I love to read. It’s one of my favourite things to do. I can happily sit for hours and immerse myself into the world the author decides to drop me in. In the mornings I typically read non-fiction works, and night time is for fantasy. Whilst I am now in the habit of capturing notes from books and building out a second brain, I am also covering a lot of content. Perhaps too much. Add in audio content from podcasts and there is a lot of information that I am absorbing each day. It’s no surprise then that I don’t retain a lot of the information. That’s fine because I have built out my second brain. If I want to revise key notes or thoughts on habits then I can easily search within my notes to bring up summaries.
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I now realise that I have forgotten some of the detailed foundational items that I want to focus on. Stoicism is one example. I need to go back to these foundations and revisit them often. I need to remind myself of these teachings, take new insights, and consider practical implications.
Stoicism has become a major part of my life these past few years. Perhaps I should say ‘had’ become given how I stopped reading and reflecting. It’s a philosophy of life that really resonated with me. Despite its importance, the other day I actually couldn’t recall the four Stoic virtues – wisdom, courage, temperance, justice. These virtues, along with other Stoic teachings, are foundational elements in building the character that I want. Yet I stopped revisiting this content. Yes, I retained some of the information and have sayings at hand ready to go for some situations. But not all. I simply forgot some quotes and even who to attribute them to. That’s rather embarrassing. A good call out to me that I have fallen short in practicing the things I believe in. And these are things that I believe in and want to commit myself to.
I recently read Lessons in Stoicism. It was a good reentry back into Stoic philosophy. My highlighter was in use almost every page. There is a lot to consider in these books. They are dense. Each page is full of insight. Much of it is practical. The challenge is how we can build out our toolkits so we can easily have these tools at hand when we need them. To practice them enough so that we build and flex our muscles so that it becomes habit. That we move towards automatically putting in pause in situations and examining our impressions rather than just reacting.
Stoicism is a philosophy that examines how to live. What is our place in the world, how do we navigate our emotions, in what manner should we behave towards others, how do we contribute to our expanding communities, what is a life worthy of a rational being.
There is a lot to consider here, including how to go out and live it. It’s restarting a work in progress. It’s remaking a commitment.
All of us should commit to having philosophy as a way of life. Why? That’s because, as Epictetus puts forward, we are then a doctor in a hospital, and the hospital is for our souls. The primary task is to ensure that we look after our soul. We need to examine our thoughts and make sure they make sense. The condition of our soul determines the quality of the life that we will life. For the Stoics, this is living a life of virtue.
I’ll be exploring these elements again and recommitting myself, and sharing my learnings and lessons along the way.