insurance pays out worse odds than a craps table.”
Of course not.
I haven’t had a “cheap” car in almost 30 years. Wish I would have had it when my “cheap” car got stolen. 🙁
f you have sufficient savings, comprehensive (to me) isn’t worth the extra cost. As I said recently in a work chat (someone was asking about appliance/homeowners insurance), “On average, insurance pays out worse odds than a craps table.”
^This!!!
Insurance is only useful to cover losses that would be catastrophic, but have a low likelihood. It necessarily averages out more expensive than paying for losses out of pocket. The idea of insurance as something you pay for as a matter of course has done more harm to our society than almost any other scam. Catastrophic care coverage makes sense. Term life makes sense if you are the breadwinner with dependents and haven’t amassed assets to take care of them. Liability policies can make sense. Health coverage and auto comprehensive are very seldom positive
I’m glad you guys are so rich that when an uninsured asshole smashes through your car and sends you to the hospital you can cover a new car, lost income, and cost of treatment from savings.
Until I have that much in the bank, I keep my insurance.
Surely your state insurance covers the latter two, Unciv.
And, yes, I can cover the $6,000 KBB value of the car out of pocket.
“state job” that is. Short-term disability and general health insurance.
😂
… Wait, you’re serious?
🤣
We don’t actually get the lavish benefits you people in the private sector do. Our two main benefits are too many days of an insane job security.
Happened to one of the employees here.
His only saving grace was he was clocked in for work (but in his own car). WC covered a good chunk for him – wages & medical.
An uninsured motorist totaled one of our cars in Phoenix. Our insurance paid covered the car and medical expenses.
An uninsured motorist caused 12,000 damage to my truck and totaled my trailer while we were 800 miles away from home. Our insurance fixed the truck, replaced the trailer, covered hotels, rental vehicles, and a u-haul to get our stuff home.
It’s a trade off between a monthly drain on the check book versus 5-figure outlays when you least expect it.
I love typos.
AFAICT, you have mandatory short-term disability insurance in NY, Unciv.
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/new-york-short-term-disability-benefits-sdi.html
I’m also skeptical that your health insurance wouldn’t cover a hospital stay after an accident.
Regardless, if you’re more comfortable with comprehensive, so be it.
UCS:
I don’t keep it in a savings account, I have it in a brokerage account. Of course, KBB says my car is worth less than $5k.
That’ll keep the lights on! 🙄
That is about 12% of my after-tax take home pay.
I’ve mentioned the time my Ford Festiva was rear-ended by an Explorer owned by the Dayton Metropolitan Housing Authority. Good ol’ sovereign immunity meant MY insurance had to pay for my vehicle damage. I suspect if I’d only had liability, I’d have been SOL.
At $680/mo, my phone and internet get cancelled, and my AC is turned off so that the power bill comes down. Nope, I need a phone to deal with the WCB, so I have to radically change plans, and I can’t drop my mother from it, because she can’t afford to take over her line, so I’m at two lines of the cheapest plan I can get away with. I no longer have a car since that got wiped out in the crash, and still need groceries – the cheapest I can find, so I take the hit on early withdrawl to get the funds to get something that runs – and I’m still going to be questioning if I can cover groceries and gas and liability insurance on the car.
Nope, not gonna count on short-term disability from the state.
Hah, missed that maximum – that’s ridiculous.
Digging around my included short-term disability:
For the
first 13 weeks, the weekly benefit is 100% of your eligible
earnings, with no weekly maximum. Thereafter, the weekly
benefit reduces to 66 2/3% of your eligible earnings, up to
a maximum of $3,450.
So I got that going for me.
I even have comprehensive on the ’72 Ranchero, because it is only $7 for 6 months.
Hitting a deer is a pretty high risk around here.
Mitsuwa is an adventure. My Japanese language school used to run bus trips there for people in NYC with no cars.
For Glibs here is peak of the place:
Road trip to Mitsuwa
She needed more stoicism — seems like a waste of an Irish blonde.
https://www.themirror.com/news/world-news/skydiver-32-fell-15500ft-death-1344743
I like not this news, bring me different news.
I’m probably being an asshole for saying this, but don’t fucking check out over breaking up with your boyfriend of eight months. Of all the things that aren’t worth it, that has got to be not worth it the most…
I’ve gotten depressed about women, but never once did I think about killing myself. What a waste of a life.
The implication of the story is that she killed herself because she broke up with the boyfriend.
After living with a seriously depressed teen for several years, I can say that it is equally likely that the boyfriend broke it off because she was already depressed.
But the path from depression to suicide only makes sense the person inside her skull.
And yes, what a waste.
Also, people suffering from depression can make a pretty good show of it in public, until they can’t.
That is a very good point.
And the idea of someone self-medicating their depression with the dopamine hit of action sports…not exactly a stretch.
