Stoic Meditations

Seneca says that when negative developments affect our lives, virtue is like the sun behind a cloud: it keeps shining, and eventually dissipates the clouds.

Seneca uses the analogy of a scabbard and a sword to remind us that external goods, like wealth or health, are indeed preferable, but only in a limited fashion. What's truly important is the shape of our character.

Marcus Aurelius advises us to live by avoiding both violent emotions and torpor, and by not being a hypocrite. But also, to treat every day as if it were our last. What does that mean?

Seneca provides a very clear explanation of the Stoic distinction between virtue and external things, leading to the surprising conclusion that even health is not an unquestionable good.

Seneca talks about a major "side effect," so to speak, of the Stoic stance: achieving tranquillity of mind through the development of an attitude of equanimity.

Cicero asserts the standard, and apparently paradoxical, Stoic position that virtue is the onyl true good. Let's see why.

Seneca says that Nature does not discriminate, it hands out suffering and death to everyone, eventually. But we can still make our life better by developing equanimity toward what we cannot change while trying to change what we can.

Epictetus reminds us that character is a matter of habit. Willfully change your habits, and you will be on your way toward becoming a better human being.

This episode features our first discussion of Cicero. While not a Stoic (he considered himself an Academic Skeptic), he was sympathetic to Stoic philosophy, and frequently borrowed from it to create his own eclectic blend of moral philosophy.

Seneca, building on the Stoic concept of universal causation, reminds us that we don't get to say how the universe works. Our only choices are to accept it (and work within it), or take "the open door," as Epictetus puts it.