#205 | Exploring Stoicism: The 3 Pillars of Stoic Philosophy That Underpin Marcus Aurelius’ “Meditations”

episode SUMMARY:

Douglas Vigliotti dives into the timeless wisdom of "Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius. With a focus on the core tenets of his philosophy and Stoicism, Vigliotti explores the principles of willing acceptance, unselfish action, and objective judgment in navigating life's challenges. Join him as he uncovers practical insights, philosophical gems, and key quotes that will inspire men to live with purpose and resilience.

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Welcome back to “Books for Men”, a podcast to inspire more men to read and bring together men who do. So this week we are transitioning back into a work of nonfiction. It is philosophy slash I guess it's an ancient book or work I should say, and it's “Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius, specifically the Gregory Hays translation. That came out in 2002, I believe, and it's around 250 pages or so. But before I jump into the three things that I want to share with you about this book, as well as a little bit more about the author and the book itself, of course, I did want to remind you that if you are a regular listener, I would love for you to support the podcast by clicking the subscribe button on whatever podcast platform you're listening to this on. In doing that, it helps more listeners find the show and inspires more men to read.

(01:13)

This is the best way for you to help spread the message. Also, I did want to remind you that there is a companion newsletter that goes with the podcast, and it's just one email every month that rounds up all of the episodes from that month complete with episode summaries, all of the book, and author information, my favorite quotes from each book, as well as newsletter only book recommendations. It's great for people who don't have the time to listen to every episode or maybe don't want to listen to every episode and just want to pick and choose based on their interests, which is totally cool. Something that I would probably do if I was in your shoes. So if you're interested in that, you can sign up for it on the website BooksforMen.org. With that being said, let's jump into the meat of the episode.

(02:06)

And so who is Marcus Aurelius? You've probably heard his name before. He was a Roman emperor who ruled from 161 to 180 AD so close to 20 years, and he's actually thought of as one of the five good emperors. And that was actually coined by someone else who I featured on “Books for Men”, the Italian Renaissance philosopher, Nicolo Machiavelli. I believe he was the first person to coin that. The other four were Nerva, Trajan, Hadrian, and Antoninus Pius. It's quite possible that I mispronounced a name there, so don't rely on me for pronunciation. That's not necessarily my strong suit most of the time. But anyway, these five good emperors were said to rule with honor and decency, and Marcus Aurelius was the last in the line of this group, and much of that stemmed from his philosophy, which sort of leaves me perfectly into meditations. The book that I'm sharing with you today, so much has been written about this book, and Stoicism, in general, has caught fire in recent times, probably over the last, I would say 15 to 20 years.

(03:17)

There are a lot of modern-day big idea authors who are utilizing this as the basis of their wisdom and platform, which is great because I believe it is as good in operating system as any doesn't come without its criticism. As Gregory Hays talks a little bit about in the introduction, if there's anything that you could criticize Stoicism for, it's probably that it's more of a defensive life strategy and it doesn't offer as many strategies on how to achieve happiness as it does to reduce pain or suffering. And so much of ancient philosophy is based around that. I see a lot of pull from Buddhism and Eastern philosophy when I read anything that is based on Stoicism. So the two other foundational stoic reads in modern times, at least maybe not from an academic standpoint, but certainly in a popular sense, are “Letters of a Stoic” by Seneca and “Discourses” by Epictetus.

(04:25)

This one stands out of course, because Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor. He ruled the entire kingdom, so to speak, and the book was mostly written in the later stages of his life, sometimes they say within the last decade, which is sort of remarkable in its own right because it was a very tumultuous time for Marcus Aurelius with war and various things that were happening in the Roman Empire at the time. But I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole today. Instead, I'd rather tell you a little bit more about what you can expect from reading the book. It is Marcus Aurelius' life philosophy, but it's conducted mostly in short quippy passages. It's not a hard book to read. They are very repetitive. So it's told in I think 13 books or 14 books, and you'll find repetition of ideas over and over and over again.

(05:23)

Gregory Hays even points out in the introduction that this reframing was part of Aurelius' philosophy in general. So like so many treatises of the time or works of the time, this book was never met for publication. In fact, it was originally titled to himself and it really attempts to tackle, as I already mentioned, this idea of his life philosophy or the big question or fundamental question of how to live. And I think that reframing is a really important one, not just for us in our lives, obviously, but for what Marcus Aurelius is doing in this book. Stoicism in general, and his philosophy in general really has three core tenets that, as I mentioned, get repeated so many times in different ways throughout this work. Before I tell you what those three tenets are, I will say that book one is pretty cool in its own right because he goes through all of the various people from his life, almost like a gratitude exercise, and remembers them for the things that they taught him.

