The Town Stoic

how to be happy in old age, even if you end up alone, the Stoic way

The hardest part of growing old is often not losing people. It's finding out you built your whole sense of safety around people who were never promised to stay. Seneca, in his sixties, walked through the country house he had built as a young man and found the walls crumbling and the trees he planted gnarled and bare. Old age had caught up with him everywhere he looked. But he didn't despair. Embrace it, he wrote, because it's full of pleasure if you know how to use it.

This film walks through the 5 things that hold a good old age together, drawn from Seneca, Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, with a word from Cicero's book On Old Age, and pitched at real life after sixty: a body that lets you take part in your own life, a small dependable income, a daily rhythm with one reason to get up, a few deep connections, and peace in your own company. The thread through all five is simple. A good old age is what still holds you when the room goes quiet.

In this film you'll learn:

• Why caring for your body at this age is about freedom, not vanity

• Why steady money matters more than a lot of money

• How one small reason to get up can change the whole shape of a day

• Why three real conversations a week beat a phone full of messages

• How Epictetus told being alone apart from being abandoned

• What Marcus Aurelius meant by retiring into yourself

• How the five work together, whether you're still getting ready for old age or already living it

If one of these five stayed with you, tell me which number in the comments. And if you're ready to make it a promise, write this: alone is not abandoned.

Chapters:

0:00 Opening

2:57 1 Your body

5:43 2 A steady income

8:32 3 A reason to get up

12:15 4 Real connection

15:46 5 Peace when alone

19:44 Closing

If you've been looking for happy old age advice, old age wisdom, growing old alone, living alone in old age, life after 60, or how to be happy alone, this is the practical Stoic answer, built for the quiet days rather than the lecture hall.

Sources: Seneca, Letters 2.6, 6.7, 9.6, 12.1-4, 12.8 and 26.2. Cicero, On Old Age 11.35-36. Musonius Rufus, Lecture 6. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.3 and 5.1. Epictetus, Discourses 3.13 and Enchiridion 1.1 and 1.5. Rendered in plain modern English, never a translator's wording.

One idea from the ancients, one practical law, every day.

Watch the film on YouTube: https://youtu.be/zJAxxLU0h0Y

don't depend on friends, children or partner in old age, the Stoic way

The people you love most will not always be within reach. Not because they stopped loving you, but because life pulls every one of us somewhere. The kids build lives in other cities, friends move away or get sick, and one day the chair across the breakfast table may be empty. When everybody's gone, what's left holding you together? Epictetus, who began life as a slave, answered with one idea. Some things are up to us, and other people are not.

This film walks through 7 things people over sixty quietly hang their peace on, drawn from Epictetus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius and pitched at real life: the phone that doesn't ring, grown kids in other cities, a marriage of forty years, retirement, money, a body that slows down, and the long evenings alone. The thread through all seven is simple. Love them with everything you've got. Just don't hang your peace on them.

In this film you'll learn:

• How to keep your friendships without counting who called last

• Why waiting on your children's calls quietly sours the calls you do get

• How to love a partner of forty years without living in fear of losing them

• Where to find purpose when nobody needs you the way they used to

• Why a smaller budget is not the same as a poorer life

• What a lame Epictetus and a sickly Marcus Aurelius did with a failing body

• How to become a friend to yourself, so a quiet evening stops feeling like a verdict

Which of the seven do you lean on hardest? Tell me in the comments. And if something here settled something in you, type: my peace is mine to keep.

Chapters:

0:00 Opening

2:46 1 Friends

5:07 2 Your children calling

7:30 3 A partner always there

9:43 4 Being needed

12:09 5 Money

14:11 6 Your health

16:31 7 Never being alone

19:40 Closing

If you've been looking for old age wisdom, how to prepare for old age, emotional independence, how to be happy alone, or life lessons for seniors and retirement, this is the practical Stoic answer, built for the quiet evenings rather than the lecture hall.

Sources: Epictetus, Enchiridion 1, 3, 8, 9 and 11. Seneca, Letters 2.6, 6.7, 9 and 18.5-7, On Tranquility of Mind 4.6 and On Anger 3.36. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.3, 4.48, 5.1 and 7.33. Rendered in plain modern English, never a translator's wording.

One idea from the ancients, one practical law, every day.

Watch the film on YouTube: https://youtu.be/upL6WLyA1V4

how to make people respect you, the quiet Stoic way

The way you treat yourself in front of other people is the way they learn to treat you. Every time you over-explain, apologize for nothing, or laugh off something that hurt, you are teaching them your price. Epictetus, who began life as a slave, put it simply: you set your own price. The people around you just pay it.

