They Felt This Weight | Don't Make Things Harder Than They Need To Be

About this episode

<p>It’s easy for academics and critics to dismiss the Stoics as depressing or dark. They’re not wrong, exactly, because it’s true: There are some dark and depressing passages in <a href="https://store.dailystoic.com/pages/meditations" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Meditations</em></a>. Seneca is not always cheerful. Both writers seem to <a href="https://dailystoic.com/dont-tick-away/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">dwell on death</a>, they paint life as something that can be painful and tragic, they speak of Fortune as something not to be trusted—that the ground beneath your feet can shift in a moment, shattering everything around you.</p><p>But what’s unfair about this criticism, insensitive even, is that it totally ignores the context and the experience of these men—<a href="https://store.dailystoic.com/products/lives-of-the-stoics-signed-edition" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">of all the Stoics</a>. <em>Marcus Aurelius buried six of his children. Six! Seneca lost a child and was exiled to a distant island on trumped up charges all at once.</em> Can you imagine what that must have been like for them?</p><p>“Grief from the loss of a child is not a process,” a mother is quoted as saying in the fascinating book <a href="https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/empire-of-pain-the-secret-history-of-the-sackler-dynasty?_pos=1&amp;_sid=68b0419e4&amp;_ss=r" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Empire of Pain</em></a> by Patrick Radden Keefe which examines the opioid crisis. “It’s a lifelong weight upon one’s soul.” Marcus Aurelius and Seneca bore that weight—of course it shaped what they wrote and thought. There was <a href="https://dailystoic.com/its-ok-to-break/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">an exchange between Marcus and his teacher Fronto</a> about how he felt “suffering anguish” in his bones from the loss of Fronto’s grandchild. When we interviewed the philosopher and <a href="https://dailystoic.com/professor-martha-nussbaum-on-humanitys-obligation-to-protect-animal-rights/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">translator Martha Nussbaum on the Daily Stoic podcast</a>, she spoke quite movingly about the loss of her own daughter. She pointed out that Cicero, a philosopher who wrote extensively on the Stoics and buried his daughter Tullia, was transformed by grief. It changed him. How could it not have?</p><p><em>One book on this topic we’ve recommended over the years has been </em><a href="https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/death-be-not-proud?_pos=1&amp;_sid=be748e055&amp;_ss=r" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>Death Be Not Proud</em></a><em> by John Gunter, who was similarly trying to make sense of the short but inspiring life of his son Johnny. Paul Kalanithi’s book </em><a href="https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/memoir16?_pos=1&amp;_sid=fdce644ca&amp;_ss=r" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>When Breath Becomes Air</em></a><em> is also worth reading. And Seneca’s writings on death have been collected in an interesting edition called </em><a href="https://www.thepaintedporch.com/products/how-to-die-an-ancient-guide-to-the-end-of-life?_pos=1&amp;_sid=c28008779&amp;_ss=r" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><em>How To Die</em></a><em>.</em></p><p>-</p><br><p><em>✉️</em><strong>&nbsp;Sign up for the Daily Stoic email:&nbsp;</strong><a href="http://dailystoic.com/dailyemail" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail</a></p><p>🏛 Check out the&nbsp;<a href="https://store.dailystoic.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Daily Stoic Store</a>&nbsp;for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.</p><p>📱 Follow us:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Instagram</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/dailystoic" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Twitter</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/dailystoic" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">YouTube</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoic" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">TikTok</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/dailystoic" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Facebook</a></p><hr><p style='color:grey; font-size:0.75em;'> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>