Name: What We Can Learn From The Stoics and Marcus Aurelius
Uploaded: 2023-09-14T17:35:54.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'What We Can Learn From The Stoics and Marcus Aurelius' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-09-14. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'What We Can Learn From The Stoics and Marcus Aurelius' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2023-09-14. Transcript available.

Stoics, Marcus Aurelius, people all know Marcus Aurelius from the movies, right?
And Marcus Aurelius, what the Stoics said is, look, the problem is what we set
our hearts
on, what we identify with, right?
Like, we're always assuming and assigning identities.
For example, right now, I'm assuming the identity of this academic person.
I'm assigning an identity to you.
But this isn't the identity I would have with my partner when I go home at
night.
That would be weird, right?
And I wouldn't assign the, well, sorry, are you going to interview me now?
Right, that's weird, right?
And so we're always assuming and assigning identities.
And we're doing this in this interlocking manner, that agent arena way.
But here's the thing.
Most of the time we do this unconsciously.
We do it mindlessly, automatically, reactively.
And so we set our, we identify with the wrong things.
And so what the Stoics said is, I'm going to use, I'm going to, I know your
viewers can't
see, I'm drawing a horizontal line.
We identify with horizontal things.
We identify with trying to extend our life, have more fame.
Have more power.
And they said, that's ultimately doomed.
You're pitting yourself against the universe.
You're very, the universe is going to crush you.
Yeah.
Instead, go vertical.
Seneca said, even when you're painted into a corner, you can jump into the sky.
So the vertical is, don't try and get the most extension of your life.
Try and get the greatest depth.
There's a, there's a book.
Wow.
That's so powerful.
That's really, really cool.
Yeah.
And so you live that and you try and realize that now they did this in, uh,
even when you're
painting a corner, you can jump into the sky.
Yeah.
And so things people can do when they feel like they're painted into a corner,
they can help
somebody else.
That will, that creates probably some, uh, and they can get more in touch.
They can, and this is helping other people.
Service is definitely a way to do this.
You, they can get, think about the, think about this as the, I mentioned
earlier, people
don't want a flat world.
They want a world with depth and height to it.
And you can, you can, you can touch the depths of reality and the heights of
reality.
And, you know, of course you can do this with mindfulness practices and other
kinds of
practices.
And I'm just thinking, cause I get a lot of questions, people ask me like, Hey
man, I'm
in a tough spot right now.
I feel like there's no way out.
What do I do right now?
So that's why, and a lot of times I'll say to those people, you know, try and
be of service,
try and help someone else, um, get out of yourself.
You know, we get, we get trapped in, in ourselves.
Definitely that's, that's very, that's very much the case.
So that's what I'm thinking.
What other things would you recommend you think?
Well, so let, let's talk about this.
Let's, let's talk about, and, um, I think this will have personal relevance to
you too.
And if, uh, I don't want to push any buttons inappropriately, uh, but, uh, let's
talk about
when people, the, one of the worst versions of that, which is addiction.
Okay.
And so my friend and colleague, Mark Lewis has one of the best theories of
addiction.
It's basically a reciprocal narrowing theory.
So, uh, so your world is getting really problematic.
So you take a substance to alter your state of consciousness so that it doesn't
seem to
be so threatening, at least for a bit.
The problem you pay for that is you weaken your cognitive abilities.
Now, when you come, when you, when you weaken your cognitive abilities, your
ability to solve
problems in the world goes down.
So now the world's more threatening.
So now you've got to take the substance and now you've got to take more of it.
And then you weaken your cognitive abilities more.
And you see what's happening.
The world is getting more and more oppressive, fewer and fewer options.
And there's, you have less and less cognitive flexibility.
You have less and less ability to move, maneuver in your mind to change until
you can't be any
different.
And the world has no future.
And that's addiction.
You've reciprocally narrowed your way all the way, yourself all the way down.
Now I was having dinner with Mark, lunch with Mark Lewis, and I said to him,
and Plato's
in the back of my mind, because I got this from Plato.
I said to Mark, I said, well, if you can reciprocally narrow, can't you reciprocally
open?
Can't you bring some flexibility to your mind?
And that opens up the world.
You start to see the world in more depth.
And then that actually opens you up into the depths of yourself and, and the
world, and
you can reciprocally open.
It would make sense.
Yeah.