This film walks through 7 quiet habits that change how people treat you, drawn from Epictetus, Seneca and Marcus Aurelius and pitched at real life: grown kids, family dinners, the group text, the old friend who only calls when he needs something. Each habit comes with the words to use, and the close helps you pick the one to start with.

In this film you'll learn:

• Why the promises you keep to yourself are where respect starts

• How to say no in one short sentence and stop defending it

• What to do with an awkward silence instead of rushing to fill it

• How to take a compliment without batting it away

• Why shrinking in a room marks your price down in public

• How to stop giving your time to things that are already over

• The short pause that turns a reaction into a response

Which of the seven is hardest for you? If you're ready to start, tell yourself: I know my price.

Chapters:

0:00 Opening

2:14 Habit 1 Keep your word to yourself

4:05 Habit 2 Stop over-explaining

6:10 Habit 3 Let an uncomfortable moment sit

8:28 Habit 4 Take a compliment

10:18 Habit 5 Stop shrinking in rooms

12:21 Habit 6 Let go of what's over

15:03 Habit 7 Respond, don't react

17:01 Closing

Sources: Epictetus, Discourses 1.2.11 and Enchiridion 20, 33.2 and 50. Seneca, Letters 1.1 and 13.4. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.20 and 10.16. Rendered in plain modern English, never a translator's wording.

One idea from the ancients, one practical law, every day.

Watch the film on YouTube: https://youtu.be/wq1aNdb1zro

how to never get angry or bothered by anyone, the Stoic way

You were fine this morning, until one person took the whole day from you in about a minute. Nine Stoic rules for keeping anger from running your day: what Marcus Aurelius did with his face when one of the richest men in the empire insulted him in his own court, why Julius Caesar burned a captured box of letters unread, the alphabet trick a philosopher gave Augustus, why Plato froze with his hand in the air, and the broken crystal cup that made an emperor empty a rich man's house. Each rule comes with one thing you can do this week.

Chapters:

0:00 One person took your whole day

1:10 Rule 1, keep your face

5:07 Rule 2, check the story before the verdict

8:43 Rule 3, don't go looking for it

11:31 Rule 4, give the first ten seconds a job

14:13 Rule 5, hand it to someone calmer

16:46 Rule 6, shrink it to its real size

19:20 Rule 7, don't recruit

22:11 Rule 8, say it's only a thing

25:12 Rule 9, leave them a way back

28:56 The law

Sources: Philostratus, Lives of the Sophists 2.1. Seneca, On Anger 1.7-8, 1.18, 2.23, 3.11-12, 3.23, 3.36-37, 3.40. Pliny, Natural History 7.94. Plutarch, Sayings of Romans (Moralia 207C). Diogenes Laertius 3.38-39. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.18. Cassius Dio 54.23 and 72(71). Rendered in plain modern English, never a translator's wording.

One idea from the ancients, one practical law, every day.

Watch the film on YouTube: https://youtu.be/T5_LAixHTvk

What to do when people treat you badly, and how to stop replaying it.

They did it once. You have done it to yourself every night since. Five Stoic rules for when someone treats you badly: how to tell what they did from what you keep doing with it, why you should stop being surprised by the same people, what to do with the message you wrote at eleven at night, how to close an old account, and the one sentence to say out loud. Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Seneca and Cato the Younger, each with one thing you can do this week.

Chapters: 0:00 You've been answering them ever since. 0:56 Rule 1, find the second injury. 2:15 Rule 2, stop being surprised. 3:45 Rule 3, answer tomorrow. 5:06 Rule 4, don't keep the ledger. 6:40 Rule 5, say it once, then decide the distance. 8:07 The law.

Sources: Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.1, 6.6, 11.18. Epictetus, Enchiridion 20. Seneca, On Anger 2.29, 2.32, 3.36. Rendered in plain modern English, never a translator's wording. Where the film adds its own exercise on top of the source, it says so.

Watch the film on YouTube: https://youtu.be/BPbfiRmezyU

How to stop caring what people think.

Five Stoic rules for deciding whose opinion actually deserves your attention, and whose you can set down. Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Seneca and Cato, each with one thing you can do this week. It hits at every age, and hardest after fifty.

Chapters: 0:00 You already know what you want to say. 0:53 Rule 1, check who has the evidence. 2:41 Rule 2, name the want. 4:16 Rule 3, don't bring the crowd home. 5:52 Rule 4, remember who the judges are. 7:14 Rule 5, practice being looked at. 8:40 The law.

Sources: Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.4, 6.21, 4.19, 4.32 and 4.33, 8.44. Epictetus, Discourses 2.13. Seneca, Letters 7. Plutarch, Cato the Younger 6. Rendered in plain modern English, never a translator's wording.

Watch the film on YouTube: https://youtu.be/QUW6xg6k2mQ