But my statement still stands. If you feel like checking out, do what that dude in Mexico did and go stay at a whorehouse for a month, get your brain chemistry right with a lengthy course of booze, cocaine, knockoff Viagra, and threesomes…
And a guy six years younger. How many 26-year-olds have it together?
Damn.
Sean (and other skydivers) do you ever get blase about falling from a great height like that? Obviously she was very used to freefalling.
Is that how she got the faint scar across her nose? Not that she wasn’t still gorgeous.
I don’t know about blase, but very comfortable? Yes. Very normal? Yes.
But I was immersed in the culture, having been an employee first. Up to the point of living on the airport.
I fucking hate heights. I did a lot of technical theater work when I was younger. Catwalks never bothered me. I did rock climbing in the Boy Scouts, that didn’t bother me either.
Ski lifts? Ladders? Hate those things. Maybe it’s actually the lack of stability with a potentially lethal fall I don’t like.
Our company accountant (outside firm) fell off a ladder inside his home, hit his head and bled out all alone. Very recently.
RIP Norm.
Now you got me thinking of all the times I’ve been internally freaking out over heights. When I was little I had a problem with the top of a set of stairs. It was in a school, and the king the had landings at half-story intervals. The top just had a railing above the drop to the floor below. I had the hardest time getting myself to move from the risers to the top landing to leave the stairs because I kept thinking I’d end up falling off, despite it being arguably safer than the risers I was already on.
Of course, this was the same overactive imagination that would years later envision me suddenly teleporting to outside the airplane over the north atlantic and plunging 35,000 feet. Not something happening to the plane or a door opening, just blink and I’m outside…
Heights are something I have gotten much better with as I’ve gotten older. Having a ladder you were on start falling backwards when you’re halfway up as a kid, and nearly testing the helmet you were wearing on a free fall rappel do that to a kid. But I have fully embraced the stoic nature of things I cannot control. Airplane turbulence, doesn’t bother me at all, which gets the girlfriend upset at me. She’ll be terrified, and I’ll be chuckling at the reaction.
If there’s a problem on the plane, there’s not a damn thing I can do besides brace for impact and/or go limp.
Dad took me skydiving for my 18th bday present. Tandem, we jumped out at 11,500ft and fell for 30 seconds before releasing the parachute.
Best bday present ever. I wish I remembered it more clearly. I remember the ascent and the two solo-jumpers going before us. Would love to go again, but I’m not gonna subject my hips to that.
Oldest nephew is 12 and they’ve already planned on him jumping when he’s 18, as well. He’s beyond stoked. Patience, my pet.
I’m also in NJ this weekend with my wife. The weather is a nice comfortable break. Everything else reminds me why we left.
“She said her husband was going to buy new tires, but they kept putting it off.”
Since it’s unfortunately impossible for a woman to stop at Discount Tire and have a set mounted, this was all her husband’s fault.
Mechanics don’t listen to women.
Thanks Ron,
I laugh, quietly, when some of the folks here talk about getting old. It’s like going broke. Slowly at first, then all of a sudden.
We see our family, parents, etc, aging, then they’re gone. Same with friends. At some point we sort of lose the sadness when we hear that this person/that person has left us. It’s hard to understand that we, the living, are mortal, too. We just run out of compassion, as if the supply is limited.
It’s definitely been hard watching my parents get older. My Mom is healthy, but you can tell she gets tired a lot easier now and have to take pills for her blood pressure. My Dad has Parkinsons and needs assistance with a lot of basic activities like putting on his clothes, and my stepdad has three clogged arteries and had to drastically alter his diet and not lift weights as much anymore.
Parkinson’s killed my father. It’s pretty terrible.
Slowly, then suddenly. No shit. My moment came when an old man came up to me in the grocery store and asked me “Are you Suthenboy? I. remember you from HS. I was in your younger brother’s class.”
The poor old grizzled guy could hardly walk.
The guys at the course are amazed Im turning 62 on Monday. They call me at about 50 so Im doing alright, other than my hips, eyesight, hearing, still smoking cigars,
Smith & Wesson is discontinuing the Model 41.
If you hear sobbing coming from the DC area, that’s me…
NO
So Ruger is all that’s left? It’s a sad day.
/s hypothetical Colt Woodsman Match Target owner
We still have Browning
I have my Dad’s Ruger Standard, and a Mark IV Hunter. I have no urges to collect more of that type of gun.
Well, there’s always the Walther CSP. Or the Feinwerkbrau AW93 or Pardini Sport Pistol if you’re going super high end.
For plinkers, the Taurus TX-22 is surprisingly nice. Taurus has really cleaned up their act in the last ten years.
Other good .22 plinkers: the
BerettaUmarex M9-22 and the SIG P322.Why? I have a 22A and love it.
I have one too! With the super fat wood target grips.
.22 plinker- GSG Firefly (formerly Sig Mosquito)
🤣
I love it when people just downvote something rather than argue. I could have been more tactful, but I expect the other dude didn’t want to say “No, gimme more H-2B truck drivers”
(Petty internet arguments Here)