(06:38)

I thought this was a really cool exercise, and I think you'll find overall this goes hand in hand with Marcus Aurelius' philosophy. So I mentioned those three core tenets. I'm going to say them quick right now and then I'll go into them in a little bit more detail. So it's willing, acceptance, unselfish action, and objective judgment. There's a great quote that comes up in book seven that really summarizes this, and it says, “Everywhere, at each moment, you have the option to accept this event with humility, to treat this person as he should be treated, and to approach this thought with care, so that nothing irrational creeps in”  So if you break this quote down to accept this event with humility, that is what he means by willing acceptance to treat this person as he should be treated. That's what he means by unselfish action.

(07:39)

And to approach this thought with care is what he means by objective judgment. So willing acceptance is the discipline of will, or we can't choose what happens. We can only choose how we respond to what happens. This is something that you have probably heard a lot in your life, and for me, it makes a lot of intuitive sense because everything happens in your mind and for the stoics and for Marcus, logos is the central running thing of life. You're either acting in accordance with logos or out of accordance with logos. You could think of it like fate or nature or God or kind of like the way or the Tao, right? As I had mentioned earlier Stoicism has a lot of Eastern Philosophy baked into it, and this is very similar in that regard. And the logos, nature fate decides what happens around you.

(08:44)

You don't have control of that. The only thing that you can control is how you respond to it. So some quotes that I love from the book that illustrate this are, “Does the sun try to do the rain’s work?” Or, “I do what is mine to do? The rest doesn't disturb me.” Or, “If the smoke makes me cough, I can leave. What's so hard about that?” And then my favorite quote that illustrates this is: “Let people see someone living naturally, and understand what that means. Let them kill him if they can't stand it.” And what he means by living naturally is living in accordance with the logos. We can't control the things that happen around us. We can only control how we respond to them. And if you try to go against the logos, it's going to create a very stressful life for yourself. This is why he calls it the discipline of will, or maybe even more appropriately, “the art of acquiescence”, which is something that he refers to in book number 11.

(09:55)

So later in “Meditations”. The second pillar is unselfish action. So this is really based on the need for community and the need for helping people. It is the discipline of treating others as they deserve justly and fairly, but not equally. And this is a really important element to stoicism in general. Or as Marcus says in the book, “That sort of person is bound to do that. You might as well resent a fig tree for secreting juice.” Or perhaps, more poignantly with this idea of community and unselfish action. He has a quote in book three where he states it almost directly, “Humans were made to help others. And when we do help others or help them do something, we're doing what we were designed for. We perform our function.” And then the last pillar of Stoicism is objective judgment. So this kind of goes hand in hand with willing acceptance, except it's more of the discipline of perception.

(11:07)

So we must see things as they are, not as we wish they were. And again, this is willing acceptance or radical acceptance, as Buddhists would call it, and “the art of acquiescence”, as Stoics would call it, but more so it is a remembering that you have to see things as events that are linked together, not in isolation. He has this great line in the book where he says, “We must remember the chain that links events together”, meaning things happen in life based on cause and effect. And that's why when he says to see things as they are, he has this three-part way to describe this and its “substance, cause, and purpose.” So what is the substance of the thing that I am seeing? What caused the thing that I am seeing and what is the purpose of the thing that I am seeing? And then finally, as I have mentioned multiple times throughout this episode already, the link between Buddhism and stoicism is real to me.

(12:16)

There's a lot there. One of them is this insistence that there is no past, there is no future, and there is only now, this is an idea that Marcus reframes a bunch of times throughout the book. One of my favorite quotes that illustrates this is, “Forget everything else. Keep hold of this alone and remember it. Each of us lives only now. This brief instant. The rest has been lived already. Or it is impossible to see.” So for the sake of time, I'm going to wrap this up. Obviously, I think this is a book that has a lot of benefits for the right reader, or any reader for that matter. But there is one important caveat that I want to throw in there. And it's something that Gregory Hays points out in the introduction to this version of “Meditations”. And he's talking more about Seneca than he is about Marcus Aurelius.

(13:09)

But I thought it was worth sharing with you, and it's that, “Men's lives are not always consistent with their ideals.” And for me, this is just a really important reminder because nobody's perfect. Definitely not me, not you, not Marcus Aurelius. Nobody. It's the striving, it's the trying. No one's going to get it right all the time, or just because you know what to do isn't the same as actually doing it. Alright, so that's all I've got. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you did, I want to remind you to share it with a friend. And please hit the subscribe button on whatever podcast platform you're listening to this on, because that is the best way to help the show, find new listeners and inspire more men to read. If you'd like to connect with me, there are two ways you could do so. Either find me on Instagram @douglasvigliotti, the only social media that I have, or visit my website, DouglasVigliotti.com, and send me a note. I will get it. I will read it, I promise. Lastly, if you are interested in listening to my 2021 poem collection, it's titled “mini heartbreaks (or little poems about life)”. It's raw, it's unorthodox, and it's available on the podcast, “Slightly Crooked: Good Stories, Told Well”. The link for that will be in the show notes. And again, thanks so much for listening. If you would like more on this podcast, you could always visit BooksforMen.org.