(독서) Daily Stoic-10월11일 HONESTY AS OUR DEFAULT

"Leave the past behind, let the grand design take care of the future, and instead only rightly guide the present to reverence and justice. Reverence so that you'll love what you've been allotted, for nature brought you both to each other. Justice so that you'll speak the truth freely and without evasion, and so that you'll act only as the law and value of things require."-MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 12.1 ("과거는 뒤로 하고, 위대한 계획에 미래를 맡기고, 대신 오직 현재를 경외와 정의에 올바르게 인도하십시오. 경외심은 자연이 여러분을 서로에게 가져다준 것이므로 여러분에게 주어진 것을 사랑할 수 있도록 합니다. 정의는 진실을 회피하지 않고 자유롭게 말하게 하며, 사물의 법과 가치를 요구하는 대로 행동하게 합니다." - 마르쿠스 아우렐리우스, 명상록 12.1)   Aulus Gellius relates that Epictetus once said, "If anyone would take two words to heart and take pains to govern and watch over themselves by them, they will live an impeccable and immensely tranquil life. The two words are: persist and resist." That's great advice. But what principles should determine what we persist in and what we ought to resist?   Marcus supplies that answer: reverence and justice. In other...

"When the standards have been set, things are tested and weighed. And the work of philosophy is just this, to examine and uphold the standards, but the work of a truly good person is in using those standards when they know them."-EPICTETUS, DISCOURSES, 2.11.23-25 (“기준이 정해지면 사물을 시험하고 무게를 측정합니다. 그리고 철학의 일은 바로 이 기준을 검토하고 지키는 것이지만, 진정으로 훌륭한 사람의 일은 그 기준을 알고 있을 때 그 기준을 사용하는 것입니다."-에픽테토스, 담화, 2.11.23~25)   We go through our days responding and reacting, but it's rare to really pause and ask: Is this thing I'm about to do consistent with what I believe? Or, better: Is this the kind of thing the person I would like to be should do?   The work of living is to set standards and then not compromise them. When you're brushing your teeth, choosing your friends, losing your temper, falling in love, instructing your child, or walking your dog-all of ...

"Yes, getting your wish would have been so nice. But isn't that exactly why pleasure trips us up? Instead, see if these things might be even nicer-a great soul, freedom, honesty, kindness, saintliness. For there is nothing so pleasing as wisdom itself, when you consider how sure-footed and effortless the works of understanding and knowledge are."-MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 5.9 (“네, 소원을 이루면 정말 좋았을 텐데요. 하지만 바로 그 점이 쾌락이 우리를 흥분시키는 이유가 아닐까요? 그 대신 위대한 영혼, 자유, 정직, 친절, 성스러움 같은 것들이 더 좋은 것은 아닌지 생각해 보세요. 이해와 지식의 작용이 얼마나 확실하고 수월한지 생각해 보면 지혜 그 자체만큼 즐거운 것은 없습니다.” - 마르쿠스 아우렐리우스, 《명상록》 5.9) Nobody can argue that pleasure doesn't feel good. That's pretty much what it does by definition. But today Marcus Aurelius is reminding you-just as he reminded himself that those pleasures hardly stand up to virtue. The dopamine rush that comes from sex is momentary. So is the pride of an...

"The person who does wrong, does wrong to themselves. The unjust person is unjust to themselves-making themselves evil." -MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 9.4 ("악을 저지르는 자는 스스로에게 해를 입히는 것이다. 불의한 자는 스스로에게 불의를 저지르는 것이며, 자신을 악하게 만든다." - 마르쿠스 아우렐리우스, 《명상록》 9.4) The next time you do something wrong, try to remember how it made you feel. Rarely does one say, " I felt great!"   There is a reason there's often vomit at crime scenes. Instead of the catharsis the person thought they'd feel when they let themselves get out of control or when they got their revenge, they ended up making themselves sick. We feel a version of this when we lie, when we cheat, when we screw someone over.   So in that split second before your ill-gotten gains kick in, ask: How do I feel about myself? Is that moment when fear rises in your throat because you ...

"It's in keeping with Nature to show our friends affection and to celebrate their advancement, as if it were our very own. For if we don't do this, virtue, which is strengthened only by exercising our perceptions, will no longer endure in us."-SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 109.15 ("자연에 맞는 것은 친구들에게 애정을 보여주고 그들의 성장을 마치 우리 자신의 것처럼 기뻐하는 것입니다. 우리가 이를 하지 않으면, 우리의 지각을 통해서만 강화되는 덕은 더 이상 우리 안에 머물지 못할 것입니다." - 세네카, 도덕적 편지, 109.15)   Watching other people succeed is one of the toughest things to do-especially if we are not doing well ourselves. In our hunter- gatherer minds, we suspect that life is a zero-sum game-that for someone to have more means that we might end up with less.   But like all parts of philosophy, empathy and selflessness are a matter of practice. As Seneca observed, it's possible to learn to "rejoice in all their successes and be moved...