And that's what Plato talked about when he talked about the, the, the myth of
the cave,
you know, and we turned that into the movie, the matrix.
So, right.
You can, you can, you can wake up, you can reciprocally open up.
And what's, what's important about that is that's jumping into the sky.
That's like a set.
The word for that is in Greek is anagoga.
It means ascent.
Like, like when they're, the, the, the people are in the cave, right.
And they ascend out into the, into the real world.
Well, let me tell you a story, right?
So this is a, Julian Barnes wrote a book, the history of the world in 10 and a
half chapters.
There's this one story about this guy, he dies and there's an afterlife and he
goes to heaven.
St. Peter's is there.
Oh yeah, do whatever you want.
And, and, and, and, and the good place made use of this, but I won't do any
spoilers.
But anyways, um, the great ending, they made use of this.
And he, you know, he, he wants to play and he gets, and he plays golf and he
gets to the
place where he can play golf absolutely the best every single day, all the time.
And then tennis and then any painting and then after a while he comes and it's
like, you
know, I'm kind of done.
And he's like, and St.
Peter goes, good, good.
He goes, what good is the point of heaven is not for you to live forever.
I always think of the line from Moby Dick.
What is man that he should want to live out the lifetime of his God.
Right.
The point of heaven is for you to be ready to die, to ready for, to cease to be.
Because you're a mortal, you shouldn't be forever.
And then stoicism is, can you live now so vertically that you're ready to die?
Not like in some stiff upper lip.
We misuse the word stoic.
We think it's about being stiff.
Stoicism is about joy, not pleasure.
It's about joy.
It's about this vertical jump.
It's about this vertical, like deep depth, right?
Can you have such joy in this way we're talking about that you're ready to die?
Wow, that's a great question.
It's interesting.
And then how would people get there, you know?
And how does a man, like, you know, how do people get to that place today?
The responsibility.
I think men are feeling a ton of responsibility right now.
Yes, yes.
It's very hard.
And that's okay.
It's interesting.
It's, that's what, that's what's being brought on by the world and by society.
I think men are realizing that they have to be the, I don't know if it's the
ruler of their kingdom, but they have to really start to step up and be a
leader in their home and in their environment.
I think it's really, I mean, for me, somebody that's been of help for me is
Marcus Relius.
I mean, so he's a great Stoic philosopher, but he was also the Roman Empire.
He runs the whole Roman Empire.
He's the last and perhaps the greatest of the five good emperors.
And he said something that you have to really let it reverberate inside of you
because it really, he said many things.
If you read his, the meditate, the meditation, the chatty kind of, yeah.
Thank God.
Yes.
Well, the meditations aren't written to anybody else.
They're actually, if you, they're Latin to him.
Yeah, they're written to himself.
Wow.
So he's doing a spiritual practice and this is a practice you can do by the way.
And it, it, it starts to work.
But one of the things he wrote to himself, he said, it's possible to be happy
even in a palace.
Hmm.
Right.
And that, that's so interesting because you, you think the last sentence is
going to be even in a prison or even in a
desert island or something, right?
Desert island.
And it's like, nope, it's possibly happy even in a palace.
And it's like, there's a way in which all the, all those things that are catchy,
but don't have depth.
We can, we can, we can learn and we can help each other.
Thich Nhat Hanh said, the next Buddha is actually the Sangha, the community,
right?
We can, we can learn to discern through all of that and get to where we can
find that vertical.
Um, uh, such that we can leap into the sky.
Hmm.
I love that, man.
I love that feeling when you're stuck, you're painted into a corner that you
can still leap
into the sky.
There's a way to find.
Fascinating.
Reciprocal opening.
There's a way.
And, and, and, and let's, let's be clear.
I mean, you have Marcus Aurelius on, on one.
I'm not saying still, I have criticisms of stoicism.
Um, uh, but you know, Marcus Aurelius is an emperor.
Pictetus is a slave.
The, the, the two poles of, and they're both saying you can do this.
You both, they're both saying at the extremes, uh, you can, you can find this.
Um, and, and, and they're not saying, they're not doing it like at a Hallmark
card.
Yeah, right.
They're like, you, you have to, you have to practice a lot of practice.
You have to do a complex ecology of practices that you not only do by yourself,
but deeply
with other people, honed properly, and then you can make progress on doing this,
what we're
talking about.
Thank you.